Speaker 1: Warning. Today's episode contains spoilers for the penultimate episode from
Speaker 1: the second season of Severance The After Hours, So if
Speaker 1: you have not watched that, go watch that. Come back here. Hello.
Speaker 1: My name is Jason Concepcion.
Speaker 2: And I'm Mersey Night and welcome.
Speaker 1: Back to x ray Vision of the podcast where we
Speaker 1: dive Dee to do your favorite Joe's movies, comics of
Speaker 1: pop culture Coming from My Heart podcast where we're bringing
Speaker 1: you three episodes every single week plus news.
Speaker 3: This week, we are talking about that very penultimate episode Severance.
Speaker 3: What can they reveal before the season ends that is
Speaker 3: going to keep people happy and keep people hooked. That's
Speaker 3: really what we're gonna be theorizing about after we break
Speaker 3: down all of the shocking and also shocking events. This
Speaker 3: is a very interesting episode because it feels both full
Speaker 3: and also slightly empty, especially after the big reveals of
Speaker 3: the last episode.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna talk about it.
Speaker 3: Theories are gonna be popping, and people are gonna be arguing.
Speaker 3: It's a stressful one, okay.
Speaker 1: Season two episode nine of Severance The After Hours penultimate
Speaker 1: episode ten episode season this season, in contrast to season
Speaker 1: one's nine episode run. We open at the Egan family compound,
Speaker 1: where we see Helena Egan going through her morning routine,
Speaker 1: which is lots of laps in the pool, and then
Speaker 1: she goes to see her dad, Jame the whispery Joe
Speaker 1: Bie voiced James.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this man so creepy.
Speaker 1: He's an ancient guy, and it's a big day, apparently,
Speaker 1: he says, a momentous day. His revolving. I would assume
Speaker 1: this is. You know, he's talked about this when we
Speaker 1: saw him at the end of season one. His revolving
Speaker 1: is coming up, and we know that Cold Harbor is
Speaker 1: at ninety six percent, so this is These things are
Speaker 1: probably all interlinked somehow, but a big day. Helena agrees.
Speaker 1: She asks, are you gonna eat? Are you eating today?
Speaker 1: He says, nobody's gonna watch her eat creepy a boiled
Speaker 1: egg while he SIPs coffee, and she like carefully slices
Speaker 1: this one egg and then eats it on a porcelain
Speaker 1: plate that appears to be have like a artwork like seven.
Speaker 1: It looks like seventeenth century Dutch artwork depicting a dentistry scene.
Speaker 2: Very creepy, and.
Speaker 1: She's like carefully slicing up this hard boiled egg and
Speaker 1: Dad says, I wish you'd take them raw, which is
Speaker 1: a reference to Cure's kiri in the ancestors favorite meal,
Speaker 1: which is apparently raw eggs. So how they that's running
Speaker 1: in the family, that that desire desk on. I know.
Speaker 1: Helly then gets driven away, presumably to Lumen, as we
Speaker 1: get the drone shot pulling away from the compound revealing
Speaker 1: the huge Lumin water tower, allowing us to kind of
Speaker 1: situate the Egan mansion in town. And it does make
Speaker 1: me wonder if there is if this whole town isn't
Speaker 1: in some way under the sway of Lumen, no one
Speaker 1: form or another.
Speaker 3: I would also say lots of theories abound about the
Speaker 3: potential that Lumen is putting something in the water. Lumen
Speaker 3: is trying to influence people's behavior by you know, drugging
Speaker 3: them so that they cannot or can do stain thing.
Speaker 3: So we'll talk about that more in the theories, but
Speaker 3: I felt like the massive Lumen water tower is very
Speaker 3: inspiring for those who are theory minded among us.
Speaker 1: Yes, we go to Lumen where Eustacewong is with Milchick
Speaker 1: and he is celebrating her matriculation. I guess or graduation
Speaker 1: from the Wintertide Fellowship. She is the Wintertide Fellow for
Speaker 1: this year at Lumen, and Miltchik is also clearly pleased
Speaker 1: because he's getting a antagonist out of his office, someone
Speaker 1: who's been like he's been engaged in a little power
Speaker 1: struggle with. She is now leaving her parents' house to
Speaker 1: travel along with her bed, which, forgive me if I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: but isn't that like one of Rickens things is that
Speaker 1: a child has to stay in the same bed, same bed.
Speaker 3: And also as well, Jason, you know, I think you
Speaker 3: uncovered that this made me think of during the in
Speaker 3: between episodes eight and nine, could you talk a little
Speaker 3: bit about Cold Taba being a kind of analog for
Speaker 3: a real furniture company.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, let's talk about that.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: First of all, I just want to remind people about
Speaker 1: the scene from last season in which Mark is sleeping,
Speaker 1: you know, at Devin Rickens. He's slipping in this tiny
Speaker 1: bed and then they start talking about, like Rickens colleagues
Speaker 1: theories of beds that Ricken is apparently adopted, and Mark goes,
Speaker 1: I still don't get the three beds. Ricken says, right,
Speaker 1: Devin says Rickens. Colleagues told us that switching out of
Speaker 1: the beds as the child grows can wound that child,
Speaker 1: and Rickens says irreparably. But if you provide said child
Speaker 1: with all of its beds upon birth, you allow it
Speaker 1: to progress across the room at its own rate, which
Speaker 1: sounds ridiculous. But now Eustace Wong is going to Sarbard
Speaker 1: with the bed from her parents' home. So thinking about
Speaker 1: the way Luman was quite eager to adopt Ricken's philosophies
Speaker 1: for use inside the severed floor, and the way apparently
Speaker 1: his quote unquote colleague has a theory of beds that
Speaker 1: is already adopted at Lumen. It makes you wonder about
Speaker 1: the ties between Ricken and Devon and Lumini.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say that Devin as and Ricken is
Speaker 3: ops is feeling more likely than ever fifth episode.
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly there are there must be spies in town,
Speaker 1: like this town is filled with lumin spies, of course,
Speaker 1: so it's quite just possible that he's just knew Allumin
Speaker 1: person who had adopted this philosophy for themselves. But it's
Speaker 1: very interesting that now the bed thing is is popped
Speaker 1: up again. Anyway, she's disappointed. She's going to savar barge.
Speaker 1: She thought she was going to stay for the quarter,
Speaker 1: and Miltchik's like, no, you're not saying for the quarter.
Speaker 1: And guess what, you got to destroy your little ring
Speaker 1: toss game, because that's part of the lumen Cure ideology
Speaker 1: that you have to give up a sacrifice of childhood
Speaker 1: once you move on to this next level and you're
Speaker 1: on this career track, and so you got to destroy
Speaker 1: this thing. And he watches her destroy the ring toss
Speaker 1: game with her jame bust, which we saw that Cobel
Speaker 1: also had one of these jame busts. And it should
Speaker 1: be noticed that the jame bust that Eustace has has
Speaker 1: another of the has a different of the nine tenants
Speaker 1: of Eganism, Like on it it says, hold on, let
Speaker 1: me just get it it badly, bab will be baba?
Speaker 1: Where is it? I did it say?
Speaker 4: I thought I'd put it in here, but.
Speaker 1: Oh, Eurovision okay, it says Eurovision.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: While Cobel's was the Year of Wiles, so references to
Speaker 1: the nine tenants. And I wonder if, like, do they
Speaker 1: just cycle through those and they acting.
Speaker 6: That's Gyral wondering, is it like the it's like the
Speaker 6: Chinese years of birth, where like you do as twelve
Speaker 6: and then you come back, or yeah, the nine?
Speaker 2: Does it just cycle through?
Speaker 1: We then go to Audi Dylan's house, where his wife
Speaker 1: Gretchen admits to him that he's she's been having an
Speaker 1: affair with.
Speaker 2: His any merit we but don't do it. Don't do it, merret.
Speaker 1: He is absolutely shocked. She's in her work. Her first responder,
Speaker 1: I should say, like, uh, work clothes, which will be
Speaker 1: important for it a scene coming up later. So for
Speaker 1: Audi Dylan, this is crazy fucking news. Of course, Gretchen
Speaker 1: is like, but you seem so adrift and you're any
Speaker 1: reminded me of how you used to be. And Audi
Speaker 1: Dylan's like, yeah, well, what if I quit and I
Speaker 1: just kill him? What I do?
Speaker 3: Which I actually thought this was a great moment because
Speaker 3: it feels like a kind of realistic emotional response, But
Speaker 3: it also gives us more insight into how the innis
Speaker 3: are perceived.
Speaker 2: Because he literally is like, well if I just killed
Speaker 2: him to work.
Speaker 3: So there is conversations about the mortality and kind of
Speaker 3: lived reality of innis, and there is also obviously as
Speaker 3: we know, like zero protections for them as kind of
Speaker 3: fully realized human being.
Speaker 1: He also says like, I'm going to work and don't
Speaker 1: go fuck my inny, like while I don't go fuck
Speaker 1: my body while I'm at work. We go to Irving's home.
