Severance’s creator explains the self-help book at the heart of the show

It would be easy to dismiss Ricken’s self-help book, You are you, in the first season of Quit – in fact, it happens a lot when the clone Ricken (Michael Chernus) left on the doorstep of his brother-in-law Mark’s house will shuffle from person to person. Without even getting a copy, Mark (Adam Scott) readily mocks Ricken’s attempts at philosophizing his world.

But Quit creator Dan Erickson not sure. To him, the book represents more than a silly joke. And in the end, he never wanted the book to be just a funny dub.

Erickson told Polygon in an interview with Zoom: “It’s clearly kind of a visionary kind of a self-help book. “[But] I don’t want it to be so silly that it feels out of place. And also with this knowledge that it will become a serious plot device later on. So we wanted to write something, out of context, that could reliably inspire people, and whose ideas under that fog could be of practical value to people. surname. ”

For him, Ricken’s idea represents an important flow of the show: making amazingly mundane. When Chernus’ buttery dub reminds us that “Your so-called boss may own the clock that mocks you on the wall, but, my friends, it’s yours now”, it immediately very silly and provocative. (Erickson’s favorite way of delivering Chernus is: “Machines are made of metal, but people are made of leather.”)

Image: Apple TV Plus

That fragile balance to a self-help guide resonates with how Chernus thinks of Ricken as a character. The first thing he shoots in 2020 is book covers, all flashy, “Dianetics, or like Tony Robbins,” and “cult hazy” in bright colors. (“Self-help might not even be right,” he says. “It looks like active help.”)

But the dubbing came later. While the script calls for someone to read You are you loudly, it’s not always clear who it is. When Chernus was finally assigned the task, he worked hard to balance Ricken’s voice, calling on his theater and Julliard background to enhance Ricken’s reading with a Mid-Atlantic accent. .

“I know a form, an art form, who believe that what they are doing is the most important thing in the world, and [has] Chernus said. “Of course there is something – arrogant and grandiose about it. But there’s also something amazing about someone being affected by their vision and view of the world. “

Bottom line: He doesn’t feel the need to mock the guy. Instead, he saw Ricken’s grandeur fit with the same kind of formalism as Irving or Cobell. And like so many other pieces in Quit, You are you found an audience among the elite, dazzled by his insight. (His favorite quote in the book is “The heart of the industry is dust.”)

For Erickson, it was a delightful irony that occurred in the writer’s room: “What if the person Mark admired more than anyone else became the father of the inner revolution?” But in the end, what he and Chernus enjoyed most was that the book reached the people it needed.

Image: Apple TV Plus

“There is a commentary on how context affects good art, good writing, or good media,” says Chernus, citing the media he used as a freshman in college. school trying to read aura or an adult trying to get through a pandemic. “I agree that it’s the kind of thing that sounds profound, but it’s not. But you can’t completely dismiss it if it’s doing something for the disadvantaged. If it’s doing something for them, who are we to say it’s objectively bad? ”

Perhaps the most surprising person it reaches is Milchick (Tramell Tillman), the cut-throat upstairs supervisor whose devotion manifests as a middle-management executor. A staunch one for the rules, even Milchick didn’t end up reporting a copy of You are you; instead he sat and read it.

When asked what that interest means to Milchick’s role in season 2Erickson deflects, noting that he’s seen people interpret his reading as a genuine interest or a chuckle.

“I guess that paradox sums it up pretty well,” says Erickson. After all, don’t we all get advice before we can actually hear it?