Severance series creator Dan Erickson just opened up about the infamous “waffle party” scene in an interview with ComicBook. He didn’t reveal whether we’d learn more about that ritual in Season 2, but he did give some insights on what it meant for the characters and for Lumon Industries. Fair warning: there are spoilers for Severance Season 1 ahead!
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“It’s funny — a lot of people are very mad because they say I’ve ruined waffles for them, which I do feel kind of bad about,” Erickson joked. The scene is in Season 1, Episode 8, “What’s for Dinner?” In it, Dylan (Zach Cherry) is given a “waffle party” as a reward for his department meeting its quota. He is brought to the Perpetuity Wing and seated in a replica of Kier Eagan’s childhood bedroom. He is served waffles and then adorned with an Eagan mask, and he sits alone while people in other masks perform ritualistic seductive dances in front of him.
The scene perplexed fans, and Erickson pointed out that Lumon would want its severed employees to feel that way about sex. He said: “To me, it ties into the fact that every element of life at Lumon is incentivized and thus kind of perverted. We see that around the time in the season that the waffle party happens, you have this kind of sweet blossoming romance between Mark and Helly, which is happening very organically, and then the same of course with Burt and Irving. There’s love that is popping up in the way that it naturally would between people, and Lumon, of course, wants to snuff that out.”
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“With the waffle party, part of the reason for that is that they want to own that — things like sex and love — they want to be in charge of when you can have that and when you can’t, because it can be used as an incentive,” Erickson went on. “We see everything from, like, pencil erasers to melon parties and everything being used as an incentive to keep people doing their job. In a way, why would sexuality not be used in that same way in a place like that? But you see it presented in this really strange and alarming way.”
Erickson’s insights shed a lot of light on this cryptic scene, but it’s notable that he didn’t tell us if we’d learn more in future episodes. We’ll have to see for ourselves when Severance Season 2 premieres on Friday, January 17th on Apple TV+ and airs week-to-week through Friday, March 21st. Season 1 is streaming there now.
