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Workplace comedies have had extreme success on television for years. Some shows, likeThe Office,Brooklyn 99, andParks and Recreationpoke fun at the mundane aspects of typical office jobs in corporate America and low-scale government agencies, while also conveying insightful emotion into the people who are employed in such departments.
Now, what about a workplace series that is able to exhibit the exploitation of employees at corporations on a much deeper level, while still conveying laugh-at-loud, somewhat darker humor, and evena great deal of science fiction? That precisely describesApple TV+’s 2022 series,Severance.
RELATED:Severance: Exploring Parallels With The Stanley Parable
Severancetakes place in the near future when employees at certain corporations have the option to completely separate their work and home lives with a brain implant that severs their work memories completely from their home self, and vice versa. A lot happens in season 1 of the series and there are many revelations that gradually build on each other as the season goes on, making way for a very exciting and highly anticipated season 2.
Cast
Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Zach Cherry, John Turturro, Tramell Tillman, Patricia Arquette, Dichen Lachman, Christopher Walken, Jen Tullock
97%
86%
Where to Watch
Apple TV+
In season 1 ofSeverance, we are introduced to the four main characters –Mark, Dylan, Irving, and the newly hired Helly– who work for a company called Lumon Industries. The premise of the show is that it takes place in the near future when a new experimental technology called “severance” allows for employees to undergo surgery where a brain implant allows for their work and home-life memories to be completely separate. In other words, their work and home-self are virtually two different people, having no memory of whom the other is and what they do with their time either at work or at home. The terms they use to differentiate their two selves are"innie" (work self) and “outie” (home self). With the implant, their outie arrives at Lumon, boards the elevator to go down to the Severed Floor (located just above the basement), and during the elevator trip, their brain switches to the consciousness of their innie.
The season begins with a change in office personnel. Mark and the others work in the Macrodata Refinement department of Lumon, and the administrators inform everyone that their department head, Petey, has resigned, and Mark will be promoted to department head. In addition, they have hired a new employee for the Macrodata Refinement department, Helly R (the innies have no knowledge of their actual last name, only the initial). While Mark, Dylan, and Irving have been adjusted to being severed for some time already, Helly initially struggles to come to terms with the life her outie has chosen for her.
There are many instances when Helly tries to rebel against Lumon and her outie, making multiple escape attempts, writing notes to her outie (which goes against Lumon’s policy), and even trying to take her own life. Eventually, she seemingly accepts her life as an innie as her outie insists she stays working at Lumon. At Lumon, the employees in the Macrodata Refinement department are unaware of what their job is for the company, as they merely work with random number grids in which they have to sort out groups of numbers in various folders based on nothing but a feeling within themselves. They also have no interaction with the other departments, and only have contact with Harmony Cobel (head of the Severed Floor), Milchick (supervisor of the Severed Floor), and Ms. Casey (wellness director of the Severed Floor).
Initially, the only outie we’re introduced to is Mark’s, who is a widower who lives alone, and is only close with his sister and her husband, Devon and Ricken, and sometimes converses with his neighbor, Mrs. Selvig. Selvig, however, is actually Cobel, but Mark has no idea because of the severance. As the season progresses, sketchy things begin happening inside and outside the workplace. Petey finds Mark outside Lumon, and informs him that he is undergoing a procedure called “reintegration”, which is a process in which a severed person can regain their memories from their innie’s life. Meanwhile, Mark and the other innies are discovering other departments at Lumon, like the Optics and Design department and even one where a single person israising a litter of baby goats.
Soon, both their innies and outies become suspicious of what it is they actually do at Lumon, and they fear they are being severely exploited and mistreated. At one point, Dylan steals a random instructional card from Lumon, and his innie is woken up by Milchick in Dylan’s home to interrogate him thanks to a protocol called the Overtime Contingency, which allows for administrators to activate the Severance chip outside of work. Things begin to unravel as the employees of the Macrodata Refinement department investigate more and more, eventually devising a plan to get closer to the truth.
How Does Severance Season 1 End?
After Petey dies from a brain aneurism because of the reintegration process, Mark is introduced to the Lumon surgeon, Regabhi, who is responsible for both the severance procedure, and the reintegration, as she changes her perspective on severance as a whole and tries to get Mark’s outie to work with his innie to expose Lumon’s evil intentions.
With the Lumon higher-ups becoming suspicious of the disobedience, they fire Cobel because of her failure to keep her employees in line, and Ms. Casey is mysteriously sent to the level below the Severed Floor, not seen again for the remainder of the season. Finally, the Macrodata Refinement department comes up with a plan to get to the bottom of things: they decide to enact the Overtime Contingency Protocol themselves, with Dylan volunteering to stay behind at Lumon to pull the switches that enable the process.
Once Dylan activates the protocol, Irving’s innie wakes up to discover his outie paints and has already been investigating Lumon for some time, Mark wakes up at a get-together for his sister and brother-in-law, and Helly wakes up at a Lumon convention. Helly discovers that she is actually adescendant of Lumon’s founder, Kier Eagan, and her becoming severed was a propaganda stunt for pro-severance, a highly controversial procedure in the real world.
In their awakenings, Irving’s innie visits the houses of his colleagues, including Burt G from Optics and Design, whom he had a romantic relationship with at Lumon, and Helly goes on stage at the convention only to blast Lumon and expose their less than ethical treatments of their employees. Meanwhile, Mark discovers a photo of himself with what appears to be his late wife. However, his innie recognizes his wife as someone whom he worked with, Ms. Casey.
As these three instances happen simultaneously, Milchick tackles Dylan back at Lumon, which forcibly turns off the Overtime Contingency Protocol. But just before their outies are brought back, Mark brings the photo out to show the other people at the party, and he shouts:
She’s alive!
Dylan releases the levers, and Irving, Helly, and Mark’s outies are brought back.Severanceseason 1 ends with Mark’s distraught expression fading as his innie recedes back into his consciousness, and the audience is left with nothing but anticipation for what comes next.
