Severance: The After Hours

March 13, 2025 6:27 PM - Season 2, Episode 9

Mark and Devon team with an ally. Helly investigates further.

Next week's the season finale!

posted by Pronoiac (61 comments total)

Glad to see Burl Ives finally get his comeuppance!

So Mark isn’t integrated? What did the hole drilling accomplish?
posted by orrnyereg at 6:49 PM on March 13 [2 favorites]

EMPATHY AWAITS, FELLOW HUANG
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 6:54 PM on March 13 [6 favorites]

Not the *most* productive quarter for them.

Are they sending Devon to the Testing Floor? In expectations that Gemma's leaving soon?

Ugh at dude saying, basically, you're apologizing wrong. But that sorta fits Lumon and the Break Room.
posted by Pronoiac at 7:05 PM on March 13 [2 favorites]

This felt like my old Severance.

Helly barreling out of that elevator, ready to get feculence done. (Until Daddy Dearest showed up. Eww.*)

And leveraging the fact she's an Eagan over Milchik?! Ha.

IDylan proposing to his wife. Wah.

The Irving/Burt train scene was the exact reverse of the innie "garden" scene, you knew that. Oh.

Milchick making Miss Huang repeat things and Drummond making him do the same, yep, of course echoes the Break Room.

So what kinda weird "Jame's girls" breeding program they got going, while also working a project that will kill Gemma? (Proniac, they pretended Devon was going to a birthing area to sneak Mark in.)

(* I'd like to see you eat [the eggs] raw seems so perv.)
posted by NorthernLite at 7:25 PM on March 13 [5 favorites]

Idk if Mark’s not integrated or Reghabi is right and the birthing place is different. Sure doesn’t seem integrated tho.

Re: Eggs, that’s how Kier ate em.
posted by sibboleth at 7:41 PM on March 13

Ooh, I have to watch again, but not only is this episode titled after a wonderful Twilight Zone episode, but evidently the lines Cobel said to the guard were a direct reference to that other episode. (Spoiler for a 60-y.o. show.)

As a huge Serling fan, this actually makes me a bit verklempt. Gone so many years, but he would've liked that, I think.
posted by NorthernLite at 7:55 PM on March 13 [8 favorites]

Speaking of TZ: in the SXSW interview with Stiller he mentioned Twilight Zone by name as one of the touchstones for the show. (I'm partway through that video, I hit no spoilers)

It is a miracle that this episode somehow got me feel Milchick might turn out to be a hero. The feeling dissipated soon after. But the way to make my heart grow two sizes too big is for a character to tell off their shitty boss.
posted by artlung at 8:01 PM on March 13 [3 favorites]

There was that moment when Mark said to Milchick something along the lines of "Work is just work, right?" and Milchick, silhouetted against the window, turned 180 degrees around--I said out loud, "He's flipped." That and the "devour feculence" moment has given me some legitimate hope that he might be about to do a face turn. (He's got a lot of awfulness to make up for, though.)

Burt didn't betray Irv! I was so afraid that was going to happen. The echo of the scene in the plant room (with Irv's "I'm not ready") was lovely. Did anyone else think that the train station benches where Burt was sitting after Irv left looked like pews?

That scene with iDylan and Gretchen was absolutely heartbreaking. Guh.

"Jame's girls"--ew ew ew. So weird and gross.

I'm puzzled that Mark doesn't seem to be showing more significant signs of reintegration. Maybe there are memories bouncing around inside his brain but we're not privy to them? It just feels like there isn't much progress there. And while I love Cobel's weird, elliptically dramatic way of (not) communicating ("Well...." "Well, what?!"), I'm ready for her to finally reveal some substantial information.

Every week, the cinematography rocks me to the core. The framing of the shots is amazing, sometimes actually makes me gasp.

I hope we don't end next week's finale with Dylan having permanently quit. Seeing the MDR all separated just makes me sad.
posted by velvet_n_purrs at 8:08 PM on March 13 [5 favorites]

but evidently the lines Cobel said to the guard were a direct reference to that other episode.

