Apple TV severance shows how deep the corruption of capitalism

1. Take a moment to tally the things you’ve given up in order to pay off. Ever had to miss a birthday? Wedding? Have you ever had to leave a grieving or sick loved one just because you couldn’t afford to choose them for a job? Does it ever feel like a choice?

2. Quit, show Apple TV Plus created by Dan Erickson, which follows the workers of the fictional Lumon Industries Microdata Sieving division. No one knows what that means, not even the workers, who just parse through a matrix of digits and erase the “scary-looking” numbers. Their jobs are top-secret, and they’ve all gone through a procedure known as “severance,” their minds split in half. Their work itself is oblivious to their lives once they go bust. This means that the people who do their job – known as “innies” in common parlance – are the real newcomers who know only the life inside Lumon. One workday flows into the next, only an elevator ride can separate them.

3. Now consider all the times you ordered coffee at Starbucks with words you wouldn’t use otherwise. Times when you refer to a work of art as “content” or “intellectual property”. Life is tough when it comes to watching as many podcasts or books as possible. Every time you promised to “get back in the circle” in a conversation. Who taught you to do that?

Photo: Apple TV

4. Mark Scout (Adam Scott) is grieving. His “Outie” – Mark who exists outside of Lumon – has lost his wife, Gemma, in an accident. He explains to people asking for severance to be one way to deal with that loss. It’s been eight o’clock and he doesn’t have to think about Gemma or anything. Some argued with him and said the practice was exploitative; Experts on TV appreciate the value of the back-and-forth procedure. It all made him exhausted. He gets what he needs after quitting his job, and his life outside of Lumon is practically empty.

5. Workplaces and their idiosyncrasies, their petty psychological distortions, have always been part of our pop culture landscape. Art shapes culture, but so does work, and with a stronger hand. When it does, it’s natural that they intersect: in workplace comedies and procedurals, where ever-explosive mid-life tensions create conflict that drives the stories. Usually, there is very little space between the two. And more and more, the characters in these stories are miserable.

6. In the world of Quit, Kier Eagan reigns supreme. Lumon founder Kier was the inspiration for an employee handbook (the only document allowed for on-site use), which doubles as a propaganda textbook. His life inspired several pieces of wall art, done in-house by a group called Optics and Design. Among the recreational activities the Microdata Refinement (MDR) team was able to take on is a trip to the Perpetual Lobby, a wax museum that represents Kier and his ancestors, who shepherded the shepherds. Lumon throughout American history. Its foyer is decorated with his inscription: “He is remembered without decay.” It was a cruel joke when lord the people working for his company who couldn’t remember who they were. Perhaps this is by design. Not to remind employees how they should think of their employer, but how corporate representatives think of them.

Photo: Apple TV Plus

7. They are talking about great resignation. Amid the outbreak of the status quo pandemic, debates are raging in the national media, where it seems no one can agree if the lesson of the past two years is that work is broken. , or workers, and in what ways. If the labor debate lacks clarity in the abstract, take a closer look and find it in the specifics where labor unions are forming. among the workers of one of the largest corporations in the world and companies started to give up even pretending care about the safety of workers when the pandemic broke out. Bosses around the world call this “back to normal.” It was common sense, however, to be just one thing that no one questioned.

8. Secret to Quitmetaphor’s is really without any. It just gives a logical explanation for the things we do to ourselves – and what they do to us – every day when we go to work. We didn’t start our lives talking to each other like that, we didn’t always expect big office parties, we didn’t put our trust in tycoons and robber barons. These are learned behaviors, but what if you applied them? You’ll go far, kid.

9. The Book of Genesis presents works as a result of man’s fallen nature. In Eden’s story, Earth, originally created as a self-sustaining paradise, is cursed as judgment for original sin. The first men were condemned: by your sweat, God told them, you will earn your bread. It’s a passage better known for how it ends: “For you are dust and you will return to dust.” Hence: We are born to work, and then we die. This is a tragedy. Some seem to think otherwise.

10. In the last episode of QuitThe first season, Mark and his three reports in Micro-Data Refinement – shilling reform company Irving (John Turturro), vulgar dark horse Dylan (Zach Cherry) and rebellious new hire Helly (Britt Lower) — has become unusual, spurred on by, among other things, that Dylan learns that Lumon can turn on their severed personalities outside of work when his supervisor Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman) interrogates him. him at his own house. As a result, Dylan learns that he has a child outside of Lumon, and for the first time everything Lumon takes from him is made true.

Photo: Apple TV Plus

11. Quitting is a lot. Most do it when work becomes more impossible than unattainable, because life under capitalism offers fewer opportunities for the less privileged, and the number of people who might consider I am privileged to be dwindling. When poverty and shelter are on the line, people don’t stop to consider their options. This is the hardest part about organizing the workplace – because even when there is a common rival within a corporation that wields enormous power over employees’ lives, inequality remains undivided. evenly distributed. Some are expected to suffer more outrage than others, and those fortunate enough to be protected must be persuaded to risk their jobs for those who are not. No one will join the war unless it’s done personally.

12. You can watch Quit on Apple TV Plus, the streaming service of one of the most powerful tech companies in the world, a service that regularly announces new products on stage that has gone live to thousands of adoring fans, people who know the autobiography of the company’s founders. The modern company does not exist just to provide a service or a product, but to grow. Indefinite and without a clear purpose, like cancer. The streaming service is the latest expansion of a company running out of steam, one that pivoted from just making devices to manufacturing reasons to retain users. Entertainment services are now like insurance companies, charging a monthly fee in exchange for the assurance that you’ll be able to watch anything else when you feel like it. You’ll probably do it on a box you bought from the same company, after finishing work at a business they own. And that’s okay, because who has the time, the energy, to voice their uncomfortable feelings about how Mistake this is.

13. In the season finale, Dylan becomes the vehicle for the MDR team to carry out a thrilling heist into the lives of their adulterers. Robbing the Severance control room, he uses the switchboard that Milchick used for him to wake his co-workers in the middle of their Outie lives. It was an attempt to announce how miserable they all were, with the pressure mounting that it wasn’t long before Dylan – who had to stretch across the fenced room to keep the switches in place – would can keep relationships on the outside. He was eventually discovered, and when Milchick tried to bribe him with perks when he broke in, Dylan yelled at him what he really wanted: “I want to remember my damn baby was born!” This, Quit feels less like a satire.

14. Again, Quit not really a metaphor. There was no need for the undue reach of the company it described, because we were already subject to it on a daily basis. It’s not like we had a choice.