The wait for Severance season 2 on Apple TV+ has been excruciating, but if you’re looking for something to watch in the meantime, we have a recommendation for you. This Tuesday, Netflix added the Showtime limited series Escape at Dannemora to its streaming library, a 2018 crime drama that was also directed by Ben Stiller.
Escape at Dannemora is based on an unbelievable true story. In 2015, a prison worker became romantically entangled with two convicted criminals at Clinton Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in upstate New York, and helped them escape.
The limited series has a brilliant cast, with Benicio del Toro and Paul Dano playing the convicted killers, Patricia Arquette as the married prison worker, Bonnie Hunt as New York State Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott, and Michael Imperioli as Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Escape at Dannemora was created and written by Brett Johnson (Mad Men) and Michael Tolkin (The Player) and all seven episodes were directed by Ben Stiller.
The reviews were generally positive, though many critics dinged the series for its leisurely pace. You should know that this is a slow burn going in, so do not expect fireworks every episode. As Troy Patterson put it in his The New Yorker review of the series, “Patricia Arquette’s excellence as Tilly is the strongest selling point of a show where the points of an unsurprising plotline are subordinate to a memorable intensity of performances.”
This was Stiller’s TV directing debut, and we might not have Severance if not for his experience working on Escape at Dannemora. He will return to the director’s chair for Severance season 2, which is set to debut on Apple TV+ in January 2025.
