If you have not watched Apple TV’s slow-moving workplace horror comedy romance Severance then you have missed out on the pleasure of “defiant jazz” music. The extravagantly produced show is an awesome blossom of strangeness that, somewhat unlike an actual awesome blossom, gets more pleasurable the deeper you get into it. Also, the car casting is bizarre and I have a theory about it I want to discuss.
The short version of the plot is this: A quasi-religious company called Lumon has developed a surgery that allows people to not realize they’re at work (this is being “severed”). There’s a professional version of themselves, called an “innie” that knows nothing about the outside, real-world version of themselves called an “outie.” The lead characters are Mark, played by Adam Scott, and Helly, portrayed by Britt Lower.
Having listened to the show’s accompanying podcast, it’s quite clear that every detail of this show was meticulously planned. For some reason, Apple gave Ben Stiller an insane amount of money to make exactly this script and it works extremely well. If you start to watch it, I think I’m fairly sure I’m not setting you up for Lost-style rage.
The big reason why you’ll enjoy this show is that each episode is experienced a little more like a game of sodoku than a Russian nesting doll, with each new reveal introducing possibilities elsewhere. Pacing-wise, they’ve done a good job of establishing a truly insane universe without losing focus on the quirks of inter-office life. If the show is about anything, it’s about the dehumanizing nature of work in modern times. But funny! And with goats!
I’m going to attempt to avoid any big spoilers, so if you haven’t watched the show you can read this piece and maybe it’ll inspire you to join the rest of us. If you have watched it, I’d love to hear your theories. I’ll also give the more straightforward explanation given by one of the show’s creators for the cars and explain why I don’t trust it.
A Very Quick Note About The Universe
In the same way that the “severed floor” of this show is aggressively indistinct, the whole universe they live in is also specifically non-specific. The technology, for instance, is a mix of new and old (CRT monitors but also modern-ish cell phones).
It’s not clear what state or country we’re in, but the characters are aware of the existence of Grand Rapids and Deleware. They also speak, generically, in American accents (though characters with other accents do appear at one point). The license plates have photos of the company’s messianic founder Kier Eagan, who gives off real Joseph Smith vibes, and feature the phrase “Remedium Hominibus” which is Latin for “A cure for mankind”
Mark’s license plate says “Remedium Hominibus” which is Latin for “Cure for Men”
byu/ghostface_starkillah inseveranceTVshow
A State Senator also appears and gets (PE) next to his name in an article, implying he’s either part of a political party (Party of Eagan?) or, perhaps, a different state. There’s a reason to think PE stands for another state.
There’s also a map of Kier that appears at some point, encompassing a large area. This is important to my theory.
The Cars Are All A Mix Of ’80s And ’90s Vehicles, Mostly Sedans
Here’s a shot of the parking lot of Lumon Industries, which is actually the old Bell Labs building in New Jersey. It was designed by Eero Saarinen and the whole show takes inspiration from its 1950s application of neo-futurism. It is at least a visually appealing place to work if not, you know, otherwise unnerving and strange.
This extends to the cars. Here’s a closer look:
You’ll notice some real cars from the ’80s and ’90s, including a Plymouth Horizon, a Ford Crown Victoria, and an ’80s Ford Thunderbird. Look even closer and you’ll see some cars that don’t make any sense:
Whats going on here?
These are CGI-generated cars, I think. While it looks a bit Polo-ish or Skoda-ish, there’s no car that seems to quite fit. More proof of this seems to come from this Instagram post that shows many of the cars actually used in the parking lot:
View this post on Instagram
It’s the best of the Malaise Era! The newest vehicle might be the de-badged Chevy Express “LUMON” bus. The most exciting car is the busted red Honda Prelude that looks an awful lot like one I saw for sale in New Rochelle at the beginning of the pandemic and disappeared. The oldest is probably the Ford Galaxie 500 or the Lincoln Continental sedan.
I have more theories on those as well.
