Eternal neon in a murky head: "Detachment" is an impressive and sometimes shaky series
Apple's new series is in love with the world it has created and sometimes lingers in it too much and indulges in strangeness.
However, she is spectacular looking, smart and thought-provoking almost every moment, the gameplay in her is amazing, and the mystery story she weaves reaches nerve-wracking heights
Ido Yeshayahu
22/02/2022
Tuesday, 22 February 2022, 00:00 Updated: 00:15
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Trailer for the "Severance" series (Apple TV Plus)
At this stage of pop culture, the idea of corporate work as a kind of hell on earth has already become almost a scripted convention.
Mike Judge's Office Riot was and remains a cult film.
The American "office", which came up as early as 2005, remained one of the series watched in the United States even in the previous decade thanks to Netflix.
And while Apple TV Plus ordered the MDA drama "Disconnect" (Severance) in November 2019, the comedy series "Corporation" by Comedy Central (in Israel Hot) was ahead of its final third season.
"Disconnect," whose opening couple of episodes (out of nine, the rest will go up every Friday, all sent in advance for review) is available on Apple TV Plus, taking it a few steps further, as well as the idea of separating personal life from work.
The new series follows a number of employees at Lomon, a huge company responsible for the production of masses of different products and a variety of technological developments.
One of them is the one named in the series - a surgical procedure in which some of the workers, those whose work requires a high classification and agree to the procedure, are implanted in the skull with a device that separates their memories from work and those of their private lives.
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Perfect casting.
Adam Scott, "Disconnect" (Photo: Apple TV Plus)
“Disconnect” utilizes its central idea primarily to illustrate how exploitative and cruel the corporate method is.
"Good news about hell," is the title of the first episode, quoting from the threatening boss Miss Kovel (Patricia Arquette, "A Novel of Truth") to Mark S. (Adam Scott, "Gardens and Landscape Department," "Big Little Lies"), Head of the new macro-refining department: "My mother was an atheist. She would say there was good news and bad news about hell. The good news is that hell is just a product of human morbid imagination. The bad news is, all human beings can imagine "They can usually create."
Indeed, humans have created hell, or at least an attachment reactor.
The space where the "detached" work looks like a huge, winding labyrinth, whitened by the oppressive neon, heavenly and meager, devoid of ornaments and even intentions.
Computers and other technology look like remnants of old decades, a symbol of the lack of communication between them and what is happening outside.
In the elevator, when the workers go down to the detached area, the device at their head is automatically turned on, they lose all connection to their personal lives and become dedicated workers.
When they finish their work day eight hours later, boarding the elevator again, the switch is turned on again and they return to themselves, literally, forgetting everything that has happened in the last eight hours.
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When symmetry is undermined.
Britt Lover, "Disconnect" (Photo: Apple TV Plus)
In effect, the procedure turns each of the detached employees into two different entities.
One spends her entire life at work and the other experiences only the leisure moments.
Employees have their own personalities, probably even the same one out there, but gradually their different experiences shape them differently.
One of the most representative moments of the series comes in its first minutes, when the new employee Heli (Britt Lawyer, "When a Man Meets a Woman") is asked if she remembers what her mother's eye color is, and realizes in horror that the answer is no.
How much heart and brokenness lies in this wise moment, through which "disconnection" immediately clarifies that even in the detached area they are still human beings.
Those who might appreciate the kitsch art that can be found in such and such corners of the place, or a silly self-help book that rolls into their hands, and also fall in love with each other and mourn each other.
When one of their colleagues leaves, for them he is actually dead.
This version of them has no way of contacting him to preserve the membership.
This is exactly what happens in the first episode of "Disconnect".
Mark discovers that his good friend Pitty (Yul and Azakz, forever a "who does not want to wear a movie?" From "Seinfeld") is no more.
Mark himself is appointed as the team manager in his place, and his first job is to get his replacement, Heli, who pretty soon finds out she does not want to be there, and that she can not really leave.
The combination of the rebellious fact and the great responsibility under his hands, and the grief over the loss of Petty, make life difficult for the "inner" Mark, that of the Lomon version.
At the same time in the life of the "external" Mark, who is obviously not aware of any of this, a stranger appears in a suit named Petty, and he wants to tell him about some terrible things he discovered about their joint workplace.
