Last weekend I crouched to look at the latest episode of the sci-fi highlights Severance. Until then, season 2 could only drag me from my growing series frustration to a limited extent, the episode 7 with the title Chikhai Bardo but let it be forgotten. The masterful mix of film and digital, the unleashed spectacle of Gemma actress Due Lachman, the emotional flashbacks-and last but not least an incredible sequence of ex-camera and debut director Jessica Lee Gagné. We’re so back!
And who do I spoke there? Character actress Sandra Bernhard as a unscrupulous Lumon hospital nurse in secret experiment cellar. But then diving additionally A strange specific reference props in the background that has not been going out of my head since then.
Hey, Severance, what about the ultra-specific roseanne reference?!
Sandra Bernhard is mainly known through the US sitcom Roseanne, where she played the bisexual Nancy. Even 30 years later, I immediately recognized them in Severance. When a few scenes later the exact Crochet blanket Appearance, which was draped over the rancid couch for nine seasons for nine seasons, my brain began to lawn. The reference ceiling does not even occur in Bernhard’s scenes, but at Mark (Adam Scott) and Gemma in Flashback. What’s going on here? Was that intent or chance?
It is quite possible that the Severance Requisite has achieved a small insider joke here to get the former Roseanne-Co star, but was also decided, the cozy ceiling does not really fit into the cool lumon scenes. And honestly: as someone who immediately recognized the iconic Sofa Duvet, I understand the impulse. Only a few will jump on it, but those who come up with the allusion will (demonstrably!) To get it out of the concept.
Surprisingly suitable But the ceiling is for a thematic reason. In English the old-fashioned crochet construct with a so-called granny pattern is called one Afghan. If you use different fabrics (or different yarn as from a crochet calendar) for the squares too) Memory blank In addition, i.e. memory or memorial ceiling. And finally divided memories are the linchpin of Severance, where it is about the division of consciousness.
Especially in relation to Gemma, the cover appears interesting, which not only has an leisure outtime and a working in the Innie, but presumably several innies at the same time. Like cleanly divided crochet patterns that make up a total network.
Ceiling gate: The legacy of the striking Granny pattern in series
Roseanne is not the only series or even classic sitcom that such a blanket on the sociable family couch featet. The classic crochet pattern became so striking that Slate made an investigation into the subject ten years ago and wondered why series from Taxi to Roseanne to The Big Bang Theory and Jane the Virgin show the almost the same blanket in the living room. Is the fluffy prop something like the Wilhelm scream for the prop: inside? An insider joke for people from the guild?
The bottom line was that this in the 1970 Years of popularized kitsch patterns for generations that grew up after this time stand for family security because it is associated with grandma and classic family gang. The ceiling as Warmth -giving objectespecially with warm colors, knows how to convey this feeling immediately – and on top of that is a practical tool for cameramen to make the image more lived and more homely.
In the context of Severance, the colorful fleet blanket is completely In contrast to the cold lumon look in whitethat dominates the experiment cellar. The life of Mark and Gemma on film with film grain in contrast to the dystopian dungeon on razor-sharp digital shots also makes a lot of sense.
With regard to Roseanne, we can make an even more specific reference to the topic of memory blank. After all, the word could also be associated with a blanket that is placed about a memory. And how did the series go out in the 90s before it was revived with the revival and the Conners? In the last moments of the final episode, Roseanne (Roseanne Barr) reveals that the whole series (at the latest from Season 3, after she gets her writing cellar) was a story with other family constellations and without lottery gain.
So does the Severance production team want to tell us through the flower blanket that the flashbacks with Mark and Gemma are also a imagination? Probably not. But good mystery series have exactly this effect that we fix on the smallest details and to interpret them into the extremely interpreted. It is half the joy of formats like this. The conviction that someone from the Prop team knew what it was alluded to, but it will be difficult to separate me!
New episodes from the 2nd season of Severance are on Fridays at Apple TV+ online.