Speaker 1: Warning today's episode Today spoilers for episode two eight of
Speaker 1: Severance Sweet Vitriol. If you have not watched that, watch
Speaker 1: it come back here you warning. Hello, my name is
Speaker 1: Jason Concepcion and I'm rosday Night and welcome back to
Speaker 1: Excervader of the podcast where we dive deep in your
Speaker 1: favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture coming from our
Speaker 1: podcast or we're bringing you three episodes week every Tuesday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and Thursday on Saturday.
Speaker 2: In today's episode, we are recapping and discussing the raw,
Speaker 2: the sad, and depressing new episode of Severance Sweet Vitriol, which.
Speaker 3: Is currently on Apple TV Plus. We will be recapping
Speaker 3: the episode. Then we're gonna fall up on our theory
Speaker 3: corner and see where that's at. Maybe let's get to.
Speaker 1: It, okay. Episode two eight Sweet Vitriol, directed by Benjamin Stiller,
Speaker 1: written oh by series creator Dan Erickson, Adam County, and
Speaker 1: Casey Perry. This is a Kobel bottle and a little
Speaker 1: bottle of ether for all you fans of Cobel out
Speaker 1: and also the shortest run time of the season, and
Speaker 1: I think almost of the series I need to go
Speaker 1: and look back, but just over thirty five minutes, Cobell
Speaker 1: is driving what I assume to be north.
Speaker 3: It feels like somewhere north, especially.
Speaker 1: In the North Ish, to a desolate coastal town called
Speaker 1: salts Neck. It will turn out that this is her hometown.
Speaker 1: On the way, Devin is like blowing up her phone,
Speaker 1: but Cobel is just gonna.
Speaker 4: Leave her on read.
Speaker 1: She pulls up to the town and is brushing her
Speaker 1: teeth and she's just looking around. And we get our
Speaker 1: first look at this husk of a town where as
Speaker 1: we will see, everyone who lives there is somehow attached
Speaker 1: to the illicit ether trade. They are either huff in
Speaker 1: the stuff out of a rag or as with Cobel's
Speaker 1: former coworker Hampton, selling it. So she pulls up to
Speaker 1: this diner, the Drippy Pot Cafe. Incredibly, the manager Hampton
Speaker 1: is her old colleague aka former child laborer, alongside Harmony
Speaker 1: Cobell at the Lumen Plant, which is on the outskirts
Speaker 1: of town back.
Speaker 5: In the day.
Speaker 1: There is clearly something happened between them. Because clearly there's
Speaker 1: something between them I seen as something like almost anger,
Speaker 1: but just under the surface. Yes, Cobell says, wow, the
Speaker 1: town looks like shit doesn't look anything like I remember
Speaker 1: remembered it and Hampton, and one of my favorite parts
Speaker 1: of this episode is this little spiel that Hampton gives,
Speaker 1: which is he basically goes into the corporate jargony reasons
Speaker 1: that the town now looks like absolute fucking shit, and
Speaker 1: it's clear that he's like regurgitating this corporate pr speaks
Speaker 1: story that was given to the inhabitants of the town
Speaker 1: when Luman pulled out, She's like, can we go to
Speaker 1: the factory to go discuss some things? So they go
Speaker 1: there out by the factory, Cold Harbor question mark, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the entire town mark Cold Harbor.
Speaker 3: They definitely want us to think that because it's literally
Speaker 3: icy cold, coupled by the ocean, webs can come and go.
Speaker 1: So yes, they have an annoyingly cryptic conversation out here.
Speaker 1: And I will say this was the one. This is
Speaker 1: the This is not a bad episode, although I've seen
Speaker 1: it as semi divisive, and.
Speaker 3: I think it's a little divisive. I think it widened well,
Speaker 3: we'll talk about mobile. I think it widens the wild
Speaker 3: of severance that is very different to what the peak
Speaker 3: of the show has been. So I'm I'm not surprised
Speaker 3: that it got people.
Speaker 1: Yes, but this is very This is an episode is
Speaker 1: very dependent on those kind of maybe like the lowest
Speaker 1: value cryptic conversations that Severance is known for, where two
Speaker 1: characters or more characters are having a conversation with the
Speaker 1: important information kind of lifted out that they know and
Speaker 1: we don't. And this is one of those episodes where
Speaker 1: I'm like noticing that.
Speaker 4: They're just having a scryptic conversation.
Speaker 1: Anyway, They're talking about Sissy, who it will turn out,
Speaker 1: is Kobel's maternal aunt and a full on cure cultist
Speaker 1: who took in Harmony when Harmony's mom was was ill
Speaker 1: with ether related lung disease. Coobel admits that listen, I've
Speaker 1: got some lumin heat on me. They're mad at me,
Speaker 1: and so they're after me for whatever reason, and I
Speaker 1: need to go talk to Sissy, but also I can't
Speaker 1: be seen in case anybody's watching the house. So Cobel
Speaker 1: is like, can you take me up there? So Cobel
Speaker 1: then drops some cure lore about the factory, saying, you
Speaker 1: know Kiri, which we've seen, We've seen the painting right
Speaker 1: where yeah.
Speaker 3: There's a g I will say if you are not
Speaker 3: somebody who watches the recaps, this is a great episode
Speaker 3: because I have to say, if there is an editing
Speaker 3: award for a recap and a previously on that actually
Speaker 3: tells you every single thing you need to know, this
Speaker 3: episode has an unbelievable recap where you get some really
Speaker 3: great quotes and kind of context from Helena. There's this
Speaker 3: great moment where she and me and Joel were kind
Speaker 3: of going mad about this one where she shows her
Speaker 3: saying to Harmony in a previous episode like you overestimate
Speaker 3: your brilliance and underestimate your blessings. And you can start
Speaker 3: to see the bitterness and kind of why the vegans
Speaker 3: might not like Harmony in this episode. And then yeah,
Speaker 3: we get the Imagiant and Kia paintings and kind of
Speaker 3: the the we it's such a good raycap, Like give
Speaker 3: that head some money, because I was really like, whoa
Speaker 3: they they drool the threads together for me? But yes,
Speaker 3: so we've seen the paintings. We kind of know a
Speaker 3: bit more. But now we're getting the real law.
