I mentioned a few issues ago that we were watching Severance on AppleTV+ on the recommendation of some friends. It looked pretty interesting from the marketing but I didn’t really know much about it. Folks said it got better as it went on and the ending was pretty wild.

The first episode hooked us, and it did indeed escalate as it went on. The cinematography is pretty intriguing. On one hand it’s super sparse and bleak, with one of those aesthetics that blends modern things with elements from older decades. Things like modernish phones alongside old 80s computer workstations and cars, while most folks are dressed in pretty normal, modern clothes. Kinda increases the sense of unease.

In general it kinda had a Charlie Kaufman type of feel. Just generally weird and unsettling, but not hitting you over the head with it. The actors put in some great performances, and in general it’s just really well done. It definitely hooked me after the first episode, I looked forward to every episode’s exposition, and the season finale was fuckin' wild. Can’t wait to see season two.

When I mentioned we were watching it in Issue 7, I got a reply from Liz (you should definitely subscribe to “Mondays, amirite?") telling me I needed to read an article titled “‘Severance,’ ‘Severance,’ and the Dissociative Demands of Office Labor”. This is the type of shit I love about having a newsletter. Even though only a few people read it, those who do are badass like Liz. Coincidence?

Anyways, I put off reading the article until we finished watching the season, as I didn’t want any spoilers etc. I could tell from the title, though, that it was going to be banger, and after reading it I was not disappointed. There was a lot more to it than a basic TV show review.

The article is, on the surface, a review of both the Severance TV show and the book of the same name that came out a few years before the show. I wasn’t even aware of the (unrelated) show, but it’s on my list to read now. The article’s main thread is, unsurprisingly, about the dehumanizing aspects of modern, capitalist work. As an old man who’s been working non-stop for the last 25 or so years, I get it.

But like I said, this article goes way beyond it. As we’re all still processing the continued march of the supreme court et al, the following passage really hit

The sheer panic of realizing you don’t have bodily autonomy resonates well beyond office walls in 2022. As state governments and the Supreme Court continue to make clear that women and trans people, in particular, are property of the state, their bodies to be legislated and controlled against the will of the individuals who inhabit them, it has become harder and harder for workers to ignore the terrifying world and do our little Zooms to make enough money to pay for the rising cost of rent, healthcare, and other essentials to human life. Yet it is more and more urgent to corporations that we close our eyes in the service of productivity, hitting quotas and yielding profits before the economy tips into recession.

The last band I was in that actually played shows and released stuff was Tafkata. We had an album called Worker and Parasite that was pretty much a concept album about how much work sucked. Nothing as sophisticated as any of this, but the same general mood. While I love to build things and have mostly liked my jobs over the years, I know deep down it’s all kinda bullshit. I feel lucky to have found some things that I like that are generally helpful. But, at the end of the day, we don’t have a whole lot of choice. As the Severance book described the pandemic they presciently wrote about:

Shen Fever turns the infected into the walking dead of capitalism: wordless creatures doomed to perform the same routines over and over.

This is the system humans have created for themselves. It’s possible to break out. But damn is it hard.