Mark reawakens…

And we’re back. It’s no secret that I loved Season 1 enough that I had whispered conversations with fellow fans at conventions, in restaurants and across the internet. Severance Season 1 was superb television.

See my review of that season here

Now we’re back and the pressure is high. Can the team led by Ben Stiller in the director’s chair deliver something as deeply odd, weird and thrilling as that first series? There are tales that they’ve a seven year story but can finish it after year two. I’m obviously hoping for all seven but this leaves us wondering about how things behind the scenes might change what we experience and whether that would be a good outcome.

For me this first episode was like slipping into a pair of well-worn, beloved, but deeply uncomfortable slippers. Right from the off we’re back with the lighting, the oppression, the despair, the manipulation, the lies and the corporate overwhelm.

Severance is the best advert for joining a union I’ve ever seen. It’s also the best argument against unfettered and unregulated capitalism.

The first episode moves our heroes (because that’s what they are), the unwitting corporate resistance movement that is Helly, Mark S, Irv and the inestimable Dylan.

Time has passed. We don’t really know what’s happened in that period – deliberately so, this entire first episode is seen from the point of view of the Innies. They get in the lift. They get out of the lift. We’re reminded forcibly that their slavery is complete, that their infantilisation is utter.

What we get are the overhead lights that flicker just a little all the time. The featureless corridors, a team leader who is a child. A moment on that last piece because how fitting within capitalism that the work you do should become so specialised (ie so meaningless) that a child can oversee your role. Not a friend, but your boss and someone who neither understands nor cares what you’re doing as long as you do it.

When the team are forced to engage in the faux family rituals that too many corporations think build compliance and docile workforces, Ms Wong, Mark S’ new child boss, makes the point that despite the ritual of family and friendship, she is not his friend.

Mark smiles and agrees.

Why? Because he has no choice. To disagree with your boss is to invite censure, to be marked out as rebellious, to be fired for having a mind that the corporation cannot control.

In this one episode we see Lumon, the corporation for whom they nominally work (but to whom they are indeed enslaved) engage in the following acts of malfeasance in the name of ensuring good ‘corporate’ citizenship from its staff:

  • Presenting the corporation as a person just like its staff
    • A corporation isn’t a person. It’s a collection of people serving others, pooling their labour for a greater task. Good corporations share the rewards of that labour. Lumon doesn’t even share what they’re doing with its staff let alone the profits.
    • Remember that this allows Lumon to say that if it’s hurt that’s equivalent to hurting an actual human being. If Lumon is hindered or upset, it follows that we should act to ensure that it’s not. This is obviously evil and prefers corporations over people which is the opposite of what we should be thinking.
  • Co-opting protest to serve
    • The team’s protest is taken and turned on them, telling them that they’ve been heard and should stop it now because what else can they say – as if putting together an animated video for people to watch addresses their concerns.
  • Presenting Wellbeing as a solution to low wages, slavery and oppression
    • They’re told that because they complained about their slavery and mistreatment, the fridge has nicer food, they have the chance to engage in pineapple bobbing and the breakroom’s been upgraded…they may as well offer yoga and wellbeing classes because they’re sure as hell not going to improve wages, actual working conditions or hours demanded.
  • A scapegoat
    • Rather than address the system issues, they’re told that Cobel (who we don’t see this episode) is the one they can blame and she’s been fired. It wasn’t Lumon who was to blame, the story goes, but one rogue operative. Nothing about the system that told Cobel to act as she did. Classic distraction tecniques
  • Information
    • Mark is shown a redacted newspaper as evidence of the corporation’s transparency and that he has achieved what he set out to do.
    • Obviously Lumon, in redacting the paper, controls everything Mark sees. Or at least it tries to. People forget that in a truly authoritarian state all the obvious forms of protest and resistance are both illegal (and therefore punishable by, at least, imprisonment) but also overwhelmingly demonised in public. Resistance under authoritarianism isn’t fiery heroes fighting the enemy, it’s survival, it’s quiet working hoping your loved ones don’t sell you out.
  • Divide and Conquer
    • Lumon immediately sets out to offer each of them individual incentives to abandon the others masked as ‘this means a lot to you so don’t tell the others in case they think we’re preferring you’.

 

The writing here is stupendous. Each of the above occur without being pointed out or laboured. It’s deeper, darker and a more complete sense of control than in Season 1. Lumon has been stung. It has responded, its immune system working overtime to deal with what’s impacted it.

If Mark, Helly, Dylan and Irving have a plan, so does Lumon and who knows who has anticipated who better? The power here is distributed 99% to Lumon and 1% to the team but their advantage here is that Lumon can’t, despite all its tools, see into their minds and know what they’re thinking.

That gap is why corporations the world over (and oppressive regimes) work to control what you see, what you know, reduce your agency to that of children (with concurrent punishments for acting out) and control your activity every moment they can.

Despite all this, the team love what they do. They know they’re good at their jobs. The mistake Lumon makes is thinking that because someone likes what they do it means they like who they do it for. These two things do not have to both be true.

So far I’ve only really covered the political and philosophical subtext. I’ve hinted at how the worldbuilding is shown not told but this doesn’t cover the parade of madness on the screen.

We open with a lone man running through white corridors, the camera work dizzying and incredible. We get dark tunnels, out of place balloons, despair, hope, a missing wife, extraordinary friendship and an animated sequence that was both unexpected and dark as an eclipse.

Few revelations but plenty of hints. Is Helly who they’re assuming? Why can’t Milchick get his screensaver changed?

Oh. Milchick. I love him and hate him at the same moment. As a character he is an incredible distillation of everything hateful and inevitable about corporations who aren’t controlled by the decent regulation. He is the abusive father, the nasty teacher, the corrupt policeman. Tramell Tillman is absolutely brilliant in this role (which is saying something because everyone is fantastic).

Verdict: So. Yes. I loved it. You need to have seen Season 1. This is not a weekly episodic adventure series. If you hadn’t worked it out by now this is one of the maddest, twisting, absurd, science fiction dramas on television.

I’m expecting we get to see the Outies soon but opening by focusing only on the Innies was a brilliant move.

9/10 blue balloons

Stewart Hotston