There is a moment at the beginning of the second season of Apple TV +’s corporate drama “Ruptura”, where the character Harmony Cobel is in a crossroads.
Cobel (Patricia Arquette) is facing the future head of Lumon, a company to which she dedicated her life. She has just received a promotion offer, which she rejects in an attempt to defend her old position. She wants to finish what started, says, in a firm and unshakable voice.
His boss, Helena Eagan (Britt Lower), is about to inherit the company. For reasons revealed only later in the season, Helena denies Cobel’s wishes and reminds her to be grateful for what the company has already given her.
“I think you have overestimated your contributions,” says Helena, almost a threatening tone. “And underestimated his blessings.”
His words are a bite for Cobel, who is later revealed as the creator of the company’s main “rupture” technology, who divides the memories of employees into two distinct personas, keeping their professional lives and personal separate. And looking at the second season of “Rupture”, which completed his record season on Thursday, that moment between Cobel and Helena highlights a consistent theme throughout the season: as a worker, you are disposable.
“Rupture”, which accompanies a team of “separate” workers led by Mark S. (Adam Scott) while trying to find out the truth about the company they work for, returned after three years for their second season. And coincidentally, he found the public in a moment of economic turmoil.
An unstable job market contributed to the growing scrutiny around large corporations, also a central theme of the season. Now the program reflects reality back to us, revealing the frightening ways how modern corporate culture has become a villain.
How the public began to reject corporate culture
The first season of “rupture” debuted when it was becoming a popular trend, with workers-newly lived in the mental stress of a world pandemic-establishing more explicit limits between work and home.
This season arrived at an even tense moment. In 2023, highly released strikes from the United Auto Workers, writers and Hollywood actors and airline workers against their respective corporations have led to the largest number of work stoppages in America in over 20 years.
More recently, with the threats of an imminent recession, US -based employers are squeezing belts, cutting more jobs in February than any other February since 2009, in part by the massive dismissals of Trump administration and the Elon Musk government efficiency department.
Even those who are working may feel stuck. Antibody feeling has grown in recent years, including a period after the pandemic when so many Americans have left their jobs that was nicknamed “great resignation.” Now, amid a deceleration job market, employees across the country have been looking for new jobs at the highest rate since 2015, according to Gallup, and general satisfaction with employers has reached a negative record.
It is appropriate, then, that people do not seem to have enough “rupture.” It is a significant change in relation to the corporate culture series that tend to be or episodic persecutions like suits or realistic comedies like “The Office.”
Unlike these other popular series, where the workplace can act more as a background than as an opposing entity, “rupture” confronts the exploratory nature of large corporations, veiled by tempting benefits such as free food and business retreats. Who has never been appeased with corporate plaitudes or gifts from the company when defending concrete changes?
An online feature advises companies to offer free snacks, drinks and even yoga at lunchtime when salary increases are not possible. “Break” not only highlights the absurdity of corporate culture, but emphasizes its illicit underworld. Everything is at the service of Lumon, and Mark S. and his team now see that.
The problems of the workplace highlighted in “rupture” make the public outline with their own jobs. Social networks are full of jokes and observations on the agonizing ways in which the program portrays corporate experience. Details such as fruit parties only with melon and corporate gifts are just the beginning. A person on the Internet compared the separation of the Switching Code at work; Another compared the alternation between a professional account and a private on social networks.
The popularity of this season of “rupture” points to a change not only on television, but in our society: people are not just laughing at corporate culture, they are reacting against it.
Art imitates life
The exaggerated corporate environment of the fictional lumon is intentional. The creator of the series, Dan Erickson, and his team studied as corporate and government complainants were treated by these entities in real life – dissidents are first fought and then forced to assimilate, Erickson noted. They used this information to form the base of season two, he told The Hollywood Reporter, while Lumon responds to the violation planned by the four main employees at the end of season one.
“It has always seemed a very specific type of manipulation,” said Erickson before season two debut. “In the end, a company like Lumon wants to be the girl, and there is a feeling that even this rebellion – they take the credit for it.”
Throughout this season, while Lumon tries to extract the maximum work of its key employee Mark S., we see how workers at all levels are treated as cooking cloths, twisted until dry and discarded. In addition to Cobel, Milchick (Tramell Tillman), another manager of the company, receives similar treatment, forced to an impossible and grateful paper with disguised compliments that gradually if the tension in his jaw is some indication, raise his blood pressure.
At another point, Lumon begs for an employee’s return (Irving, played by John Turturro), just to order his murder when he begins to ask uncomfortable questions about the company’s plans.
The criticism that “rupture” makes corporate culture should not obscure the program thesis: that their co -workers are a saving grace. During season two, the “rupture” characters must trust each other to fight Lumon. In fact, when they do not, things fall apart (just see Dylan G.’s remorse for dismissing Irving instincts).
The arch mimics reality. Before the United United Auto Workers announced its strike by 2023, President Shawn Fain first had to explain the decision and announce the vote. Fain was clear in his thoughts that a strike was the best way to follow; His observations to the union criticize the billionaire class and the abandonment of automotive workers. ”
No one will save us, ”Fain said at the time.“ No one can win this fight for us. Our greatest hope – our only hope – we are to each other. ”
Mark S. could very well have said the same words.
