In its second season, which concluded Friday, the show did more than offer a surrealist satirization of America’s obsession with work-life balance.
‘Severance’ star Adam Scott on why viewers are hooked on the show.
“Severance” star Adam Scott talks to USA TODAY about why audiences are can’t get enough of the mind-bending show.
Spoiler alert: This story contains details from “Cold Harbor,” the Season 2 finale of “Severance.”
What would you do to escape your pain? Apple TV+’s “Severance” offers a solution.
“Severance” follows a team of Lumon Industries employees whose consciousness have been divided between their work life (“innies”) and their personal life (“outies”) thanks to a chip implanted in their brain. It’s the ultimate separation of work and life, but, similar to “The Substance,” the balance isn’t always respected.
In its second season, which concluded Friday, the show did more than offer a surrealist satirization of America’s obsession with work-life balance – it offered thought-provoking portrayals of grief, pain, love and the lengths we go to compartmentalize and process each.
What is particularly haunting about “Severance” is the way it speaks to our cultural moment and how technological advancements continue to poke at our humanity.
Technology, AI provides ‘solutions’ to problems it helped create
Late last year, The Washington Post published an article about artificial intelligence chatbots becoming a solution for those who can’t find or afford a professional therapist. Recently, posts have gone viral of people expressing their love for confiding in AI chatbots like ChatGPT.
Humans placating their loneliness and desire for emotional connections through non-human mediums already raises many ethical questions. We forget there are no humans on the other side of these AI interfaces, just algorithms that offer up instant, humanlike responses whenever we need them.
The most glaring issue, though, is that technology and AI pose as balms to societal ills they created. In 2023, then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared a loneliness epidemic in America. In a Harvard survey, 73% of respondents cited technology as a leading cause.
Yet this realization, or admittance, hasn’t decreased our usage. Instead, we continue to use social media as a distraction from the loneliness and isolation it catalyzed. It’s an endless cycle propagated by endless scrolls; our cyber Stockholm syndrome keeps us inebriated, ever looking for ways to numb our pain.
“Severance” explores how, in attempting to heal our woes, we often inadvertently deepen our wounds.
Is severance really the answer?
Protagonist Mark Scout, played brilliantly by Adam Scott, chose to undergo the severance procedure as a way to escape the grief of losing his wife, who was actually taken by Lumon as an experimental pawn. Mark’s innie, Mark S., goes to work every day without the memory of his outie’s wife. This presents an interesting conundrum when outie Mark devises a plan to save his wife from Lumon.
A riveting scene in the season finale shows innie Mark and outie Mark talking to each other through recorded videos, with the latter trying to persuade the former to help save Gemma, outie Mark’s wife. The exchange escalates as the two selves wrestle with their inability to empathize with the other’s pain.
Outie Mark doesn’t see innie Mark as a whole person capable of loving as deeply as he once did. Innie Mark has a general distrust of outie Mark as life under Lumon is all he knows. His apathy and ignorance toward Gemma makes saving her, and potentially putting him and all the other innies at risk, a hard sell – especially if it means losing the love he’s found at Lumon with Helly R., the innie of Helena Eagan (a marvelous Britt Lower), daughter of Lumon CEO Jame Eagan.
This season of “Severance” explores the subtle heartbreaks of the severance procedure and the selves it creates, often making love collateral. It’s wrenching to watch the outie versions of Irving and Burt, two severed Lumon employees whose innie versions formed a romantic relationship, be unable to foster their love for each other in the real world due to Lumon’s watchful eye.
It’s also heartbreaking to watch Mark S. turn away from Gemma at the very end, continuing the cycle of pain for her and his outie, to run back to Lumon’s gilded basement with Helly R.
Throughout this season, we’ve seen how the shimmery, escapist gleam of severance has reared its ugly head. These characters’ innies have become more than their outies’ work mules. They are their own selves, with their own pain and crosses to bear.
“Severance” serves as a warning. Big Tech will continue to find ways to permeate every aspect of our lives, offering solutions to problems it begat. Our pain and loneliness can’t be solved solely with the very thing that’s causing it. It’s important we don’t lose sight of the lengths these companies will go to make us wholly and solely theirs.
As our digital personhood takes up more and more space in our lives, it’s important to remember the you, you are.
Kofi Mframa is a columnist and digital producer for USA Today and the USA Today Network.
