I feel like they really messed up with Lumon in Season 2. In the first season of Severance the fact that the innies worshiped the company, quote the manuals as religious texts and worship the CEO was interesting take on corporate culture. If you don’t have any external culture every company would basically look like that. Every office I have been in has this is a small extent (at least in official company documents and very corporately meeting). So it makes sense if you only have company culture it goes to the extreme we see in the first season.
The fact that EVERYONE at the company does that really loses that message. Of course the innies all follow this company religion since everyone else does. So this “culture” is forced on them instead of a natural extension of seeing only “company culture” or business etiquette. What a waste since it is less of a satire of all company cultures and its about this strange company. It would be much more interesting Harmony Cobol was a promoted “innie” who now runs the persons entire life with the outie being hidden away forever. Now that is an interesting twist and a better satire.
Skavau@lemm.ee 2 days ago
I thought of this. Or at least for Milchick as a ‘self-made innie’ for someone who might not have grown up in Lumon.
It makes sense that Lumon would offer that kind of incentive ultimately for innies: take over your outties life.
dumples@midwest.social 2 days ago
Exactly. They even hinted about those “innies” who don’t get to leave on lower floors. The ultimate goal for someone like that would be live your entire life. I thought it would be a great way to talk about in a work environment its workers harming workers for the profit of the nameless faceless ruling the class. (i.e. the board of directors who never talk or may not even be there.) They are middle management so they are just workers (even better if they were innies) themselves.
Also what kind of cool twist would be Harmony Cobol waking up from a “coma” when she was fired without any knowledge of what she did for the last few years. Would tie really good with the “She’s Alive” at the end of the first season to show how Lumon has that power to disappear and reappear people.
Skavau@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Also I get the impression that (gunna use spoilers now):
spoiler
There was a bit of a rewrite with Harmony’s character. I don’t think she was originally written as the actual person who made the chips (who Lumon then stole the work from and reassigned her to be some middle-manager). Her actions and the company’s actions to her in S01 don’t make much sense in light of that plot reveal. She’d be a major risk to the company if somehow left off the leash… yet they just let her go? (Although I have some misgivings beyond that regarding her S01 firing)
dumples@midwest.social 2 days ago
That makes a lot of sense. It did seem a little odd with that plot reveal. I agree that it was odd.