The Matt Walsh Show - March 01, 2025


The Best Show On TV？ Matt Walsh Reviews ＂Severance＂


Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

206.60193

Word count

2,007

Sentence count

146


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Severance is a show about a group of employees at a company called Lumen who don't remember anything about their lives outside of work, and when they do remember anything, it's in the basement of the building where they work.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 You know, despite what you may think, we do actually listen to audience feedback around here.
00:00:03.880 And one thing many of you have been saying is that you'd like to see me do more film and television reviews.
00:00:08.480 And specifically, you'd like to know not just what I hate, but what I like, even though it's kind of more fun to talk about what you hate.
00:00:15.160 But the plan for today is to talk about something that I like.
00:00:18.380 This will be a short video to recommend what is, in my view, the best show on TV right now.
00:00:22.580 In fact, it's not much of a contest.
00:00:24.300 I don't think any other show currently on air even really comes close.
00:00:28.000 And that show is called Severance.
00:00:29.500 And if you haven't seen the show, I'll make sure not to spoil anything.
00:00:33.500 You definitely want to go into the show knowing as little as possible about it.
00:00:36.540 I'll just give you the basics of the plot.
00:00:38.620 So Severance, produced and largely directed by Ben Stiller, there are other directors as well,
00:00:43.020 is a show following a small group of employees at a company called Lumen.
00:00:46.800 In this fictional world, some sort of technology has been developed that allows a person's consciousness
00:00:52.200 to essentially be cut in half, to be severed.
00:00:54.540 So when they're at work, working on some very vague and mysterious project down in the basement of Lumen,
00:01:00.200 they don't remember anything about their lives outside of work.
00:01:02.840 And when they're not at work, they don't remember anything about their lives at work.
00:01:06.160 So the work version of themselves essentially never leaves work.
00:01:09.280 The non-working version essentially never goes to work.
00:01:11.820 And that's kind of the setup.
00:01:13.200 I'm not going to say anything else about the plot.
00:01:14.920 There are three things that I like about this show.
00:01:16.780 Three things that I think it does really well that many other shows don't do well or don't do at all.
00:01:22.360 So number one is a big one.
00:01:24.340 It's an original story.
00:01:25.840 In a world of franchise films and sequels and remakes, it is possible to still tell original stories.
00:01:33.280 Severance is obviously inspired by things that came before it.
00:01:36.340 It's clear that the guy who wrote this show was a big fan of office space, for example.
00:01:40.220 Severance has a similar view of workplace culture,
00:01:42.980 the kind of mindless busy work that defines many office jobs.
00:01:45.900 The humor kind of comes from a similar place in many cases.
00:01:49.340 I'd say it's just as funny as office space, much, much darker, more thrilling, but still very funny as well.
00:01:55.960 And this is how it should work.
00:01:57.680 Storytellers should be inspired by other storytellers to come up with new stories
00:02:04.040 that are influenced by, but not directly plagiarizing, what came before.
00:02:09.720 You don't need to attempt a TV remake of office space.
00:02:12.960 Just take whatever you love about it and inject it into a brand new story.
00:02:18.400 What a concept.
00:02:19.260 And that's what Severance does.
00:02:20.440 It's the same thing I say about all these directors now who say,
00:02:22.700 well, I grew up watching Star Wars.
00:02:25.380 I love Star Wars.
00:02:26.400 And so, of course, I'm so excited to be making a Star Wars movie or a Star Wars show in the Star Wars universe.
00:02:31.820 No, if you're an actual talented filmmaker and you grew up watching Star Wars,
00:02:35.920 rather than just making another Star Wars thing,
00:02:38.900 tell your own story that has Star Wars influences.
00:02:42.380 But it's not Star Wars.
00:02:43.400 How about that?
00:02:44.920 I'm kind of at the point now where I will try to watch at least almost any original show or film
00:02:50.500 simply because it is original.
00:02:52.420 Even if they aren't good, I at least want to reward them for trying something new.
00:02:56.960 And fortunately, Severance actually is very good.
00:02:59.040 Two, Severance deals with interesting ideas, which is another thing that, you know,
