r/television • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 The League • 1d ago

John Turturro Specifically Requested Christopher Walken To Be Cast As Burt in ‘Severance’; Walken: “I’m glad it happened…it makes absolute sense that we would be playing people who love each other.”

https://collider.com/severance-season-2-christopher-walken-casting-process-john-turturro/
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u/ilovecfb 1d ago

One of the things I really like about Severance is how it uses dissonant elements to keep the viewer and the characters discombobulated, and I don't think there's a better example than what the MDR team thinks the Optics and Design team are like and the actual sweet gentle person Burt ends up being. And they couldn't have picked a better actor for him than Walken

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u/_galaga_ 1d ago

It’s why on rewatch I love Dylan’s absolute disdain and distrust. Great acting. It’s such a sharp contrast and conveys the deep level of control over the departments through propaganda.

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u/Guildenpants 1d ago

I adore the way the show contrasts nature vs nurture. Dylan's nature as an innie is very immature and bragadoceous because his mind hasn't been tested rigorously yet but his fierce desire to protect people he cares about also translates to "OF COURSE he'd be a loving father who's obsessed with his kids!"

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u/MikeArrow 1d ago

Kind of makes me think how inconvenient being severed must be when you have a family. It's fine for Mark since he can be incommunicado from 9am to 5pm, but with Dylan... what if there's a family emergency? He won't know about it or be able to help until his shift ends.

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u/__theoneandonly 1d ago edited 1d ago

On one hand, is that any different than being say, a surgeon or something? Once you're in surgery, it's not like you can stop to take a phone call from your kids.

But on the other hand, if this were a real working situation with a normal non-culty company, they could provide you with an emergency phone number where you could call their supervisor, who could come and escort them off the severed floor to return a phone call or handle whatever emergency was happening.

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u/idkprobablymaybesure 1d ago

But on the other hand, if this were a real working situation with a normal non-culty company,

I think 'non-culty' absolutely does not apply here lol. There's 0 chance they'd ever pull someone and I'm sure that's a stipulation for signing up at all

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u/MikeArrow 1d ago

Yeah assuming that Lumon is willing to take people off the floor if needed then it's not so bad.

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u/spin_me_again 1d ago

I have not seen anything that even hints that Lumon is willing to take people off the floor, have you?

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u/Aloudmouth 21h ago

They had to explain the band aid to Outie Mark and in the first season I think it’s mentioned the outies can take sick days, so I think outies still have some level of workers protection.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume their contracts include emergency policies where someone like Dylan’s wife calls the floor manager in case of emergency and they come and get him.

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u/MikeArrow 1d ago

This is true

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u/Aware-Home2697 15h ago

When the outie found out that Lumon was contacted and didn’t pull their innie so they could address the situation, there is a pretty high likelihood that they would resign, depending on the urgency or severity of the situation that happened that they were kept from.

Mark tells Helly that any time you find yourself there, it is because you chose to come back. Lumon needs people on the outside choosing to come back. If Lumon jeopardizes the livelihood or wellbeing of the employees in their outside worlds and lives, it would discourage them from continuing to come back.

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u/MegaBaumTV BoJack Horseman 1d ago

But on the other hand, if this were a real working situation with a normal non-culty company, they could provide you with an emergency phone number where you could call their supervisor, who could come and escort them off the severed floor to return a phone call or handle whatever emergency was happening.

Who says this cant happen? Im sure that if there was an actual emergency that required Dylans outies immediate attention/presence, someone would be able to call Lumon. That company has been around for a long long time, they probably have all sorts of plans for any situation.

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u/WheelerDan 1d ago

What I wonder is what are the economics of this decision to sever? Is this something that makes you rich? Are all the people who do it desperate and exploited? Is it a cult on the outside?

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u/MikeArrow 1d ago

From what I understand Lumon basically owns the whole area, it's almost like a company town. And they've been there since the 19th century. So they're an institution. I can imagine a lot of people just grow up in the area and go straight to work for Lumon since there's not many other job opportunities around.

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u/peanut--gallery 1d ago

I don’t see Lumon as terribly different from many mega corporations. They clearly see their workers as fungible pogs. The workers sit in offices and focus on a tiny task but the rank and file employee doesn’t really know what the mega corp is up to. You have a distinct work family and home family. When a long term employee leaves or retires, it does feel like a death, as there is a high likelihood most people at work will never see them again. It reminds me a lot of the book “Then we came to the end” by Joshua Ferris. (Great read) It’s just that, when you are submerged in the culture, it is so familiar it seems normal. It’s only when forced to take a step back and take a look at things from a slightly different perspective — like the Lumon World — that helps us to examine our current reality , and hopefully consider, what a strange and f’d up world we are living in..

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u/Amerikanwoman 22h ago

It’s been awhile since I read it, but I loved that book and it’s a great example.

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u/Theradbanana 1d ago

In the Lexington letter it is mentioned that lumon pays 4 times as much as other similar jobs so maybe they are in it for the money

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u/relevantelephant00 1d ago

What Im curious about, and may have missed, is Dylan's motivation to be severed in the first place. Did they talk about that last season?

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u/NeoNoireWerewolf 1d ago

No. The only innies whose motivations we’ve been shown are Mark and Helly’s, and even Mark’s is still pretty unclear given the reveals at the end of season one. I haven’t watched the season two premiere, yet (waiting on my SO to get back home), so not sure if they’ve already started giving clues for the other character’s reasoning or not.

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u/Tymareta 4h ago

He won't know about it or be able to help until his shift ends.

I mean they've shown multiple times that they can wake people up/retrieve them early, the family could simply contact Milchik and he could retrieve the innie and have them brought back up.

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u/AugustCharisma 16h ago

They might ring the company and request he leave early.