IF there was a form of technology that allows you to “sever” your consciousness into two through an invasive brain surgery, where a new one for the workplace is created, while you retain the original consciousness for your personal life, would you go under the knife for it?
The perks are great. Once you clock in, your “work-self” wakes up and completes whatever your company asks of them for the typical eight office hours and once they clock out, you wake up to continue the rest of the day.
A complete split between the two, you retain no memories of work, relationship with colleagues, office politics and so on, while the other has no memories beyond what they do at work. It is an easy paycheck, but here is the thing: That other consciousness sharing your body has no rights.
They are corporate slaves. Their world is the workplace. Their religion is their company’s dogma. Their gods are their bosses.
If under any unfortunate situation where they or you are fired, they will go to sleep permanently. In other words, their consciousness “dies”. Would you be able to accept the ethics and morality behind such a situation?
Dark, twisted narrative
After ending the first season on a seat-gripping cliffhanger and then, racking up an impressive amount of Emmy Award nominations, Severance’s second season once again shows why it is one of the 21st century’s most monumental television shows.
The second season goes further into the history of Lumon Industries, their inner workings and what the shady corporation wants from Mark Scout’s (Adam Scott) Macrodata Refinement team, comprising Helly Riggs (Britt Lower), Irving Bailiff (John Turturro) and Dylan George (Zach Cherry).
The season also dives deeper into the first season’s big revelation that “outie” Mark’s (“outie” refers to the original people, while “innie” refers to the second consciousness at work) wife, Gemma (Dichen Lachman) is alive, with Lumon covering up her death in order to use her “innie” in illegal experiments.
Severance’s second season has one extra episode compared with the first season and show creator Dan Erickson somehow pulls off the Herculean feat of proportionally expanding on all the main characters even more than he and the writers did for the previous season, all while still satirising corporate culture.
Stellar performances
A minor complaint with the first season, in relation to Helly and Dylan not receiving much development, is rectified in this season. For example, while the big mystery of who is Helly’s “outie” was solved in the first season’s finale, this season goes into how different they are and it gives a lot of room for Lower to demonstrate masterclass acting, shifting and contorting the subtlest changes from body posture to the way her face structurally changes between Helly and Helena.
Very likely to end up getting another Emmy nomination, Scott, who was known for sitcom roles, has to juggle between two dramatic phases of “outie” Mark, before and after Gemma’s “death” and “innie” Mark. It is hard to verbally explain why it is great because his performance has to be watched to be appreciated.
If the first season saw a lot of naturally comedic talent turning in a spellbinding dramatic, serious performance, Severance’s latest season is no different. This also applies to the direction, with Ben Stiller once again directing a bulk of the season’s episodes.
Who knew the funny guy from Zoolander, Tropic Thunder, Meet the Parents and countless other comedies had it in him to turn regular corporate office scenes into looking as menacing as a Stanley Kubrick film?
Though the second season thankfully does not end on a massive cliffhanger, it certainly leaves several doors open for how Erickson will progress the story particularly as Severance needs to end with the fall of Lumon, which is the only logical end to the show’s satire of greedy, inhuman corporations.
Severance is streaming on Apple TV+.
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