00:03:03.100 I wish more shows and films did.
00:03:05.300 When most people talk about the show and the ideas that it grapples with,
00:03:09.400 what they usually will talk about is the commentary on the modern workplace.
00:03:13.380 But that, to me, is the less interesting theme.
00:03:15.980 That's kind of window dressing for the far more fascinating exploration of human consciousness.
00:03:21.020 That's what makes the show interesting to me.
00:03:23.600 Severance asks a pretty deep question.
00:03:25.120 It's one of the deepest, really, which is,
00:03:26.760 what makes you an individual person?
00:03:29.260 What makes you a self?
00:03:30.820 We know what makes you a person biologically,
00:03:33.160 but what makes you an individual?
00:03:34.920 What makes you a self?
00:03:36.800 Is your memory the only thing sort of holding you together and making you one individual?
00:03:43.240 The show argues, I think, pretty convincingly,
00:03:45.100 that if you take one person and you put them in two different settings
00:03:49.200 and you make it so that they don't remember anything about themselves in the other setting,
00:03:54.200 you'll end up with two distinct personalities and value systems and beliefs.
00:03:58.720 And in effect, then, you end up with two selves in one person.
00:04:03.440 And if memory is the one thing holding this kind of precarious Jenga tower that I call a self together,
00:04:10.560 what happens if my memory is wrong?
00:04:12.880 Memory is notoriously unreliable.
00:04:14.780 Nobody's memory is perfect.
00:04:16.000 Which means that every person's self is based, at least partly, on a fiction.
00:04:20.540 You are not really the sum total of your experiences,
00:04:23.100 but rather you are the sum total of how you remember your experiences.
00:04:26.560 And that seems to be what the show is driving at.
00:04:28.840 And maybe they're right about it.
00:04:30.220 Maybe they're wrong.
00:04:31.080 But it's an interesting thing to think about.
00:04:33.880 And any show that actually gives you interesting things to think about is a win in my book.
00:04:38.820 Let me ask you a question.
00:04:39.580 Do you trust your internet service provider?
00:04:41.360 There's good reason not to.
00:04:42.480 Depending on where you live, ISPs may be required to keep logs of your online activity
00:04:47.140 just in case the government wants to take a peek.
00:04:49.180 In the U.S., it's even worse.
00:04:50.320 ISPs can legally sell your browsing history to whoever they want.
00:04:53.480 So what can you do about it?
00:04:54.360 The solution is to get a VPN.
00:04:56.340 And the one I use is ExpressVPN.
00:04:58.460 It's an app that reroutes my online traffic through encrypted servers
00:05:01.580 so my ISP can't access it and neither can data brokers or other third parties.
00:05:06.420 If you're going to use a VPN, you really have to have confidence in it.
00:05:09.440 After all, you're transferring trust from your ISP to your VPN provider.
00:05:13.680 So why do I trust ExpressVPN?
00:05:15.340 Well, any reliable VPN receives data requests from law enforcement and government entities.
00:05:19.980 ExpressVPN received over 300 of these requests in the past year alone,
00:05:23.260 and none of them resulted in any customer data being exposed zero.
00:05:27.600 Go read their transparency report on their website.
00:05:29.300 If you don't believe me, it's all right there.
00:05:30.740 ExpressVPN doesn't keep any customer activity logs thanks to specially engineered server architecture
00:05:35.300 that runs on volatile memory.
00:05:37.880 Nothing is ever saved to disk.
00:05:39.420 It's private by design.
00:05:40.640 I personally use ExpressVPN when I'm doing research while traveling
00:05:43.860 and have to connect to unprotected internet in places like hotels and airports.
00:05:47.920 ExpressVPN works on all of your devices, phones, laptops, tablets, and it's easy to use.
00:05:52.640 Tap one button and you're connected.
00:05:54.180 Find out how you can get four months free by scanning the QR code on screen,
00:05:57.560 clicking the link in the description box below,
00:05:59.180 or by going to expressvpn.com slash WalshYT.
00:06:02.980 And three, finally, severance is great for a reason that's going to seem very, very simple,
00:06:08.320 and it is, but it is also rare.
00:06:11.360 And that is that in this show, stuff actually happens.
00:06:15.280 And this is maybe the most radical thing about it.
00:06:17.820 The plot moves forward every episode.
00:06:21.120 Things happen.
00:06:22.160 There are stakes.
00:06:23.080 There are consequences.
00:06:24.460 Each moment in the show leads to another moment.