Curiously, Adam Scott’s character drives a relatively nice (for Kier) and newer 1995 Volvo 960. In all the episodes I’ve seen, this is probably the most premium new vehicle anyone has that isn’t, say, an ambulance.
Mark S. drives a Volvo [Severance on Apple TV+]
byu/Delicious_Adeptness9 inVolvo
The behind-the-scenes photos show that the production team has at least two of these, which either means that multiple exist in this universe, or the production team is just smart and bought two of the same car just in case it needed two.
Ms. Cobel, Mark’s boss, drives an old de-badged Volkswagen Rabbit [Editor’s Note: this is a 1981-1984 Westmoreland, PA-built Rabbit, even – JT]:
The car is as perfect for the character as Patricia Arquette is for the role. None of these characters existed prior to the show, yet I somehow know in my heart of hearts that no one other than Patricia Arquette in a de-badged VW Rabbit could be in Severance. I will not be answering any questions about this.
One more car, and it’s a tiny spoiler, though I won’t say who it is:
That looks like one of the newer 4th generation Lincoln Continentals, so a 1966-1969 model. The person getting in is obviously important because they have a driver.
My Theory: Kier Is A Sanctioned, Soviet-like State
I’m not saying that Kier is North Korea, because there’s some form of representative government. There’s a press of some sort. People are allowed to protest.
That being said, there are issues of food scarcity. [Editor’s Note: I’m not buying the food scarcity part: the ‘dinnerless dinner party’ was just Rickon bullshit. But I’ll let Matt keep going. – JT] There’s a level of coordination that exists between the corporation Lumon and the government. Advanced technology does exist, but it’s definitely rationed. Kier is always in winter and, I assume, somewhere far to the north. Kier is a cold Cuba, perhaps in northern central Canada above the Great Lakes.
Kier’s own timeline states that the company was founded in 1865, which is also the end of the Civil War. This is too big of a coincidence to not be intentional. Kier, I think, was a breakaway state or territory that did not join the Union. This could be because it was an outer territory that, while aligned with the Union never gave up its independence, or it could be a far-off outpost of the Confederacy.
Either way, much as in Cuba, most of the cars are old vehicles that have to be maintained on the road because there’s no local automotive production. Presumably, there’s free travel between the United States and wherever Kier is located, but there may be some form of sanctions (or tariffs) that make it harder to get newer vehicles. This is also reflected in other technology, including Mark’s watch, which is a Russian-made Vostok Komandirskie 341307, aka a Commie watch.
The Volvo is also important here because North Korea, other than a few nice cars for execs, has a lot of Volvos. Why? North Korea made a deal to buy about 1,000 cars from the company’s 144 series from Sweden. Famously, North Korea never actually paid for the cars, but good luck repossessing them.
As a severed employee of Kier, it might make sense that Mark has access to a nicer car as part of his compensation (along with copious melons).
Here’s What Severance’s Creator Has To Say About It
The show’s creator, Dan Erickson, answered a bunch of questions during a Reddit AMA. One of them was “what’s going on with all the cars?”
His answer?
“They’re for transporting the characters from one place to another.”
Lol. Here’s his real answer:
“Bet seriously, we used cars from a lot of different time periods to give a slight sense of disorientation. At Lumon, the Innies are intentionally made to feel unmoored from time and space, and that bleeds into the town a bit too. We wanted the town to feel like an extension of Lumon in a way.”
That is a sensible, entirely comprehensible explanation that also fits in with many other details about the show. I also don’t completely buy it. The show is written to be palimpsest and every detail seems to have more to it. Maybe Ben Stiller, the show’s main director, just saw the Volvo and thought it looked right. That’s possible.
Perhaps Kier was right when he said “The light of discovery shines truer upon a virgin meadow than a beaten path.”
I still very much want to beat this path, sorry Kier! Give me your Severance theories and, maybe, you’ll get rewarded with a waffle party or some very coveted eggs.
