Severance (Apple TV+, TVING)
Yoon Hyein: In the first season of the Apple TV+ original series Severance, a character named Helly smiles as she reads into the camera: “I give consent for … separating my memories between my work life and my personal life.” Within the world of the show, a fictional procedure called “severance” creates a complete divide between who you are at work and who you are once you leave the office, as Helly’s words suggest. The main narrative centers around Mark, who undergoes the procedure and joins the company Lumon Industries in order to escape the grief he’s experience over the loss of his late wife, even if it’s only for eight hours each day. Mark’s relatively peaceful life begins to unravel after one of his coworkers resigns, thrusting him into the role of Macrodata Refinement (MDR) department chief, where he meets a new employee, Helly.

At first glance, this idea of separating your work from your personal life—where you wouldn’t be able to recognize your boss even if they lived right next door—might seem like it would achieve the ideal work–life balance that we value so highly today, but life for the “innies,” as their severed personalities at work are known, is far from easy. While they still get to clock out at five PM, everything that happens past that point is lived only by their “outies,” meaning the innies have no memory of ever taking the time off and thus know nothing but work, work, and more work. Helly’s innie, desperate to escape this ceaseless existence of servitude, tries explaining, then pleading to, and finally even threatening her outie, but her outie can’t be deterred. The concept of severance does more than explore what it means for two personalities to separately inhabit the same body—it also makes painfully clear the immense role memory plays in shaping personal identity. Despite its fanciful premise, Severance shines light on the shadows of reality with startling clarity. For instance, Ms. Cobel and Mr. Milchick, who manage the MDR department across seasons, find a certain pleasure in exercising the power granted to them by the company, but at the same time they’re endlessly tormented by some of the decisions their roles force them to make—whether they’re the ones under pressure, the ones applying it, or both. Scenes of Lumon employees religiously worshipping the company’s founder, Kier Eagan, or receiving bizarre incentives like mugs with their own faces on them or five minutes of dance time are absurdly comical yet they serve as exaggerated allegories for and reflections of real life.

Over the course of the first season, the four members of the MDR department—Mark, Helly, Irving, and Dylan—each begin to harbor their own suspicions about Lumon. What starts as a small spark of doubt eventually transforms into plans to take concrete steps toward satisfying their curiosity about the world outside their cubicles. The four coworkers, at first an awkward, ragtag bunch, gradually bond and grow as a team as the series progresses. It’s incredibly satisfying to watch the intertwining of their personalities and chance happenings as the pieces of the story’s puzzle fall into place. What begins with the simple premise of separating work from private life evolves into a philosophical deep dive on identity and a darkly comedic metaphor for modern society. Adding to the overall quality of Severance is how meticulously directed it is and the distinct, detailed characters that embody its world. The truth slowly unfolds in season two, which began airing in January, as more and more questions arise.
*A task in the world of Lumon Industries that involves looking at a screen to identify numbers that evoke a sense of fear and then deleting them.

“Nosebleeds” (Doechii)
Kim Hyojin (music columnist): Since the Best Rap Album category was first introduced in 1996 for the 38th Grammy Awards, only three women have won. Lauryn Hill took home the award in 1997 for The Score with her group Fugees, Cardi B became the first solo female rapper to win with her album Invasion of Privacy in 2019, and this year, Doechii joined the club with Alligator Bites Never Heal. Almost as if she had anticipated her win, Doechii pays homage to Kanye West’s 2005 Grammys speech in her single “Nosebleeds” by confidently rapping, “Everybody wanted to know what Doechii would do if she didn’t win / I guess we’ll never—.” Her short and sweet two minutes, 15 seconds of verses are brimming with unwavering declarations of her prowess, commanding presence, career, and life trajectory, all woven impeccably to the beat. The musical approach itself then elevates her words even further. There’s a driving clap track followed by a chilly violin, on top of which we get hard-hitting beats, all of which creates a richly textured soundscape. And Doechii’s ducking and weaving all throughout, rapping in a way that makes the listener feel like they’re watching a cinematic thriller unfold. What would Doechii do if she didn’t win? As she says, I guess we’ll never know. But we can be certain of two things: One, we wouldn’t have been treated to such a pitch-perfect acceptance speech. And two, someone out there who was inspired from seeing it might never have believed in their own potential.

Dancing with the Devil by Krista K. Thomason
Kim Boksung (Writer): Kim Whether it’s a short-form video of affirmation or a pep talk from a well-meaning friend, it can feel like the whole world is always telling us to think positive. But when we inevitably fail to meet up to those impossible standards, we can end up feeling like an even bigger failure. Despite being a philosophy book, Dancing with the Devil by Krista K. Thomason is a very accessible read that challenges the conventional wisdom that the goal is to ignore, repress, fight, control, or even channel negative emotions. The subtitle—Why Bad Feelings Make Life Good—is exaggerated for effect, and might better be phrased as “in defense of negative emotions.” It’s an ode to the yin we’re told to ignore while exclusively embracing a sunny yang—the sort of stoic or Confucian approach that’s often just a fancy way to package apathy. After all, can something called an emotional “rollercoaster” really be all that unpleasant?

After exploring what philosophers and self-help gurus alike get wrong about “bad” feelings, the author dives into the major negative emotions, including schadenfreude, to give her readers permission to feel and back up her thesis that bad emotions are really just proof that you love yourself and are there to make life more meaningful. And she’s not exactly alone: If the Inside Out movies taught us anything, it’s that even those hard-to-handle emotions have a lot to teach us, so long as we listen carefully.