Speaker 1: Irving comes home to discover Bert in his dog radar
Speaker 1: staring into the kitchen or the living room and who's
Speaker 1: sitting there with Bert? And Bert is reading some of
Speaker 1: Irving's proloined Lumen investigation documents, including reading notes that are
Speaker 1: related to himself to Bert that mention that Bert has
Speaker 1: been linked to a bunch of disappearances and potential deaths
Speaker 1: of people who disappeared into like the Lumin system, and
Speaker 1: it mentions Bert as potentially like an enforcer or a goon,
Speaker 1: some sort of company hitman, and Irving is like, hearing
Speaker 1: Bert read this, He's like, yes, it's true. I was
Speaker 1: suspicious of you at one point, but I know that
Speaker 1: you're not with the company anymore and that you're not
Speaker 1: that person. And Bert's like, do you want to go
Speaker 1: for a ride with me? Which seems very ominous, and
Speaker 1: so we go for the ride.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: We go into Lumit where Maer is observing Gemma in
Speaker 1: her apartment on the test floor. She's just sitting at
Speaker 1: her little table. He flips over to the Cold Harbor
Speaker 1: numbers and sees that they are stuck on ninety six percent.
Speaker 1: He becomes alarmed at nine am the numbers aren't moving.
Speaker 1: Is Mark at work? What's going on? Miltchik gets a
Speaker 1: call from Drummond. Where the fuck is Mark? Today is
Speaker 1: the day? Probably related to whatever Jame is excited for
Speaker 1: that the final quota is promised, and we promised, apparently
Speaker 1: the old boss James, that it would be finished today,
Speaker 1: So you've got to get Marked to work. Let's pause
Speaker 1: here because I want to say that maur looking at
Speaker 1: Gemma on the video feed and then seeing the number
Speaker 1: the Cold Harbor numbers stuck on ninety six does support
Speaker 1: my probably wrong theory that Gemma's apartment is Cold Harbor.
Speaker 1: Inside of Gemma's apartment is Cold Harbor, and she's being
Speaker 1: tested all the time for some sort of response that
Speaker 1: they haven't yet adequately fulfilled, so that, in other words,
Speaker 1: we saw cold Harbor. It's her apartment and the test
Speaker 1: is you know, when Maer comes in and basically drops
Speaker 1: all these references to Mark, and Mark doesn't. Marx moved on,
Speaker 1: he doesn't love you anymore, and she has emotional reaction, right,
Speaker 1: the win for them would be she has no reaction.
Speaker 1: That's the theory supported by this little thing, this little
Speaker 1: scene here down on the severed floor. Helly comes stomping in,
Speaker 1: as clearly Helly because she comes with shake and said shud. Yeah.
Speaker 1: She goes down to MDR. But no one's at work,
Speaker 1: and she's kind of disappointed by this because she's clearly
Speaker 1: can't wait to see Mark and is worried about Mark
Speaker 1: because of last time she saw him he had that nosebleed.
Speaker 1: Devin is driving Mark to meet Cobell. Mark has a
Speaker 1: good grip on reality right now. Devin is like asking him,
Speaker 1: do you know where you are? You know? And you know?
Speaker 1: Do you know who I am? All that stuff. He
Speaker 1: thinks going to meet Cobell as a mistake. It certainly
Speaker 1: feels like that. I think, to all of us, what
Speaker 1: if it's trap? He says. Devin says, we need her.
Speaker 1: I would go I would why do we need her?
Speaker 1: That's a different I don't really understand that part of it,
Speaker 1: like why exactly we need her?
Speaker 3: But Devin seems to be very intent and focused on
Speaker 3: keeping Cobel in this situation, which again I think is
Speaker 3: very suspicious or at least if not suspicious.
Speaker 2: Because she's of a lumin plan.
Speaker 3: There is something between Devin and Cabel that we don't
Speaker 3: yet know that she.
Speaker 2: That mock.
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's possible. I think it's possible.
Speaker 1: I think it's also possible, as with the Rickens colleague
Speaker 1: bed theory, that she's being manipulated by other forces, maybe Lumine,
Speaker 1: and she's acting in a way that she feels is
Speaker 1: for the best sincerely, but doesn't understand that she's been manipulated.
Speaker 1: It could be also be that anyway, Miltchick is blowing
Speaker 1: up Mark's phone, but he lets it go to voicemail.
Speaker 1: We know what that's about. Down on the severed floor,
Speaker 1: Helly goes to see Milchick. She's like, where the fuck
Speaker 1: is Mark? He had a nosebleed and now all of
Speaker 1: a sudden he hasn't been in two days and is
Speaker 1: he okay? And Miltchick is like, don't worry about it,
Speaker 1: Like Dylan is taking over like Mark's role while Mark
Speaker 1: is out. It's not a big deal, and She's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you mean like the way you took over for Bell,
Speaker 1: like you're We're just all how's that going? And now
Speaker 1: Milchik is kind of getting mad and he's like, Helly
Speaker 1: are you urain'tsportant? And he and she's like, don't mean
Speaker 1: Helly e Don't you mean Helena Egan? And he's like, okay,
Speaker 1: well sure you're Audi is my boss, but you are
Speaker 1: just Helly Are and you are my the worker that
Speaker 1: I manage, one of the teams that I manage. And
Speaker 1: so you're dismissed. And by the way, leave the door open.
Speaker 1: And then Helly just like slams the door even though
Speaker 1: he asked her to leave it open, a rebellion once
Speaker 1: again simmering all over the place. Gretchen, now not in
Speaker 1: her work clothes, is goes to see any Dillon uh
Speaker 1: and she tells him that she had the conversation with Audi.
Speaker 1: D any D is like very very clueless. Is He's
Speaker 1: like he's happy for us? Right? No?
Speaker 2: He says the like is he glad for us?
Speaker 3: My heart was like like that Simpsons episode, so you
Speaker 3: can see raps tell the breaking.
Speaker 1: So she breaks up with any D and any D
Speaker 1: can't stand that we all remember first love, right, the
Speaker 1: first time you really like get in a relationship with feelings.
Speaker 1: This is like that for him, so you get it right.
Speaker 1: He tells her, you know, my life really started when
Speaker 1: you started coming to visit me, and he drops down
Speaker 1: on one knee and he presents her with a ring
Speaker 1: made out of office supplies. This is shocking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like one of his finger traps, which is like
Speaker 3: this also crazy because he doesn't really own anything, so
Speaker 3: for him to give this to her as like a
Speaker 3: huge deal. But she obviously is just like I probably
Speaker 3: shouldn't have kissed you. This is crazy, Like she doesn't
Speaker 3: understand the importance and emotional kind of resonance of what
Speaker 3: she means in his life because she's never been in any.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she shocked, she's she's She clearly is like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is all a mistake, and she declines, of course, Dylan,
Speaker 1: or continue the relationship or whatever, like.
Speaker 3: She's obviously like I am already married to you, but
Speaker 3: I love her. We like give her an Emmy for
Speaker 3: this moment, like she's like the silent crying because I
Speaker 3: think she actually.
Speaker 1: Does know what have I done?
Speaker 2: Yes she does, But also this version of Dylan is
Speaker 2: like one that loves her and is still like.
Speaker 1: Sweet and appreciated, appreciate her.
Speaker 3: She's saying goodbye to in this moment too, that I
Speaker 3: just think is really good.
Speaker 1: So she walks out and Anie Dylan screamed, but to
Speaker 1: no avail. Later, Helly is talking to Dylan about his
Speaker 1: finger trappering, and he's like, you should just keep it
Speaker 1: and give it to someone you meet down here. Helly
Speaker 1: thinking that her experience of like falling in love with
Speaker 1: the coworker is just like something common that I guess
Speaker 1: everybody will will find and maybe that's the truth. But
Speaker 1: Dylan is like, well, you know, it's just like O
Speaker 1: and D and the goat people down here, Like who
Speaker 1: am I gonna fucking mean?
Speaker 4: Am I gonna mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: What are my prospects? Helly meanwhile is continuing to be
Speaker 1: extremely rebellious against her Audi. Is raging at Audi's in general,
Speaker 1: which is an interesting contrast to the where her family
Speaker 1: views Innies. But she's like, everything is for the Audies.
Speaker 1: They take everything. Helly then reminds doing that Irving was
Speaker 1: your friend, who's you're very very very.
Speaker 2: Very close friend. Yeah, and then emotional kind of scent
Speaker 2: a piece of your life.
Speaker 1: That's right, and that Luman distracted you from that by
Speaker 1: bringing down this Audi woman that you don't even know,
Speaker 1: so stop falling for it. And then Dylan gets very
Speaker 1: mean and he's like, you know, the only reason we're
Speaker 1: down here is because of you. It's this is all
Speaker 1: of your fault. And by the way, when you were
Speaker 1: down here as your audi, no one could tell. And
Speaker 1: she's like, well, Irving could tell. He is like, well,
Speaker 1: Mark and tell, and then he walks away. That was very,
Speaker 1: very mean. Cobell finally arrives to meet Mark and Devin.
