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Three pleas for help shouted in different contexts by Helly, Irv, and Mark Were prisoners!
This is how cliffhangers work.
They overload our nervous systems, leave us a little breathless, and yes, make us frustrated.
But cliffhangers are a delicate thing.
I was like, Okay, people are gonna be mad!
TheSeverancecliffhanger is effective from a narrative standpoint for all the reasons that Erickson mentions.
But it goes further than that by also working on a thematic level.
There is truly no more appropriate way that season one could have ended.
The TV landscape has made the cliffhanger experience thornier and more potentially enraging.
(Not thatIhave ever done this.)
That can be annoying when were already carrying around so many continuing narratives in our heads.
Thats one of the reasons why the limited series holds so much appeal.
A cliffhanger, especially as wielded bySeverance, does the opposite of that.
ButSeverancemanages to do it because its deployment is not a mere gimmick.
Central to both of those themes is the denial of information.
This might not solve all their problems, but at least they would have actionable knowledge.
Again, on a fundamental level, what they need is information.
Even thedesign of the Lumon officespeaks to endless quests that remain unfulfilled.
What everyone wants from their bosses is reassurance that everything is going to be okay.
More often than not, such reassurance is impossible to get.
A cliffhanger offers the opposite of reassurance.
