Before Severance, Adam Scott And Britt Lower Starred In A Canceled Sitcom

On the hit Apple TV+ series “Severance,” TV megastar Adam Scott plays Mark, a man grieving the loss of his wife. As a means to cope, he accepts a job at the mysterious Lumon Corporation, a strange corporate edifice on the edge of town. Lumon has developed a technique that allows it to “sever” some of its employees; that is, employees have a computer chip implanted in their brains that separates their memories of the outside world from when they’re off the clock and their memories of the workday. It’s the ultimate in work-life balance. Outside Mark, his “Outie,” is depressed and struggling, but Inside Mark, his “Innie,” is chipper and positive.

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At the beginning of “Severance,” Innie Mark is introduced to Helly (Britt Lower), a new co-worker. Helly is unhappy with the idea of severance and initially tries to escape the Lumon offices. Helly’s Outie, however, keeps walking back in. Over the course of the episodes that follow, Innie Mark and Innie Helly begin developing a friendship and then a romance. They also start investigating just what it is that Lumon does. (What on Earth, for instance, is “macrodata refinement” and why are they doing it? And why are goats being kept in one of the offices in the Lumon building?) Of course, “Severance” takes many twists and turns along the way, in time revealing a lot more about Helly’s Outie.

Fans of “Severance” may be surprised to learn that Scott and Lower have appeared together on a TV series before. From 2017-2018, Scott and Craig Robinson co-starred in the short-lived — and not terribly well-remembered — Fox sitcom “Ghosted,” a comedic riff on “The X-Files.” On “Ghosted,” Scott played a paranormal investigator named Max Jennifer, with Britt Lower portraying Max’s often-unseen wife Claire.

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The premise of “Ghosted” would have functioned well as a typical “X-Files” knockoff, even if it wasn’t a comedy. Robinson played Leroy Wright, a former cop who is recruited by the mysterious Bureau Underground to investigate aliens, ghosts, monsters and the like. He is a down-to-Earth skeptic. Scott’s Max Jennifer is a former professor (like in “Severance”) who recently lost his wife (like in “Severance”) and is invited to join this new mysterious underground sci-fi organization as a means to cope (like in “Severance”). Scott and Robinson are the Mulder and Scully analogs. This time, however, Scott’s wife is not killed in a car wreck, but likely abducted by aliens.

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Lower only appeared in three episodes of “Ghosted” as Max’s long-lost wife, Claire. When the pair met again, however, it was not a loving reunion. Claire, it seems, may be possessed by an alien. At the very least, she slammed Max’s head into a table and implored him to stop searching for her.

Those aren’t the only fun connections between “Ghosted” and other Adam Scott projects. Indeed, one of Scott’s other “Ghosted” co-stars, Ally Walker, played his wife on the short-lived series “Tell Me You Love Me.” It seems that Scott has reunited with his on-screen wives a lot. He also starred opposite Lizzy Caplan on his hit show “Party Down,” and then later played her will-they-or-won’t-they-get-back-together ex-boyfriend in Leslye Headland’s 2012 film “Bachelorette.” Oh yes, and Scott’s real-life wife Naomi served as a producer on “Ghosted.” Scott is surrounded by wives both real and fictional.

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Likewise, on “Severance,” it turns out there’s much more to Outie Mark’s wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman) than initially meets the eye. Meanwhile, in addition to Innie Mark’s romance with Helly, his Outie goes on dates with a character named Alexa (Nikki M. James). If movies and television would have us believe it, Adam Scott is the world’s most desirable man. Solana Token Creator