When Severance first premiered on Apple TV in February 2022 it scratched an itch that hadn’t received much attention in the proceeding years. After Lost stormed pop culture the concept of a “puzzle box” show became all the rage, and countless shows (Alcatraz, Fringe, FlashForward, Revolution, The Event to name a few) vied to be heralded as its successor.¹ While some were more successful than others (I do have a soft spot for Fringe) none of them came close to impacting the cultural zeitgeist in the same way, of not just commanding a large audience but compelling them to obsessively theorize about the Meaning Of It All each week.

It took years after Lost’s finale for serious attempts at a new “puzzle box” to surface. Westworld seemed a promising contender, as its first season did inspire the same type of devotion to “solve” what was going on in the show, with fans eagerly picking apart each episode for clues. But by the second season enthusiasm was already waning. Yellowjackets saw a similar trajectory. But Severance stuck. Severance has hit a nerve.

Part of it might be that when its first season aired we were still only just coming out the other side of the worst parts of the COVID pandemic, and options for new entertainment were still a bit sparse due to pandemic related delays. Part of it might be the prolonged wait between the first and second season (absence does make the heart grow fonder).  But Severance has encouraged the kind of intense message board theorizing that we have not seen in quite some time. And like Lost the theories often outpace the actual intentions of the show. People have confidently predicted the “real” Outie world has not been shown yet and we have just seen a The Truman Show style simulation, that Gemma was already an Innie when Mark met her, and that Lumon’s goal is to resurrect Keir from death.

So far these predictions have not come to pass. And the irony is that for as much as people treat Severance like a “puzzle box” and claim it is some kind of headfuck, its narrative is actually very straightforward. It may drip-feed information about its world, but there is never a sense that things are hard to understand. This is to the show’s credit, as it allows the characters and the themes ample room to breath.

While the “mystery” of the show may not be as wild as the most intense fans are hoping, the show is still engaging. But it is engaging in the same way that all good drama and stories are; it taps into actual anxieties the audience may have about the world and presents them in an interesting way. From the beginning the show’s seeming take on work-life-balance pulled people in and generated think pieces galore. But the show is not just a commentary on work-life balance. In its use of distinct Innie personas and vague corporate goals Severance can also be read as a form of neoliberal hell and an exploration of the Entrepreneurial Self within it. This framing may not require reddit thread theorizing, but to me it is far more engrossing.

“The You You Are”

The Entrepreneurial Self is a construct of neoliberalism, a sort of ideal form the individual should aspire to. It is a fragmentation of the self, which allows one to shift as needed in order to take advantage of whatever opportunity presents itself.² Having a core identity or set of principles becomes a hindrance in this view. If at your core you believe that healthcare is a universal right, for example, that might prevent you from seizing an opportunity to invest in an insurance company making record profits or a pharmaceutical company getting ready to launch a new drug for $500 a pill. Wouldn’t it be more advantageous for you to compartmentalize? Set aside those beliefs of universal healthcare for this moment and make some bank. Later on, when you are in a position where helping people afford those drugs is beneficial, you can always swing back around. Maybe donate to a non-profit or something.

It is important to keep in mind that the Entrepreneurial Self is not meant to be applied only to business transactions. The emphasis is on the “self”, and the idea of acting as an entrepreneur is “… postulated to be the primary method of changing your identity to live life to the fullest.”³ Social currency is still currency, still transactional. Being able to swiftly pivot from trend to trend, hot topic to hot topic, has been the lifeblood of social media in our current era. The embrace of fast fashion is predicated on newer versions of one’s self to continuously present, to make sure one is never seen as stuck in yesterday’s perception of cool. Having a set personality means there is a certain amount of inelasticity, a degree to which one can become content with what they have or limit what they see as needing. This is bad for business.

