How Adam Scott’s ‘Parks and Rec’ character predicted ‘Severance’
Throw a Music Dance Experience for Adam Scott, he can predict the future – sort of.
A theory is going viral among “Severance” fans that Adam Scott’s “Parks and Recreation” character, Ben Wyatt, “predicted” the current hit sci-fi drama that Scott now stars in years later.
In a viral post, one fan meme account pointed out that in the 2014 “Parks and Recreation” episode “Farmer’s Market,” Ben suggests to his wife, Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) that they refrain from talking about work outside of the office.
“Maybe it would be good to keep our home life and our work life separate. Like we only talk about work stuff when we’re at City Hall, like a firewall system,” he says.
The episode aired in 2014, but some are noticing that it’s eerily close to the premise of “Severance.”
One Reddit user shared the clip and captioned it, “Adam Scott’s character coming up with the idea of ‘Severance’ a decade ago.’”
“Stiller and Erickson are trolling the heck out of us all,” one Reddit user joked, referring to Ben Stiller, who executive produces the show and directs many episodes, and creator Dan Erickson.
“Dan Erickson STOLE HIS IDEA,” another fan joked about the “Severance” creator.
Currently airing Season 2 (new episodes out Fridays on AppleTV+), “Severance” is a sci-fi thriller following employees at a mysterious biotech company called Lumon.
Mark (Scott), Helly (Britt Lower), Dylan (Zach Cherry) and Irving (John Turturro) are all “severed,” which means they have chips in their brains separating their “home” selves from their “work” selves. Outside of the office, they have no memories of what they do at work, and vice versa.
The show has layers of mysteries about what Lumon is really doing.
Talking to The Post in January before Season 2 premiered, Scott, 51, said “I know essentially the answers” to many of the plot questions.
But even as wild theories fly around, viewers won’t find Scott visiting the Reddit boards.
“I’ve heard some of them,” he said. “But I don’t jump in and really explore them myself.”
“Parks and Recreation” is also a show about workers in an office, but it’s a comedy rather than a sci-fi mystery box show.
As “Severance” fans pointed out, in “Parks and Recreation,” Ben also makes a Claymation project that shows a Claymation man sitting up in bed – a visual that also appears in the “Severance” Emmy-winning opening credit sequence.
“Ben Wyatt finally did it!” another person joked on Reddit, referring to the Claymation.
In January, Cherry told The Post about the show’s mysteries, “We certainly know some things. And sometimes I’ll watch the show and go, ‘I didn’t even know that that was what we were doing!’”
Turturro, whose character Irving is in love with Burt, (played by Christopher Walken), told The Post: “Chris [Walken] has asked me at times like, ‘What the hell is going on here?’”
Tuturro added, “And I just go, ‘Listen — we’re into each other. Just say your lines to me, and I’ll say my lines to you.’ And sometimes he gets confused with the whole thing.”
