Severance earned its season finale cliffhanger

Vulture

"The season-one finale of Severance pushed its audience to the farthest edges of their seats then left them there, off-balance and out of fresh oxygen," says Jen Chaney, adding: "This is how cliffhangers work. They overload our nervous systems, leave us a little breathless, and yes, make us frustrated. The really great ones — and the end of this season of Severance qualifies as a great one — should feel like the narrative equivalent of an almost-sneeze or coitus interruptus, except, like, in a good way. The pleasure comes from being almost satisfied but not quite, luxuriating in the possibilities that the (hopefully) inevitable satisfaction will bring."

ALSO:

• Severance isn’t a show about quitting your job, it’s about burning it down: "The trick to Severance’s metaphor is that there really isn’t any," says Joshua Rivera. "It’s just offering a logical explanation for the things we do to ourselves — and that are done to us — every day when we go to work. We didn’t start our lives talking to each other like that, we didn’t always look forward to menial office parties, we didn’t put our faith in tycoons and robber barons. These are learned behaviors, but if you adopt them? You’re gonna go far, kid."
• Retired astronaut Scott Kelly says Severance reminds him of living in the Space Station: "You wake up you’re at work," he tweets. "You go to sleep you’re still at work. The show kind of gives me the creeps. Highly recommended!"
• What Severance gets right about infantilizing office perks