After the first season of Severance, I blogged a couple of times about the issues it raises for having children and organizing in the white-collar world.
As I watched the second season, I had in mind that I might revisit these topics. Does the second season tell us anything new about organizing, for instance?
In some sense, perhaps it does. It provides more detail in how companies divide workers from one another and from their work. In addition, it gets into details about how workers can overcome these things. The four core workers throw off a ton of corporate bullshit and learn how to trust each other.
But I wanted to hit one new topic.
Reintegration
In the first season, we watched a former Lumon employee try to reintegrate his severed brain. He fails and, as we know, dies.
That’s pretty ominous.
This time, our main character Mark begins the road to reintegration with the same doctor. As he starts the process, he experiences memories and flashbacks that cross the barrier between the two selves trapped in the same body.
This sets us up for various metaphysical issues. Can two selves share a body? It seems to me they can. Is it possible for a fully developed self to spring into existence without some kind of historical narrative to give it coherence? I’m less confidence in that. In fact, it’s a reservation I’ve had about the show from the very first episode of Season 1.
However, these aren’t the issues I wanted to raise.
A Self Divided
I won’t get too spoiler-y here, though I assume most readers have had plenty of time to watch Season 2. But the most interesting issues to me stem from the way the plot pits Mark’s two selves against one another.
To this point in the show, the two selves were starkly divided. One self went into the office and transformed into the other self. They didn’t interact. But Season 2 sets up a plot device whereby they do interact. They argue over a series of recorded videos.
For me, that’s where things got interesting. In particular, their debate over the wisdom over reintegration into a single person stands out. Once you’ve created a second self, is it appropriate to merge it back into you?
It raised issues about whether and how to balance the interests of the two selves. Mark’s “outie” seems to take it for granted that he is the primary self. That probably matches the starting point of the viewer, who surely shares more in common with the “outie” than the “innie.”
But Mark’s “innie” self begs to differ. His feelings don’t match those of the “outie,” and, indeed, he even has his own interests separate from those of the “outie.”
They hash it out. And anyone who has watched Season 2 knows the conflict is key to the ending.
In short, I think Season 2 of Severance raises a lot of issues about the value of lives and persons. Does Mark’s “innie” have lesser value because it’s not very old and created with no history? Is the “innie” simply a part of the “outie”?
I suspect we’ll be getting some answers in Season 3 – at least, we’ll be getting Ben Stiller’s answers!