On the other hand, having an ever shifting self is immensely valuable to the mechanisms of capitalism. At a very base level it normalizes the idea of looking at everything in terms of its potential output. Because the goal is to always move toward whatever is most advantageous in the moment, a need arises to have a benchmark with which to judge the outcome. Things like “fun” or “enrichment” are hard to quantify. But things like “productivity” and “efficiency” are easier to measure, as they are better suited to having set numbers or values assigned to them.

The push toward standardized test scores in schools is an example many in the US are no doubt familiar. Teachers are held accountable to how well students do on these standardized test above all else, which means everything from their pay to the funding of their district is determined at least in part by those test scores. This turns a teacher into an “economic being” as the perceived value of the students has a direct impact on their salary and, whether a teacher sees themselves as doing this or not, puts them in competition with other teachers.⁴ As states change mandates and standards, teachers must then change their classroom curriculums not because the underlying knowledge and concepts have updated but to ensure their students meet the benchmarks set by the tests. On the flip side, if knowledge or understanding of a topic has improved or changed but those changes are not reflected in the testing material, the teacher is better served to present the outdated information even if it results in children understanding it incorrectly in the long term. Here then, teachers are expected to act as their Entrepreneurial Selves, shifting and changing tactics so as to always be in the best position to benefit from the myriad ways standardized testing is used in public education.

Because the neoliberal mindset puts such emphasis on these easy (or at least easier) to quantify data points, everything becomes about the short term. Do kids being taught to a standardized test really learn things in a meaningful sense that will benefit them five or ten years down the line? Irrelevant, because the immediate need is those good test scores secure funding for another year. The longview is kept out of sight and out of reach. The way things connect is obfuscated. Because these specific data points tell a good story in the moment, there is no need to worry about any long term ramifications. And when those ramifications do turn their head? Why that just means its time to pivot and adopt a new business, new idea, new persona to turn those consequences into can-sequences! There is essentially never a reason to worry about unforeseen (or easily seen) crises in the future because they will just become new opportunities at that time.

Fragmentation is the name of the game. Denying the way things connect into a bigger picture allows a siloing of tasks and purposes, which leads to consequences like the weakening of labor unions and social movements to the proliferation of the gig economy.⁵ Things are compartmentalized and made as autonomous as possible. Eating out used to entail going to a restaurant where you interacted directly with staff, and perhaps even the cooks. In that environment everything comes together into a specific whole that is, ideally, greater than the sum of its parts. Compare that to DoorDash, where you press a few buttons on your phone. That is the end of your direct engagement. From there a series of separate and individual processes begin. The order is received and made by people who will never set eyes on you. It is then handed to a delivery driver who has no association with either you or the people making the food. Payment is handled behind the scenes by an additional party that may as well be the Wizard of Oz for all anyone knows of them. And because of all the additional, disassociated layers, the cost of the meal for the consumer has surged.

And this is the genius at play; because all these aspects are handled separately, because at no point is anyone actually working with another, there is no serious questioning of the process. Everyone just plays their specific role, and there is no longer real insight into how everything works. Unionization is a lot more difficult when you don’t even know who else is in the same boat. People are less likely to care about the working conditions of employees and gig workers if they are kept out of sight. Everyone is engaged in their own specific task that they are doing because it what is needed at that time. And they are less likely to make waves, to speak their mind, to demand more, because they have no idea what others are doing or what those others think. The push for Entrepreneurial Selves is a push for an increasing sense of isolation.

“I Am A Person. You Are Not.”

It is no stretch to claim that the workers at the heart of Severance are meant to be seen as an allegory for exploitation. From its initial airing critics and viewers have been quick to associate the show with ideas of work-life balance and a critique of corporate culture. The Innies are, after all, people who have been created to do nothing but labor, meant to devote 100% to their jobs. But the extra lens of the Entrepreneurial Self provides additional depth to the show’s themes.