Speaker 1: Right, So apparently according to the Egan lower kir Met.
Speaker 4: His partner imagen imaging imaging.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a giant imagine they say it and strange.
Speaker 3: They say it in a stranger basically imagen at the.
Speaker 1: Ether factory, and Hampton is like, oh was her Like
Speaker 1: were her lungs ravaged as well? And then Cobel is like,
Speaker 1: take me up to Sissy. So they go up there,
Speaker 1: and Cobel rides in the in the bed of Hampton's
Speaker 1: pickup just in case the Luogoons are watching. Hampton is
Speaker 1: clearly not a fan of Sissy at all. Cobel knocks
Speaker 1: on the door, barges in, and Cissy's like, what the
Speaker 1: fuck are you doing here? She just goes in and
Speaker 1: starts looking around, and we see that there. You know
Speaker 1: that clearly Harmony and Hampton grew up here because we
Speaker 1: see their growth markers on the door, like any house
Speaker 1: that has children in it. And Cobel is looking for
Speaker 1: desperately looking around for her stuff. There's something in her
Speaker 1: stuff that was that she needs. There's a plaque on
Speaker 1: the wall announcing that Sissy real name Celestine. Cobel was
Speaker 1: like the lumin version of employee of the Month, but
Speaker 1: it's like employee.
Speaker 4: Of the Quarter, like the striver of the quarter.
Speaker 3: You're like a cult follower of yes.
Speaker 1: Like so, Harmony's like, where's my stuff, Where's my childhood stuff?
Speaker 1: Where's my stuff from when I was a kid, when
Speaker 1: I was a student, when I was in the Fellow
Speaker 1: Tide Wintertide Fellowship.
Speaker 4: I need all that stuff. Cecy's like, well, I sold
Speaker 4: it to the.
Speaker 3: Poor everyone has bo babe, why did you sell it to?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Why did you do that?
Speaker 1: And Harmony's like, well, has anybody from Lumen come.
Speaker 4: By or called?
Speaker 1: And He's like, yeah, mister Drummond called. And it's clear
Speaker 1: that Sissy knows that Harmony is in some kind of trouble.
Speaker 1: Harmony immediately runs over, disconnects the phone, rips the fucking
Speaker 1: cordla phone, and then is like, give me the key
Speaker 1: to my mom's room. And here's an interesting exchange. She
Speaker 1: then asks Cissy, what were my mother's last last words?
Speaker 1: And it basically accuses Cissy of like against.
Speaker 4: Her mother's will, pulling her mother.
Speaker 1: Off of life support, and Cissy is basically implies that
Speaker 1: her mother wanted her to take her off life support
Speaker 1: and then says of Harmony's mom quote, if only she
Speaker 1: was a believer, perhaps she would have found solace in
Speaker 1: the Nine. The nine, you know, the command.
Speaker 3: Potentially, which is also of cure. Yeah, okay, So if
Speaker 3: I'm dying of lung disease from either recycle, I'm going
Speaker 3: to be I'm like, I'm gonna be thinking about vision
Speaker 3: of witch, realty, benevolence, nimbleness, wild, how you.
Speaker 1: Will be lifted away. But I found the the last
Speaker 1: word it felt very weighted, to the point where I
Speaker 1: was like, it almost made me wonder if Sissy.
Speaker 4: Truly knew her reasons for.
Speaker 1: In a severance kind of way, truly understood what happened
Speaker 1: when she took Mom off life support, was that her
Speaker 1: doing that was There's some because clearly, you know, Ether
Speaker 1: was one and early product of Women, which we now
Speaker 1: understand is a pharma tech kind of company makes a
Speaker 1: lot of products, but forman tech seem to be the mainstays,
Speaker 1: and that Ether was an early attempt at like wiping
Speaker 1: people's minds so that they would not experience and the
Speaker 1: rigor of the work they were doing.
Speaker 3: They were like, oh, you can basically just use ether
Speaker 3: as essentially an anesthetic, but a walking anesthetic, because ether
Speaker 3: is an anesthetic. But they were like, can you get
Speaker 3: people to be on it so they don't notice how
Speaker 3: bad their lives are, which is honestly very real. Like
Speaker 3: up north in England in places where there was a
Speaker 3: lot of minds, there was big like pain huffing culture
Speaker 3: and like different kind of substance abuse because of how
Speaker 3: bad it was to work in the minds and to
Speaker 3: be a child laborer and stuff. So this is actually
Speaker 3: like very depressingly real. But it's interesting to see how
Speaker 3: they're now going to take that and as we learn
Speaker 3: later in this episode, kind of how it became severance
Speaker 3: as we know it now.
Speaker 1: We get a lot of information from this back and
Speaker 1: forth argument between Harmony and her aunt, including that Harmony's
Speaker 1: mom really started to serious declined when Harmony was at
Speaker 1: school and Cissy kept this from her. She said, I
Speaker 1: would have come back to take care of her. But
Speaker 1: Sissy is like, no, it was so important that you
Speaker 1: were in the Wintertide Fellow and like you're a Wintertide
Speaker 1: fellow and Keer saw you with his own eye, Jamee,
Speaker 1: and you know it was like you are you're such
Speaker 1: an incredible striver, like you were hand hicked by the Egans.
Speaker 1: He saw Kier and you yes, say James saw here
Speaker 1: in you. All that kind of stuff Harmony is like, well,
Speaker 1: what a drummond want when he called? And Sissy doesn't say,
Speaker 1: but basically is like, just go back, ask forgiveness from
Speaker 1: the Egans and they will agree to forgive you. And
Speaker 1: Harmony looks down in Cissy's hands as she's playing with
Speaker 1: some kind of like jame Egan dollhead, which will become
Speaker 1: clear what this reminds her of later, but that sparks
Speaker 1: something in her. She remembers something about the things she's
Speaker 1: looking for, runs up to Sissy's room and then basically
Speaker 1: like cop tosses it, looks through everything, finds the key
Speaker 1: to mom's room, and then goes to open the door.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna take a quick break to.
