‘Severance’ Season 2 Finale Mailbag. Plus, an Interview With Series Creator Dan Erickson.

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Speaker 1 Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joyna Robinson.

Speaker 2 I'm Rob Mahoney.

Speaker 1 And here we are, Rob. It's our last Severance podcast.
Are you sure the next time there's more Severance?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I feel like we're going to get roped back in at some point. Our innnies will be activated, or I guess maybe we're the Innnies.
Either way, we will be back.

Speaker 2 You will be back in the void inevitably talking about Severance. I feel like it's,

Speaker 2 we cannot stay out.

Speaker 1 Wow, you're dooming me to a future of the void.

Speaker 1 I don't know what to say about that. Okay, listen.
What are are we here to do today, Rob?

Speaker 1 We are here to answer a lot of email questions that we have, wrap up some things, some questions, some prevailing theories,

Speaker 1 you know, just tie a tidy little bow on this entire Orpo experience that we have shared together here in Severance Season 2.

Speaker 2 A notoriously tidy finale. All questions answered.
Everything resolved. No conflicted feelings for anybody.

Speaker 1 Clear as crystal, I think, Rob, as they say.

Speaker 1 Also in this episode, and we're about to get to it in a second, second, Dan Erickson, creator of Severance, was kind enough to sit down and talk to us for a little while about some of our most pressing questions.

Speaker 1 Again, we asked questions like sort of character-based questions, and he did a great job answering those questions. I thought really

Speaker 1 enhanced our experience with the finale. So we're going to listen to that interview first.

Speaker 1 Usually we pop interviews at the end of an episode, but as I was telling Rob before he started recording, I already spent an entire episode saying, wait till you hear what Dan says about this one.

Speaker 1 So we're not going to make you wait. Dan Erickson interview is going to kick off the episode, and then we'll be back to answer

Speaker 1 definitively with 100% certainty.

Speaker 2 No doubts. All of your severance questions.

Speaker 1 We have all of the answers for you. Anything you want to say before our interview with Dan? Rob?

Speaker 2 Just that I very much appreciate the Severance Sickos coming out in full force after this finale.

Speaker 2 It's been amazing all season, getting emails from people at pineapplebobbing at gmail.com, prestige TV at Spotify.com, but they were in rare form, Joe. People were excited to talk about the finale.

Speaker 2 They had many, many ideas about where things were going to go in season three.

Speaker 2 They had a lot of thoughts about some of the visual reference cues that we asked for coming out of the last podcast, which I very much appreciate. They delivered on all fronts, I will say.

Speaker 2 Now it's Dan's turn to deliver, and then our turn to deliver in the answering of all these questions.

Speaker 1 We got, and I kept count. I don't know if you were keeping track.

Speaker 2 We'd be scared to know.

Speaker 1 Over a thousand emails between Friday and now.

Speaker 2 Holy shit.

Speaker 1 And just about that visual reference question alone,

Speaker 1 we got 300 emails.

Speaker 1 So you guys are incredible. And we will talk about all those visual references.

Speaker 1 The visual reference emails were just coming fast and furious, and it was incredible. We did ask for it, and we got it.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 let's start with a conversation with Dan Erickson.

Speaker 2 Well, the finale gave us a lot to chew on, to say the least.

Speaker 2 But I was hoping to start with the two versions of Mark that finally have a chance to interact in, well, more or less in person, I guess, the closest they're going to get to in person.

Speaker 2 And I guess what we see of their relationship up front is pretty adversarial.

Speaker 2 And I was wondering what you were trying to capture in this first exchange between the two Marks and why it goes so differently for them relative to, say, the two Dylans who are ultimately able to be a little bit more cordial with each other.

Speaker 3 Yeah, well, I think that there's been this building sense over the course of really the whole series so far

Speaker 3 that E. Mark is becoming aware of the degree to which his whole existence is kind of

Speaker 3 being used. You know,

Speaker 3 he

Speaker 3 sort of is there to serve a purpose.

