Severance: Cold Harbor
March 20, 2025 6:01 PM - Season 2, Episode 10 - Subscribe

(Season finale!) Mark forms a shaky alliance in an all-or-nothing play, while the team makes a dangerous last stand.
posted by Pronoiac (167 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite

“you sound like a great dad”
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 6:05 PM on March 20 [10 favorites]

... is that a Kier mpreg figurine at the fireplace?

I'm not gonna liveblog, I'm not gonna liveblog, but holy shit oMark and iMark having a conversation with each other
posted by tzikeh at 6:18 PM on March 20 [11 favorites]

I'm glad I made this post as I hit play

agreed, yes, mpreg Kier. ?!
posted by Pronoiac at 6:25 PM on March 20 [2 favorites]

Milchick absolutely booking it out of the room for Dylan to read his outie’s response was hilarious.
posted by potent_cyprus at 6:42 PM on March 20 [27 favorites]

Milchick absolutely booking it out of the room for Dylan to read his outie’s response was hilarious.

The actual reason why is fucking surreal is anyone getting All That Jazz directed by David Lynch vibes
posted by tzikeh at 6:47 PM on March 20 [6 favorites]

Milchick booking it out of the room gave me a huge guffaw, as did his drum major moves.
posted by janell at 7:29 PM on March 20 [8 favorites]

Gemma isn’t actually safe; she’s still in the Lumon building. And where exactly are Mark and Helly (or Helena??) supposed to be running to?

Some interesting conceits here but overall this season has been a step down from Season One.
posted by orrnyereg at 7:30 PM on March 20 [7 favorites]

Imagine if your entire life, all the music you've ever heard was an a capella hymn, an old jazz record, and a single maraca. Then suddenly you are inches from full-on Beychella but with Mr. Milchick instead of Beyonce.

That's how I felt for that entire episode.
posted by lampoil at 7:38 PM on March 20 [15 favorites]

Gemma isn’t actually safe; she’s still in the Lumon building. And where exactly are Mark and Helly (or Helena??) supposed to be running to?

I agree with this!

Some interesting conceits here but overall this season has been a step down from Season One.

I don't agree with this!
posted by tzikeh at 7:42 PM on March 20 [28 favorites]

I was lukewarm on E8 and a little confused by E9, but I think they stuck the landing here. I think even if somehow they didn't get a Season 3 made, these two seasons together could function as a story, in that Thelma and Louise kinda way. We got some closure on what Lumon was up to, we got Gemma out as a full person (acknowledging that she actually does still have to make it off the premises), and we saw the conflict between innie and outie Mark come to a head and force a choice. I think this was good TV.

Last I heard they were working on writing Season 3 but hadn't yet gotten it renewed. What do we think it would look like, if it did?
posted by eirias at 7:44 PM on March 20 [7 favorites]

Also, for the curious -

The end-title song is called (unsurprisingly) Windmills of your Mind. Originally introduced in the movie The Thomas Crown Affair and won the Oscar for Best Song.

Here are the lyrics

Here's the original song.

Here's the Mel Tormé cover version that played over the end of tonight's episode.

When The Thomas Crown Affair was remade, Sting recorded a cover of it for the remake.

Dusty Springfield did an interesting, quite different cover.

Here's the French-lyrics version, called "Les Moulins de mon coeur" (The Windmills of my Heart) sung by the composer, Michel LeGrand.

I'm sure there are tons more covers on Spotify for your listening pleasure.
posted by tzikeh at 7:50 PM on March 20 [9 favorites]

Helly saying of Jame, "You're so fucking weird."
And him thinking *Helly* has the true Eagan fire!

I've always luved Helly, but that was hard seeing Gemma screaming for him, after they'd both experienced multiple transitions in a few minutes.

If you watch the after-credits interviews, there's acknowledgement of the question, where do Helly and Mark think they're going. (Paraphrase: "They're not thinking. They just want even 10 more minutes together.") And of course, it was a very 60s French film look.

All those closeups of the cute little goat. Oh, you're not a baddie if you preferred Drummond be gone.

They got that entire HBCU-type band to not spill spoilers for 1.5 years?
posted by NorthernLite at 7:55 PM on March 20 [12 favorites]

I'm certain that Gemma has people waiting outside for her ... I hope so, at least! Surely the plan wasn't to just get to Mark's car in the parking lot, at least without some backup plans considering innie Mark's opposition, but who knows...

Man, what an episode.

I actually had to go double-check that S3 hadn't been confirmed yet. It's crazy to me, but probably part of negotiation tactics and Apple (and everyone else) losing so much money on original programming. But gosh it's so weird.

Okay, here come some theories: Papa Eagan was going to replace Helena with Helly - maybe he still will. Screwed up, but it might allow for a strange throuple. Why is Cobel helping unless she has plans for a shake-up at Lumon with herself benefitting? What did "you'll kill them all!" mean? Who is them, and why would that be? Did he just mean that all the severed employees (including the many many we don't know about?) would be 'killed' because Lumon's crimes would come to light? Why were they so fervently intent on Gemma being 'fully blocked'? This is a lot more than just some new product/use for severance that they can sell.
posted by destructive cactus at 8:00 PM on March 20 [4 favorites]

I assumed "you'll kill them all!" was referring to Gemma's 25 innies if she never returns to the floor .
posted by Quonab at 8:04 PM on March 20 [15 favorites]

I’m flailing like Kermit on the inside.

Hey, your manager just called you in after hours for a status update!

Agreed, lol at Milchick fleeing emotions!

Fun phrases:
* My grand agendum.
* Animatronic Kier.
* … Seth.
* Emile is the name of the goat.

Best attack?
* Dylan with a ~~folding chair~~ motherfucking vending machine
* Helly with a trombone!
* Outie Mark, oopsie
posted by Pronoiac at 8:07 PM on March 20 [6 favorites]

There was so much great stuff this episode, but my favorite was thinking “Nooo, when the elevator goes from the severed floor to the testing floor, Outie Mark will be disoriented and Drummond will get the drop on him!” and then…
posted by ejs at 8:08 PM on March 20 [23 favorites]

I don’t think I’d be upset if this story ended here. I think there’s a ton to take from its observations and reflections of the US culture in which it was made, another examination of how the powerful would be kings would be gods and would do anything to keep everyone else underfoot.

Also Severance is the Dark Souls of television and I would watch that video essay but absolutely must not write it (see also: my post history)
posted by uphc at 8:09 PM on March 20 [6 favorites]

Innie Mark made Outie Mark a killer by using the tools of his oppressor does this mean anything??
posted by uphc at 8:09 PM on March 20 [7 favorites]

My roommate and I scream-laughed hysterically at Mark shooting that guy in the elevator transition. Absolutely incredible.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:12 PM on March 20 [17 favorites]

I actually don't think either Mark was the killer in this case - it was severance itself. And it requires sacrifice (apparently).

I think some might say, well, innie Mark should have thought about what might happen during the transition, but he was doing the best he can, and also we already saw how lax Lumon is about training innies about dangerous objects (the torch from the field trip, etc). So yeah, Lumon and Severance pulled that trigger. I'm fine with it!
posted by destructive cactus at 8:18 PM on March 20 [5 favorites]

If ever a show merited a physical-media release with commentary tracks and behind-the-scenes segments, it's this one. God, the director's commentary for Chikhai Bardo alone.
posted by tzikeh at 8:19 PM on March 20 [4 favorites]

I think even if somehow they didn't get a Season 3 made, these two seasons together could function as a story

Absolutely! Agree with that and the rest of your comment, eirias. I was thinking that could easily have been a series finale, and likely one of the best in TV history.

(Already dying for season 3, though.)
posted by torticat at 8:27 PM on March 20 [3 favorites]

My roommate and I scream-laughed hysterically at Mark shooting that guy in the elevator transition. Absolutely incredible.

I did too - it was a very "Oh man, I shot Marvin in the face" kind of laugh.
posted by tzikeh at 8:34 PM on March 20 [7 favorites]

I foresee a lot of sturm und drang on the internet about Mark S's final decision, but let's face it--we all knew those Orpheus references were going somewhere like this. In fact, I'm expecting quite a few Hadestown/Severance mashups on tiktok later, as the internet also thinks it should have been easy for Orpheus not to look back.

Funnily enough, I've seen Hadestown twice, and both times I had a young person sitting to my right who didn't react to any part of the show until a full-body gasp erupted from them when Orpheus looks back at the end. I've heard some folks find it shocking even when they know it's coming. The inevitability of it is both the point and beside the point. It's fascinating to see how humans react to such a foundational story.

The innies' childlike qualities have been a big theme this season and they really laid the groundwork for the final scene by having innie Mark show his youthfulness in his conversation with his outie. "You'd know that if you ever took an interest in my life! Wah!" What next? He has just as much idea as a teenager sneaking out of his parents' house what comes next. (That sweet smile when he first saw that his outie made him a video was heartbreaking, though).

I'm also drawing my line in the sand that I will not entertain another who-knows-how-long discussion about whether that was really Helly who gave that devious smile when Mark chose her. How much time do they need to spend showing us that Helly hates outies? I'm not going down that rabbithole.

We still have pretty much no clear idea what Jame and Robby Benson and the rest of them thought would happen after Gemma's 25th innie passed the Cold Harbor emotional wall test or why it would have resulted in her death. I'm a little nervous I won't like the answer, so it'll be a long wait until next season. But I'm glad Cold Harbor wasn't about drowning.

Do not challenge Brienne of fucking Tarth to hand-to-hand combat.
posted by lampoil at 8:34 PM on March 20 [13 favorites]

Helly saying of Jame, "You're so fucking weird."

