Speaker 1: Today's episode contained spoilers for the seventh episode, the huge
Speaker 1: seventh episode of the second season of Severance.
Speaker 2: Be warned.
Speaker 1: Hello, and it is Jasconcepcion and I'm Rosie Night and
Speaker 1: welcome back to x Revision of the podcast where we
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Speaker 1: news on Saturday.
Speaker 3: In today's episode, Oh baby, we're going to the testing
Speaker 3: flow and it's gonna be terrible. We are talking Severance
Speaker 3: two o seven, maybe one of the most powerful episodes
Speaker 3: of TV over the year so far, also absolutely heartbreaking.
Speaker 3: So we will be digging into that, all of our theories,
Speaker 3: everything that we spotted that maybe you didn't, and obviously
Speaker 3: you guys can tell us what you spotted in the discord.
Speaker 3: Also quick reminder, I've been very excited to see everybody
Speaker 3: jumping on our next book club title, which is The
Speaker 3: Magician and the Alchemist's Gate from the Ted Chang short
Speaker 3: story collection Exhalations Ed. This is a fave story of
Speaker 3: mine and Jason's. It's also very popular within the discord,
Speaker 3: so if you want to join the Discord chat about
Speaker 3: book Club. Last note and remember you can listen to
Speaker 3: our debut book Club episode about Dead Evil Borne again
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 1: Previously on sever And season two episode seven, Chicky Bardo,
Speaker 1: which is the a stage of death according to the
Speaker 1: ego Buddhist ego death the Buddhist belief system. We all
Speaker 1: been on flashbacks some years ago. Mark and Jemma are
Speaker 1: both working as teachers at a university or a college somewhere.
Speaker 1: They meet at a blood drive, which we will talk about.
Speaker 3: I say, you may notice something wrong about this picture.
Speaker 1: And immediately one of the things that I think is
Speaker 1: like really good about this show and really patient and
Speaker 1: is not easy to do is the storytelling. Look how
Speaker 1: good Mark and Jemma look. It's specifically Mark, what is
Speaker 1: this telling you? Years of depression of grief have taken
Speaker 1: a toll on Mark, Like.
Speaker 3: He is like so confident here they're so yeah. I
Speaker 3: mean Gemma also almost looks like a different person. She
Speaker 3: looks the way that they made her up, the way
Speaker 3: they and there is this instant chemistry and connection and
Speaker 3: even the way that their arms are being you know,
Speaker 3: drained for the for the blood drive. Means that they
Speaker 3: have to hold hands in the middle to shake hands,
Speaker 3: but it's more of an immediate intimate connection. It's it's
Speaker 3: so great.
Speaker 2: So she's great.
Speaker 1: A paper about Tolstoy is the death of Ivan Ilyitch
Speaker 1: and he's crating a paper about drug use in World
Speaker 1: War One and they immediately hit it off. Elsewhere, we
Speaker 1: cut to the Lumen testing floor, where we see in
Speaker 1: the present Gemma or the present ish, We don't really
Speaker 1: know the timeline right, but Gemma's getting her blood taken
Speaker 1: by Sandra Bernhard.
Speaker 3: Way just like throw it in my mind.
Speaker 1: She's getting her blood taken by Sandra Bernhardt, and she's
Speaker 1: living down here. She got a little apartment down on
Speaker 1: the test floor, very prison like. And the nurse asks,
Speaker 1: because it was clear that Jemma was thinking this flashback
Speaker 1: is was Gemma's recollections. She was remembering this moment because
Speaker 1: she's having her blood taken down here on the testing floor,
Speaker 1: and she's remembering, Oh, yeah, that's how I met Mark,
Speaker 1: Remember when we met at the blood drive.
Speaker 2: And so the nurse asks, where'd you go? Just now?
Speaker 1: And we realize that in this moment that we are
Speaker 1: in the recollections Gema's recollections of Mark. This is important
Speaker 1: the flashbacks and whose perspective the flashbacks take place in
Speaker 1: is going to be important.
Speaker 2: We will discuss.
Speaker 1: We get another flashback and it's Mark and Jemma living together,
Speaker 1: and it's very clear that they are happy, and again
Speaker 1: it's heartbreaking stuff. We go to Mark's house in the present.
Speaker 1: That flashback, by the way, I think is taking place
Speaker 1: in Mark's dreaming.
Speaker 3: As regarding it, this is kind of the ebb and
Speaker 3: flow that makes this episode so interesting because it's starting
Speaker 3: to make us ask questions about what can you remember,
Speaker 3: what can you not remember? We are definitely, as we
Speaker 3: were talking out in the group chat, we are definitely
Speaker 3: in an eternal sunshine of the spotless mind type situation
Speaker 3: when it comes to what is reliable who can remember
Speaker 3: for sure? And yeah, I'm very interested to talk more
Speaker 3: about whose recollections these are. And also if there's some
Speaker 3: kind of situation where once you have been severed, there
Speaker 3: is maybe like a hive mind element to certain parts,
Speaker 3: if you have shared history with someone else, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think that's some really interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting thing to think about. And I've been
Speaker 1: wondering that myself.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: Devin is freaking out because Mark's in a fucking coma
Speaker 1: and has been, uh, you know, doing this reintegration process
Speaker 1: without her knowing, and she's she's losing it.
Speaker 2: Regaby's like, he just needs to rest.
Speaker 1: He's gonna be okay, and Devin really doesn't believe it,
Speaker 1: and she's like.
Speaker 3: You're not allowed to talking about what are you talking about?
Speaker 3: I don't know about this.
Speaker 1: I don't know what's Devin is like, you're not allowed
Speaker 1: to do this anymore to my brother, and Regaby is like, well,
Speaker 1: this is what he wants to do because this is
Speaker 1: how he will get Gemma back, and Devin's like, we
Speaker 1: don't even know if she's live, and She's like she's fucking.
Speaker 3: And also, Devin, interestingly, I think we've kind of talked about,
Speaker 3: like what's her purpose in the show, Like is she
Speaker 3: an art? Has been a popular conversation in fandoms, but
Speaker 3: I have to say she's an I don't think she's
Speaker 3: an op. I think that she is as many of
Speaker 3: these characters are morally gray, but here I was really believing, like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is your brother, and you will legit kill this
Speaker 3: woman if she ever fucks with him, like, I really
Speaker 3: believe that, and also interestingly with Gaby says to her,
Speaker 3: this is how you like, both of you get Gemma back,
Speaker 3: and then we do start to understand that Devin and Gemma,
Speaker 3: Mark's not the only one grieving. Let's put it that.
Speaker 2: Way right correct.
Speaker 1: On the test floor, the nurse measures Gemma's vitals, make sure.
Speaker 1: She asks her, have you eaten? Have you done your calisthenics?
Speaker 1: Have you done your reading? The calisthenics interestingly mirror the
Speaker 1: kind of figures that we see on the cards, the
Speaker 1: lumen cards that we saw in season one, we will
Speaker 1: see in this episode. The nurse then asks, hey, what
Speaker 1: do you if you were to be trapped in a landslide,
Speaker 1: what would you be more afraid of? Suffocator and drowning?
Speaker 1: She says drying drowning and she's holding like this little
Speaker 1: woe lie detector or something, and the nurse reads the
Speaker 1: read out and then they go off to visit the rooms.
Speaker 2: Gem is like, how many rooms do I have? To say?
Speaker 4: Six?
Speaker 1: Jemma kind of like it is like a god size size.
