If you’re feeling overwhelmed about returning to work after the holidays, it’s not a good idea to watch Severance now; In all other circumstances this may be the case. According to the Apple TV+ series, the office is a maze of deserted white hallways where all the doors are usually closed and you almost never meet anyone. An oppressive space where you don’t have to be yourself, where it’s enough to be a cog in a machine you don’t understand.
If the narrative were shorter it could be an episode of Black Mirror, if it were even shorter it would fit in The Twilight Zone, an old reference for disturbing dystopias. As a satire on the world of work, “Separation” is brutal. The employees of the Lumon company lose their memory when they go to work and do not know who they were; and when they leave, they resume their lives, without trauma from what happened on their journey. They can be abused while inside (dentris) and free while ignorant outside (fueris).
Among the strange things that creep from one world to another is an absurd self-help book: The You That Are, literally written by a brother-in-law. For the Dentris it is not a book: it is the book. And there they find such simple messages that have a certain success in bookstores. “A good person will follow the rules. “A great man will follow himself,” says the text, which comes as a revelation to those who don’t remember what else they have read. Fans have filled the internet with insane quotes from the book that promises to change your life. It is the other great satire.
You don’t have to erase your summer memories when you walk into the office. Companies don’t care about your memory as long as you’re a stone thrower. The strange thing would be if the bosses stopped invading your free time.
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