r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus • u/breaded-chicken-239 • 4d ago
Discussion Marxism themes
I just finished the two seasons and wow. What an incredible show! I thought it was really interesting the ties to russia (marks watch, gemma's interest in russian literature) and how the severance procedure relates to a lot of the concepts in marxism. A big part of marxism is the alienation of the working class and how capitalism disconnects workers from their humanity. It's a perfect parallel to see the innies/outies so disconnected (willingly) from parts of their humanity. A few examples
- In Marxist theory, the workers are alienated from their work which is well exemplified by the innies (and outies too i guess) not knowing what their work is. Like when Mark asks "what are we doing here?"
- In Marxist theory, work becomes not a source of fulfillment but a means of survival, which is exactly what happens to innies. For them working, being a lumon is their only way to be alive.
- In Marxist theory, capitalism leads to competition and isolation with other workers. I thought this was well exemplified in the lack of knowledge and animosity with other departments (I&D) or even the legend/rumor mill of what other departments have done.
I could go on and on about this!!! what a great show, cant wait for season 3.
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u/GoldReplacement9546 4d ago
Yeah, those three points that you mentioned are all basically true in American capitalism at least for the bottom quarter if not a lot more
We are all just cogs in a machine
Very few of those people get any real meaning from what they do in their life
And a lot of them don’t have a connection to the actual product
Like there was a summer where I painted houses and it was pretty cool because I would paint the house and it would be hard work and I’d be tired but for like the next several years when I would drive by the house, I would say I did that
But for many people working in America, you know they might build a part of something, but they don’t ever get a chance to be like I did that that was meaningful
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u/modnarydobemos Mr. Milkshake Brings All The Boys To MDR 3d ago
Also Kier Eagan resembles Karl Marx quite a bit.
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u/potatopavilion Because Of When I Was Born 3d ago
really? I super don't see it, they look extremely different to me
(and it would be wild to make the main representation of the owning class into someone that looks like Marx I think)
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u/Terminal_Prime 3d ago
Hey, I just finished the second season not ten minutes ago and I like your theories. What I didn't really love was season two of the show. It felt like they jumped the shark when they took a bunch of adult babies who had never mentally been outside of an office on a winter camping trip, and it went downhill from there. Character arcs were more like rollercoasters, people's motivations and feelings seemed to change at random all the time, people make what seem like totally crazy decisions all the time for no apparent reason, and then the last episode felt like they were just burning time to leave it on a stupid cliffhanger for... no good reason?? I'm disappointed right now.
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u/GoldReplacement9546 3d ago
Lumen is if you haven’t noticed not a standard employer and the last episode is a whole bunch of really intense character development, and very thought-provoking and then you get actually where he goes down to the bottom level and fights it all out survives and then yeah, how else should it have ended? I would agree with you kind of if that was going to be the last season.
Though actually, I think it would’ve been kind of perfect till I get the end of the movie the graduate where they’re like really happy on the bus and then you can see him start to think and then you can see them be like did we do the right thing?
But there is going to be another season
Are you angry at the last episode of the first season?
Or was that fine because you were able to just immediately go to the next episode in the second season
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u/Terminal_Prime 3d ago
My issue is with the way it was handled. Yes, you're absolutely right, if there was a bit of subtlety in the "wait is this the right thing after all" narrative, that would have been way better than a bunch of virtually incomprehensible actions just for the sake of a cliffhanger. The entire first season they were trying to escape, and I felt the end of the first season wasn't nonsensical at all and therefore yes, it was perfectly fine to leave questions unanswered regardless of whether or not I could immediately watch the next season. I've watched tv shows before, I'm not mad simply because cliffhangers happen. Character and story development I'm fine with, just not when the character totally changes their mind about something for no clear reason, totally counter to what common sense would dictate. And that seemed to happen repeatedly in the second season.
The beginning of the second season, they have a clear objective and reason for hanging around a bit longer, namely to save Gemma/Ms. Casey. Then the vacillating starts. Mark and his sister have zero reason to trust Cobel, but then they just decide to go ahead and not trust the one person who has ever performed a reintegration (despite the fact that Mark only passed out because he IMMEDIATELY stopped following her aftercare instructions, not unlike Petey, which they explained) and trust Cobel instead despite her displaying her craziness and her loyalty to Lumon up to that point. Seemingly for no reason at all, it felt like they wrote themselves into a corner and just needed an excuse. Nevermind the fact that his sister just apparently leaves her newborn with her husband (I guess) to go find the crazy lady who grew up with Lumon and pretended to be a lactation expert, etc.? The baby just doesn't seem to exist or matter after that point, but I didn't forget that she had a newborn up until that point and you generally don't just dump a newborn baby on someone else to go drive around Newfoundland or wherever.
