Summary#

This weekend I’ve finished watching Severance Season 2, and there is a lot to unpack after the season finale. Before I dive in deep on my opinions and theories, I’d like to first give a no-spoiler summary on my thoughts:

The show premise is amazing and a fresh take. Even though on surface it’s a rather simple theme, the show is able to flesh out some very interesting topics and spark some debate on the hypothetical severance procedure.

The second season felt a little below the first one for me and the season 2 finale definitely left me thinking for a while before I could form an opinion.

It’s a really good show with a great production that gives us some food for thought.

Now entering the Spoiler’s Zone

Premise#

First off, I love the show premise. When I’ve heard about Severance my first thought was: “This is great, I can live my life to it’s full potential without having to be troubled by working”. Of course, as the show will present during it’s first season, that was a very naive vision.

The heart of the show is the severance procedure, in which a consenting* human will receive a chip implant on their brain which will separate their work memories with their personal life memories.

The main debate is: even though it’s one body, there are 2 different tenants living on it:

  1. The outtie, which agreed to the severance procedure and lives the “real life”
  2. The innie, which is the employee and lives only during company hours

Right in the first episode with the introduction of Helly R. we have the first hot take on severance: The work personality is bound to the company, meaning the only life they’ll ever know is work. In a way they are a slave to their outties, working their entire life so their outties can live a comfortable life.

Not to jump straight to the S2 finale but some Innies don’t think that’s a problem. innie Mark S claims that since that’s the life they have, they get used to it and find ways to live around it.

The Duality on Severance#

As I like to think in computer terms, I imagine severance being similar to a computer with a disk that has 2 partitions. When you get to the severed floor the computer shuts down, clear the RAM and start running on the other partition.

From this point of view I would assume that the Innie and Outtie are the same person, that is, it’s the same hardware with just different memories. But computers aren’t consicous and early on we get signs that they aren’t really the same person.

One thought I had while watching severance is how much our memories impact us and maybe how different we become as we make new memories and forget old ones. And perhaps the way we change as time passes is similar to the severance procedure, the only difference is that we can’t swap based on location and on demand, rather we swap naturally over time. I’m definitely not the same person I was 10 years ago

The show hints at this duality multiple times and in boths ways:

  • Innie Mark feels attracted to Helly instead of Ms Casey
  • Innie Dylan has a different personality than Outtie Dylan (which generates another debate relating the latter’s wife)
  • Helly tricks most of the MDR into thinking it’s her innie

Ultimately what I’ve considered was the conversation between Innie and Outtie Mark and how they feel about it. To me it’s pretty clear that most Innies and Outties see them as different people, and at the end of the day is what I chose to believe.

Another interesting debate the show presents is about consent. The outtie is the one who decides to sever, the innie has no choice but to file a resignation request if they are unhappy at the workplace. At the end of the day, this request has to be approved by the outtie, which clearly shows that in that universe the person who has to give consent is the outtie and not the innie.

This allows Lumon to exploit their workers as much as possible as long as the outtie doesn’t get to know that. We see that throughout the show in how limiting lumon is with their employees:

  • They cannot create maps of the office
  • They are discouraged from interacting with other departments
  • They have this weird cult to their founder Kier which all employees are indoctrinated into
  • They cannot communicate with the outside world

I very much would like to see this debate of consent between Innie and Outtie on the next season. I hope they expand and flesh out scenes like both Mark S’ talking.

The End Goal#

At the end of season 2 we learn about the mysterious and important work the MDR is doing: They are segmenting a test subject tempers (which according to Ms Cobel and their weird cult are the building blocks of a person). The test subject in question is Gemma, Mark Scout’s (presumed dead) wife. At the end Mark completes 25 files and each file corresponds to a different severed personality.

Now why are they doing this? The show hints a few times that Kier’s objective was to end all pain and suffering. We see a practical example of this when Devon has her daughter, and the lady from the retreat does not recognize her a few days later. But as noble as “end all suffering” is, they are essentially routing all pain to disposable personalities of the same person. Another hypothesis I had: they can exploit their workers even further since each person could be 25 different workers.

