The Severance writer and cast on corporate cults, sci-fi, and more

The Severance writer and cast on corporate cults, sci-fi, and more

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The following story consists of light spoilers for season among Severence None for season 2.

The very first season of Severance strolled the line in between science-fiction thriller and Office-like satire, utilizing a creative conceit (characters can’t remember what occurs at work while in the house, and vice versa) to open brand-new storytelling possibilities.

It meant extra depths, however it’s actually season 2’s broadened worldbuilding that starts to reveal extra styles and concepts.

After viewing the very first 6 episodes of season 2 and speaking to the series’ showrunner and lead author, Dan Erickson, in addition to a number of members of the cast (Adam Scott and Patricia Arquette), I see a program that’s about more than critiquing business life. It’s about all sorts of social systems of control. It’s likewise a program with an incredible sense of design and deep impacts in sci-fi.

Corporation or cult?

When I began viewing season 2, I had actually simply ended up enjoying 2 documentaries about cults–The Vowabout a multi-level marketing and training business that ended up being a sex cult, and Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother Godabout a little, Internet-based spiritual motion that thought its creator was the most recent human type of God.

There were tips of cult affects in the Lumon business structure in season 1, however without ruining anything, season 2 goes much deeper into them. As somebody who has actually operated at a number of large media corporations, I delighted in Severance‘s send-up of business culture. And as somebody who has actually operated in tech start-ups– both great and inefficient ones– and who matured in an extreme spiritual environment, I now enjoy its send-up of cult social characteristics and power plays.

Lumon controls what details exists to its workers to keep them in line.


Credit: Apple

When I talked with showrunner Dan Erickson and star Patricia Arquette, I wasn’t shocked to discover that it wasn’t simply me– the impact of stories about cults on season 2 was deliberate.

Erickson described:

I viewed all the cult documentaries that I might discover, as did the other authors, as did Ben, as did the stars. What we discovered as we were establishing it is that there’s this strange crossover. There’s this odd gray zone in between a cult and a business, or any system of power, specifically one where there is sort of a charming character at the top of it like Kier Eagan. You see that in business that have sort of a respect for their creator.

Arquette likewise did some research study on cults. “Very early on when I got the pilot, I was quite amazed at that time with a great deal of cult documentaries–Wild Countryand I do not understand if you might call it a cult, however enjoying aspects of Scientology, however likewise various military schools– all examples like that with that type of structure, even particular faiths,” she remembered.

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