Severance is a mystery drama series streaming on Apple TV, directed and produced by Ben Stiller (Night At the Museum). It has been recognized above all for the intricacy of that mystery, leaving fans on the edge of their seats week after week since the first season released on February 18, 2022.
Though the series’ ability to entertain was undeniable, engrossing viewers in the work and personal lives of Mark S. (Adam Scott), Helly R. (Britt Lower), Irving B. (John Turturro), and Dylan G. (Zach Cherry), who have had their identities and memories surgically split into “innies” and “outies” while working at the fictional Lumon Industries. Its Season 1 finale left fans with more questions than answers about the cultish organization these people were involved with.
Released nearly three years later, Season 2 sought to rectify this mass confusion by unveiling the series’ true message: Beyond the ethical discussions of this fictional “work-life balance” and its direct consequences, there is more to the experience of each day than your least favorite part of it.
In the first season, the audience learned that the employees of Lumon’s severed floor are almost all there as a result of some kind of pain or hardship— an attempt to escape, whether they were consciously aware of it or not.
Mark’s trauma stems from the death of his wife Gemma, who passed away in a tragic accident, causing him to seek out an escape from the grief through the Severance procedure. Helly’s whole outer life and family is personally consumed by the cult’s beliefs, allowing her severed self to show some amount of otherwise buried independence. Irving appears to be dealing with some kind of PTSD from serving in the military, as well as being in the closet as an older man. Even Dylan is implied to be a severe workaholic, to such a degree as to sever so that he can better focus on his wife and child.
Severance is not necessarily advertised to these people for its memory compartmentalization, but it is certainly designed for it as Season 2’s many uncovered experiments would reveal.
For example, a so-called “pregnancy cabin” in the woods built for people to allow their severed self to undergo the pain of childbirth instead of dealing with it themself. For context, their severed-self would essentially be a blank slate human being with no idea of why they are alive within the liminal existence of the building, as they will immediately disappear back to their everyday selves upon leaving.
In fact, every aspect of the people’s outer lives begins to appear orchestrated in some way, even their time spent away from their “willing” jobs at Lumon. They live in an isolated town where every neighbor and place is a bit odd already, and the expanded details about the death of Mark’s wife Gemma clearly point the audience toward something malicious having happened because of Lumon.
Still it is the newer Romeo and Juliet-esq love of Mark and Helly’s innies which continues to transcend expectations. From within an office life limited to only eight hours of the day, they are able to feel the full depth of human emotion for one another, and in doing so, anecdotally prove that innies are completely separate people from their outies— people deserving of rights as they work and as they don’t. The right to experience both and to live freely.
To spoil anything about the ending of Severance’s second season would be a disservice to the many interweaving plot threads leading up to it and how they intentionally string along the viewer until the last possible moment of the finale. There is no map out of the Lumon labyrinth, and that is entirely intentional.
Yet, the innies continue to feel as vibrant and valuable as their outies— if not fuller —until the end. In fact, it is in that very confused, bruised struggle that love begins to bloom, for Mark, Helly, Irving and Bert alike, perhaps not due to the negativity of pain in particular, but the raw experience of living a life containing discomfort and beauty.