These severed personalities are an extreme form of autonomy that would be impossible to achieve in the real world. The complete detachment they have from their own lives and the broader world means there is absolutely no context at all for the work that they do. This makes organizing much more difficult; the show makes a point of regularly showing (particularly in the first season) the effort Lumon puts into not just keeping departments apart from one another but distrustful of one another.  A prominent bit in the first season is that MDR (the department our main protagonists comprise) believes there was a O&D Uprising, while O&D has been told there was an MDR Uprising, sowing distrust even as no one from either department had interacted with one another. It is only when Irve and Bert strike up their friendship/romance that the departments find some camaraderie, laying the ground work for the season two finale where an organized solidarity between the different departments actually does begin to take shape. That development serves to prove Lumon’s idea correct however, in that keeping everyone siloed made them easier to control.

Heightened compartmentalization serves as additional purpose for Lumon beyond stifling unionization; obfuscating what the hell they are actually doing. MDR knows their work is “mysterious and important,” but that is the extent of their ability to articulate the purpose of their labor. This ignorance allows for a remove from Lumon’s goals, and prevents any moral objections one might have to the nature of the work. You can’t be against something when you don’t know what it is.

This is a perfect condition for the Entrepreneurial Self, and thus for neoliberalism. The complete remove the severed employees have from any greater context means the only thing they have to focus on is the work in front of them. Their Outies, having no memory or knowledge of what they do when they are at work, are also at a remove and thus largely incapable of having objections to what they do. It is a perfect fragmentation, allowing these employees to essentially be two distinct individuals depending on whether they are at home or at work, without any overlap or competing motivations (well, initially). The lack of awareness these separate selves have becomes a surrendering of agency. Kept in the dark of what their Innies do at Lumon, Outies have no real grounds to question or complain about their job, whether to their bosses or to loved ones. Innies, isolated completely from the rest of the world, have nothing to compare their situation to, no context to place it in. This makes controlling the employees very easy for Lumon. Even in crisis, such as the end of the first season when the Innies use the Overtime Protocol to breach containment and engage with the outside world, Lumon can still rely on their naiveté to try and pacify them. The start of the second season involves Lumon showing the newly energized Innies fabricated news stories assuring them that their actions led to change, that things were different and the world had taken notice. Its all bullshit, just more manipulation tactics to mollify them. But even as the MDR Innies suspect deceit, there is no way for them to know. Cut off from their Outie personas, all they have to act on is the situation before their Innie personas. This is the insidious genius of the Entrepreneurial Self; by insisting you only ever focus on the current moment to make decisions, your ability to think more strategically, more holistically, more long-term is taken from you. Ideas of a greater purpose or good are irrelevant because none of them exist in this moment.

All that is left is the work itself, and in the absence of any other concept that work and its labor becomes deified. This is why neoliberals refer to the Markets as if it were an entity, indeed something with far greater insight and will than us mere mortals. As long as the Markets are something which cannot be questioned, than neither can the mechanisms that make up the systems which generate the capital which allow the Markets to function.

Severance of course, takes this to a surreal extreme. There is the obvious worshipping of Kier Eagan, the founder of Lumon, as a messianic figure. But the ritualizing of corporate productivity is more pervasive than a god-like figure head. The Break Room is itself a ritualistic and spiritual punishment for failing to live up to the potential of an Entrepreneurial Self. The opening line of the Compunction Statement employees must read is “Forgive me for the harm I have caused this world.”⁶ Keep in mind, this is what severed employees must read when they are unproductive or disruptive at work. By not doing their job (which again, they have no context for what it actually is they are doing), they are harming the world. The ability to meet quotas is treated with such reverence that failure to do so must naturally be met with an equal amount of disgust. It is not just bad for Lumon and its bottom line that you aren’t productive, it is bad for the world itself. The connection between the well being of a corporation and the well being of the planet is unavoidable, and it forces an internalization that achieving the companies goals are all that matter. That the punished employee must repeat the statement until they believe it is a further breakdown of the individual, and a reenforcement of the Entrepreneurial Self. The Innie must only be concerned about their ability to serve the company, because that is the current need. That is the only version of themselves that is beneficial. Because of this, it is vital to Lumon that the Innie truly believe and internalize the idea that failure to produce value is tantamount to doing real and actual harm to the entire world.