Speaker 1: At this she goes to her closet, puts on an
Speaker 1: outfit that has been laid out for her that seems
Speaker 1: to I have not gone deep on this, but the
Speaker 1: outfits that she will wear seem to mirror a lot
Speaker 1: of the outfits that we see the Egans, the the
Speaker 1: mannequins of the Egans from the museum wearing.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I also something I think that's really interesting about
Speaker 3: this is like the bernout character. I was like, she
Speaker 3: almost seems like she cares about Gemma as well, even
Speaker 3: though she's not allowed to the idea of like checking
Speaker 3: that she's eaten and exercised in all of that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it does seem like they want the best test results,
Speaker 3: but I think it feels almost as an acknowledgment of
Speaker 3: like she knows what Gemma is about to go through,
Speaker 3: and she's kind of checking in like are you best?
Speaker 3: Can you do this? You know?
Speaker 1: Not that if for Gobi used to work on the
Speaker 1: test floor.
Speaker 3: That would make a lot of sense. I mean, as
Speaker 3: we'll see this, this becomes a very bleak episode that
Speaker 3: tells you a little more about the way lumin does
Speaker 3: not respect humans or brains or anything anything.
Speaker 1: Yes, the nurse takes Gemma past a series of rooms.
Speaker 1: There's various hallways with lots and lots and lots of rooms,
Speaker 1: and the rooms are labeled with project names of projects
Speaker 1: that we know the MDR crew has worked on in
Speaker 1: season one in some of season two including Allentown, Cairns, Drainesville,
Speaker 1: and on and on and on. Uh they go to
Speaker 1: a room labeled Wellington. The nurse unlocks the door using
Speaker 1: like a pomp pad that takes the nurse's blood, which
Speaker 1: is interesting and real returning to this yet a lot
Speaker 1: of blood. The inside the room, we see doctor Mauer,
Speaker 1: who will come to be Gema's torture, and this made
Speaker 1: me wonder if this is taking place two episodes ago
Speaker 1: when we saw who we now know is doctor Mauer
Speaker 1: picking up dental tools from a storeroom somewhere and then
Speaker 1: going down the elevator and whistling that kind of sea
Speaker 1: shanty tune that he was whistling when in this episode,
Speaker 1: Jemma goes into the room, so the scenario is a
Speaker 1: visit to the dentist. Maur asks Gemma to open up Gemma.
Speaker 1: It's clear this version of Gemma in the room is
Speaker 1: severed so that this personality only knows this room. I'm
Speaker 1: always here crying.
Speaker 3: Is that because you go, oh, you know, I was
Speaker 3: here six you know. I was just here, you know,
Speaker 3: a minute ago, and he's like, no, it's been six weeks.
Speaker 3: Like they're not even honest, you know too, huh. I
Speaker 3: think probably of all the things we've seen in severance
Speaker 3: being an Innie who is just.
Speaker 2: Office is the word.
Speaker 3: That's how that's like a soul level evil.
Speaker 1: I want to lightly push back on one thing you said,
Speaker 1: I think they are weird. I was why. I was
Speaker 1: like weirded out by the fact that Mauer is honest
Speaker 1: weather he tells her it's been six weeks, so there
Speaker 1: is for some reason they are leveling with the Innie
Speaker 1: and letting them know that even though you have not
Speaker 1: clocked that time has passed, because you only exist in
Speaker 1: this room, time has passed.
Speaker 2: Like the same thing in the Christmas thing.
Speaker 1: In the Christmas scenario, he says, yeah, Christmas comes back
Speaker 1: once a year.
Speaker 3: Even though you think it's always Christmas.
Speaker 1: It's almost as if they are trying to get these
Speaker 1: innies used to the idea that you're going to be
Speaker 1: missing time and you're going to only exist in here,
Speaker 1: but there's things going on that you don't know about
Speaker 1: and just accept it.
Speaker 2: I found that very weird.
Speaker 3: I do too, and then something I think is really
Speaker 3: interesting too is the it's clear that Dr Mauer is
Speaker 3: has feelings for Gemma like that starts to come across.
Speaker 3: And maybe that's also why he's trying to add that
Speaker 3: level of you know, inverted commas honesty with the different innings.
Speaker 3: But obviously Gemma has no connection to him or them,
Speaker 3: just these kind of night And it's crazy to me
Speaker 3: as well, because I think, correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 3: Is this the first time that we've seen someone who
Speaker 3: has multiple innies like five or six gema?
Speaker 1: This is her first time that we know that we're
Speaker 1: seeing it for Yes.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, that's true. It could be.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I like that that's a good way of putting it.
Speaker 1: Outside the room. Gemma comes out, she remembers nothing of
Speaker 1: the past two hours. We go back to Marrow, but
Speaker 1: she has she has sore jaw. I think if she
Speaker 1: just that the physical pain.
Speaker 2: She's kind of like rubbing her draw when she comes
Speaker 2: up and she rumors nothing.
Speaker 1: Back at Mark's, Devin is like, Mark, come back, you know,
Speaker 1: please wake up. She's freaking out. His eyes are moving.
Speaker 1: We go into his memories. Now in the flashback, he
Speaker 1: goes to Jemma's office and he brings her an ant
Speaker 1: farm and he's like, because you said you like ants,
Speaker 1: and she's like, no, I like plants.
Speaker 2: And this is.
Speaker 1: Clearly very early on in their relationship, and then we
Speaker 1: get a montage, also clearly from Mark's perspective of their
Speaker 1: life together. I noticed that in many of these flashbacks
Speaker 1: they are working, but they break work. They interrupt each
Speaker 1: other from work, and they're both happy to see each
Speaker 1: other with that interruption. Mark has purchased a crib in
Speaker 1: this flashback, and they're clearly planning a family. Gema's like
Speaker 1: a crib who's gonna put together? And you're not much
Speaker 1: of a handyman. Jema mentions and time passes.
Speaker 3: Just quickly. I want to say, I felt like the
Speaker 3: amptparm gift is like a very clever kind of nod
Speaker 3: to the you know, the infinite layer of lumen that
Speaker 3: we don't Oh yeah, really no, you know there's something.
Speaker 3: There's definitely something there, and I love that she was like, well,
Speaker 3: I don't like ants, but I love farms, so you
Speaker 3: know you've got something right. But there's clearly there's so
Speaker 3: much kind of illusion in this episode to Lumen, and
Speaker 3: maybe the fact that these two were put together by Luhman.
Speaker 3: We don't know, but there's there's a lot of strange
Speaker 3: things occurring.
Speaker 1: Yes, there's a dinner party at Mark and Jemma's house
Speaker 1: with Devon and Ricken dn R are talking about a
Speaker 1: recent trip to some mountains.
Speaker 2: Ricken really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: He's like putting himself forth as this like born and
Speaker 1: bred outdoor adventurer, whereas Devon is like, you're crazy.
Speaker 2: That was insane, like it was very dangerous.
Speaker 1: And here notice we and in this conversation, I think
Speaker 1: is one of the most obvious switchovers in perspective. As
Speaker 1: Devon and Ricken and Mark are discussing the vacation, we
Speaker 1: go to a little interaction between Gemma and Devon. We
Speaker 1: hear Ricken saying, hey, Mark, like, I'd love to you
Speaker 1: should come to the mountains. I'd love to spend more
Speaker 1: time with you and get to know you more in
Speaker 1: nature's splendor. And we see from Jemma's perspective her declining
Speaker 1: wine that Devin is trying to pour from her.
