Severance's Keanu Reeves Cameo perfectly echoes a big theory

The The premiere of the second season of the sci-fi thriller “Severance” on Apple TV+ offered many things to their devoted fans. Did Lumon really praise the four main members of the Macrodata Refinement unit for trying to rebel against their masters and tell the truth about the inny world? What really happened in the outside world when people learned what it meant to be separated? All of these questions feed into the various fan theories people have about Severance and what its intense mythology means. Are innies unconsciously working to transfer human consciousness from one body to another? Perhaps the goats seen in the first season are being bred to take over the role of humans in the outside world. And so on. But one particular theory is that the innies are cogs in some grand simulation that can affect both innies. and outies — may have just gained a little more weight thanks to a surprise cameo in the premiere.

As fans already know, the main aspect of the episode comes in the form of some sort of Claymation that Mr. Milczyk shows Mark and his colleagues. The purpose of the short animation is to convince the Innies that their acts of rebellion in the final episodes of the first season were respected and accepted by Lumon, as told from the perspective of the Lumon Industries building itself. The building is voiced by none other than Keanu Reeves in an uncredited cameo. (Though his name doesn't appear in the credits, his voice is almost instantly recognizable thanks to so many years as an A-Lister.) It's a pleasantly disturbing moment, in part because today's popular culture is often not directly referenced. Dismissal,” and partly because the first season didn't have many unexpected cameos from familiar actors. But aside from the joy of hearing the erstwhile John Wick expound on corporate jargon with a smile, there's another thing to keep in mind: If you think this show is about characters in a simulation, who better to expand on that idea than a star. from “The Matrix”?

The entire concept of “The Matrix” is centered around the harrowing idea that its protagonist, a white-collar worker named Thomas Anderson, slowly begins to realize that the world he lives in may seem normal, but it's a total facade designed to lull humanity to sleep. away from the real dystopian environment. There's no cult figure like Keir Egan in The Matrix — if anything, Anderson himself, who transforms into the all-powerful Neo, is the closest thing to a cult-like figure in the non-simulated world. But it's hard to shake these early images of Thomas, before he becomes Neo, in a sterile office environment, waking up with a sense that all is not right in his carefully crafted world. There's no doubt that there are significant differences between The Matrix and Severance, including the fact that the former spends little time explaining to its audience that the “real” world isn't real at all. “Severance” is a bold and unexpected show, but it likely won't deliver its endgame so soon in season two (if at all this year).

Instead, what Severance does (and has done so well in its short history) is provide bite-sized, creative breadcrumbs that are both detailed enough and vague enough to allow for all kinds of theories. It's easy to focus more on the Claymation video itself and what Reeves is talking about as opposed to why he was cast in the cameo. The language used in the video is enough to make innies' heads spin as Lumon tries to put a positive spin on their actions when they (and all of us who are viewers) thought they would be severely punished for what they did. did. Reeves' delivery is a little menacing at times, but mostly cheerful and upbeat, masking Lumon's true intentions. If nothing else, the casting here is the equivalent of Pixar casting Sigourney Weaver in “WALL-E” to voice a maternal computer system on a high-powered space cruise; from rebelling against such a mother computer in “Alien” she had become that computer herself. And now the person fighting the system becomes the embodiment of the system itself.

Severance has proven to be full of surprises now that it's finally back after a painful three-year hiatus. Like some great genre TV shows, from Twin Peaks to “Lost,” The series seems to be thriving thanks to its most passionate fans trying to figure out what its endgame is. It was easy to stumble over the shock of excitement that one of Hollywood's most enduring stars of our time was lending her voice to the show for a few brief minutes, and because fans tend to theorize based on the tiniest bits of information, it's just as easy to imagine that The Matrix star, who appearing here is merely a happy, if deliberate, coincidence. But it doesn't seem like a real accident that when the show's creative team planned this, they wanted Neo, of all people, to bring a message of supposed goodwill to the rebel group.

Wouldn't it mean anything that Keanu Reeves came here as a messenger? (Or, failing that, could it just be a fun attraction, like the “WALL-E” example above?) Sure, but from the various fan theories floating around online, it's believed that Mark, Hellie, Irving, and Dylan being part of some massive simulation, possibly involving innie and outie worlds in tandem, already felt plausible enough before we heard from Neo. (It's also worth wondering: In the world of this show, is Keanu still as famous as Keanu? Does “The Matrix” exist in that world? It could also open a weird little Pandora's box of ideas.) Like many of the “Departures,” this could mean nothing or mean everything. The possibilities are endless, as are the implications of such a remarkable episode.

New episodes of “Severance” Season 2 hit Apple TV+ on Fridays.