Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Severance.
Severance's story revolves around a memory-splitting process that certain Lumon Industries employees must undergo, but what exactly that company does or produces is not so clear. In Severance, Adam Scott plays Mark Scout, a Lumon Industries employee who has agreed to have his professional memories completely separate from his personal memories. The series essentially follows two different versions of the same character, each with a different personality but as real as the other.
As frightening as Severance's concept of memory-splitting is, those who work for Lumon Industries seem to be regarded with prestige by society – or at least by most of them. Some people are against Lumon Industries' policy, although it is unclear when or why the practice of the severance began. It is clear, however, that being able to disconnect from the “real world” for eight hours a day seems to be welcomed by those, like Mark, who are experiencing some sort of anguish in their personal lives.
The severance process is not the only big mystery in Severance. The overly complicated work environment placed in a huge building belies the fact that no one really knows what Lumon Industries does. Cosmetics, tech equipment, pharmaceuticals, data mining, ocean cleaning, or movie censorship are some of the hypotheses raised by the cast of characters in Severance, but the truth is that no one is sure of what the company does.
Mark Scout and his colleagues, which have been the center of the show so far, work in a microdata mining department. However, at no point is said which data or for what purpose it is being refined. In fact, the data mining process does not follow any kind of numerical pattern and depends only on the operators' feelings towards what they’re seeing on screen. It even took a few days for Helly, the new employee, to understand what exactly she had to do during the workday — something by which Severance nails Gen Z's worst nightmare.
Despite all of that mystery, Lumon Industries seems to be pretty well known in the universe of Severance. That makes it even more strange that no one knows for sure what the company does. During the dinner with Mark's family and friends, some said the company makes cosmetics, others thought they were in the tech business. Mark’s brother-in-law suggested that the company has been around since the 1800s, and Mark’s sister believes they do a bit of everything. Not even Mark could prove them right or wrong as he only knows that he works in the corporate archives division inside Severance's small departments.
For what appears to be one of the biggest companies in the universe of Severance, it is pretty scary that no one knows what Lumon Industries does. Even the employees in the microdata management department, which in itself is a pretty generic job description, don't know what the numbers on their screens mean. The real answer will probably only be found at the end of the season, but it must be related to why Lumon Industries splits the memories of its employees.
Severance releases new episodes every Friday on Apple TV+.