Also Helly moving her head back & forth to see if wax-Kier's eyes would follow her. So many great LOL gags in this episode.
posted by torticat at 8:35 PM on March 20 [11 favorites]

Without knowing the meaning or strategy of the Mark/Helly final sprint, I just thought that ending was so beautiful and powerful - innies claiming their own destiny. Agreed that it would make a fitting ending.

I'm still trying to understand what Harmony was saying about refining - is Mark creating the subconscious of Gemma's innies so they have something to test against? (I.e., a subconscious fear of flying, and then she goes in the airplane room?) Or is he removing the memories from her so that she doesn't have them? Are they not memories at all but just her disposition divorced from her memory? Or is this work still mysterious/important for us?
posted by nightcoast at 8:41 PM on March 20 [3 favorites]

I just saw a comment elsewhere that says each of Gemma's outfits in Chikhai Bardo matches an outfit worn by an Eagan figure from the Perpetuity Wing. Anybody wanna check and corroborate? (I am currently watching tonight's episode of The Pitt - I can multitask between two tv shows on the internet, but hard to watch two at once IRL)
posted by tzikeh at 8:41 PM on March 20

To quote Greil Marcus: What is this shit?

These puzzle box shows always end collapsing into incoherence, but I was annoyed just the same.
posted by Lemkin at 8:43 PM on March 20 [3 favorites]

On rewatch, apparently each file a refiner completes creates a new innie - but I suppose my question is still, why would he have to do this 25 times for each innie? If it's just a blank slate version of Gemma, surely they could just use one "file" as a copy machine? So there must be something special about each one, presumably related to the targeted memory/setup they are testing against?
posted by nightcoast at 8:52 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]

Can we say that Helly and Mark S. did indeed meet at the equator -- that the doorway is some kind of boundary similar to an equator?
posted by BlahLaLa at 8:54 PM on March 20 [7 favorites]

Oh - one more cover of The Windmills of Your Mind for your viewing/listening pleasure....
posted by tzikeh at 8:59 PM on March 20 [9 favorites]

Also, The You You Are: Innie Edition is fully a loose thread
posted by lampoil at 9:00 PM on March 20 [3 favorites]

Can we agree that Emile was the GOAT of the series?
posted by zaixfeep at 9:15 PM on March 20 [27 favorites]

I foresee a lot of sturm und drang on the internet about Mark S's final decision,

On that big fan site, there's lots of this.
We need to see iMark's POV. He doesnt want to lose his only love and his life forever.

We know the anguish oMark has experienced. But to iMark, he seemed a little dickish. Still, iMark went thru a lot to get "oMark's" wife out.

As for Helly, she used an entire marching band and their instruments to give him time to rescue Gemma, and she smiled when the sirens went off, knowing he'd succeeded.

However, the writers set up a big plot area going forward - something that puts doubts even in my mind about who Helly is down deep. Because Jame sees Kier in her. Yikes.
posted by NorthernLite at 9:21 PM on March 20 [3 favorites]

I honestly think Jame doesn't love Helena because she's a product of his weird-ass upbringing, but of course it's 'not his fault' ... but he's probably already imagining that he can flip the severance and get the daughter he 'deserves'... ugh ... lotta weirdness there, but it might allow for reintegrated-or-innie Mark and Helly to actually know each other on the outside, somehow.
posted by destructive cactus at 9:28 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]

I think the Eagan plan was to physically dispatch Gemma (ritualistically w/Emile) after CH because she's been 'dead' in the outie world for a while, and since she was her outie on the testing floor, a kidnapee and witness to the illegal/unethical experimentation. The others' innies would be 'put down' via the chip and no one would be the wiser.

As for Helly being left awake and Helena put to sleep — that is a particularly nasty use of severance. Being replaced with a more effective version of yourself was the whole premise of Paul Rudd's Livung With Myself.
posted by zaixfeep at 9:32 PM on March 20 [8 favorites]

Ok this is a truly great use of this meme
https://bsky.app/profile/maggiedreadful.bsky.social/post/3lkueivl3ec2g
posted by azpenguin at 10:01 PM on March 20 [6 favorites]

Did the elevator ding whenever Helly came down? I didn’t hear it and it messed me up.

This episode was so damn funny.
posted by sibboleth at 10:03 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]

As for Helly being left awake and Helena put to sleep — that is a particularly nasty use of severance.

Especially with Dylan's arc this season, it sounds like the compromise position here is reintegration. Which iMark was skeptical of and rejected.

Reintegration sounds somewhat like Buddhist enlightenment, at least as innies are concerned. And iMark kind of failed Chönyid Bardo, in rejecting reality and embracing the artificial personality of Helly.
posted by pwnguin at 10:35 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]

This. This is why you cast Gwendoline Christie in a small part. A dozen actresses could've done the goat thing from early in the season and been satisfactorily weird and menacing, but only Gwendoline Christie could've also come back to kick ass and give Drummond a run for his money.

There was real poignancy in Season 1’s finale that I didn’t think this season could replicate, so I'm glad they went for something different. The stakes were so high and the rescue so improbable, but the comedy worked really well as way of keeping me tonally disoriented. “Eye In The Sky” playing while a spotlight shines on an animatronic Kier? Said animatronic doing a vaudevillian roast routine with Milchick? This was “Defiant Jazz” all over again, but somehow managing to move Milchick’s story forward at the same time. Chef’s kiss.

I think the ending was good and would honestly be a complete story if they were to do the insane thing and decide not to pick it up. (But in a world where Ted Lasso is getting a Season 4, I don’t see any way that Severance doesn’t come back. If Apple didn’t want it, Ben Stiller could take it anywhere else and start a bidding war.)

The irrationality of it all is the point. Mark is afraid of no longer existing… or, in the best case of promised reintegration, of being subsumed into a more “complete” innie that will not feel like himself. Walking out that door, in his mind, would represent his last moment of being Mark S. I hated it while it was happening (hasn’t Gemma been through enough?), but it totally makes sense.

Would any of our innies die for us? I'd like to think I'd die to protect family if it came down to it. Parents feel a sense of obligation toward their kids, and spouses feel it toward one another, because those are chosen bonds. If anything, Mark Scout should be the one wanting to nurture and server Mark S., not the other way around.

The petulant-teenager angle is perfect. Mark S. literally didn’t ask to be born, his entire life is about service to others with minimal reward, and now he’s been asked to do a big favor for his outie. He’s endangering them both by remaining on the severed floor while all this shit goes down, but it’s not a rational decision. That’s the whole point. He would sell out the rest of his outie’s life just to spend another hour with Helly.

If anything, it’s more out of character for Helly. She was his better angel earlier in the episode, so it’s strange for her to be tempting him out of Doing the Right Thing in that moment. When she rallied the band, I wondered what her exact plan was, and when the episode ended I was still wondering.

I remember thinking all this at the end of last season, too. What does S3, E1 look like? How do they reset and tell another story? How does anyone get out of this alive? (Especially Milchick, who seemed at risk of having his heart ripped out and ritually eaten by one Dylan and 200 angry marching band members?)

---

There's a small moment early on. Cobel says: “There’s a hallway down there. It’s different than the others. It’s long and black and hidden.”

Mark immediately says: “Like Irving’s drawings.”

Cobel says: “…what?”

I don't think she knows why this is actually earth-shattering: this is information that Irv learned from his outie. Irving Bailiff paints a hallway that he sees in his daydreams because of an imperfect severance job, and Irv B. sees those paintings during the overtime protocol.

But Cobel, even though she knows none of this, is shocked to hear that Irv knows about the elevator to the testing floor. Why would she be shocked to learn that an innie had seen something on the severed floor?

I think she knows that Irving has reason to have some sort of fixation on that elevator. It makes me think that Irving himself was once a guinea pig the way Gemma was.

(I didn't want to break my streak of leaving predictions that end up being comically incorrect.)

---

I thought Dylan’s letter from his outie to his innie struck the perfect tone. I’m angry at you, but I also know we’re in this situation because I fucked up. Plus you’re actually cooler than I am, so maybe I should try to be a bit more like you.

Innie Dylan is searching for a purpose in his life. He fixates on Gretchen as a symbol of what he can’t have. He loves her precisely because she’s his outie’s wife. But maybe it’s enough that he ends up serving her just by being his outie’s role model?

I know it’s bleak, but I also know that life was utter torture for 98% of humans until quite recently, historically speaking, and if we’re good at anything it’s finding ways to convince ourselves to go on.
posted by savetheclocktower at 1:03 AM on March 21 [13 favorites]

Given the tendency for series to go to two seasons and be cancelled on a cliffhanger, I must say that's the most elegant way out of that particular logistical conundrum I've ever seen. It could quite easily be the conclusion (in a slightly downbeat 1970s movie kind of a way), but it sets up a number of situations for a continuation of the story.

If it is the end, we're able to make up our own answers - I'd fantasise that Mark and Helly go to find the place where the people live (from Petey's map).

Narratively, though open-ended, that's perfectly fine.

I could quite happily watch at least one episode, if not a series, of conversations between innies and outies. I particularly want to see Helena and Helly talk to each other.
posted by Grangousier at 2:43 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

Given the tendency for series to go to two seasons and be cancelled on a cliffhanger...

Fortunately, Severance is produced by Apple TV+ which has a track record of commitment to their quality content.
posted by fairmettle at 3:14 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]

holy shit you guys
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:21 AM on March 21 [7 favorites]

Once again I’m struck not only by how effective they are at ratcheting up the tension and suspense for a season finale, but at how well this works, for me, as a potential series finale. If this somehow never got a third season, I’d still be like 99% fine with this as an ending.
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:23 AM on March 21 [4 favorites]

Though obviously, I very much want to see these characters again.