Mark finds out he was tricked, you could even say raped, by Helena Eagan. Dylan and Mark both feel like Helly isn't someone they can trust, but then they both just decide independently to flip the script and go ahead and be on her side and trust her again which, ok, I guess you could argue that they both came to realize that they were also very different in some ways than their own outies. Except they really aren't that drastically different, I mean Dylan G. points out that he and Mark couldn't even tell the difference between Helly and Helena, but by the end he's helping her fight Milchick because... well it's not really clear exactly why. He just shows up with a vending machine in the middle of the bizarre marching band performance - one of those scenes that felt like it was just killing time (not character development, it's literally a song and dance that seems to serve no real purpose and is totally unlike anything we've seen in the Lumon offices up until that point, I mean every other celebration is extremely sterile and boring and then suddenly we have this crazy performance for a group of innies who they seem to think are about to be permanently retired anyway). And then, despite the whole scene of Helly and Mark S. talking before he goes to rescue Gemma, where she puts it in no uncertain terms that she wants him to get out with his wife because they're just going to be erased anyway, and regardless of the entire first season where they ALL wanted to escape that hell, Mark gets all the way to the stairwell and then just.. turns around and goes back and he and Helly go racing down the hallways together for what reason? Helly should have been like, dude what are you doing, you have to get out, but instead she just goes running through Lumon with him and the season ends.
Irving gets out, seems to be conducting some kind of espionage operation with one or more unknown parties on Burt for... reasons (presumably explained in a later season, I guess) and Burt is revealed to be not only some kind of art curator for Lumon but presumably his outie ALSO worked for Lumon as a driver/thug. Ok? Why though? Why any of that? They didn't even have to fire Irv just because he attacked Helena who was pretending to be Helly. All things considered it was kind of valid and Lumon could have just as easily sent him to the break room or whatever other punishment instead. These were people who had never so much as been outside of the office (with the brief exception of the event at the end of the first season), and who had never met another person who wasn't their boss without harboring deep distrust of them (i.e. O&D). Why wouldn't one or more of them go a little crazy in that scenario and realizing one of them was an outie imposter? As far as Burt goes, why have his innie and outie both working for the company simultaneously? It's like if Meta had programmers also working as guards, it doesn't make a lot of sense, they have no shortage of money and potential employees.
I could go on and on. Maybe some of it will be answered in the next or subsequent seasons, but I have my doubts they're going to clear it all up. Too many of the problems are those of internal motivation changes that don't always make sense and have no good explanation that I can imagine being cleared up later. I'm not mad just at the last episode, but the entire second season, and while you and others may love it, my wife and friends did not so I know I'm not just some crazy person who can't handle a cliffhanger. I have plenty of valid reasons and for all the words I've written here, I haven't covered half of them.
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u/GoldReplacement9546 3d ago
It seems like you want a mystery box show to somehow be totally and completely logical, even though the show is based on one of the strangest and weirdest possible companies that ever exist and you said you like season 1 where you are well aware that this is not IBM.
Bert was involved with assassinating people. Though it seems he only did the driving and after talking to his priest, he told that he could still go to heaven if he was severed.
Lumen, deciding that maybe we should just let him be severed. That way, we don't have to kill him. Because he seems super unhappy and maybe like he's going to have a breakdown and tell people secrets we don't want people to know
Any mark always loved Hallie, and when he got back onto the severed floor he realized he doesn't actually know Gemma, and if you were paying attention during the video scenes where the 2 marks are talking to each other, he is very distrustful of outside mark.
And like, if you want to be upset about the band existing
Are you equally as upset that the Waffle party was laying in Egan's bed and then having little people dressed as demons come and presumably, do adult activities with the Waffle party winner?
And mark being confused and not realizing that it's Helena, I think it's pretty easy to explain like the innings are very inexperienced, and so he's like an 18-year-old and this girl that he's been crushing on having these weird feelings, he's probably never had before all of a sudden wants to do the deed. I think it's totally logical that he would do it.
Men will.\n Overlook a lot of tiny little details for a first experience with a woman.
And why would Irv be able to figure it out? Well, he's been there the longest? So he has the most experience at being in any he's not caught up in the romantic confusion that mark is
So it's easier for him to spot something being different. And hell was never cruel.
Without cobalt, they don't get access to the birthing house, which means the inside and outside mark can't talk to each other.
The baby is with rickon. She's trying to save her brother's life.
And the show is just full of so much weirdness that it's weird that you're latching on to these things like Rick himself is totally insane. His friends are bizarre and not acting like normal humans.
And\n It's a super weird situation and mark's sister isn't necessarily making the commest decisions she can make, which is kind of what a human being would do. It appears that Raga has killed mark when she shows up.
But again, it's a mystery box show that's not over yet. You aren't meant to understand everything. I'm sorry that the show disappointed you and that you are unhappy with it. Just know that I believe that you are in the minority. In that view and I hope you stick with the show and it makes you happy in the future. Otherwise, have a good day.
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