That Hideous Severance

The second season of Apple TV’s phenomenal hit Severance has held many surprises, but the biggest may be its growing similarities to a dystopianesque novel by C.S. Lewis. Will this season end more or less like that book? With less than a week to go before the season two finale, I’ll risk a guess. But first, a refresher. 

Warning: Spoilers galore.

Background

Season one of the mind-bending psychological thriller/mystery/dystopian/alternate-reality drama opened in 2022 with a simple but compelling premise: an international corporation had invented a brain implant that severed a person’s work memories and consciousness from his home memories and consciousness, allowing its “severed” employees to enjoy lives free of office drudgery but dooming their work selves to know nothing else until the “outies,” as the outside selves are known, retire and their work-only “innies” wink out of existence. 

What would happen to a self split in half in such a way could itself have provided more than enough material for an interesting series. But viewers soon find that something more sinister than morally ambiguous brain surgery is going on at Lumon Industries. The severed employees work on an isolated, underground floor, kept under constant watch, doing jobs that make no sense while earning incentives (pencil erasers, finger traps) of no value.

Exactly what Lumon does isn’t clear. Nor are the cultish religious and health beliefs of its owners and workers. Seemingly a fictional mash-up of typically quirky American religious movements such as Mormonism or Scientology and of companies affiliated with stringent but also typically American religious and health practices like Kellogg’s or Amway, the show’s mysterious company is the creation of equally mysterious founder Kier Eagan, whose face adorns every office like a crucifix in a Catholic hospital and whose writings employees study as if reading the Bible. 

Kier’s key spiritual teaching seems to be that every soul is a mixture of four temperaments—malice, frolic, woe, and dread—and that correctly mastering them through intense physical and mental techniques is the key to personal and work success. What his key pharmaceutical discoveries were is never mentioned, but everyone knows that current CEO Jame Eagan invented the Severance Procedure, which is used at company locations around the world despite vigorous public opposition. 

Over the course of the first season, viewers followed four severed employees who made up the entire department of “macrodata refinement” at company headquarters in the far north town of Kier. The only thing the “refiners” know about their strange job scrutinizing and organizing sets of numbers on their antiquated computers is that it’s “mysterious and important,” and all they know about their work lives is that if they deviate from the cheery, office-appropriate behavior they are expected to display, they will receive severe psychological consequences. But if they excel, one of them will win the most coveted incentive of all: the quarterly Waffle Party.

Two of the refiners get particular focus. Mark S. (severed employees have no last names), is promoted to department manager after the mysterious departure of the previous manager, his best friend, Petey. Helly R., Petey’s replacement, reacts to discovering she’s a severed employee with outrage, first trying to quit, then attempting to kill herself, and finally trying to help the others let the world know that severed employees aren’t happy, they’re caged animals.

Outside, in the town of Kier, where it’s always winter but never Christmas, Mark Scout is a young widower who took the position so that some part of his life would be free of crushing grief. Helly’s outie, viewers learn at the finale of season one, is Helena Eagan, daughter of Jame Eagan and heir to the company. She is working on the severed floor for reasons unknown. It’s a big reveal, but the shock for both innie and outie Mark is that his wife, Gemma, is still alive, working (until very recently) on the severed floor as Ms. Casey, Lumon’s “wellness expert.”

Other intrigue and weirdness—such as Mark’s mysterious living situation on a street of company houses that are all empty except for one ominous neighbor; the grim Kier art collection and the macabre reality of the Waffle Party—were left unresolved at the cliffhanger ending. Thanks in part to the Hollywood writers’ strike, season two didn’t begin until this fall. As it progressed, so did unexpected parallels with C.S. Lewis’ 1945 novel That Hideous Strength.

Parallels

The book is the third, and most unusual, in Lewis’ highly unusual Space Trilogy. Unlike the first two, which are set on Mars and Venus respectively and which depict a dying world whose inhabitants never fell and a new world whose first inhabitants are in danger of falling, the third is set on Earth and concerns a titanic simultaneously spiritual and terrestrial struggle for the future of the planet and its inhabitants.