Speaker 4: Listen to a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 5: Then we're going to talk about what is inside there,
Speaker 5: and we're back.
Speaker 1: First of all, I would have just kicked the door open,
Speaker 1: because this house looks like it hasn't been updated built
Speaker 1: like one. Yeah, just like bad boy in worry about
Speaker 1: the Pompy.
Speaker 3: Is strong compared to everyone else here, who's like fucked
Speaker 3: up on etha like she.
Speaker 1: Anyway, she gets the key, she goes inside and there's
Speaker 1: her mother's room just as it must have appeared when
Speaker 1: she was ill and when she passed away. You know,
Speaker 1: the the bed is raised at at like a forty
Speaker 1: five degree angle, so that which is easier for people
Speaker 1: with bathing issues. It's easier to breathe when you're resting.
Speaker 4: When you're sitting up slightly.
Speaker 1: We see the breathing machine, We see her moth eaten,
Speaker 1: her mother's moth eaten clothes in the closet. We see
Speaker 1: a picture what I assume to be Harmony when she
Speaker 1: was a child. And then Harmony lays on the bed.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because I perceive this as she puts
Speaker 1: the breathing tube to her mouth and begins breathing through it.
Speaker 1: And I perceive this as she's trying to get in
Speaker 1: touch with her mother's last week's, last.
Speaker 3: Months exactly like what did it feel like. It's a
Speaker 3: really unsettling and kind of depressing image because there's also
Speaker 3: the duality of like she's like laying there like breathing
Speaker 3: into her breathing in and out, and it's very similar
Speaker 3: to kind of the ether huffing kind of breathing that
Speaker 3: you would do. There's a lot of layers here, and
Speaker 3: I have to say which I'm way you feel about
Speaker 3: the episode. Patricia Ucat is absolutely killing it, like this
Speaker 3: is a powerhouse episode and I wouldn't be surprised with
Speaker 3: that trying to put forward for some awarned contention here.
Speaker 1: So she Harmony cries herself sleep, and then we see
Speaker 1: this image that I originally thought was like something under
Speaker 1: a microscope, like crystals and her microscope, but which our
Speaker 1: discord chief Heidi tells me is like a satellite shot
Speaker 1: of ice that they then superimposed over the waters in
Speaker 1: the bay, kind of sloshing around against the testing. And
Speaker 1: then time passes and Harmony is awakened to the sound
Speaker 1: of Hampton and Sissy arguing as he comes in to
Speaker 1: basically look for and he's he's just like, you.
Speaker 4: Know, it's been a long time, and I'm freezing like what.
Speaker 3: He outside of a truck? Why are you having a nap? Like, please,
Speaker 3: it's very cold out there.
Speaker 1: Harmony is like, I can't find it, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and they talk about her mom. Hampton liked her. When
Speaker 1: Harmony says, well you barely knew her, he says she
Speaker 1: hated lumin more than I did. That's all I needed
Speaker 1: to know. So interesting interesting details.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it also feels like adds to the idea that
Speaker 3: Sissy probably took her off life support or you know,
Speaker 3: killed her, because potentially, I don't know, maybe she was
Speaker 3: an early hater of Lumen in a way that could
Speaker 3: impact the rest of what we see going on in
Speaker 3: the rest of the seas.
Speaker 1: Hampton then asks like, do you want to get huh,
Speaker 1: pulls out an ether rag and gets into it. You know,
Speaker 1: Harmony huffs a little, rag gets into that rag, and
Speaker 1: she's like, I haven't done that since I was eight,
Speaker 1: And it was clear this was part of the work day,
Speaker 1: because Hampton is like, you're ready to man the that
Speaker 1: for ten hours, which is just dire.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: She then tells.
Speaker 1: Hampton that it's shameful that you sell this, and they kiss,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly Harmony's like, oh, now I'm getting another
Speaker 1: piece of where that stuff might be. And we're realizing
Speaker 1: that whether it's ether or her long life, Harmony's memory
Speaker 1: is spotty as like, not as spotty as obviously someone
Speaker 1: has been severed, but like she's trying to claw back
Speaker 1: that year in a way that many characters.
Speaker 3: There's still stuff she can't remember.
Speaker 1: So she gets the idea and she's like, Sissy would
Speaker 1: not have thrown my stuff away or given it to
Speaker 1: the poor.
Speaker 4: I don't believe that.
Speaker 1: She goes outside to like a kind of underground pantry,
Speaker 1: a cold room, and she finds her stuff, including like
Speaker 1: a lumin yearbook and with her like Wintertide fellow right
Speaker 1: up in there, and some stuff animals, and then she
Speaker 1: finds her Wintertide like Fellowship award bust of James Egan.
Speaker 1: And that is the thing that sparked when she looked
Speaker 1: in Cissy's hands and saw her holding like a Jame
Speaker 1: Egan doll head. This is what sparked in her because
Speaker 1: inside of the bust, she unscrews the base. Inside there
Speaker 1: is a rolled up leather bound notebook, and then she goes.
Speaker 1: She immediately runs into Sissy, and she's brandishing the rolled
Speaker 1: up notebook and she's like, I'm leaving now. Don't tell
Speaker 1: the lumins that I was here. And Sissy's like, I
Speaker 1: would never lie to an Egan.
Speaker 3: Oh, come on.
Speaker 1: Sissy is like, listen, you owe the Egans. You're fealty
Speaker 1: because of what they lifted you up from nothing and
Speaker 1: the fellowship, and look at your great success and all
Speaker 1: the things you've done in your life. It's all because
Speaker 1: of them, so you can never go against them. Harmony
Speaker 1: then says, oh, I owe them, and she opens the
Speaker 1: notebook and she's screaming that like, basically, severance was her idea.
Speaker 3: Quite to me.
Speaker 4: It's the design, the.
