On the finish of “Severance” season 2, Lumon workplace wonk Mark S. (Adam Scott) lastly realizes {that a} undertaking he has been engaged on — a mysterious number-crunching task — is nearing completion. Mark does not know what meaning, actually. Certainly, viewers do not both. Lumon, up thus far in “Severance,” has been enacting very mysterious, ineffable plans which are by no means defined. Notably, the corporate has been taking part in sadistic reminiscence video games with Mark’s presumed-dead spouse Gemma (Dichen Lachman), forcing her to bear horrid bodily and psychological abuse solely to “sever” her recollections of the experiences. Lumon retains its staff in line by providing small, meaningless rewards for carrying out duties. They generally get dance events or fruit plates.
Mark’s reward for finishing his task, as introduced by his boss Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman), is a chronic efficiency by an infinite marching band. It is surreal to observe Mr. Milchick lead the marching band into Lumon’s Nineteen Sixties-inflected, fluorescent-tube-illuminated workplace and listen to their noisy, noisy devices carry out in such an enclosed house.
In fact, Mark has been engaged on a season-long plan of his personal: He goals to flee the marching band efficiency and trek into the corporate’s sub-basements to free Gemma. Complicating issues, nevertheless, is the truth that Mark and Gemma do not keep in mind one another whereas contained in the Lumon constructing on account of their severance mind chips. Whereas Mark flees, his co-workers, Helly (Britt Decrease) and Dylan (Zach Cherry), lure Mr. Milchick in a rest room. He kilos on the door and screams whereas Helly and Dylan prop a merchandising machine in opposition to the door. To make the scene even stranger, the marching band does not cease taking part in for one second in the course of the fracas.
“Severance” composer Theodore Shapiro commented on the marching band sequence in an interview with Bandcamp. As he went on to disclose, the entire thing was truly impressed by “Drumline,” a 2002 coming-of-age teen flick that the present’s government producer and frequent director, Ben Stiller, is a giant fan of.
Severance’s Ben Stiller is a Drumline fan
“Drumline” was a modest success in theaters, arriving amongst an enormous wave of teen-friendly competitors dramas that had been in vogue on the time. It revamped $56 million on the field workplace on a $20 million price range, and its star, Nick Cannon, was nominated for a number of Teen Selection Awards and MTV Film Awards. The movie additionally boasted an early efficiency from future Oscar-winner Zoe Saldaña, then higher recognized for her appearances in movies like “Middle Stage,” “Crossroads,” and “Get Over It.” The film follows latest highschool graduate Devon Miles (Cannon) as he strikes from New York to a college in Atlanta. There, he butts heads with the varsity’s marching band specialists as he fights to win drumline competitions and, together with them, acceptance. A sequel got here out in 2014.
Shapiro recalled listening to in regards to the idea of a “Drumline”-inspired “Severance” finale again in the course of the 2023 Writers Strike. It appears that evidently the marching band was Stiller’s thought, so Shapiro merely rolled with it, noting that “Drumline” was “the musical reference he (Stiller) gave me.” Shapiro added that the marching band music needed to play into a couple of mysterious liturgical items that had been, by the composer’s recollection, not sharply outlined. Lumon, in any case, calls for a cult-like devotion from its staff to each the corporate and, particularly, its fictional founder, Kier Egan — one thing Shapiro’s music wanted to mirror. As he put it:
“On high of it, we needed to weave this stuff that I consider as Egan non secular anthems. First, ‘The Kier Hymn,’ which we have heard earlier than in season 1. After which the script referred to as for the second piece to be referred to as ‘The Ballad of Ambrose and Gunnel.’ We do not know an excessive amount of about who Ambrose and Gunnel are but, however I wrote one thing that I consider as one other entry in that canon of non secular hymns. Trammel did his unimaginable choreography, and the entire thing actually got here off.”
Ambrose and Gunnell will, we would assume, seem in “Severance” season 3, which is presently in pre-production. Mysteries abound.
