Severance vs Silo : A case study

A look at how mystery can be told, and what choices to be made.

As kids, our curiosity often leans towards the unknown. There is no fun in listening to things we already know. This is just how human nature often is. What intrigues us is what is hidden from us. And this intrigue continues as long as the question remains — What could it be?

Apple TV’s Severance is a brilliant example of writing the unknown. But are there more ways to do this? The short answer is yes, there is, and yet another Apple TV show, Silo does exactly this. And perhaps studying the two approaches to writing mystery might help us understand what we feel about each of them and perhaps what they do to us as the shows progress.

Before we continue, I would first like to explain what we are trying to do here. We are not criticising a show, we are merely entertaining possibilities of concepts that may or may not have been used while constructing a show. I’m not here to say that this was a good way or bad way of doing it, and frankly none of us have the right to do so. The aim of this blog is to understand, speculate and perhaps even appreciate aspects of cinema that are often looked past when reviewing them. I am a film student, and this is what I do, but I hope anyone reading this will also take the time to engage in these thoughts, and perhaps use this platform to have healthier discussions about films in general.

With this in mind, let’s start deconstructing the principle of a mystery first. What is it that gets us hooked to Severance. Is it the fact that Mark has a difficult life at home? Or is it the landscape of the town they live in? Could it be the family structure that Mark has in his life? The grief he has undergone in the past? For me, none of these things were the main hook. You see all of these things, are told to us. And much like how we were as kids, these things don’t entertain us. What hooks us is what we don’t know. But even within this category of information, we make a selection. Do we know what exactly happened to Mark’s wife? How did she die? What really happened? The story never really makes an effort to show us this. And yet that’s not the hook is it? Why is that? Perhaps it could be that there is a substitute to this question. It’s the grief he feels in the present. Why dig up things that just ends in the same emotions. No, what hooks us is actually linked to the central concept of the show. It’s the severance.

We are entertained by this strange, yet somehow logical concept of dividing our work brains from our life brains. The so called balance is physically maintained for us. But a brilliant idea only goes as far as the truth it tries to hide. What really is happening in that office? And the show never really shies away from what it’s trying to do with this. It is made clear from the get go that we do not get to know what happens in that office. We are allowed to understand what happens outside of that office, but never inside.

In a way, Silo does exactly this, except that here, we get to know what happens inside the Silo but barely anything about the outside world. And while the spaces might be changing from interior to exterior, the core idea of focusing on human relationships remains the same. Yes Silo is an interestingly sculpted concept about a post apocalyptic world and how this single form of architecture, beneath the surface of the earth, has successfully managed to keep around ten thousand humans alive for over 140 years. And while it is obvious that what exactly happened to the earth in this future would be a fascinating aspect to explore, we must first understand the human beings and their relationships within the silo first. Much like how fascinating it would be to understand the inner workings in severance and what the Eagans actually do with this company, we must first understand the people working there, their relationships, and their lives first. Human life at it’s core is what implores us to explore after all.

But notice a dramatic difference is how this mystery is dealt with between the two shows. And this difference ultimately changes the two fundamentally similar shows to completely different shows altogether. Let’s first see how Severance structures it’s story.

1. We are introduced to Lumon Industries through Kelly R, and since she’s new to this space much like us, we get to explore a bit about the office with her.

2. We are introduced to mark at the same time, and we get to raise our first questions about the outside world and the ethics of Lumon by seeing his life outside the company.

3. The case of Petey starts arousing questions in innie Mark’s mind. Meanwhile through Kelly we get our doubts about escaping the office answered.

4. Petey starts appearing for outtie Mark at the same time. And Mark starts his own exploration in the outside world.

From here onwards, we take a slight detour from the core mystery to understand the relationships of the other employees as well. Irving and his trips to Burt’s department offers us insight into their relation and at the same time, gives us hints about the various departments in this office. But what exactly is Severance doing when it comes to the core mystery of the show, the truth about Lumon.

1. We are introduced to Lumon, but through Kelly we get to question the workings of the office. None of the employees know what they are actually doing there.