It seems like the most satisfying conclusion, given Mark + Mark's conversation would be what one might call the Persephone Scenario, but even if we're expecting that what's so good about Severance is that the getting there would be so pleasurable.
posted by Grangousier at 4:49 AM on March 21

Even though the mystery-box aspect of this show has been attention-grabbing, it's the stuff underneath, about what work is for us, that really made me fall in love. I found the exploration of being-a-coworker particularly moving: we develop these relationships with people that are governed by decisions made by those with more power, and can be ended without warning. This is a real feature of modern life that I've never seen dramatized before -- and it hit me hard on a personal level because my own last year of work life has featured a lot of upheaval and a lot of departures, including, most recently, my own. From that perspective, the ending was actually really satisfying. Over these two seasons, Mark S lost Petey, Irving lost Burt, and everybody lost Irving, all for reasons they could not fully understand; and in the end Mark S's rejection of Gemma for Helly, though it seems deeply foolish and ultimately doomed, is a choice that honors his relationships and thereby his own autonomy and personhood.
posted by eirias at 4:50 AM on March 21 [25 favorites]

Innies Are People Too.
posted by Grangousier at 4:51 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]

Extending a good run is always sooo risky. Diminishing returns are real, y'all. With Stranger Things I still want to spend time with the characters but I've given up on the spoopy plot (which if they'd wanted to preserve the legacy should have ended with season 1).

How do they keep these characters together now? I feel like they get one more swing at putting the innies to work on a last desperate ploy while the characters on the outside (including Irving?) try to keep Gemma safe and discredit Lumon. But it would be innies full time except for the bits of oMark that come through with continuing reintegration. Which could kill Mark if he doesn't follow Reghabi's protocol.

It seems like that could work. But if they want to extend it further than 3 seasons I feel like they'll have to reinvent the premise to a much greater degree.
posted by rikschell at 4:52 AM on March 21 [3 favorites]

there’s definitely a goodly number of plot threads left for them to follow up on in a third season, like Irving’s past, or the Board, or Ricken’s entire deal in general, but I think I would bet good money on the “severed innie takes over outie’s life” plotline happening, if only because of the references across multiple seasons to the “larva that takes over the host’s body” rumors spread around the severed floor as a means of control.

I think this show would probably benefit from a trilogy structure and three neat seasons, ending before it wears out its welcome, and maybe leaving some of the weird cult stuff unexplained beyond “weird cult stuff is fun to write”
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:23 AM on March 21 [4 favorites]

Y’all have made a lot of great points, especially about the plot and the characters, so all I’ll say is holy shit this season is a masterclass in drawing out dread and menace and then paying it off by foregrounding the previously-subtextual violence undergirding the system. Drummond’s methodical explosion and all that followed left me gasping, and then the subverted expectations of Drummond and Mark S-to-Scout in the elevator was pure unexpected catharsis.
posted by sgranade at 5:38 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]

I almost felt a bit bad for Drummond, what with getting spiked in the neck. Which is funny since I was totally rooting for him to take a bolt to the brain stem moments earlier. I guess I just like my killing to at least be humane.
posted by wierdo at 5:40 AM on March 21 [4 favorites]

Also, I have to say I liked how they turned the creepy dread from the first season on its head, turning it into creepy and surreal with the marching band and the Kier animatronic and all. Like straight up absurd, but not as farcical as it might have been.
posted by wierdo at 5:42 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

I found the whole schtick with the animatronic Kier riffing with Milchick and all the music and lights and spectacle to be so reminiscent of those corporate musicals, with the incredible production values but ultimately incredibly lame scripts and direction, that people became obsessed with a while ago, which seems fitting.

So many laugh out loud moments.
posted by h00py at 5:59 AM on March 21 [4 favorites]

huh.
my first sense while watching this was one of irritation.
the Marks are pretty much the Gaitok of Severance, ain't they? hah -
but after ruminating on it awhile, i've come to think better of the episode. i'm satisfied with it as a finale. there truly were some great moments, of both pathos and hijinks - iMark v. oMark! oDylan accepting iDylan! MILCHIK! and a marching band! Drummond pummeling! OMG, Gwendoline Christie! (i think that might just have to be my Halloween costume.)
that was a pretty wild ride.
i still think my long comment in the Ep 8 thread got it right: Cold Harbor was not death, it was insufferable grief, the unbearable pain of losing someone else. for Gemma, it was her baby. for Harmony Kobel, it was her mother. that was the spur that drove her to invent the process. then, what Lumon and the cult of Kier did was to commodify Severance and cut her out of the rewards. which wasn't on her agenda.
oh, and i totally agree, zaixfeep! the reason Gemma's life was at risk was because once they proved that that particular "temper" could be tamed - that the Severance of Grief would hold - she was disposable. fodder for the cult, like Emile, all in service to the glory of Kier.
i realize it's useless to bitch about not getting to see what one wanted. it is what it is. but i'm still annoyed with Gemma just standing there screaming while she was on Lumon grounds. i wanted to see someone pull her away. i would have been delighted if it was Harmony Kobel. still woulda been a cliffhanger - rescue, or capture? - but it would have had some... momentum? a sort of poetry, subtly mirroring the two running inward. at least, less frustrating than her simply standing there screaming.
that said, Mark S running away with Helly R did make sense, cinematically as well as hewing true to both narrative and character. really visually compelling, and yeah very 60s New Wave.
i very much want a season 3, and very much hope it doesn't take years to get here!
posted by lapolla at 5:59 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]

They have said they know how it ends, and it feels like they have a three season arc. Apple has decided to pull back on Apple TV, so it’s possible this won’t see a season 3. But since it’s even more popular than Ted Lasso, I would be shocked if they cancel it now.

But the show has SO MANY metaphorical things to say about the evils of capitalism, and…well, we saw Rickon twisting his words to appeal to the innies in order to get on Lumon’s good side. I sure hope that doesn’t happen here.

Mark (both of them) has great emotional intelligence sometimes and just SUCKS at it at other times. O!Mark treated his innie like a not-quite-real child. I!Mark couldn’t tell Helly and Helena apart. (Which, like, dude, you think this is love but for a significant portion of your relationship you were actually with her evil twin — good thing your outtie wasn’t able to throw THAT in your face!)

When O!Mark fucks up Helly’s name, it definitely feels like O!Mark doesn’t feel like I!Mark is a real person with feelings. What’s interesting about that is the parallel with Helena fucking up Gemma’s name. So she thinks as little of other people generally as some outties do of their innies.

Adam Scott always looks a bit like an anime character, but in the hallway with the gun he looked EXACTLY like an anime character brought to life.
posted by rednikki at 5:59 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

I liked the way the bolt gun looked like a traditional James Bond gun (the one he's holding in posters of the sixties and seventies), for a suitably James Bond payoff.
posted by Grangousier at 6:02 AM on March 21 [4 favorites]

They have said they know how it ends

They said that about Lost too.

I didn’t believe them then either.
posted by Lemkin at 6:09 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

except for the bits of oMark that come through with continuing reintegration. Which could kill Mark if he doesn't follow Reghabi's protocol.

I was trying to think of reasons iMark would ever agree to leave the severed floor -- of course it's this. He'll die without his medication et al.

They said that about Lost too. I didn’t believe them then either.

I have faith that they learned from Lost.
posted by tzikeh at 6:15 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

SEVERANCE IS RENEWED FOR S3

Posted on Ben Stiller's Bluesky account.
posted by tzikeh at 6:19 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]

Milchick booking it out of the room gave me a huge guffaw, as did his drum major moves.
I kept wondering, if Cobel had still been Floor Manager, would the presentation be different 🤔
posted by funkaspuck at 6:34 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

>>> They have said they know how it ends
>> They said that about Lost too. I didn’t believe them then either.
> I have faith that they learned from Lost.

The Good Place and Mrs. Davis delivered satisfying stories and endings; it's doable!
posted by Pronoiac at 6:35 AM on March 21 [11 favorites]

This. This is why you cast Gwendoline Christie in a small part.

Pretty sure it was Chekhov who wrote that if you cast Gwendoline Christie in the first act, you have to let her beat a man halfway to death with her bare hands in the third act.
posted by gauche at 6:50 AM on March 21 [46 favorites]

Weird how it seemed like the entire cast was in the giant mural, including Ricken and Devon. Who were those up on the top of the cliff?
posted by cardboard at 6:53 AM on March 21 [3 favorites]

I liked this. It's a satisfying conclusion to the season, which finally confirms a lot of fan theories, even though we still don't know what is actually happening.

I really thought that they were going to kill the goat, and was glad they didn't! Gwendoline Christie stole that scene. I found Mr Drummond's death laugh-out-loud hilarious, because of course that's what would happen.

I'm pretty sure that Lumon's great work is a process that the Eagans are planning to use on themselves when it has been perfected on their test subjects -- something that they believe will grant them immortality, or a higher state of being. I think that Jame Eagan wants to go through this process before he dies -- that's why he's so invested in this, and why he's so upset when Gemma escapes (this seems more likely than Kier being in a freezer waiting to be resurrected, but who knows?). The process has something to do with perfectly separating a person from their most visceral negative emotions using severance. But why? And then what? I'm happy for this to be explored in the next season.

I also agree that Jame is seriously thinking of replacing Helena with Helly, but I don't think this was ever part of any grand plan -- he has just realised that Helena's meticulously controlled upbringing has completely failed to turn her into the person that he wanted her to be, while the qualities that he values have arisen spontaneously in Helly, who was created on a whim for a PR stunt. It would be interesting if Jame's desire to elevate Helly came into conflict with the Lumon orthodoxy that innies are disposable child-like unpeople.
posted by confluency at 6:58 AM on March 21 [5 favorites]

Who were those up on the top of the cliff?

