Severance has enough unanswered questions and detailed fan theories to make even the most faithful viewer concerned about the series ultimately sticking the landing. In a recent interview with Variety, series creator Dan Erickson gives reassurance that the sci-fi drama won’t have an ending like the historically derided denouement to ABC drama Lost.
To remind the few people unaware (Lost ending spoilers follow!), Lost’s sixth and final season pissed off a bunch of people who had dedicated hundreds of real hours watching the show about a group of plane crash survivors stranded on a mysterious tropical island. In the final season, the show introduced a confusing parallel timeline where the stranded characters live normal lives, only to find out it wasn’t a parallel timeline but some sort of purgatory-like afterlife where they can all reunite. We never find out why all that weird stuff happens on the island, what the deal was with all of those numbers, or where Jacob (Mark Pellegrino) got the powers to grant immortality and leave whenever he wanted.
Erickson promises Severance won’t turn into Lost, but dances around fully committing to answering all of the show’s mysteries. “I promise the show will not literally turn into Lost. We won’t put them on an island and have Sawyer show up. No—we’re very conscious of that fact that we need to know where we’re going, and we need to reward people’s patience and faith.”
That Severance fan theories multiplying quicker than Apple can pump out episodes almost guarantees there will be questions unanswered, mainly because they were questions Erickson never posed. The series can have a satisfying ending without explaining how many departments there are in the Lumon building that houses the main cast, or why there is a child working on the Severed Floor. Those mysteries are ancillary and not central to the drama of the show. But, there remain quite a few mysteries they’ll need to clear up by the end of the series if they want to avoid Lost levels of ignominy.
We need to know what these severed workers are actually working on, and what Lumon’s ultimate plan is. The whereabouts of Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman) seem to be a focal point of the current season, but we also need to know if and how Lumon faked her death given the facts Mark S (Adam Scott) says he identified her body. Under no circumstance can this series end without explaining what the fuck is the deal with the goats.
Those are just a few of the core mysteries that need to be resolved but the time the show wraps up. Lucky for us Severance fans, Erickson says Season 3 shouldn’t have the nearly three-year wait Season 2 had. Let’s just hope this whole series isn’t all just happening in Kier’s comatose mind in some Lumon nursing home.