Hacker News Reader

As much as I love severance, a show like it will never come to a satisfying ending. Half the appeal is the complete mystery. Any revelation will be absurd and unsatisfying, as nothing coherent could ever explain all the strange things shown in the first season. I think this is how many people felt about lost as well? Seems like there should be a term for this class of storytelling.

View on HN

As a show about a mystery, it bears some similarities with Lost. To the frustration of everyone, Lost explained _nothing_, and raised more questions than answers in its last forsaken season, and ended the worst, cheapest, and dumbest way possible. Because of this, I spent a lot of Severance screaming at the screen, "ASK THE OBVIOUS QUESTION!" And they did! And those questions got answered along the way! It gave me hope that there's a central idea at work here, and they're not just making it up as they go along, hoping the show gets popular enough to demand a huge retcon in the finale. They don't have to answer every question, or explain every plot device; I'm just hoping they finish telling a cohesive story.

I don't think they really need to try to explain everything. The HBO show The Leftovers never really spent much time explaining the central mystery and (IMHO) was better for it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com