Still, there is an even slyer connection being made. The mere fact that Innies go to the Break Room when they are being punished is itself noteworthy. For the rest of us a break room is a space we go for brief moments of time to Not Work. It is meant as a reprieve from our labor, to eat or chat with coworkers or take a few moments to ourselves. For Lumon it is a place to be avoided at all costs. The direct implication being drawn is that employees should never want to take a break, the idea of not providing labor a punishment. An ideal Entrepreneurial Self would never dream of taking any unsanctioned break during work hours, because that is not the most beneficial use of the moment. Innies are conditioned to view time not providing labor as inherently bad, a decision not worth making. Indeed, when Innies are allowed breaks from their work it is imposed on them, and delivered in small increments (such as a Music Dance Experience that lasts 5 minutes). Agency is never provided, because it is assumed that the default desire should be to refine data for Kier.

The only other major reprieve from work afforded severed employees are the “wellness visits.” These too are illuminating. Once granted a wellness visit Innies are given small snippets of their Outie’s lives. It is a disturbing admission on Lumon’s part; the idea of a more comprehensive self, knowledge of a well-rounded existence, is presented as a reward and thus a fundamentally good thing. Yet is something that is actively denied the severed employees, only offered piece-meal and with no real indication of whether or not the information provided is factual. But the validity isn’t the point. It is an obvious ploy to placate the Innies. And it still provides valuable insight into the how the neoliberal lens views the Entrepreneurial Self, someone who is able to view their own life from a distance so as to never complicate the requirements of now. Tellingly, Innies are instructed to not show any favoritism toward any of the facts and experience them equally. Any show of emotion that indicates a particular enjoyment of one fact or another results in the wellness time being reduced. They are forced to be a non-partial observer to their own experiences, all the better to prevent an actual identity from taking shape.

Of course there are other perks Innies are provided, tangible rewards offered as long as quotas are met. They are not as impressive as the other rewards, but they are more plentiful.⁷ They are also tied to standardized metrics. While the other benefits are awarded at the discretion of others these perks are provided when employees hit key benchmarks. These easily quantifiable (and visible) standards allow the employees to compete with one another, not dissimilar from the way teachers end up competing through standardized test scores.

An important additional aspect is how those quotas are met is largely up to the department. Ms. Cobel and Mr. Milchek may be the supervisors of the severed floor, but they exert very little actual direction beyond telling Mark to ensure the job is done. Regardless of how threatening or intimidating that directive may be, it is up to Mark and those in his department to act in their own “best interests.” They are left to be Entrepreneurial Selves, doing whatever is needed to obtain these benefits, which they have been assured by the system in place is the most advantageous thing they can do.

She’s “Alive”!

So far the Innies have been discussed as a sort of ideal version of the Entrepreneurial Self. But in actuality they may just be a first step. While Lumon’s exact motives have yet to be revealed by the end of its second season, we do learn what has been happening to Gemma, Mark’s wife who was presumed dead after a car accident. Instead she was help captive by Lumon and had the severance procedure performed on her numerous times, creating multiple Innies who have even more specified roles being tested throughout a series of rooms. One is nothing but completing Christmas cards. One is dentist appointments. Though we are not shown what is within all of the rooms Gemma is taken to, the implication is they all represent tasks that could be seen as unpleasant or bothersome. Things we might wish we could skip or avoid. It harkens back to the senator's wife Devon encountered in season one, who used the severance procedure to offload child birth to an Innie.

Gemma is not merely having an Innie created, however. Gemma has had multitudes created, a fracturing of the self taken to an even greater extreme than that of the severed employees. This repeated siloing of tasks (and emotions) makes the ability to form an actual identity even more of an impossible task than the standard Innies. At least for Mark and Dylan and Helly and Irve, they still have their interactions with one another and the occasional intrusions of Mr. Milchick and Ms. Cobel to break things up and add variety. There are still avenues for some experiences to form outside of those directly related to their labor, outside of the task they are expected to carry out. Not so for Gemma. The intention for the Gemma Innie assigned to dentist appointments is to have no experiences except that of going to the dentist. The Gemma writing Christmas Cards will only ever write Christmas cards. It is the most extreme version of the Entrepreneurial Self, making the abstract concept even more literal.

