Apple TV’s Severance shows how deep capitalism’s rot goes

1. Take a moment to tally the things you’ve given up for a paycheck. Have you ever missed a birthday because of work? What about a wedding? A wedding? Has it ever felt like a choice?

2. Severance, The Apple TV Plus series, created by Dan Erickson follows workers at the Micro-Data Refinement section of fictional Lumon Industries. No one knows what that means, including the workers, who just parse through a matrix of numerals and delete the numbers that “look scary.” Their work is top secret, and all of them have undergone a procedure known as “severance,” their minds split in two. Once they hit the “select” button, their work-selves are unaware of their personal lives. This means that their work personas — dubbed “innies” in common parlance — are effectively new people, who only know life inside Lumon. The work day flows into the next with an elevator ride being all that separates them.

3. Now consider all the times you’ve ordered a coffee at Starbucks using words you wouldn’t use otherwise. The times you’ve referred to as a work of art as “content,” or “intellectual property.” The life hacks for getting through as many podcasts or books as possible. Every time you’ve promised to “circle back” on a conversation. You were taught to do this by someone.

Apple TV photo

4. Mark Scout (Adam Scott), is in mourning. His “outie” — the Mark that exists outside of Lumon — lost his wife, Gemma, in an accident. He explains that severance is an option to cope with the loss. It’s eight hours he doesn’t have to think about Gemma, or anything at all. He is not the only one who disagrees with him. TV pundits debate the benefits of the process. He is exhausted by it all. Lumon’s life becomes empty when he gets the severance he deserves.

5. The cultural heritage of work and its idiosyncrasies as well as their psychological warfare, has always included workplaces. Culture shapes art, but also work, with a stronger hand. It’s natural then, for them to intersect: in workplace comedies and procedurals, where the tension between life on and off the clock provides the conflict that fuels stories. There’s usually very little room between the two. These stories have become increasingly miserable for the characters.

6. The world of SeveranceKier Eagan is the king. Lumon founder Kier Eagan was the one who inspired the Employee Handbook (the only permitted literature on the site). This doubles as propagandistic Hagiography. The few art pieces on the walls are inspired by his life, and were created in-house by an Optics and Design team. The Micro-Data Refinement team (MDR), can go to the Hall of Perpetuity for a day of recreation. This wax museum celebrates Kier’s ancestors, who steered Lumon through American history. Its lobby is adorned with his words: “The remembered man does not decay.” It’s a cruel joke when lorded over the people who work for his company, people who cannot remember who they are. Maybe this is intentional. It isn’t to remind the employees of how they should treat their corporate masters; it is about how representatives of the corporation view them.

Photo by Apple TV Plus

7. They’re talking about the Great Resignation. There are national media debates arising from the aftermath of a shifting status-quo pandemic. Nobody can agree whether or not the two year lesson is that work has failed, or workers have been affected in any way. If the labor debate lacks clarity in the abstract, look a little closer and find it in the specifics, where labor unions are forming among the workers of one of the world’s biggest corporations and companies begin to abandon even the pretense of interest in worker safety as the pandemic slogs onward. The bosses of the world call this “going back to normal.” That normal, however, just seems to be one where no one asked questions.

8. How to Severance’s metaphor is that there really isn’t any. It’s just offering a logical explanation for the things we do to ourselves — and that are done to us — every day when we go to work. We didn’t start our lives talking to each other like that, we didn’t always look forward to menial office parties, we didn’t put our faith in tycoons and robber barons. They are learned behaviours, but you can adopt them. You’re gonna go far, kid.

9. The book of Genesis presents work as a consequence of humanity’s fallen nature. According to the Eden story, original intention was for the Earth to be a paradise that could sustain itself. But the curse of original sin is placed on the Earth. First humans get sentencing: God says to them that they will earn their bread by the sweat of their brows. It’s a passage better known for how it ends: “For dust you are and to dust you shall return.” Thus: We’re born to work, and then die. It is tragic. Others seem to believe otherwise.

10. The penultimate episode Severance’s first season, Mark and his three reports in Micro-Data Refinement — reformed corporate shill Irving (John Turturro), profane workhorse Dylan (Zach Cherry) and rebellious new hire Helly (Britt Lower) — have grown malcontent, fueled by, among other things, Dylan learning that Lumon can turn on their severed personas outside of the workplace when supervisor Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman) interrogates him in his outie’s home. Dylan discovers that Lumon has an outside child and takes everything from him for the first-time.

Photo by Apple TV Plus

11. Quitting a job takes courage. Many people quit when the job is impossible. Capitalist life offers less opportunities for the less privileged and more people can consider themselves to be privileged. When poverty and shelter are on the line, one doesn’t stop to consider their options. This is the hardest part about organizing a workplace — because even with a common opponent in a corporation holding tremendous power over the lives of its employees, inequity is not distributed equally. It is expected that some people will suffer greater indignities than others. The lucky ones who have their job protected need to convince those not to to take the risk of losing it. No one will join the fight unless it’s made personal.

12. You can also watch Severance on Apple TV Plus, the streaming service of one of the most powerful tech companies in the world, one that frequently announces new products on a stage livestreamed to thousands of adoring fans who know the company founders’ autobiography by heart. A modern company is not just there to offer a product or service, but also to develop. You can do it indefinitely with no clear purpose. The latest addition to a growing company is this streaming service. This goes beyond just making devices, but also manufacturing reasons to keep customers on the device. Entertainment services are now like insurance companies, collecting a monthly fee in exchange for the guarantee that you’ll be able to watch SomethingIf you feel the need. Maybe you’ll do that on a box you bought from the same company, after clocking out from a job at a business owned by them as well. And it’s fine, because who has the time, the energy, to voice the nagging feeling of how WrongThis is.

13. In the season finale, Dylan becomes the means by which the MDR team pulls off a thrilling heist of their outies’ lives. Hijacking the Severance control room, he uses the switchboard Milchick used on him to awaken his coworkers in the middle of their Outie’s lives. It’s an attempt to get the word out about how miserable they all are, with the added pressure of not knowing how long Dylan — who must stretch across the barricaded room to keep the switches on — will be able to keep the innies on the outside. He’s discovered eventually, and as Milchick tries to bribe him with perks as he breaks in, Dylan yells at him what he really wants: “I want to remember my fucking kid being born!” Here, Severance It feels less like a comedy.

14. Again, Severance isn’t really a metaphor. There’s no need for the corporate overreach it depicts, because we already submit to it every day. It’s not like we’ve had a choice.