Speaker 3 The understanding has always kind of been that he himself is not a person.

Speaker 3 He's there to sort of as an appendage for his Audi.

Speaker 3 And so I think that

Speaker 3 there is a little bit of an immediate sense of wonder upon actually getting to talk to this version of himself that he's always wondered about, but it sort of quickly is replaced by this distrust and this kind of

Speaker 3 this sense that,

Speaker 3 you know, what does this guy want from me? Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I think that that

Speaker 3 it really comes to a head, of course, when Audi Mark makes the very, very dumb decision to

Speaker 3 mispronounce Helly's name. And I think to me, that's a turning point where suddenly it becomes, okay,

Speaker 3 this Joker doesn't have my best interest in mind.

Speaker 1 Would you say something similar is going on for Helly inside of this episode? Because I feel like previously in the season, we saw her very like pro, let's rescue Gemma, let's do this.

Speaker 1 You know, we have to do this.

Speaker 1 And I know that we've heard her talk about feeling like

Speaker 1 not considered to be a human by Helena. She dresses me like I'm a baby, all this sort of stuff like that.
So in that moment, when she goes and runs to find Mark at the end of the episode,

Speaker 1 what is her intent? What's on her mind there?

Speaker 3 You know, I'm not sure she herself knows in that moment, like what why she's going. I think that she knows that she wants to see Mark one more time.

Speaker 3 But I also think that it's different from the last moment they had had, where I think they were both kind of accepting that, you know, this is probably their last time together.

Speaker 3 You know, there probably is not a life to be had here the way that Mark said in season one. I think that they sort of make a kind of peace with that.
But then that...

Speaker 3 To me, that changes in

Speaker 3 the moment where,

Speaker 3 you know, Dylan shows shows up and pushes the vending machine, and Heli is able to kind of rally this weird marching band a little bit.

Speaker 3 And I don't know if it's conscious for her, but to me, it feels like that reawakens this sense of fight where it's like, you know what?

Speaker 3 Maybe we don't have to write this off. Maybe there is something.

Speaker 3 Maybe there is more power here for us than we think. And in that power, maybe there's the promise of a life.
And so I don't think she knows exactly what she wants

Speaker 3 when she goes there. And I don't know that either she or Mark understands what they're running toward when they run off.
But they're running away from that door because that door is non-existence.

Speaker 3 That door means they are giving up their lives in service of their Audi's lives. And they are not willing to do that anymore.

Speaker 2 Well, there has been so much longing between Heli and Mark this season, who have been ships in the night, narratively speaking, on and off the severed floor.

Speaker 2 They're rarely kind of in the same places at the same time, it feels like. But you could say a lot of the same about the MDR team on the whole.

Speaker 2 And I'm curious for you, what did we learn and kind of what were you trying to express in pulling these characters apart, the kind of core MDR team over the course of the season and having them all be in such different places fundamentally?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Well,

Speaker 3 you know, one of my favorite moments in season one is, which sort of happened organically, almost by accident.

Speaker 3 It wasn't in the script, but it's it's after Dylan tackles Milchik after the music dance experience, and the others sort of pull him up and they sort of just form, make this formation behind him, where it's the four of them all kind of holding him and supporting him.

Speaker 3 And it was sort of this just magical little moment that just happened. And I realized like this is this, this is the story about this unit of four people coming together and

Speaker 3 learning who they are as a group.

Speaker 3 And in doing so, getting more of a sense of who they are as individuals. But then to me, it just felt like this season, the next stage of that exploration was what happens when you rip them apart.

Speaker 3 And that happens, you know, physically.

Speaker 3 We get Irving taken away.

Speaker 3 But also, you know,

Speaker 3 Lumen creates fissures in the relationships.

Speaker 3 You know, Mark and Helly are tested. Helly and Dylan are tested.
you know, Dylan and Irving are tested, and ultimately they lose Irving.

