What does Lumon do in Severance? Details revealed in depth

Created by Dan Erickson, Severance, is a sci-fi dystopian and black comedy series features Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Zach Cherry, and others. The show is executively produced and majorly directed by Ben Stiller.

Severance has two seasons so far and it began airing on Apple TV+ from 2022. The show has been a critical and commercial hit and is noted for its production design, story, direction, performances, and themes. The show has received multiple Emmy Award nominations and is one of the most popular shows currently.

Severance deals with a group of employees at the biotechnology corporation called Lumon Industries, where each worker has to undergo a medical procedure that severs their brain into two parts. After the procedure, the employee does not remember any memories of the outside world while at work and does not have any recollection of the job when they leave.

The Lumon company therefore plays an important role in the show as it has dark secrets that characters like Mark Scout (Scott), Helly R (Lower), and others must find out about.

Details about Lumon in Severance explored.

Severance has made sure that the mystery behind what Lumon actually does, is not revealed entirely. In the two seasons of the show, there have been hints and a few revelations about the scale of control that the company has over its employees, but it does not disclose things in full detail.

Viewers know that the corporation is responsible for making its employees undergo the medical procedure of severance, which creates two personalities for each person, as the brain of the person is severed into two parts. Therefore, employees often have limited knowledge about the company as they can’t recollect their office memories once they log out and they can’t access their private life, once they log in.

However, till now Severance has shown that characters like Mark, Helly, Irving, and others, all work in the Macrodata Refinement department of Lumon, where they have to organize numbers on their computers and put them in digital bins. The mystery behind these numbers is not yet revealed.

Further, there is a break room, where employees who don’t work according to expectations are sent and made to read a script several times till they are exhausted. This psychological punishment hints at how invasive and ruthless Lumon is in controlling its employees. The company also has another department called the Optics and Design department, where employees work using machines, but the purpose of this department is a mystery.

Lumon also has an Administration department where Harmony Cobel sits and the department monitors the employees on the Severed floor. Harmony is cold and brutal, and she often tortures her employees. Harmony also keeps a watch over the Wellness Center where Mark meets the counselor, Ms. Casey, who is revealed to be Mark’s dead wife. The center is not for the wellness of the employees, but to gauge how much the severed employees remember about their lives outside of Lumon.

The importance of Perpetuity Wing in Severance and Ben Stiller and Dan Erickson on what Lumon does.

One of the most important parts in Lumon is the Perpetuity Wing. Here, Lumon Industries’ history is exhibited in the form of a museum. There is an animatronic exhibit dedicated to the founder of Lumon, Kier Eagan. It shows that the company has had seven other CEOs and the most recent is the father of Helena, Jame Eagen. There is also a replica of Kier Eagan’s house and all of these departments and wings symbolize the absolute control that the company has over its employees.

On a podcast by Movie Maker, Erickson and Stiller maintained that they know what Lumon does and it is of importance. However, “I don’t think people are going to be talking about the big twist of what the company was doing. You can make it important and resonant, but I don’t think it’s the main thing,” Erickson says.

He continues, “We do have an answer in mind for it...And it’s something that we sort of tried to weave into what’s already there in the show… the themes and stuff that are being explored from the very first episode. How do you take that and expand it to a macro level where it feels like the show is all about one thing?”

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Severance is available on Apple TV+

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