You just knew someone was going to ask about the goats. Thursday at San Diego Comic-Con, a large chunk of the cast and creative team behind the hit Apple TV+ show Severance took the stage to discuss the show’s breakout first season. Things were going rather normally to start but then the fan Q&A began and the first question was about goats.
“Is there a significance to the goats and will that significant be revealed?” asked a fan dressed as Wolverine. “Yeah,” said creator Dan Erickson, who refused to elaborate further.
For anyone who hasn’t see the show, it’s about a world very similar to ours with one small difference. People can choose to have a chip implanted into their brain that temporarily shuts off their memories and the show follows a small group of office workers at a mysterious company called Lumon who do just that. These people go to work at themselves, and then for eight hours a day, their brain shuts off that person and they become almost a blank slate version of themselves. When they leave, they go back to normal.
And, at one point, two of the characters (Mark, played by Adam Scott and Helly, played by Britt Lower) attempt to explore Lumon and come upon a room filled with baby goats. No explanation is given. But at least now we know one is coming.
That was about the most revealing thing the panel had to say about the upcoming second season of the show, which is in the works. But the panel did have some other interesting tidbits revealed about the world of Lumon, and here they are”
- In Dan Erickson’s original pilot script, it was Mark, not Helly, who wakes up in the boardroom to begin the show. It got changed later for reasons that make sense if you’ve seen the full season.
- That original version was also much weirder. One example given was that disembodied legs could be seen running around the company.
- The show has a unique tone and producer/director Ben Stiller says they found it by doing a lot of on set experimentation. Actors were asked to give many different versions of takes and it was only later in editing that they made it a cohesive whole.
- As one might expect, Severance has started a lot of online speculation about its mysteries. Most of the cast and crew said they have not been to any fan pages or subreddits but Erickson admits to looking for a while, then stopping because he didn’t want to be influenced by all the great ideas.
- The show was filmed out of order for the better part of 10 months between November 2020 and September 2021.
- The neurosurgeon in the second episode who explains how the chip is inserted and works was the actual neurosurgeon the production used to assess whether or not a process like this was actually possible. He said it was.
- One of the biggest challenges for everyone involved was to craft their “innie” characters so that they aren’t completely different from their “outtie” side. Everyone made sure to try and strike the right level of similarity.
And while the panel didn’t give any updates on how far along season two is, when we might see it, or how much lore and mystery Erickson and his team have already accounted for, he did say that season two would dive much more into how the outside world reacts to the process of severance and its implications. Which makes sense considering the shocking events of the finale.
Severance is currently streaming on Apple TV+ and we highly recommend it.
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