In February 2020, Rian Johnson revealed a Hollywood secret that threatened to spoil each thriller film you will ever watch. Chatting with Vainness Truthful in a video breaking down his newest movie, the director of Star Wars: The Final Jedi and Looper divulged a delicate clue hidden in his twisty new whodunit, Knives Out.
“Apple, they let you use iPhones in movies, but — and this is very pivotal — if you’re ever watching a mystery movie, bad guys cannot have iPhones on camera,” Johnson stated. “Every single filmmaker who has a bad guy in their movie that’s supposed to be a secret wants to murder me right now.”
Within the years since, Johnson’s quote has develop into a decoder ring of types for eagle-eyed film and TV followers. Undecided if a personality is nice or evil? Look forward to the digital camera to point out you their smartphone and you will have your reply. His personal film bears this out, with the murderous Chris Evans being one of many solely Knives Out characters sending inexperienced bubbles to the group chat. This rule seemingly even predates the iPhone — again in 2002, WIRED identified that the heroes on 24 all use Mac computer systems, whereas the terrorists had been caught with PCs.
This brings us to Severance, an Apple TV+ present so chock-full of mysteries that we do not even know what state it takes place in (extra on that in a bit), not to mention who’s a hero and who’s a villain. So when protagonist Mark Scout (Adam Scott) was noticed holding an Android cellphone, it felt like an enormous break within the case. Was our main man truly a secret baddie? Nevertheless, a better take a look at the various smartphones in Severance reveals one thing far stranger: There are completely zero iPhones in Apple’s hit sci-fi present.
The explanation why Apple’s merchandise are completely absent from the present is unclear, however what this absence reveals is probably much more attention-grabbing than one spoilery Easter egg might ever be. As a substitute, the selection to take away iPhones from the world of Severance provides us a window into the present’s distinctive strategy to world-building and the way it’s used to create a collection in contrast to anything on TV.
It is value noting that not everybody in Severance owns a smartphone, Apple or in any other case. In Season 2, Irving (one in every of Mark’s severed colleagues performed by John Turturro) is seen making a name from a pay cellphone — bear in mind these? And again in Season 1, Mark’s former coworker Petey (Yul Vazquez) exhibits up at his home with a flip cellphone, which some followers recognized as a contemporary “dumbphone” referred to as the Easyfone Prime-A1.
Nevertheless, smartphones as we all know them do exist within the present’s universe. Mark’s insufferable brother-in-law Ricken (Michael Chernus) is proven utilizing a generic Android-style gadget in Season 1, and we have additionally seen Mark wielding the same gadget. When he is engaged on the Severed Ground, Mark’s boss Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman) carries a touchscreen satellite tv for pc cellphone harking back to the Android-powered Thuraya X5 Contact (presumably so he can get a sign from inside the firm’s top-secret underground workplaces).
Mashable High Tales
So if it is clear that smartphones exist in Severance‘s world, then why cannot there be iPhones? We reached out to Apple TV+ for remark, however the firm wasn’t in a position to present a solution in time for publication. Nevertheless, we have now a number of theories of our personal.
What does it imply that Apple TV+’s hit present has no iPhones?
The primary, and extra engaging, principle is that the creators of Severance purposefully eliminated all iPhones from their sci-fi universe to obscure the reality from its viewers. Apple is properly conscious that we find out about its iPhone-villain rule, so it is smart {that a} hit Apple TV+ present could be cautious to not give away any secrets and techniques by blindly following that very rule. If Mark (or, god forbid, Milchick) had an iPhone, it’d give away the goat (pun very a lot meant).
The second, extra possible principle is that the smartphones in Severance are designed to strengthen a bigger level: that the present takes place in a world acquainted however eerily totally different from our personal. Each little element appears designed to remind audiences that the story is about in a funhouse mirror reflection of our personal actuality, proper all the way down to the retro-futuristic computer systems that Mark and his coworkers use for his or her microdata refinement. One Season 1 screenshot shared on Reddit even reveals that the story takes place within the city of Kier, PE. That is proper, Severance created its personal fictional state, although the identical screenshot additionally features a reference to the real-life metropolis of Boston.
(Notably, one other second from Season 1 that is been dissected on Reddit is a shot of Mark’s license plate, which reveals he was born in 1978 and dates the license to 2020. So whereas Severance might not happen in our actuality, it does happen at across the similar time.)
It is also value noting that Severance is not the one alternate-reality sci-fi present on Apple TV+ compelled to cope with comparable points. The critically acclaimed (if considerably much less well-liked) For All Mankind started as an alternate historical past a few world the place the usS.R. beat America to the Moon and has since leapt ahead right into a dramatically totally different twenty first Century the place expertise and area exploration superior way more quickly — together with smartphones.
In 2022, the present’s third season, which takes place in an alternate model of the early ‘90s, featured a video cellphone designed to resemble Apple’s Newton gadgets. For old-school expertise geeks, it made for an enchanting look right into a parallel actuality the place Steve Jobs by no means killed off the Newton product line. The iPhone might not exist in For All Mankind (not less than not but), however one thing simply as attention-grabbing has taken its place.
As for Severance, whereas the present’s whole lack of iPhones raises loads of questions, we’re hesitant to learn too deeply into this one minor element, not less than for now. In spite of everything, as many have identified, the iPhone-villain rule is absolutely extra of a suggestion. For instance, the man in John Wick who kills the hero’s canine makes use of an iPhone — and it would not get extra evil than that.
Even Rian Johnson has poked enjoyable on the rule. In his Knives Out sequel, Glass Onion, one line of dialogue reveals that the film’s final villain would not have a cellphone in any respect. In the meantime, within the Oscar–successful class drama Parasite, director Bong Joon Ho ignores Apple’s rule totally. As a substitute, Bong provides his wealthy characters iPhones and his poor characters Androids, forcing the viewers to determine for themselves who’s the hero and who’s the villain.
Spoiler alert: In Parasite, the villain is capitalism. And, hey, perhaps the identical goes for Severance, too.
Severance Season 2 is now streaming on AppleTV+, with new episodes each Friday.