Speaker 3 And I think that in a show that's all about identity and finding out who you are, you know,

Speaker 3 the relationships that

Speaker 3 you lose or

Speaker 3 that are tested are just as important as the ones that you find. And both of those things

Speaker 3 end up defining you as an individual. So it was just all kind of

Speaker 3 part of the development of each of them as a characters.

Speaker 1 You mentioned losing Irving. We see Totoro,

Speaker 1 you know, on the train in the Penalton episode.

Speaker 1 And if this is the last we see of Irving B or Irving Bailiff, do you feel like you got to explore everything you wanted to with this character?

Speaker 3 I do. And I, you know, I can't speak to whether we will see him again or not.
But I think that he is,

Speaker 3 you know, he's somebody who, from what little we did see of him on the outside, I think he's somebody who

Speaker 3 is very lonely and kind of had written himself off as

Speaker 3 not somebody who gets to have love in his life.

Speaker 3 And the fact that he was able to learn of this other version of himself that did have

Speaker 3 really strong bond with somebody and really did get to experience that. You know, it's like, I think sometimes like,

Speaker 3 you know, some of us who are single, sometimes we wonder, it's like, well, am I still even capable of loving somebody in that way?

Speaker 3 You know, like I did when I was younger. And

Speaker 3 in Irving's case, it takes literally this,

Speaker 3 you know, there's this version of himself that is almost like a child who experiences love.

Speaker 3 and so he uh that that i think awakens in in him the possibility that he could have that too so i think that he is going off to a hopeful place i think he he's not with burt burt is you know gonna

Speaker 3 hopefully go back and and

Speaker 3 uh uh eventually get to go back to uh milwaukee with fields uh for their trip but irving is going off with the understanding that that

Speaker 3 maybe this part of himself that's that's capable of love that he thought was gone is not necessarily gone. And there might be more adventures of that kind ahead for him.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, the world of severance can be a pretty cold place.

Speaker 2 And I would say ultimately, the stuff between Burt and Irving is maybe as warm as we get in terms of the outward affections displayed between characters.

Speaker 2 Now, granted, some characters like Mark and Helly are able to explore their relationship in a different way this season.

Speaker 2 But as far as Burt and Irving and kind of all of these unions that are coming together, whether it's Dylan and Gretchen, whether it's Mark and Helly or Helena,

Speaker 2 I'm left with this idea of in a show that is as cold and removed and sometimes corporate in the Lumen sense as severance. Do you see this as being a sentimental show?

Speaker 2 Like, is this a sentimental work to you in terms of its heart?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 I think I'm a pretty sentimental person.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 for me, you know,

Speaker 3 it's funny, there's a meta narrative where working on this show is often very, very challenging. And there's a lot of hard work and pressure.
And

Speaker 3 I am often saved by the relationships,

Speaker 3 by the warmth of the people around me, both on set and in the writer's room and people from my life and my family. And

Speaker 3 I, you know, that may be sentimental, but I think it's deeply true is that the

Speaker 3 more challenging

Speaker 3 of a situation you're in, the more important it is to have people who will try to touch your soul and

Speaker 3 nurture your humanity. And,

Speaker 3 you know, severance is about these four warm human hearts who find each other in the midst of this very corporate environment and reawaken the humanity in each other that has been taken from them.

Speaker 3 So I think it is a sentimental show. And I think maybe we,

Speaker 3 you know, that that's something I feel good about.

Speaker 1 And we love a sentimental show. So

Speaker 1 it's a great answer for us. And I think, in terms of that sort of reawakening that you were outlining with Irving that you were just talking about here, someone that we've been watching

Speaker 1 struggle with their spot this season a lot has been Seth Milchik, right? Sort of struggling with the microaggressions and inside of his workplace and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 We see him sort of, you know, fight back a bit in episode eight and episode nine.