Ah, so that's why it was so weird. Well, one reason at least. Anyways, if the birthing cabins are so Lumon owned and controlled, how did Devon get a stay there last season?
posted by pwnguin at 8:22 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]

i’m glad irv got to take his dog 🥹
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 8:22 PM on March 13 [13 favorites]

Utica’s train station was an excellent choice for location shooting.

I was so worried that Burt was delivering Irving to his doom. Irving AND his ancient dog.
posted by janell at 8:34 PM on March 13 [5 favorites]

> Proniac, they pretended Devon was going to a birthing area to sneak Mark in.

I get that, but as I remember the sequence I'm thinking of:
* Devon's waiting for the elevator
* a scene with Mark
* the dark hallway, with the red arrow / triangle

Maybe I shouldn't connect the first and last?
posted by Pronoiac at 8:35 PM on March 13

Are you mixing up the name for Dylan (the member of MDR) vs Devon (Mark’s sister)?
posted by janell at 8:39 PM on March 13 [4 favorites]

IDylan proposing to his wife. Wah.

I think that wring made out of a finger trapper.

Also, whatever Milchick's line to Huang was about her bed being moved, and then having her smash her toy - did that remind anyone of Ricken's whole thing about his child should have all their beds in their room from the moment they're born so that they're not traumatized?
posted by tzikeh at 9:22 PM on March 13 [2 favorites]

Good lord, I spelled "ring" "wring." I *must* sleep before commenting on Severance.
posted by tzikeh at 9:34 PM on March 13 [2 favorites]

> Are you mixing up the name for Dylan (the member of MDR) vs Devon (Mark’s sister)?

Yup!
posted by Pronoiac at 10:32 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]

I think both we the audience and Burt the retired enforcer have misunderstood Irving. The impression he gave Burt was that he was lonely and ready for love. But the things that Ms Casey told him suggest a completely different lifestyle. I realise that Lumon are an unreliable source of information, but the "Your outie loves the sound of Radar" comment at least suggests that the things she says are true, just that they might be misleading in the absence of context.

Irving is some kind of investigator, possibly a journalist - in the dinner scene, I felt he was asking journalistic questions while vouchsafing very little information about himself. During the last season, it seemed that he was a blank, somehow burned out by severance. This is obviously not the case, but we still know very little about him, and the things we do know might well be hugely misleading. It will be interesting to see who he was talking to on the telephone.
posted by Grangousier at 3:34 AM on March 14 [4 favorites]

"Jame's girls"--ew ew ew. So weird and gross.

It gets weirder and grosser if you think about it, though I'd understand if you didn't wish to. If you look at the dates of the Lumon CEOs, it's clear that the vast majority of them are siblings - Ambrose most likely Kier's brother, but perhaps he started early, many of the rest legitimate or illegitimate offspring of Kier. If Kier continued procreating until the end of his life in 1939, even Jame could be Kier's son - as far as I know, we don't know Jame's birth date, and when Jame is talking to Helly-as-Helena at the end of the last season, he says "Your grandfather would be proud of you". With the best will in the world, it doesn't seem that anyone would be interested in what Baird thought, for example.

The only Eagan CEO who we know for a fact to have been born beyond the reach of ... um ... Kier's seed is Leonora, who died in the job and lasted four years to be replaced by Jame.
posted by Grangousier at 4:02 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]

Is anyone else just a little worried about Helly having a heel turn in the finale? I mean, she seems fiercely defiant and just/sane, but I could see something happening like Jame coming and saying, "I like you more than Helena, you've got fight in you, you should be the outie, not Helena" and Helly having lost iIrving and iDylan, and iDylan having planted the seeds of Helly feeling distance with iMark (he didn't even know it wasn't her the first half of the season) - maybe she ends up flowing in that direction, out of anger and desire for some control over her situation? Or at least gets tempted that way?

Also, if she goes down the elevator to the testing floor, presumably she becomes Helena - and I wonder if Helena knows about what's going on there (probably)?

Nervous about an Orpheus situation, as people have been discussing, where Mark ends up ruining Gemma's escape in some way.

