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Severance season 1 premiered on February 18, 2022, on Apple TV+. The sci-fi mystery series is created by Dan Erickson and directed by Ben Stiller and Aoife McArdle. It focuses on the workers of the sinister corporation, Lumon Industries, after they undergo the severance program to keep their work memories separate from their personal memories.
The dystopian thriller series is produced by Amanda Overton, Gerry Robert Byrne, Adam Scott, Patricia Arquette, and Aoife McArdle. Moreover, Mark Friedman, Caroline Baron, Jordan Tappis, etc., serve as the show's executive producers. The official synopsis reads:
"In Severance, Mark Scout (Adam Scott) leads a team at Lumon Industries, whose employees have undergone a severance procedure, which surgically divides their memories between their work and personal lives."
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It continues:
"This daring experiment in “work-life balance” is called into question as Mark finds himself at the center of an unraveling mystery that will force him to confront the true nature of his work… and of himself."
The series was renewed for a second season in April 6, 2022, and is slated to release on January 17, 2025. Ahead of its season 2 premiere, here's a refresher of everything that happened in Severance season 1.
Who are the workers at Lumon seen in Severance season 1?
Severance season 1 centers around the workers of Lumon Industries—Mark S. (Adam Scott), Dylan G. (Zach Cherry), Irving B. (John Turturro), and Helly R. (Britt Lower). They work in the company's Macrodata Refinement (MDR) department.
Helly is introduced in the first episode of Severance season 1 as a new recruit at the company. Within minutes of her onboarding, she changes her mind and decides she wants out of the severance program. Her attempts to leave the building and end the contract, which she signed voluntarily, go in vain.
Desperate, she tries to commit suicide by hanging herself from the elevator shaft but is saved in time and forced to work at the company against her wishes.
The workers lead a dull, monotonous life and spend their work hours shuffling numbers on a computer screen. When an employee makes a mistake, they are sent to the break room and made to repeatedly recite statements of apology, like small children, as a form of punishment.
Also, the company's different departments are not allowed to freely mingle, and the workers at MDR are unaware of how many departments exist in the office.
What is the Severance program?
Lumon Industries runs a program called 'severance' to help their workers separate their work life from their personal life. After voluntarily joining the program, a chip is inserted into the worker's brain, causing their consciousness to split into two parts, the innies (work life) and outies (personal life). The two parts co-exist but stay unaware of each other's existence.
As per the program, when Mark heads to his office in the morning, his innie wakes up while he rides the elevator to his department. In the office, he has no memory or recollection of his life outside work. Similarly, at the end of the workday, he takes the elevator ride and awakens his outie state, in which he has no memory of what happened at work.
The outie Mark lives alone in the town of Kier after the death of his wife, Gemma. He is revealed to have joined the severance program as a way to deal with the loss of his wife and carry on with his life.
All the workers in the MDR department are severed. The severed floor's manager, Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette), and supervisor Milchick (Tramell Tillman) are the only exceptions, as their memories are perfectly intact and whole.
Read Also: Severance season 2 - Everything we know so far
Petey's tragic story in Severance season 1 explained
Petey (Yul Vazquez) was Mark’s best friend at work, and his sudden departure from the company made way for the latter to become the department chief. However, when Petey approaches the outie Mark, he has no recollection of him at all.
He tells Mark that he has reintegrated himself, meaning his work and personal selves have merged back again. Petey informs his friend that the company's severance program is hiding something sinister.
Intrigued, Mark invites him to stay in the basement of his house. Petey, who suffers from reintegration sickness, frequently gets his two severed selves mixed up. He eventually dies of the sickness, leaving behind his cell phone.
Through Petey's phone, Mark meets the scientist Reghabi (Karen Aldridge), who is responsible for developing the severance chips for Lumon. She tells Mark that she reintegrated the worker's memories, including Petey's.
How do the MDR workers realize they are severed?
In episode 6 of Severance season 1, Dylan learns that his innie can be woken up outside of working hours in a special protocol called the overtime contingency. After realizing that he has a young son, the innie Dylan feels motivated to break free from his one-dimensional existence.
He tells his co-workers, and they decide together to use the protocol to find out about their personal lives. Irving also joins the plan to help stay connected to his crush and fellow employee Burt (Christopher Walken), who is about to leave work soon.
Together, they decide that Dylan will operate the protocol from inside the office, using the security card Mark obtained from Doug Graner, the head of security of the severed floor at Lumon. Meanwhile, the others will connect with their respective outies and potentially stop them from returning to work.
Read Also: 10 shows to watch while waiting for Severance season 2
What do the workers learn about their real lives in Severance season 1?
In the season finale episode of Severance, the workers finally meet their real selves outside of work. The innie Irving learns that he is a Navy veteran and currently lives alone with his dog. He finds that his personal self was painting images of a pitch-dark corridor leading to an elevator. He also comes across documents and maps of Burt’s house and decides to track him down.
Helly learns that her real name is Helena Eagan, and she is the daughter of Lumon’s current CEO, Jame Eagan. She had taken part in the severance program as a publicity stunt to increase people's trust in the program. Helly's innie finds herself at a Lumon gala party about to give a speech in favor of severance.
Furthermore, Mark's innie finds himself at his sister Devon's house, where he runs into Mrs. Selvig and immediately recognizes her as his manager, Harmony Cobel. During their conversation, he accidentally calls her Cobel, alerting her to the fact that Mark has somehow compromised the severance program. She rushes to inform Milchick, who heads to the security room at Lumon and puts an end to the overtime contingency.
As Mark's innie learns more about his real life, he figures out that the wellness counselor at work, Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman), is indeed his dead wife Gemma and exclaims to his sister, "She's alive!" Elsewhere, Irving arrives outside Burt's house, unaware that he has a partner in real life. Helly prepares to expose the truth behind the severance program to the public.
But they are all stopped in their tracks, as the overtime contingency comes to a halt, reverting them to their outie states at the end of Severance season 1.
All episodes of Severance season 1 can be streamed on Apple TV+.
