Severance

 

The world in Apple TV's Emmy-nominated series Severance chills viewers with the disciplines imposed on the workers of the mysterious Lumon Industries.

But the company's infamous "break room" -- cleverly named to reflect how workers are snapped like dry twigs -- has nothing on the "horrors" of the MDE, the Music Dance Experience, featured in Episode 7, titled Defiant Jazz (ironically enough).

MDE is ostensibly a reward for outstanding performance but actually mirrors -- fairly accurately, to my mind -- the kind of condescending juvenalia that is too often use to incentivize staff members. Rather than actually listening to employees, identifying what motivates them and trying to meet those expectations responsibly, bosses throw a party [or allow outstanding performers to park closer to the building].

What was most disconcerting about the MDE sequence, however, was how quickly workers who feel trapped in a system they can't control and deprived of self-agency will succumb to the company's meager enticements and dance to the music.