If You Love 'Severance,' Watch (or Revisit) This Hit Series Full of Plot Twists

Few comedies have the guts to take on life's biggest questions — but when they do, they tend to be really good. With Apple TV+'s Severance finally making its return for Season 2, now is also the perfect time to revisit another series with twists and surprisingly dark themes — or watch it for the first time, if you somehow missed out on it before. NBC's The Good Place might seem different at initial glance, but there are actually a lot of similarities between the two series.

Structurally, the shows certainly differ. While The Good Place is a sitcom, Severance is an absurd, satirical dark comedy. The Good Place often uses flashbacks to tell simultaneous story lines in different timelines, while Severance often switches back and forth between its characters' "innie" and "outie" experiences. While the characters in The Good Place meet a fate that the characters of Severance have yet to (at least, not as of this writing), the two shows play with similar themes, including a preoccupation with philosophy. Oh, and for what it's worth, Severance star Adam Scott appears in The Good Place as a demon named Trevor. Coincidentally, he and Kristen Bell have now played adversaries on Veronica Mars, Party Down, Parks and Recreation, in addition to The Good Place. Maybe this means Severance should be next?

‘Severance’ and ‘The Good Place’ Each Have a “Core Four”

The Good Place follows Eleanor (Bell), Chidi (William Jackson Harper), Jason (Manny Jacinto), and Tahani (Jameela Jamil) as they navigate an at-first idyllic afterlife that feels off in a way they can't immediately define. They're seemingly trapped. The higher ups, Michael (Ted Danson) and Janet (D'Arcy Carden), are alarmingly chipper but more than likely nefarious. There are big twists and episodes that completely rewrite the characters' circumstances that, without giving anything away, keep things from getting boring.

Similarly, on Severance, four Lumon Industries employees, Mark (Scott), Irving (John Turturro), Dylan (Zach Cherry), and Helly (Britt Lower), are trapped in a seemingly idyllic space. The higher-ups, Ms. Cobel (Patricia Arquette), Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman), and later Ms. Huang (Sarah Bock), are chipper in a way that's even more unsettling. The twists and reversals in Severance come at a different pace so far, but they're just as delicious. There isn't a 1:1 comparison between the groups on Severance and The Good Place. But the quartets on both shows are trying to figure out their purpose and identity in disparate, desperate circumstances.

Hell Is Bureaucracy in Both 'Severance' and 'The Good Place'

At the beginning of Severance, Cobel says that "the good news is Hell is just the product of a morbid human imagination. The bad news is whatever humans can imagine, they can usually create." That Hell on Earth is a sinister office building where human beings outsource work to newborn personalities who aren't allowed to sleep, have families, or even see the sun.

In The Good Place, Hell, a.k.a. "The Bad Place" is an office with cubicles. The bureaucracy is more literal. There's also a neutral zone on The Good Place, a DMV-esque accounting department with an office space that's even more like the severed floor. Even the titular "good place" has an ineffectual committee who prefers brainstorming and paperwork to actual change. "The Titanic is sinking," Michael says in one episode, "and they're writing a strongly worded note to the iceberg."

‘Severance’ and ‘The Good Place’ Were Both Inspired by 'Lost'

Both Severance and The Good Place are like a "comedy Lost" in their own special ways; The Good Place creator Mike Schur referenced the long-running Fox drama's spiritual themes and twists as a guide, per Variety. He even took Lost co-showrunner Damon Lindelof to lunch while developing the series in order to pick his brain. According to The Ringer, Severance co-creator Dan Erickson is also a noted fan of Lost — which has drawn comparisons between the two shows, for better or worse, since the beginning. The way Severance's mysteries have fans theorizing around a proverbial watercooler week after week feels a lot like Lost's heyday.

Additionally, both shows have referenced Lost with hidden Easter eggs. The iconic Lost sequence "4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42" has showed up on both series. The old-timey computers on Severance are similar to the analog technology on the Lost island. Characters on The Good Place leave each other messages that bear resemblance to Daniel Faraday's "if anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be my constant" note on Lost.

As for the romance department, many of the couples on The Good Place are separated from each other because they've had their memories erased. Sound familiar? Burt and Irving, Mark and Helly R. and/or Mark and Gemma have a similar problem in Severance. They have to overcome those obstacles to find each other. It's just as angst-producing as the obstacles we experience. You'll have to watch The Good Place to learn who those couples are, however. Just like Severance, there's nothing like watching this incredible series for the first time; we wouldn't want to ruin it.

The Good Place is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.