What Severance totally misses

The big conceptual miss of Severance is the complete lack of any exploration of how ‘GOOD’ a person’s life could be if they NEVER had to be concerned about work.

Think of it. You could be ‘retired’ at 26. Never having to stress over a work to-do list, office politics, deadlines, advancement, Sunday nite scaries, etc. You have 100% free time-with the exception of a commute to work and then in a snap—you’re commuting home.

You could relax, pursue your life’s hobbies, have every day filled with what you enjoy. When I first started watching the show I thought outie world would be filled with hedonists and the resulting over indulgences 100% free time might cause.

This ‘what if we had 100% free time’ story line is prescient right now as there is a strong belief that with AI and robotics human work may be much less needed in the not too distant future and in the abundance version of that story we will all have universal basic income and lives of leisure.

Obviously this has many potential downsides as well—all worth mining in a show like Severance, but it completely misses all of those plot possibilities.

Instead, outie world is just another version of innie world just as bleak, cold and depressing as being at Lumon.