Severance Season 1 Episode 1: Good News About Hell Recap

March 21, 2022April 21, 2022 ~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

This is a recap of the AppleTV+ series Severance, season 1 episode 1. My review of the season is HERE.

Severance is ostensibly a series about work-life balance, but while it’s a complex, layered show, there’s very little balance involved. A little juggling, maybe, by some of the characters who haven’t been through the severance procedure, which splits memories into a work life and a home life, with no meeting of the two minds. But there is no way for two halves who can’t communicate with one another to negotiate anything like balance between them. Instead, this is a show about choices, connection and self awareness, in a controlled environment that tests the characters as if they are lab animals.

This distinction between the work self and home self as two halves of the same whole who don’t and never will know or understand each other is introduced and explored in episode 1 when Adam Scott’s Mark finds that his best work friend Petey has left his job at Lumon Industries. Mark is promoted to Petey’s former position on the spot and told to acclimate his own replacement, Helly R (Britt Lower), who has just undergone the severance procedure. The corporate philosophy that humans are replaceable, programmable plug and play resources is illustrated within the show’s first few minutes. The flaws in this sort of thinking are also exposed.

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Severance Season 1 Review- Minimal Spoilers

March 16, 2022April 7, 2022 ~ Metacrone ~ 3 Comments

This is a review of season 1. You can find detailed episode recaps at the tag HERE.

Severance is an AppleTV+ series created by Dan Erickson and executive produced and directed by Ben Stiller. Season 1 consists of 9 episodes. Production has already begun on season 2, which will be 10 episodes (if IMDB is correct). This review was written after viewing the first 5 episodes, but only includes minimal spoilers for the first episode.

Adam Scott stars as Mark Scout, a widower who takes a job on the “severed” floor of Lumon Industries, a giant corporation with a cult-like following. Yes, it’s on the streamer brought to you by the cult of Steve Jobs. Sometimes, Apple is shameless. I say this as the parent of one of their lifelong devotees, while typing on a Macbook. Full disclosure- my laptops have all been Macbooks. I am also a fringe member of a corporate cult or two.

Because Mark’s work involves corporate secrets, he agrees to go through the severance medical procedure, in which a chip will be implanted into his brain, bifurcating his memories into two separate personas: one that can only access his time at work and another that only surfaces outside of his job. In addition to benefitting the corporation, the procedure will supposedly improve Mark’s work-life balance.

This has unforeseen consequences.

Severance is a cerebral science fiction dark comedy that, like its main character, has two personas. Much of the show takes place at the Lumon offices, on the windowless “severed” floor, located deep in the basement. This side of the show is a surreal, retrofuturistic psychological horror-thriller filled with characters who only know the world of the Lumon offices, which they aren’t allowed to leave, because they are “severed” personas, the Winter Soldiers of office drones. The walls are bright white, the fluorescent lights are always on and the hallways seem to go on forever, with only a few doors. Other than white, the main colors are the artificial turf green of the carpets and the blue of the men’s suits.

It’s stunningly but subliminally oppressive, in the way the clinical feel of the dentists’ offices of my youth let me know there was no point in resisting what was about to happen there.

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A Discovery of Witches Season 3 Episode 7 Recap: In Which Diana Rescues Matthew

February 26, 2022 ~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

In episode 7, the series finale, Diana shows that she’s come fully into her power. She rallies the family, including Baldwin, to find Matthew and rescue him from Benjamin’s torture. Then she confronts the Congregation with scientific evidence that the Covenant is helping drive species extinct, and in the process thwarts Gerbert’s plans, while helping bring justice for the long overlooked daemons. Once she’s done saving the creature world, Diana turns back toward Matthew and tying up loose ends with her family.

Recap

The action picks up not long after the end of the previous episode. Dressed in ~~black~~ dark colors, the family gathers in the Sept-Tours great hall to organize the search for Matthew.