Speaker 2: And this is one.
Speaker 1: Of the best examples of good writing in which a
Speaker 1: character tells another character that they're pregnant without telling them
Speaker 1: they are pregnant exactly.
Speaker 3: And the emotional range that the two of them get
Speaker 3: in this interaction is huge.
Speaker 1: We angle on Jemma's eyes and the light goes from
Speaker 1: cold to warm, and we realize now that time has passed,
Speaker 1: she's in the shower and she's just miscarried.
Speaker 2: Mark finds her in the shower.
Speaker 1: The rain goes backwards, and I think there's another hand
Speaker 1: over here to Mark's perspective because the rain goes backwards
Speaker 1: and see market MDR from sometime last season when uh uh,
Speaker 1: Miss Casey was working with them on the MDR floor.
Speaker 1: And then we follow wires in the MDR floor up
Speaker 1: somewhere through the Lumen building to a team of observers
Speaker 1: who are observing the MDR team one person per MDR
Speaker 1: team member Mark Kelly Dyllon and irving. Mister Drummond is
Speaker 1: there observing the observers and doctor Mauer is with him.
Speaker 1: Mister Drummond says the severance barriers are holding Mauer is like, yes,
Speaker 1: the technology is working, it seems. Mauer admits he has
Speaker 1: a fondness for Gemma, but Drummond tells him, like, at
Speaker 1: the end of this year, you gonna have to give
Speaker 1: her up. We learned that Gemma had previously attacked. Mauer says,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm fond of her, and she's fond of
Speaker 1: me too, I think.
Speaker 2: And then Drummond says.
Speaker 1: Didn't she almost break your finger once? This, I think
Speaker 1: is and I think we probably agree on this, right,
Speaker 1: that this seems like a reference to a previous escape attempt.
Speaker 3: Yes, right, definitely.
Speaker 1: We go back to Lumen time unknown Gemma on the
Speaker 1: test floor. She's dressed in a romper. Now we cut
Speaker 1: to the outside world. It's a flashback Mark and Jemma
Speaker 1: at a doctor's office. They're seeing a fertility specialist, and
Speaker 1: we see that maur is there. He's one of the doctors.
Speaker 1: As Gemma is filling I stop here. Yes, as many
Speaker 1: are now noting, and as I dimly remembered, there's a
Speaker 1: line in season one in which Devin says to Mark, hey,
Speaker 1: are you still seeing that therapist with the creepy mustache.
Speaker 1: That's got to be mass.
Speaker 3: Got to be him, absolutely, and not just that in
Speaker 3: the first room. I mean in the first scene of
Speaker 3: this where we see Gemma and Mark meet, the testing
Speaker 3: equipment has like lumin logos on it, So I think
Speaker 3: ye for whatever reason, these two have been in Luman's
Speaker 3: kind of suckle for a while.
Speaker 1: They picked them up, probably at the blood drive, and
Speaker 1: then started to really drill down, and clearly they are
Speaker 1: involved in events in ways that we don't know, much
Speaker 1: more significantly than we know, and I think that the
Speaker 1: reason it's notable. Then, in a lot of these test
Speaker 1: room scenarios, there are different things that seem to mirror
Speaker 1: events from Gemma and Mark's life that sometimes Gemma on
Speaker 1: the test floor would not have known about, like a
Speaker 1: comment by Mark or a particular thought that he had.
Speaker 1: For instance, we'll see an escape attempt like doctor Mauer disparishes,
Speaker 1: the death of even Iliach, the book that Gemma was
Speaker 1: grading when she met Mark.
Speaker 2: There's all these.
Speaker 1: Little things, and I think it's from some of it,
Speaker 1: at least from these therapy sessions or other ways that
Speaker 1: Luhmann has been collecting information about Mark, and anyway, in
Speaker 1: Gemma's test floor space splace space, we're in her recollections
Speaker 1: now she's remembering the past. We see fast images of
Speaker 1: someone molding.
Speaker 3: Clay m HM into like a tree, yeah.
Speaker 1: And various winter scenes, and then we end up on
Speaker 1: Mark putting clothes away in a hallway. This is from
Speaker 1: Jemma's perspective, I think, because she then asks Mark, hey,
Speaker 1: help me, it's time to inject the drugs. She's nervous
Speaker 1: about it. He's like, don't worry. Like he's very charming
Speaker 1: about it. It's like, we're gonna get that little girl.
Speaker 1: She's out there waiting for us.
Speaker 3: And then he and jem who we've you know, maybe
Speaker 3: we've already met her in Lumen.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Back on the test floor, maur is examining Gemma I
Speaker 1: think in her apartment or in a room adjacent to
Speaker 1: her apartment. Various scans are being taken in real time,
Speaker 1: and the observers and the observation floor are looking at
Speaker 1: the scans. We see that Jemma is indeed chipped. There's
Speaker 1: a chip in her head, although it seems to me
Speaker 1: like the chip looks different than the way that we
Speaker 1: see in Mark's bigger or something right. Maur is asking
Speaker 1: Jema how many rooms have you visited and what if
Speaker 1: anything she remembers from those rooms. She doesn't remember anything,
Speaker 1: just kind of like lingering physical pain from different places.
Speaker 1: He asks if when she exited the rooms, did you
Speaker 1: feel any of the four tempers, you know, woe and
Speaker 1: despair whatever. The only room she has not been to,
Speaker 1: she says, is cold. There's only one room I haven't
Speaker 1: been to.
Speaker 2: It's cold Harbor.
Speaker 1: And he is interested in the way that that she
Speaker 1: recalls this and knows this, and when she goes there,
Speaker 1: she asked, what will happen when I go there? He says,
Speaker 1: you will see the world again. In the world will
Speaker 1: see you. And she's like, oh, that means I get
Speaker 1: to see Mark again. And Mauer is like, super evasive.
Speaker 1: Then about the thing. Yeah, Jemma gets mad. She's like, well,
Speaker 1: you just fucking speak like a normal person, like the
Speaker 1: fat We do a fade cut to a flashback to
Speaker 1: the outside world, Gemma in the bathroom feeling sad and
Speaker 1: Marks so clearly her recollections right, and Mark calling her
Speaker 1: from the kitchen telling.
Speaker 2: Her that the coffee is ready.
Speaker 1: I think that this fade cut is important because now
Speaker 1: we're entering the era of the flashbacks, in which a
Speaker 1: distance is growing between Mark and Gemma related to their
Speaker 1: inability to get pregnant and the struggles around that something
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people can empathize with. We
Speaker 1: cut to daytime at Mark's in the present. Regabi is like, Okay,
Speaker 1: Mark's fine. Now, he just needs to sleep and he's
Speaker 1: going to be okay.
Speaker 2: He's just journeying. We see him dreaming.
Speaker 1: Regabi insists that whatever this procedure is working and we
Speaker 1: just need to give time. Devin is like, hey, you
Speaker 1: know the any cottage where the people who've just been
Speaker 1: severed become their inniase, and and Gaby's like, yeah, Demona
Speaker 1: Birthing retreat, what about it? And she's like, well, there's
Speaker 1: this lady we know who worked there, Harmony Cabell, Like
Speaker 1: why don't we contact her and get her help with this?
Speaker 2: And Regaby's like are you fucking Like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, She's like she and she says something very interesting,
Speaker 3: Why would you do that? She says she was raised
Speaker 3: by them, she's she says something else first, soldier.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she says something else first, which is like, these
Speaker 1: are two different things, like that's severing, this is integration,
Speaker 1: Like this is yeah.