But agreed, this was another great and unnerving ep! This season has been way more expansive than last, but I'm looking forward to being able to look back over the whole season to see how the arcs all weave together when viewed from a distance...
posted by nightcoast at 4:36 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]

I like the iDylan (etc) neologism - - very apropos for an Apple series.

(Can't wait for the new oPhone!)
posted by fairmettle at 6:04 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]

The setup for Mark at the cabin was so sinister. Hiding Cobel at the top of stairs with a huge fire behind her, like some kind of final boss? This episode made me suspicious of Devon to be honest. It's one thing to think Cobel is their best chance of getting help; it's quite another to merrily go along with everything Cobel wants without asking a single question.
posted by orrnyereg at 6:25 AM on March 14 [4 favorites]

That Cobel in front of the fireplace upstairs in the birthing cabin shot made me gasp audibly. This episode, and the whole season really, has had some great visuals. It immediately communicated how innie Mark felt, seeing his old boss.

I did really like this episode because it felt so full - so many characters doing so many things in their own little stories! Yes, I do think it's a bit weird that they're sorta ignoring Mark's reintegration, but I think that this is more of a "let's get both sides of Mark on board, which will ease reintegration and help explain to innie Mark the reason for his nosebleeds, weird memories, etc". It's extremely annoying (to us, and to the siblings) that Cobel is so damn reticent, but that's her - that's a known thing.

My earlier thoughts about it being weird that Devon went for Cobel and this birthing cabin thing have changed; it does now make sense to me - Devon is pragmatic and very sharp; she definitely knows that Cobel is not to be trusted, but she also intuited a lot about the birthing cabins and Cobel's centrality to severance. She read Raghabi quickly as somebody she knew even less about than Cobel, and somebody who is treating Mark like a science experiment - somebody who has no problem doing brain surgery in somebody's basement. Is her plan good? I don't know, but I do know she has done a better job of taking care of Mark than he himself has, and she's working with a situation she wouldn't have chosen.

I really liked seeing both the Helly and Helena scenes - gosh, Helena's father is so weird. It was great seeing Helly get up to capers again. I agree with Grangousier about Irving - I think he's leveraging a person's inability to really separate the innie and outie when considering someone - I think the "I'm ready" is a bit of a distraction and self-preservation - he's reinforcing to Burt that their innies have this attraction and fell in love to ensure he can get out of Kier alive. His outie obviously knew that Burt's outie was something of an enforcer for Lumon - he played innocent, went to the dinner, learned all he could - maybe he even assumed they'd bust into his place while he was gone. He was obviously considered a danger to Lumon, but we didn't see that in how he acted this episode, and I think that was his goal.

I don't know what will happen with Dylan, but his heartbreak was so strong that he went up the elevator - an echo of Irving's heartbreak when he almost did the same thing. I think that it's a very powerful thing that these innies would choose oblivion over this pain.
posted by destructive cactus at 7:41 AM on March 14 [4 favorites]

So iIrving and iDylan have now ceased to exist. But their outies still have the chips in their heads, so I would think we could still see them reactivated.

Whom oIrving was talking to on the payphone is one of the big unanswered questions for me. We have not seen the last of him either.
posted by jetsetsc at 7:51 AM on March 14

I think Milchick started to turn a few episodes ago when he was given those blackface portraits that repulsed him.
posted by essexjan at 8:26 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]

So, wait: in S1 Helly's resignation request is very firmly denied, and it's implied that most of the innies have been through that "I want out of here" new-hire hump. But now Dylan can resign permanently just by filling in an Innie Resignation Form?

(and oh man the shot of him checking every box)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 8:52 AM on March 14 [4 favorites]

Something I would love to see next episode:

Dylan arrives at the top of the elevator. Milchick meets him there and hands him an envelope. "Your innie wanted you to read this."

You don't get to kill me, asshole--I quit first. And Gretchen is amazing and she deserves a million times better than she's getting from you, so get your fucking shit together, you pathetic lameass fuckwad.

And outie Dylan is like, "...what the fuck?"


