[PREVIEW] 'Severance' Terrifyingly Reimagines Work-Life Balance

What if you really did have to work all the time? What if there were no family, no friends, no evenings or vacations, not even eight (okay, six and a half) hours of restful slumber?

Would a stack of colorful erasers and an occasional offering of melon or deviled eggs be enough to make this life worth living? What about collegial but superficial friendships with a handful of coworkers? A quarterly stack of waffles and burlesque performance? Constant assurances that you’re part of a family and that your work has profound, benevolent meaning?

“Severance,” the buzzy Apple TV+ show pushes the question to its limit. The series follows Mark (Ben Scott), an office worker at a creepy mega-corporation called Lumon who, along with his officemates, has undergone a procedure called “severance” to separate his work and personal memories. Though they leave the office every day at five and go home to their lives, they remember nothing that has happened at work. And because severed workers retain no knowledge of their outside lives once inside, the process essentially creates a new person, a new consciousness, who lives in the windowless office. It’s a work-life balance so complete that it ceases to be a balance at all.

As the series opens, Mark and his team are seemingly content with their lot — the little in-jokes, the incentives (erasers and waffle parties), the assurances that they’re making the world a better place as part of the Lumon family. Behind the carrots, of course, are sticks: when workers don’t fall in line, they’re psychologically tortured. But when Helly (Britt Lower) joins the team and refuses to accept that she can’t leave, the whole group begins to radicalize. Office comedy blends into dark corporate satire, which blends into scifi thriller as the workers begin to untangle the mystery of what Lumon is doing, why they’ve been created, and how to end their imprisonment.

It’s a beautifully realized, powerfully acted, and startlingly funny show, so we had the best time talking through the premise, the aesthetic, the performances, the misery and solidarity found in office drudgery, the many forms of labor exploitation, and even some fan theories about season two.

We’ve been reading…

“Sea of Tranquillity,” the newest Emily St. John Mandel novel. If you’ve read her previous two books, “Station Eleven” and “The Glass Hotel,” you probably know that there’s some slight overlap between them — a couple of shared characters, hints that they exist in the same universe. “Sea of Tranquillity” draws even more heavily from the world of “The Glass Hotel,” but with a strong sci-fi twist. It dips into 19th century British Columbia and 25th century moon colonies, and several places in between. The common link is a time-traveling detective who’s investigating a glitch in the fabric of time. (Much of the novel also seems to be drawn from her reflections on having written a popular pandemic novel just a few years before a catastrophic pandemic.) By the end, I found myself pretty distracted by my conviction that the time-travel element didn’t quite hang together, making the whole central thread of the book suspect. Not my favorite of hers, but she does go some lovely places with the question of what makes a life worth living — a perennial interest in her work. -Claire

I just started reading an advanced copy of our bud Jessica Goodman’s latest thriller, “The Counselors,” and I am hooked! I mean… camp vibes! Murder! Teen angst! First loves! What more could you want from a well-crafted, propulsive novel? -Emma

We’ve been watching…

Oh, everything! It’s been a catchup week over here. I finally finished “Bad Vegan,” Netflix’s breathless true-crime documentary about how the celebrity chef owner of Pure Food and Wine, a groundbreaking raw vegan restaurant in NYC, got sucked into a cultish relationship with some guy named Shane who used to tweet with Alec Baldwin (apparently this was considered cool in 2011). I’d never followed the story, so it was all new and fascinating. Points off for the troubling ending to the series; after presenting mountains of evidence that chef Sarma Melngailis was in a psychologically abusive, cult-like relationship, the shows pivots to lightly suggesting that maybe she was trying to scam her abuser and just wasn’t as successful as he was. It left an odd taste in my mouth, to say the least. -Claire

The second season of “Upload,” Amazon Prime’s underrated dystopian tech show. “Upload” explores an America in which the wealthy can now upload their consciousnesses to a private digital afterlife. The series focuses on Nathan Brown (Robbie Amell), a 27-year-old computer programmer who dies under mysterious circumstances and is uploaded into Lakeview, an elite digital afterlife, and his very-much-alive handler, Nora Antony (Andy Allo), who is a mid-level employee of Horizen, the shady mega-corporation that runs Lakeview. If you like the Big Tech themes of “Severance,” highly recommend checking out “Upload.” -Emma

We’ve been listening to…

“Scamfluencers,” the new scam pod from Scaachi Koul and Sarah Hagi. The first two stories they’ve zeroed in (a ballet company grift and an actor-producer who pretends to be backed by Howard Schultz) have been totally new to me and profoundly satisfying to hear unravel. -Claire

“Sympathy Pains,” a new podcast hosted by journalist Laura Beil, about Sarah Delashmit, a woman who spent two decades faking muscular dystrophy, cancer, lost pregnancies, and other traumas, in order to solicit friendship, favors and sympathy from the people around her. -Emma

We’ve been buying…

A chunky-knit cotton cardigan from Everlane, in their spring sale! After a year of feverishly, compulsively shopping, trying to figure out a functional style for myself post-baby and mid-Covid, I am really trying to cool my jets and settle into a wardrobe I feel good about. (Thanks to Dacy Gillespie’s Mindful Closet Instagram, into which I took a deep dive last month, for the inspiration.) I’ve been trying to pare back my closet, find things to sell or store or donate, and focus on making sure I have things at hand every day that I can reliably feel good in. And apparently I feel great in a sturdy cardigan? Incredible that it took me 33 years to really figure that out. -Claire

I also indulged in a little Madewell mega-sale shopping. I snagged this MWL Knit Cami and a pair of MWL Form High-Rise Leggings, both an extra 50% off. I have been trying to get back into a regular movement/exercise routine to help with my anxiety, and as dumb as it sounds, sometimes having a cute outfit to do it in is a helpful motivator. (Also, forcing your friends to move with you.) -Emma