Severance's Pilot Episode Originally Had A Different Innie Waking Up On The Table

In the first episode of Dan Erickson's dystopian corporate drama "Severance," a woman named Helly R. (Britt Lower) awakens on a corporate meeting table next to an intercom. She is dressed in office-friendly clothing yet has no memory of how she got there. A voice on the intercom introduces himself as Mark (Adam Scott) and begins speaking to Helly in a disturbingly friendly fashion. It's eventually explained to Helly — and, by extension, the viewers — that she has been "severed." She now works for Lumon, a company that's implemented a revolutionary medical technique into their employees' work-life balance. While they are in the office, a chip implanted in their brains will block all memories of the outside world. When they leave the office, the chip switches off, leaving them unable to recall a single thing from their day at Lumon.

This, of course, causes Lumon employees' personalities to bifurcate. The office workers, nicknamed "innies," have no knowledge of their outside selves, leaving them to discover who they are through their interoffice relationships. Meanwhile, the "outies" all have very good reasons for wanting to forget eight hours of their lives every day. Over time, Helly and Mark learn to trust each other, as well as their two other office mates: Irving (John Turturro) and Dylan (Zach Cherry).

Show creator Dan Erickson has been very open about both the pop cultural titles and real-life experiences that inspired "Severance" and hosted an AMA session on Reddit back in 2022 to talk about the series and some of his original ideas for it. Notably, he revealed that Helly wasn't initially supposed to be the one who woke up on that table in the pilot episode. It was meant to be Mark.

Mark is more or less the protagonist of "Severance," although it has become more of an ensemble drama throughout its run. Outie Mark, as "Severance" fans can tell you, is horridly depressed, mourning the loss of his wife and using the Lumon-inflicted memory-holes to cope. Innie Mark, on the other hand, is something of an innocent, happy to repeat corporate language and work as hard as he can in the mysterious macrodata refinement department. (And no, no one knows exactly what Lumon does when the show begins.)

Erickson initially felt that "Severance" should be explored through Mark's eyes as he first wakes up as an Innie and learns what his job is to be. However, Erickson later reconsidered, feeling that Mark should be more firmly established by the time we meet him and already know who his co-workers are. Indeed, Mark has been promoted to the manager of his department by the time the pilot picks up, giving him a working knowledge of Lumon. It was then that Erickson re-wrote the script to have Helly be the one who's only just woken up on the severed floor for the first time. As he noted on Reddit:

"We wanted Mark to have an established life on the inside and history with the other characters, so that we didn't have to build all that from scratch. And Helly ended up working great as the 'audience surrogate' character for those first few eps, learning the ropes along with us."

I daren't reveal any of the many secrets of "Severance" here, just in case you, dear reader, aren't caught up on the show's shenanigans. Needless to say, Helly, as the audience surrogate, eventually learns a lot of dark secrets about both Lumon and her own Outie. Mark, meanwhile, while already entrenched at Lumon when we first met him, also makes discoveries of his own. In season 2, Erickson actually starts with Mark's experiences, introducing him via a virtuosic panic sequence.

The show is mysterious and important.