I believe a third season has been confirmed. While I wish they kept being mysterious about the work, because nothing they explained could be as interesting as the mystery itself, I believe the third season should focus on the impact of severance in the real world. A few points:

  • What were they really planning with 25 different personalities?
  • How does reintegration really work?
  • What was the real impact of the Innies speaking out (at the end of the first season)?
  • And what happened after the season 2 finale?

The Controversial Season Finale#

If there’s one elephant in the room, it’s the season 2 finale. When I finished watching S2 I jumped on reddit to see what people were thinking about it, and the debate seemed to be really polarized. Some people though it was perfect and there shouldn’t be a third season. Some people thought it was really bad and out of character. I thought the ending was underwhelming and a let down… until I slept on it for a day and woke up with different feelings.

The pivotal moment on the finale is at the very end: innie Mark S. has saved Ms Casey and safely got her through the stairwell. Now Helly R. shows up and calls for Mark. innie Mark S sees himself in a dillema: Should he leave the company and go with his wife Gemma or should he turn back and go with his romantic interest Helly? After some reflection Mark goes with Helly.

At first I thought that was nonsense. Why would Mark chose anyone over Gemma? The answer is simple: Mark doesn’t have any feelings for Gemma. Outtie Mark sure, but the Innie version has a romantic interest in Helly. At the end of the day (pun intended) Innie Mark will have to go home, so why leave now when he can spend a few more minutes with their partner before theyceases to be?

Mark S. could choose between: Leave now on the gamble that their Outtie will honor his word and reintegrate, or spend a some more time with their partner and then gamble on their outtie honoring his word. When you look like that it’s clear his innie made the best decision

Another nice detail is that Gemma has no clue Mark was severed, since he only severed after she was kidnapped by Lumon. This information makes the final scene much more sad when after 2 years without seeing her husband she sees him running away with another person. There was also a subtle smile by Helly which could hint at that moment being Helena and not Helly, some more food for thought.

A final argument to defend the Finale is: What happens to Dylan? In my head canon, until S3 drops, they were going to regroup with Dylan and have a final MDR moment before they cease to exist when Lumon regain control. At least I really expect to see that on the next season.

Final Remarks#

Now that I’m done talking about the show content I have some final thoughts.

I’m going to start by the negatives points first, which are very few:

  • There are some plot points which were created and then forgotten:
    • Richie’s book and his relation to Natalie
    • Irving’s past investigation on Lumon, and then he leaving town without looking back
    • Ms Cobel creating the severed chip
    • Petey’s map
  • The revelation on the mysterious and important work was a bit of an exposition dialogue.
  • The goat department raising goats only for the cult sacrifice seemed to me like a cheap resolution for that mystery. And to be fair it didn’t need resolution
  • It didn’t sit right with me how Reghabi was doing the reintegration procedure, then just took her things and left. She felt like a plot device
  • Finally I was expecting a bit more from Mark’s reintegration. I was hoping the flashes would be more frequent and that would have real impact on his work. I wish it would at least leave Mr Milchilk suspicious of Mark and create some more tension for the Finale

On to the positives, ouside the plot:

This show photography is great. The soundtrack combined with the cold office setting really made me feel uncomfortable (in a good way) during most of the show.

I Love old tech and I loved their terminal aesthetics, you can see that by my blog theme. They have an interface which is really close to CLIs and TUIs but with some modern animations and a touch of skeuomorphism. If anyone knows a KDE Plasma theme that mimics this look please let me know.

The Acting on this show is chef’s kiss 🤌🏼. Even though there are visual and sound hints, you can identify when a character is it’s innie or outtie (and then the show uses that to create the Helly/Helena plot twist in Season 2). It’s really great how they can convey 2 different characters (which are also the same character) from the way they talk, walk, interact and care for others.

I couldn’t find where to put this on the review, but Mr Milchick might be my favorite character from the show. His acting is one of the best in the entire show, he got those dance moves, and we can really see the pressure he faces as a middle manager. The company pushing on him to deliver results while he tries to do positive things for the innies and get back stabbed by the employees. Don’t get me wrong, he’s on the bad guys side here, but I can’t help but feel some empathy for him. Really amazing work by Tramell Tillman.

Score#

I’m going to award Severance (Seasons 1 and 2) an 8/10.

An Amazing show very well produced, with great actors and a good thriller story. High hopes for Season 3.

As always here’s a song recommendation