Speaker 1: Chip, the surgery, the brain waves, the glass go block,
Speaker 1: all the fucking shit that is involved in the process,
Speaker 1: the technology created by her and stolen essentially by Jame
Speaker 1: Egan and passed off as his own. She Harmony says, like,
Speaker 1: they told me if I sought credit for this, that
Speaker 1: I would be banished whatever that means from the e
Speaker 1: I guess from the Egan cult. And Sissy then tries
Speaker 1: to burn the notebook, which come on, baby, why Harmony
Speaker 1: snatches it out of the fire and says basically that
Speaker 1: she hopes that she dies, and then Sissy's like, well,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, well your mom pulled the tube out herself.
Speaker 1: She clawed it out of her neck, and Harmony's like,
Speaker 1: oh well, I don't fucking believe you. Meanwhile, Hampton is
Speaker 1: honking because someone's coming. Harmony gets into Hampton's car is like,
Speaker 1: I'm leaving, and Hampton is like, well, I'm gonna stay here,
Speaker 1: and face whatever this is, and then Harmony speeds off
Speaker 1: and you see these headlights approaching and Hampton says, come
Speaker 1: to take these tempers assholes. Meanwhile in the truck, Harmony
Speaker 1: finally answers her phone. It's Devin. Devin is like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, thank God. Like Mark is integrating, but we
Speaker 1: want to we want to try something else, she says,
Speaker 1: and immediately Harmony understands that only Regabi could have done this,
Speaker 1: the reintegration process with Mark, and then she's like, put
Speaker 1: Mark on the phone, markets on the phone, and then
Speaker 1: we basically cut.
Speaker 3: Yeah, She's like tell me everything.
Speaker 4: Yeah to Oh, what's the name of that bed?
Speaker 3: Oh everyone's favorite patent?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah it was what was it? Firewoman? I think
Speaker 4: by the Cult.
Speaker 1: Which pointed here's a little trivia, a little trivia for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very pointed, right. The Cult also a little trivia that
Speaker 1: I think the lead singer for the Cult was like
Speaker 1: in the Running for Play Jim Morrison in the Doors movie. Anyway,
Speaker 1: let's go to a quick ad and then come back
Speaker 1: and talk about this episode. And we're back, Rosie. We
Speaker 1: got a lot of interesting stuff in this episode. It
Speaker 1: is a little light of an episode in terms of
Speaker 1: connected to something to everything else.
Speaker 4: But your thoughts on this episode.
Speaker 3: I think that it broadens the world in a way
Speaker 3: I do find intriguing, but I give.
Speaker 4: You some of the really important backstory.
Speaker 3: It gives us some of the backstory. It also kind
Speaker 3: of hints at what is out there, because I've always
Speaker 3: thought one of the most interesting things about separance is
Speaker 3: we know what the Ennis are trying to escape, but
Speaker 3: we never really know what the our ties are kind
Speaker 3: of living through, Like is the Egan cult something that
Speaker 3: is in control of the world like we we it's
Speaker 3: there's They could do a broad kind of rug pull
Speaker 3: where they reveal and I think this does broaden it
Speaker 3: a bit. I get why people were kind of shocked
Speaker 3: by the shift, but I do also think that there
Speaker 3: is something very interesting about Harmony's journey here and the
Speaker 3: you know, yeah, it is as I saw a lot
Speaker 3: of people talking about, it's very interesting to be like, oh,
Speaker 3: a woman made this and it was stolen, but also
Speaker 3: then she stayed within the company and used it to
Speaker 3: exploit many other people, And I think that it adds
Speaker 3: a moral complexity. I also think that Regarbi and Harmony
Speaker 3: clearly have some kind of past together and I'm interested
Speaker 3: also to know. I believe what Sis she said when
Speaker 3: she said that Harmony's mom pulled out her own breathing tube.
Speaker 3: And I think the reason why is because Harmony's mom
Speaker 3: was told that her daughter had created this kind of
Speaker 3: even more extreme, horrible thing, and I think she was horrified.
Speaker 3: I thought this was a very hard episode to watch,
Speaker 3: but not because it wasn't good. It's just incredibly depressing. Amply,
Speaker 3: it is a very very depressing episode something I mean
Speaker 3: Severance has had. I just think that they the genre
Speaker 3: concept and the mystery when You're in with the Innies
Speaker 3: has kind of had a lightness to it that this
Speaker 3: episode does not have.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's a very very bleak episode, down
Speaker 1: to the landscape being bleak and like it's almost lifeless,
Speaker 1: like a moonscape this episode. I agree with you in
Speaker 1: everything you're saying about, you know, the harmony of it all.
Speaker 1: I think that the way I perceived this, the complexity
Speaker 1: of her creating the Severance procedure, is that, like I
Speaker 1: think it was an act of love. I think she
Speaker 1: saw her mom be damaged by the mines, she watched
Speaker 1: everyone around her be damaged by breathing in this ether,
Speaker 1: and she thought, okay.
Speaker 4: Since.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, it's crazy that the culture of working
Speaker 1: for Egan is like, we do such crazy, rigorous, dangerous
Speaker 1: work that you want to not remember you were there
Speaker 1: when you leave, Like, how can we make how can
Speaker 1: we make that part of it essentially like a kind
Speaker 1: of punch clock slavery situation, you know, where you're a
Speaker 1: slave when you punch in, but then you leave and
Speaker 1: you're and you're fine, you're yourself. And clearly coming up
Speaker 1: with this procedure was an act of love, almost like
Speaker 1: the others would have saved my mom's life, her lungs
Speaker 1: would not have been ravage. Here's a way that you
Speaker 1: can separate yourself from the dangerous work that you do
Speaker 1: and still be able to like have a family and
Speaker 1: have an enriching life outside of that. Not understanding the
Speaker 1: horrors of the thing that she had created clearly, and
Speaker 1: it's uncles to me now whether she really believes it,
Speaker 1: believes in the horrors of what she's mad having seen
Speaker 1: all the things that she's must have seen. So I
Speaker 1: thought that I really enjoyed that part of it. I
Speaker 1: thought it was so interesting. This is a good episode
Speaker 1: not a bad one. I think, on the scale of
Speaker 1: severance is so high quality that it's like there are
Speaker 1: no bad episodes.
