Severance Season 2 has finally premiered, building up on the previous season’s storyline while teasing new stakes for Mark Scout and company. It also brings in several fresh faces into their lives. However, it has also led to a surge of questions amongst the fanbase. One of these questions is the meaning behind the concepts of ‘Innie‘ and ‘Outie,’ first introduced in Severance Season 1.

So what does an ‘Innie’ and ‘Outie’ mean in Severance? Here are the two concepts explored.

Severance’s Innie and Outie worker explained

In Severance, employees of Lumon Industries undergo a surgical procedure where their consciousness is split into two distinct beings, Innie and Outie.

The ‘Innie’ is an employee’s identity while they are working at Lumon. The Innie’s memories are confined to the office. As such, whatever they do or say remains within the office. They also do not recall elements or memories of their non-work or personal lives. An Innie’s day begins when they take the elevator to the office and ends when they depart the premises. After departing the office premises, their being reverts to an ‘Outie’ state. The memories they made as an ‘Innie’ also disappear and get replaced with the Outie’s memories.

An ‘Outie’ is a Lumon employee’s identity outside the workplace. In other words, it is their true self, and they are the ones who had chosen to undergo the ‘Severance’ procedure. The Outie cannot remember what happened at the workplace.

A chip makes the employee’s shift between their Innie and Outie identities possible. This chip is inserted into the individual’s brain during the aforementioned surgical process. This surgery is painless and happens while the individual is awake. This chip activates and makes a being an Innie during Lumon working hours and deactivates and reverts them to their Outie state once they leave the office for the day.

The split between an employee’s being into their Innie and Outie selves via the Severance procedure is strictly enforced. This ensures that confidential and possibly dangerous information about Lumon is not leaked to the public.