The parallels between the two stories began in season one, but many were not apparent until season two. In That Hideous Strength, the leaders of the N.I.C.E. are not actually in charge. Instead, they answer to a mysterious “Head” whom they never see and whose orders they dispense. In Severance, the top employees of Lumon are not in charge. Instead, they answer to a mysterious “Board” no one ever sees. Represented by an intercom, the Board talks—if it really talks—to one employee, who listens on an earpiece and conveys the Board’s orders. 

The plot of That Hideous Strength centers on young professor Mark Studdock and his wife, Jane, a graduate student. Mark is hired to do a job that makes no sense by the National Institute for Controlled Experiments (N.I.C.E.), a mysterious corporation buying up and, ostensibly, “improving” a small British town by remaking and running it on purely scientific grounds. At the same time, and despite herself, the aggressively secular and “modern” Jane finds herself joining a band of religious people opposed to the N.I.C.E. and its real, much darker aims.

In season two of Severance, we learn the following: Mark Scout and his wife were young professors before Gemma’s supposed death; “Mark S.” was hired to do a job that makes no sense by Lumon, the main employer in the company town; and before her supposed death, Gemma had become interested in—and had possibly adopted—Kier’s daily spiritual and physical practices. Those practices now dominate her life in a secret wing beneath the severed floor—in between experiments “severing” her consciousness into more and more discrete parts, each of which is subjected to odd demoralizing treatment that amounts to psychological tortures.

Fertility is a key theme to both stories. In That Hideous Strength, Mark and Jane are an unhappy couple who refuse to have children. Neither is likeable or sympathetic, but both had, until recently, been fun, attractive, and in love. In Severance, Mark and Gemma were a happy couple who wanted very much to have children. Although both had withdrawn in grief and confusion after miscarriages and failed fertility treatments, Mark’s survivor’s guilt after the car crash had driven him to behavior that made him unlikeable and unsympathetic. But previously, both had been fun, attractive, and in love. Fertility is a key theme to both stories. In That Hideous Strength, Mark and Jane are an unhappy couple who refuse to have children.Tweet This

The Uses of Sulva

Fertility, or the lack of it, is of vital concern in both stories. One theme in That Hideous Strength is that Mark and Jane are not really married because they use contraception. Their union is sterile spiritually and mentally because they made it sterile physically—not only defying nature but also unwittingly thwarting a plan begun by Merlin in the days of King Arthur (did I mention that it’s an unusual book?). They had been meant to bear a child who would win a decisive battle for Earth and its people and hold back evil for a thousand years, but the time for that child’s conception had passed.

N.I.C.E., on the other hand, has no use for procreation. Secret knowledge revealed to its leaders by the Head, supposedly conveyed by aliens from a highly advanced civilization living underground on the side of the moon visible from Earth, would dispense with all things physical. The real aim of N.I.C.E. is not to help mankind but to create a new man that would be like a god. This new man would have no parents but would be an existing person artificially elevated to a godlike state—a small number of such beings until the process was perfected and then only one. No other life, human or otherwise, would be necessary.

But the group Jane joins has learned secret knowledge from very different otherworldly beings. The part of Sulva (the true name of the moon) seen from Earth is populated not by wise aliens but by “an accursed people, full of pride and lust.”

On this side, the womb is barren and the marriages cold…. There when a young man takes a maiden in marriage, they do not lie together, but each lies with a cunningly fashioned image of the other, made to move and to be warm by devilish arts, for real flesh will not please them…. Their real children they fabricate by vile arts in a secret place.

More Parallels

Though Severance reverses some key aspects of That Hideous Strength’s plots, the parallels remain. Unlike the unhappy Mark and Jane Studdock, Mark and Gemma Scout don’t reject fertility. But their search to have children leads them to a clinic affiliated with Lumon, which eventually enmeshes them. Like Mark and Jane, Mark and Gemma end up on opposing sides. 