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Snowpiercer Season 3 Episode 3: The First Blow Recap

February 18, 2022February 18, 2022 ~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

Episode 6 begins with an epic train battle as the two engines vie to outmaneuver each other in a rail yard that gives them dozens of parallel and crisscrossing tracks to work with. While the engineers and their commanders battle it out, the resistance and loyalists down the line on each train also join the fight.

Recap

Wilford (Sean Bean) has the voice over:

“I was born for battle, built for it. Sometimes in battle a perfectly crafted plan gets compromised. A true general comes up with a better one right there on the spot; working without a net and sticking the landing to thunderous applause… There’s a moment in a fight when that first blow lands and everything stops. And in that flash of clarity, you know who you are. I’ll push as hard as it takes to get my engine back. Snowpiercer, 1,023 cars long.”

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A Discovery of Witches Season 3 Episode 6 Recap: In Which Diana and Matthew Attempt to Settle Old Scores

February 14, 2022February 19, 2022 ~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

Discovery of Witches S3Ep6 Sarah & Diana Cast a Spell

In episode 6, Matthew leaves for Poland to find Benjamin and punish him for ~~being a de Clermont~~ –~~acting exactly like Matthew~~ – not getting the message that the de Clermonts don’t harm witches any more since Matthew met Diana. And for stealing his grandfather Philippe’s watch. While Matthew is gone, Diana and Sarah set out to retrieve the Book of Life from the library now that they have all three missing pages.

Recap

As Ruelle’s song Genesis plays, Matthew (Matthew Goode) and Diana (Teresa Palmer) say an emotional goodbye, then he drives to Poland, where Benjamin (Jacob Ifan) is holding witches hostage and waiting for Matthew to find him.

Diana informs Marcus (Edward Bluemel) that she and Matthew agreed she’d go to Oxford and retrieve the Book of Life while he was gone. In an out of character moment, Marcus tries to talk her out of it. He thinks they should all sit at Sept-Tours and wait for Matthew to come home.

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A Discovery of Witches Season 3 Episode 5: In Which Diana and Matthew Return to Sept-Tours

February 10, 2022March 19, 2022 ~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

In episode 5, the Bishop-Clairmont family and their allies travel to Matthew’s French ancestral home, Sept-Tours, for the twins’ christening. The gathering also serves as a war council as they consider future plans in their fight to modernize the Congregation’s rules and operations. Benjamin takes witches hostage in Poland in the hope of turning them into his own “Diana”. The Congregation discusses the twins and how to deal with the threat they could pose to the established order.

Recap

As Tmrw. by Milk and Bone plays, Ysabeau (Lindsay Duncan) oversees the preparations for the twins’ christening at Sept-Tours and Diana (Teresa Palmer) and Agatha (Tanya Moodie) attend Timothy’s funeral in the Cotswolds, England. Timothy wasn’t exaggerating the extent of his isolation- Diana and Agatha are the only mourners at his funeral. Agatha made the preparations to have him laid to rest in the tiny village cemetery, but she feels bad because she has no idea what he would have wanted for himself.

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Snowpiercer Season 3 Episode 2: The Last to Go Recap

February 8, 2022March 7, 2022 ~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

Episode 2 brings a grand Snowpiercer wedding along with the introduction of Wilford’s latest scheme to stop Layton. In order to protect the resistance from Wilford and Kevin, Ruth makes a surprising decision. Layton researches his vision of New Eden and gets to know the newcomer after she wakes up. The pirate train must choose between returning to Alice-piercer and visiting the final research site.

It’s a happy, happy day for the train cakemaker, but I’m starting to wonder if everyone has been forced to do shifts in compost.

Recap

Ruth (Alison Wright), still hiding out in First Class at -12°, gives the opening voice over this week:

“When the cold comes for you, the blood stops running to your limbs. It pulls up inside to keep your organs warm. My first love taught me that. An off-shore roughnecker, he was. Tall and lean and tough as wet leather. He’d say, ‘Ruthie, your smile keeps me warm, so be sure to wear it till I’m home.’ Next the cold comes for your mind. And after that, your will. And yet, still, the heart fights on… He left me too soon, my roughneck love. His rig went down, with every man aboard. I know my smile kept him warm as he floated, all alone. Just as I know our hearts will be the last thing to go on Wilford’s train, 1,023 cars long.”