Speaker 2: And then you're right.
Speaker 1: She's like no, Cobell is tried and true, like she
Speaker 1: was she's raised in this. She's a she says, she's
Speaker 1: a soldier. And Devin, who I'm kind of mad at
Speaker 1: in this episode, though she's doing understandable stuff, is like
Speaker 1: while I'm calling her anyway, and Goby's like, okay, then
Speaker 1: I'm done by yeah, exactly where Andy's And Devon's like,
Speaker 1: wait what you can't leave me with this, and Goby's like, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm leaving, by the way, don't call that woman bye,
Speaker 1: and she leaves and then Mark that advice, take that advice,
Speaker 1: and then Mark, well, Devon is like hesitating. She may
Speaker 1: be about to call Cobel, but then Mark begins to
Speaker 1: kind of like mutter.
Speaker 2: The title to the episode chick i Bardo chick Diabardo.
Speaker 1: We cut two flashback Mark's recollections. Chick i Bardo is,
Speaker 1: according to Jemma, the the her analysis of one of
Speaker 1: those like personality test cards from Lumen and it shows
Speaker 1: a man doing what appears to be calistenics but also
Speaker 1: like maybe pushing back another version of himself. And Jemma says,
Speaker 1: it's ego death. It's a guy like fighting against himself.
Speaker 1: And this came in the mail for her, Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: like probably identified by the blood tests and other testing
Speaker 1: that they have been doing, and she needs to interpret
Speaker 1: these Varius drowings. Mark is like why are wasting your
Speaker 1: time with this kind of asshole? Mark future Mdr Mark
Speaker 1: a little bit, and Jemma's like, don't.
Speaker 2: Why are you?
Speaker 4: Why are you?
Speaker 1: Like, why are you criticizing this thing that I'm enjoying.
Speaker 1: I'm enjoying this and you know, don't tell me how
Speaker 1: to feel about this. And he says like, I don't
Speaker 1: have any idea how you're feeling, so like, what is it?
Speaker 1: And Jemma is like, basically says like I'm exhausted, I'm
Speaker 1: beat up from trying to conceive in this whole struggle
Speaker 1: around conception, and so Mark.
Speaker 2: Is like, okay, let's just stop then.
Speaker 1: Now time passes and it seems like now here's another handoff.
Speaker 1: Right to cut to Gemma waking up at Lumen. She
Speaker 1: brushes her teeth, she makes her bed, She's in her
Speaker 1: little apartment. She gets dressed in her outfit. It to
Speaker 1: go to one of the rooms, and this time the
Speaker 1: room is a harrowing plane ride with severe turbulence. Maur
Speaker 1: is the flight attendant and he's like getting all thrown around.
Speaker 3: I think it's really funny because he's like trying to
Speaker 3: reassure her again that kind of care for her coming.
Speaker 3: He's like, don't worry, it's normal, and he's getting like
Speaker 3: float flung around. Also another horrible room to be stuck in,
Speaker 3: and interesting that you think, like dentists' flights, they are
Speaker 3: almost testing her on like really obvious and kind of
Speaker 3: well known human fears that a lot of people share.
Speaker 3: What's your biggest fear going on an aeroplane, the airplane clashing,
Speaker 3: what's your biggest far going to the dentist. These are
Speaker 3: things that are maybe like a baseline of kind of
Speaker 3: how humans in general who have these fears would react.
Speaker 3: I think it's very interesting.
Speaker 1: I think it's very interesting as well. We cut to
Speaker 1: the observers. Maer notes that Marcus stuck at ninety six
Speaker 1: percent refinement on Cold Harbor, holding up their progress. Drummond
Speaker 1: is like the nosebleed set us back. Drummond tells Maur
Speaker 1: that again, when they're done, you're gonna have to say
Speaker 1: good bye to Gemma. Maur accepts this, and they both
Speaker 1: kind of say for cure, Gemma makes a weird little meal.
Speaker 2: That looks like Star Wars food.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, even the food, the food that they put
Speaker 3: on her table at when she's in the airplane is
Speaker 3: also weird food, Like it's very weird. It's almost like
Speaker 3: you can't there's something about lumen where they can't like
Speaker 3: replicate this very normal thing that people do, which is
Speaker 3: eat food that is appetizing instead of all the food
Speaker 3: is slightly off, slightly weird, very star.
Speaker 1: Wars Drummond, continuing the conversation, wants to know why Maur
Speaker 1: is continuing to wear his little Christmas sweat, and we will,
Speaker 1: as we will see soon, it's because in that particular
Speaker 1: room scenario, maur and Emma are a couple, so he
Speaker 1: probably is quite fond of that little scenario. We cut
Speaker 1: to Gemma and her lumin apartment putting on a wedding ring.
Speaker 1: We see her and she puts on like a kind
Speaker 1: of fifties kind of outfit, and then we see her
Speaker 1: in this Christmas room. She is writing out various thank
Speaker 1: you cards, which he expressed in one of the flashbacks,
Speaker 1: the thing she hates doing, yeah, various Christmas thank you
Speaker 1: cards to people for Christmas gifts. So many in fact,
Speaker 1: there's a pile of them that her hand is like
Speaker 1: aching and shaking, and she's thanking of mister Tisdale for
Speaker 1: his gift of a growder, but it's actually, as Maur corrects,
Speaker 1: a d grouder.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: This is as many have noted online. This If you
Speaker 1: watch the miscarriage scene, there's a shot towards the end
Speaker 1: where the camera lingers on the tile and the grouding
Speaker 1: which does look like a little overdone, like it needs
Speaker 1: to be scraped out. If you've ever done any work
Speaker 1: in the bathroom, you know what I mean, see you,
Speaker 1: it would require a degrounder.
Speaker 2: Again, seemingly a reference to their life. They seem to know.
Speaker 1: All of these scenarios seem to contain little details from
Speaker 1: their life. She's done with the card mowers, like you're done,
Speaker 1: you don't have to do anymore, and then they go
Speaker 1: to leave. They're going somewhere in this little scenario, and
Speaker 1: Mauer says I love you and basically pressures jem into
Speaker 1: saying because she doesn't say it back, and then she
Speaker 1: says it. This also mirroring the last time Mark and
Speaker 1: Jemma saw each other.
Speaker 2: As we will see we go, She goes back to
Speaker 2: her apartment.
Speaker 1: She's listening to Billie Holliday. She recalls we go flashback
Speaker 1: now to Mark, very angry in a fury disassembling the
Speaker 1: crib that he had made, and very clearly now there's
Speaker 1: a space between them. There's an emotional something, there's they're arguing.
Speaker 1: There's something between them now tremendous madness, frustration, et cetera.
Speaker 1: They are growing apart clearly. Now here is where I
Speaker 1: will say, Okay, so let's first recap it.
Speaker 2: So okay, yeah, yeah, she's in her.
Speaker 1: Apartment, she can barely eat. Maour comes in and asks,
Speaker 1: how are you feeling? Same old thing?
Speaker 2: Like the rooms?
Speaker 1: Did they cause you to feel anything? Do you remember
Speaker 1: anything from them? And it's clear that Gemma is coming
Speaker 1: to a decision, and she's as she is coming to
Speaker 1: a decision. In the flashback, if you watch it back,
Speaker 1: there's a moment where something comes into her eyes as
Speaker 1: Mark is destroying this crib, and here she appears to
Speaker 1: be coming to a decision as well.
