RILEY RAINS / SPORTS EDITOR

“Severance,” the Apple TV+ series starring Adam Scott, released its final episode of season  two  on   March 21,  leaving fans distraught. The series   surrounds    a  corporation, Lumon, whose employees have agreed to “sever” their   memory — splitting their consciousness between work-life and home-life. 

The Emmy-winning psychological thriller challenges  a   variety   of    political and social  understandings.  The  show is so controversial  that  it  has caused debate in major news sources  such as  The  New  York  Times, The  New  Yorker and USA Today  about work and home life, racism and child labor.  Influencers   and   bloggers are eager to share conspiracy theories related to  the complex  plot,  but  none  know as much as the screenwriter himself, Dan Erickson. 

Erickson is an American television screenwriter, showrunner  and  producer.  He graduated  from  the  New  York  University’s  Tisch  School of the Arts with a Master of Fine Arts in dramatic writing for television.  In   an   interview  with Script, an American magazine, about Severance, Erickson shared how the concept of the show first came to him. 

“The idea first occurred to me not as a TV show, but as something  that  I would actually like to do to my own brain,” Erickson explained. “I was  literally  walking  into  work one day at a job I really hated and caught myself thinking, ‘What if there was some way to just dissociate, and for my body to do  whatever it needs  to do over the next eight hours to earn this paycheck — to not have to consciously experience it?’”

Erickson and his team, including Ben Stiller, the executive producer and director of “Severance,” took the idea and ran with it.

”When Ben got involved, we worked to hone [the plot] down to the more grounded, still very strange, and very askew, but slightly more human-focused version that it is today,” Erickson said.

The plot follows Mark Scout, an employee at Lumon Industries played by Scott, after undergoing the surgical procedure known as “severance.” Scout and his coworkers work to uncover the corporation’s secrets, all while living in the mystery of their “outie’s” personal lives. “Outies” and “Innies” are  terms referring to characters’ “inner” work lives, and “outer” home lives. 

The series plays with a variety of eerie cinematic strategies, something that Sara Hasselbach, the USD Writing Center director, especially noticed with her literary expertise. 

“Something so arresting is the atmosphere it creates,” Hasselbach said. “We’re so conditioned, in season one and beyond, to be used to that sterile office, that when we get outside of it, that starts feeling unnatural. Nature being unnatural is seriously unsettling.”

The uncanny mood that Severance creates was done purposefully    as   a  way    to   reflect   modern   day   institutions. 

The show’s protagonist, Mark Scout, is played by Adam Scott. Photo courtesy of @thespaceshipper/X

“One thing that we talked about a lot was that  you’re never  really  outside  of  Lumon, like you can go outside of the building, but  their  tentacles are  still   everywhere,”  Erickson  said. “It’s  in  the  same way  that a lot of  corporations  or  institutions will insinuate themselves into culture in a way  that’s not often obvious … We tried to have this sort of  creeping sense of dread with the company that it’s always there, even if you can’t see it watching you, it’s probably watching you.”

The   series  includes  a  variety of visual aspects to convey this unsettling atmosphere. A mysterious goat-breeding sector of the Severed Floor mirrors the outlandishness   of   the  concept. The  Severed Floor refers to  the workers who underwent the “severed”  procedure –  they all  work on the same level.  White-soaked rooms and  hallways  paint  corporate  as emotionless — “innies” are less  than  human.  Robotic  and stiff language is encouraged by workers, stripping them of personality. This concept in particular centers itself in Mr. Milchick, manager   of   the   Severed   Floor. 

“I’m dying to know what’s going on with Milchick,” Hasselbach  shared. “The racism he’s been treated with, having this black  male character being told not to sound smart, not to use advanced language, I think it is wearing on him.”

The scene Hasselbach is referring to is when Milchick gets in trouble for using sophisticated dialect when speaking to   severed   employees. Issues of  racism are  just one  of the  social issues that “Severance”  attacks. A  few others include child labor, familial   relationships,   religion,  alienation   and  trauma. 

USD students  themselves are enraptured in the complexity of the new series. Rio Solis, a USD junior, shared his thoughts. 

“My favorite part of Severance is the way it makes you think about yourself, if you had to make a choice like that,” Solis said. “It puts you in a position that is more uncomfortable.” 

With the dramatic conclusion of season two, fans are eager for more. Stiller announced that season three will hopefully  be released in two to three years. Some Toreros may be impatient for season  three,  and may   consider  severing  their  memory  until   it’s   released to save  on time  and anticipation. Until  then, viewers  will  have  plenty  to  chew on, with  the show’s thought provoking social commentary keeping attention captivated  until  the  day  comes.

The show’s protagonist, Mark Scout, is played by Adam Scott. Photo courtesy of @thespaceshipper/X