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Exciting as usual.
John Tortoro, "Disconnect" (Photo: Apple TV Plus)
"Disconnection" is thought-provoking at all levels.
On the philosophical level, it raises questions about
morality, ethics and memory.
Is it okay to throw all the hardships and anguish on one half of our personality, knowing full well that he is aware of everything that is happening to him?
What is our identity if a crossing is not available to us?
Is it true that a company would offer such an option to its employees?
And if there is such a possibility of memory control, who will determine where the boundary of what remains and what will disappear behind a closed door passes?
At the satire level, “Disconnect” puts a murky look in front of the ridiculous and self-in-love corporate culture.
Sharpens how, given the opportunity, the corporation will weigh its hand and harden its heart towards its employees, turn them into an obedient herd that must cling to rigid and foolish conversation scripts and arbitrary ritualistic practices.
At the same time, he will elevate the company, its heritage and founder into objects of worship, will turn it into a kind of cult.
After all, it is so clear that this will indeed happen in reality, and the series turns this idea into a surrealist base,
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Cult-like.
Patricia Arquette, "Disconnect" (Photo: Apple TV Plus)
These points are embodied in a marvelous work in its richness, beauty and ability to balance what is funny with what is so frightening and sad in this situation.
Despite the built-in oppression in their situation, its protagonists, led by Mark, are a beating heart implanted in a cold corporate machine - and in this metaphor it is the heart that rejects the body and not the other way around.
Adam Scott, the perfect casting, provides here probably his best acting display.
Passes in a phenomenal, heartbreaking way, between the various halves of his personality, sometimes in a fraction of a moment.
Britt Lover excels in the role of Heli Keshet Ha'ef, and is responsible for some of the jaw-dropping moments throughout the season.
Apart from them, the cast also includes John Tortoro, who is as exciting as usual, and Christopher Walken, for whom the general strangeness of the series fits like a glove.
Ben Stiller, who has already collaborated with Arquette on another mini-series, "Escape from Denmore," has directed the first and last three episodes of "Disconnection," and along with the set and art designers he is the creator of a peace-disrupting universe.
The photography is simply spectacular, laden with symmetrical, beautiful whips, which are occasionally pushed aside to appeal.
So does the soundtrack, melodic piano pieces that are constantly tapped on an unintentional key.
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His peculiarity is appropriate.
Christopher Walken, "Disconnect" (Photo: Apple TV Plus)
Everything in "disconnection" - from the most unusual to the conceivable - seems complete, calculated, meticulous.
It may be part of what creates her problem: she falls a little in love with the world she created and wants us to stay in it, which time and time again we walk with her in the endless corridors of "Lomon".
But more than once throughout the series, she walks the fine line between establishing an atmosphere and basking in it - a sickly evil of Stiller that was also evident in "Denmore".
It's often hard not to feel like the series is dragging on and enjoying presenting a variety of bizarre things instead of advancing the plot or even digging into characters.
In the end these moments feel like a smokescreen.
"Disconnect" manages to say a lot of original things about issues that have already been eroded in the past, but even as such, its plot path as a conspiracy thriller is clear and familiar - and it was not said to condemn it.
The same Petty who left tries to reveal the company's secrets, whoever replaces him sets her the goal of leaving;
You can understand where all this is going.
Therefore, although the series never ceases to intrigue and interest, for quite a few episodes I have longed for it to already do an act, to break out of this delusional white space, to get out of line.
To be honest, one can easily trim in chapters or advance the climax to an earlier stage.
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Get out of line.
"Disconnect" (Photo: Apple TV Plus)
And yet, when that already happens, “Disconnect” delivers one of the most amazing TV experiences of the young year.
One that left me alert, agitated and breathless, and in the end I just wished Apple would order a second season in a hurry, and that it would arrive as soon as possible.
Even if it can not be said that all the smears and atmosphere are justified, the confident hand of "disconnection", the same meticulous world-building, the patience with which she conducts and demands of us, ensures that she knows exactly what she is doing and where she is going.
As can be understood, it is also hugely sustainable.
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Disconnection - Severance
TV review
Adam Scott
Ben Stiller
Apple TV Plus
