‘Severance’ Is ‘The Prisoner’ Remake I Always Wanted
‘Has it ever occurred to you that you’re just as much a prisoner as I am?’
The inspiration for the TV series Severance is very relatable.
“I had a job I didn’t like,” writer/creator Dan Erickson recalled, “and I was walking into work one day and just found myself being like ‘God I wish I could just jump ahead, and suddenly it was 5 p.m. and I could have done the work but not have to experience it!’”
The (thankfully) fictional corporation Lumon Industries has pioneered a controversial technology that permanently “severs” an employee’s work and non-work memories. The advantage for the non-work persona (or “outtie”) is obvious. You still get paid but don’t remember your tedious workday. You instantly lose eight hours of your day, but that happened already. Now, there are no workplace politics, no annoying team building exercises, and no bad office coffee … at least not the memory of them.
Most of us would consider this a dream. However, you’ve effectively imprisoned your work persona (or “innie”) to non-stop corporate drudgery with no relief other than your eventual resignation, which amounts to their “death.” Lumon’s severed floor is a prison and the employees prisoners with no true hope of escape.
This dynamic, plus the overall weirdness of Lumon’s severed floor, recalls the 1967 British TV spy series The Prisoner, and when I reviewed the first season of Severance, I compared Britt Lower’s “Helly” to Patrick McGoohan’s character in The Prisoner, who his captors call “Number 6.”
“Lower is a delight to watch as Helly, who moves through every scene like a caged animal … ,” I wrote. “She won’t be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered, either. You’re led to think that Mark [Adam Scott] is Helly’s Number 2, but he’s just as much as prisoner as she is. Helly responds to her living hell (yes, the name is probably intentional) the same as most of us would. She’s desperate to escape. Mark is more resigned to his fate, at least at first. He accepted this position out of desperation, which is why most people take bad jobs.”
I went to great effort to avoid revealing any spoilers about the series, but fans of The Prisoner might’ve picked up on how “Helly” and “Number 6” have more in common than their refusal to accept the conditions of their imprisonment.
(So, here’s where I reveal spoilers for The Prisoner series finale, “Fall Out,” and the Severance first season finale, “The We We Are.”)
“Number 6” discovers in “Fall Out” that someone who looks just like him (or is possibly literally him) is the previously unseen “Number One,” who runs the mysterious Village that has imprisoned him for the entire series. It’s more metaphorical than Severance’s straightforward reveal that “Helly” is actually Helena Eagan, whose creepy-ass family runs the evil Lumon Industries. Helena had agreed to the controversial severance procedure as a PR stunt to prove that severance is in her words “awesome.”
In a 1977 interview with journalist Warner Troyer, McGoohan said, “The greatest enemy that we have ... Number 1 was depicted as an evil, governing force in this Village. So, who is this Number 1? We just see the Number 2s, the sidekicks. Now this overriding, evil force is at its most powerful within ourselves and we have constantly to fight it, I think, and that is why I made Number 1 an image of Number 6. His other half, his alter ego.”
Helly’s worst enemy is herself. It’s not an uncommon conceit in fiction. However, the corporate setting provides for effective satire of our modern age. The Prisoner often suggests that the “us vs. them” aspect of the Cold War was misguided and already outdated. Leo McKern’s Number 2 describes the Village in “The Chimes of Big Ben” as “an international community. A perfect blueprint for world order. When the sides facing each other suddenly realize that they’re looking into a mirror, they’ll see that this is the pattern for the future.”
When billionaire CEOs receive seats of honor at Monday’s inauguration that rival former presidents, it’s clear that this “blueprint for world order” bears a corporate seal.
Lumon Industries wants to rule the world, but doesn’t every corporation? The walking cadaver Jame Eagan, the current CEO, tells his daughter Helena that soon everyone will be severed. From what we’ve seen, this would mean that Lumon would have a brainwashed workforce with no attachment to the outside world and no loyalty but to Lumon and its founder Kier, who the “innies” literally worship as their savior. (Lumon can also “release” the “innies” outside the severed floor without their “outies’” consent.)
Severance, after all, removes every normal motivation one has to endure the corporate grind — paying the mortgage, saving up for a family vacation, putting your kids through college, even understanding on a fundamental level what your work means to the world. In its place, there is just service to the corporate entity. During a tour of Lumon’s “Perpetuity Wing,” Helly is shown a bizarre exhibit called the Lumon Legacy of Joy. It’s the smiles of people Lumon has apparently helped … but just the smiles. The faces are all cropped out.
The Village tries to similarly break “Number 6.” They demand his willing submission to their version of reality. Lumon does this in a corporate manner, where the employees “praise Kier” and recite corporate “values” like scripture.
Helena’s chilling “you are not a person” message reminds me of Rachel Herbert’s sinister Number 2, who coldly lectures a defeated “Number 6”: “Will you never learn? This is only the beginning. We have many ways and means, but we don’t wish to damage you permanently. Are you ready to talk?” (Watch below only if you’ve seen the episode.)
The Village had revolving Number 2s, and there’s not much longterm security for Lumon managers, either. Last season, Ms. Cobel (Patricia Arquette) ran the severed floor, offering a “handshake upon request” when she promotes Mark. The second season begins with Mr. Millchick (Tramell Tillman) filling Mrs. Cobel’s former role. (Although, Lumon hasn’t bothered to update the welcome screen message on his computer that reads, “Hello, Ms. Cobel.” That’s very corporate.)
The Prisoner was ultimately a solo endeavor, and the “individual vs. society” framing was hardly subtle. “Number 6” is entirely on his own. The few times he befriends or trusts any of his fellow prisoners, he is promptly betrayed. There’s a far greater sense of community among the “innies,” which is more productive dramatically but also more life affirming. We can only defeat our corporate oppressors together, and Lumon takes steps to separate the “innies” and promote distrust through appeals to their individual interests.
While the Village was a prison that looked like a seaside resort, Lumon’s severed floor is a prison that looks like the average, dreary office environment with harsh lighting and bleak colors. Even Lumon’s omnipresent security cameras aren’t that far removed from regular working life. This is probably why people prefer working at home. It’s revealing that the severed floor is probably more familiar to most people than a vacation spot with baroque style architecture. The Village looks misleadingly like someplace you’d go to escape the pressures of life. Lumon’s severed floor is the office from which there is no escape.
Can I be an “innie” for the next 4 years? Cuz I have a feeling that I’m going to not want to experience most of it.
Dystopia, here we come!