Speaker 2: She is like she asks.
Speaker 1: About like Mark and when she's going to see him,
Speaker 1: and Mars like Mark is remarried and has a daughter.
Speaker 1: Now it's been many years since you were gone, and
Speaker 1: and sorry about that. Then he goes to the bookshelf
Speaker 1: and he picks off Tolstoy's death of Ivonne Ilitch and
Speaker 1: starts to disparage. It is like, let me guess spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: like he fucking he dies at the end, which again
Speaker 1: mirrors exactly kind of what Mark said when he was
Speaker 1: looking at her paper. She flips out naturally, hits More
Speaker 1: over the head with a chair and goes to flee.
Speaker 1: She's running through the hallways. She gets to the elevator,
Speaker 1: the nurses in pursuit. She gets into the elevator and
Speaker 1: it goes up, but at the top it's the severed
Speaker 1: floor and she boom reverts to Miss Casey. We cut
Speaker 1: two Mark's recollections of the last time they saw each other.
Speaker 1: Gemma is going somewhere to charades I think with Devin
Speaker 1: and Ricken or somebody she doesn't say, but a charade somewhere,
Speaker 1: and she's playing it off, but it's clear that she
Speaker 1: doesn't think Mark is gonna come, and she doesn't want
Speaker 1: Mark to come. She's like, are you sure, gosh? Then
Speaker 1: she says, did you get that de Nalli thing I
Speaker 1: sent you? We don't know what this is, but it
Speaker 1: might be lumin information right, paperwork right to some indoctrination thing.
Speaker 1: And she's like, I'll be back at ten. She says
Speaker 1: I love you. Mark is so engrossed in whatever he's
Speaker 1: doing that he doesn't respond. She says I love you,
Speaker 1: and then he's like, oh, yeah, I love you too.
Speaker 2: We cut two.
Speaker 1: Miltchik now meets Miss Casey, who is like trying to
Speaker 1: wander out of the dark hallway at the at the
Speaker 1: end of the elevator to get outside.
Speaker 2: She's very confused.
Speaker 1: Miss Casey clearly thinks that she has an AUDI that
Speaker 1: is in the outside world, so this is interesting. But
Speaker 1: she's clear that there's lling.
Speaker 3: Her is kind of saying like, don't worry like you out.
Speaker 2: She doesn't find Yeah, she doesn't.
Speaker 3: She can sense it.
Speaker 1: She can sense it right because of the same panic
Speaker 1: that she entered the elevator in fuck Meltchick.
Speaker 3: Now it's fuck Meltchick at this.
Speaker 1: We then cut immediately to Mark's flashback his perspective, hours
Speaker 1: are passing. Cops show up to tell her Gemma is dead.
Speaker 1: We cut back to Gemma in this like hell like
Speaker 1: existence the nurse facinger. We cut back to Mark. He's
Speaker 1: looking at the door. The cops are approaching, and now
Speaker 1: they do a very interesting edit where it's a match.
Speaker 1: It's like a match edit left side of the screen
Speaker 1: is Mark looking.
Speaker 2: At the cops.
Speaker 1: Right side of the screen is Gemma looking at the nurse,
Speaker 1: and they are looking across this space at each other,
Speaker 1: almost like a mirror image. And then Mark wakes up.
Speaker 1: Devin is relieved. We see a quick light of Jemma's
Speaker 1: eyes as I guess he's remembering that he knows Missus
Speaker 1: his wife. He's seen her thereon Lumen is miss Casey,
Speaker 1: and then he begins to cry. Let's go to an
Speaker 1: ad break to process all this information and then discuss
Speaker 1: what we.
Speaker 4: Think is happening after this. Okay, we're back, all right.
Speaker 1: A lot of things to talk about here, and first
Speaker 1: let's talk about what we know for sure. We now
Speaker 1: know what that Gemma Won is alive, which we knew,
Speaker 1: but we know for a fact that she's alive now
Speaker 1: because we've not seen her in season.
Speaker 3: Two and she has multiple anies.
Speaker 1: We now know that they can sever people multiple times,
Speaker 1: and that this might be more common than we think.
Speaker 1: We now know what the MDR team is doing. They
Speaker 1: are refining scenarios so that after a severed person experiences
Speaker 1: these things, they will be essentially bulletproof. On the other side,
Speaker 1: no stimuli no emotions, no feelings from no memories from
Speaker 1: that event will reach the person on the other side
Speaker 1: of the event that we know. Now here's what we
Speaker 1: don't know. What is cold harbor? I don't know, and
Speaker 1: a lot of other things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so let's talk about cold harbor, because Jason,
Speaker 3: you have a good theory.
Speaker 2: I have a theory about cold horror. Might be wrong.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and when I was watching this episode, I also
Speaker 3: think I have a theory that's probably wrong, but I'm
Speaker 3: interested to talk about it. So Jason, go for it.
Speaker 1: I will first lay out my theory. So each of
Speaker 1: these rooms, and there are myriad rooms, right, are like
Speaker 1: negative things, and they and it seems like they have
Speaker 1: to do specific rooms for specific negative type of events
Speaker 1: that correspond to these four tempers that they are trying
Speaker 1: to tamp down. Right now, I think cold harbor, or like,
Speaker 1: what's the worst negative thing you can experience?
Speaker 2: I guess near death.
Speaker 1: Maybe like it could be that she experience of Jo's.
Speaker 1: I think, what's the worst thing you can experience is
Speaker 1: like losing someone you love?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And I think what's worse than losing someone you love?
Speaker 1: What's even worse than that is losing someone you love
Speaker 1: and it's your fault somehow. Yes, So I think that
Speaker 1: Jemma did make a decision to go with I don't
Speaker 1: think she knew what it would all entail, but I
Speaker 1: do think she slipped away that night to go with Luman.
Speaker 1: And I think that the editing the way that they
Speaker 1: do these kind of mirror flashbacks, specifically towards the end,
Speaker 1: where if you watch, it appears that Gemma is watching
Speaker 1: Mark's grief as he is talking to these cops and
Speaker 1: experiencing this. She's like watching all of this happen to him.
Speaker 1: And then when she wake when he wakes up, she's
Speaker 1: almost smiling. I think that's because she understands that she's
Speaker 1: The decision she made caused Mark a lot of pain.
Speaker 1: And so I wonder if Cold Harbor isn't the room
Speaker 1: in which they are testing to see if all of
Speaker 1: her memories, feelings, emotions, senses.
Speaker 2: Of Mark can be completely killed off.
Speaker 1: What I mean is, isn't could Cold Harbor not be
Speaker 1: the scenario in which maur As himself says Mark has
Speaker 1: moved on, he's remarried, it's been years, he has a daughter.
Speaker 1: And by the way, this fucking stupid book from the
Speaker 1: from the time when you guys met that's this book
Speaker 1: is fucking dumb as.
Speaker 3: Shit is a dumb book too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if she accepts that, right, and if she
Speaker 1: is just like okay, then Cold Harbor will have succeeded.
Speaker 2: That's my theory.
Speaker 1: And now there's here in the drawbacks to this, yes,
Speaker 1: the drawbacks of the theory. Or she says she's never
Speaker 1: been in the room and Maur agrees that she's never
Speaker 1: been in the room, My pushback would be one, why
Speaker 1: do we don't believe anything? Maur says, right, yeah, lying
Speaker 1: to her in this scene, he's telling her Mark has
Speaker 1: moved on and is and it's been years and he
Speaker 1: has a daughter now, all of which we know is untrue.
