By Louis Fowler, Second Year, English Literature
After an agonising two year wait, fans of Severance may finally rejoice upon the return of the show that delivered one of the most exciting and astute debut seasons in recent memory.
Season two of Severance has a whole lot to live up to, which may explain the long wait – creator Dan Erickson and primary producer Ben Stiller clearly want to get this right. The marketing team spared no expense, creating multiple tantalising trailers that had fans’ heads spinning and once again madly theorising. They also devised a pop-up ‘live’ advert in Grand Central Station the week before the premiere of season two. This publicity stunt included cast members Adam Scott, Britt Lower and Zach Cherry, who play characters Mark, Helly and Dylan respectively.
For the uninitiated, this group, with the addition of John Turturro’s character Irving, forms a unique worker’s union. In the show, these workers have undergone a mysterious brain operation known as the ‘severance’ procedure, which effectively splits the worker’s consciousness in two – one for their work life (‘innie’ selves) and one for their personal life (‘outie’ selves). These workers work for the powerful conglomerate ‘Lumon’. When their ‘outies’ clock in to work and enter a lift to take them down into the sterile and windowless atmosphere of Lumon’s ‘severed’ floor, we see the outie ‘become’ an innie, usually accompanied by a dolly zoom to suggest some kind of uncanny transformation – in this case, the splitting of consciousness.
However, that is what the audience observes from our singular-conscious viewing brains. For the severed worker, no tangible change occurs. The outie self enters the elevator, then steps out again seconds later – yet a whole working day has passed without the outie self experiencing it. The dark side to this, of course, is the experience of the ‘innie’. Each and every time they clock out for the end of the day, they have to instantly clock back in again. They are, even if they only work a 9-5 from a literal perspective, constantly and inescapably at work. Even when the innies are at work, they don’t even have the comfort of knowing that their work is useful – the only thing they are told is that the work is ‘mysterious and important’, and that it serves the founder of the company, Kier Egan, who is creepily deified by the people with power within Lumon.
This terrifying prospect raises a multitude of philosophical and ethical questions, which season one of Severance carefully and effectively explores – to what extent do our surroundings affect our personalities? What is identity? What is consciousness? Could we as a society ever implement something similar to a severance procedure ourselves? In the increasingly corporatised working conditions of the modern world, such as hellish conditions for Amazon workers, this question becomes pertinent to our contemporary ethical debate.
In season one, against the backdrop of these philosophical questions and the climate of intense corporate greed and control, Mark and the gang slowly begin to unionise and plan an escape from their conditions in the search for answers. This culminates in them enacting the ‘overtime contingency protocol’, which allows Mark, Helly and Irving’s ‘innie’ selves to be awoken in the outside world, leading to an immensely gripping and adrenaline fuelled final episode of season one. This thrilling final episode sets up so many more questions and open-ended plot points that it is impossible to describe without viewing it for yourself. Fans were left aching for more, but also apprehensive whether the writers could carry on the quality of the show into season two.
Luckily, and perhaps predictably, episode one of the new season did not disappoint, for it promises an equally excellent second season. The opening shot of the episode, which apparently took the team over five months to complete, follows Mark’s innie as he frantically runs through the perfectly clean yet nauseatingly sterile corridors of Lumon’s severed floor. The camera constantly spins round Mark, capturing his disoriented state of mind, as he has (in his perception) just returned from his sister’s house in the outside world. This scene parallels the opening scene of season one, which followed Mark calmly navigating these same corridors with a wry and seemingly contented smile on his face. Beginning season two with a deliberate juxtaposition to this scene highlights Mark’s intense character development, from a hardworking, naïve and unquestioning worker in season one, to a rebellious, disillusioned and autonomous figurehead of anti-severance reform.
However, most of the unanswered questions from season one are, for now, left unanswered. Instead, even more questions arise. For example, Milchick, the new head of the severed floor, tells Mark that their actions in the outside world at the end of season one have garnered them international fame. Is this at all true, or is it simply one of the corporate manipulation techniques that were rife in the first season? Who is Ms. Huang? Who is 'the board'? What happened when the gang’s outies woke up after the innies took over? Will Irving ever see Burt again and, finally, is Ms. Casey/Gemma alive, and if so, where is she?
Severance looks to explore all these questions and more in a season that is looking as if it will seriously impress. So, for all of you die-hard fans who have been waiting for this release since way back in 2022 – it’s here. And it is going to be a crazy few weeks.
"Praise Kier!"
What do you think of Severance: Season Two so far?