Speaker 1: There's like a very funny moment when she's like, how
Speaker 1: are you and he's like, well, you know, my wife
Speaker 1: is being held prisoner by a lumin and I just
Speaker 1: had brain surgery in back around I'm doing fucking great.
Speaker 1: And they bicker a little bit and Cobel is like,
Speaker 1: don't let's not bicker because we're allies now. And apparently
Speaker 1: the plan is to take Mark to the Demona Birth
Speaker 1: and Retreat, but they can't go in the daytime. They
Speaker 1: have to go at night, and she says that once
Speaker 1: any Mark in the office has completed Cold Harbor, which
Speaker 1: he suspects he is not finished, because why would he
Speaker 1: be carrying out this mission like it would be over
Speaker 1: apparently if he had finished. But if Cold Harbor is completed,
Speaker 1: that's apparently the end of Gemma. She's already dead. Cobel says,
Speaker 1: if you finish Cold Harbor. Cobel then says, call Miltchick
Speaker 1: can get off work, because if Miltchick suspects you're up
Speaker 1: to something other than taking a day off or sick,
Speaker 1: then he will lock you out of Lumen and that's it.
Speaker 1: It's game over. Mark doesn't want to, but Devin talks
Speaker 1: him into it for Gemma because apparently Cobel knows how
Speaker 1: to get her back. We think. Helly then uses her
Speaker 1: key card to go to the breakroom to retrieve Irving's
Speaker 1: elevator map, while Dylan just is wandering the halls making
Speaker 1: a big decision. He essentially comes to the decision that
Speaker 1: he's going to quit. Bert meanwhile, is driving Irvin somewhere.
Speaker 1: He admits in a conversation in the car that yes,
Speaker 1: I worked for Luhman doing black bag stuff.
Speaker 2: Apparently I drove people I didn't know where they were going,
Speaker 2: but they didn't come back, so that's ominous for he
Speaker 2: did say I never heard anyone. I need you to
Speaker 2: know that, but it's like you didn't stop them.
Speaker 3: Gang.
Speaker 1: You do wonder if that's what's happening right.
Speaker 2: Now, which is what I've wonders too understandably.
Speaker 1: Yeah. In Miltchik's office, Dylan fills out a resignation form,
Speaker 1: and Miltchik is taking this quite personally, and I think
Speaker 1: this is a reflection clearly of his management. He says,
Speaker 1: this reeks of ingratitude. Wong is like, I'm so sorry
Speaker 1: I didn't like manage you better. Miltchik then takes the
Speaker 1: ID card and says, okay, Dylan go to the elevator
Speaker 1: and wait outside the severed floor in the atrium, Drummond
Speaker 1: like upstairs basically in Lumen. In the atrium, Drummond is
Speaker 1: reading Miltchik the Riot Act for not being able to
Speaker 1: get marked to work and you know, like not being
Speaker 1: able to deliver in cold Harbor when it's been promised,
Speaker 1: and this is all Miltchik's fault. And Miltchik defends himself
Speaker 1: by using a big word, which is a no.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 1: We talked about this, So Drummond is like apologized for
Speaker 1: using a big word, and then he does, but then
Speaker 1: he's like, apologize again, and then Miltchik snaps and basically
Speaker 1: tells him to devour feculence aka shit, which Drummond is like, now,
Speaker 1: how what what did you say to me? And then
Speaker 1: Milchik finds a spine. He's like, Hey, the Severn Floor,
Speaker 1: I am the manager of the seventh floor. You have
Speaker 1: to respect me, even though you're my superior. You need
Speaker 1: to respect me because I do like very sensitive work
Speaker 1: for this and important work for this company. Second, the
Speaker 1: Severn Floor is the whole of my kingdom, meaning out here,
Speaker 1: Audi Mark is your fucking job. If you don't know
Speaker 1: where Audi Mark is, then that's your fucking fault. Turns
Speaker 1: on his heel and walks away.
Speaker 3: I gotta say, guys, you know we have been on
Speaker 3: quite a roller coaster with Milchick this season, Like is
Speaker 3: he gonna ton against Luman?
Speaker 2: Is he gonna be an ally to the innies? I
Speaker 2: think morally.
Speaker 3: I cannot state where he stands, but I would not
Speaker 3: be surprised to see Milchick fucking up some higher management
Speaker 3: in the finale.
Speaker 2: His patience is coming to an edge, and.
Speaker 1: I'm eager to talk about this later, because I do
Speaker 1: think I've been thinking a lot about the idea of
Speaker 1: a heel turn or what a hero arc or redemption art,
Speaker 1: what that could mean in the context of this show,
Speaker 1: Mark calls Miltchick and, after initially trying to blame it
Speaker 1: on the nosebleeds, which I think makes Miltchick kind of alarmed,
Speaker 1: like any kind of medical thing with the head, He's like,
Speaker 1: let us send you a car let us let you
Speaker 1: should be on look a Lumin care with something like this.
Speaker 1: He then Mark, I think very canonly realizes Okay, this
Speaker 1: is the wrong way to go and just says like, listen,
Speaker 1: I just need a day. I need a personal day,
Speaker 1: Like I just need a day off. Okay, do you
Speaker 1: get it? Like isn't that what llumin is about? Like
Speaker 1: work life balance, like and I need it, and so
Speaker 1: you know, work his work right, and time off is
Speaker 1: time off. So That's what I'm doing. And Miltchick gets
Speaker 1: emotional at this. He's looking at his tip of the
Speaker 1: iceberg painting behind his chair at his desk, and he
Speaker 1: backs off and makes Mark promise that he will come
Speaker 1: into work next day, which Mark promises do and then
Speaker 1: they hang up and it's a it's interesting to watch
Speaker 1: Miltchick get emotional.
Speaker 3: Yes, I thought this was a very interesting conversation because
Speaker 3: Miltchick really kind of like the way He's like, do
Speaker 3: I have your word? And Mark's like, sure, right, it's
Speaker 3: it's it's it's a weirdly weighted moment that I'm very
Speaker 3: interested in how it kind of came absolutely and what.
Speaker 1: It means same same Okay. We go to a train
Speaker 1: station where Bert buys Irving. A ticket goes all the
Speaker 1: way down the line, So he's like, you can get
Speaker 1: off anywhere outside of Kere. Just don't. I don't want
Speaker 1: to know where you're going, but you could go anywhere
Speaker 1: and just go and you can never come back, never
Speaker 1: come back. You need to leave here immediately because apparently
Speaker 1: it's not safe. He admits that the innocent any part
Speaker 1: of him does love Irving. How does he know?
Speaker 5: That?
Speaker 1: Question?
Speaker 4: Mark?
Speaker 1: Was he ever an OUDI? Or an? Was he ever anything?
Speaker 1: But him?
Speaker 2: Say?
Speaker 5: Is?
Speaker 3: Is?
Speaker 2: Was he ever truly sever? That's the question? Maybe will be?
Speaker 1: I think he was, But like, how did then? How
Speaker 1: does he know that he's any? I don't know anyway?
Speaker 1: Clearly there's some kind of warm feelings, I guess, you know.
Speaker 1: Part of the theme that it seems like has been
Speaker 1: arising from the show is that love. It sounds very trite,
Speaker 1: but love conquers all love, love conquer severance. Love is
Speaker 1: something that comes through severance, So maybe he feels that
Speaker 1: despite being severed. Irving is like, can't we just keep
Speaker 1: going with this? Like I've never been in love before,
Speaker 1: I've never been loved by another person, which is so
Speaker 1: sad to hear, and Bert is like, well, now you
Speaker 1: have been, like has a feel and like it feels good,
Speaker 1: like I don't wanted to stop, which you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: can't we just do that? And Bert very strongly says no,
Speaker 1: we can't.
Speaker 2: And they don't even get to have a kiss.
Speaker 3: They just kind of wish they can't do this, and
Speaker 3: it's oh, it's heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: It's heartbring. Serving gets on the train with Radar, his dog,
Speaker 1: and they leave town into literally into the sunset, and
Speaker 1: again makes you feel as if is like, is this
Speaker 1: town like a simulation? What's going on here? Because it
Speaker 1: feels yes, leave. The shot of the train leaving felt
Speaker 1: weird to me. Also, it was any very.
Speaker 3: Like sunset like picture perfect, not really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, while that is happening, we see the elevator doors
Speaker 1: open and Dylan get on the elevator, and we don't
Speaker 1: see the transition to audi but we assume that that's
Speaker 1: gonna happen soon and that's gonna be the end of ity.
Speaker 1: Dylan potentially question mark that evening Mark is in the
Speaker 1: bed of the truck that Kobel got insult set. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: down on the Severn floor, Helly is trying to memorize
Speaker 1: the directions on the back of the map to go
Speaker 1: to the elevator. Jame Jame Eagan appears in the doorway
Speaker 1: doing on that well today is the revolving if that
Speaker 1: is indeed what is happening, so clearly not eating and
Speaker 1: then appearing here, he had some kind of procedure that
Speaker 1: he was going to undergo, so he appears there and
Speaker 1: he accuses Helly, if you tricked me about what We'll
Speaker 1: talk about that more later. Cobel arrives at the birthing
Speaker 1: retreat and talks her way past the security guard. Is
Speaker 1: basically we're going to cottage five. This woman is she
Speaker 1: says ominously one of James, which is like, how many women.
