For those who might see some noticeable similarities between a key concept in Severance and The Electric State, it bears noting that the graphic novel by Simon Stålenhag (which the latter is based on) first came out in 2018, whereas Severance didn’t arrive onto the scene until 2022. Besides, it’s not as though it hasn’t occurred to many a person how much “easier” life would be if they could have a “separate self,” so to speak, to do their dirty work (a.k.a. just plain work) while their “normal self” gets to have all the fun. Soon into Anthony and Joe Russo’s (a.k.a. the Russo brothers) adaptation of The Electric State, co-written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, that concept comes heavily into play.
But before that, Markus and McFeely (who previously wrote the scripts for three other Russo brothers films, including Netflix’s The Gray Man…though most are probably more interested in the Avengers movies) give some background on how the war between humans and robots first began. Hence, setting the stage at the start of the 1990s and wielding MTV News to describe how a Saturday morning cartoon starring a robot named Cosmo has become the latest casualty of the “cancel culture” (before it had that name) against robots. With “the fierce anti-robot sentiment sweeping the nation,” Kurt Loder’s indelible voice details the demise of the cartoon, while showing clips from it wherein Cosmo shouts catchphrases like, “Always remember, Kid Cosmo’s your pal!”
As part of the revisionist history that’s quickly turned into a standard of The Electric State’s narrative, a subsequent news report gives context for the initial development of robots as having been designed by Walt Disney for the opening of his theme park in 1955. From there, the potential for the robots to be mass produced and used for other, less “entertainment”-oriented tasks became apparent. And, as the Discovery Channel special tells it, “They quickly became the backbone of the global workforce, doing all the jobs that humans didn’t want to do.” Of course, the timely correlation to the increasing rise of AI is rather obvious. Except that most non-film character humans might tell you that they would actually prefer to have access to the jobs that AI is currently in the process of replacing.
The Electric State also addresses the long-standing fear associated with AI and robots, which is that they’ll quickly become “too smart.” In other words, they’ll get wise to the fact that they’re being exploited solely for human benefit (and only a few humans at that—the ones getting extremely wealthy off non-human work as they allow most other humans to starve to death from the lack of jobs and/or a livable wage). This realization is told through the Discovery Channel voiceover, “The day eventually came when they grew tired of the lives we assigned them.”
Hence, the inevitable robot uprising that started a war in this alternate version of the 90s. An alternate version that would find Kid Rock worth mentioning on MTV News at this point in time, with Loder’s voice remarking, “In Detroit, Kid Rock threw a party celebrating the defeat of the Robot Equality Coalition.” All in keeping with the “rapper’s” right-wing views, but not so much the level of clout he would have had in the early to mid-90s (sure, he might have had a couple of albums out, but none of them put him on the mainstream map like 1998’s Devil Without a Cause). Bill Clinton, on the other hand, well, his clout was undeniable at the time the robot-human war would have ended.
Thus, as the backstory continues to unfold in describing how the “present day” came to be, the Russo brothers engage in a bit of Forrest Gump-inspired visual manipulation, with Bill Clinton offering some sound bites about the war, and later shaking hands with tech mogul Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci) while standing next to a Mr. Peanut robot (voiced by Woody Harrelson, occasionally sounding, quelle surprise, like Matthew McConaughey) as the three shake hands on a so-called peace treaty. But all that the treaty does is relegate robots to a no man’s land billed as the “exclusion zone” (covering a hundred thousand miles of the American Southwest).
Meanwhile, Ethan Skate has found a way to use the technology he wielded during the war (called the Neurocaster), which allows humans to upload their minds into a robot they can control. This being how the humans managed to suddenly have the “firepower,” so to speak, to combat robots and actually manage to subdue them. And this is where the Severance aspect of the plot comes in. Because, essentially, they have an “innie” self by being able to upload their mind into a robot. Except it doesn’t need to go underground to do any unwanted work. And yes, the notion of humans existing in a barely present state as they spend most of their lives in a virtual reality is an overt nod to how that’s essentially what’s happened with the constant reliance on smartphones for being “entertained”/generally entering the matrix.
