Under the Surface: Unraveling Hidden Layers and Distrust in "Severance"
As the enthralling second season of “Severance” on Apple TV+ concludes, dedicated fans are left grappling with an unsettling feeling. This captivating series delves into themes such as work, grief, and strangely intricate fruit platters, but this season, it placed a keen focus on the unnerving idea that even those closest to you may remain enigmatic and, perhaps, harmful.
In an era teeming with suspicion, a pervasive distrust has seeped into our daily lives, evident on the streets, at voting booths, and through our screens. While spy movies and secret-identity thrillers have long been entertainment staples, today’s offerings, including “Severance,” highlight a shared anxiety: the persistent fear that understanding others fully, or even yourself, may be an impossible feat.
The storyline of “Severance” follows a group of employees at a mysterious corporation who experience a split in consciousness: their “innies” exist only during work, while “outies” take over in personal life. Initially, the show humorously explored the absurdity of work-life balance: outies unknowingly continued their lives as innies toiled away in a fluorescent limbo. This season, however, expanded to examine how people often aren’t who they seem or claim to be.
Characters grappled with dual identities: some innies lived secret lives as outies, and some outies battled their innies. One surprising storyline involved a woman having an affair with her husband’s innie. A major revelation—spoiler warning if you haven’t caught up—occurred when Mark S., the protagonist, discovered that the woman he believed to be an office crush was actually the malevolent future leader of their company. This twist, a result of the show’s unique mechanics, reveals two personas residing in a single body.
This narrative echoes a broader national issue, where we face our own bifurcated realities every day. With each election, we peer across political divides, asking: “Who are you? How could you?” Trust is fractured, and even close relationships feel unfamiliar. Perhaps you believed your neighbors lived by the same principles until they displayed a divisive political sign, or that you understood a political leader until unforeseen policies uprooted those assumptions.
This revelation is jarring: once bound by common ideals, people now occupy divergent realities with no straightforward political resolutions in sight. Meanwhile, we find a strange solace in media that reflects our anxieties through an entertaining lens.
The 1970s also spawned a rich era of paranoid thrillers, films like “The Parallax View,” “The Conversation,” and “Three Days of the Condor,” exploring complex power conspiracies of their time—mirroring real historical cover-ups like Watergate or secret actions in Cambodia. Today, mistrust springs not only from vast conspiracies but from those closest to us, be it colleagues, neighbors, or spouses.
In “Black Bag,” Michael Fassbender shines as a spy suspecting a close betrayal—perhaps by his wife. In “The Agency,” another espionage series featuring Fassbender, a CIA operative masterfully conceals his true identity. “Black Doves” stars Keira Knightley as a seemingly innocent minister’s wife with secrets both in her drawer and past. In “Special Ops: Lioness,” an agent dangerously befriends (and falls for) the daughter of her target. Recent adaptations like “Ripley” and “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” warn of the dangers lurking when we reveal our deepest selves to those nearest: vulnerability, despair, or worse.
Cultural cynicism may insulate us from intrigue about top-level conspiracies (the claims that malfeasance reaches ‘all the way to the top’ are old news online), yet the abundance of theories—whether fantastical or fact—has muddled our understanding of shared public and private truths. Without a common reality, we’ve begun to question personal ones.
Paranoid thrillers in the 1950s zeroed in on citizens, mirroring fears of the McCarthy era—a time whose tension is resurfacing. That chapter of history concluded when figures emerged to denounce the use of cultural suspicion for political gain.
In “Severance,” reintegration is a painful yet vital process of unifying fractured identities into a coherent consciousness—a daunting resolution in our reality. Currently, we’re left to warily regard one another as we enjoy a weekend binge, perhaps wondering if we’ve actually been paranoid enough.