But instead of leading her to fight against Lumon, as Jane does against the N.I.C.E., Gemma’s embrace of Kier’s techniques ends with her imprisoned and being mentally vivisectioned. And instead of trying to climb the ladder at Lumon, as Mark Studdock tries to do at the N.I.C.E., Mark S. stops doing his work when his outie attempts to “reintegrate” his severed brain in order to find his wife and save her. 

Pregnancy has been a theme on Severance since season one, though at first it seemed to be confined to a subplot. Mark Scout’s sister, Devon, gives birth in a goofy, New Age complex of “birthing cabins.” And, seemingly as yet another way to spy on him, the ominous next-door neighbor, whom he doesn’t initially know is also his draconian work supervisor, becomes Devon’s lactation consultant. But one of the cabins is far swankier than the rest and seems to be a place where women married to Lumon executives give birth—after, Devon suspects, undergoing severance so they never remember the pain. The penultimate episode hints that there is more to the cabin, which is sometimes secretly used by “Jame Eagan’s women” and where innies can manifest.

The Helena/Hellie storyline also hints at pregnancy. Pretending to be Helly at a weekend work retreat, Helena sleeps with Mark S. Devastated to find that “her” body had been used by Helena, Helly invites Mark S. to a tryst in an empty office so that she can have memories of her own. It seems to be a variation on a romantic and psychological drama—if Mark S. knows that his outie’s wife is alive and trapped somewhere at Lumon but has no memories of their ever meeting, then did he betray her? If so, did he betray her with one or two women—but maybe much more?

Nothing about Helena’s original reasons for working on the severed floor were revealed over the second season, but at least the first of the encounters with Mark S. was known to supervisors, which implies it was part of Lumon’s plans. Neither tryst was between two “unsevered” people, or even between two outies. Instead, Helena, or a second self created by and from her, had sex with a second self created by and from Mark—so that each of them lay “with a cunningly fashioned image of the other, made to move and to be warm by devilish arts.” 

If literal, genetic bloodlines are Lumon’s aim, like the promised but prevented child of Mark and Jane Studdock, Mark Scout may be the chosen father. In That Hideous Strength, the N.I.C.E. hires Mark only to get access to Jane and the prophetic dreams she doesn’t want. Access to Gemma may be Lumon’s ultimate aim—she’s the object of their mind experiments; she’s mysteriously connected to Cold Harbor, the project Mark’s team of refiners is working to finish; and she was identified at the Lumon fertility clinic.

But the clinic saw both Gemma and Mark. Mark took the severed job only after Gemma’s supposed death, and Mark’s work—not the work of his whole team—turns out to be what’s of vital importance to the company. It may be that Mark was Lumon’s target and that the company “hired” Gemma only to get access to Mark.  

But an improved bloodline may not be Lumon’s aim—even if, like Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the fictional Kier was keenly interested in eugenics as well as in improving general physical health and spiritual purity. If parallels to That Hideous Strength continue, Lumon may be aiming for a very different kind of human development.

“Children of My Industry”

In the novel, the Head in charge at the N.I.C.E. is not a person but the literal head of a dead scientist and murderer guillotined by the French government. The leaders of the N.I.C.E. think its scientifically enhanced brain acts as a conductor for the aliens, but because the intelligences speaking through it are really demons, they require the initiates who speak to it to submit to cleansing and purifying, undergo strange mental desensitizing procedures, and perform bizarre rituals that eventually culminate in human sacrifice. 

In Severance, the doctor and nurse who work with Gemma are scrubbed and cleansed and supervisors observe her only through cameras and devices, from a different floor. Both supervisors for the severed employees and those employees undergo strange mental desensitizing procedures and perform bizarre rituals.