Speaker 1: Has Jane been doing whatever with QUI.
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about that into this because it's
Speaker 2: pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: That's not great. Cobel in the Guard then share a
Speaker 1: dialogue from a classic episode of The Twilight Zone. I
Speaker 1: forget the name of the episode, but it's the one
Speaker 1: where the the mannequins.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love that episode so much.
Speaker 1: It's the one where the mannequins are alive.
Speaker 3: In the department store, in the department capitore, kind of almost.
Speaker 1: Like a week or something outside of.
Speaker 2: The scrum Spring.
Speaker 1: It's like where they get to live as a person.
Speaker 1: And this one h manniquin had loved it so much
Speaker 1: that they forgot they were a mannequin, and only when
Speaker 1: coming back into the store to shop as a person
Speaker 1: do they come to realize horrifyingly the truth that they
Speaker 1: are a mannequin who forgot who they were. This feels
Speaker 1: Ray pointed. So that's clearly like a coded password that
Speaker 1: passes between Cobel and this car. So they drive up
Speaker 1: on the drive mark the transformation happens. So clearly it
Speaker 1: doesn't that the any audi transformation there on the grounds
Speaker 1: takes place outside of the cabin, it seems because it
Speaker 1: just kind of hit him. He wakes up in the
Speaker 1: Birthing cottage. He's confused, he's his any self, he doesn't
Speaker 1: know where he is. He goes up to see Cobel.
Speaker 1: She's waiting upstairs. Devin asks, any Mark, do you remember
Speaker 1: the last thing you said to Cobell? And he's like yes,
Speaker 1: Season one finale, She's alive, meaning Gemma, And then we
Speaker 1: go to credits. Okay, crazy episode. I feel like I
Speaker 1: know less than I knew.
Speaker 3: When I actually find that the most interesting thing about this.
Speaker 2: But let's go to.
Speaker 3: A message from our sponsors, who are definitely not Lumen,
Speaker 3: and then we'll come back and tap in super producer
Speaker 3: Joel for predictions.
Speaker 1: We're back. Let's bring in Joel to talk about a
Speaker 1: crazy episode of the Severance television program. Joel, your thoughts,
Speaker 1: your initial takeaways this episode before we start getting into it.
Speaker 5: Pen Ultimate episodes are so fascinating to me. I think
Speaker 5: they're difficult to nail, challenging to Like, you want to
Speaker 5: lead into a place where you're able to like leave
Speaker 5: with the giant cliffhanger. You want big action in the finale.
Speaker 5: It's got to all build up to this. But the
Speaker 5: Penn Ultimate really sets that up. And what I found
Speaker 5: so interesting is before this week, get this sort of
Speaker 5: solo episode with Harmony where she's going through her past,
Speaker 5: a lot feels revealed to us, and then this episode
Speaker 5: it's almost almost business as usual, but something's off everywhere.
Speaker 5: Everyone is not on their game, like both Helena and
Speaker 5: Helly doing some weird stuff. Helly's pushing back against bosses.
Speaker 5: Helena that swimming scene where she's in the pool and
Speaker 5: at one point you're like, is she at the surface
Speaker 5: or is she downing at the bottom.
Speaker 4: The lights are sort.
Speaker 5: Of over her head in a strange way that makes
Speaker 5: you wonder. I mean, when we see water is so
Speaker 5: prevalent in this show, that was wondering, is this like
Speaker 5: a pivot point for her? And we're just not fully
Speaker 5: keyed into what's happening with her yet. I think what's
Speaker 5: been really interesting about this episode is we see a
Speaker 5: lot of things we've heard from any's previously reflected in
Speaker 5: their audi's sort of behavior. For example, Dylan in season one,
Speaker 5: Dylan has this moment where he's like, you know, I
Speaker 5: like to imagine my Audi is out there just you
Speaker 5: having sex with people's wives, Like I really like the
Speaker 5: idea he's out here.
Speaker 4: Like courting other peals.
Speaker 5: And when Audi Dylan learns that any Dylan has essentially
Speaker 5: been doing this to him, like, his meltdown is so intense.
Speaker 3: Because she does reveal that it was you know, she
Speaker 3: says she kissed the any. I would say they made out,
Speaker 3: but still they didn't sleep together.
Speaker 1: She well, hold on, she gives him The craziest part
Speaker 1: of it is she gives him a duration. She goes
Speaker 1: for about a minute made out, which is like.
Speaker 2: Why are you telling you don't need to know that?
Speaker 5: Like, but bah, the confessions they're weird time, You're like,
Speaker 5: it was only a minute?
Speaker 3: What? But ay the same time, like, his meltdown is
Speaker 3: so severe, you know, it feels like a huge, huge
Speaker 3: betrayal to him.
Speaker 5: Well, and look at what he does, Like his first
Speaker 5: reaction is to throwout his green smoothie, which it sort
Speaker 5: of feels like, you know.
Speaker 1: Why am I being healthy for you? Yeah? Exactly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the thing I'm doing for you.
Speaker 5: This is a thing, like and you don't even care
Speaker 5: about it. I think we see so much of Helly
Speaker 5: rebelling and being like this isn't fair.
Speaker 4: She's all about justice and You're just like kind of
Speaker 4: looking at Elena like is this you do?
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 4: Is that within you? So I'm really excited.
Speaker 5: To see if we get a turn from her, particularly
Speaker 5: after Dad goes downstairs to see Helly.
Speaker 4: What a weird moment. The other thing I was, you
Speaker 4: guys were.
Speaker 5: Just contemplating, like, hey, is not irving, but but is severed.
Speaker 5: What's he ever severed?
Speaker 4: What's happening?
Speaker 5: I have any thought, and it's I think Bert early
Speaker 5: severed person, and not only early severed person, but also
Speaker 5: one of the first to have multiple separate spaces.
Speaker 4: I think. Then he says, I didn't hurt anyone this
Speaker 4: version of.
Speaker 3: Her, but.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I think, And I think part of
Speaker 1: the reason that he is so desperate to get her
Speaker 1: ring out of town is he does not want to
Speaker 1: be the one who does it, to flip the OTC
Speaker 1: switch and all of a sudden he becomes killer Bert.
Speaker 3: And he does not kill these gays and do not
Speaker 3: just gay kill his gay love.
Speaker 2: I will be very distressed.
Speaker 4: Okay, I can't, so let's sorry.
Speaker 3: I think before we let's start with what we know,
Speaker 3: Let's do it in the finale, because I think that's
Speaker 3: a great way to frame that.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I watched because I'm like, what the fuck
Speaker 1: is going on in this show? I watched the finale
Speaker 1: of season one while in the middle of my second
Speaker 1: and third rewatches of this episode. And Okay, here's some
Speaker 1: stuff that we know. Current CEO of Learning and public
Speaker 1: face of Severance as the inventor of the technology is
Speaker 1: Jame Egan, who is still active somehow in the company. Okay,
Speaker 1: we know that, and I think that's an important thing
Speaker 1: to know for various reasons because his revolving, which he
Speaker 1: talks about in season one, is apparently happening this day.
Speaker 1: Is it going to happen? Is it not going to happen.
Speaker 1: We don't know what revolving is, but we know it's
Speaker 1: an important thing for Jame and potentially the company, although
Speaker 1: it's unclear if those things are connected. What else do
Speaker 1: we know?
Speaker 2: We know Harmony was the real inventa.
Speaker 1: We know Harmony is the real inventor of Severance, and
Speaker 1: that credit for that process is clearly a big motivation
Speaker 1: for her and the frustration with not being credited with it.
Speaker 1: So while you know, whatever it is that she is doing,
Speaker 1: whatever her plan is, visa v mark credit or revenge
Speaker 1: for being cut out of the credit, I think is
Speaker 1: a huge motivator for her. What else we know? We
Speaker 1: know Jema's alive, okay, and we know that she is
Speaker 1: fairly close to one hundred percent on Cold Harbor, and
Speaker 1: that we know that after that she will cease to exist.
Speaker 1: Does that mean she is dead? Does that means her
Speaker 1: mind is white? Does that mean she it disappears into
Speaker 1: the lumin ecosystem and never comes out. Does it mean
Speaker 1: but we know that she right? We know that she
Speaker 1: is her gema person is gone forever once one hundred
Speaker 1: percent hits that we know. We know that Lumen has
Speaker 1: multiple offices, and I will is it not interesting that
Speaker 1: many of the offices that we hear about are in
Speaker 1: cold climates? Like there's the old one in Salt Neck,
Speaker 1: there's the one here and cure it's far Bard. Now, like,
Speaker 1: what is it about Salt Neck that is potentially important
Speaker 1: to whatever their work is?
