Emily Articulated: Severance

By Emily Erickson
Reader Columnist

What if you never had to think about work outside of the office again? No stress, no emails, no lingering dread of Monday mornings. The cost? Just losing half of your memory.

This is a bargain I would have considered seriously at my first desk job — managing HUD-funding cases through the monotony of data entry and paper filing, all while fielding complaint calls from people whose assistance changed due to factors outside my control. 

I was a cog in a machine I didn’t quite understand, my work having real-world consequences for people I would never meet. 

The idea of turning off my work brain at 5 p.m. and completely detaching from my in-office experiences would have been more than tempting. The idea also happens to be the premise of Severance, the Apple TV+ hit streaming series that takes the concept of work-life balance to its most extreme conclusion. 

Emily Erickson. Courtesy photo.

At Lumon Industries, employees on the “severed” floor have undergone a procedure that splits their consciousness into two distinct selves: their “innie,” who only exists at work, and their “outie,” who has no memory of the office. The two lives are entirely separate — one never worries about deadlines or office politics at home, while the other never experiences personal life at all.

The show is the brainchild of Dan Erickson, with the idea coming to him while employed at a door factory (an environment that surely inspired the show’s themes of workplace monotony and dreams of detachment). Plucking the script out of relative obscurity — the only prior item on Erickson’s writing resume being an episode of Lip Sync Battle — Ben Stiller championed Severance, drawn to its unique premise. He quickly became a driving force behind bringing the show to fruition, helping assemble the cast, directing and producing. 

Though Severance shares some DNA with workplace comedies like Office Space and The Office, it quickly veers into much darker territory, pulling from other sci-fi and dark comedies, like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which also explores memory repression. 

Its darker edge hits a more resonant cultural note, digging into current attitudes toward work-life balance — particularly the sentiments in the height of post-pandemic attitudes toward “the workplace.”

While shows in the ’90s and aughts leaned on watercooler conversations and blundering bosses, Severance digs into the fear of corporate mundanity and our own feelings of inconsequentiality, which are so significant that people might literally segment their existence to avoid it.

But the beauty of the show, in addition to its commitment to tone and the sci-fi level of detail applied to world-building, is the care with which it grounds the absurd in human and emotional storylines. The main character was driven to severance seeking respite from grief, other characters from desperation and others still, absolution. It makes something unrelatable (losing all memory of what you did that day, the nature of your work or how you’re treated behind the thick, metal doors), relatable.

Because, while most viewers haven’t undergone brain surgery to split their consciousness, we have felt the dull repetition of office life, the desire to escape and the struggle to define ourselves outside of our jobs. Severance works because, despite its extreme premise, its emotions are painfully real. 

Perhaps it was because of that relatability (or maybe Apple TV+’s incredible budget to bring it to life), that Severance didn’t just resonate, it became an obsession.

Apple TV+ reported that Severance became its most-watched show in history, topping viewership charts from January to February 2025, when it released its second season. It’s not another psychological thriller-comedy, it’s a full-fledged cultural conversation; and one with time to grow.

In an era dominated by streaming, it shirked the normal bulk-release format, opting instead for once-weekly episodes, hearkening back to the days of live TV. Each new episode is watched by the masses at the same time, inviting dissection, analysis and theorizing, followed by fans flocking to Reddit threads to decode clues, share conspiracies and unravel the show’s intricate symbolism.

I think this is the show’s true triumph. In a time when online discourse is dominated by political vitriol, the show’s fandom feels refreshingly pure. Participating in it feels like a collective game — one that is blissfully detached from real-world chaos. 

And finding neutral things to share is a lot like a life raft amid a sea of tumult; something for just about everyone to grab ahold of and enjoy (so long as they have access to Apple TV+).

Emily Erickson is a writer and business owner with an affinity for black coffee and playing in the mountains. Connect with her online at www.bigbluehat.studio.