The premise of Dan Erickson’s company dystopia collection “Severance” is tantalizing and simple to understand. A big and mysterious firm referred to as Lumon has developed a revolutionary mind implant that permits it to “sever” its workers’ minds. Whereas an worker is on the workplace, they don’t have any reminiscences of their outdoors lives, and once they depart the workplace, they don’t have any reminiscences of their work day. It is the last word work/life stability. In fact, an unintended consequence of the severance course of is that Lumon workers start to develop new personalities whereas on the within. These “Innies” and “outies” even begin to see themselves as separate individuals.
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As “Severance” has progressed, nonetheless, Lumon has solely turn out to be extra mysterious. Nobody is sort of positive what it does. The lead characters (performed by Adam Scott, Britt Decrease, Zach Cherry, and John Turturro) work within the firm’s “macrodata refinement” division, and the outcomes of their work is unknown. Lumon can be elevating goats (!), and insists that its workers worship the corporate’s lifeless founder, Kier Eagan, as if he had been a Christ-like semi-deity. Lumon would not merely have company secrets and techniques; it appears to be main a cult.
It is finally revealed that town the place Lumon is baed … can be referred to as Kier. Every part is city is overseen by Lumon, and Lumon spies appear to be maintaining a tally of everybody on the town, particularly the Outies. The corporate isn’t relegated to a single, horrifying workplace however seems to be partaking in a social experiment that spreads throughout the entire metropolis. In season 2, Lumon supervisor Ms. Cobel (Patricia Arquette) leaves city and drives over 200 miles to a snowy city referred to as Salt Neck, a distant fishing village. “Severance” is filmed in New York, however the precise location of Kier stays obscure.
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In fact, if the city of Kier is enclosed as a airtight social experiment, then the precise time interval of “Severance” may additionally be obscure. Just a few clues on the collection level to when it takes place.
Severance takes place within the ‘now-ish’
The primary clue comes from Erickson himself. In an interview with The Wrap (through Forbes), the showrunner as soon as mentioned “Severance” kind of takes place within the current day. “We’re not going for one thing the place that is 10 years sooner or later, the place severance has been invented and already exists,” he defined. “It is form of an alternate, vaguely now-ish timeline.”
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This assertion was backed up by some intelligent Redditors who had been in a position to snap a screenshot of Mark Scout’s (Scott) driver’s license. The license says that Mark was born on April 3, 1978. April 3 occurs to be actor Adam Scott’s birthday, though he was born in 1973, making Mark 5 years youthful.
The license was mentioned to have been issued in 2020, which was about when the primary season of “Severance” was being filmed. Because of delays in manufacturing, the primary episodes of “Severance” did not drop till February of 2022. The license, then, solely additional traces up with the current. Erickson, nonetheless, did need to add that the time can be meant to be somewhat ambiguous. Certainly, there’s a retro-futurist aesthetic to numerous Lumon, and far of its tech appears to have been designed within the Nineteen Sixties. There may be extra analog about Lumon than digital. Even the carpets are a shade of inexperienced extra generally seen in the course of the Kennedy administration. “Severance” is the current, however it’s additionally the previous.
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In fact, some sharp-eyed viewers seen, within the above screencaps, that the cardboard behind Mark’s license is a New York driver’s license from the 12 months 1973. It says, in very small lettering, “Vincent L. Tofany, Commissioner of Motor Automobiles.” The actual-life Tofany served because the New York State Commissioner of Motor Automobiles from 1967 to 1973.
Technically, Severance may happen at any time
The Nineteen Seventies driver’s license signifies somewhat additional that “Severance” takes place out of joint with common time. The previous and the current are type of chummy. In fact, the bizarre anachronisms and retro applied sciences are extra probably a design alternative than a clue as to the present’s wonky timeline.
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Plus, one may assume that Erickson and government producer Ben Stiller aren’t merely organising the identical twist utilized in M. Evening Shyamalan’s 2004 thriller “The Village.” That movie was set in a distant wooded village, whereby the clothes and know-how appeared to point that it occurred within the nineteenth century. Ultimately, although, the film revealed the titular village was truly a cloistered neighborhood of twenty first century people who had, years earlier than, constructed an Amish-like enclave of retro-living residents. They walled themselves off in a distant wooden in Pennsylvania and eschewed trendy know-how, preferring to stay prefer it was the 1800s. Nevertheless, the neighborhood’s leaders by no means advised its youthful residents, who had been born there, what 12 months it actually was.
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Will it in the end be revealed that “Severance” truly takes place within the distant future however solely play-acts prefer it’s the 2020s as a result of actions of some unseen Lumon social experimenters? I suppose that is doable, and a few followers on-line have posited that such a twist could also be coming within the now-confirmed “Severance” season 3. However then, provided that such a twist was already famously utilized in “The Village,” one may assume that it would not be repeated in “Severance.” So, regardless of some clues, it is presently protected to imagine that Erickson is being a straight-shooter. “Severance” does, in reality, happen “now-ish.”