Speaker 3: I guys known, I'm not gonna bring it up, but
Speaker 3: I'm gonna tease that I have a crazy but unbelievably
Speaker 3: researched theory that I am going to drop at the
Speaker 3: end of this episode, and it's gonna blow your mind
Speaker 3: because it's actually so good, and I think the coldness
Speaker 3: could add to it.
Speaker 1: Okay, we we know that you're love uh raw eggs,
Speaker 1: and that apparently Jamee likes you know, continues the thing
Speaker 1: wants to see people eat raw eggs.
Speaker 3: Great note on that that somebody pulled up and Reddit
Speaker 3: they thought was really good. Which is a war egg
Speaker 3: is you know, you can separate it, but generally just
Speaker 3: goes down as one. Right when Helena eats her egg,
Speaker 3: she eats the inside and the outside of the egg separately.
Speaker 2: And they don't get crossed those of us.
Speaker 3: So I also wonder if there's some kind of analogous
Speaker 3: situation there about the inny and the aunt tea of
Speaker 3: it all and the same soul and the separate souls.
Speaker 3: I thought that was a really good catch that somebody
Speaker 3: brought Ueah.
Speaker 1: We know that severance activating the chip can happen anywhere,
Speaker 1: including off of lumen grounds, and the range is tbd.
Speaker 1: Do you have to be in range of the water power?
Speaker 1: Do you have to be a range of some kind
Speaker 1: of signal? We don't know. But what we do know is,
Speaker 1: as we saw at the end of last season, OTC
Speaker 1: and we saw in the season with the Orpo that
Speaker 1: you can flip it and that there is a room
Speaker 1: that you can access to and maybe more than one
Speaker 1: room where you can flip switches and get the innies
Speaker 1: to become Audis and vice versa, and that can happen anywhere.
Speaker 1: Why would you need that? I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: why you would need that? Are we missing anything else? Oh?
Speaker 1: We know now that Jane Egan has been taking a
Speaker 1: string of women to the birthing cottage for probably off
Speaker 1: the books reasons, and that that is extremely concerning and troubling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we know, can we say we know that
Speaker 3: Luhmen is Luhman has at least one if and likely
Speaker 3: many many more assassins people to disappear, people like they
Speaker 3: they have been engaging in shady secret of behavior for
Speaker 3: a long time.
Speaker 5: And the names are very important, they're specific, not call Achilles. Like,
Speaker 5: can we start with the baby Mamas and the drama
Speaker 5: because I think it opens the most important question that
Speaker 5: people have been batting around for a long time, which
Speaker 5: is why else isn't Eager Megan?
Speaker 2: I think is the big question.
Speaker 4: Is who are bring up?
Speaker 3: I think earlier in this season, the kind of parallel
Speaker 3: between you know, presidents who were slavers, who rape their
Speaker 3: slaves and now have you know, hundreds of relatives.
Speaker 2: I think there is.
Speaker 3: An element there that they are drawing on that is
Speaker 3: really horrific. And how many Egans are there? Do you
Speaker 3: have to have Egan blood to be in Lumen?
Speaker 2: Is it that kind of situation?
Speaker 3: I also saw another great pull on Reddit where the
Speaker 3: Reddit poster suggested that Lumen had been putting something in
Speaker 3: the water that meant that people were infertile, meaning they
Speaker 3: had to go to the Lumen run fertility clinics where
Speaker 3: then they were being impregnated potentially with Lumen, I mean
Speaker 3: Egan DNA.
Speaker 5: I think we've seen corporations do before, whether if not
Speaker 5: necessarily in the water, but absolutely sterilizing women without their consent.
Speaker 5: So that's a really interesting theory. I have a couple
Speaker 5: of theories on who.
Speaker 4: I think could be a secret Lumin Jeson. Do you have.
Speaker 3: Ian?
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily have in a secret Egan theories, but
Speaker 1: I do want to note that in season one, when
Speaker 1: it is being explained to any Mark who has been
Speaker 1: ot seed and is now outside at Rickens book event,
Speaker 1: at Devin and Rickens home when it's being explained by
Speaker 1: Devin to any Mark that he had a wife but
Speaker 1: he couldn't forget her, which is why he went to
Speaker 1: Lumen and got severed. She says it in a very
Speaker 1: interesting way, which is but Gemma was just in his
Speaker 1: blood and he couldn't get away from her. So I
Speaker 1: just wanted to raise that as like an interesting way.
Speaker 1: Is she just being poetic or is that and again
Speaker 1: devon being inculcated with this kind of Egan philosophy in
Speaker 1: ways that maybe she doesn't even know about it anyway,
Speaker 1: So you secretiggans?
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 5: My first guess is Ricken he's got he's baby vibes,
Speaker 5: not even his nepo baby vibes.
Speaker 4: I do wonder if they know their secret.
Speaker 1: I think they don't, you know what I mean. Sorry
Speaker 1: to interrupt, but I just want to say that I
Speaker 1: think that there's abdy that a lot of the people
Speaker 1: in this town have, if not been severed, or they
Speaker 1: don't know who they are or who they started as.
Speaker 1: And I think that the title of this episode, the
Speaker 1: after Hours, which is a reference to that uh classic
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone episode, kind of suggests that that all of
Speaker 1: these people, if not most of them, have forgotten who
Speaker 1: they are, don't actually know the origins of where they
Speaker 1: came from.
Speaker 5: Yes, I agree, And so with that sort of in mind,
Speaker 5: and that Twilight Zone episode which is called Yes, after
Speaker 5: Hours so good, there's something if you if you watch
Speaker 5: after Hours, there's like a magnetic pull back to the store,
Speaker 5: Like she's like, I don't know why I keep coming here,
Speaker 5: but I just keep coming back, which is the thing
Speaker 5: we see over and over again throughout the series of PEP.
Speaker 5: We were like, why are you going back to this building?
Speaker 5: It's no good in there. Get the hell out. And
Speaker 5: with Rick and you know, he's so determined throughout, like
Speaker 5: the first half of season one to be like, hey,
Speaker 5: listen this book.
Speaker 1: I wrote it.
Speaker 4: It's gonna be great. It's gonna change lives.
Speaker 5: I can really see like a future that's much brighter
Speaker 5: because of this book. Then the minute, the minute Lumin
Speaker 5: steps in and is like, hey, you actually did help people.
Speaker 4: We just need to tweak me.
Speaker 5: He's so quick to change, and he's constantly coming back
Speaker 5: around to Lumin and being involved in what feels to
Speaker 5: me to be very shady. I also think his haircut
Speaker 5: is a clue anyone with a weird haircut. I'm like,
Speaker 5: possibly an Egan. Those paintings are saying a lot, which
Speaker 5: leads me to my biggest suspect, who I also don't
Speaker 5: think knows. I wonder if Harmony is an Egan. I
Speaker 5: can hear me out one thing we know about her mother,
Speaker 5: She fucking hates hates them with a passion. We don't
Speaker 5: hear anything about a father for Harmony. We know that
Speaker 5: she's in that town where the Keys sort of started
Speaker 5: his journey.
Speaker 4: We know that that ether was really important early on.
Speaker 5: And there's something to be said about bastards who are
Speaker 5: sort of looked over to be like do you have
Speaker 5: potential in the bloodline, like you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: And then get plucked from obscurity and sort of, you know,
Speaker 5: use as a pawn.
Speaker 4: And a tool within like a hierarchy.
Speaker 5: I think that sort of fits Harmony to a tea,
Speaker 5: and it also would sort of give creedence to this
Speaker 5: weird energy she has with Helena. Right, you're a bastard.
Speaker 5: Do you think you're very like you're worth more than
Speaker 5: you are? You think this invention is everything? You don't
Speaker 5: even own it, Like you're not grateful for all that
Speaker 5: we've given you when you should be. Those are my
Speaker 5: two suspects. Either could definitely be more. I'm hoping we
Speaker 5: get a tease of it at the end, like with
Speaker 5: us being at the birthing Center, with us having seen
Speaker 5: some stuff there. I hope we get to figure out
Speaker 5: if there's a secrets want to pull on a couple
Speaker 5: of different threads in watching back on the season one
Speaker 5: finale when Helly busts out after the you know the
Speaker 5: OTC is going on, Helly busts out and she is
Speaker 5: at that Lumine event where clearly Lumen has been running a.
Speaker 1: Worldwide campaign based around Helly being severed and working in
Speaker 1: the company alongside severed people as a way to say, hey,
Speaker 1: this is actually so safe, Like are the scion of
Speaker 1: our company had it done to herself? And she's having
Speaker 1: a great time in there, like Helly r loves being
Speaker 1: severed and loves or co workers. And you see part
Speaker 1: of the marketing she walks through like this big display
Speaker 1: of the marketing materials and it's like, you know, Mark
Speaker 1: and Irving and Dylan and they're all in there in
Speaker 1: the pictures. Two things happen. One is she has a
Speaker 1: conversation with the woman who heavily implies that she was
Speaker 1: severed and that was what allowed her to have three kids,
Speaker 1: and the husband that woman's husband says, I'm so happy
Speaker 1: you're doing this. You know, we're going to change a
Speaker 1: lot of minds, Yes, suggesting that however big lumin is,
Speaker 1: however widespread severances, there is significant resistance to it, and
Speaker 1: changing public perception about was about severance is extremely important
Speaker 1: for this company, who I think because this is how
Speaker 1: Cabridge it thinks, what want to take severance wider than
Speaker 1: it is. How whatever level it's at, they want to
Speaker 1: go up a level. And this is important to that.
