Inside the SEVERANCE Panel and Immersive Experience at San Diego Comic-Con
This past weekend at San Diego Comic-Con, we got the chance to attend the Severance panel as well as the immersive experience for the show that was put on by Apple TV+. The experience took us inside Lumon Industries, where we went into the conference room where we first saw Helly on the table after being severed, and we sat down and got our Lumon badges, bags, tokens, and were told our names.
We then walked through the Lumon hallways, and saw the O&D Department, had a wellness session, a door with baby goats behind it, the smile wall, and even peeked inside a control room that we were quickly ushered out of. The highlight of the tour was the Macrodata Refinement (MDR) department, where we sat at the desks from the show. We got to mine some numbers on the computer, pick out snacks from the vending machine, and look through the desks. We did so well, we were awarded an office dance party, and we really had a good time dancing with the other employees. We then took a group photo and were able to meet another severed employee outside who didn’t recognize us from inside. It was incredibly well done and a ton of fun.
The next day, we attended the Severance panel, moderated by actor, comedian and super-fan of the show, Patton Oswalt. It was attended by creator of the series, Dan Erickson; director, Ben Stiller; and stars Adam Scott (Mark), Britt Lower (Helly), Jen Tullock (Devon), Dichen Lachman (Ms. Casey), and Tramell Tillman, who plays Milchick.
Some of the interesting things pointed out by the actors in the panel were that the building used for Lumon Industries is the real Bell Labs building in New Jersey, a real neurosurgeon performed the scene in which we see the severance process happen, and he based the procedure on real science which suggests it is possible, and the computers were actually performing real numbers games, which the actors participated in.
The actors also talked about their characters, with Jen Tullock pointing out that when preparing for the role, she didn’t read any of the scenes that took place within Lumon because Mark sister Devon doesn’t know anything about what happens inside the building, and she wanted to keep that real. It was verified that the character Milchick is not severed, and he is the only character that we have not had a glimpse of outside of the Lumon offices. Dan Erickson verified that we will see more about the goats in the future, and we will know more about why they are there.
We got to see an incredibly fun gag reel that made it clear that while it was a very serious story, the cast and crew still had a lot of fun shooting with each other. I love the first season of this show so much, and I can’t wait to see what comes next! Check out a few photos from our experience below, and let us know all your Severance fans theories in the comments.
