If you can’t wait for season 2 of Severance, Netflix has Ben Stiller’s first thriller show

Later in January, one of the most intriguing science fiction shows of the 21st century finally returns. Nearly three years after its debut, DisconnectionThe second season of the series promises to solve at least some of the many mysteries this series poses about a sinister company that has the ability to surgically split the consciousness of its employees between work and home life (the innies and outies respectively ) and the lives of those people. cut off” employees.

Created by first-time showrunner Dan Erickson, Disconnection might never have come into existence if it hadn’t landed on the desk of Ben Stiller, who produced the series and directed six of the first season’s nine episodes. But while Stiller’s rise as a TV director came as a surprise to many – since when does Derek Zoolander make prestige television? – it wasn’t his first attempt. Just a few years earlier he directed another critically acclaimed series: Escape at Dannemora.

That show, which premiered on Showtime in 2018, is now streaming for the first time on Netflix. Not only is it perfect to watch when you’ve already completed your program Disconnection rewatching season 1, but it may also offer a hint at how Stiller and his cohorts plan to tackle some of the Disconnection‘s many mysteries as we head into Season 2.

Escape at Dannemora is a dramatized retelling of a real-life prison break from the maximum security Clinton Correctional Facility in 2015. The show has an extensive cast but focuses on three characters: Richard Matt (Benicio del Toro), a charming inmate who paints pictures for the prison guards in exchange for favors; David Sweat (Paul Dano), another inmate who teams up with Richard to escape; and Joyce “Tilly” Mitchell (Patricia Arquette), a prison worker who becomes romantically involved with both Richard and David. (For the record, the real prison official denied ever sleeping with either man and called Stiller “a motherfucker liar” in an interview with The New York Post.)

After an opening scene set after the prison break, in which Tilly is brought in by the police for questioning, the series jumps back in time and painstakingly reveals how the two men managed to escape from a prison known as Little Siberia New York is mentioned. winters are quite cold in Dannemora). Without spoiling too much, what makes Escape at Dannemora so interesting is the meticulous way the story unfolds. Over the course of several weeks, we see Richard and David carefully plan their escape while manipulating Tilly into helping them, only to make some incredibly bizarre decisions once they are finally free.

Directing all seven episodes (the finale runs 99 minutes, but Netflix splits it into two separate parts), Stiller carefully builds the world of his prison and the surrounding town by spending time with the people within it, often focusing on the most mundane aspects of their lives. Through the eyes of everyone from long-serving prisoners and new inmates to the prison guards and their families, we are plunged into this reality just in time to see Richard and David escape.

While Stiller once told IndieWire he never noticed the similarities between the two Escape at Dannemora And Disconnectionthey are not exactly subtle. Both Dannemora and the first season of Disconnection are, on some level, prison escape stories. The innie/outie divides into Disconnection also feels like an echo of the differences between life in prison, with its unique rules and customs, and the forbidden world outside the walls. To look Dannemorayou can see how Stiller has honed his skills in bringing unknown spaces to life, whether that’s a maximum security prison or a top secret underground office. He takes these closed-off settings and makes them feel wonderfully at home through precise, muscular camerawork and a focus on the characters needed to make the best of a situation they were forced into.

But perhaps the most obvious comparison is the way both shows handle their biggest twists. Disconnection was always a series built on mystery. That’s baked into Erickson’s script from page one, and Stiller (along with Season 1’s other director, Aoife McArdle) fills every frame with a sense of foreboding. From the overly clean offices where the innies work to the perpetually dark and cloudy surrounding city, everything is there Disconnection just seems a bit off. Escape at Dannemora doesn’t have that many twists to play with, but delivers at least one shattering revelation.

In DannemoraIn the penultimate episode of the series, we finally learn what Richard and David did to end up in prison in the first place. Stiller films these scenes in brutal, gory detail and makes us care about each victim before revealing Richard and David’s horrible and brutal crimes. After witnessing these horrific actions, their escape suddenly becomes a lot more difficult. (Something similar happens at the end of Disconnection‘s first season, in which the innies temporarily break free from their corporate prison and experience the lives of their outies, leading to several stunning revelations that redefine almost everything that has happened up to that point.)

In a way, that dramatic episode is of Dannemora tells us everything we need to know Disconnection (or at least almost everything – the goats are still a mystery). Because in a show where everyone feels like a blank slate, the biggest twist isn’t whether they’ll eventually escape their original existence or why they’re separated in the first place; it’s the possibility that the true natures of these characters will taint the versions of them we’ve come to know and love. As a storyteller, Stiller is clearly interested in the multifaceted nature of people, and how little we actually know about each other. When Disconnection Season 2 releases later in January, we’ll know a little more – whether we like it or not.

Escape at Dannemora is streaming on Netflix. Disconnection season 2 premieres on January 17.