My guess is the four observers we saw on the training floor - the ones watching (and looking like) our MDR gang (and probably they were the doppelgängers in Woe's Hollow too - hence their placement in the painting)
posted by tzikeh at 6:59 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]

I really thought that they were going to kill the goat, and was glad they didn't!
Since Gemma was able to enter Cold Harbor anyways, it seems like the goat sacrifice was more symbolic than functional, which gives the tenders’ sacrifice-grief all the more poignant.
posted by funkaspuck at 7:14 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

Radar and Emile spin-off when?
posted by orrnyereg at 7:21 AM on March 21 [8 favorites]

Who were those up on the top of the cliff?

I thought they were the past CEOs we saw in the first season statue tour.
posted by migurski at 7:42 AM on March 21 [5 favorites]

I keep coming back to all we learned in the brief Helly/Jame scene, including confirmation Jame "has sired" others besides Helena, and the others were all a disappointment, too.

All I could think was, paging "Ricken is an Eagan" theory.

Exploring that aspect - Jame's creepy quest to sire just the right heir, his fascination with Helly, will come back big time.

And remember Helly's early question, "Am I livestock?" Turns out Helena sort of is.
posted by NorthernLite at 7:53 AM on March 21 [8 favorites]

For those who are concerned they will pull a "LOST" re: not knowing where they're going or how to get there, here's Dan Erickson from Alan Sepinwall's Rolling Stone interview (no firewall):

Lost was, of course, a pioneering show in this kind of genre and world. You always try to learn from what came before. I was more satisfied by Lost than a lot of other people were, specifically because I was happy with where the characters ended up. But it’s something that I’m very aware of. People come up to me and say, “Hey, you’re not going to leave us hanging the way Lost did, are you?” I try really hard not to point at mysteries that I know I’m not going to answer. There are things, of course, that are happening on the show that are there to build out and enrich the world, and we’re not going to go through and explain the genesis of all those things and take the fun out. But in terms of the mysteries that we are specifically pointing at, I like to think that people will be satisfied by the answers.

posted by tzikeh at 8:09 AM on March 21 [8 favorites]

I was thinking on my walk this morning about how Drummond called Jame "father" when talking to Helena earlier this season but in this episode he says "call Mr. Eagan" to Dr. Beast. It would definitely be weirder to call your boss father than it would be to call your father Mr. Lastname to one of his employees, even in a company that's also a cult.

Anyway, Jame's conversation with Helly basically indicates that Helena is his only legitimate heir (whatever that means, given that we know nothing about her mother) and that the rest are secret. If Drummond is among the secret ones, it's not that big of a jump to think Ricken could be as well--they resemble each other a little.

I don't think it's particularly important to this finale and this season, but it could become important in the larger story later. It would definitely be more interesting for Devon's baby, who conveniently already exists, to get wrapped up in the story than for the series to do a whole Helly/Helena pregnancy thing.
posted by lampoil at 8:21 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]

Milchick and Eagen were giving serious Craig Ferguson and Geoff Peterson vibes.
posted by maudlin at 8:22 AM on March 21 [8 favorites]

Ha, well, I’m guessing they embargoed this announcement until today: Severance renewed for Season 3
posted by eirias at 8:30 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

It would definitely be more interesting for Devon's baby, who conveniently already exists, to get wrapped up in the story

I forgot to mention something I (and others) noted way back during Severance's initial airing: The baby is Eleanor, a name related to Helena and Leonore (a past Eagan CEO).
posted by NorthernLite at 8:35 AM on March 21 [3 favorites]

I agree with rikschell. Drummond said the purpose of the goat was to be entombed with a worthy woman and lead her to the spirit of Kier, presumably to resurrect him somehow. MDR is to create a “worthy woman” by isolating the tempers. Presumably they would repeat this process for dead Eagons, creating a goat + woman sacrifice for each of them, ensuring eternal life.
posted by CMcG at 9:20 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]

Helly only popped back in because her outie turned around and walked back in. Mark’s outie would have left with Gemma.
posted by umber vowel at 9:58 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]

The thing we have kept coming back to in our house is the sheer foolishness of anyone who believed there could be any version of Helena Eagan that would be a toothless pushover who did as she was told. She's a fierce barracuda of an individual and anyone who had thought about it for more than two minutes would have anticipated she'd put up a vicious fight for herself in any iteration.

And then after that scene with Jame Eagan saying she had the fire of Kier in her, we were wondering: maybe they did know that would happen and it was part of a plan?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:02 AM on March 21 [3 favorites]

“Eye In The Sky” playing while a spotlight shines on an animatronic Kier?

At first I eye-rolled at the Sirius needle-drop -- while I love me some Parsons, it's so over-used, so clichéd. But in-universe, in the context of Lumon's corporate celebration: it's exactly right. The cheesy music, the corny pre-scripted banter; it's every corporate rah-rah event that you've silently cringed through.

The exit door: it was used as a method of control to break Helly's spirit in S1E1 -- you can't leave because your outie wants you to be here. Arrogant to leave it unlocked, yes -- and I can't imagine that Lumon care much about adherence to fire regulations -- but maybe that speaks to the Board very confidently asserting to Cobel that re-integration isn't possible? All their experiments show that severance is absolute; they cannot conceive that innie and outie could be knowingly colluding; so why bother locking that door when it's the innie/outie switch that is the true barrier there?

And on that: Cobel does know re-integration is possible, but she seemed rocked by the revelation that Irving's outie had been drawing the export hallway. Is Irving special too? Or is severance more permeable than they believe?

Jame's "ah, there she is" to Helly: I feel that's an echo of a phrase the show has used before, but can't remember where.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 10:40 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

Cobel says that oMark won't become iMark on the lower floor, because his chip is only programmed for the Severed floor. Why did it work in the Birthing Suite? There's no way Lumon could have predicted that he would end up there.

The lower floor has no boundary trigger for a severed chip - so Gemma is herself unless she goes into one of the rooms (each one custom-tailored for her chip to produce a distinct innie). Mark reverts to his outie because he leaves the boundary of the severed floor etc. But the birthing suite has a boundary trigger just as the severed floor does - if someone crosses the threshold and has a chip they become their innie. It's not custom to any one person because presumably different women would be using the suite. There was no guarantee it would work when Devon came up with the plan (maybe Lumon employees chips act differently than chips for women giving birth), but Cobel would have known it would work once she was working with them. In theory they could have also went to Woe's Hollow, but it's not clear if that is an "always on" severed boundary or was turned on just for the ORTBO (again Corbel would know). Probably a longer trip than the cabins in any case.
posted by mikepop at 10:41 AM on March 21 [8 favorites]

And on that: Cobel does know re-integration is possible, but she seemed rocked by the revelation that Irving's outie had been drawing the export hallway. Is Irving special too? Or is severance more permeable than they believe?

Another possibility is that someone Irving is working with on the outside gave him info/description of the export hallway, and outie Irving was doing the paintings in an effort to impress the information to his innie.
posted by mikepop at 10:44 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]

Cobel says that oMark won't become iMark on the lower floor, because his chip is only programmed for the Severed floor. Why did it work in the Birthing Suite? There's no way Lumon could have predicted that he would end up there.

I think also there are two generations of the chip. The older generation that is used for the Severed floor has the states of on or off (with some features included like the overtime contingency). Based on the timing of when has been being used for the child births, it makes sense that they used the same chip and didn't have or didn't bother to create different versions of the activation. Though that would have been very awkward had oMark been the one who wandered off for coffee that day instead.

Gemma's chip on the other hand had many states, and so each room was keyed to the signal needed for that person. The hallways and some of the rooms she's in, she was just in her outie state, the same state the oMark is in when he gets off the elevator. Since his older chip wasn't keyed to the specific activation for the rooms on the basement, his state didn't change.

Or at least that was my interpretation!
posted by past unusual at 10:48 AM on March 21 [7 favorites]

I thought Drummond said the goat was going to be entombed with Gemma, I assumed when her role was over they were going to make a ritual sacrifice of her, not that she needed to die as part of the experiment.

If this is in response to my saying we still don't know why door #25 ends in Gemma's death, I meant more in terms of, I guess, in a practical sense. Like we know that they were trying to prove that even the most intense emotions don't permeate the walls between innies and outies, that's clear. And it's clear that because Lumon is a weird cult, they do a weird sacrifice ritual when they're done with their guinea pigs. But we don't know why those 25 and only 25 emotions were tested and what was supposed to happen next with the technology such that it would make Gemma both one of the most important and famous people in history while also no longer of use as an experiment subject.
posted by lampoil at 10:58 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]

I believe when discussing the goat, Drummond said it was for a 'beloved' woman, like the sacrifice of somebody very special in their cult ... when we think about what the doctor said to Gemma, about her being reintroduced to the world or something like that ... maybe the idea was that Gemma would die, all of her innie personas would die, and some new (maybe refined? merged from the 25?) persona would be the one that set foot out into the world in her body. I am not sure how this jives with needing a dead baby goat to bury with .. what? What would they even bury in this case?
posted by destructive cactus at 11:06 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]

Was it Mark or Milchick who watched that?

Mark said he wasn't allowed to watch and sent her around the corner on her own. Milchick was on the other side coaching Helena.

Jame's "ah, there she is" to Helly: I feel that's an echo of a phrase the show has used before, but can't remember where.

