When does Severance takes place? The answer has already been revealed
Apple TV+The world of Severance, in and outside Lumon’s offices, is weird – and it’s really hard to pin down exactly when it takes place. However, we already have an answer from the show’s creator.
If you read the plot of Severance – employees of a mysterious organization agree to be ‘severed’, splitting their experience of day-to-day life between work and everything else – you’d immediately think it takes place in a futuristic dystopia (or an episode of Black Mirror).
However, the show never explicitly states which year it’s set in, which makes its sprawling, lo-fi production design and props more intriguing; cars look like they’ve driven out of the ’70s and ’80s, Lumon’s computers are stylized like retro-futuristic technology from 2001: A Space Odyssey and other sci-fi movies, and people have modern cellphones.
Severance holds plenty of secrets – what happened to Ms Casey being one of the biggest – but when it takes place isn’t one of them.
This is when Severance takes place
Apple TV+Severance takes place in the present day, so it’s believed to be anywhere between 2022 and 2026. There is evidence for this in the series, but it’s also been stated outright by Dan Erickson, its creator.
“We sort of intentionally kept a lot of ambiguity to the time and place,” he explained to The Wrap.
“We obviously shot mostly in New York and New Jersey, so there’s sort of a vague New England, east coast-y feel to the city, but we didn’t really want to know exactly where it was or tie it to a specific locale.
“It [takes place] around now, it’s like vaguely now-ish. We’re not going for something where this is 10 years in the future where severance has been invented and already exists. It’s sort of an alternate, vaguely now-ish timeline.”
That interview dates back to 2022, so anytime between then and now-ish is a fair estimate of when Severance takes place.
Notably, when Mark’s driving license appears on-screen in Season 1, it has two dates: 04/03/1978, his birthday; and 04/24/2020, which is believed to be the date it was issued. Considering Adam Scott is 51 in real life (his birthday is also April 3), it seems likely that he’s playing a character in his mid-late-40s.
What about that issue of The Kier Chronicle?
Apple TV+Some fans have taken the glimpsed issue of The Kier Chronicle in Severance Season 2 Episode 1 as proof of when the show takes place – but they shouldn’t.
Firstly, The Kier Chronicle isn’t a trustworthy source of information – it’s propaganda. On the front page, it says it’s been in operation since 1983 and distributed well over 51,000 copies. If it was a real daily newspaper, that would place the series in 2034 (give or take a year). Given what Erickson said (specifically how the show isn’t set 10 years in the future) that can’t be true.
For what it’s worth, that’s also why we know Milchick lied to Mark in the first episode.
Why Severance isn’t set in the future
Apple TV+If Severance took place in the future, it wouldn’t be as effective (or affecting); by setting it in the present day, it’s harder to dismiss as fantastical sci-fi, making everything about it more potent.
That’s not to say Severance doesn’t take place in a dystopia. We haven’t seen much of the outside world beyond Mark’s icy surroundings, but it’s clearly a world governed by a groundbreaking corporation (Lumon) masquerading as a religion; praise Kier, of course.
Who knows how far its reach goes; maybe the reason people are forced to use retrofuturistic technology is because Lumon restricts what everyone else has access to.
Speaking about the production design, designer Jeremy Hindle told Thrillist: “A lot of it is based on pharmaceutical reality.
“They have so much money. These are massive budgets. It was so fun to think of what an Elon Musk character could do with something like this, or, you know, the billionaires of today, what they can do that we would never know.”
However, there’s another good reason for its retro-futuristic aesthetic: it’s cozy and, in the context of the show, there’s a comfort to that simplicity that helps Innies thrive.
In the meantime, keep our Severance Season 2 release schedule bookmarked, find out how to watch Season 2 for free, and read more about the Lexington Letter.