Tis Me Michelle

Wow.

I mentioned how it’s been a while since I watched TV for a while. Because of that, I wasn’t watching serious shows because I just wasn’t in the space for anything more stressful than real life. And this show is about work, the thing I was trying to de-compress from. I ended up leaving that job and during my in-between period before starting the new job started my love for TV again. This show was recommended to me by my old co-workers, and wow. Just wow.

The show is pretty intense. Since I’m easing my way into drama, even though this show has some humor and is more of a thriller, I did have to take some breaks. Cause it really does hit home. I mean, the whole concept is something I’ve been wrestling with myself. But what a way to put things into perspective and makes you be introspective.

The overall premise of Severance follows Mark (Adam Scott), who decides to join a company, Lumon, after his wife dies. To do so, he had to undergo a ‘severance’ procedure. The procedure makes it so that employees do not know about their ‘outie’ (regular) life while they are at work, and when they leave they do not know anything about their ‘innie’ (work) life. In some ways that sounds amazing, and yet… How crazy it would be to just not know a huge chunk of your life. This show made me think more than really any other show I’ve ever watched.

Over the past few years, I really struggled with ‘”shutting off” from work. The environment I was working in was a constant state of… lack of direction, and yet we all just kept on going. What else are you supposed to do in corporate America? Even though I wasn’t completely behind or decision or understood why we were doing things, I just kept plowing forward. I felt like I gave more than enough of myself to the job, was always available, delivered consistently; and somehow, never got the growth I felt I deserved. So then it just felt like, what was it all for?

Severance rang so true in that when things are just going as ‘the machine’ expects, you just keep going and going and going. Losing years of your life and not really getting anything in return. Unlike Severance, I didn’t get to ‘shut off’ after work, but this is also where things get blurry. You can see that aside from his run-ins with Petey, Mark lives a kind of empty life. Given his grief and not having a job he used to presumably enjoy, he seems to be a shell of a person. And to an extent that is how I felt too, I’d be so exhausted from ‘working’ or thinking about work, that I quite literally didn’t have the energy to do anything else. It was also just hard for me to have an identity outside of my job. Trying to have a full identity independent of work is something I’m really invested in for my own well-being. Even starting another corporate job now, I don’t want my whole identity to be work again.

Don’t get me wrong, everything about work wasn’t awful. Much like Severance, it’s the people that make it worthwhile. You can see the shift that sets the show on its course is the departure of Mark’s work BFF Petey. Let’s be real, not all jobs are going to be your ‘dream’ job, but you can make your time worthwhile with the people you come across. When they start to leave, or you see they are just another body in the system, it makes you question the system. A newbie, Helly (Britt Lower), comes in and shakes up the place. She really just isn’t having it and slowly knocks the dominos in motion. And wouldn’t you know it, I had a few new co-workers come in towards the end and they helped me put things into perspective. It made me realize that I was not crazy and that there were other options.

In Helly’s journey, you actually wonder if you do have a choice. There are so many ‘incentives’, or how it often felt for me “a carrot being dangled on a string”, to keep you going just enough to keep you put. And so harshly shown for Helly, ways companies can guilt you. Honestly, there were just so many things during this show that blew my mind on how on point it was. It was really interesting that even a character like Irving (John Turturro), who swore by the company, started to see the company in a different light by the end of the season.

The build-up to the finale was thrilling and I have to say – one of my favorite season finales. What a cliffhanger! And still, I have sooo many questions!

Some thoughts & questions [spoilers ahead]:

• What does Lumon actually do?!
• What did Petey know?
• Why are there goats?? What happens to them?!
• I ship Burt & Irving (sounds like Burt & Ernie)
• Who is Reghabi & how is she able to reverse severance?
• Who is ‘the board’?
• Why isn’t Cobel severed? What was up with the creepy shrine!?
• Is Milchick severed?
• Helly is an Eagen?
• WTF was that waffle ‘party’?!

Did you watch Severance? What are your thoughts?