In Pursuit of Clean Countertops

In Pursuit of Clean Countertops

Weekly WTF

Severance Has Mommy Issues

Lumon's Missing, Invisible, And Indentured Mothers

Sara Petersen's avatar
Sara Petersen
Mar 18, 2025
∙ Paid

This essay is REPLETE with spoilers - proceed with caution!

Severance is a show about the antiseptic horrors of corporate culture and the ways in which capitalism forces people to chop themselves up into disparate chunks of humanity. It’s also a show about motherhood.

While only a few characters directly reckon with their literal roles as mothers (Gemma, Gretchen, and Devon), the looming absence of mothers and the act of mothering bleed into nearly every aspect of Severance.

A nurse checks Gemma as she holds rocks in a white room on Severance

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