I think Milchick used the language with Helly, maybe during the "first casefile completed" scene where he takes her picture?
posted by pwnguin at 11:17 AM on March 21

I don't think killing the goat was just symbolic in the procedure. My weird little mind thought that to complete Gemma's process they needed innocence and purity, a clean slate, that would come from the live baby goat. Only because they didn't complete that part of the process was Gemma able to remotely recognize Mark. She wasn't given purity so she was still permeable. Then she hands him the last two intact pieces of the Col d'Arbor model, 3-in-1 crib we saw Mark destroy in the flashback, but she doesn't complete its destruction. Mark destroyed his through passionate rage, Gemma meticulously deconstructed hers methodically, and then rationally decides to stop. My only remaining question, other than at least one suspected pregnancy, what does all of this have to do with eggs?
posted by Stanczyk at 11:20 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]

I don’t know about you all, but everything with Milchick was 15/10. Calmly pushing the folder across the desk and taking off in a run! Talking with the animatronic Kier, with a laugh track! Wearing spats and dancing with the marching band!
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 11:41 AM on March 21 [21 favorites]

We might be missing an obvious point: Emile could have been not for Gemma but rather for Helena; to ritualistically accompany her terminated consciousness as part of the process of anointing/promoting the more Keir-like Helly to full personhood.

And after two seasons, to discover that the herd of goats kept indoors in a fake pasture on the severed floor was just to breed the right kind of wily specimens for ritual sacrifice? That's a wild, way-too-moneyed-family bananas-flavor of deranged.
posted by zaixfeep at 11:59 AM on March 21 [5 favorites]

Jame's "ah, there she is" to Helly: I feel that's an echo of a phrase the show has used before, but can't remember where.

Ah, the before I was thinking of was dentist Mauer to Gemma.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:06 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]

Also: lactation-consultant Cobel to Devon.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:09 PM on March 21 [4 favorites]

In the first episode Helly couldn't get out the stairwell exit door, she got popped back over and over. Was it Mark or Milchick who watched that? Innies can't get out that way so they're running to the elevator to get him out. No?

The exit door: it was used as a method of control to break Helly's spirit in S1E1 -- you can't leave because your outie wants you to be here.

So I do have a question about this. Helena, once on the outside in the stairwell back in Half Loop, was able to open that door from the outside and go back inside. Gemma, once outside, could not open the door. This seems a little bit like a continuity error, until we think "oh, well, the sirens are going off and people are trying to escape; surely security measures are automated." But if that's the case, shouldn't the door have been locked *on the inside*, so that neither Gemma nor Mark could open it to get out in the first place?
posted by tzikeh at 12:30 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]

Maybe the door was unlocked from the outside for Helena's orientation or Milchick was using his card to access it, but otherwise it is generally locked? I agree though that for a "red alert" it would seem elevators would shut down, doors would lock, etc. On the other hand, if they have never had an issue with security before maybe they ignored security to focus on waffle parties and marching bands.
posted by mikepop at 12:34 PM on March 21

That's a wild, way-too-moneyed-family bananas-flavor of deranged.

They have sparsely populated severed departments that do actual (if evil) work and a literal army of severed showbiz kids. They're completely insane.
posted by Grangousier at 12:55 PM on March 21 [3 favorites]

Did anyone else think of Gollum when Mark was talking to himself? It was interesting but a tiny bit tiresome. Also, I kept wondering why outie Mark never explained that Gemma (as far as we know!) never consented to be severed.

And I also thought that Gemma's trauma was not well articulated. Her outie is in fact another kind of innie, a prisoner, but one who knows she's a prisoner! I still wonder if she's another Eagen, one of the brood Jame mentioned.

Also, what files are the others working on? Feelings of other people? Where are they?

Is it a coincidence that Mark agreed to be severed, or was that somehow part of the plan?
posted by bluedaisy at 12:57 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]

Also, after the second to last episode, I commented to a friend that I hoped the whole show wasn't a set up to a love triangle. But that seems to be where we are? Though my friend said maybe it was better to think that innie Mark chose himself, rather than thinking he chose Helly over Gemma.
posted by bluedaisy at 1:00 PM on March 21 [6 favorites]

I think that Mark and Gemma were cultivated by Lumon as a pair: Gemma to become the test subject, and Mark to be manipulated into working on her file after her "death".

I wondered the same thing about the others and the files they're working on. Perhaps some of the files (like "fear of the dentist") are generic enough that any refiner can handle them, and only the very specific ones like "extremely symbolic crib" are something that only Mark is capable of refining.
posted by confluency at 1:10 PM on March 21 [4 favorites]

fwiw, Britt Lower confirmed in an interview that that was Helly, not Helena. So we needn't worry about that possible twist.
posted by mookieproof at 2:27 PM on March 21 [5 favorites]

I haven't had that kind of shock-laugh since "aw man, I shot Marvin in the face." The Wolf would have been proud of Outie Mark.
posted by whuppy at 3:07 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]

Oh, thanks mookieproof, I really liked that interview.
posted by eirias at 3:11 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]

I keep coming back to all we learned in the brief Helly/Jame scene, including confirmation Jame "has sired" others besides Helena, and the others were all a disappointment, too.

All I could think was, paging "Ricken is an Eagan" theory.

Ricken was born "to renowned performance artists Bob and Grace Hale, known collectively as HumpDumpster" - on the stage of "a small theatre behind a defunct perfumery in Western Oregon", witnessed by "such cultural leaders as Jason Robards, Lina Wertmüller, Walt Frazier, and Oregon Governor Robert W. Straub".
posted by simonw at 3:26 PM on March 21 [10 favorites]

Rewatching. The nature of Gemma's intended fate is, I think, encapsulated in Helly's question "What happens when they extract the chip?"
posted by Grangousier at 3:35 PM on March 21 [3 favorites]

> "Oh - one more cover of The Windmills of Your Mind for your viewing/listening pleasure...."

The muppet version is my canonical version since childhood and I will accept no substitutes.
posted by kyrademon at 3:40 PM on March 21 [5 favorites]

> "But if that's the case, shouldn't the door have been locked *on the inside*"

Fire safety.

I'm serious. I don't care if they're a rich crazy family cult, they're also a business, and if the fire marshal comes by and notes that when an alarm goes off, the doors lock the workers in, that's literally prison time plus a fine with NO upper limit.
posted by kyrademon at 4:02 PM on March 21 [4 favorites]

Also on rewatch: Logan's Run. That's what I was reminded of, I remember now.
posted by Grangousier at 4:26 PM on March 21 [6 favorites]

I’ve seen a lot of people once-bitten-twice-shy about Lost when it comes to this and many other shows, but honestly at this point I think the lesson has been learned — ultimately it was a matter of ABC having a hit on their hands and refusing to give Lindelhof and company so much as a number of seasons they could plan on to work toward an ending, so they were forced to keep watering down the soup until ABC finally relented.

At this point, two seasons in, it feels like we’ve already gotten the bulk of the big mysteries out of the way, so we can focus mainly on character stuff with maybe the occasional revelation about things like “revolving” or maybe “the UUR” is a secret Lumon department or operation or something
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:33 PM on March 21 [6 favorites]

Ricken was born "to renowned performance artists Bob and Grace Hale, known collectively as HumpDumpster" - on the stage of "a small theatre behind a defunct perfumery in Western Oregon", witnessed by "such cultural leaders as Jason Robards, Lina Wertmüller, Walt Frazier, and Oregon Governor Robert W. Straub".

As far as he knows....
posted by tzikeh at 5:03 PM on March 21 [3 favorites]

The “Butch & Sundance” homage of an ending was delightful. Also some fine Saul Bass end credits.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:25 PM on March 21 [11 favorites]

Also one of the songs the marching band plays is distractingly close to the melody of “Bring Me My Bride” from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.”
posted by rmd1023 at 6:59 PM on March 21

The muppet version is my canonical version

Hilariously, that begins with a statement about inside and outside.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:01 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]

Also, what files are the others working on? Feelings of other people? Where are they?

Yes, this!! Mark completed 25 files, and each was an innie for Gemma. I don’t know how many files Dylan completed, but he got tons of finger traps and a waffle party for his productivity. Was he also creating innies? If so, for who? How about when Helly completed her first file? Was it for herself?

I’m of the opinion that only Mark could complete Gemma’s files because of their outies’ relationship, but I don’t see how that works for the rest of MDR. Curious!
posted by ejs at 10:38 PM on March 21 [5 favorites]

Rewatching. The nature of Gemma's intended fate is, I think, encapsulated in Helly's question "What happens when they extract the chip?"

Ohhh, that's interesting; I totally missed this. Maybe it's the chip -- maybe when the process is perfected, they intend to remove the chip (killing the original host) and transplant it into a new recipient: a sort of meta-severance, in which an entirely different person's innies go through the unpleasant process of being "cleansed", which programs the chip hardware, and you get to reap the benefits.

Not sure how this theory intersects with Helena already having a chip, though. Maybe they really do have Kier in a freezer, and he is the intended recipient.

Or maybe fresh chips can be cloned from one "perfect" chip, and the vision is for all of humanity to be "cleansed" -- except for all the severed who already have chips, and whose role is to usher in this new world without ever experiencing it.
posted by confluency at 12:21 AM on March 22 [1 favorite]

I loved how they did the Mark and Mark conversation. I was fully expecting them to both appear in a big white void or "mind palace" somehow but instead they had the conversation in the horribly awkward way that it had to happen, and the editing was perfect.

I don’t know about you all, but everything with Milchick was 15/10. Calmly pushing the folder across the desk and taking off in a run!

I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought of Zoidberg.
posted by mmoncur at 1:04 AM on March 22 [3 favorites]

They have a department that can analyse the chips to a sophisticated level - they were able to tell that Petey had been reintegrated, for example. I assumed that Gemma was carrying the v2 beta chip, which they would then analyse and use what they've learned for the next development chip, or possibly take it into production. It is a major upgrade, as it's able to generate at least 25 separate and discrete personalities.

The hoo-hah suggests they're a long way into the process, but they have a lot of goats and could do a bunch more development.

