Photo courtesy of Apple TV+
I knew the Great Resignation and growing unease with the conditions of work were finally making their way into pop culture when this summer’s blockbuster action flicks Thor: Love and Thunder and Bullet Train both opened with crises of work-life balance. If superheroes and globe-trotting hired assassins are finally feeling the pain, we might be at a moment of cultural reckoning. But my favorite exploration of this ubiquitous crisis is in the dystopian TV series Severance, created by Dan Erickson on Apple TV+. Severance doesn’t offer much hope, but it is a smart, captivating account of our growing pervasive unease with the structures and demands of work.
A mysterious company, Lumon, has perfected a technology that allows select employees to undergo a “severance procedure” that separates their working from their nonworking…
