Severance and the Self: when work makes you forget who you are, literally…

For many of us, identity and memory can feel like distant topics, but I can’t deny the presence of a genuine magnetism for these themes. After all, how can you not obsess over what makes you who you are?

This prompt echoed in my mind when acquainting myself with the universe of Apple TV’s Severance. I couldn’t help but notice the drastic implications of ‘working underground’ that the series exposed. Physical space has power in the world of Lumon Industries, where being below the surface confers a literal subterrestrial nature to the place and its inhabitants. An environment where dystopia is inevitable. By taking a lift that descends into a labyrinth of isolated offices, Lumon employees voluntarily snooze themselves for eight hours (ironically the equivalent of a good night’s sleep), without any recollection of who they are outside of the mysterious company. Their “innies” (work persona) are oblivious and unaware of their “outies” (exterior persona). Their psychological chronology is perceptually split, creating two parallel realities, that never meet (or at least shouldn’t): the underground and the aboveground. For the sake of the classic nine-to-five, they willingly opt for an exclusively work-related existence, one in which they’re wholly devoted to the legacy of Kier, the founder of Lumon. 

When exposed to this fictional, Wes Anderson-esque reality, I couldn’t help but obsess over its hypotheticals. What could it mean for me, for anybody, to be handed the possibility of a complete erasure of self? Could I be brave enough to dive into the severance rabbit hole, where I would still be tied to the real world? For the main characters – the Macro-Data-Refiners (MDRs) – the procedure can bring solace (in Mark’s case, an 8-hour break from grief), while simultaneously facilitating Lumon’s exploitation of its workforce. 

In a world where there are so many elements competing for our energy and attention, could the generation of multiple ‘selves’ paradoxically be the only way to ensure that we don’t lose ourselves completely? Picturing a version of me, stuck in a clandestine, private reality felt claustrophobic and fragmented. Just imagining it felt like an unnatural attempt to divorce layers of my identity for the sake of functioning – the high cost of simply being.

What I began to realise is that the attractiveness of the severance procedure was simply masking the damaging mentality that pervades corporate and office culture in our own day and age, where we are encouraged to forgo our integral identity in lieu of a corporate one. You only need to have a quick look at LinkedIn to realise the personas we prop up at work, versus the ones we show to our friends and family, might as well be separate entities.

What strikes me even more is that Severance fails the goal it tries to achieve, at least in part, when claiming the achievement of a strictly work-focused life. Despite erasing themselves in a way that severs their private life and their work life, protagonists are still crafters of private life within work. A metaphorical Russian doll of the underground. Escapism, whether it’s through conspiracy theories about the outies or wandering across departments unsupervised, is constantly practised amongst innies during work hours, despite the over-bearing Orwellian authority, namely Lumon industries.

What’s really strange about these sporadic explorations is that, as an audience, we begin to realise that departments don’t ever visit each other. Towards the end of the season, Mark and Helly (MDR employees) find someone feeding baby goats, screaming “they’re not ready”. A bizarre interlude that relays the discomfort of witnessing nature, here goats, confined in a subterrestrial place which feels incompatible. The segregation of departments is even more absurd considering Keir’s vision: everybody working together. As the plot progresses, it provides scattered details of the bigger truth: Keir’s visions contrasts with grotesque evidence of a gruesome insight on the past, Optics & Design (department) “disembowelling people” on paint sends mixed messages about the peacefulness within the Lumon collective (don’t ask, it’s just grim barbarity).

I can’t help but view the “community vibe” as part of Lumon’s deceiving duality: departments are bordered so severely (?) that trust issues are generated between workers of the same company. The innies are prisoners of their own subsection of the labyrinth, lacking trust in the absence of a complete truth. There is something Pavlovian about Lumon and the way it treats its employers, almost like children who could end up on the naughty step at any point. They are contained and controlled, with protocols and procedures. Any violation follows the dehumanising experience of ending up in the break room, if disobedient. Lumon’s employees are pieces of a jigsaw that the industry conveniently leaves incomplete, memory and identity-wise. They are left with no choice but to find themselves in Lumon, where they’re persuaded their purpose lies, even if not for long. They’re so fragmented that Lumon, in a sense, offers them a shelter, a sense of belonging, where the work is “mysterious and important”. And this is when the question becomes imperative: what is the work even about?

Maybe that’s the wrong question to ask. The innies are probably recruited, not because they will produce useful work, but rather because they will lend themselves as marionettes, oblivious to the extent of control that’s being exerted on them. Despite the tragedy of it all, it is mildly entertaining, to observe how the catalyst of MDR’s rebellion against the oppressive industry they work for is permeated by the serendipitous finding of a self-help book, “The You You Are”. Belonging to the reality outside of Lumon, the book manages to open their eyes (even Mark, the protocol guy), despite being in itself quite cultic. Isn’t it ironic that the protagonists, fed with Kier’s manifesto and a totalitarian kind of knowledge, need to be matched with an equally cult-like manifesto, to establish themselves outside of the box?

It turns out it’s not so attractive to impose a literal burial of one’s holistic self, severing our memory in such a way that forces us to live in the present while surrounded by the lack of a complete past. While the story of Mark, Burt, Helly and Dylan isn’t over yet, I doubt that my adversity for the severance procedure will expire. I don’t want to be somewhere where a mental health walk is a corridor walk and a hug is a performance and not an instinct. And yet, the story’s incomplete: another season awaits, and every episode could be a chance to turn it all around.