😭 😭 How dare you invoke Ruth’s first love. She’s thinking about how cold and alone he was when he died and comparing it to how cold and alone she is now.

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A Discovery of Witches Season 3 Episode 4 Recap: In Which Diana And Matthew Welcome Twins

February 2, 2022 ~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

In episode 4, Diana and Sarah seek the help of a local coven to perform a locator spell to aid in their search for the last missing page. Now that they have more blood samples to work with, Chris and Miriam’s research yields some disappointing results, which Miriam shares with Matthew in New Orleans. Everyone returns to London just in time for Diana to go into labor.

Recap

Diana (Teresa Palmer) sits on her bed, weaving a spell using the knots Goody Alsop taught her in the 16th century, with her grimoire and a pregnancy book beside her. After a minute she stops to take a break, then heads downstairs, where she runs into Gallowglass (Steven Cree). He watches her with affection as she takes a cup of tea from Fernando (Olivier Huband) and greets Phoebe (Adelle Leonce) and Sarah (Alex Kingston). The two women have been sifting through the hundreds of potential TJ Westons who might own the third page from the Book of Life and are getting frustrated.

Diana wonders if the TJ with the page doesn’t want to be found, so she’s been creating a locator spell. Sarah is intrigued by Diana’s idea, but realizes they’ll need a coven, since it takes several witches to work that type of spell. Phoebe, Gallowglass and Fernando worry that working with a coven will alert Peter Knox (Owen Teale) to their activities, but Diana has come too far to let Peter scare her off.

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Snowpiercer Season 3 Episode 1: The Tortoise and the Hare Recap

January 29, 2022 ~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

Welcome back, passengers! It’s time to reboard the train for Snowpiercer season 3. This season, you have a choice between riding Mr Wilford’s Snowpiercer, powered by the leaden Big Alice engine and turned into one long, cold prison camp, or Layton’s 10 car pirate train, powered by Snowpiercer’s original engine, running fast and hot with a rebel skeleton crew on the lookout for Melanie Cavill and warm spots on the Earth’s surface where survivors could eventually settle outside the trains.

Where Season 2 Left Off

By the end of season 2, Wilford (Sean Bean) had outmaneuvered Layton (Daveed Diggs) and convinced the people of Snowpiercer to hand control of the train back over to him. Wilford locked Layton and Ruth (Alison Wright) in the compost recycling car as punishment while he decided what to do with the rest of the rebels and senior staff. Though Wilford has his own cult of personality, he envied the loyalty Layton’s people continued to show toward their deposed leader and set about winning them over rather than executing or imprisoning them.

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A Discovery of Witches Season 3 Episode 3: In Which Matthew Goes to New Orleans and Diana Goes to the Library

January 24, 2022January 25, 2022 ~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

In episode 3, Diana substantially ups her sweater game while she and Phoebe continue their research into the missing pages. Matthew, Marcus and Jack visit New Orleans to convince Marcus’ family to put aside their hatred of Matthew and join the new scion. Gallowglass, Fernando and Sarah bond as Diana’s support crew.

Recap

We begin in New Orleans, home of the large circle of vampires Marcus (Edward Bluemel) made after he grew tired of the de Clermonts and ran away from home to join the circus in the 19th century. No, seriously- several of his children were circus performers before they were vampires. Marcus has always had a sense of fun and adventure. When he created a new home and family that was all his own, he made sure they shared those traits, in addition to wanting warmth and love as much as he did. Then the Congregation, Matthew (Matthew Goode) and Philippe took the community they’d built away from all of them again. They didn’t understand why until last season, more than a century later. Matthew earned the bitterness they feel toward him.

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