Innies are not people, characters in both seasons say. But what are they? In many ways they’re like children; but after time, many seem to rebel against the outies who control their fates. “She dresses me every morning, like a baby!” Helly rages about her outie. But Helena isn’t just any outie, she’s Jame Eagan’s heir.

A wall beside a display of wax figures of Lumon CEOs on the severed floor reads, “Remembered man does not decay,” while a recorded voice proclaims, “Come now, children of my industry, and know the children of my blood.” The “children of Kier’s industry” being addressed aren’t Lumon’s vast global workforce but only the severed employees and their supervisors. Are they Kier’s children, fabricated “by vile arts in a secret place?” If so, what does Lumon have planned for them? What is Lumon’s work with memories meant to do to keep man from decaying?

The answer to those questions, I predict, will be part of Friday’s finale.

Further predictions

In That Hideous Strength, the originally unwanted Mark Studdock ends up on the fast track to N.I.C.E. initiate status as the climax of the book builds. It’s his almost-forgotten but still strong love for Jane that gives him the strength to refuse and otherworldly help that allows him to escape and return to her.

Signs point to a darker fate for Gemma and Mark Scout’s reintegrated self. Mark’s work at Lumon is connected to the experiments on Gemma, and that connection—the real love forgotten by Mark S. but apparently still strong—is what makes the unknown goal of Cold Harbor possible. Learning that her tasks are nearly completed, Gemma asks the head doctor if she will then see Mark again. He answers only that “Mark will benefit from the world you sire,” but the viewer knows that when Cold Harbor is complete, Gemma will die.

Or will she? Will her brain, fertile in some way her womb is not, somehow be used or “improved” by Lumon scientists? 

On the other hand, a crawling baby in the enigmatic opening graphics for season two has Kier’s face. Are babies born in the luxury birthing cabin heirs to “improved” bloodlines, perhaps to Kier himself? Or is it a combination of both—carefully selected genes, and brains augmented in some way—a way pioneered by the severed employees but meant for far different purposes? 

So far, innies are less than human. They have few memories and can “live” only in special conditions. If Lumon’s real designs are to create a way for them to live as a new, improved, immortal humanity, human sacrifice might be required—and Gemma might be that sacrifice.

Things to Come

The climax of That Hideous Strength seems impossible for Severance. Lewis’ novel is dystopianesque rather than dystopian because it ends with great princes of the Hosts of Heaven and the greatest heroes of British myth triumphing over N.I.C.E. and its designs. Mark and Jane are also saved, having become rightly-ordered people who can begin a true marriage and learn to live as true Christians.

No heavenly-driven fight for souls is evident in Severance. The only nod to Christianity is a plot device: two “married” men who belong to a Lutheran church explain that their pastor says innies are separate people with separate souls, and so the men, who think that one of them is destined for Hell, hope his innie can be saved. As unorthodox a theological point as that is, it’s meant to be a plausible position of a respectable mainline Christian denomination, and to the writers’ credit it’s believable for the ELCA to hold it.

But it’s hard to imagine the ELCA pastor working with princes of the Hosts of Heaven to fight Lumon and its designs, whatever they are and wherever they originate. The writers of Severance don’t seem to be anti-Christian (which is an improvement over many other shows), but they have so far been mum on the matter. The cult of Kier is presented as sinister but realistic, and the opponents of Lumon seem to be the usual human lot: disenchanted former workers or believers and families of those they wronged. 

I’d be happy to be wrong about this prediction, but I don’t think I am: whatever the eventual fates of Lumon, the children of Kier’s industry, Mark, Gemma, Helly, and Helena, Severance will not end with a visit from the angels governing the planets. The company and cult may turn out to be run by demons. (Like N.I.C.E. Deputy Director John Wither, one of the initiates who talks to the Head, Lumon CEO Jame Eagan barely seems to be alive.) But if it is, no heavenly legions will come to the rescue.

In the world of Severance, human beings will have to save themselves—or fail to.