2. We are introduced to Lumon from the outside through conversations between Mark and his family and friends at dinner. None of them know what they are actually doing down there.

3. We further question the workings of various mechanisms within the office, like the text detection in the elevator, the quotas to meet, the departments, what they do. All of it seems to be very contained in themselves. Design and optics takes care of paintings and displays that serve only the purpose of display within the office. Most of the things that go outside from their department, remain a mystery to even them.
   

And this keeps happening throughout the show. We seem to be getting closer to the truth, but until someone we know in the show figures out something we don’t know already, we keep hitting dead walls. And the way severance chooses to do this, is by mixing the mystery with human drama. The way these characters might eventually learn the truth about their company is by going through their own personal lives and finding the will to question and take action in the end. It is a slow and gradual build up and the first season provides the groundwork for the characters to now take action upon. And so obviously, the plot twists in Severance remain constricted to these relationships between characters. Someone we knew in the office was someone else outside, or perhaps something we knew about an innie was completely different from how they were outside. No plot twist or reveal can be about the inner workings of Lumon since we never get to a point where the characters can take action within the office about anything.

This does not mean, Severance refuses to show us anything about the office either. There are enough clues given throughout for us to form theories of the truth.

Before talking about how Silo structures it’s mystery, it would be beneficial to imagine Silo take form without a crucial detail.

1. We are introduced to Silo through the Sheriff and his wife — Holston and Allison. Allison struggles to conceive, and is convinced that something is different outside the silo. She chooses to leave because she believes its a better world outside.

2. A few years later, her husband starts believing that it is infact better outside and leaves. Through this we also start getting clues as to what the outside world might be like.

3. Both of them are seen dying on the screen outside.

4. We follow the life of Juliette Nichols for the next year as she solves cases within the silo.

5. She discovers the corruption within people in the silo and she is cheated into going out by the evil doers.

6. She goes outside to finally realise what the outside world is like.

This is the rough structure of Silo but what are we missing here? What is it that shifts Silo’s path away from Severance? It’s Allison. Allison is the character that Severance never had, that Petey tried to be but failed.

Within the constraints that we get to explore mystery through the characters, we need a character to break this constraint first. We keep waiting for Mark to do something but since we know Mark, it’s safe to say , this will take time. Allison breaks this chain from the beginning. She sees the mystery for herself, she shows it to us, and then immediately takes action to explore this mystery all within the first episode. The core mystery of Silo — “what is earth actually like” is revealed to us within the first two episodes of the show, when Holston sees what his wife was talking about. In a way Silo is telling us “Here, this is what it’s like outside. You see it? You see the thing that you’ve been curious about since we started? Well here you go. How about we focus on the human beings inside the Silo now? There’s a lot to unpack here”. And so Silo shifts from the scifi mystery to a drama show about the people living underground.

From this point onwards, Silo follows the path Severance took. Juliette goes through her own personal life, discovers secrets about human beings, and eventually reaches a point where she has to face the core truth the show was always hiding. Much like how Burt’s department gives us clues, George’s discoveries give us hints to another aspect of the Silo as well. The tunnel under the water at the every bottom of the Silo. But much like Burt’s clues, much of this is for us to explore later on. But at its core, because Silo chooses to reveal its own mystery upfront, we get to see a completely different show for the rest of the season. At least till we revisit this mystery once again. Much like how Knives out did the whole ‘it was always what it looked like’ from the beginning, Silo too takes a u-turn on its own reveal at the very end.

Both of these approaches offers us something valuable in storytelling, and it is upto us to prefer one over the other. For me, personally, since Silo chose the route it took, the first two episodes felt like a rush followed by a slow and gradual struggle to reach the end, since it felt like being told what I already knew as a child. Severance maintained my interest consistently although not peaking as much as Silo did, and at one point I did start questioning if the writers themselves knew the truth about Lumon since the mystery seemed impossible to uncover for me.

As with everything else in this post, I would like you to understand why something is a certain way, not by criticising the way it is, but by thinking about the changes that would happen if it wasn’t that way.

Thank you for your time, I hope it was worth this rambling essay and I hope it made sense, and If it did, I hope to ramble a lot more in the future.