Speaker 1: This whole, the whole you know, Luminfest that they were
Speaker 1: doing was an important peg in that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you also get those like this is going
Speaker 3: to change the world. We need to like episode day
Speaker 3: and nine, and that's a lot of like once Cold
Speaker 3: Top happens, like it's going to change the world forever.
Speaker 2: So that kind of like it.
Speaker 3: Seems like that in this transitional step where they really
Speaker 3: want to take it, you know, worldwide, this idea, and
Speaker 3: we know that it is global, but I think they
Speaker 3: want to make it kind of as normal as Ai
Speaker 3: has quickly become.
Speaker 1: Yes, they want to have these offices, but it's not
Speaker 1: clear that severance happens at all their offices. You know
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. One more quick thing I want
Speaker 1: to pull out so you know, pr is going to
Speaker 1: be important to them, So they're not They're not that
Speaker 1: powerful yet. And two are we just like wrong about
Speaker 1: like what they're are all our theories about Gema wrong
Speaker 1: because it strikes me as so risky and irresponsible that
Speaker 1: you have a woman who you have kidnapped ongoing federal crime.
Speaker 1: She's being kidnapped and tortured down there, and then you
Speaker 1: put her with people that you have in the worldwide
Speaker 1: marketing materials for your product, Like, wouldn't you keep her
Speaker 1: in a black box separate from those people? And even
Speaker 1: though you clearly have intense confidence in your severance technology,
Speaker 1: to never let them interact because if there's an OTC,
Speaker 1: which there was, now that information is out there and
Speaker 1: I think we do it to be fair. We do
Speaker 1: see the company in season two kind of panicking about that,
Speaker 1: but it feels like they should be panicking more. And
Speaker 1: it feels like having Gemma interact with Mark on the
Speaker 1: severed floor when Mark is in the advertising and people
Speaker 1: know who he's not just like a a faceless lumin drone,
Speaker 1: like he's part of their marketing. It just strikes me
Speaker 1: as so risky. Why would they do that, Why would
Speaker 1: Cobel allow that to happen? And so are we just
Speaker 1: wrong about like what they have planned for Gema? Are
Speaker 1: they going to resurface her some out?
Speaker 4: I don't hear.
Speaker 3: I think this is good, though, Let's talk about questions
Speaker 3: that they need to answer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because this.
Speaker 5: Is okay, okay, So first let me let me ponder
Speaker 5: Jason Squeely.
Speaker 4: I think I'm remembering Milchicken.
Speaker 5: Harmony having a conversation when Harmony brings Gemma up for
Speaker 5: like a full day to sit with Mark and the crew,
Speaker 5: and Milchick is like, what are you fucking doing, lady,
Speaker 5: Like you should be happy this is working, and she
Speaker 5: was like, I just need to see I think that
Speaker 5: Cobel Harmony was like, especially after what we learned about
Speaker 5: her mother, I think she's got a lot of internal
Speaker 5: conflict about this, and that her whole thing was like
Speaker 5: a I want to make sure it fully works. It's
Speaker 5: my experiment. She's like a scientist. She needs to see
Speaker 5: it through to the end. I also think part of
Speaker 5: her is hoping it doesn't work. I think part of
Speaker 5: her is still so connected to her mother. Her mother
Speaker 5: has such a rebellious spirit. She hated lumin She's still
Speaker 5: working for Luma. I think there's like something going on
Speaker 5: there where Harmony was like, listen, it's worth the risk.
Speaker 5: And I think she was kind of like didn't care
Speaker 5: about the overall outcome as long as she fully could
Speaker 5: understand her experiment. I think the marketing and pr stuff
Speaker 5: is like outside of her.
Speaker 4: Interesting that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: And also I do think it seems more like personal
Speaker 3: like that something she I.
Speaker 1: Agree with you. I think control control over the severed floor.
Speaker 1: Clearly Cobel was like wanted to run it her way
Speaker 1: for whatever her reasons are, and I think those reasons
Speaker 1: continue in whatever her plan is with Mark uh quick
Speaker 1: thing about the revolving I think an active theory that
Speaker 1: is out there is that the board doesn't exist and
Speaker 1: the bored consciousnesses are severed versions of Jame, either their
Speaker 1: stored versions of the Egan family that live within him
Speaker 1: possibly or they're just severed pieces of him that have
Speaker 1: been molded using the personalities and rooms that have happened
Speaker 1: in the past, and then the revolving is literally like okay,
Speaker 1: next personality takes over all of which is to say,
Speaker 1: I think that whatever is going on with the Egans
Speaker 1: and Jame is separate from the overall strategy that LUMAN is,
Speaker 1: like the question of what is LUMAN doing, which is
Speaker 1: what is their plan for the Severance technology? What are
Speaker 1: they doing overall? I think those two things might be
Speaker 1: parallel but kind of separate, because clearly with the it's
Speaker 1: one of James's comment, and with this revolving thing that
Speaker 1: is clearly something that like people outside of the family
Speaker 1: don't even probably know about, Like I think that there
Speaker 1: is and also the fact that Severance is twenty years old,
Speaker 1: Max like, and that whatever has been going on with
Speaker 1: Jame has probably been going on for a lot longer
Speaker 1: than that. Therefore, I think that we need to think
Speaker 1: about those two things separately a little bit.
Speaker 2: Guys, let me, let me I'm gonna blow you your mind.
Speaker 3: We're going to take a quick break and we'll be
Speaker 3: right back.
Speaker 2: And we're back. You guys have like perfect please setting
Speaker 2: me up with every single So no, no, it's great.
Speaker 3: I'm just very excited because This is completely wild. I
Speaker 3: absolutely don't think it's true. I wish it was true,
Speaker 3: but I've got to say it because I think this
Speaker 3: person just laid it out so incredibly and I just
Speaker 3: randomly came across this. It has like one like but
Speaker 3: I think that they make an incredible point here. I
Speaker 3: would if you are afraid of the finale being ruined,
Speaker 3: just in case this is real, please put your hands
Speaker 3: over your ears.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: So this kind of plays into what Jason is saying
Speaker 3: about the nature of what Luman is actually doing, the
Speaker 3: severance being different to what the egans want. But user
Speaker 3: beginning camera three zero one seven has a theory about
Speaker 3: who the board are, what they want, and why they
Speaker 3: need the Severance floor, blood donations and fertility and birthing centers.
Speaker 1: This is what they say everything.
Speaker 3: Okay, there's a lot to digest, so take your time.
Speaker 3: It will blow your socks off. The board are dot
Speaker 3: dot dot vampires and what do.
Speaker 2: You This is so I am like this person's theory.
Speaker 3: What they want is a compliant livestock.
Speaker 2: Women has blood donating.
Speaker 3: Clinics, the milk, fertility and birthing centers, husbandry tanks, and
Speaker 3: the Severance floor. That gives them full control of their livestock.
Speaker 3: The egans are the humans who run the company for
Speaker 3: pr reasons and essentially get to like live because of that.
Speaker 3: They are the facade of lumen. This is like a
Speaker 3: twenty bullet point theory. So I will not do all,
Speaker 3: but I will do some highlights. Lumin means life. The
Speaker 3: Severance floors are underground with no windows or sunlight. The
Speaker 3: OEND and MDR painting is the grim barbarity of optics
Speaker 3: and design. It's the man eating another man, but says
Speaker 3: that that painting never enters anywhere in the hallways that
Speaker 3: people can see because the board don't want people to
Speaker 3: know or think about who they are. The nurse constantly
Speaker 3: collects two bottles of blood from Gemma in her daily routine.
Speaker 3: The nurse donates the blood, and while they say it's
Speaker 3: kind of an identity test, this person suggests that really
Speaker 3: the blood donation itself is how you get into the
Speaker 3: room every time they take the blood. And also in
Speaker 3: season one, episode one, this is the thing where I
Speaker 3: was like, Okay, this is actually you're selling me on
Speaker 3: a version of this HELLY asks Mark, am I livestock
Speaker 3: and that line being like one of the first things
Speaker 3: she says, as if Helena knows what is really going
Speaker 3: on in the seventh floor, also anesthesia. The ether factory
Speaker 3: was the first way that the vampires got their supply
Speaker 3: of blood. Because people would be high, they would die,
Speaker 3: the vessels would open. They would always leave them open,
Speaker 3: so people would get addicted, and then you know, you
Speaker 3: could kill them very easily. But Cobell's design of the
Speaker 3: severance trip becomes revolutionary because it essentially gives them complete
Speaker 3: control of the human population if they can get people
Speaker 3: to agree to severance. And yes, there's a lot, there's
Speaker 3: a lot more, but I know it's not real.