Speaker 1: So there's no reason for him to believe that. If
Speaker 1: he's telling her you've never been in Cold Harbor, that
Speaker 1: we should accept his truth truth? Why should we not
Speaker 1: believe her? Probably because she wouldn't remember it if they
Speaker 1: had designed.
Speaker 3: Maybe I was gonna say, this could be this could
Speaker 3: be this severing is that. Yeah, they could set out
Speaker 3: so she doesn't remember coming out the room. There's no
Speaker 3: reason why that couldn't be an any for that too, Okay,
Speaker 3: so my theory is similar to that, but because of
Speaker 3: what they said, where they're like, you know the world,
Speaker 3: you will see the world, and the world will see you.
Speaker 3: I I wonder if cold harbor is literally you getting
Speaker 3: to go back into the world. But the reason it's
Speaker 3: called cold harbor is because you are essentially disconnected emotionally
Speaker 3: for everything very B two K like the ice box
Speaker 3: where my heart used to be like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, your honaries, you're.
Speaker 3: Exactly You're somebody who all these things that have happened
Speaker 3: to you you can now leave be in the real world.
Speaker 3: You'll never reveal Lumen, you'll never remember any of the things,
Speaker 3: but you are you know, fixed or cured or whatever
Speaker 3: they're trying to test for. Because it seems to me
Speaker 3: like the sale aspect of like what Lumen would do,
Speaker 3: the way they could monetize it is that if you
Speaker 3: lose a child, you can forget, if you lose a partner,
Speaker 3: if you don't get the job, you want something. I
Speaker 3: also want to mention because it was in the recap
Speaker 3: and I thought this was so interesting, so I went
Speaker 3: back to watch the episode when they included in the
Speaker 3: recap as well as in the opening sequence, the title sequence.
Speaker 3: There's so many babies this time. I thought it was
Speaker 3: really interesting that they included the conversation Devin had with Harmony,
Speaker 3: where Devin's like, so, could you get severed so you
Speaker 3: don't remember you're pregnant because being pregnant is like a
Speaker 3: truly horrific experience, like a body horror experience. I thought
Speaker 3: that was very interesting. So I wonder if what Luman's
Speaker 3: trying to do is essentially make severance something that anyone
Speaker 3: who has the money can do to not have to
Speaker 3: live through, essentially creating like a servant cloth with them.
Speaker 5: Okay, okay, so here's what I noticed in this episode.
Speaker 5: A lot where you get severed can be a door. Yes, right,
Speaker 5: So the elevator has felt like this very big change, right,
Speaker 5: you're dropping floors, there's multiple like you, we don't understand,
Speaker 5: there may not even be science behind it, but it
Speaker 5: has felt so specific. But now the fact that they're like,
Speaker 5: not only do we have clauses that allow you to
Speaker 5: pop out of your severed self at any point in
Speaker 5: time by a chip, also an archway might just transform
Speaker 5: you into an entirely different person. And if you look
Speaker 5: at the way this show has had like a commentary
Speaker 5: on modern day workforce. This is a very terrifying thought
Speaker 5: of like literally checking yourself at the door, and also
Speaker 5: beyond that, like who do you sell this kind of
Speaker 5: technology to. It's not your average person, and what can
Speaker 5: you possibly do with this technology of if anyone crosses
Speaker 5: this threshold, they are now essentially a severed entity.
Speaker 3: That's very terrifying, Okay, Joelle. Also, you have another theory
Speaker 3: about kind of a big pharma aspect that Luman could
Speaker 3: be doing, So will you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 5: So I've been thinking a lot about Luhmann as a
Speaker 5: pharmaceutical corporation. All of the elements of stress we saw
Speaker 5: testing were either actual medical procedures or they were like
Speaker 5: psychological triggers. Those as mentioned earlier, can sort of like
Speaker 5: exist in anyone And I think it's such a if
Speaker 5: you think about what you want to cure, you know,
Speaker 5: as a medical company, typically what you're trying to do
Speaker 5: is prolonged life or make better, but not fully cure,
Speaker 5: like the goals to keep people coming back and purchasing things.
Speaker 5: In this idea that we have a cure for literally
Speaker 5: whatever might stress you out, you know, from pregnancy, two.
Speaker 5: I mean embraces, like.
Speaker 3: Where's the line I would actually I would.
Speaker 5: Get don't need to be saying I have.
Speaker 3: A fantastic dentist. Now shout out Dr mart I love you.
Speaker 3: She's done a great job. But before I met her,
Speaker 3: I would have got severed to go to the dentist.
Speaker 3: I would make I'm sorry, I would make my Inny
Speaker 3: do it. I hated it so much, I had so
Speaker 3: much dental trauma. Like I would, I would do it,
Speaker 3: you know, so I do think.
Speaker 1: And Joel, I think you're right. I think clearly Luman
Speaker 1: is hoping to go wide with this. Right, they're like
Speaker 1: consumer they want to take this to the consumer market,
Speaker 1: not just like the corporate workforce market, because frankly, like
Speaker 1: that's not a lot of money if you're just marketing
Speaker 1: to corporations and their employees. And that made me think
Speaker 1: that I think probably what listen, brain surgery is brain surgery.
Speaker 1: Like if you go to the consumer market, then and
Speaker 1: I have to and I like your product what it does,
Speaker 1: but I have to get a chip and plant in
Speaker 1: my head. I'm not I'm probably not doing it. I
Speaker 1: think that their end goal is severance without a chip. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think whatever. I don't know if it's that's cold
Speaker 1: Harbor or whatever, but I think what they are working
Speaker 1: on is the ability to like do these switches, to
Speaker 1: enact these switches without having to drill in your head
Speaker 1: and put a thing in there.
Speaker 3: Because also as well, I would say something I think
Speaker 3: that is really resonant about this is we have seen,
Speaker 3: you know, people who've chosen to go to get the
Speaker 3: Elon musk chimp in their head because they feel like
Speaker 3: it will make them be able to communicate better if
Speaker 3: they are in a situation where it's not easy for
Speaker 3: them to communicate. Also, you know, so Amazon has those
Speaker 3: chips that people put into their hand to paper stuff
Speaker 3: that you can see at Whole Foods now. So I
Speaker 3: think it feels very resonant this idea of like how
Speaker 3: much would you sacrifice or take on in order to
Speaker 3: live the ultimate life of you know, convenience, you don't
Speaker 3: have to experience any of the tough things in life, like,
Speaker 3: so what would you do for that? Also, I do
Speaker 3: want to say I do think I think the Big
Speaker 3: Farmer thing is very likely. I also think if you
Speaker 3: think about most this is very different to most Hollywood movies.
Speaker 3: But I think about you know, Jurassic World or like
Speaker 3: The Man Curing Candidate or all these different kind of movies.
