Summary
Apple TV+‘sSeveranceis aunique mix of many genres, from dystopian sci-fi to nightmarish horror to workplace satire. And while it’s often unsettling, ominous, and occasionally frightening, it’s just as often surprisingly funny, wringing laughs from its characters’ odd behavior and theinexplicable strangeness of life at Lumon Industries.
The show has plenty of comic ringers, with a cast including improv veterans Zach Cherry and Britt Lower, actors who’ve done their fair share ofcomedy like John Turturro, and bona fidesitcom star Adam Scott. All these actors and more do plenty to makeSeveranceone of thebest cast shows on TV, but there’s one actor who best exemplifies the show’s unique tone: Patricia Arquette. As the inscrutable and manipulative former boss of the severed floor, Harmony Cobel, Arquette has created a character that is by turns deeply unnerving and extremely funny, sometimes at the very same time.
Arquette’s Double Performance
Arquette has been doing solid work in film and television for nearly four decades, but her career has seen something of a renaissance in recent years, at a time when many female actors struggle to find meaningful roles. In 2014, she won her first Academy Award, taking home the Oscar for best supporting actress for her role as the main character’s mother in Richard Linklater’sBoyhood.In 2019, she took home her second Primetime Emmy Award for the Hulu miniseriesThe Act,in which she played the mother of convicted murderer Gypsy Rose Blanchard.
She’s always charted a unique path throughout her career, and recently has seemed to enjoy taking on roles that allow her to disappear into a character, whether fictional ones like Cobel, or real-life figures likeEscape at Dannemora’sJoyce Mitchell orThe Act’sDee Dee Blanchard. As Cobel, she has to strike a unique balance, being a character that knows more than the other characters or even the audience. Cobel is someone who never reveals her true self, performing as the Innies' unflappable authority figure at work, and as a seemingly “normal” person out in the real world. Much of what makes Arquette’s performance so funny comes from this disconnect.
Cobel’s persona as Mrs. Selvig, “Outie” Mark’s kooky neighbor and lactation consultant to hissister Devon (Jen Tullock), gives Arquette plenty of opportunity to show off her skill in such a layered role. She gets great mileage out of playing Mrs. Selvig as someone who wants to appear to be a harmless oddball, with her attempts at coming across as genial and caring clearly requiring a lot of effort.
There’s an uncanniness to Arquette’s performance as Cobel playing Mrs. Selvig that feels carefully crafted, and she’s able to use this both to generate tension and laughs. Mrs. Selvig’s joke about a snow storm, “Jack Frost needs a new dandruff shampoo!” ends up being funny more because of Arquette’s odd delivery than the line itself. Other times, she lets the mask slip perhaps a little too far, like during season one’s funeral scene, where she meets the daughter of deceased former severed worker Petey and says to her, “I suppose you were close and everything, hmm?” giving the audience a glimpse of Cobel’s lack of empathy.
Arquette as Lumon’s Devout Disciple
Arquette doesn’t just manage to get laughs from her time in the outie world; she’s equally funny in her role overseeing the severed workers at Lumon, albeit in a very different register. In her interactions with Mark and the other severed employees, Cobel is steely and intimidating, mostly remaining chilly but occasionally letting her anger boil over. Arquette plays this version of Cobel with a barely contained prickliness that betrays her frequent annoyance with her severed charges.
Much of the comedy ofSeverancecomes from a bizarre sense of irony, where nobody acts quite the way the audience would expect them to, and Arquette’s performance is perfectly pitched to take advantage of this. There’s quite a bit of camp in her performance, some highly entertaining scenery chewing that fits with the show’s strange, not quite real-life tone. Her surprise outbursts and seething menace keep both the characters and the viewer off balance, and many of the laughs come almost as a relief from the sense of discomfort that she’s able to create.
Cobel was absent from theSeveranceseason two premiere, and it remains to be seen how she’ll factor intothe story going forward, given that she was fired from her position at theend of season one. After her firing, she seemed ready to burn it all down, but rushed into action when she discovered Mark’s innie, so her loyalties are clearly still with Lumon. Arquette’s name is still listed in the cast, and previews clearly show Cobel remains a presence on the show, so it won’t be long before she returns to make viewers squirm and giggle once again.
