Severance
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Dont live to work.
Thats the haunting slogan printed on the packaging for Lumons patented SeveranceTM chip.
Which leads me to the question: How many severed peoplearethere in the world ofSeverance?
He even silently acknowledges the portrait of Kier Egan in the office.
This is definitely not a thing that normal employees are expected to do, ever.
Evidence is mounting that Lumon might just be a secret cult that worships the color green.
Whatarenormal employees expected to do?
But first, an aside about Helly.
We get a few glimpses of her outie as she goes through the severance process.
Shes accompanied the entire time by Mr. Milchick, and he seems quite grateful for her presence.
Hes gentle and kind to her as he carefully explains everything.
We find out that he was even there when her innie tried to escape on her first day.
She knows that her innie desperately wants to escape, yet she keeps forcing her to return.
On Hellys second day, she gets a veritable download of info.
Finishing 10 percent of a file earns a Lumon-branded eraser, but there are no pencils.
Finishing 25 percent earns a finger trap.
And 100 percent earns a bizarre caricature.
What hes really striving for is the waffle party, which is awarded to the refiner of the quarter.
Do you own a branded mug or stress ball from anywhere youve worked?
Yup, me too.
The mug was my Christmas present; there were no bonuses that year.
Lumon seems to revel in providing these special yet entirely worthless perks to their employees.
After a team-building exercise gone sideways, Mr. Milchick offers up a melon party.
The party triggers another escape attempt from Helly.
Maybe she hates honeydew, too.
Its completely unclear what macrodata refinement is.
Dylan thinks theyre cleaning the sea, while Irv believes theyre taking swear words out of movies.
Theyre prepping brains for the severance process.
Oh, and we havent even covered what its like for the innies day in, day out.
They dont get to eat any food that isnt Lumon sanctioned!
They never get to leave!
They never see sunlight!
They never get to sleep!
Its basically all the ingredients for a torture chamber.
Or, as Dylan puts it, endless toil.
Even when the severed workers dare to doze, they get penalized.
Her robotic nature and insistence that Irv also adopt a completely flat affect during this session are shades ofWestworld.
Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?
The interaction between Irv and Burt is electric yet fleeting.
They both stop to admire a truly hellish painting on the wall.
Hes curious about the address that Petey gave him in that auspicious red envelope.
So he punches 499 Half Loop Road into his GPS and takes a drive.
There, he finds Petey living in an abandoned greenhouse and feverishly mapping out the floors below Lumon.
His reality skips like a broken record, and its definitely time to worry about this dude.
It looks like its time for my staggered exit, so Im going to go grab the elevator.
Until next time …
Severed Sentiments
Marks work laugh is truly perfect.
Scott is doing a fantastic job of making the two iterations of his character feel like a true whole.
Turns out its three raw eggs in milk.
Who is this dude?
Does Mrs. Selvig have the hots for Mark?
That aside about her dead husband building a guest house in heaven for her lover was incredibly creeptastic.
As Mark looks for a light bulb in his basement, he comes across a box marked Gemmas Crafts.
In it, he finds a lightly used candle thats half-green and half-red.