*Sadly my swearing is nowhere near as creative as Dylan's.

On preview: Helena was never going to allow Helly to quit. I wonder if they're letting iDylan quit because oDylan was threatening to quit anyway.
posted by velvet_n_purrs at 9:05 AM on March 14 [5 favorites]

It's just work.
posted by danhon at 9:10 AM on March 14 [4 favorites]

The folks I watched with wondered about Dylan's ability to do this as well, We had a deal, Kyle. My read is that innies have always been allowed to submit requests for resignation - they're just typically denied! (Knowing Lumon, who knows if this is real or not). With Helly, you could imagine that Helena would de it because she's doing the PR for the gala. With Mark, maybe they never showed it to him because they consider him so critical - or maybe he was just like, lol no, I'm escaping my grief, you don't get to take this away from me. But with iDylan, he knows that oDylan is pissed at him and wants to quit, so he knows that he's on very thin ice doing this. (And maybe Milchick's reforms, if they're real, mean they have more agency to this?)
posted by nightcoast at 9:13 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]

Is anyone else just a little worried about Helly having a heel turn in the finale?

The table-setting in this episode is almost everyone in either active or quiet rebellion against Lumon's iron fist so: maybe? Jame and Drummond remaining as true-believer antagonists; Helena/Helly as the plot pivot.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 9:17 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]

But now Dylan can resign permanently just by filling in an Innie Resignation Form?

At the start of season 2 one of the "reforms" made was that innies were allowed to resign. Irving nearly did that, and Dylan convinced him not to.
posted by simonw at 9:27 AM on March 14 [7 favorites]

Also, whatever Milchick's line to Huang was about her bed being moved, and then having her smash her toy - did that remind anyone of Ricken's whole thing about his child should have all their beds in their room from the moment they're born so that they're not traumatized?

Over on Reddit from the Gemma/Mark romance episode, the crib box says the model Mark is putting together is the Col d'Arbour, and it's also a 3 in 1 meaning it converts from crib, to toddler bed with rails, to child's bed. They also have some crazy ass theories over there about the model number being a hex code for a specific color but that other catch was pretty interesting and aligns with Ricken's theory.
posted by Stanczyk at 9:31 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]

Helly's shocked and confused turn to Jame at the end ("The fuck?") was the same as Mark's when he was sitting in the chair getting reintegrated in his basement. Not sure what to make of that yet.
posted by oflinkey at 10:13 AM on March 14

I think the heel turn won't be Helly, but Helena. I'm suspecting she will either do something that will make Helly her permanent outie/innie personality in a A Tale of Two Cities type of ending but instead of identical people, one person with two identities. Imagining Helena reciting something along the lines, "It is a far, far better thing I do..."

What I'm really concerned about is Cobel's statement about Gemma being dead, obviously in the idea that Gemma's memories and original personality have been overwritten...to at least 96% if I had to wager. What happens when that 4% encounters outie Mark? Is there a total collapse of the program installation? Or does the 4% contain enough of her personality/memories of her past life?

The only situation where I see Helly going the wrong path is out of jealousy toward Gemma, based on her reference to Gretchen as "that outie woman," and he should find someone down there to love. Perhaps Helena stops Helly from sabotaging Mark's attempt to save Gemma, that's another possibility.

The Burt/Irving scenes in this episode were standout. Toss in Dylan's scenes and oof, those two really raised the episode to one of the best.

I was fist pumping when Milchik stopped and talked back. "Yes, you work for an evil company, but YES, STAND UP TO THAT GUY." I am wanting quite a bit to be on board with the conversation with Mark has turned Milchik into someone who will just walk away from it all.

I feel nothing good will happen to Ms. Huang. Did she go to the same place that Cobel did?


Did anyone else think that the train station benches where Burt was sitting after Irv left looked like pews?

Just good ol' fashion wooden benches in a train station.
posted by Atreides at 10:30 AM on March 14 [2 favorites]

I am thrilled with Milchilk’s “enough” moment with Mr. Drummond. I always knew he had it in him.