Let us take a moment to really think through the ramifications of this and take it outside the confines of the show. What would it look like if there could be a different version of you who went to work, who did chores, who engaged with obligatory familial gatherings? If every task in your life could be offloaded to separate version of yourself who only did that thing and free you from the burden? The idea that being siloed can lead to exploitation trickles down all the way. Imagine a world where you created an Innie who did all of your grocery shopping for you. As soon as you step into the grocery store they take over, and after exiting you regain control. That Innie has absolutely no frame of reference for what they are purchasing, outside of presumably a list they walked in with. Now lets say they go to buy chicken and see the price has skyrocketed since the last time they were there. Confused they ask and are told it is due to a bird flu induced chicken shortage. But is that the reason? The Innie only exists within the perimeter of the store, and their only experiences are that of buying groceries off a list. Maybe there is an actual shortage, maybe that is just the story being told to ring a few more bucks off of shoppers. The Innie has no external information, context, or experience to counter the explanation. They just kind of have to take the store’s word on it.

Fragmention is the name of the game. This is the point, the reason, the motivation. The more someone can compartmentalize and separate their experiences, the more opportunities there are for exploitation. Just as companies (like Lumon) will do what they can to separate departments and individual workers to prevent solidarity and better control them, the Entrepreneurial Self seeks to separate individuals from themselves. To separate them from their own lived existence so they can become more amenable to whatever short term goal is deemed most profitable in the moment. Gemma, in being split amongst so many distinct and unrelated selves, is incapable of living anything we would call a life. She is instead a vessel for efficiency and optimization, a master of so many various tasks and jobs that will never add up to even the approximation of a satisfying whole. She is the perfect participant for the neoliberal marketplace.

This is why I have found the insistence on constructing grandiose theories about what Lumon is really up to a bit superfluous. It is not that those questions are fully uninteresting; I have engaged in my own attempts at predicting reveals and truths, particularly with the second season. But in many ways the attempts to solve the puzzle we think is being presented ends up distracting from the true horror at the show’s core. Resurrecting Kier or the reveal that everything has been a simulation would be momentarily interesting but ultimately unfulfilling, because for all those trappings the show has never been as married to the idea of being a “puzzle box” as many assume. Those elements are there but are essentially accent walls, meant to enhance but very much in service of Severance’s themes. Making the puzzle the main focus runs the risk of disappointment when the end comes and all those various conspiracies turn out to be wrong. Severance, I believe, understands it is first and foremost a show about the hell of corporate neoliberalism, about the ways we must constantly disassociate from our own lives in order to serve the system. Everything else is just a stylistic verve to get that across in as engaging of a way as possible.

I think it is important to make this distinction, because I suspect that when Severance does end many viewers will end up disappointed because they mistook the show’s willingness to get surreal as a mission statement, or internalized the slow building out of the world to mean learning those secrets was itself the point. In actuality, whether Severance ends in a satisfying matter will come down to how well it is able to stick the thematic landing and provide payoff to the existential dread and awakening its character’s are experiencing.

One does not need to look hard in our reality to see that there is a widespread sense of dissatisfaction with, you know, everything. And there is indeed a long tradition among philosophers, artists, and even your regular average person of tracing the cause of that dissatisfaction to consumerism. To neoliberal malaise. To the sense that we are nothing more than our productivity. Severance follows that storied tradition, and does so by making the concept of the Entrepreneurial Self absurdly literal. Both the show and the concept are fascinating and haunting, illustrations of neoliberalism’s worst tendencies and ideas. Lumon sees its employees not as people but as means to an end. And what that end is does not matter when the means are this horrifying.