The Apple TV+ drama Severance focuses on Mark Scout, a grieving widower who undergoes a radical procedure that separates his work memories from his personal ones. The result creates an alternate version of Mark referred to as “Innie Mark.” Innie Mark never experiences the life that his other self, henceforth known as “Outie Mark,” takes for granted. Where Moon Knight is hinting at five personalities, this show only focuses on two — and misses a ton of potential.
If the technology in Severance was actually viable, people could use it for medical advancements and treatments that Lumon doesn’t seem to have considered. The mega-corporation responsible for creating the “severance” procedure obviously has a hidden agenda or there wouldn’t be much of a show. But even so, their marketing strategy to the general population needs a public relations overhaul before Season 2 begins.
Ben Stiller directs this look at office culture, more mind-bending than the Doctor Strange 2 poster and presented as a unique solution to achieving a work-life balance. The memory-splitting surgery could be a way to enhance your personal and social connections without the distraction of work. The volunteers who undergo severance are depicted as trying to escape the trauma in their outside lives. After the death of his wife, Outie Mark decides to erase the pain of losing his spouse for eight hours a day. Unable to return to his regular job in his troubled emotional state, severance allows him to continue earning a living while grappling with his loss. Outie Mark reasons the Innie counterpart won’t have to suffer his pain without his memories, and the only person he’s hurting by undergoing the procedure is himself.
Instead of presenting volunteers with a moral dilemma, it would’ve been preferable to lean into the religious overtones of Lumon Industries itself. Some employees like Ms. Cobel already treat it like a religion, so presenting the neurological advancement as a “miracle” would not have been a stretch. The Innie could be “a new life” people can bring into the world since “the other you” is their own conscious individual, marketed as “giving life without giving birth.”
Another strategy might be to make the process more appealing if the “Innie” has to master a new language or skill. In the same way that skills upload into your consciousness in The Matrix (which almost starred Nicolas Cage), Outies can reap the benefit of their Innie’s hard work without actually remembering the hours of study it took. Even though the Innies have no recollection of their Outies’ lives, they still retain all the skills and knowledge that their other selves possess. When Innie Irving emerges in the outside world, he is surprised at his ability to drive a car (a stick shift, no less) without ever having been inside one before. Therefore, it would stand to reason that sharing or knowledge extends in both directions.
The Innie would replace their Outie for undesirable tasks such as intense exercise, learning a foreign language or even recovering from surgery. This setup may also be less traumatic for the Innie, who could make mastering their skill their sole purpose. The blank doppelganger could then be told be told they will “ascend” and join their Outie without any such actual reunion. This exploitative method is already hinted at in Severance when Mark’s sister uncovers how some women forgo the pain of childbirth by swapping in their Innie when it is time for labor.
Taking a more inward view of the process, the ulterior personality is perhaps the purest version of their Outie when they first awaken. The Innie has the skills, functional knowledge, and personality of their Outie without any of the emotional baggage that comes from past trauma and pain. Despite what the evil corporation is secretly planning, they need to convince more people to implant the severance chip for it to be successful.
If they framed the interaction for the Outie as being able to meet “the purest version of their soul,” being able to answer intimate questions or get to know yourself without any bias would motivate more people in a sort of self-help way. But those are only a few options that Lumon could choose to improve their brand in Severance‘s second season. The current setup of a literal “Hell on Earth” isn’t going to do them any favors.
To see how Lumon Industries absolutely bungled their media rollout, the entire first season of Severance is currently streaming on Apple TV+.
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