Speaker 3: One of the things that science always wants to do
Speaker 3: it or companies like this always want to do, is
Speaker 3: like create weapons and create soldiers and create people. I
Speaker 3: think the idea of some kind of inny army and
Speaker 3: the idea that you could sell this to the military
Speaker 3: and essentially create entire you know, generations of soldiers who
Speaker 3: have no I who have no remembering. But the innies
Speaker 3: are constantly twenty four seven basically able to fight. And
Speaker 3: I do want to say how atable workforce skare exactly
Speaker 3: and they can't argue, you know. Also, I'm thinking back
Speaker 3: to Jason's really interesting idea of severance and the lumin
Speaker 3: being a space where people can be rehabilitated. It definitely
Speaker 3: has me thinking of like incarcerated people and the way
Speaker 3: that they are used as an exploited labor force. I
Speaker 3: think there's so much interesting stuff here. I also do
Speaker 3: just want to shout out our discord mod legend, Heidi,
Speaker 3: who did basically check me in the x ray Vision
Speaker 3: Goggles channel and was like, Babe, I don't I think
Speaker 3: they're just lying about the time to mess with the innies,
Speaker 3: like I don't necessarily think it's a timey wymy thing.
Speaker 3: And I was like, Okay, great, cool, But I do
Speaker 3: still think there's this notion of we don't know how
Speaker 3: the innies experienced time. We don't know if everyone else
Speaker 3: in the team has separate innies, Like how well, Gemma,
Speaker 3: that's as you are.
Speaker 2: I want to this is do we talk about this last.
Speaker 1: Week that I think that Milchik is a permit any
Speaker 1: I think that Milchick is an inny contract inny who
Speaker 1: has been allowed to basically jail break his audi, which
Speaker 1: is why he is so obsessed with and dedicated to
Speaker 1: personal growth air quotes in the ideology of Kre and
Speaker 1: the egans like, because I think that he has to
Speaker 1: follow those protocols or else just erase him and he's
Speaker 1: his AUDI again. I think that's why he's such a
Speaker 1: loyal employee for them. And I think it's possible that
Speaker 1: like Natalie and some of the others, maybe mister Drummond,
Speaker 1: are like that too. They are innies who were trained
Speaker 1: in the ideology of Kre and Lumen and when they've
Speaker 1: displayed enough loyalty or then allowed to become permit and
Speaker 1: he's who work doing the most hardcore shit for Lumen.
Speaker 5: I have a different but similar thought process on Miltchik,
Speaker 5: which is that whatever Spacel Culvert was raised in, that
Speaker 5: he was there too, like years later behind her, a
Speaker 5: freshman to her senior sort of situation. But I to me,
Speaker 5: the more I think about Milchick, the more it feels
Speaker 5: like he's literally waking up. Like we go back to
Speaker 5: the like portrait thing, like if you're if you think
Speaker 5: about Lumen as a cult space where you're brought up
Speaker 5: in it, inundated in it, adhering to it, and then
Speaker 5: you reach a space where you are very suddenly othered
Speaker 5: and also your job is threatened by a child he
Speaker 5: started to like, so he feels like he's waking up
Speaker 5: to uh, the real world while still have like working
Speaker 5: through his like brainwashing conditioning space, which I find really interesting.
Speaker 5: We need to figure out where did.
Speaker 3: She why did she die? Also, Joelle, I like this.
Speaker 3: I like this as a as a point to jump
Speaker 3: on because something I have been interested in is like,
Speaker 3: could it be that people like Cobel and Miltchick and
Speaker 3: maybe Gemma honestly, is it like there are levels of
Speaker 3: lumen where you go through a certain amount as an
Speaker 3: inny to basically and when they think that you are
Speaker 3: loyal enough, you can basically earn your OUTI status back.
Speaker 3: And I think that is why Miltchik keeps talking about
Speaker 3: needing to grow and he's on a deadline because he
Speaker 3: wants to be able to be an OUTI. Like how
Speaker 3: Cobel you know, had this out e life. I'm just
Speaker 3: interested to see where it goes, because I think something
Speaker 3: that's so majestic about this show is you will watch
Speaker 3: an episode like this and be completely moved and just
Speaker 3: scary heartbroken, but you still are engaged in the mystery.
Speaker 3: It's so good. It's so hard to balance that. And
Speaker 3: now you know, yes, yes, yes, talk about.
Speaker 5: Who like winter overlay on all of the show. And
Speaker 5: then when we get these flashback scenes which are so
Speaker 5: beautifully shot, and I think Ben Stiller shot most of these.
Speaker 5: The cinematographer of the series directed this episode.
Speaker 3: And when we see how the mark go through fall down,
Speaker 3: go through the wires, that was all done practically, no cg.
Speaker 3: That was something she actually put together. She said it
Speaker 3: was it was the hardest. I think she called it
Speaker 3: like a diversion or a side quest, but she said
Speaker 3: it was like the hardest thing that they had to
Speaker 3: do was work out how to do that shot all
Speaker 3: in one and then go down the wires. I mean,
Speaker 3: truly an unbelievable talent.
Speaker 5: The effort is entirely visible. It's so beautiful and you
Speaker 5: get this other fresh air where we're seeing Gemma among
Speaker 5: the plants, like very ear representation of spring. This idea
Speaker 5: that if she did choose to go down into lumin
Speaker 5: like it is this her version of descending into hell,
Speaker 5: which brings back to your point, Rosie, which like can
Speaker 5: she earn her way out? And if she does, are
Speaker 5: they now? Like? And even to sort of Jason's idea
Speaker 5: of like what if Milchick's a permanent any sort of
Speaker 5: on deadline trying to earn something? Does you have all
Speaker 5: these people being persephonees yep, Like actually to break out
Speaker 5: of hell is really intriguing.
Speaker 3: Well, definitely, like the moment where Milchick stops missus Casey
Speaker 3: slash Gemma and tries that's very posephone, like don't look back, babe,
Speaker 3: just walk past him, like just try and do it.
Speaker 3: See what happens. You don't have to just listen to him.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, it's heartbreaking.
Speaker 2: I wonder like.
Speaker 1: Letting Gemma out as any or audi would require that
Speaker 1: everybody who knew her would forget the fuck she was right, So,
Speaker 1: whether she's whatever, no matter what personality is dominant when
Speaker 1: she leaves the Women building. So either she can never
Speaker 1: leave right truly, or they need to figure out a
Speaker 1: way where they can make people forget specific people ever
Speaker 1: fucking exist.
Speaker 5: I think when the tests are over, they just eliminate Gema,
Speaker 5: like the conversation of like, you're gonna have to say
Speaker 5: goodbye to her once we complete this test. I think
Speaker 5: some folks get to go out because either they don't
Speaker 5: have connections or because some their group of people think
Speaker 5: they've agreed to this.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 5: But I think Gemma was sort of tested for on
Speaker 5: a much more intense level than everybody else, and she
Speaker 5: is definitely not going to get out.
Speaker 2: One more thing. I want one more thing.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask, so Mark is there specifically, because
Speaker 1: it seems like all the MDR crew that are working
Speaker 1: on things specific to tempers that they personally are dealing
Speaker 1: with on the outside, right, Mark is dealing with grief.
Speaker 1: Dylan is dealing with an unhappy marriage. Irving is question mark.
Speaker 1: Helly is dealing with potentially the fact that she's being
Speaker 1: kept out of her father's graces and is not part
Speaker 1: of the board, which I think she clearly thinks she
Speaker 1: deserves to.
Speaker 2: Be just a thing to note.
Speaker 1: I don't know where that goes, but I think it's
Speaker 1: interesting because it leads me to wonder, like, why are
Speaker 1: the what is the importance of the rest of them?
Speaker 2: They must be Mark.
Speaker 1: Is clearly more special, but like there is also something
Speaker 1: to the there's a reason the other ones are there
Speaker 1: as well, that is waiting to be unwrapped.
