Warning: the following contains SPOILERS for Severance.
Severance reveals that dozing off while on the severed floor leads to vivid and traumatic hallucinations for severed employees – but there's more to this than just maintaining worker productivity. In Apple TV+'s Severance, a dystopian sci-fi series that explores the ethics of advanced biotechnologies, nothing is truly what it seems. This is especially true for Lumon Industries' severed employees whose memories are split between their work and home lives. By preventing microdata refiners from dozing off, Lumon Industries is not just promoting productivity, it's also preventing employees' innies from dreaming about their outies' lives.
In Severance season 1, episode 2 “Half Loop,” veteran microdata refiner Irving – despite being the department's most loyal employee – dozes off in the middle of his shift. This causes Irving to experience a vivid hallucination involving black goo aggressively creeping into his cubicle and overtaking his desk. Later, department supervisor Milchick takes Irving to Casey, the severed floor counselor, for a wellness check.
Severance, through Irving's experience, shows that sleeping on the job is met with an immediate response, not just from the company, but also from the erring worker's very mind. This isn't just a way to prevent dips in productivity. In fact, this is related to the main purpose of the terrifying process of severance: outies are not supposed to know anything about work, and innies are not supposed to remember any non-work-related memories. However, if an innie dozes off while on the severed floor, that employee's dreams could undermine this purpose. This is because dreams are a combination of a person's imagination, their subconscious thoughts, and their memories. In short, if innies are allowed to sleep in the workplace, they could dream about memories and other information from their outie lives, which would defeat the very purpose of implanting severance chips into employees' brains. Although this isn't expressly discussed in the show, Severance's surreal and dream-like intro sequence hints at the importance of dreams. Moreover, while this reveals the imperfections of the severance chip, it also shows that the technology is capable of so much more than just bifurcating memories.
Neither Irving nor anyone else in the cast of Severance seem to be particularly alarmed about the harrowing hallucination that Irving experienced, suggesting that it's an expected effect of the severance chip. This means that the black ooze hallucination, whether it was tailored for Irving or not, is a regular part of the programming to scare employees into staying awake and prevent them from sleeping and dreaming on the job. While no other employee has experienced a similar hallucination prior to Irving, the black ooze is also present in the Severance intro sequence, in which a CGI version of Mark struggles with the black ooze that's leaking out of the garbage and imitating his physical form. Apart from a way to keep employees awake, the black ooze could also be a clue to the real purpose of the macrodata refinement department, which, as some viewers have suggested, could be related to cloning and the transfer of consciousness.
As Mrs. Selvig, severed floor boss Harmony Cobell gives Mark's outie some chamomile cookies, mugwort bath bombs which contain lavender and eucalyptus, and advice about sleeping 8 hours per day. Chamomile and eucalyptus are both commonly used as relaxants, while lavender is scientifically proven to be as effective of a sedative as diazepam. These herbs are typically used not just for relaxation, but also for ushering in pleasant dreams before sleep. In short, Harmony is not just monitoring Mark's outie, she's also trying to keep Mark's mind relaxed, ultimately as a way of preventing Mark's outie from having any vivid dreams related to work.
What happened to Petey is a preview of what could happen if severed employees were allowed to dream freely. After the process of reintegration, which reverses the severance process, Petey's innie memories bleed into his daily reality outside of the severed floor. Before Petey could reveal to Mark what he knows about Lumon Industries' real purpose and why employees' memories need to be bifurcated, he suffered a waking nightmare until he eventually succumbed to the effects of reintegration sickness and died. If Lumon Industries didn't do anything to control the dreams of both innies and outies, any severed employee could suffer a similar fate.
The song “Enter Sandman” by Metallica, which Petey and his daughter June sing in a video shown during Petey's funeral, is another reference to the world of dreams and sleep. The song's main themes also reflect the relationship that severed employees have with their dreams, their own subconscious minds, and Lumon Industries. In “Enter Sandman,” the proverbial father figure is subverted and twisted into a dark custodian for the mythical sandman, setting up nightmarish images as he tucks his son in for bed. “Enter Sandman” is actually about Metallica vocalist James Hetfield's turbulent relationship with his own father. In Severance, “Enter Sandman” reflects how Petey sees Lumon Industries founder Kier Eagan, whom the company presents as a father figure to all severed employees. Similar to the child in “Enter Sandman,” severed employees are ushered into the world of nightmares by a father figure that's supposed to be protecting them.
Severance, through Lumon's strict rules about dozing off at work, reveals the current imperfections of the severance chip. Indeed, the evidence suggests that the memories of innies and outies remain connected through the subconscious mind. Harmony confirms this to be true when she makes Casey light a candle that was made by Mark's wife during Mark's wellness check. Instructed by Casey to sculpt out his feelings through clay, Mark's innie uses his hands to form a tree, which represents the location where his wife died. If a mere scent can prompt innies to be influenced by outie memories, unhindered dreaming could potentially wake them up from Gen Z's worst nightmare and completely undermine the intended effects of Lumon's severance chip. This means that dreams could hold the key to freeing people from the effects of severance.
Severance releases new episodes Fridays on Apple TV+.
from ScreenRant - Feed https://ift.tt/9IOj78b
via IFTTT
0 Comments