Speaker 1: Love this, but that's what.
Speaker 2: I just want to note.
Speaker 1: Also, while I think this theory has gotta be wrong,
Speaker 1: I just want to note that keeping the bed could
Speaker 1: be like a vampire lore thing. He has to stay, yes,
Speaker 1: has to stay, has to rest in a coffin of
Speaker 1: like filled with the native soil of water.
Speaker 3: Remember when Rickenrick has the dinnerless dinner pie with no food,
Speaker 3: so like are those people vampires? And dude also as well,
Speaker 3: I did like this because this is very basically every
Speaker 3: kind of y a vampire law. Another point they made
Speaker 3: was like Mark and Jemma. You know, they're donating the
Speaker 3: blood at the lumin Blood donation clinic. Another thing that
Speaker 3: the vampires would love because they can drink lots of blood.
Speaker 3: But that mention of like Gemma was in his blood
Speaker 3: and why is marked so important? Maybe there's something in
Speaker 3: their blood that the vampires are interested in. I love
Speaker 3: this also, this is a really bleak one and I
Speaker 3: do think that to a point, this is going to
Speaker 3: be really important, though I doubt that it's going to
Speaker 3: be as simple as a vampire type situation. Miss Wang
Speaker 3: says to Miltchik, we shouldn't let them have funerals because
Speaker 3: it will make them feel like humans, and we get
Speaker 3: a lot of that animal type. When Miltchik says, tighten
Speaker 3: the leak, like this idea that they are a sub
Speaker 3: human group who are essentially animals, which we know could
Speaker 3: be about you know, are they enslaved people? We've talked
Speaker 3: about that, but it could take that crazy genre twist
Speaker 3: and be more so.
Speaker 5: That's why the vampires started with the exactly.
Speaker 3: I just want to say, I'm going to find I'm
Speaker 3: gonna find beginning camera three zero one seven, and I'm going.
Speaker 2: To give them a reward, a real reward.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I love this one. This one blew my
Speaker 3: mind when I was reading through all the theories. So
Speaker 3: I had to share that with you guys, because what
Speaker 3: I love about it is what Severance has done here
Speaker 3: is last week we were talking about oh, you know,
Speaker 3: harmony Cabell and is it just about you know, standard
Speaker 3: child labor, horrible corporation behavior, And then we get back
Speaker 3: into this episode and we're all like, wait a minute, No,
Speaker 3: that isn't what it's about, Like is life a simulation?
Speaker 3: Like where are they sending people? How do you get severed?
Speaker 3: What is the purpose of it? And I love that
Speaker 3: the show is so open ended and so surprising that
Speaker 3: when someone makes a theory like this they confine points
Speaker 3: to support it, like I don't do I think this
Speaker 3: is true? No? But do. I absolutely love the fact
Speaker 3: that Severance is a show based on the simple premise
Speaker 3: of what if you didn't have to experience going to work?
Speaker 3: That two seasons in has got us talking about vampires.
Speaker 1: I will I will say that one theory that I
Speaker 1: think is right that I've seen out there is that
Speaker 1: I think that Helly Inny is the prime personality of Helena,
Speaker 1: like when Jame comes down there, this is just my I
Speaker 1: think that Helly was, as we see, extremely rebellious, probably
Speaker 1: didn't agree with what the family was doing. Remember in
Speaker 1: the season, in the season one finale, when she's like
Speaker 1: asking for forgiveness for all the things that the company
Speaker 1: is doing. So I think that they flip her yes,
Speaker 1: and they created the version that was created, the semi
Speaker 1: version that was going to be more compliant, more like
Speaker 1: down with Flumen and they and they put the prime
Speaker 1: Helena inside, which also.
Speaker 5: My poor heart, because if you think about the pregnant
Speaker 5: woman in the birth and Center that we meet, like
Speaker 5: their behavior is very similar to Helena's, which is to say,
Speaker 5: I'm a little confused to what's going on.
Speaker 4: I'm not giving you much input.
Speaker 5: I have thoughts and ideas like you shouldn't be here, Devin,
Speaker 5: but also like just like a malaise, just kind of
Speaker 5: wandering through life.
Speaker 4: And that's totally yeah.
Speaker 3: I think about the different motivations that people have for
Speaker 3: getting severed, which is like but wants to be innocent,
Speaker 3: he wants to escape his past. Mark wants to do
Speaker 3: it for loss or grief, but throughout history, any kind
Speaker 3: of procedure like this or scientific thing is often used
Speaker 3: to also oppress people first, and the same way that
Speaker 3: you know fathers and husbands would put their wives and
Speaker 3: daughters into mental institutes if they had babies early, or
Speaker 3: if they spoke out against them, or if you know
Speaker 3: the Kennedy daughter who got a lobotomy. You know, this
Speaker 3: is very much in that space of Oh, so you
Speaker 3: can also choose what part of somebody gets severed if
Speaker 3: you want to put them in there.
Speaker 1: And I think this comports with our over like the
Speaker 1: theory that we have that there are perma perma severed's
Speaker 1: perma innies, like I think that Milchik is probably a
Speaker 1: perma INNI I think that Natalie is one of these
Speaker 1: as well, where they just severed until they got the
Speaker 1: personality wanted and so they use I think Drummond who's
Speaker 1: probably like that as well. And all of which leads
Speaker 1: back to like a bunch of folks who don't know
Speaker 1: who they really are, living like these very complex lives. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I have no idea where this show is anybody.
Speaker 5: Crazy, okay, Joel, most they're like a seventy nine hour
Speaker 5: episode crazy.
Speaker 3: Coming up thoughts on what we will see in the
Speaker 3: seventy six minute long Severance finale.
Speaker 5: Okay, so I think that one thing Severance will need
Speaker 5: to do as a show, like if we just zone
Speaker 5: out and look at it as a show, is like
Speaker 5: potentially expand the world. And by that I mean they
Speaker 5: start this season by introducing us to a whole but yes,
Speaker 5: three new characters who have connections outside of this space.
Speaker 5: One thing we're sort of talking about earlier is this
Speaker 5: idea of like why here, why have these cold, sort
Speaker 5: of isolated places and what why does Lumin to convince
Speaker 5: other people that Severance is okay, Like it's happening, it's
Speaker 5: clearly legal, So what is the big is you? I
Speaker 5: think with the amount of rebellion we've seen from our
Speaker 5: severed folks that we've seen all that somewhere else outside
Speaker 5: in the world, Lumin has seen like a revolution of
Speaker 5: any's and people were like it's not good over there,
Speaker 5: Like they're not happy, they're miserable, and so they're like,
Speaker 5: we have to perfect Severence up here in these isolated
Speaker 5: spaces so that we can convince the world that this
Speaker 5: is a good things.
Speaker 4: We can make more money.
Speaker 5: I would love to see some of that, like rebellion.
Speaker 5: I'd love to see, like, what is it they're fighting externally?
Speaker 5: I don't think we necessarily have to see it. I
Speaker 5: think if there's one question that they absolutely must answer
Speaker 5: in this finale, I need to know what's going on
Speaker 5: with the Shadow people the way they were introduced first episode,
Speaker 5: middle episode, Please conclude giving me idea who the who
Speaker 5: are the Shadow twin not robot people?
Speaker 4: Please?
Speaker 1: It's a Bear season two style stunt casting, cameo flex
Speaker 1: that will never come back around again. They you know,
Speaker 1: like the way mulaney and Jamie Lee Curis we're in
Speaker 1: season two of The Bear and you're like, wow, I
Speaker 1: think they did that. I think there's a world in
Speaker 1: which they were like, our show has a lot of
Speaker 1: juice now, and we can we can work with people
Speaker 1: who've always wanted to work with, who we think are great,
Speaker 1: and you can put in the mid right and so
Speaker 1: then we can cast these people who are never going
Speaker 1: to come back as as a kind of like bottle
Speaker 1: casting with some of our favorite actors. And I think
Speaker 1: that there's a world in which those that plotline never
Speaker 1: comes back around. It doesn't matter. Mm hmmm.
Speaker 5: I hope they pull a solid Bear and give us
Speaker 5: a yeah, like they bring Jamie Lee back to such
Speaker 5: great heights that I think there's potential for that. But
Speaker 5: I hear you where it was just like, oh we
Speaker 5: love it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, totally possible, totally possible.
Speaker 5: What about you, Rosie? What are your big thoughts for
Speaker 5: the finale? What are we gonna say.
Speaker 2: Needs to have their vampires? No?
Speaker 3: No, I think I think the things that we need
Speaker 3: to know is there needs to be a question answered
Speaker 3: of I think that we start needing to know why Mark,
Speaker 3: Like I just need to even get of that because
Speaker 3: it is why Mark?
Speaker 2: Why Gemma?