Speaker 4: But this was the one episode.
Speaker 1: Where I became a little worried as I texted you
Speaker 1: about the Donnie Darko syndrome, which is that when the
Speaker 1: mystery is active and you don't know air quotes what
Speaker 1: the show is about, there's this propulsion to you know,
Speaker 1: there's this fascination, almost like a magical hold that the
Speaker 1: story has on you, where it's so intriguing, but as
Speaker 1: soon as you know, it becomes dumb. And this only
Speaker 1: I was only worried about it because you barely notice
Speaker 1: watching this show and being a fan of it, that
Speaker 1: almost all the mystery would go away if only certain
Speaker 1: characters would just have a conversation. For instance, if we
Speaker 1: would just like have a conversation or watch a conversation
Speaker 1: between like Cobell and Regabi, or like a full conversation
Speaker 1: between Mark and Regaby, almost everything that we were wondering
Speaker 1: about would be like lifted, like the veil would be lifted.
Speaker 1: The fact that we're not annoyed by that shows us
Speaker 1: what a great show this is.
Speaker 4: And I think, mm hmm. I while I thought this
Speaker 4: was a good episode. I hope not too many more
Speaker 4: of these, because.
Speaker 3: I'm interested to see where they go next.
Speaker 1: A few more of these and people will start to
Speaker 1: be like, why can't we have that conversation with Gaby,
Speaker 1: Why can't we know more about what's going on in Yeah?
Speaker 3: So I agree, no, no, no, no, I agree. I
Speaker 3: think I've definitely seen a lot of very divisive reactions
Speaker 3: online as well, like is this the first bad episode
Speaker 3: of Severance? Like I don't think, no, this is not
Speaker 3: a badly made episode of television. Now does it fit
Speaker 3: into your world of what you were hoping Severance would be?
Speaker 3: Now that's the question, because I do think something else
Speaker 3: that's really interesting that this episode raises is we've will
Speaker 3: be and like, you know, clones, goats, like what's going on?
Speaker 3: But also I'm like, miss Wang, maybe it's just child labor,
Speaker 3: Like she's another child, just child labor, and they you
Speaker 3: do it. So I'm interested because I think that the
Speaker 3: moral complexity of where this show is at could get
Speaker 3: very very very intriguing and messy and real if they've
Speaker 3: got the chops. I do believe the show has the chops.
Speaker 3: I also want before we get into kind of where
Speaker 3: this leaves us before the last two episodes. I want
Speaker 3: super producer Joelle to jump in because she is the
Speaker 3: queen of theories on this show, and I know she
Speaker 3: has a lot of thoughts about Severs episode eight from
Speaker 3: season two.
Speaker 6: Hi, guys, Hi, there's really just one theory for me
Speaker 6: this week, and I text you guys about it, and
Speaker 6: it's a thing that's been talked about in sevent for
Speaker 6: a really long time. You have all these illusions to
Speaker 6: the Civil War. Cold Harbor is a big battle that
Speaker 6: the South one really decimated the North during the Civil War.
Speaker 6: People have been online being like, hey, we don't want
Speaker 6: this show, for very obvious reasons, to be about slavery.
Speaker 6: But I'm just like, with the child labor infusion this week,
Speaker 6: I just have to think, like, is this show just
Speaker 6: about the impact of slavery on labor and throughout like
Speaker 6: American history, Like, there's a reason we keep going back
Speaker 6: to all of these different these and time periods. There's
Speaker 6: a reason. Like I really liked this episode. I was
Speaker 6: kind of surprised by the reaction, although maybe I shouldn't be.
Speaker 6: Bottle episodes are notoriously Yeah, not a bottle episode but
Speaker 6: these all shoots of like one character far away from
Speaker 6: everybody are often controversial, but to me, I always feel
Speaker 6: like this is the writers being able to expand the
Speaker 6: story in such an interesting way and watching Harmony navigate
Speaker 6: her past, and especially like that whole breathing tube scene.
Speaker 6: So you guys mentioned, oh like it. It's sort of
Speaker 6: like the huffing. It's sort of her connected to her mother.
Speaker 6: To me, I was like, is she suckling? Is this
Speaker 6: her like perverting to being a right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, in a way, there's that too, for sure.
Speaker 6: I was like this, this whole episode to me, really
Speaker 6: cemented a lot, to the point where I was like,
Speaker 6: are there mysteries left in this show?
Speaker 5: Like hop like this is a series.
Speaker 6: About it's just just about the impact of slavery, labor
Speaker 6: and throughout history. And I was so compelled by that
Speaker 6: as like a thought experiment, And I was curious if
Speaker 6: that works for you guys, or if that idea of
Speaker 6: that it's off putting for you. I know a lot
Speaker 6: of people are like, please don't touch this, Oh messy,
Speaker 6: it's so difficult.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that obviously in America, first of all,
Speaker 1: slavery as a practice is like sadly an age old
Speaker 1: and global industry or was, and it has a very
Speaker 1: specific and I think different kind of connotation here in America,
Speaker 1: which I'm not super eager to is like the basis
Speaker 1: of a show, but I don't think that that's necessarily
Speaker 1: what this show is about. I think what this show
Speaker 1: is about is like the gray line between work and exploitation.
Speaker 1: And like one thing I was thinking about with this show,
Speaker 1: you have this factory in this town, and then it
Speaker 1: closes down and you see the devastation that it leaves behind.
Speaker 1: But when it was active, it was actively devastating the community,
Speaker 1: getting kids looked on ether and then it's pulled out
Speaker 1: and you get this very cynical, cutting mini speech from
Speaker 1: Hampton in which he spouts the kind of corporate capitalist
Speaker 1: jargon about the reasons that they pulled the heart out
Speaker 1: of the town. The heart of the town was this
Speaker 1: terrible factory that was killing everybody. But now that it's gone,
Speaker 1: nobody's happy about that either. And I think that's what
Speaker 1: this show is about. It's about the fact that we've
Speaker 1: created this exploit tative system that nurtures and sustains and
Speaker 1: exploits us all and the only thing worse than this
Speaker 1: terrible exploitive system is if it goes away, And I think,
Speaker 1: because there's nothing else, there's only chaos afterwards.
