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Severance Creator on Season 2’s “Lumon Is Listening” Message
This article contains spoilers for Severance season 2 episode 1. Like many workplaces in the post-Covid era, Severance season 2 looks to get its employees back in the office. Season 1’s final hour “The We We Are” is a thrilling hour of television that features innies Mark S. (Adam Scott), Helly R. (Britt Lower), and […] The post Severance Creator on Season 2’s “Lumon Is Listening” Message appeared first on Den of Geek.
This article contains spoilers for Severance season 2 episode 1.
Like many workplaces in the post-Covid era, Severance season 2 looks to get its employees back in the office.
Season 1’s final hour “The We We Are” is a thrilling hour of television that features innies Mark S. (Adam Scott), Helly R. (Britt Lower), and Irving B. (John Turturro) triggering the Overtime Contingency to experience the outside world and uncover some shocking truths. By the time Helly learns that her outtie is the villainous Helena Eagan and Mark shouts “she’s alive!” upon seeing a photo Gemma Scout a.k.a. Ms. Casey, it’s hard to imagine how the show could ever get back to its corporate setting again.
And yet, back to the office season 2 must go. Not only is the Macrodata Refinement floor important to the satirical and visual language of this Apple TV+ sci-fi workplace thriller, but the sprawling, sterile halls of Lumon Industries are where the innies will most likely find the answers they seek. In speaking to Den of Geek prior to the release of season 2, Severance creator and showrunner Dan Erickson discussed the difficulties in re-establishing some sense of a status quo.
“We kind of blew up the world in season one,” Erickson says. “It’s tough to get back to arguing over over group photos, pencils, and erasers. But we also knew that baked into the soul of the show is this character-based office comedy that satirizes the weirdness of the corporate world.”
While Severance season 2 episode 1 “Hello, Ms. Cobel” doesn’t yet reveal how Lumon convinced the outtie versions of Mark, Helly, Irving, and Dylan (Zach Cherry) to get back to work, it does present how Lumon is choosing to pitch the results of the innie rebellion. Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) tells Mark that, like him, Helly and Irving both successfully made contact with the outside world. He goes on to say that they’ve achieved international acclaim and become the faces of “Severance Reform,” even presenting a newspaper headline and image to prove that fact.
Mark, not quite moved by the existence of a physical newspaper (nor should he be, says this journalist occupying an increasingly digital industry), requires more evidence. More importantly: he requires his friends back. Once the MDR team is finally reunited, Mr. Milchick pulls out the final stop in a form of a Lumon orientation video. Titled “Lumon Is Listening,” the cheerful claymation clip is narrated by the Lumon building itself* and runs through all of the “bounteous reforms” that the event known as “The Macrodata Uprising” encouraged. Severed employees will now have access to tasty new snacks, hall passes (it’s unclear to where), pineapple bobbing, and a “playful mirror room.” The video even concludes with the Lumon building thanking Kier for the MDR team. And Lumon wouldn’t invoke its mighty founder Kier Eagan unless it were serious about these reforms, would it?
*Though his name doesn’t appear in the end-credits of the pre-release screeners journalists received, it sure does sound like that building is voiced by none other than Keanu Reeves. Apple TV+ didn’t return a request for confirmation (and I stupidly didn’t come to that realization before speaking with Dan Erickson and the rest of the cast) so….