(Or as the mice say when they declare they want to buy Arthur Dent's brain, although it can be scanned electronically, it first needs to be prepared, treated and diced.)

Also: Did Milchick transfer to management from Choreography and Merriment? It would explain a lot about his personality and love of showbiz. Also, it seems that he wasn't in control of Kier's lines during the animatronic roast bit (and was largely reading his own from cue cards), so I wonder what was going on there.
posted by Grangousier at 3:33 AM on March 22 [3 favorites]

god I didn’t put it together until someone spelled it out for me, but Gemma has no way of knowing Mark is severed, so she basically just watches him run away with another woman, with no context at all for what’s happening
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:54 AM on March 22 [15 favorites]

“Is there a sign on this elevator that says “Dead Drummond Storage”?!?
posted by whuppy at 5:04 AM on March 22 [2 favorites]

I called Irving having a Han Solo moment, but it turns out to have been Dylan (and Zach Cherry actually cited Han Solo on the podcast. So half credit for me!)
posted by whuppy at 5:51 AM on March 22 [6 favorites]

Yes, Helly screaming to the marching band "Can I get some help?!" and then a cut to Dylan looking chuffed after a big lift from his outie's letter, storming down the hall ready to face Milchick down for the second season finale in a row! I squealed.
posted by grog at 7:21 AM on March 22 [3 favorites]

So who was controlling the animatronic Kier? The venom in "Seth" reminded me of how Irv said it in the ORTBO, but obviously (?) it couldn't have been him.
posted by johnxlibris at 7:29 AM on March 22 [1 favorite]

I know you're asking about in-universe, but IRL they revealed on the podcast that Ben Stiller operated the animatron, and the actor who normally plays Kier did the voice.

A robot voice that sounds like a dead man but saying new things is something that we have the technology for now in the real world, so I don't think it necessarily points to anything in particular. But it being Lumon, I bet the in-universe answer is either something really spooky or something really cheesy.
posted by lampoil at 7:47 AM on March 22 [2 favorites]

I'd said earlier the show felt like it had gotten a bit in the weeds on the cult/corporation stuff, and I'm sticking with that assessment. This is the kind of show that's made to appeal to role playing/mystery gamers. Which is fine, if that's your thing, but loses focus, IMO. Too much of the show is exposition, only requiring more exposition. Stuff like goats and Cobel's past are interesting, but don't add much. Seems the only way those elements become more relevant would be to lean into the cult wackiness next season. The way things are going, I'm half expecting Mark and Helly to end up being half siblings next season, because cults and stuff, of course. Much of the weirdness so far is unnecessary to the core concepts we've gotten through our main protagonists, Mark, Helly, Dylan and Irving.

I've been loving the casting. Particularly the cameos like Dr. Benson and Nurse Bernhard, Jane Alexander and Bob Balaban.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:42 AM on March 22 [2 favorites]

Stoned Saturday Morning Severance Theory: Lumon isn't a cult. It's the modern, corporate face of the medieval church in a world where the Enlightenment never happened. It owns the myths, it keeps the knowledge, it writes history itself, and it is now and has ever been the tool and mouthpiece of the ownership class. Severance seems like an attractive option because grinding neofeudalism slapped with a coat of cheerful capitalist paint is the alternative.

OTOH, I could just be really high and projecting
posted by BitterOldPunk at 11:05 AM on March 22 [7 favorites]

Re: the Sirius needle drop, I'm always in favor. Would also have accepted Jane.
posted by emelenjr at 11:15 AM on March 22 [1 favorite]

So fun to see a bit of iDylan coming through in his outie… “what you did with her was deeply fucking indecorous.” L.O.L.

On rewatch, I also have to note the perfect and hilarious timing in this brief convo between iMark and Ms Casey, when they come to in the middle of a kiss:
- Mark S.
- Ms Casey.
- What’s taking place?
- Um. [just gives up]

Even when this show’s pacing is slow or uneven, I watch for the laughs, the acting, and the cinematography. This finale was phenomenal on all three, and ran at an explosive speed as well. So good.
posted by torticat at 1:01 PM on March 22 [9 favorites]

Also, Mark S and Helly's "See you at the equator"...

So much Eternal Sunshine, so heartbreaking!
posted by torticat at 1:07 PM on March 22 [4 favorites]

Upthread I wondered how they were going to pick up the narrative, and what Helly and Mark S. were running towards other than certain danger.

But now it occurs to me how Season 3, Episode 1 could start: Helly has recruited an army of innies, and there's a hostage standoff. They're in a position to make demands. They're holding Milchick hostage, but they're also holding their outies hostage, and it's not clear how that could resolve itself to the innies’ satisfaction.

It feels foolish to do anything like that on Lumon’s home turf — it's their building, they control everything — but the overtime protocol controls were themselves on the severed floor and didn't seem to have any redundancy. Lumon could cut power to the entire floor, but it's not hard to think up reasons that they wouldn't want to do that (work would be lost; Kier’s frozen brain would thaw; you get the idea).

I've said it before, but: it's refreshing that Lumon is not the sort of omnipotent enemy you see in so much conspiracy-slanted fiction. They may think they can do anything and make anyone disappear, but they can't. The mistakes they've made to allow their adversaries to gain the upper hand are… somewhat careless, but not implausibly so.

Benson & Bernhard run away and say “get Drummond!” when confronted with an aggressor because they're scientists, not fighters. The plan is for Drummond to be the enforcer, and there isn't a plan B.

It would've been annoying if there was no security on the Cold Harbor door, but it makes tons of plot sense that there's just a biometric lock that can be bypassed in an unusual and unforeseen way.

It would've been annoying if (as I thought would happen) Mark S. could somehow gain access to the testing floor elevator even though the door is key-carded (and it was annoying that Harmony never had a plan for that!), but it simply wasn't envisioned that anyone would be able to subdue Drummond and take him hostage. Incredibly lucky, but plausible.

This is why they kept the innies on isolated teams: innies have leverage, and when they team up it quickly becomes a fair fight.
posted by savetheclocktower at 1:25 PM on March 22 [1 favorite]

I got a weird cremaster cycle vibe from this episode.
posted by The River Ivel at 1:32 PM on March 22 [6 favorites]

it simply wasn't envisioned that anyone would be able to subdue Drummond and take him hostage. Incredibly lucky, but plausible.

And use his blood on the end of a tie to get into the Cold Harbor room!! The way the plotting of this whole thing was laid out was really fun. Lots of luck involved, but also... the way iMark and oMark worked sequentially to get Gemma out was pretty complex, yet it all made sense.
posted by torticat at 2:10 PM on March 22 [7 favorites]

This is why they kept the innies on isolated teams: innies have leverage, and when they team up it quickly becomes a fair fight.

Stealth pro-unionisation message right there.
posted by Molesome at 2:11 PM on March 22 [8 favorites]

Dr Fedora: god I didn’t put it together until someone spelled it out for me, but Gemma has no way of knowing Mark is severed, so she basically just watches him run away with another woman, with no context at all for what’s happening

I had this thought too, however Dichen confirmed in an interview that Gemma did realise Mark was severed at that point.

savetheclocktower and it was annoying that Harmony never had a plan for that!
At the risk of going full conspriracy-nut.. that's very off-brand for Harmony. If there's one thing she'd have on lock it would be the expected security barriers (at least as they existed prior to her departure).

If we assume she's competent, then that implies she.. wanted Mark to fail? Why? What benefit could she see from that outcome?
posted by coriolisdave at 5:07 PM on March 22 [1 favorite]

I have no trouble believing the cult side. I mean, you think it's lack of interest that has led to Zuckerberg not having a cult deep inside Meta?
posted by meese at 6:19 PM on March 22

Last episode of the show:

Adam Scott, in bed, says "I had the weirdest dream" to Amy Poehler.
posted by zippy at 6:59 PM on March 22 [13 favorites]

Gemma has no way of knowing Mark is severed

There are public protests about the severed process, so it's possible Gemma knew about it before she was disappeared by Lumon.

Since then, outie Gemma has had two years of daily experience walking into weird rooms and immediately exiting them with sore hands, a sore jaw, or some other physical manifestation of her having done something, so she at least knows that Lumon doors mess with your consciousness.
posted by zippy at 7:20 PM on March 22 [1 favorite]

My favorite part of this episode: the rapid cuts between innies and outies. Mark's conversation with himself, then the horror of Mark / Gemma living various permutations of their personalities.

But mostly I didn't like season 2. This show is too high on its own formalisms. As someone said upthread, "These puzzle box shows always end collapsing into incoherence". We're halfway there already. At least the baby goat is cuter than Lost's polar bear.
posted by Nelson at 7:21 PM on March 22

And then after that scene with Jame Eagan saying she had the fire of Kier in her, we were wondering: maybe they did know that would happen and it was part of a plan?

There's a story involving a certain MeFi mod about watching Succession instead of Severance and being confused. Well, I'm not so sure they're so very different shows anymore =)
posted by pwnguin at 7:24 PM on March 22 [1 favorite]

There are public protests about the severed process, so it's possible Gemma knew about it before she was disappeared by Lumon.

Episode 2 of this season disagrees. When discussing Mark's return to Lumon, Milchick plainly states the order of events:

Milchick: My third question concerns your late wife, Gemma.
Mark: What about her?
Milchick: In your intake interview, you cited her death as a primary motivator for severing.
Milchick: Do you remember what you said?
Mark: No.
Milchick: You said since she died, every day feels like a year.
posted by pwnguin at 7:30 PM on March 22 [1 favorite]

Sorry, I didn't mean Gemma knew about Mark
being severed, just that she knew about severance in general and could guess that the Mark who pushed her through the door and choose Helly was severed.
posted by zippy at 8:01 PM on March 22 [2 favorites]

I agree though that for a "red alert" it would seem elevators would shut down, doors would lock, etc.

