It should come as no surprise — if you read my post from a few days ago, warning that this week’s Severance episode would be one giant WTF — that fans of the hit Apple TV+ drama have responded to Episode 7 of Season 2 by collectively spiraling in the break room following its release tonight. Not that you can blame them. The storyline was emotionally devastating, the cinematography utterly breathtaking, and every answer seemed to raise new questions.
The episode, titled Chikhai Bardo, was enough to leave many fans not only bewildered but convinced they’d just watched one of the most jaw-dropping hours of television ever.
I’ll have a separate post recapping the highlights of this week’s episode, which I had to watch twice not only because there’s just so much that got packed into it — but because it made for astonishingly great TV. Recapping the highlights, however, only accomplishes so much; here, I thought it would leave you with a visceral sense of just how big this series is (and what a hardcore fandom it has) by collecting some of the best online reactions from viewers who took to Reddit and X to share their initial, immediate takes on the episode.
My favorite was the Reddit user who huffed in the r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus community: “f—k you, and i’ll see you next week.” (Same, honestly). On a related note, another Redditor clearly traumatized by tonight’s gut-wrenching Gemma-focused story, thundered about Severance’s director and creator: “BEN STILLER AND DAN ERICKSON YOU WILL ANSWER FOR YOUR CRIMES.”
The disbelief that Zoolander star Ben Stiller could be behind something as dark and profound as Severance has been something of a running joke throughout the series — but never more so than after this episode. “Bro how did the guy who made Zoolander make this” was one of the most upvoted Reddit comments of the night, reflecting just how much the show continues to shock and awe.
It’s important to note, however, that while Stiller is an executive producer, a major creative force behind the show, and the director of several episodes, he did not, in fact, direct Chikhai Bardo. The director of the episode that sent the Severance fandom into complete meltdown was actually cinematographer Jessica Lee Gagné, and she earned universal praise for her haunting visuals and seamless transitions. “Please don’t let this be the only episode Jessica Lee Gagné directs for this show,” another Redditor from that same community raved. “The transitions and cinematography were absolute masterpieces.”
Added another: “And the Emmy award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series… Jessica Lee Gagné.”
My Threads feed is basically all Severance all the time now, and the app’s little red notification dot basically stayed lit for me all night. “Chikhai Bardo was one of the most unnerving (but beautiful) episodes of television (not just Severance) I’ve ever watched and Jessica Lee Gagné’s incredible cinematography and direction demands recognition,” one Threads user wrote. “We’re witnessing a television series raise the bar so far beyond… and I don’t mean just for TV. Most films don’t begin to approach what’s happening here. I think it may be since Hitchcock that something has executed so completely on every level of the art.”
Another Threads post that caught my eye: “The latest severance episode dropped my jaw so many times that it’s broken now THIS IS A MASTERPIECE. The flashback scenes that feel like they are shot on film, the stop motion-esque timelapse, the disorienting segments, the reveals that leads to more questions and the entire vibe of the episode was so top tier cinema man. I wish to make something like this someday. Something so creative for creativity’s sake, story and characters soo deep and intertwined that it makes you crazy.”
Beyond the technical brilliance, it was the episode’s emotional gut punches that truly broke viewers. Fans were particularly shaken by the nightmarish, Lynchian sequences that saw Gemma (Dichen Lachman) trapped in a series of increasingly surreal scenarios, from simulated airplane turbulence to an eerie Christmas tableau.
On X, one user used a photo of President Biden with the caption “it was like fifteen 9/11s” to describe how tonight’s episode felt. From my initial cursory observation, though, it was the Reddit fans who appeared the most shaken: “That was the best episode of television i have ever seen. all across the board. i am sobbing.”
Perhaps the most relatable reaction of all came from Redditor who simply noted: “Hey guys, just me checking in for my weekly HOLY F—K.”