Speaker 4: And to me, that's what this show is about.
Speaker 1: It's about quote air quotes late stage capitalism, which is
Speaker 1: late stage capitalism to me means we don't have any
Speaker 1: other ideas except this horrible thing that we are actively.
Speaker 3: Doing that's getting more horrible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that to me is what this show is about,
Speaker 1: not necessarily not slavery.
Speaker 4: It's about exploitation.
Speaker 6: It's like, yeah, we're trying to like recreate or something
Speaker 6: like that, which I've seen some theory.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you see that theory.
Speaker 6: That's the case. But I do think if when you
Speaker 6: look at labor structure through it's consistently like our laws
Speaker 6: are constantly Oh, let me, it's the reason we have,
Speaker 6: like was like two thirty minimm wage for waiters and
Speaker 6: things like that. I think like that thread is being
Speaker 6: constantly put to your point, this space now where people
Speaker 6: are like, hey, as awful as places, I would rather
Speaker 6: just be high so I can survive it because I
Speaker 6: don't seem like an outside of it, And I think
Speaker 6: that works really well. I'm excited to see Harmony re
Speaker 6: enter the picture. The thing that was also really interesting
Speaker 6: to me and Rosie and I Sideline talked about this
Speaker 6: a little bit, was like this the way people felt
Speaker 6: about Harmony after this episode. I thought it was really
Speaker 6: interesting because it's massively divided. Some people were like, hey,
Speaker 6: you were a part of the system, and then you
Speaker 6: created a device that a sort of allows you to
Speaker 6: survive being a part of that system, which I think
Speaker 6: is haunting.
Speaker 3: Probably came from yeah, like she doesn't want about how
Speaker 3: was it used.
Speaker 6: Yeah, because it's really interesting to think about, Like, Okay,
Speaker 6: so Harmony is both a victim and a supporter of
Speaker 6: the system, right and and potentially making the lives of
Speaker 6: folks within the sysem much worse. But she was trying
Speaker 6: to do that by alleviating the daily stress and impact
Speaker 6: of the ten hours you have to be on the grind.
Speaker 6: And I think that there are a lot of folks
Speaker 6: who are like, oh, she's a hero now because she
Speaker 6: sees the evil and she's marching back.
Speaker 3: But we don't know, I mean, we don't know. I'm like, guys,
Speaker 3: I will say too ahead of the game. We don't
Speaker 3: know what she's I don't know. Also, I just want
Speaker 3: to say before Joel and Jason, I both think you're right.
Speaker 3: I think that this is a show and I do
Speaker 3: think that to talk about exploitation in America well around
Speaker 3: the world and the way labor works is to recognize
Speaker 3: that when slavers were stopped from owning people, they had
Speaker 3: to find new ways to exploit people. And I do
Speaker 3: think that the show wants to reckon with how that
Speaker 3: impacts global economy and capitalism. And I also want to say,
Speaker 3: and I'm sorry if you don't want to hear me,
Speaker 3: make this about real life right now, how you can
Speaker 3: put your ear off song, because I know sometimes people
Speaker 3: get tired of me. But like, guess what, Slavery still exists,
Speaker 3: and it's called the prison industrial system, and in its
Speaker 3: own way, severance is very much akin to that, because
Speaker 3: it is this idea of you go into somewhere and
Speaker 3: when you are in there, you are allowed to be
Speaker 3: a slave, even though in every other part of American
Speaker 3: culture allegedly slavery does not exist. But in the prison
Speaker 3: system people are used as indentured servitude labor. They don't
Speaker 3: earn money, and giant corporations make millions and millions of
Speaker 3: dollars of the off of them, huge companies like Walmart,
Speaker 3: like you know, Victoria's Secret, Like, there are companies that
Speaker 3: do that. And I think that if this show has
Speaker 3: the chops and it is exploring that, I think there's
Speaker 3: a lot of similarities there that could be explored. And
Speaker 3: obviously child labor is a part of that too, because
Speaker 3: that has long been a way that working class people
Speaker 3: and people without opportunities to move up the social lata
Speaker 3: in capitalism have been exploited. But yes, so I think
Speaker 3: that it's really interesting. I don't think we're getting any
Speaker 3: of those answers in the next two episodes. I think
Speaker 3: that's like a season three season full type.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been thinking about this before we dive
Speaker 1: into a real theory corner, I think it's maybe useful
Speaker 1: to just kind of list off what we actually know
Speaker 1: for sure, and so let's start here Lumen. Lumen is
Speaker 1: a company with its roots in the mid nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: We know that they started, you know, with topical salves
Speaker 1: and clearly ether this is kind of like early pharmaceutical industry,
Speaker 1: and are now a company that works in the kind
Speaker 1: of confluence of tech medicine and pharmaceuticals somewhere in there, right.
Speaker 3: And they do.
Speaker 1: They probably do other stuff as well, but it seems
Speaker 1: like medical supplies, technology and pharmaceuticals is where Lumen works
Speaker 1: because we remember, I remember there was like a piece
Speaker 1: of dialogue earlier in the show where they were talking
Speaker 1: about someone was sick because they had taken like non
Speaker 1: lumin medication. So we understand that there's Helene I had
Speaker 1: taken non limit. We know that we know that Severance
Speaker 1: was created by a Harmony Cobell who was then the
Speaker 1: manager of the Severed Floor but lost her job in
Speaker 1: the Severance Uprising for reasons that are kind of still
Speaker 1: like a little.
Speaker 3: Is it because they felt like she failed because the
Speaker 3: seven people were able to rebel? I'm interested in that also,
Speaker 3: how much I think it's.
Speaker 1: Because I think it's because she was being too nice
Speaker 1: or what they perceived to be. It's very clear to
Speaker 1: me that they part of what they like about Miltchik
Speaker 1: is milk Chick. When they're like, you got to crack down,
Speaker 1: Meltchick's like fine, and Cobel was not willing, perhaps to
Speaker 1: crack down in the way that Miltchick is.