Innie Mark made demands early in this season and they worked because he had leverage (whether he understood it or not) — they’re working on the most important project at the company. Milchick had leverage all along, too; who would they even replace him with if he left? Miss Huang?

This show steeps its viewers in moral relativism. I spend one scene audibly rooting for Milchick (to the possible annoyance of my partner) and the next scene scowling at him when he chides innie Dylan for his “ingratitude.” Because of work strife, he is able to be persuaded to allow outie Mark a mental health day — to delay one day further the end of Cold Harbor, which will kill the wife Mark thought was already dead — and I think “oho! Milchick is a good guy after all! This is the face turn I was looking for!”

---

We’ll see what happens with Irving in the next episode, but there are too many question marks left in Irving’s origin story for this to be it. I think one of the things we’re going to learn — perhaps next week, perhaps next season — is that innie existence isn’t as finite as we thought it was.

I’m also thinking about whether they’re actually going to kill off Gemma, or if it’s just poetic. Harmony says “if Cold Harbor is complete, she’s already dead,” and I think the literal interpretation of those words is the least interesting of all the ways this could play out.

It feels so much like the deck is stacked against the innies and the anti-severance faction: as soon as they try to go to the Testing Floor they’ll forget who they are and why they’re there. It feels like they’re setting up Innie Mark and Outie Mark to be co-participants in a heist, and that’s great, but (a) it won’t be Happily Ever After™ yet for Mark and Gemma (we’re only in season 2), and (b) I’m hoping for a more general balancing of the battlefield.

The severed floor is such a great setting, but I want for next season to feel more like innie guerilla warfare — which implies a loosening of the rules that divide innies and outies spatially. Harmony can probably do it on the sly, since she invented severance, but I’m hoping it’s done in a way that’s plausible, makes this feel more like a fair fight, and doesn’t open Pandora’s Box such that we constantly have to ask ourselves “is this really innie X, or is outie X just pretending to be innie X?” in every scene.

---

Atreides: "I feel nothing good will happen to Ms. Huang. Did she go to the same place that Cobel did?"

Milchick mentioned that Miss Huang was being relocated to Svalbard. Kier seems like it’s located somewhere permanently cold, yet I bet even denizens of Kier would think “fuck, I don’t want to go to Svalbard; it’s too cold there.”

In the Severance universe, Svalbard is probably still used for whaling in addition to research. In our universe, only a few thousand people live there, and when someone dies, they’re transported to mainland Norway; the ground is too cold for traditional burial.

This is the equivalent of Ted’s dad in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure threatening to send him to military school in Alaska — but then actually doing it. It’s probably what Miss Huang deserves. (Making her destroy her ring toss game felt a step too far, though. My brain is weird.)
posted by savetheclocktower at 10:55 AM on March 14 [2 favorites]

I feel nothing good will happen to Ms. Huang. Did she go to the same place that Cobel did?

I didn't recall exactly, but reddit points out they're shipping her to the end of the planet. Per some random transcript website:

MILCHICK: Your bed will be moved from your parents' home to the Gunnel Eagan Empathy Center in Svalbard, where you will work to steward global reforms.

While they do have a cool seed bank, IDK how that feeds into empathy. But also interesting that, given the discussion above about beds and cribs, that Milchick uses the phrase "your bed will be moved."
posted by pwnguin at 11:00 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]

Oh man, I was so close to being the first to bring up the Svalbard reference! If you're on tiktok you probably instinctively mutter the phrase "an island close to the North Pole" in a Swedish accent every time you hear the name. From afar it definitely has its charms, but also makes Salt's Neck appear downright cosmopolitan in comparison.

Between that and its global seed vault—a much more truly positive entity than Lumon but given its appearance as a big concrete rectangle jutting out the side of a snowy mountain, its focus on science and the future, and the implication for why we might need those seeds stored that way—it fits both thematically and aesthetically with the show quite well.
posted by lampoil at 11:11 AM on March 14 [2 favorites]

At the start of season 2 one of the "reforms" made was that innies were allowed to resign. Irving nearly did that, and Dylan convinced him not to.

