What does the Macrodata Refinement Department really do in Severance? Speculations explored 

Apple TV's most anticipated show, Severance, is finally back with its Season 2 after a long wait of three years, and the premiere has raised more questions about the nature of the Macrodata Refinement Department at Lumon and what it does.

The Season 1 star cast, led by Adam Scott and Britt Lower, returned as Mark and Helly, respectively, the Lumon employees working in the MDR in Season 2.

Since the show's inception, the employees in the MDR have worked on different files and sorted data/numbers based on their intuition. The reason behind this is mysterious, the sorting also seems futile, and nobody knows what it leads to.

More on MDR's nature of work in Severance in our story.

*Disclaimer- This article is based on the author's opinion. Reader discretion is advised.*

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The Macrodata Refinement Department in Severance asks employees to sort numbers according to their intuition

In Severance, the four main characters work on the severed floor of the Lumon in the MDR department, whose nature of work is unclear in the show. In addition to the audience, the employees Mark, Helly, Irving, and Dylan are also unaware of the nature of their work.

What we do know about the nature of their work is from what Mark told Helly on her first day at work, that they refine numbers in files. Each MDR employee works on a particular file, which their seniors carefully select. Each file has unorganized clusters of numbers/data.

In addition, each file has four bins at the bottom, and the employees have to sort the numbers from the clusters into those bins based on their intuition or the feelings that those numbers invoke.

At the end of this sorting, each bin should have the same amount of numbers at the end. According to The Lexington Letters (an ebook about a former employee named Peg), each bin, categorized as WO, FC, DR, and MA, respectively, represents a particular emotion.

WO represents melancholy, FC represents joy, DR represents anxiety/fear, and MA represents rage. Each employee must match the numbers according to what feeling it invokes in them, and if the number matched is incorrect, the system shows 'Thumbs down', which means they have to try again.

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Theories suggest MDR files in Severance are named after places linking them to real-world events

According to The Lexington Letters, Peg notices a strange pattern between the MDR file and a real-world event.

She recalls that Dorner Therapeutics, who is a Lumon competitor, had one of its trucks blown in New York at 2:32 pm, which is two minutes after she completed her work on an MDR file, hinting that the file's completion might be linked with the truck's explosion, given that Dorner is Lumon's primary competitor.

A Reddit theory also suggests that MDR files are named after a particular town, linking them to real-world events. For instance, Mark receives praise for working on a file named 'Allentown' in Severance Season 1, a Pennsylvania town.

Further, Severance Season 2 Episode 1's final moments show Mark working on a Cold Harbor file featuring his wife Gemma. A Reddit user, u/BlueBrusselSprout pointed out the significance of Cold Harbor:

''Cold Spring Harbor, NY is the birthplace of the eugenics movement and human hereditary research in the early-ish 20th c. It was really rocking and rolling in the 1920s especially. They were committed to "race betterment."

This also supports many fan theories that Lumon is ultimately trying to clone people for AI or experimenting to resurrect their founder, Kier. Only time will shed light on the true nature of MDR and Lumon. Tune into Severance Season 2 on Apple TV+ for new episodes, every Friday.

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