If Severance isn’t a ‘130 IQ’ show? Is anything? 

The season finale of season 2 of the Apple TV show Severance has set the internet abuzz including this X post by the user ‘Circe’ (@vocalcry) who stated that “Severance is a 105 IQ person’s idea of a 130 IQ show.” 

Many commenters and quoters had takes on this statement ranging from agreement to wondering if any television show is really meant to be high IQ or if people are just delusional and pretentious. But the best question came from X user Sam who asked (seemingly ironically), essentially, if Severance isn’t high IQ than what is?

Well, Sam, The Conservative Critic is here to take this topic very seriously and answer that question in a very serious manner. Here are the Conservative Critic’s 130 IQ TV shows for smarty smart pantses to watch at their next salon. And note: there is not one show on this list I haven’t seen and enjoyed because I actually am a genius. 

1. HBO’s Entourage

There’s no need to improve on what Clarence for Georgia had going here. Entourage is Aristotle for TV. It’s actually an allegory for eudaimonia. 

2. The CW’s Reign

It’s Mary Queen of Scots in prom dresses set to a Lumineers inspired playlist and I’m pretty sure it’s the most historically accurate depiction of events that exists on the silver screen. Now, historical knowledge isn’t a measure of IQ but only someone with high intellectual prowess could understand the complex and subversive undertones of the show’s themes. To a 105 IQer, it’s just a show about a fascinating teenage girl in history told from the POV of a teenage girl, to a 130 IQer it’s actually about nuclear policy in the modern day Balkans. 

3. ABC and the WB’s Sabrina the Teenage Witch 

Sabrina the Teenage Witch dared to challenge the idea of the occult and through a carnival mirror provided all of us the ability to find the comedy in our own darkness.Talking cat, Salem Saberhagen, who is actually an imprisoned machiavellian forced to live a life of domesticity, accurately predicted and satirized the demasculinization of American males and the feminism crisis of today.

4. Nickelodeon’s Jimmy Neutron 

You’d really need a very low IQ to not understand this one. Jimmy Neutron is a genius. The show is for geniuses. 

5. ABC’s Quantico 

Quantico (or as I called it, Hot FBI) is one of the most politically astute episodic serials of all time. Truly no other show has dared to ponder what it would be like if the deep state was operating in as plain of sight as humanly possible. It’s the ethics question of the ages. A lower IQ show might have FBI agents in plain clothes, unassuming. But Quantico achieves true mastery by having the flashiest possible “secret” agents because really: should we have secrets? Or should matters of national security be in full glam and plain view?

6. The CW’s Gilmore Girls 

Gilmore Girls is a subversive tale about how the elite are critical for society and that efforts to reject the utilitarianism of wealth are disingenuous and self-serving. 130 IQs got that right away.

7. Food Network’s Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives

If you don’t understand that Guy Fieri’s nationwide taste test of America’s homiest food establishment is literally Dante’s Inferno then this list isn’t for you. Flavortown is the third circle. Arguably also the second circle. 

8. USA’s Suits

Once again, the main character is a genius so right there you have it. But also the leading lady, Megan Markle..err Megan “Sussex” in real life convinced the most famous eligible bachelor in the world that she had never heard of him, married into a royal family and then pissed off the entire world by just being herself. Those are the actions of a true savant. Her performance in this show is only for those who can truly appreciate the artistry and craft of professional pretend.

9. CBS’s Two and a Half Men 

Which one of them is half of a man? If you think you know the answer, you haven’t begun to think of the question. 

10. Freeform’s Pretty Little Liars 

It’s Lolita. It’s Prometheus. It’s Macbeth. It’s hard to overstate the cultural gravitas that Pretty Little Liars brings/brought to households across America. The very soul of life and death is captured as innocents are entangled in carnality far beyond their cognitive and developmental grasp. Only….perhaps it isn’t? Perhaps as was explored in Frankenstein before, we are born into this world knowing we are killers. Did you know perfume requires a base note that must speak to our most primal interests? Defecation. Dirt. Decay. Pretty Little Liars knew that.