Speaker 6: Cobell did what she wanted to do.
Speaker 4: She did what she wanted to do.
Speaker 6: At this point, like when they're like, hey, be less smart,
Speaker 6: he's like, all right, I'll grow up. I'll just yell
Speaker 6: at myself in a mirror until I conform to year
Speaker 6: they were. His harmony is like I'll pretend to be
Speaker 6: a milk helper and like teach this woman.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Well I think like the introduction of miss Casey into
Speaker 1: the severed flass clearly her idea, and it went badly.
Speaker 1: We know that you can be severed multiple times, which
Speaker 1: was a big question mark, right. We know that specifically
Speaker 1: the board level people and probably management level people look
Speaker 1: at Innis with utter disdain. And we know that that
Speaker 1: this process was seen, at least in some leadership circles
Speaker 1: in Lumen as a kind of way to like rehabilitate
Speaker 1: people who were either criminals as we saw with Bert,
Speaker 1: or maybe something else. Is that all we know?
Speaker 3: But that's a lot, that's a lot. We That's the
Speaker 3: funny thing, like Joelle said where she was like she
Speaker 3: watched this episode and she was like, is there a mystery?
Speaker 3: Like is it just about this person who is like
Speaker 3: escape child labor by creating apparently a more humane way
Speaker 3: to create a labor force and is now living with it.
Speaker 3: I think it really could be that simple. I'm interested
Speaker 3: to see if they do a big swing kind of
Speaker 3: genre hint moment at the end, because they have to
Speaker 3: have that hook in the last two episodes to make
Speaker 3: people want to watch season three.
Speaker 1: Here's what the miss there's there's two mysteries to me.
Speaker 1: One is why is Jemma down there? Like why what
Speaker 1: does specifically her being down there accomplish for the company,
Speaker 1: Because clearly that's important, right and Mark's work with Cold
Speaker 1: Harbor is tied up in that. That's to me the
Speaker 1: central mystery. Why is Jemma down there? Why they kidnap her?
Speaker 1: Why do they make her disappear? And why is she
Speaker 1: so important or whatever the project is, because what the
Speaker 1: project is, I think is kind of that the central mystery.
Speaker 1: And then the second overall missing piece, to me, that
Speaker 1: is kind of mystery, and we've gotten hints of it.
Speaker 1: What does the rest of the world know about Severance
Speaker 1: and what do they think about it?
Speaker 4: Like we get these hints.
Speaker 1: That like, oh, the story of your innies became very popular,
Speaker 1: like on the outside, it was all over the news
Speaker 1: like this. Uprising notes we get these hints right where
Speaker 1: they say stuff like that, but we don't really know
Speaker 1: what people almost.
Speaker 3: It's like, is it just a company town.
Speaker 1: We don't really know what people think about it. And
Speaker 1: I think that's an important part of this, because do
Speaker 1: we live in a world in which this is fine, right,
Speaker 1: or do we live in a world in which this
Speaker 1: is not?
Speaker 3: Okay? That's kind of a big deal.
Speaker 6: I got a hint of it when Dylan was interviewing
Speaker 6: at the Door Factory and it was all going well
Speaker 6: until the guys are like leaning into like, oh, you're
Speaker 6: severed and so definitely, and then a little bit when
Speaker 6: we go to Birt's place and when you're like, okay,
Speaker 6: so the church is okay with it. Is it like
Speaker 6: connected to Lumen in a larger way or is it
Speaker 6: that like there's something really about that where they're like, hey, no,
Speaker 6: these are like individuals who still have a chance of
Speaker 6: getting saved at the end of their lives. I think
Speaker 6: it's probably split. I'm curious to see, like to what level, Yeah, like,
Speaker 6: are were people marching in the streets against it? Is
Speaker 6: this just a thing where like, hey, if you choose
Speaker 6: to do it like that's your business. I think that
Speaker 6: will be really interesting. I do hope we find out
Speaker 6: like I hope we get a world opener at the
Speaker 6: very end. I hope we see a different space or
Speaker 6: a different angle outside of the main building to sort
Speaker 6: of fill that space. And I'm also hoping, yeah, I'm
Speaker 6: also hoping, like I really love when the penultimate episode
Speaker 6: has a big reveal and then the finale is questions.
Speaker 6: That's always really thrilling to me. I hope that's the
Speaker 6: direction we're going with season two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do think. I I would love to see
Speaker 3: if it's going to be like a kind of, you know,
Speaker 3: a classic very divisive pull out where you kind of
Speaker 3: realize that the places that have severance are almost like
Speaker 3: company towns where no one else can go, and there's
Speaker 3: kind of like what Saltsneck was, but in an even
Speaker 3: more broad way where there's I'm very interested. I think,
Speaker 3: as much as we know, they're doing a good job
Speaker 3: of keeping us intrigued with questions like this that could
Speaker 3: be completely relevant or absolutely irrelevant, and we never get
Speaker 3: the answers to them. So I'm interested for the next
Speaker 3: two episodes to see.
Speaker 1: Why any theories any did this episode change or create
Speaker 1: any new theories for you, Joel.
Speaker 6: No, I'm just more convinced than ever that Milchik is
Speaker 6: also part of this like fellowship program back in the day, I.
Speaker 4: Know that miss as a wintertime.
Speaker 6: Fellow harmony was like his like.
Speaker 4: Teacher or like maybe she victim or something.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And then I saw a really good theory that
Speaker 6: I liked, which is that Burt isn't severed and never
Speaker 6: has been.
Speaker 3: He could sell it. I believe it. One of the
Speaker 3: ones that something you sent me, Joel that I thought
Speaker 3: was really interesting that I'd love to know more about.
