“We form of blew up the world in season one,” Erickson says. “It’s robust to get again to arguing over over group images, pencils, and erasers. However we additionally knew that baked into the soul of the present is that this character-based workplace comedy that satirizes the weirdness of the company world.”
Whereas Severance season 2 episode 1 “Hi there, Ms. Cobel” doesn’t but reveal how Lumon satisfied the outtie variations of Mark, Helly, Irving, and Dylan (Zach Cherry) to get again to work, it does current how Lumon is selecting to pitch the outcomes of the innie riot. Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) tells Mark that, like him, Helly and Irving each efficiently made contact with the skin world. He goes on to say that they’ve achieved worldwide acclaim and change into the faces of “Severance Reform,” even presenting a newspaper headline and picture to show that truth.
Mark, not fairly moved by the existence of a bodily newspaper (nor ought to he be, says this journalist occupying an more and more digital business), requires extra proof. Extra importantly: he requires his mates again. As soon as the MDR group is lastly reunited, Mr. Milchick pulls out the ultimate cease in a type of a Lumon orientation video. Titled “Lumon Is Listening,” the cheerful claymation clip is narrated by the Lumon constructing itself* and runs by means of the entire “bounteous reforms” that the occasion generally known as “The Macrodata Rebellion” inspired. Severed workers will now have entry to tasty new snacks, corridor passes (it’s unclear to the place), pineapple bobbing, and a “playful mirror room.” The video even concludes with the Lumon constructing thanking Kier for the MDR group. And Lumon wouldn’t invoke its mighty founder Kier Eagan except it had been critical about these reforms, would it not?
*Although his identify doesn’t seem within the end-credits of the pre-release screeners journalists acquired, it certain does sound like that constructing is voiced by none apart from Keanu Reeves. Apple TV+ didn’t return a request for affirmation (and I stupidly didn’t come to that realization earlier than talking with Dan Erickson and the remainder of the forged) so….🤷🏻
Per Erickson, Lumon selecting to co-opt MDR’s riot and incorporating it into firm lore was a predictable response to the occasions of season 1.
“That’s one thing that feels very true to how an organization would reply to a whistleblower or an act of defiance like this that proved profitable,” he says.
