The workers of the innie world break out for a one-hour revolution.
On Severance, a quartet of office workers are caught in a cycle of relentless labor, unable to retain memories of anything that happened between getting out of work and being punched back in again. The interesting sci-fi premise explores themes of the capitalist cult of identity, exploitation, and productivity. And the show's mysteries have only deepened during its first season, as creator Dan Erickson and company prepare to follow every terrifying implication of its concept to its deepest, most inconvenient conclusion. It's a series that totally works, which makes it all the more daring that its season-ending cliffhanger has completely turned it on its head. The season finale has blown up Severance's world to such an extent that it will have to return as a completely different show.
For much of Severance's first season, Mark (Adam Scott), Hailey (Britt Lower), Dylan (Zack Cherry), and Irving (John Turturro) had no hope of escaping the "shredded" floor of the Lumon Building. Their "outies" - versions of themselves who only exist in the outside world and have no memory of what happens during their working hours - have sent them to the hell of permanent work, and the "enees" about it. can't do anything. Even Haley's desperate attempt to end her nemesis by hanging herself in an elevator (a type of murder-suicide in which her brutal Outie would experience her death) has failed. there's no way. That is, until the revelation of an "off-time contingency", a secret mechanism that can wake up a worker's "innie" even when their body is outside the office. Suddenly, there exists the possibility of not only ending their suffering but also discovering their identity and living their real life.
In the season finale, "The We Are," three workers begin a reconnaissance mission to the outside world, while the fourth, Dylan, remains behind an off-time contingency switch, keeping the spiritual door open as if until be possible. Mark, Haley and Irving leave themselves with limited time in their counterparts' lives to find out who they are and, if possible, share their story with someone they can trust. Since we are following both Marx—Innie Mark and Outie Mark—their branch of the story is full of dramatic irony. We know that the person Innie Marks needs to confide in is her sister Devon (Jane Tullock), and if he sees a picture of his dead wife, Gemma, he recognizes her as a severed Lumon worker. Will be able M / s. Casey," (Dichen Lachman) who is very much alive. But Ini Mark knows nothing about it, and only has an hour to complete. Mark's plot is a tense maze of complexities and near-misses. One can make an invested viewer scream at their television. It's a nightmare in the best possible way. The episode's final moment, which features Ini Mark running down the hall with a picture of Gemma and shouting "She's alive!" Just before time runs out, is one of the most triumphant cut-to-black cliffhangers in recent memory.
But it's Haley's story that breaks the show wide, as viewers learn for the first time that her outie is actually Helena Egan, a member of the super-rich family dynasty that rules the Lumon Company. Haley learns that her existence is a publicity stunt, an attempt by Eagans to prove that amputation is a safe and humane procedure. She wakes up at an event in her honor, where Helena is expected to praise the virtues of severance to an audience of lawmakers and business interests. Haley finds herself in a position to share the horrifying truth with a horde of powerful people and shocks the institution of dismemberment; He only needs to hope that he is able to take to the stage before time runs out and his evil counterpart takes control of their bodies. Haley pulls in and receives at least part of her message before security tackles it, which means there's no going back. The revolution has started.
The final episode of the season has also greatly expanded the portion of the show. The Breakdown is no longer about a small group of people trying to cope with their bizarre imprisonment in a world of endless, mindless work, it is now about preventing the creation of a new global system of slavery. Lumon is attempting to sell severance as a way to provide everyone with a healthy work-life balance, but it's really about creating a separation between labor and power. Severance not only allows Lumon to extract maximum labor from his workers by denying his identity and brainwashing his founder, Keir Egan, to worship him as a religious idol, but it creates a new class of workers whose zero is political. effect occurs. People outside them may still have the right to vote and money in their pockets, but for all practical purposes, they are no longer laboring. They are profiting from the work of another person whose misery is out of sight and out of mind. If Lumon achieves its goal of universal severance, suddenly there are no workers in the "real" world, only managers and investors who are likely to become protective of the system that is giving them the illusion of passive income. The miserable conditions for their working counterparts become another uncomfortable reality for the consumers to ignore their own comforts.
And it is perhaps best-case scenario, as current Lumon patriarch James Egan (Michael Siebery) demonstrates in closing that Lumon's religious devotion to company founder Keir Egan is not merely a tool to control cut workers. . He appears to be a true believer whose aim is to ensure that every person on earth becomes one of the "Children of Kir". Assuming that everyone separates, the Egans would have the means to include all of humanity in their flock, to the extent that future generations would not need to separate at all. They would simply be included at birth in a religion that worships egans and adheres to them unconditionally. (This might be a good time to mention that there's currently a billionaire who is a culturally devoted online who wants to install a chip in your head. Just a heads-up.)
For most of the season, Ini Mark's dreary nightly hours have been the less interesting half of the story, with most of the memorable moments and compelling relationships taking place in the quirky underground office. The plot of the "real world" has inevitably been slow, as Outie Mark's hesitance to disturb his cutthroat status quo is key to the show's themes. Now, the antics of the innings have turned the tables, and the real action is at the top. How will Devon and Ricken (Michael Chernas) act on Ini Mark's revelations? Will Mark seek out Regabhi (Karen Aldridge) and attempt to reconstruct his two personalities to aid in the search for Gemma? Will the series continue to follow Helena to the outside world, giving viewers a direct view of the Lumon Machine? And what about Irving, who used his little window to the outside world to find his lost love, Burt (Christopher Walken)? Harmony Kobel (Patricia Arquette) promises that the Inies will be punished for their disobedience, but their fates are now in the hands of their counterparts, who are essentially a new set of characters. It's a radical change that guarantees that Severance's future will offer its fans something new. Season two can't come soon enough.