On Severance Season 1 Episode 5. A brutal painting leads to many questions, with very few answers. Helly and Mark find more than they expected, but are they in control of their own destiny? How much are they being manipulated? It was a brutal way to end Severance Season 1 Episode 4, but the impact was lessened finding out that she hadn't actually died. It would have been quite a blow if our most relatable character died four episodes in, but probably not the message Severance is trying to convey. Helly has proven to be resourceful and determined when harming herself -- she could still find a way, despite removing the hazardous materials. However, there is the new addition of Ms. Casey supervising her at all times. We got a lot more time with part-time wellness counselor Ms. Casey this episode, but she's still a mystery. Is she also severed?
Ms. Casey has that affected way of speaking that middle management has, but still answers to Ms. Cobel. She covers the whole severed floor, though, as was evident when Burt had his wellness session, so surely it would be in Lumon's best interest if she was severed. Severance prods at the icky feeling that there's something deeply wrong with the world.
We devote our lives to gigantic, soulless companies that give us relatively comfortable lives, but those lives are ultimately indentured to them. Big corporations are great at taking people's alienation about the system and how the world works and then commodifying that alienation into a product for us to consume -- like Severance. Will Severance give us the tools to break free of the system we see ourselves trapped in, or will watching the Macrodata team do it be enough to satiate us?
