Severance
Warning!
This article contains spoilers for Severance season 2.
Everything from the MDR’s work’s purpose at Lumon to Gemma’s fate remains unknown in the series.
Despite being severed, most MDR workers retain their own sense of identity and even have unique personalities.
Lumon likely saves this protocol for extreme scenarios where the workers grow a little too defiant.
Their outies have either been wiped clean from their consciousness or put in a sense of coma.
Custom Image by Dhruv Sharma.
If this is true, Burt and Irving have been put through this protocol.
Physically, his wife would still be alive.
However, the woman who embodies her may not consciously be anything like her.
This would raise many intriguing questions about identity and Mark’s sense of grief towards his wife.
The Board denies the possibility of reintegration when Cobel tries to convince them it exists.
Therefore, he threatens Milchick to switch her back to her innie.
Milchick eventually gives in and contacts an unknown figure.
This confirms thatthe Glasgow override ensures that outies do not switch to their innies at work.
For instance, human memory can be divided into two broad categories: implicit and explicit.
Explicit memories can further be divided into two categories: episodic and semantic.
The severed workers seem to have both semantic and implicit memories, allowing them to function like normal humans.
However,their episodic memories have been disabled, preventing them from recalling their lives outside work.
This override might have been implemented on Gemma, explaining why she seems robotic inSeveranceseason 1.
It would be interesting to see why this protocol was created in the first place.
Created by Dan Erickson and directed by Ben Stiller and Aoife McArdle.