That's a big problem with all of this in general: the complete lack of any seemingly any security. Lumon has no surveillance on these floors? No way to remotely shut down elevators or lock the doors? The entire security plan consists solely of calling Mr. Drummond? Even if you say they can't have guards due to secrecy there are a million automated ways you could secure these floors. Why is this area with the elevator and the goat room even accessible at all from the general severed floor? I know the hand-wave answer is that Lumon never expected Innies to try anything, but they do lock some doors and the elevator door is locked so clearly there is some concept of keeping areas secure from the general Innies. It just doesn't make sense.
posted by star gentle uterus at 9:20 PM on March 22 [2 favorites]

Finally, from that Dan Erickson interview linked above:

“Hey, you’re not going to leave us hanging the way Lost did, are you?” I try really hard not to point at mysteries that I know I’m not going to answer. There are things, of course, that are happening on the show that are there to build out and enrich the world, and we’re not going to go through and explain the genesis of all those things and take the fun out.

But this is exactly what people hated about Lost!

It kept piling on bullshit (e.g., the polar bear) that never bore out which became increasingly frustrating. You can only take Weird For the Sake of Being Weird so far. I actually liked this episode but this kind of attitude makes me worried about them sticking the series finale.
posted by star gentle uterus at 9:33 PM on March 22

star gentle uterus: "t kept piling on bullshit (e.g., the polar bear) that never bore out which became increasingly frustrating."

I don't take it that way! I feel like the polar bear is definitely something that Lost “point[ed] at” — in the sense that they showed it to us, showed that the inhabitants of the island recognized it as an oddity, and pretty clearly set it up as a mystery that had a specific answer and promise of a later payoff.

And, honestly, I think this season helped establish some trust in that regard. I wasn't expecting to learn so soon what Macrodata Refinement actually was — and, though it wasn't 100% explained, we pretty much got that payoff. I wasn't expecting to see the testing floor itself a few episodes ago. It really does feel like they're solving old mysteries more quickly than they're creating new ones.
posted by savetheclocktower at 10:28 PM on March 22 [4 favorites]

star gentle uterus: "Also, so much of the mystery is artificial. That is, it's not a mystery because the characters can't know things, it's a mystery because they intentionally speak in vague riddles, don't ask questions, and don't follow up when told things."

With the above said: yes, this bugs me. Harmony knows so much more than she says. They could at least try to lampshade why she's so reticent, and why people around her tolerate that from her.
posted by savetheclocktower at 10:29 PM on March 22 [1 favorite]

People talking at crossed purposes, not sharing a completely agreed upon vocabulary, or being extremely guarded in what they say to avoid disclosing details they feel their subordinates shouldn't be made aware of is completely in keeping with my 25+ years experience in corporate environments.

The lower you are down the ladder, the less you know and think to query, assuming people above you are smarter and better informed. The latter maybe, the former rarely. But it's difficult to interrogate C-suite when your career depends on keeping them sweet.
posted by Molesome at 12:32 AM on March 23 [10 favorites]

so much of the mystery is artificial

It's all artificial. It's a story.
posted by Grangousier at 3:28 AM on March 23 [9 favorites]

I love the weird and surrealist elements of the show. I think it would be much less interesting if it just played the premise completely straight.

This is also why I liked Upload: it wasn't just set in a generic near future; it was set in an absurd capitalist dystopia, and the throwaway satirical references were the best part of the show.
posted by confluency at 4:23 AM on March 23 [2 favorites]

Huh, Confluency, I didn’t see the parallels between Upload and Severance until now, but Upload is almost “what if Severance were a comedy?” It grapples with a BUNCH of the same themes. And if you like the Mark S./Helly/Mark Scout/Gemma Scout love quadrangle, it kind of has one of those too!
posted by rednikki at 5:31 AM on March 23 [2 favorites]

It's all artificial. It's a story.

Thank you for this brilliant insight. I clarified exactly what I meant by "artificial" in my comment, but I guess I should be clearer:

It's bad writing. In a well-written story mystery and uncertainty develop organically within the story due to circumstances that have been set up. For example, the characters don't know what something does because currently in the story they have no means of knowing it and are trying o find out.

Severance isn't doing this right now. It's "artificial" in that they could, in the story as it is right now, know much more but are written to just not ask or pursue it despite having both strong motivation and access to people with that information. It's a kind of bad writing that wants the aura of a mystery without doing the work of setting it up.
posted by star gentle uterus at 7:47 AM on March 23 [5 favorites]

But it's difficult to interrogate C-suite when your career depends on keeping them sweet.

But this isn't a corporate meeting. They've snuck into these cabins to hatch a scheme to break into Lumon HQ and extract Gemma from their secret experiments. Staying in Lumon's good graces stopped being a concern for anyone involved a long time ago.

And they have Cobel who, as shockingly revealed recently, was not only the original floor manager overseeing these projects but the actual creator of the severance procedure. We the audience already know she knows a great deal about what's going on, including what Cold Harbor is.

The only reason Mark doesn't know is that he's written to just not ask or press too hard when Cobel gives her weird half-answers.
posted by star gentle uterus at 7:52 AM on March 23 [2 favorites]

Ok some speculation - earlier, Burt explains that he underwent severance in hopes of creating an innocent half of himself that could go to heaven with Fields despite having been a hell-bound sinner in his youth.

So, Mark has created twenty five innies for Gemma. According to Burt’s theology, when Gemma dies, what happens to those innies? Do twenty five new good souls end up in heaven? Do the twenty five’s goodness, innocence, and purity outweigh any sins of Gemma’s outie and sorta drag her soul to heaven by weight of numbers? Like is the world-historical importance of Mark S. that Lumon is creating a technology to save any person from eternal torment and pain in hell, by endowing them with several good innie versions?

Drummond is preparing an animal sacrifice in a sort of Egyptian mode - like you will take your grave goods with you to make a new better existence in the afterlife. Is the goat supposed to serve as a spirit guide for Helena, outie Gemma, or twenty five innie Gemmas?
posted by rustcrumb at 9:23 AM on March 23 [2 favorites]

I think we have the reasons for Cobel being reticent in front of us - she still cares about Lumon or at least the Kier 'philosophy'; she cares about the severance procedure that she invented, and she wants it to continue. She still sees innie Mark as a 'little person' or not a person at all.

She's not in 'burn it all down' mode; she's in 'the people currently running the show have treated me poorly and I will do what I can to upend their reign' mode. She wanted to be running the severed floor again but realized that it wasn't possible due to those in power - because of this, she thinks they themselves don't deserve to be running the show. Sure, she might think how she was treated growing up is bad, but it's also been her entire life - she knows nothing else; severance is her life's work; the severed floor and Lumon is how she continues that and potentially actually gets recognized for it.

So, we may not know the entirety of her plan, but she sure as hell isn't going to tell everything she knows to these people that have been her experiment subjects this whole time. They're for being observed, not equals to share information with. She doesn't care about saving Gemma, but the act of saving Gemma is the disruption she can use to potentially achieve her goals.

As for Mark and Devon not just asking her for more details outright, in the beginning Mark tried and even started refusing to work with her, but Devon pragmatically realized that Cobel is their way to achieve this goal, not get answers from, and also if she IS right, they don't have much time.
posted by destructive cactus at 9:24 AM on March 23 [4 favorites]

The only reason Mark doesn't know is that he's written to just not ask or press too hard when Cobel gives her weird half-answers.

Because he is still scared of her and too used to the oblique way people in Lumen talk. I didn’t have a problem with this at all. It is very much like the way adult children can regress when talking to their parents. Perhaps you’ve never had a work or familial relationship like that, but I totally understood being a bit too paralyzed to ask too many questions.
posted by rednikki at 9:29 AM on March 23 [5 favorites]

And oMark hasn’t impressed me as a highly assertive person…he’s been depressed for years and had gone as far as undergoing severance to even further disconnect from the pain of Gemma’s loss. So I think it’s kind of in character for him to not entirely step up in his interactions with Cobel.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 9:51 AM on March 23

The only thing not working in this show is people's expectations. It's not a mystery box, it's a mysterious box. Not the same thing at all!

Not everything is a puzzle that needs to be worked out. A story is not a theorem. Ambiguity and uncertainty are not synonymous with bad writing, that's just silly. If the show is not for you that's fine, but not every show you don't like is objectively bad.

(Fwiw the polar bear in Lost came thru the magical portal to the Arctic that the characters also used later in the show).
posted by grog at 9:51 AM on March 23 [10 favorites]

Regarding Lost, the biggest problem they had was that they came up with a system and conclusion that they liked when making the show. Then two things happened:

The commentariat guessed it and mocked it mercilessly. It was probably a terrible ending idea.
They found some good new characters that carried the show into new funding sources, and dragged it out a couple more seasons into open-ended territory.

Mrs. Davis worked because they devised it as a self-contained mini-series. It was some ten or so hours of storytelling that kept peeling off layers and turning them inside out and putting them back on until finally the whole thing was complete and you felt like you'd been through something amazing.

Severance feels more like Mrs. Davis than it does Lost or Twin Peaks or The X Files. Everything in S2 paid off from stuff in S1, and filled in gaps without darting out in new directions just to keep the keys jangling in front of our faces. It was all character-driven, and even though my teenager was screaming at the screen during the end, it felt like exactly where the story needed to be.