Speaker 3: Is the connection between Like what Natalie wears is essentially
Speaker 3: the same jumpsuit as we see Gemma when she is where,
Speaker 3: and I think there's some interesting stuff there, Like, is
Speaker 3: the reason that mil Chick and Natalie connect not because
Speaker 3: of some you know, they're looking at each other and
Speaker 3: being like, oh, maybe we're both being exploited in this system,
Speaker 3: or but actually because she is his Gemma? Like is
Speaker 3: that something do they make? They do they bring in
Speaker 3: people who are close and see to test how well
Speaker 3: the severance is working. And do those women have to
Speaker 3: constantly be traumatized and tortured and in this case, two
Speaker 3: women of color that we've seen to keep proving that.
Speaker 3: I think that that I don't think anything is aesthetically
Speaker 3: an accident here. So I want to know the jumpsuit connection.
Speaker 3: I think that's so interesting and otherwise I just want
Speaker 3: to I would like to know, and I think this
Speaker 3: is doable in a way that doesn't explode the show out.
Speaker 3: I want to know the connection between Harmony and mcgarby
Speaker 3: because I think that is going to be very very interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is sadly the one you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: that's the one conversation that if they are allowed to
Speaker 1: have a five minute conversation on screen, then we know
Speaker 1: everything about the show.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe the writing's good enough to get around it,
Speaker 3: but yeah.
Speaker 1: My takeaway theory wise from this episode is, listen, we
Speaker 1: saw the previous episode that Devin was like really struggling,
Speaker 1: not really struggling with where to call Harmony was gonna
Speaker 1: call her, and where Gobbi walked out and was like,
Speaker 1: don't you dare call that woman. You're on your own
Speaker 1: understandably right, And then then you know, Mark woke up
Speaker 1: and we wondered what she would do, and clearly she
Speaker 1: made the call but then she puts Mark on the
Speaker 1: phone and says, we have a different idea.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of it.
Speaker 1: I do think that this call was significantly Mark's idea,
Speaker 1: because I think whatever he has come to discover through reintegration,
Speaker 1: he understands that.
Speaker 4: He needs Cobel.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was wondering if he's trying to draw her
Speaker 3: back in and they're planning on taking Cabell as not
Speaker 3: necessarily like a hostage, but holding her and trying to
Speaker 3: get answers out of her. That was kind of the
Speaker 3: feeling I got.
Speaker 1: I think he knows obviously knows a lot more now
Speaker 1: about the and has the full a fuller picture, and
Speaker 1: I think he knows that Cobell in her position would
Speaker 1: have much more of the picture, and maybe he sees
Speaker 1: her actions differently to that end.
Speaker 4: You know, we had been earlier.
Speaker 1: In the season, not now, I've been talking about like
Speaker 1: a milk Chick redemption arc. I do think it's that
Speaker 1: we get. I don't think that's happening, but I do
Speaker 1: think we get a Cobel redemption arc for the wrong reasons,
Speaker 1: Like I think that she will help Mark, but probably
Speaker 1: not for pure reasons, not fully pure reasons, but I
Speaker 1: think there we're gonna get something like a Cobel redemption arc.
Speaker 3: Okay here this is my bleakest possible ending, but I
Speaker 3: do think it would hook people up. What if Cobell
Speaker 3: somehow convinces Mark to essentially like go back in and
Speaker 3: just like essentially take over her role as a manager,
Speaker 3: to be able to be close to Jemma to kind
Speaker 3: of and it's kind of about this systemic like what
Speaker 3: will you accept if it works for you, Like if
Speaker 3: you can get something you want out of this interesting
Speaker 3: what will you do to other people? I don't think
Speaker 3: they'll go there, but I do think it would be
Speaker 3: an interesting hook. Obviously, then you know, sorry, right as Room,
Speaker 3: I know I'm not part of you season three? You do?
Speaker 3: Oh well, Mark's actually like a spy, a kind of
Speaker 3: reverse Helena, and he wants to help everyone out. But
Speaker 3: I think that could be a good hook on the
Speaker 3: end where it seems like to get Jemma back, he's
Speaker 3: willing to become part of the lumin system.
Speaker 1: Do we think that Mark, in his reintegration, has discovered
Speaker 1: that there are more any any Marks than he was
Speaker 1: aware of, because there is that Yeah, there is that
Speaker 1: thing from the credits, the earlier version of the credits
Speaker 1: where Cobel is looking.
Speaker 4: Down at all the little marks, and.
Speaker 1: I would not be completely surprised if on reintegration Mark
Speaker 1: discovered all these other pieces of himself in there.
Speaker 6: There's also somebody did a rewatch of the first episode
Speaker 6: for hints we may have missed, and there seems to
Speaker 6: be this feeling that Mark is missing time in between
Speaker 6: him going into the building and him appearing on the
Speaker 6: lower floor, Like when he walks in, his boots are dry.
Speaker 6: When he's taking them off before he goes down, they're
Speaker 6: like covered and water. It seems to me that they
Speaker 6: made such a big deal. What was that like episode
Speaker 6: two where like the time was suddenly completely messed up
Speaker 6: after he got reintegrated. So you kind of wonder, like, oh,
Speaker 6: as he's getting further into his reintegration, will he discover
Speaker 6: additional ania.
Speaker 3: And that's the one that also would would make sense
Speaker 3: because of how hard it was to reintegrate him and
Speaker 3: how he was kind of the reintegration was so dangerous
Speaker 3: because how do you reintegrate into like how do you
Speaker 3: reintegrate if there's like multiple versions of you that have
Speaker 3: been seven Yeah, where is the time. Okay, I think
Speaker 3: you guys here and I think that is a good likely.
Speaker 3: We were right theory for the last two episodes. I'm
Speaker 3: saying it now.
Speaker 1: On tomorrow's episode of Extra Vision, we're getting back into
Speaker 1: the suit visiting our favorite Hell's Kitchen restaurant. In the
Speaker 1: third episode of daredel Board again, that's it for this episode.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, Thanks for joining us, Joelle.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Joel, and goodbye from luman our sponsor.
Speaker 1: X ray Vision is hosted by Jasoncepcion and Rosie Knight
Speaker 1: and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 3: Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 4: Our supervising producer is Abu Zafar.
Speaker 3: Our producers are Common Laurent Dean Jonathan and Fay Wag.
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.