With the exception of the Chevy Express bus, which is owned by Lumon, all other vehicles are pre OBD-II. Mark’s Volvo is the newest of them all, yet the final model year prior to OBD-II. I hope we eventually learn why this choice was made. It definitely has some sort of Socialist or Communist connection. But some of them have smartphones, so that adds to the confusion.
At work we just did a data migration to a new system. The data got messed up so we have all been staring at spreadsheets for days trying to figure out what is wrong. After I week I posted in chat
“I feel like I am in Macro Data Refinement looking at numbers I do not understand that make me feel kind of uneasy”.
I got nothing back. Crickets. My coworkers must be severed and know nothing about TV shows.
Car park looks like old photoshopping cut and paste to show a full car park (or a large crowd) along with Ai being told to change random car colours…. Much cheaper than actual cars.
I am catching up on this show now and it is disquieting. As a late gen-x the ’90s feeling tech vibe is familiar yet offputting. We see Pete’s old flip phone, yet Mark seems to have a more modern smartphone. Lumon is all CRT based, often in monochrome or black and white, yet has very modern video surveilance.
The cars are an extension. Mark was a college professor, Volvo all the way. Is Harmony’s older VW a front or a “religious” denial. Clearly she is highly placed and valued at Lumon.
The creator could just be like me and could be picking what they think are the most visually interesting parts of past history linked to specific events alluded to in the story. For example a New England bouncer driving a Jaguar XJ40, or a Tennessee mother driving a Datsun Nissan Maxima wagon. These are both references to specific regions and long run events that happened in the 1980s.
The vehicles in the show seem to be similar. Mark drives a Volvo because that’s what white collar yuppie workers owned in the early 1990s after BMWs became too overplayed. A Volvo 960, a Saab 900, or an Audi 90 (curiously all 9s in the names). Mark is a white collar yuppie who has a career that has stalled.
Meanwhile Irving drives a Nova because he’s more of a staid square snitch who gave up long ago and values the company more than himself. His job safety is at risk and so he’ll bring up anything he can to stay in it. Just like a low end employee would have in the 1970s when battling the staggering inflation and mass layoffs.
It’s more about the feel than any sort of accuracy. And a lot of the themes in the show harken back to events in previous decades before the internet became a thing, so the feel of the show is about the threshold where digital and analogue coexisted instead of one dominating the other. The Mid-Century Modern office filled with Tandy computers while ticker tape machines and rotary landlines sound off in the background is evidence of this. That’s stuff from the mid 1960s, early 1980s, mid 1970s, and all of the twentieth century respectively.
In addition to Matt’s point about the North Korean Volvos, the more-equal East Germans loved their Volvos too: https://www.volvobertone.com/7enstory.html
How in the world did The Autopian miss the most bizarre selection – a Unimog 406 parked in Lumon’s parking garage on S02E02?
https://bsky.app/profile/etmccaus.bsky.social/post/3lghh3v5ew22q
Don’t forget the ticker tape parade photo in the newspaper where they are in a 1956 Cadillac convertible.
Apparently, it is based on a photo of President Eisenhower in Brazil.
But
The newspaper says at the top
Published since 1893 VOL…. No 51,903. which would make it take place in 2035, or rather they are trying to convince the innies that it is 2035.
I was going through freeze framing every thing that I could and had determined that all the cars were 1984 or earlier, but that was because I thought that was a Volvo 740 and the last year it was available in that shade of gold was 1984 parentheses (and I had one in that shade of gold)
I had put down the cell phones to being in-house Lumon technology, but the guard to the severed floor has a flat screen monitor so who knows?
Everything about this show is so hilariously awkward (uncomfortably long stares between characters, ridiculous ‘awards’ like Chinese finger traps for good work, Milchick’s porn ‘stache, a huge grazing area for goats run by a crazed woman).
It’s as if this show was made for me. It’s not a full-on comedy, but I’m laughing my arse off nonetheless.
I have been reading that it was originally conceived of as a comedy with a small amount of weirdness, like Parks and Recreation then it just kept getting weirder and weirder until it was a surrealist show that was kind of funny.
I like it better the way it is. Not really a fan of straight up comedies.