I agree with grog that this stuff can be mysterious and remain strange. We don't have to learn why there's a territory with a PE postal abbreviation, but also still has Montana and Minnesota and Delaware. Maybe we don't learn why the cars are all old despite snowy salt-road conditions: it was just done for style. Maybe Turturo and Walken won't return for another year and we just deal with it. It's a TV show and a story about human reactions to trauma and grief and imprisonment, and not a "solve the puzzle: win a prize" game.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 10:34 AM on March 23 [7 favorites]

kyrademon, I originally picked the song as a piece to play on the piano due to the Muppet Show version. My piano teacher was horrified at the pace I tried to play it, and my mother was furious at me for trying to explain why I did that to her.

I haven't played the piano in nearly four decades as a result.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 10:41 AM on March 23

That's a big problem with all of this in general: the complete lack of any seemingly any security. Lumon has no surveillance on these floors?

I've been thinking about this too. We can see cameras (and monitors linked to cameras) covering sections of M&R, hallways, and the conference room where Helly R first wakes up. And Graner (rest in Kier) had a whole security room with a bank of monitors.

But the show only uses surveillance when it suits the story. In one episode we see that Mark's terminal sends a realtime camera feed of his face to another floor, but in this episode he and Helly R plot to free Gemma and sabotage the Cold Harbor project while sitting at their desks, and Lumon isn't aware of it.

Of security personnel the only ones I remember seeing so far are: Milchick, Graner, the elevator guard who wands outies before they enter, Drummond, and the unnamed enforcer/limo driver standing behind Helena Egan when she meets Mrs. Selvig in the parking lot. Irving B and Burt G also let us know that there's a group of goons who disappear people.

I like to imagine Lumon is just incompetent due to bureaucracy and department infighting, combined with overconfidence in the clearly broken severance process, and the incompetence of their security (Dylan gaining
control of the security office and flipping the OTC switch, Graner maybe getting murdered, M&R innies visiting multiple departments without a need to, Gemma escaping from her floor, etc).
posted by zippy at 11:37 AM on March 23

Lumon security also seems to fail when the underestimate the Innies.
posted by armacy at 12:31 PM on March 23 [1 favorite]

So I do think the show has been good about explaining some things while leaving other things mysterious for now. We understand a lot more about what MDR are doing now. We don't know exactly why the Eagans consider it to be so important, but it seems to have something to do with an elimination of pain as expressed by the tempers.

I also think that the only thing that matters is that the characters emotional journey feels earned, and the stakes clearly established, and that has definitely been true. The interesting questions raised here all make sense even if we don't fully know the villains motivations.

All that said, I do think that the fact that characters just simply let both Cobel and Reghabi get away with just not explaining themselves again and again feels lazy. Both of them clearly know a lot more than we the audience do, and appear to sometimes withhold information more because the writer doesn't want us to know yet rather than it feels well motivated. Reghabi in particular knew that Gemma was alive for the whole of season 1 but didn't ever seem to think that this fact might motivate Mark to be more compliant
posted by Cannon Fodder at 12:42 PM on March 23 [4 favorites]

It's a TV show and a story about human reactions to trauma and grief and imprisonment, and not a "solve the puzzle: win a prize" game.

I'd disagree, it's both, and Severance very much leaned into the latter in this second season. Which has been my complaint. No doubt many viewers actually like the latter aspect, and it keeps them watching. But I've always found this kind of storytelling in scifi to be detrimental to the kind of storytelling that appeals to me.

There's a limit to mystery for me. Old cars and monochrome CRTs mixing with smart phones are fine. Please, don't explain.

Then you find goats, for example. Why? Because they're needed for the sacrifice. Why? At that point, I feel they're pulling stuff out of their ass, in a more manipulative way that can go on forever, as long as the show goes on, hoping to create engagement among viewers. At this point, they're introducing elements they really want viewers to have explained. Once you're on that route, it had better be airtight, because if it isn't, it'll be picked apart, and really detract from what is presumably the core of the story.

Like I mentioned in the post in an earlier episode, there's plenty to mine about how people react to this unique version of work/life separation. I find the rest getting a little too distracting.
posted by 2N2222 at 1:00 PM on March 23 [1 favorite]

And they have Cobel who, as shockingly revealed recently, was not only the original floor manager overseeing these projects but the actual creator of the severance procedure. We the audience already know she knows a great deal about what's going on, including what Cold Harbor is.

I don't know why a woman who had her ideas stolen from her would be forthcoming about details regarding severance to a subject she was recently experimenting on*. O-Mark is an avoidant personality that seems to be always looking for ways to not discuss or participate in things. I don't think he cares about details as long as he can get his wife back.

*This includes both Marks.
posted by oneirodynia at 1:47 PM on March 23 [1 favorite]

This show has been has been extremely consistent in its style, pacing, language choices, and the ways information has been revealed, and what information is revealed. It's okay not to enjoy the style but that doesn't make it "bad writing". If the last few episodes somehow wrapped up every little detail about every question viewers thought needed resolution, it would be fake as fuck and would quite frankly piss me off. The makers of this show have been saying since the first season that not everything is going to be explained, and certainly not to everyone's complete satisfaction. It's okay to be mysterious and unsolved- something I was reminded of while rewatching episodes of the Twilight Zone, a show chock full of messages about the human condition, and tons of unsolved mysteries. It's not the destination, it's the journey. If that's not appealing, that's okay too.
posted by oneirodynia at 1:58 PM on March 23 [3 favorites]

Also, so much of the mystery is artificial. That is, it's not a mystery because the characters can't know things, it's a mystery because they intentionally speak in vague riddles, don't ask questions, and don't follow up when told things.

When Cobel started to describe that MDR was doing, OutieMark and/or Innie Mark should have grabbed her and screamed WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, TELL ME EXACTLY, SPECIFICALLY WHAT'S GOING ON, WHAT WE WERE DOING, WHAT'S HAPPENING TO GEMMA, AND WHAT SPECIFICALLY COLD HARBOR IS AND DOES

From the viewer's perspective it's frustrating that Cobel is being oblique, but to me, it makes sense from an in-universe perspective. Cobel is a corporate middle manager who has allegedly had ideas stolen from her before. It stands to reason that she would be as tight-lipped as possible, and not give away information for free. Plus, she tells them enough to run with. iMark's refinement work is creating the severed identity for the Cold Harbor trial, and after that trial is complete, Gemma and iMark will be disposed of. That's plenty. (And we can piece together certain other clues ourselves. We see from the current generation of severance chips that they aren't perfect. It's even used as a feature here. iMark's memories of Gemma are somehow subtly able to bleed through enough to make him the best MDR refiner for her files. And Irving two halves are able to communicate to some extent through dreams or dreamlike imagery. Meanwhile, Gemma's chip is apparently far more advanced than the current severance chip. It can hold at least 25 distinct severed personalities with a bulletproof firewall between them and the outie identity. )

Knowing Lumon's ultimate purpose might satisfy both Marks's curiosity but it wouldn't change the mission. It's also possible that Cobel's knowledge is incomplete. She knows how severance works, she has a general idea of what Lumon hopes to accomplish, but she may not know all the details, or might be completely mistaken as to the company's ultimate aim. Thinking back when I worked as a floor manager I would often get last minute calls from upper management for various pointless statistical reports that would take hours to generate and were almost certainly intended as nothing more but bulk filler for their own likely unread reports to their bosses, and so ad infinitum. But I didn't know for sure, because I wasn't informed. Nobody wanted my input, just my output. When we hear "The work is mysterious and important" on this show, it sounds like so much bullshit because it probably is -- just a way for the utterer to insinuate that they are privy to those allegedly important mysteries whether or not they actually are, without having to prove anything. In fact it was first intoned by iMark way back in S1E4, and he knew jack shit.

In any case, it doesn't matter. Mark is already all in because he wants to save Gemma, full stop. iMark is guardedly in because he's smart enough to realize that a willful work slowdown would be quickly detected, and risks retaliation. At worst Kier would either kill him and/or Helly if they fail to fulfill their functions expeditiously .
posted by xigxag at 3:28 PM on March 23 [1 favorite]

The one time Outie Mark really pressed Mrs. Selvig for an answer about Gemma, she tried to run him over with her car. So she's not exactly the full disclosure sort.
posted by zippy at 4:55 PM on March 23 [2 favorites]

Then you find goats, for example. Why? Because they're needed for the sacrifice. Why? At that point, I feel they're pulling stuff out of their ass, in a more manipulative way that can go on forever, as long as the show goes on, hoping to create engagement among viewers. At this point, they're introducing elements they really want viewers to have explained. Once you're on that route, it had better be airtight, because if it isn't, it'll be picked apart, and really detract from what is presumably the core of the story.

Is it really so difficult to believe that a massive corporation that is also a full blown cult run by delusional zealots would be willing to spend money on stupid things?

Facebook spent 40 billion dollars on the metaverse with no result. Look at all the bullshit that Elon has spent his billions on - the hyperloop project in particular is an idiotic pipedream that would make no sense even if the engineering worked, which it doesn't. He flung a car into space. Sam Altman is simultaneously supercharging generative AI while shouting that AI will kill us all.

By comparison, paying 20 people to raise goats as pyschopomps for a couple of years or severing an entire marching band is, frankly, nothing.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:16 PM on March 23 [8 favorites]

It's not the first time a religious group has specifically bred sacrificial animals.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:20 PM on March 23

While we're on the goats, if you zoom in on Emile's white altar / cradle in the scene where Drummond gets the gun, you can see Lumon hieroglyphs on the pedestal illustrating the steps of prayer, sacrifice, and ascendance of the soul.
posted by zippy at 7:46 PM on March 23

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Severance: Cold Harbor
March 20, 2025 6:01 PM - Season 2, Episode 10 - Subscribe

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Severance: Cold Harbor March 20, 2025 6:01 PM - Season 2, Episode 10 - Subscribe

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Severance: Cold Harbor
March 20, 2025 6:01 PM - Season 2, Episode 10 - Subscribe