People keep name-dropping them in the same sentence, and honestly, it's fair: both are slow-burn, tightly directed Apple TV+ dramas that use science fiction as a scalpel on the self. But peel back the shared mood and the two shows are arguing very different things.
Both are Apple TV+ originals, and both sit next to Silo in the platform's sci-fi lineup - worth knowing if you're planning a binge.
The Core Premise
Severance is about workplace control taken to its logical extreme: employees at Lumon Industries undergo a surgical procedure that splits their consciousness in two - one version that only exists at work with no memory of their outside life, and one that exists everywhere else with no memory of what happens on the severed floor. It's corporate dehumanization turned into literal science fiction.
Pluribus, created by Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul), starts from an almost opposite idea: a mysterious event makes nearly everyone on Earth suddenly, uniformly happy and content - connected in something close to a hive mind. Rhea Seehorn's Carol is one of the rare people left unaffected, resisting a world that's stopped resisting anything.
What They Actually Share
Both shows take a genuinely strange sci-fi premise and aim it at the same nerve: what's left of you once something else decides who you get to be. Severance does it with a scalpel, a corporate procedure that splits one person into two strangers who never meet. Pluribus does it with a wave, a hive mind that swallows the whole planet and leaves one woman standing outside it. Visually, both are patient enough to let a shot breathe instead of rushing to the next plot beat, and both let dry, off-kilter humor sit right next to real dread rather than picking one tone and sticking to it.
Where They Diverge
Severance is fundamentally a mystery box - its momentum comes from withheld information, and a big part of watching it is trying to figure out what Lumon is actually doing and why. Pluribus is less about mystery and more about tone and philosophy: the "what happened" is revealed fairly early, and the show is more interested in what it means to be the one person who refuses to be happy on someone else's terms.
Gilligan has also been explicit that Pluribus draws on the patient, character-first storytelling instincts he developed on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, combined with the bigger, stranger sci-fi ambition of his earlier work on The X-Files - a different creative lineage than Severance, which draws more from corporate satire and Kafka-adjacent bureaucratic horror.
Which Should You Watch First?
If you want mystery-box tension and a slow-building conspiracy, start with Severance. If you're more interested in a character study wrapped around a huge, strange premise - and you already love Gilligan's other work - Pluribus is the better entry point. Either way, you're not choosing between them for long: both are exactly the kind of show that rewards watching twice.
Keep Watching
- Silo: What's Actually Outside - the platform's other big hidden-truth mystery.