During another expository news special (this one called All Access with Madeline Vance [played by, randomly enough, Holly Hunter]) clearly inspired by 90s programs like 20/20, it’s explained that, “The Neurocaster network allows your mind to be in two places at once. Work and play at the same time.” While Madeline Vance tries to posit that Skate is encouraging escapism (eskateism?), he, instead, would like to think he’s actually giving humans the kind of freedom they deserve—by quite literally imprisoning their minds.
In fact, the entire reason the Neurocaster network can even run is because of the imprisonment of one majorly intelligent mind in particular: Christopher Greene’s (Woody Norman). Who happens to be Michelle Greene’s (Millie Bobby Brown) younger brother, and the reason that Cosmo the robot has come to seek her out at her abusive foster father Ted Finister’s (played by, again randomly, Jason Alexander) house. At first fearful, Michelle realizes not only that she’s far better off with a robot than Ted, but also that, somehow, some way, her brother’s consciousness is inside that robot and has come to get her so that they can “team up” (like Cosmo, Christopher can only speak in the latter’s catchphrases) and find a man with glasses who is also a doctor. These being the lone details Christopher can provide about how to find the help they need to get his mind back into his body. A body that is being held captive in none other than the Sentre headquarters.
Of course, Michelle doesn’t know any of this just yet, only that she must get to the exclusion zone to figure out what to do next…with a little assistance from a “kooky” veteran named John D. Keats (Chris Pratt). The reason she homes in on this location? Because Cosmo/Christopher tells her that’s where she can find the only man who knows where Christopher’s real body is, the man with glasses a.k.a. Dr. Clark Amherst (Ke Huy Quan, another big-name addition to the cast). Yes, Amherst harbors a dark secret about what really happened after the Greene family was hospitalized in the wake of a car crash (due to, what else, a deer in the middle of the road).
Before unearthing the full truth, however, Michelle and John (who has his own robot in tow, albeit with a more homoerotic rapport—almost as though to ensure audiences wouldn’t get the wrong idea about his dynamic with Brown’s character) go on an odyssey, of sorts, leading them to the emblem that always signals the demise of Western civilization: a dead mall. Which is where many of the robots, including Penny Pal (Jenny Slate), Popfly (Brian Cox) and Perplexo (Hank Azaria) spend their time in the exclusion zone. And yes, the mall moment feels like a callback to Stranger Things’ third season, with the Starcourt Mall as the main backdrop. Displayed in all its 1980s heyday glory. For that was when the mall was at the peak of its powers. That and, well, the mid-90s (cue the many scenes of Cher Horowitz at Westside Pavilion). But not this revisionist version of it.
A version where, long before George W. Bush or 9/11 or the 2008 financial crisis or the Orange Creature currently taking up residence in the White House, Skate felt obliged to say to Colonel Marshall Bradbury (Giancarlo Esposito, getting an easy paycheck for maintaining a stoic expression the entire time), the man who commanded the Sentre robots during the war, “Our world is a tire fire floating on an ocean of piss. Always has been. Christopher gives humanity the chance to leave all that suffering behind.”
To this, Bradbury retorts, “In my experience, suffering and life kinda go hand in hand.” That much is definitely true for both the Russo brothers and Markus and McFeely, who have suffered the weight of some rather unjust criticism lobbed against The Electric State (e.g., such review titles as: “Netflix’s The Electric State Is a $320 Million Piece of Junk,” “1990s Robot Apocalypse? As If!” and “Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt Tangle With Robots in the Russo Brothers’ Busy, Boring Netflix Sci-Fi”).
Then again, maybe they’ve sidestepped that sting without having to upload their minds elsewhere at all. Because, in the end, The Electric State still shot to number one on Netflix. More to the point, it shot to the top in forty-seven countries. For, in the end, Michelle’s beseeching message (recorded on VHS) to the masses will go unheard: “We got so used to [the Neurocasters (a term that might as well sub in for smartphones)] that we thought that’s what real life was. But it’s not. Real life…it’s contact. It’s you and me. We’re flesh and bone, yeah, but we’re also electricity. And when we hug and laugh and hold hands and argue, my particles stay with you, and yours stay with me… But that can’t happen if you close yourself off.” This said to a viewer that will likely move on to the next binge watch as they engage in their second screen behavior while another show or movie comes on.
Because, tragically, the last time someone could truly take a message like Michelle’s to heart was in the 90s. Whether the “real” version of it or the one The Electric State presents.
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