I tried this Apple TV series the other night—Monday I think—and got hooked. Why? Why would a grandma approaching retirement and seven decades of life want to watch a streaming series, helmed by Ben Stiller of all people, about drones (not the flying type) in a huge, oppressive corporation where the employees don’t even know what their company creates or who they serve? Three reasons, maybe four.
First, it’s well written. It gives out the clues at just the right time. Ah, so it’s a mystery, the reader, who doesn’t now what the show is about, says. Well, yes, sort of. It is more of a dystopian world drama, but it is one that looks almost exactly like ours (some filming takes place at one of the Bell Lab facilities). But it looks just enough different to keep us off kilter. The world is too clean, antiseptic, orderly, corporate, isolated. It is something like LOST, and I was a huge LOST fan, until…..well, no need to go there. All of us kept watching although we had lost the thread somewhere in seasons 3-6. Lost applied to the audience as well as the characters, and probably the writers.
The mystery is 1. what does the corporation actually do? 2. why does it demand such a sacrifice of its employees? 3. why do the employees agree to the sacrifice? 4. what happens if someone leaves the corporation? 5. how will the main character, Mark S., get back to his normal self, or can he?
The “data” we need comes slowly but at logical moments, at surprising moments, and at the right pacing. (I use “data” because the main characters work in some kind of data center and sit at screens all day, although for the story to go on we see precious little of them actually working for their paycheck.) It’s not data, really, but revelations to them, sometimes, and to the viewer at others. Such as which managers in the company know what is going on and what is not.
To get to the point: employees in LUMON (odd name, since there is at least one Lumen company or organization I know of (a technology company, of course) are expected to undergo a procedure that separates their work memories from their life memories. A chip is implanted deep in their brains that gives them “space-related amnesia.” They have families and children and homes in the community, theoretically; this is their “outie” self. Once inside the building, or at least on their floor, they only have an innie self. Their outie doesn’t know what they do at work, at all. The innie doesn’t know what they do off the premises, if they even have family; all consciousness and memory of their outer life is gone for eight hours five days a week.
In one sense, it sounds silly. But look at the advantages: a company with high tech secrets would be able to control for corporate espionage; a worker at home doesn’t have to bring home work problems. Perfect work-life balance, right?
What makes it work is that we see both lives of some of the characters, and that this proposed work-life balance doesn’t work. The employees are haunted by what they do at work; they cannot quit their jobs, apparently, unless their outie agrees; and they follow Tucker’s Law #2: In the absence of information in an organization, members just make stuff up. (Tucker Law #1: If people can find a way to misunderstand you, they will. #3: Organizations have one mission in common: to continue being an organization, making discontinuance of existence the main enemy.) So the employees make up stories about how other units of the company want to kill them, and have in the past. Tribalism sets in, even if the tribe is four or five people.
And management controls them, punishes them, tortures them, brainwashes (or tries to) with various tricks in the “break room.”
My description probably sounds ridiculousness, which shows that drama is its own medium and just describing does not replicate any of the experience. One character, a new hire, is a woman who refuses to comply but can’t resign, no matter what she does, including suicide attempts. The main character doesn’t know that he lost his wife two years before and is in deep grief and depression; he likes that work gives him relief from that life that he doesn’t even know exists when he is at the headquarters. Another character is a true believer; he is played by John Turturro, who generally plays off-beat personages, like Monk’s brother and a convict in Oh Brother Where Art Thou. A gay relationship with Christopher Walken, another true believer in a different department, is implied, which rotates between funny, sad, and icky. A fourth character cracks wise and doesn’t seem to believe any of it but at the same time pushes conspiracy theories, likes the meaningless little rewards the company gives them, and thinks he is buff outside of the facility rather than the Sta-puff marshmallow guy he is.
Since Ben Stiller is behind it, a good bit of the show is sly satire, and sometimes not so sly. This brings me to the second reason I am hooked. It is at first a razor sharp send-up of Human Resources. The managers and HR people have a well practiced false demeanor that hides an evil motive. They push the mission and history of the company (another target of the satire) as a religious experience, a reason for living. They pretend kindness and concern and that all regulations are for the good of the employees. They invoke the handbook constantly, enforce diversity and sexual harassment policies, and are careful not to step over boundaries. They are robots, until they get to discipline workers, and their cruelty in the name of mission takes over.
Religion is also a target. In the second or third episode, the new rebellious trainee is taking to the wing of perpetuity, a museum, and there is archived art work all over the building that is rotated. The Egans, who started, owned, and run the organization, are gods and legends. The handbook is not just rules, but the stories of the Egans’ wisdom, bravery, and life of devotion to the company’s principles. The true believers speak in hushed tones about them and lash out in self-righteous rage if the Egans or their principles are mocked. The resemblance to a cult, and some Christian groups, is not just a shadow of implication. Walken has a line where he says “The Egans speak to us through the handbook and the artwork but by other ways…” sounding very much like any variety of Christian traditions.
Yet, one wonders, why do the employees agree to work for the company and be severed, when the procedure is supposedly irreversible? That is a major mystery, and to some extent we get to see their lives outside the facility. It is why despite the send-ups of HR and religion (or in addition to), I like it so much and keep watching, although I will take a few days’ break. But not much, and mostly the main character Mark and the former coworker who left and experienced re-integration of his selves. Well, not really. I’ll leave that as a spoiler. Mark in the company is a kind person who tries to help and makes mistakes; outside he is conflicted, lonely, wounded, lost and yet a defender of the process.
It has given me something to think about as I retire and sever myself from the mammoth state organization I work for. Or perhaps not, not entirely; they will still send me a pension check and handle my Medicare adjuncts. I will still visit the campus, use their library, and have access to email. I could always go back and teach part-time, but really, really, don’t want to. I want to see who I am without an employer. I can move anywhere I like (but won’t).
Additionally, I wonder why I like this dystopian shows; I am watching Silo as well, a dystopian of a different type. I am thinking through my own dystopian, which is not the result of a nuclear holocaust by the slow dissolution of Western culture, where suicide is available at everyone’s fingertips. This preference is odd for a hopeful Christian, but I am also a bifurcated one, and I don’t think I am the only one. Perhaps we are all naturally severed in a way, our “old man” vs. the implanted seed of the Word and Holy Spirit that guide us to reintegration with Christ. We live in a world that is an enemy to grace and what the Lord wants for us, now and then. Many of us see the ironies and poke fun, some of us experience more doubt and even angst yet those push us to the only remedy, Christian truth and hope, our anchor in an already dystopian world.
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