‘Severance,' ‘White Lotus' and our own outrageous drama

Washington Post

21-03-2025

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The work here at Post Opinions is so often mysterious and important, but never more so than when discussing Thursday night's Season 2 finale of the Apple TV dystopian workplace thriller 'Severance.'
If you didn't get any talk at your water cooler this morning, sidle up to ours. In the latest edition of the Prompt newsletter, Damir Marusic, Rob Gebelhoff and Lillian Barkley — all members of the #macrodata-refinement channel on The Post's messaging platform — fangirl over the finale (though without any meaningful spoilers, in case that's a concern).
For all the tantalizing lore surrounding the fictional Lumon company, however, the trio agrees that they love the series because 'it's about the characters much more than it is about the overarching conceit,' as Damir puts it. He writes that even in the finale, 'many of the bigger mysteries of what is actually going on at Lumon remain unanswered.'
Okay, if you're not watching 'Severance,' the most recent Impromptu podcast might be more accessible. It's about … 'Severance.' But a lot of other stuff, too!
On the pod, I discuss with Molly Roberts and Monica Hesse why we're so drawn to 'peak TV' still — shows, such as 'Severance' or 'The White Lotus,' that really make us think rather than let us kick back and veg out. But are these offerings on their way out?
We get into the merits of couch-potato programming, too, including a few recommendations of shows that can still bring our fractured culture back together for a few minutes at a time.
As ever, please try to enjoy each piece of commentary equally.
Chaser: You know what's really peak TV? PBS, Alyssa Rosenberg wrote back in 2020 for the broadcaster's 50th birthday.
From Monica's column on our current mini-era of the Trump presidency — what she's calling 'the Great Overturning.'
Monica wants to leave legal analysis to courtlier scholars, but she feels pretty confident weighing in 'about what it feels like to be a citizen during the Great Overturning, and the answer is: pretty vomitous.' The issue is that all these overturnings balance on the head of a pin and could tip either way.
'Democracy is not supposed to function this way,' Monica writes, 'where the president wakes up with a notion, and the notion becomes an order, and the only thing standing between us and a world in which the president decides he has the power to fire every single female agency head is an 80-year-old D.C. circuit judge appointed by George H.W. Bush named Karen L. Henderson.'
I mean, thank God for Karen L. Henderson — but for how long?
Meanwhile, the Editorial Board writes that the Justice Department's refusal to answer questions asked by the federal judge that denied Trump the right to deport migrants to El Salvador without due process is inching the country ever closer to constitutional crisis. 'This defiance,' it writes, 'is an ominous challenge to the courts as an equal branch of government.'
The board points to authoritarian El Salvador — which Elon Musk has said the United States ought to emulate — as a cautionary tale of the danger of 'relying on a strongman and allowing unchecked officials to act however they like under the auspices of 'national security.''
Chaser: Dana Milbank offers to school Musk and Trump on how essential due process is to the founding of the United States.
Bonus chaser: George Will explains how a very unglamorous Supreme Court case about cellphone billing could give Congress the jolt it needs to start reining in Trump's rampant presidency.
This Ramadan, Shadi Hamid is wrestling not only with the hunger brought on by a fast that sticks out sorely in American culture, but with a question, too: 'If we've become our own relentless taskmasters in the pursuit of perfection, what does it mean to voluntarily make ourselves less optimized, less efficient, less productive?'
Because, have no doubt, that's what Ramadan entails. By midday, Shadi writes, fog envelops his brain and he finds it much more difficult than usual to keep on top of his email. But this disruption is exactly what a real rethink of priorities and one's place in the world requires.
I'll add that I think Shadi might be a little tough on himself here; even on an empty stomach, he manages to cite four philosophers.
It's a goodbye. It's a haiku. It's … The Bye-Ku.
A hungry, month-long
Innie-outie tête-à-tête
I am not my work
Plus! A Friday bye-ku (Fri-ku!) from reader Emily G.:
The Show is scripted
We don't deserve this chaos
Vengeance freezes hope
***
Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. Have a great weekend!