By zestybuzz 
Gentle spoilers for “Severance” season 2 comply with.
The world of “Severance” may be very very similar to our personal in some ways. The overall expertise stage (severance process excluded, after all) is comparable, life seems about the identical for almost all of oldsters, and whereas there are some distinctive type when it comes to vogue and decor, the collection is designed to reflect the fashionable day in most methods. That relatability extends to the city during which the present takes place, however the place precisely is that purported to be? The reply is a bit of difficult.
Particulars in “Severance” season 1 determine the city as Kier, named after the founding father of Lumon Industries. Particularly, clips of stories websites and mail identify the city as Kier, PE, the second half being an abbreviation of the state. In fact, anybody who lives within the U.S. will inform you that there isn’t a real-world state in America that makes use of the abbreviation PE. Just like the city, the state is fully fictitious. That mentioned, there are some clues each within the present and across the manufacturing that recommend the place it is meant to be positioned continentally.
In “Severance” season 2, episode 1, new MDR worker Gwendolyn Y. (Alia Shawkat) asks Mark (Adam Scott) if he is aware of the place the workplace is positioned, and she or he mentions that three of them put “Wyoming” on their enter survey. That refers back to the collection of questions posed to new severed hires, which incorporates “In what state or territory had been you born?” and “Identify any state or territory.” In season 1, when Helly (Britt Decrease) takes the survey, she will be able to’t say the place she was born, however she names Delaware when requested to determine any state. It is doubtless that that is the query to which Gwendolyn answered “Wyoming,” which means that it would not actually sign something new concerning the present’s location.
Severance takes cues from the American Rust Belt
The brand new MDR staff briefly launched firstly of “Severance” season 2 are all introduced in from different branches, no less than one in all which we’re advised by Mark W. (Bob Balaban) was shut down. That implies that Gwendolyn would have taken her enter survey at one other department, additional deemphasizing the significance of the “Wyoming” reply.
Whereas what we see of the city is actually chilly sufficient to be Wyoming, it is extra doubtless that it is meant to exist someplace within the American northeast. The entire firm city vibe, with corporate-sponsored housing and an enormous proportion of the populace working for Lumon, evokes an earlier period of commercial America. In season 1, we’re advised that Mark’s first accomplished file at MDR, which is commemorated with a little bit of ornament on his desk, was known as “Allentown,” the identical because the Pennsylvania city made well-known as a working-class image because of Billy Joel’s 1982 anthem. In season 2, there’s an MDR file labeled “Chilly Harbor,” which might be both a reference to the Battle of Chilly Harbor, which came about through the American Civil Battle simply six years earlier than Lumon was based, or probably Chilly Spring Harbor, a city in New York State that was additionally the identify of Billy Joel’s first album. In fact, it is unclear if the file names have any deeper which means in any respect.
A lot of “Severance” is filmed in New York’s Hudson Valley, particularly within the metropolis of Kingston. Mark additionally says that he was once a professor at a college in a city known as Ganz, which is similar to Gans, an actual neighborhood in western Pennsylvania.
Is the principle workplace in Severance the unique Lumon headquarters?
As a result of “Severance” takes place in a city named after the founding father of Lumon Industries, it will make sense for it to be the unique, or no less than the first, headquarters. That concept is backed up by the Eagan household spending a lot time there in season 1, and by a remark from Mark W. in season 2, episode 1 concerning the Perpetuity Wing on the Kier department being older than the one at his outdated workplace. Nonetheless, in the identical episode, the Kier workplace is known as Department 501.
The city of Kier itself provides an fascinating wrinkle to the entire thriller. For the reason that firm was based within the wake of the Civil Battle — a interval of main westward enlargement — it will make extra sense for Kier to have based a city a bit farther west, because the northeast was already stuffed with established communities. That mentioned, we do not even know when the city was named Kier, and it may have been longer after the corporate was truly based. In “Severance” season 2, episode 2, Mark W. says that he broke a lease in Grand Rapids for his job at Lumon, which means that he moved from Michigan. In fact, provided that one of many different new MDR hires is Italian, this does not say a lot about Kier’s proximity to Grand Rapids.
Whereas it is enjoyable to take a position, the fictional nature of the “Severance” world makes it unimaginable to say for positive the place the present takes place. Many of those clues are doubtless intentional pink herrings to stir discourse, and the larger level is evoking a particular form of Americana as a backdrop for the sinister company storylines.