Major spoilers for the seventh episode of Severance Season Two, “Chikhai Bardo,” are below.
This week’s Severance episode, “Chikhai Bardo,” co-written by series creator Dan Erickson, peels back the curtain on one of this season’s biggest mysteries: what in the world is going on with Gemma (Dichen Lachman)? Despite the season one finale revelation that Gemma is alive, the show has kept her whereabouts a secret while her husband, Mark (Adam Scott), continues his search. In “Chikhai Bardo,” a sickly, feverish Mark trips through time to when he and Gemma first met, juxtaposing that past with her current present as a captive of Lumon. The result is a heartwrenching installment that sheds light on what drove Mark to submit to the severance procedure in the first place. It’s an episode that answers as many questions as it raises and launches the show in a fascinating new direction as it winds down this smashing second season.
The episode is a perfect encapsulation of the show’s ability to master mystery and character equally. As we head into the final stretch of episodes, GQ sat down with Erickson for a long, expansive chat about the origins of the series, learning on the fly as a first-time showrunner, the reasoning behind revealing Helena’s big secret, how he cast Keanu Reeves for a critical part in the show, what Lumon wants with Gemma, early season three planning, and much, much more.
You’ve talked a lot about the origins of the show, but back when you were working day jobs, was there one particular task that started you thinking about severing part of your brain during the work day?
Oh, man. Well, for the company I was working for, I was—not designing their website, but doing maintenance on the website, which is something I have absolutely no background in or knowledge of how to do. I had to Google a lot of it. One thing that I remember I was tasked with was creating a bunch of interlocking or interlinking websites that had links to each other that created this web of links. I believe the idea was something with search engine optimization; it would bump it up in the algorithm and make it more Googleable. That actually meant literally making, I think, a couple of 100 slightly different versions of the same page that were sort of geared towards different neighborhoods in Los Angeles. So that was just a very repetitive thing that I was doing for probably a couple of months, and that definitely made me want to check out a little bit.
How much did the story change between the first draft you wrote and the version we’re now seeing unfold on TV?
Tonally, I would say the original version was a bit more of a fever dream if you can believe that. It was more heightened. I’ve compared it to a Terry Gilliam thing. It felt more like you’re watching Brazil or something that had a magical realism to it. The original version of the first scene was actually Mark waking up on the table. But before he wakes up, the ceiling opens up, and he’s birthed out of a giant sphincter in the ceiling, and he’s covered in amniotic fluid, and he sort of slips down onto the table like a baby. That was something I remember having a conversation about. I believe Ben read that version and very astutely was like, “Well, why would they do that? Can we actually back that up with an internal logic?” I knew right away that I couldn’t. We tried to take a lot of those details and ground them in a recognizable reality without losing the sort of madness at the heart of it.
Not immediately. I wasn’t familiar with the Blood List before the script ended up on it. I was familiar with a number of projects that had originated there. Once I looked it up, I was impressed and excited because there were a number of films or TV shows I really liked that had come from there. I knew it was a big deal, and once that happened, it was less than a week or two weeks before I started to get calls about the script. I did notice a pretty immediate change in the energy surrounding it.
Was Ben one of those first initial calls, or did that come a little later?
That was one of the first ones. So that was exciting. I had met Jackie Cohn, who was working at Red Hour at the time, so she reached out to my manager. I think he texted and said, “Ben Stiller wants to meet with you.” That was a pretty surreal thing to read.
In that first meeting with Ben, was there one specific question or aspect that made you think he was the right person for the job?
He asked a lot of world-building questions that no one had ever asked me before. Even prior to the Blood List, I had taken meetings about the script, but his questions were much more in-depth and they were the type of questions that I tend to ask myself when I’m starting a project. I was excited that I got to be asked those questions. I was excited I got to talk about those details. But it was world-building stuff, and then it was also questions about where it’s all going.
I think that, understandably, I was walking into his office as this very untested writer, and I think he wanted to make sure that I had some sense of a plan of where the whole show was going to go. Actually, in that first meeting, I described to him what I saw as the last scene of the show, the very last scene of the last season of the show. I think that he really liked that, and I think that gave him some confidence that this wasn’t a one-off weird pilot that had quirky details, that this was something that could actually lead to a bigger and richer story.
What were some of the lessons that you learned from being a first-time showrunner? Was there any level of “ignorance is bliss” that allowed you to come in and push the boundaries a little bit?
I think so a bit. When you’re coming in as sort of this idiot kid who hasn’t done this before, you don’t know what you can’t do for better or for worse. There were downsides to that. There were times where I would write a whole sequence I was excited about, and then somebody would go through with me what the practical requirements of shooting would be and explain to me why maybe we should change that location. There were some growing pains for me, but at the same time, I do think that there’s something to coming in fresh and not knowing where all the roadblocks are because sometimes it’ll occur to you to do something that might not have occurred to somebody who’s been in that system for longer.
Were you able to still bring some of that mentality into developing and filming season two?
I’ve actively tried to put myself back in that headspace. I still do that if I’m getting a little bit bogged down in the story, thinking too much about how something is going to be perceived, thinking too much about trying to live up to what we did before or recapture the structure that we did before. I’ll try to take a step back and be like, “Okay. Just imagine that you’re back in your old crappy apartment writing this for the first time just for yourself and just sort of for fun. What would you do then?” That frees me up to be more spontaneous, make weirder choices, and make some choices that make me smile and give me joy. Oftentimes, they’re unusable, and occasionally, it’ll bring something that ends up great.
Can you give me an example of a situation where one of those weird choices led you to something great?
Oh man, that’s a good question. Yeah, I’m trying to think about season two stuff. I think the specific moment [in episode 4 of season 2, “Woe’s Hollow”] when they happen upon the dead seal, and Irving, out of nowhere, says, “We should eat it!” That was something that I was like, “We’re out in the middle of this frozen forest. Let’s go nuts a little bit.”
I think if I was trying to rigorously adhere to a structure and make the mathematically best episode of TV that I could, an idea like that might not have popped through. A lot of episode four, I was trying to have fun and write something that I thought I would like to watch. By the way — the initial draft of that episode, and the majority of that — we came to in the room. That episode was actually written by a writer named Anna Moench, but I did a pass on it, and that’s where I sort of tried to put myself in that head space.
As you were developing season two in the room versus season one, how much nervousness or anxiety about repeating yourself was present?
Quite a bit of nervousness. I’ll be honest and say it was the most challenging and, in a way, the most terrifying thing I’ve had to do. Season one was nerve-wracking, but I knew that ultimately, if the show didn’t connect, it would just be one of many shows that sort of come and go. There was more pressure once people started to have expectations of it.
