It’s a great feeling when viewers find a show that creates such an intriguing world that they can’t stop thinking about it when it’s over. It’s even better when you can find a community of like-minded fans to break down every possible mystery and theory. Dan Erickson’s Severance on Apple TV+ is just that kind of show, and Reddit is chock full of opinions regarding that crazy Season 1 cliffhanger ending and the overall goings-on at Lumon Industries. Erickson, as well as Tramell Tillman, who plays supervisor Seth Milchick, each had to stop themselves from going down the Reddit rabbit hole, but for wildly different reasons.
Dan Erickson, executive producer Ben Stiller and a handful of cast members from Severance (which was ranked by IMDb users as one of the year’s best new shows so far) spoke at a panel during San Diego Comic-Con on July 21, and when moderator Patton Oswalt admitted to getting caught in the addictiveness of reading fan theories about the series on Reddit, Erickson empathized, telling the crowd (per EW):
I was warned not to go on Reddit on the subject of this show at all. And I held off for about six minutes. And then I was just on it every day for a while. Because it is kind of addictive. It's really interesting to see people's theories and sometimes they have ideas that are better than what I had even thought of.
Redditors should feel welcome to pat themselves on the back for that comment. It is quite a compliment for the creator of a series to admit that some fan ideas are more interesting than the ones he came up with. While one wonders if any of those posts influenced the story going forward or caused Dan Erickson to adjust the direction of the plot, that is precisely the reason he said he had to step away. He continued:
But, eventually, I had to sort of pull back from that because, as we have gotten more into writing Season 2, it's that thing of infinite options, and at some point you have to commit to what you're doing. And at that point, I think it would be counterproductive to have all these other voices in your head, great though they may be, and other ideas about where it could go. Because there's an infinite amount of paths that we could take. So I really enjoyed it, but I had to back off in recent weeks.
The writing on Severance Season 1 was so good, with so many mysteries left open to (hopefully) be answered in Season 2. While there are some fascinating discussions happening on Reddit — yes, I’ve also lost a good bit of time there — I trust Dan Erickson’s vision and whatever direction the writers plan to take our beloved MDR employees.
Tramell Tillman, meanwhile, had a wholly different experience when he visited the forum, as he realized that fans were more interested in discussing his, ahem, physical attributes. Tillman told the Comic-Con crowd:
I have messages that I should go on Reddit and read it. And then I saw the messages on Reddit were very praiseworthy of my anatomy. One specific area. So then I got off Reddit.
Lots of viewers are buying into the Defiant Jazz of it all, I see! At least the comments were complimentary?
Severance Season 2 hasn’t started filming yet, but at least we know it’s happening. In the meantime, you can rewatch Season 1 with a subscription to Apple TV+, and be sure to check out these other shows to watch if you liked Severance, as well as some of the other best AppleTV shows available for streaming.