My understanding of that speech in the Break Room was that the deal was for just that day - that at the end of the day, if the innies sat down and started working, Milchick would assume they'd chosen to stay, and if they left, well, then they left and they were no longer Lumon employees. I don't think he meant that the offer was ongoing. I'm pretty sure iDylan was submitting a request to quit, and we know oDylan was going in to quit that morning, so.
posted by tzikeh at 11:13 AM on March 14 [2 favorites]

For me, Svalbard will always be associated with The White Vault. Travel is NOT advised, Miss Huang!
posted by orrnyereg at 11:13 AM on March 14

Ha - for me, Svalbard is where the panserbjørne live in the His Dark Materials universe.

(Speaking of having an innie and an outie....)
posted by tzikeh at 11:16 AM on March 14 [8 favorites]

Milchick let Dylan resign just like that because he doesn't like Dylan - after all, he was keen to fire him and maybe even enjoyed it. Outie Dylan needs the pay check too much to let the resignation stick, I suspect, whatever he might have said.

Not so much a prediction or a theory, but rather what I'd like: That Helly R and Helena (who are the most distinct twin personalities) come to some kind of reconciliation, becoming, as Helena said in her Lumon video, sisters. I'm sure there's a classical analogy, but the only one I can think of is the relationship between Nebula and Gamora in the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy.
posted by Grangousier at 11:30 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]

My understanding of that speech in the Break Room was that the deal was for just that day

Yes, it was a one-day-only stay-or-leave ultimatum; transcript:

Milchick: I know we have our differences… but I want you to know that I truly respect each and every one of you. And I don't wanna be your jailer. By end of day, each of you will choose whether you want to remain here. Not your outies, but you. If you start work on your file, I'll assume you want to stay. If not, I'll send you to the surface. No ill will. Maybe I'll even buy you a drink at a bistro one day.

(and as with everything that's said by management on the severed floor, was probably bullshit anyway)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:34 AM on March 14 [2 favorites]

Thank you for the geography lesson--I was wondering why Ms. Huang was so overdressed for the weather!!!
posted by armacy at 11:36 AM on March 14 [1 favorite]

MILCHICK: Your bed will be moved from your parents' home to the Gunnel Eagan Empathy Center in Svalbard, where you will work to steward global reforms.

Interesting that we have the "same room, different bed" theory from Ricken, and the "different room, same bed" from Lumon.

And the three-in-one Mark was setting up - thanks for pointing out that catch!
posted by tzikeh at 11:41 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]

Oh, and I think the ORTBO was Helena's idea. Originally I thought it was to engineer sex with Mark S*, either for gratification, or human contact, or to become pregnant or a combination of the above, but now I wonder whether it wasn't to have an opportunity to eat copious luxury meats in any way she wanted rather than a single boiled egg, laboriously and precisely divided into sections. I wonder whether the six sections are supposed to signify something.

Another thing I wonder about is the relationship that characters have with their complicity - it's something that has obviously eaten away at Burt, for example; It doesn't bother Drummond at all; But what part does her complicity in whatever the plan is play in Cobel's state of mind - if she was balancing it against her need to stay in position in Lumon, when she was banished and became free to act, does it act as a spur to seek revenge (as it is something that has evidently corrupted her)? Helena knows of her complicity, she knows all about whatever the peculiar arrangements her family has to maintain itself, but she doesn't seem to know what the specific work is, other than that it's mysterious and important.

Oh, well, in seven days we'll all know, most likely. And be looking forward to another indeterminate period of time waiting to find out what happens next.

*Or, as I suppose we should call it, Baby Goats.
posted by Grangousier at 11:52 AM on March 14

It feels so much like the deck is stacked against the innies and the anti-severance faction: as soon as they try to go to the Testing Floor they’ll forget who they are and why they’re there.

So you need someone either non-severed, or fully re-integrated, here; hmmm.