Speaker 3: This would be incredibly bleak but real. I you know,
Speaker 3: someone like Irving might have been gone in there to
Speaker 3: get seven because he didn't want to feel the feelings
Speaker 3: he had romantically for like other men. You don't know
Speaker 3: the way that this kind of heartbreaking play is gonna
Speaker 3: kind of work itself out. And I'm definitely again, I
Speaker 3: just got to come in here at the last minute
Speaker 3: after saying something very serious and say, you know, when
Speaker 3: she tells Mark like, oh, did you get the Denali thing?
Speaker 3: Obviously that feels like a reference to Ricken and the
Speaker 3: Mountain climbing. She'd also mentioned Mount Everest use this real
Speaker 3: name within this show, so you think, oh, maybe they're
Speaker 3: going to try it out because like they can't have
Speaker 3: a baby, so they got it. But just saying I'm
Speaker 3: bringing it back for the fans of the anagrams, it's
Speaker 3: a it's denial. You know, Denali is a real place,
Speaker 3: but in the context the severance where they love to
Speaker 3: do a funny anagram to get us talking, it's denial.
Speaker 3: You know. These could actually be the different levels that
Speaker 3: you have to go through as part of lumin I'm
Speaker 3: just very I want to know where it's gonna go. Okay,
Speaker 3: we got three episodes left, Yeah, okay, what are your
Speaker 3: big swing, craziest pitch theories for what we're going to
Speaker 3: see in the last three episode.
Speaker 5: I think we have to get a Patricia arcad what
Speaker 5: she's doing. It's gotta be the next episode too, because
Speaker 5: it can't be the penultimate, Like the penultimate needs to
Speaker 5: answer whatever the major question is for this season, which
Speaker 5: I think might be like can Mark safely or successfully integrating?
Speaker 5: Can he accomplish reintegration without offering himself and so you
Speaker 5: need you need a whole episode for that where he's
Speaker 5: really pushing the boundaries of what he's been doing so far.
Speaker 5: So I really hope that next episode it's like I'm
Speaker 5: hoping it's almost a bottle episode. So we delicated her
Speaker 5: where we're getting a little bit of information on her
Speaker 5: background and a lot more information on what she's actively
Speaker 5: doing right now. I also think we're going to see
Speaker 5: a swing in Milchick. I can't tell which direction, if
Speaker 5: he descends further into his authoritarian personality or if we
Speaker 5: see a swing against it where he's like, you fuck
Speaker 5: this company. I think that Luhman has set up folks
Speaker 5: that keep Mark in line to continue doing work at
Speaker 5: a regular pace, and now they've become friends and family,
Speaker 5: and they're really trying to strike like continue the balance
Speaker 5: either like he has got five percent left, just keep
Speaker 5: them happy, keep everything at peace, so we can get
Speaker 5: this thing across the line and move forward. And I
Speaker 5: think we're gonna see you like at one percent, Mark
Speaker 5: stalls out and then lumin descended a chaos where Luman's like,
Speaker 5: oh god, it's this tragedy, this big thing we've set up,
Speaker 5: it's not working, And hopefully it brings the big guy
Speaker 5: boss man down to the low.
Speaker 3: And let's say, I wonder if this is my really
Speaker 3: crazy out there theory. I do think there's something to
Speaker 3: the idea that Gemma was tricked into going to Lumen
Speaker 3: as a way to be like, we can help your
Speaker 3: with a baby, like that's what's ruining your life. I
Speaker 3: do wonder if there's some kind of like you know,
Speaker 3: we've all seen those demonic possession movies like the Fantastic
Speaker 3: First Omen that we talked about a lot, obviously Immacula,
Speaker 3: where somebody is having a baby that has a greater
Speaker 3: person wears his baby stuff like that. It's usually a
Speaker 3: satanic thing. But is there a world where the reason
Speaker 3: that they're testing Gemma so deeply and making sure she
Speaker 3: doesn't remember these things is because they're going to try
Speaker 3: and have her like siah Ka egan to be brought
Speaker 3: back to life. I think she, I was wondering. I
Speaker 3: think she may have had the next leader of you know, Luhman,
Speaker 3: one of the egans, and the reason that they're now
Speaker 3: testing her is being like, just let's just make sure
Speaker 3: she doubly doesn't know anything that goes on in these
Speaker 3: rooms because Cordarba that could also be the truth of
Speaker 3: that is that they're you know, that's where they're making
Speaker 3: babies Palpatine style, very creepy, scary stuff. So I think
Speaker 3: that I want to see a Mark and Gemma reconnection.
Speaker 3: I think they'll probably save that for the finale, but
Speaker 3: for now, I think we need to know over the
Speaker 3: next two episodes, like tell us more about what Luman's doing,
Speaker 3: and can you do it in a way that teases
Speaker 3: what's behind the curtain without doing the four reveal that
Speaker 3: can oft be often kind of take away from the
Speaker 3: power of the show.
Speaker 1: Gosh, my crazy theory is the one I laid out
Speaker 1: that Cold Harbor is the room in wish Doctor Martos
Speaker 1: Jemma that Mark has moved on.
Speaker 2: I believe that.
Speaker 1: At one hundred percent, she would have no reaction, and
Speaker 1: if this theory is correct, and that that is the
Speaker 1: reason why she has to go back into these rooms
Speaker 1: like it, it doesn't it. It seems interesting to me
Speaker 1: that she's clearly been in some of these various rooms
Speaker 1: multiple times, right why.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like this is just how the every
Speaker 3: day is there just making her Yeah, these horrible, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of pressure tests.
Speaker 1: I guess it would be that, and then I would
Speaker 1: I Gosh, I agree with you that I believe that
Speaker 1: we're going to see Cobel again. We're going to get
Speaker 1: more on that side of things. I think we're going to,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever this idea of using Ricken is, whether
Speaker 1: it's to twist his philosophy and ideology and basically defang
Speaker 1: person that they think could be like a potentially powerful
Speaker 1: critic of them on the outside, or whether they really
Speaker 1: do see a value in his self help stuff for Innis.
Speaker 1: I think that will be I think that will be
Speaker 1: part of it, And I think, Gosh, I think we
Speaker 1: will see Mark try to go undercover inside lumin as
Speaker 1: a reintegrated Mark.
Speaker 3: I was wondering that too, And also so much of
Speaker 3: the opening sequence is like Mark, who is in his
Speaker 3: suit pulling you know, the inny or the OUTI, depending
Speaker 3: which way you see it, who's in the prison suit
Speaker 3: and they kind of constantly pulling each other back and forth.
Speaker 3: So I think you're right. I think a reintegrated Mark
Speaker 3: is going to go in there to try and find
Speaker 3: jem Ah. And how will that end up, I don't know,
Speaker 3: but I can't wait to see it. This is just
Speaker 3: such a great show.
Speaker 1: It's really really great on the next few episodes of
Speaker 1: X ray Vision, We're diving into more stuff. Joelle, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us. Joe, that's it for
Speaker 1: this episode.
Speaker 2: Thanks for Lizzie.
Speaker 1: X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Concepcion and Rosie
Speaker 1: Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 3: Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Korfman.
Speaker 2: Our supervising producer is Abu Safar.
Speaker 3: Our producers are Common, Laurent Dean Jonathan and Bay Wag.
Speaker 1: A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
Speaker 1: songs by Aaron Kauffman.
Speaker 3: Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and Heidi.
Speaker 3: Our discord moderate, though