Speaker 3: I also think we are something. I was surprised when
Speaker 3: I was doing my watches of this episode and kind
Speaker 3: of reading as I went and seeing what people were
Speaker 3: kind of feeling. I was shocked by how many people
Speaker 3: are deeply invested in the Mark and Helly relationship, even
Speaker 3: after the reveal of Jemmy. It's definitely giving racist fandom shipping.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna lie like it's throwing me back to
Speaker 3: the sleepy hollow eras and the flash eras. But I
Speaker 3: want to see if the show will make a distinct
Speaker 3: commentary on that in the finale. Will we see that
Speaker 3: Mark and Jemma reunite.
Speaker 2: Is that real?
Speaker 3: Will they leave a tease of Mark still having those
Speaker 3: feelings for Helly? I feel like that is gone for
Speaker 3: him now he knows Gemma is alive. But that might
Speaker 3: just be because they haven't gotten together. Also, I think
Speaker 3: we got to get a little bit more info. It's
Speaker 3: hard to say, like what questions do they need to answer,
Speaker 3: because they're probably not going to answer any definitively, But
Speaker 3: I feel like we've got to talk about reintegration a
Speaker 3: little bit more. It is it working? How does it work?
Speaker 3: Do we have multiple severed marks? I just think they
Speaker 3: need to both they're in that very tough situation which
Speaker 3: we've seen with a lot of shows, a lot of
Speaker 3: franchises that MCU is very much in this situation. They
Speaker 3: both have to expand the world enough that we want
Speaker 3: to come back to it in season three whilst kind
Speaker 3: of closing and tying closing some doors and tying up
Speaker 3: something reds. So I think those are kind of the
Speaker 3: major major spots that I need them to talk about.
Speaker 2: Secret Egan would be good.
Speaker 3: Also, something that is really funny in thinking about this
Speaker 3: after you guys brought up Dylan, is that his crush
Speaker 3: on this Casey is like so much funnier now because
Speaker 3: that was him trying to like fuck someone else's wife again.
Speaker 2: So that is just like his truth life.
Speaker 4: Is Dylan still alive?
Speaker 3: Any Dylan? That's what I want to know. I love
Speaker 3: any Dylan, So yeah, I don't know. So many questions my.
Speaker 1: Okay, what I think for the finale, I think overall,
Speaker 1: the one thing that they kind of have to give
Speaker 1: us or we're gonna get annoyed is Cold Harbor. What
Speaker 1: is it we have to get that Cold Harbor cannot
Speaker 1: extend into season three? The mystery must end to the finale.
Speaker 2: I heard him.
Speaker 1: I don't know either, but it feel like that. It
Speaker 1: feels like that's the one thing. And I will say,
Speaker 1: like just zooming out. I think the show. Part of
Speaker 1: how you know it's good is even though there are
Speaker 1: you know, I have some nitpicks. As I've mentioned, you know,
Speaker 1: there are moments, there are seams in the cloth where
Speaker 1: you feel like here's where we could learn more, but
Speaker 1: they're not letting us learn more because they want to
Speaker 1: keep the mystery bubbling. And I think you mentioned reintegration, Rosine.
Speaker 1: I think that I think reintegration frankly as a plotline
Speaker 1: kind of is a failure and too ambiguous, and so
Speaker 1: Mark under Mark undergoes reintegration and it kind of works,
Speaker 1: but then it doesn't work, so Regabi has to come
Speaker 1: in and juice it and flood the trip so it
Speaker 1: really works, and now he gets this flood of memories.
Speaker 1: He remembers Jem and I remembers all this stuff. He
Speaker 1: remembers what's happening down there. But then it doesn't work again,
Speaker 1: to the point that they now need Kobel for question
Speaker 1: Mark Why, Like I I but do they need Nicovella?
Speaker 4: Or is Devin a spy?
Speaker 5: Like why why good Govey good wild? But why did
Speaker 5: you call ninety seven times like she's weird? Yeah, maybe
Speaker 5: tried to steal your baby. She definitely lied about being
Speaker 5: like a milky.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think so. I think reintegration. The fact that
Speaker 1: we don't understand if it worked or not and what
Speaker 1: the impact of it ever really was, I think that
Speaker 1: to me has kind of been quietly annoying. And the
Speaker 1: reason that we don't care about is because the show's
Speaker 1: so fucking good, Like I you know, like the show
Speaker 1: is great, So I think that you know, some substantive
Speaker 1: reveal on Cold Harbor, and generally continuing the thing they've
Speaker 1: been doing, which is telling us stuff while expanding the
Speaker 1: mystery but not doing it, but keeping that balance balance
Speaker 1: so that we're never learning so much that the dramatic
Speaker 1: engine ceases and we're never so mystified that we're like.
Speaker 4: Fucking why, Like now I'm annoyed and I feel.
Speaker 1: Like I'm never going to get this payoff. So I
Speaker 1: think just those things and all of which would be
Speaker 1: I feel like accomplished with some substantive revelation about the
Speaker 1: nature of Cold Harbor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they can.
Speaker 3: They solve the mystery of Cold Harbor while expanding.
Speaker 2: The universe enough that we want to keep watching the show.
Speaker 3: It's very Yellow Jackets and of Yellow Show, I mean
Speaker 3: Cold Harbor.
Speaker 1: While Cold Harbor certainly seems threaded into the revolving and
Speaker 1: whatever's going on with Jamee, like resolving that does not
Speaker 1: tell us what Luman is doing? Why Mark, not necessarily
Speaker 1: why Mark? Why Jema does not tell us what the
Speaker 1: fuck is going on with the Egans, Like, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of other stuff that would not be.
Speaker 3: Clearly not you know, it's we two seasons in its
Speaker 3: obviously not an anthology show, but there is a world
Speaker 3: where when the mark and gemma of it all is solved,
Speaker 3: they could take us anywhere else and follow any other
Speaker 3: characters within the Severance world. Oh yea guys, I know
Speaker 3: I read too much, ya, but I am interested in
Speaker 3: the Regarbi Cabell connection. To me, it definitely feels like
Speaker 3: they both worked at the Minds and they were friends
Speaker 3: and harmony created it and Regarby maybe with Regarbi iron
Speaker 3: man style where Tony.
Speaker 1: I think that that makes a lot of sense. I
Speaker 1: think her first the first technician, the Regabi had the
Speaker 1: actual surgical skills to do it, and exactly Cobell was
Speaker 1: the mind behind the technology.
Speaker 3: And then Regarby rebelled and now the two of them
Speaker 3: are And that's why Regarbi's like, I can't be here.
Speaker 3: If Kobel gets there, I think the two of them
Speaker 3: are going to be way more connected. And I think
Speaker 3: that would be an easy reveal that would make sense.
Speaker 3: I had one crazy reveal that I'll leave Okay with vampires.
Speaker 3: Irving is on the phone with Devon Okay. That would
Speaker 3: actually be so crazy.
Speaker 7: Though, Wait you think, oh my god, wait wait, Devin
Speaker 7: could be double crossing the double crosses and actually be
Speaker 7: part of like a resistance the Irving is part.
Speaker 1: Of, and she's playing it simplistic and playing it completely
Speaker 1: weak and does not what's going on. I'm so confusing.
Speaker 2: Gotta call Kobel.
Speaker 4: She's because she's start a Cobel here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because she's part of this much more substantive resistance
Speaker 1: to Lumen that is necessarily hiding how much they know.
Speaker 2: I like that. Also.
Speaker 3: I loved the moment in the car where she says, oh, sorry,
Speaker 3: the wind was whistling over the hole in the back
Speaker 3: of your skull. So I didn't quite get that that
Speaker 3: Devon could be part of a resistance.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 5: Devin is such a mystery character, and it's sort of
Speaker 5: thrilling the way people are like, no, she's definitely evil. No,
Speaker 5: she's just a good sister. No she might maybe she's
Speaker 5: a double spy. Like I just really like the way
Speaker 5: the show has been able to both tell us a
Speaker 5: solid story that keeps.
Speaker 4: Us integrated and then also integrated, but.
Speaker 5: Also Lisa, I have so many questions about every single character.
Speaker 5: I don't feel like I fully know who anyone is.
Speaker 1: I can't I cannot wait for this. On the next
Speaker 1: episode of X ray Vision, we're continuing our descent to
Speaker 1: Hell with Daredevil borning into a four. Of course. Uh,
Speaker 1: We're gonna be covering Severance next week Saturday Night News,
Speaker 1: and then of course come back next Tuesday for our
Speaker 1: second book Club, where we're reviewing The Merchant and the
Speaker 1: Alchemist Gade from the Short Story Latest Short Story Collection
Speaker 1: Exhalation by Ted Chick. That's it for this episode, Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening by x ray Vision is hosted by Jason
Speaker 1: SEPs You and Rosie Night and is a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 3: Our executive producers are Joe Alminique and Aaron Coleman.
Speaker 1: Our supervising producer is Abusa par.
Speaker 2: All produces a common Laurent Jonathan.
Speaker 3: And Bay Wack.
Speaker 1: A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
Speaker 1: songs by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 3: Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman, and
Speaker 3: Heidi our discord moderator.