I thought the Gretchen / innie Dylan scene was again playing to the idea that the innies are child-like: the toy ring! Innie Dylan is sweet, and reminds Gretchen of the best parts of her husband; but he's also unformed, immature, childishly impulsive and naive; "I can give you a life" is such wishful thinking. And the heartbreak on her face is partly her realizing this: that sweet innie Dylan is a fantasy, an incomplete and unfinished version of outie Dylan.

(I feel the show is constantly asking: are innies whole people? and I keep feeling that emotionally, they're not -- or at least not yet; and that that's a state that Lumon is deliberately maintaining them in.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:09 PM on March 14 [6 favorites]

We had a deal, Kyle: "I thought the Gretchen / innie Dylan scene was again playing to the idea that the innies are child-like: the toy ring! Innie Dylan is sweet, and reminds Gretchen of the best parts of her husband; but he's also unformed, immature, childishly impulsive and naive; "I can give you a life" is such wishful thinking. And the heartbreak on her face is partly her realizing this: that sweet innie Dylan is a fantasy, an incomplete and unfinished version of outie Dylan."

Yes! The complexity is all on Gretchen’s side; she gets to interact with a version of Dylan that’s driven and excited about stuff and is apparently how Dylan used to be. Like cheating on your present-day spouse with the younger, less jaded version you fell in love with.

Whereas Dylan, for all we can tell, is in love with the idea of having a wife. All his devotion to Gretchen seems to hang on what she represents: the full life that he can never have. He knows that his “proposal” is an act of desperation, and she realizes how much she’s been taking advantage of innie Dylan for some nostalgic glow.

I also think there isn’t as much difference between the two Dylans as innie Dylan may think. Innie Dylan seems to be a model employee when he has something to work for; before he got a glimpse of the outside, a few tchotchkes and the occasional waffle party were enough to keep him happy.

I imagine this is how life was for outie Dylan: he was driven when he was younger and had clear goals in mind, but perhaps he’s been “adrift” because he attained those goals and found they didn't make him happy. Innie Dylan can channel his dissatisfaction into anger at Lumon (or can say “fuck this” and wish for a painless end to his existence), but outie Dylan has nothing to push against, so his dissatisfaction comes out as apathy.
posted by savetheclocktower at 12:38 PM on March 14 [8 favorites]

a single boiled egg, laboriously and precisely divided into sections

The Eagan lifestyle does seem very ascetic: you will swim against the icy landscape; you will consume one egg, preferably raw.

I am reminded that on the inside, the egg bar is COVETED AS FUCK.

On the "one of Jame's [women]" thing: it seems to me like the Eagans are traditional enough that heirs would need to be from the correct side of the blanket? Although: I don't think Helena's mother has ever been mentioned.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:46 PM on March 14

Also, incidentally: Cobel knows the secret "I'm looking for a gold thimble"passphrase to get into the severed cabin at the birthing retreat; she's complicit in Lumon's off-site uses of severance.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:52 PM on March 14 [3 favorites]

the toy ring!

He made it from his finger trap- destroyed a coveted perk for a human connection.
posted by oneirodynia at 1:06 PM on March 14 [5 favorites]

Am I missing something-- how does Burt know that iBurt fell in love with iIrving on the Severed floor? Fishy.
posted by condesita at 1:51 PM on March 14

One tiny twist I enjoyed: it wasn't Ms. Huang who complained about "big words", as we and Mr. Milchick discovered after he had already schemed to send her away.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:10 PM on March 14 [4 favorites]

Am I missing something-- how does Burt know that iBurt fell in love with iIrving on the Severed floor? Fishy.

Both Burt and Irving were told their Innie had an inappropriately relationship on the severed floor, and Irving was at Burt’s door screaming his name during the OTC, so they put two and two together and figured it must have been a relationship between them.

I had a thought randomly during this episode that if Helena eats eggs, Helly’s farts would probably be really stinky but she was the only one in the office that day!

Milchick’s “monosyllabic” retort was actually totally monosyllabic words! He’s such wordsmith, he could be a poet!

How much screen time has Dylan’s story really gotten this season? It feels like he hasn’t done much and now he might be really over!
posted by LizBoBiz at 3:08 PM on March 14 [2 favorites]

Did anyone else think that the train station benches where Burt was sitting after Irv left looked like pews?