00:06:28.780 Now, there's a famous video that's worth watching if you haven't seen it
00:06:31.340 of Matt Parker and Trey Stone, who are the South Park guys,
00:06:34.080 explaining that in a bad, poorly told story,
00:06:37.380 each scene is linked together by the words, and then.
00:06:41.540 You would say, well, this happens, and then this happens,
00:06:43.740 and then this happens, and then this happens, and then this happens,
00:06:46.380 the end.
00:06:47.380 But in a good, well-told story, in a good movie or a good show,
00:06:50.660 each scene is linked together by the words, therefore, or but.
00:06:54.660 This happens, therefore this happens,
00:06:56.900 but then this happens, therefore this happens.
00:07:00.100 And that's just another way of saying that a film or show should be propulsive.
00:07:03.780 You know, one thing should lead to another.
00:07:05.340 The train should be hurtling every moment towards a destination.
00:07:08.540 But many shows and films these days are and-then stories.
00:07:12.220 They just kind of meander.
00:07:13.520 There are no stakes.
00:07:14.520 There are no real consequences.
00:07:16.240 There's nothing in the story that really matters.
00:07:18.500 And it works this way for a reason.
00:07:20.080 It works this way because the studios want to milk each franchise for all it's worth.
00:07:25.120 Well, first of all, each thing has to be a franchise, and then you have to milk it,
00:07:29.480 which means that nothing can ever actually happen.
00:07:31.680 I mean, Disney, notoriously, is so desperate to make sure that nothing happens in their films
00:07:36.120 that they've even invented the multiverse so that if a character dies,
00:07:40.100 he can be replaced by an infinite number of replacement versions of himself,
00:07:44.160 which means, of course, that it doesn't matter if a character dies.
00:07:46.260 He really can't die.
00:07:47.340 So nothing happens.
00:07:48.420 Nothing matters.
00:07:48.920 The story just kind of floats along like debris.
00:07:51.500 Severance, so far anyway, has not fallen prey to that.
00:07:53.920 Each scene is a but or therefore,
00:07:56.460 and there are physical and emotional consequences to everything that happens.
00:08:00.420 Now, the show isn't perfect.
00:08:01.440 There are moments here and there that don't work.
00:08:02.980 It follows some threads every once in a while that I don't find especially interesting.
00:08:06.960 As for the wokeness factor, you know, it's always a question.
00:08:09.640 I would say that I'm not going to call this an anti-woke show.
00:08:12.780 It's certainly not that.
00:08:13.700 I do think it's a mostly unwoke show.
00:08:16.320 There is a gay character in the show,
00:08:18.240 but to this point, they haven't leaned into that too much.
00:08:21.500 He's there, but they don't beat you over the head with him.
00:08:23.920 That might change.
00:08:24.820 I mean, you never know.
00:08:25.780 But this is Hollywood after all.
00:08:27.660 The biggest problem with Severance is that it's a show revolving around a central mystery,
00:08:34.220 which is a lot of fun.
00:08:35.480 I mean, these kinds of shows are always fun.
00:08:37.760 I can imagine as the writer, it's a lot of fun because it allows you to have a bunch of weird stuff happen.
00:08:43.000 And that certainly happens in this show.
00:08:44.260 There's a lot of weird things always happening, and you're always being surprised, which is great.
00:08:49.060 Again, fun to watch.
00:08:51.100 But the implication is that this weird, like, we don't know why this weird stuff is happening,
00:08:55.380 but there is a reason.
00:08:56.700 And so it'll all be tied together in the end, and we're going to understand it.
00:09:00.160 So you're kind of like writing this check that you have to cash later.
00:09:04.180 And if the check bounces, if the answer isn't satisfying at the end of this whole thing,
00:09:08.760 it ruins the whole show.
00:09:10.280 I mean, there are shows that have bad endings where it doesn't ruin the whole show.
00:09:13.620 You can still enjoy the show.
00:09:14.920 But if the whole show is built around a central mystery,
00:09:18.200 and then the answer to the mystery is unsatisfying,
00:09:20.740 then it just breaks down everything.
00:09:22.180 There's no reason to watch it anymore.
00:09:23.840 So whether Severance ultimately sticks the landing remains to be seen.
00:09:27.060 So far, so good.
00:09:29.980 And I highly recommend it.
00:09:32.480 And that's it.
00:09:34.380 I promise that next time I review something, it will be a thing I hate.
00:09:37.800 Because all of this positivity is honestly making me a little nauseous.