“This episode needed to break the rules because they're experiencing something they've never experienced before,” the director says of Innies' great escape.
With a new Apple TV series, Severance, writer Dan Erickson and director Ben Stiller sketch a nightmare version of the future of labor that looks a little too close to work as we have it now. In its near-future, Adam Scott plays Mark, an employee at Lumon Industries who has undergone a medical procedure known as “severance.” This surgery split his mind such that while he’s at work in the company’s Macrodata Refinement division, he has no memory of his personal life. Likewise, as soon as he leaves the massive, grim headquarters, he loses all memories of his work self. He leads a dualistic existence, a twin inhabiting him that he’s unaware of. What would drive someone to do this? In Mark’s case, the death of his wife and his unrelenting grief.
Severance’s season finale found the innies capitalizing on the book they found in the Apple TV show. Here’s how they balanced the silliness with the sincere.