Just good ol' fashion[ed] wooden benches in a train station.

I wouldn't necessarily assume there to be intentionality, but Burt did say he and Fields "hop[ped] on the train to church" in "Attila".
posted by Strutter Cane - United Planets Stilt Patrol at 4:48 PM on March 14

I wonder whether the six sections are supposed to signify something.

I definitely thought the first division, into two pieces, created what looked like two egg eyes. The next division, no idea.

Also, on rewatch I noticed a cinematography thing others might have seen - in the moment right after Dylan is an "asshole" to Helly and she's alone in the kitchenette thing, there's a shot of her face almost from behind, so that it forms a very specific profile - and then the profile fades into an overhead shot of the cliff that Mark/Devon/Harmony are on, and the profile lines up with the cliff edge. It's very trippy.

I have to say I'm getting more and more suspicious of the Devon we've seen since her arrival at Mark's. She seems too eager to force Mark into Harmony's plan, especially in the final moment at the top of the stairs, which seems so much more intense than what "normal" Devon would want if they were actually trying to help iMark... but maybe that's just the intensity of the moment?
posted by nightcoast at 5:59 PM on March 14

I see Devon's actions more as "well SOMEONE'S got to take charge here because clearly Mark can't."

The final scene does read ambiguously though: why is she sending innie Mark in to see Cobel alone? I do wonder if that was more about achieving a specific visual -- that fantastic final shot of Cobel in the attic room, framed by fire -- than narrative clarity.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:52 PM on March 14 [2 favorites]

does anybody think Helly/Helena is pregnant? That that will be the season-ending revelation / cliff-hanger? possibly foreshadowed by the eggs in the breakfast scene.
posted by fingers_of_fire at 7:08 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]

I kind of keep thinking about the theories I’ve seen about a third severed state and the amount of tripartite symbolism the show has been sneaking in, from the three-in-one crib/bed to the three-colored projector in s02e01 to the egg cut into six wedges (it’s a multiple of three, at least, right? cut me some slack here, I’ve had a head cold all week). There’s also the question of things like the practical mechanism of shutting off Irving’s innie during the ORTBO, but presumably they wanted to avoid his outie waking up suddenly in the wilderness there with the rest of the MDR team’s innies right there.

Plus we know from the Gemma episode that nothing is stopping them from doing multiple different severed states, right?
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:23 PM on March 14

We had a deal, Kyle - I was thinking this way before, but something felt off - also there's been no reference to Ricken or her newborn in any of the scenes since she showed up at Mark's house; this is not to say she has to be defined in terms of these things, but it's been 48+ hours by now, I think, no signs of checking in with her family, and that last scene was so intense it just seemed like ?!

fingers_of_fire - I definitely buy that.

Also, one last thought about the phrase "cold harbor" - if they kill Gemma, and then use her body/mind to host a new being, would the body be a sort of cold (lifeless) harbor (arrival point) for the new being?

OK OK I'll stop spitballing for a bit... but it's great to have a place to hear/share theories!
posted by nightcoast at 7:24 PM on March 14 [2 favorites]

If anything had happened to Radar, I would have punched out so quickly and never watched another minute of the show.
posted by whuppy at 7:26 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]

the boiled egg imagery throughout has also been interesting to tease apart — they’re a symbol of life, but also cooked (dead), but also when boiled they contain a clear Inner Part and a clear Outer Part, and also there’s that old quote about how in order to be born you must destroy the world

you guys, I think maybe they’ve done a lot of thinking about most parts of this show
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:38 PM on March 14 [3 favorites]

Dylan could resign because it seems like they don't need anyone but Mark anymore. When we see the Innie monitoring room in this episode there's only one monitor working there, the weird doctor guy monitoring Mark. I think they're basically done with everyone else for this project since Mark's so close to completion so they don't care anymore if another Innie resigns. Perhaps previously it was not so clear which Innie would be vital to the project's success.
posted by star gentle uterus at 8:49 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]