Severance

 Severance is an Apple TV show that first aired on February 18, 2022. The main synopsis of the show revolves around a character named Mark Scout, who underwent a procedure called severance, where a person's memories are surgically divided between their work life and their personal life. This procedure creates two distinct personas called an innie and an outie. The innie persona only exists within the Lumon Industries workplace, where Mark works, and the outie persona exists outside the workplace. Lumon Industries is a company established by Kier Eagan. This character is almost treated as a prophet in the company, and the name Eagan is always lingering behind every scene.

Mark was previously a history professor who was happily married, but after the loss of his wife in a car accident, he could not bring himself to continue living every moment of his life knowing she wasn't alive. We meet Mark's sister and brother-in-law through the later episodes and learn that they are heavily against his decision. Mark's outie is an alcoholic who is drowning in grief; no matter how much he pushes himself to start fresh, he keeps reverting to his pain.

On the other hand, Mark's innie (Mark S.) is an enthusiastic employee who received an award for his excellent work at Lumon Industries' MDR department with three other colleagues, two of whom are main characters named Irving B. and Dylan G. At first, these two personas seem like two opposite people. Mark S. is thrown into a frenzy after he finds out his department head has retired, and he is the new head. Immediately after the shocking announcement, he is told to help a new employee’s innie named Helly R. understand and adjust to the workplace.

Helly R. is a rebellious spirit and constantly tries to escape, but each time her outie is the one making decisions for her. This leads to her getting punished, and through the other characters, we learn everybody has gone through one. She starts seeing her outie as the devil. She sets off a domino effect among the severed employees. Because of her actions, we start to ask ourselves about the morality of the procedure. Though the innies and outies are the same person, giving outies more freedom seems unfair to the innies. The show delves into the philosophy of free will and whether or not the innies should have equal freedom and rights as the outies do.