[ad_1]
Wellness sessions are one of Severance‘s weirdest and most interesting aspects. Throughout Season 1, there are many hints about what purpose these interactions really serve, including a blink-and-you-miss-it exchange between Irving B. (John Turturro), when Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman) mentions his outie “likes the sound of radar,” and, later in the season, we learn that his outie’s dog is actually named Radar. At first, it may seem like Irving’s outie named his dog because of his military past, but this line in his innie’s session feels too specific to be just a coincidence.
Lumon’s Wellness Sessions Seem To Explore the Connection Between Innie and Outie in ‘Severance’
At Lumon, a wellness session usually consists of an innie sitting down and listening to positive facts about their outie being read to them, without being allowed to respond to these facts in any way. Apparently, Irving B. doesn’t connect the dots when he learns his outie’s dog is named Radar, but this implies that the connection between innies and outies is an important aspect of wellness sessions. So much so, this isn’t the only time this gap has been bridged, and Ms. Cobel (Patricia Arquette) monitors and actively influences them more than once.
Mark S. (Adam Scott) has two wellness checks in Severance Season 1. The first happens after his outie, Mark Scout, meets Cobel (under her Mrs. Selvig alias) at Peter Kilmer’s (Yul Vazquez) funeral. Ms. Casey asks him to illustrate his emotional state using clay, and he sculpts a tree — the same tree Mark Scout visits to remember his dead wife, Gemma (who is now the severed individual known as Ms. Casey). Later in the season, he gets a second and final session with Ms. Casey, in which she lights a candle that Ms. Cobel stole from Gemma’s things at Mark Scout’s house.
All of this happens under Cobel’s remote supervision, as she seems to be testing how they would both react to elements of their life together in the outside world. While the tree and the candle are significant signs for the audience, they aren’t enough to spark any meaningful reaction in the characters, so Cobel orders Ms. Casey to be sent back to the Testing Floor.
Lumon’s Wellness Sessions Could Be Exploring the Limits of the Severance Procedure
While Cobel’s own reasons for directly influencing these wellness sessions are still mysterious, it seems that their overall purpose may be to test the limits of the severance procedure. Innies are supposed to have no recollection of their lives outside Lumon, and whatever happens to an outie isn’t supposed to interfere in an innie’s life, but these moments of subconscious happen not only to Mark S. and Ms. Casey, but Irving B. as well. His visions of black goo are directly connected to his outie’s paintings, which, in turn, depict the hallway to the Testing Floor, which he’s not meant to have any knowledge of.
Innies are told not to react to any one fact over everything that is read aloud to them by their wellness counselor, and this seems like a hint about the true purpose of the wellness sessions. Some facts do sound like made-up nonsense, but Ms. Casey referencing the sound of radar to Irving B. is too specific, as if it’s supposed to test his reaction. The environment of a wellness session is supposed to be as relaxing as possible, with low light, lofi music, and even an ASMR quality to the counselor’s voice, but, still, reacting to some facts is inevitable, like an instinct. Irving B., for example, reacts when he is told his outie is a good swimmer and “is skilled at kissing and lovemaking.”
The severance procedure is supposed to ensure a seamless transition between outie and innie, but it also sounds too complex to be achieved right away. Some stimuli are bound to have an effect on both personas and prompt reactions on a subconscious level, no matter how minimal. The innies being told not to react may be a way for Lumon to assess which aspects of their outies are most latent in their minds, making it easier to adjust or calibrate the severance chip whenever needed. This need, in turn, would be evaluated according to how strong the innies’ reaction is. For example, Ms. Casey tells Mark S. that she enjoyed spending time at Macrodata Refinement the most in her brief life, possibly a sign that there is still a bit of Gemma in Ms. Casey’s subconscious. Wellness sessions may have another purpose, like bridging the gap between innie and outie to make one whole compliant person, but, right now, there is just too much evidence pointing to them being a sort of severance chip maintenance.
Severance Season 2 is available to stream on Apple TV+ in the U.S. New episodes air on Fridays.
[ad_2]
Source link
