Where Exactly Does Severance Take Place? It's Complicated

Mild spoilers for "Severance" season 2 follow.

The world of "Severance" is very much like our own in many ways. The general technology level (severance procedure excluded, of course) is comparable, life looks about the same for the majority of folks, and while there are some distinctive style in terms of fashion and decor, the series is designed to mirror the modern day in most ways. That relatability extends to the town in which the show takes place, but where exactly is that supposed to be? The answer is a little complicated.

Details in "Severance" season 1 identify the town as Kier, named after the founder of Lumon Industries. Specifically, clips of news sites and mail name the town as Kier, PE, the second part being an abbreviation of the state. Of course, anyone who lives in the U.S. will tell you that there is no real-world state in America that uses the abbreviation PE. Like the town, the state is entirely fictitious. That said, there are some clues both in the show and around the production that suggest where it's meant to be located continentally.

In "Severance" season 2, episode 1, new MDR employee Gwendolyn Y. (Alia Shawkat) asks Mark (Adam Scott) if he knows where the office is located, and she mentions that three of them put "Wyoming" on their input survey. That refers to the series of questions posed to new severed hires, which includes "In what state or territory were you born?" and "Name any state or territory." In season 1, when Helly (Britt Lower) takes the survey, she can't say where she was born, but she names Delaware when asked to identify any state. It's likely that that's the question to which Gwendolyn answered "Wyoming," meaning that it doesn't really signal anything new about the show's location.

The new MDR employees briefly introduced at the beginning of "Severance" season 2 are all brought in from other branches, at least one of which we're told by Mark W. (Bob Balaban) was shut down. That means that Gwendolyn would have taken her input survey at another branch, further deemphasizing the importance of the "Wyoming" answer.

While what we see of the town is certainly cold enough to be Wyoming, it's more likely that it's meant to exist somewhere in the American northeast. The whole company town vibe, with corporate-sponsored housing and a huge percentage of the populace working for Lumon, evokes an earlier era of industrial America. In season 1, we're told that Mark's first completed file at MDR, which is commemorated with a bit of decoration on his desk, was called "Allentown," the same as the Pennsylvania town made famous as a working-class symbol thanks to Billy Joel's 1982 anthem. In season 2, there's an MDR file labeled "Cold Harbor," which could be either a reference to the Battle of Cold Harbor, which took place during the American Civil War just six years before Lumon was founded, or possibly Cold Spring Harbor, a town in New York State that was also the name of Billy Joel's first album. Of course, it's unclear if the file names have any deeper meaning at all.

Much of "Severance" is filmed in New York's Hudson Valley, specifically in the city of Kingston. Mark also says that he used to be a professor at a university in a town called Ganz, which is very similar to Gans, a real community in western Pennsylvania.

Because "Severance" takes place in a town named after the founder of Lumon Industries, it would make sense for it to be the original, or at least the primary, headquarters. That idea is backed up by the Eagan family spending so much time there in season 1, and by a comment from Mark W. in season 2, episode 1 about the Perpetuity Wing at the Kier branch being older than the one at his old office. However, in the same episode, the Kier office is referred to as Branch 501.

The town of Kier itself adds an interesting wrinkle to the whole mystery. Since the company was founded in the wake of the Civil War — a period of major westward expansion — it would make more sense for Kier to have founded a town a bit farther west, as the northeast was already full of established communities. That said, we don't even know when the town was named Kier, and it could have been longer after the company was actually founded. In "Severance" season 2, episode 2, Mark W. says that he broke a lease in Grand Rapids for his job at Lumon, meaning that he moved from Michigan. Of course, given that one of the other new MDR hires is Italian, this doesn't say much about Kier's proximity to Grand Rapids.

While it's fun to speculate, the fictional nature of the "Severance" world makes it impossible to say for sure where the show takes place. Many of these clues are likely intentional red herrings to stir discourse, and the bigger point is evoking a specific kind of Americana as a backdrop for the sinister corporate storylines.