What if you could separate your work life from your personal life — permanently? The Apple TV+ series “Severance” explores this chilling premise, following four employees at the fictitious Lumon Industries who chose to undergo the revolutionary “severance procedure.”
Severed individuals live two completely different lives, one as their non-working self, or “outie,” and the other as their corporate “innie.” Severed individuals retain zero knowledge of their split identities, and their memories are switched on and off by the Lumon elevator, which transports them to their places of work. As a whole, the thriller uses its unsettling portrayal of dual identities to deliver a powerful critique of corporate America, exposing how corporations prioritize control and efficiency over individual freedoms.
The day-to-day of Lumon’s severed floor is characterized by a rigid routine. The employees stagger their arrivals as a means to retain a separation of identity, then work a 9-to-5 job “refining” arbitrary “macro-data” in the bleak Macro Data Refinement (MDR) department. The setting mirrors the typical office blueprint, albeit with an extremely surgical, characterless aesthetic. The sterile office environment seems to seep into the employees themselves, as the majority of Lumon workers behave in a restrained, submissive and unnaturally cheerful manner. No one seems to question the haunting environment nor seek out the true purpose of their work until a former MDR employee is abruptly replaced by Helly R. Helly’s clear distaste for the severed floor and consequent reckless behavior leads the new team on a mission to uncover the alarming truths about Lumon and its severed employees.
I won’t get into spoilers, but I will say this: the jarring discoveries packed into each episode will shock you. Yet beyond suspense, the show delivers a scathing and compelling critique of corporate America. By contrasting the emptiness of a severed life with the complexity of a real one, “Severance” questions whether our own professional lives have become just as hollow. The show hints at the idea that millions of Americans have unknowingly become prisoners to the chains of the corporate world, working passionless jobs to make a living. The allure of the severance procedure speaks to the widespread desire to escape the burdens of corporate life, allowing oneself to enter the workspace as a clean slate, completely free from outside concerns or distractions. Pursuing a corporate career has become a widely accepted social norm, an honorable method of climbing the capitalist ranks. However, through its display of sinister underpinnings and abusive power dynamics, “Severance” suggests that a life beyond corporate America is instead the more holistic and meaningful option.
In the workplace, the innies embody the phrase “cogs in the machine,” spending hours mindlessly typing away with minimal social interaction. Reflecting on my own experience as an investment banking intern, I recognized the familiar tedium of data entry, but I was struck by the innies’ complete indifference toward the purpose of their work. Severed employees have no insight into Lumon’s broader mission. Their sole objective is reduced to serving Kier, the enterprise’s cult-like founder. Between the arbitrary work assignments, lack of company mission, and limited, surveyed channels of communication, Lumon effectively strips away employees’ free will. This puppeteering creates an institutionalized blindness and highlights the unsettling extent of corporate oversight.
Even further, the eerie music and bright white lighting buttress the constant sense of surveillance throughout the show. Severed employees, in both their innie and outie personas, seem to have Lumon’s eyes on them at all times. Similarly, many corporate jobs create platforms to replicate this constant surveillance, with settings that show if you are offline, employer-provided phones and the unspoken expectations to always be available even if you are off the clock.
The power dynamics within Lumon highlight a deeper imbalance between those at the top and the employees beneath them, raising questions about the nature of human connection in the workplace. Severed employees, stripped of their personal identities, initially bond through shared tasks and new office supplies — but as those relationships deepen, they begin to disrupt the order Lumon has meticulously constructed. This parallels the experience of many modern professionals, where “work friends” often exist within unspoken boundaries, their connections rarely extending beyond office walls. “Severance” pushes this concept to its extreme, asking whether meaningful relationships can truly form in environments where individuality is suppressed and work is purely transactional. It also invites a more significant reflection: if given the choice, would people today willingly sever their work and personal lives to provide dramatic separation from the demands of their jobs? And if so, should we accept that reality — or, rather, question why corporate culture has made work feel so all-consuming and mind-numbing in the first place?
By severing its employees, Lumon effectively erases any possibility of corporate accountability. Outies remain blissfully unaware of mistreatment, exploitation and systemic issues within the company, allowing Lumon to market itself as a worker’s “paradise” while concealing its deeply exploitative nature.
“Severance” showcases the essentialism of teamwork, trust and emotional intelligence, all while illustrating the dark consequences of separating one’s spirit and body. Both Lumon’s success and reputation depend on the sanctity of the severed floor, and it is not until the MDR team forms deep bonds and thinks outside of the corporate handbook that Lumon starts to lose their precious grasp on control. In the end, it’s the human connections that drive the plot of the show and unlock a myriad of unsettling revelations.
