‘Severance’ Was Partially Inspired by This Twisted Episode of ‘Black Mirror’

Severance and Black Mirror are kindred series in many ways. Both of them look at how technology could improve our lives, but also subvert our notion of humanity when taken to the extreme. The severance chip, for example, releases people from the burden of work, at the cost of enslaving parts of them that they never knew they had. This premise in itself could be an episode of Black Mirror, but, thankfully, Severance creator Dan Erickson managed to get a whole series out of it — which is not to say that there isn’t much of the Netflix anthology series in the AppleTV+ drama. There’s quite a lot, in fact, and Erickson himself has admitted to how influential Black Mirror was when developing Severance.

‘Black Mirror’s “White Christmas” Was a Partial Inspiration for ‘Severance’

Talking to the New York Times back in April 2022, Dan Erickson revealed the many titles in film, television, and books that inspired him to create Severance. Among them, as one would expect, is Black Mirror. He mentions a specific episode, though; the Season 2 feature-length special “White Christmas,” with Jon Hamm and Rafe Spall. It’s often regarded as one of the darkest episodes in a series that’s already filled with dark episodes, with three seemingly separate storylines that eventually converge and make for a chilling cautionary tale about how fragile human connections and relationships are in the face of technology, which plays an ever-growing role in how we relate to each other.

In one of those stories, Matt (Hamm) tells Joe (Spall) about his job before being in the cabin where they are both isolated from the world. He worked creating “cookies” of people, digital clones that are formed from the host’s personalities and preferences (hence the name) and then stored in egg-shaped devices. Even though Matt describes them as “just code,” these cookies are full personas condemned to act as personal assistants to their hosts for as long as it’s required — like Alexa, but with real personalities, feelings, and intellect. For example, Greta (Oona Chaplin) hires Matt to build her a cookie that will manage her day-to-day, from preparing her toast in the morning to managing her personal schedule.

The cruelty lies in how cookies are made to comply with their new reality of servitude. In their digital reality, they have absolutely nothing to do besides perform their tasks, and they are usually rebellious when Matt first explains their “condition” to them. Greta’s cookie, for example, initially refuses to do anything and is immediately punished by Matt, who adjusts time in the cookie’s virtual reality to go for three weeks, while a single minute goes by in the real world. Greta’s cookie is going crazy when he returns, but still not enough to comply, so Matt leaves her there by herself for another six months, with only one minute passing in the real world again. When he’s done, the cookie is willing to do anything not to experience months of loneliness and boredom again, including accepting her new reality.

‘Black Mirror’s Cookies Have a Lot in Common With the Innies of ‘Severance’

Upon watching “White Christmas,” Erickson recalled “feeling so cold and afraid after seeing that, this devastating idea of having to experience this endless solitude,” and perhaps that was the starting point for what would ultimately become the concept of innies in Severance. When someone undergoes the severance procedure, they have a chip installed in their brain that splits their consciousness into two completely separate personas: the innies are exclusively for work at Lumon, and the outies get to live life without ever experiencing work again.

In “White Christmas,” the relationship between cookies and their hosts is very similar to the innie-outie dynamics in Severance. They are effectively clones of their hosts, carrying even memories and personal preferences to their virtual existence; the only thing they do not have is a physical body. Matt tells Greta’s cookie that she is “just code,” but when he tells this story to Joe back in the cabin, the latter reacts by saying, “That’s slavery.” From the outside, cookies may be seen as a system operating a virtual assistant device, but if they initially rebel against their condition, wouldn’t everything that happens to them afterward be wrong? There are many moral issues going on there, including whether the host is aware of what is actually happening or not, but a cookie’s life isn’t much different from slavery and torture, indeed.

The perfect Severance counterpart for Greta’s cookie is Helly R. (Britt Lower), who spends Season 1 grappling with her condition as an innie and, by the end of Season 2, still refuses to accept it. The main difference between them is that Helly R. has absolutely no memories from her outie’s life, but her existence serves the same purpose as Black Mirror‘s cookies: to deal with something the “owner” of her body doesn’t want to. She can’t even run away, because the chip blocks her persona to the confines of Lumon’s severed floor. “It’s this nightmare of running out a door and then you’re just running back in, and you realize you’re truly stuck in this liminal space with this kind of nightmare logic,” Erickson explained. Helly R. doesn’t have to deal with the cookie’s time dilation, but she is still trapped in the same boring and unexciting existence forever.

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And is there any way to reverse it?

‘Severance’ Season 3 May Offer Some Vindication for the Innies

Another significant tie between innies in Severance and cookies in “White Christmas” is loneliness. Both are unable to form lasting bonds because of their conditions, with cookies in an even worse situation, given their complete isolation inside the device. Innies at least have the brief company of their few coworkers, but it took Helly’s rebellious attitude and fiery spirit for things to start turning around on the severed floor, and these tightening bonds might spell fateful consequences that Matt could never suffer in “White Christmas.”

Thanks to Helly R.’s emotional ties with Mark S. (Adam Scott) and camaraderie with Dylan G. (Zach Cherry) and Irving B. (John Turturro), Lumon might finally be put in check for their treatment of innies in Severance‘s upcoming third season. As Helly mentions in the Season 2 finale, they were given “half a life,” but are willing to fight for it. Whatever your opinion on that final scene is, it’s way more liberty than any innie has ever experienced before, and more freedom than any Black Mirror cookie could ever experience at all.

Severance

Release Date

February 18, 2022

Showrunner

Dan Erickson, Mark Friedman

Writers

Dan Erickson