Speaker 1 And then ultimately, though, when push comes to shove, he is sort of violently, ferociously defensive of the Lumen agenda at the end of the day inside of this episode.

Speaker 1 Was I like expecting too much of a rebellion from Seth or hoping too much for him, or like, where are we on his journey inside of that?

Speaker 3 No, I don't think you were expecting too much. I think sometimes the closer we get to breaking out of a system, the more

Speaker 3 sort of vitriol we have in defending it.

Speaker 3 Because, you know,

Speaker 3 I think that

Speaker 3 the fact that he

Speaker 3 feels his own loyalty to the company

Speaker 3 waning

Speaker 3 or possibly cracking, you know,

Speaker 3 that makes him that much more threatened by the rebellion um because all of a sudden he sees something of himself in it and he's not ready to he's not ready to leave it yet i think that uh

Speaker 3 it and and it's it's possible that that he that he won't be because i i think the sad truth is that uh you know we we talk a lot about cults in in the in the writer's room and on set for this show and what exactly it means to be in a cult uh you know there's the the sense of the word that we normally think of, that we see on, you know,

Speaker 3 in documentaries and stuff.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 there's such a thing as,

Speaker 3 you know,

Speaker 3 sometimes companies do have cult-like

Speaker 3 tactics that they use. And so do countries, and so do religions.
And I think that

Speaker 3 as you start to

Speaker 3 for people people who do evolve out of a system like that, I think it's a painful process and they may become that much more of a,

Speaker 3 you know, they might become that much more of a zealot in those moments leading up to the moment when they are willing to break away. But some people never do.
You know, it's, it's hard to do.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Do you think Milchik, I mean, he's obviously graded against Drummond and Lumen more broadly in terms of the language he uses, the kind of softer approach he's trying to take with the MDR team.

Speaker 2 But do you think he has a sense of who he is as a person outside of Lumen Middle Manager, or is he still finding that for himself?

Speaker 3 I think that he is somebody who really defines himself by his work.

Speaker 3 And there may be shades that we're not seeing in terms of

Speaker 3 what he... what he does outside and his other interests and his other relationships.

Speaker 3 We've sort of intentionally kept that hidden.

Speaker 3 But I think that the reason for that is not just to not just to keep it secret, but because I think when Seth is at work, he is work Seth.

Speaker 3 In a way, you know, all of our characters are severed, even the unsevered ones. And

Speaker 3 I think that he is so committed to his job there that in a way, it's like we talked about going back and seeing his home.

Speaker 3 But I think for the version of Seth that we see, it doesn't matter what his home looks like because when he's at work, he is all the way at work. You know,

Speaker 1 I mean, he does have that really cool motorcycle, but that's true.

Speaker 2 Great taste in leathers, ultimately.

Speaker 3 The coolest motorcycle and the coolest jacket.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 100%.

Speaker 1 Can you elaborate a little bit on when you say even our unsevered characters are severed? Can you talk a little bit more about your thoughts about that?

Speaker 3 I mean,

Speaker 3 in the way that we're all sort of severed at work, and in the way that, you know, my original idea for the show came

Speaker 3 because I was sort of, you know, walking into work and wishing I could skip ahead, but also knowing that there's a comfort to being at work.

Speaker 3 And, you know, at the time I was going through, you know, a breakup and was very,

Speaker 3 there was something weirdly comforting about stepping into a place where I didn't have to think about my own wants and desires. or motivations.

Speaker 3 I was like, well, I have to enter this data now because that's my job. And

Speaker 3 I think people get addicted to that, you know, and

Speaker 3 so somebody like, you know, Kobel or somebody like Milchik, they're not, you know,

Speaker 3 they may not have had the procedure, but they've severed themselves in the way that so many people do.

Speaker 2 I mean, Cobel, it seems like at this point in the story, maybe has reintegrated in a sense then, because the personal and the professional are bleeding into each other all the time.

Speaker 2 And, you know, I think we have a a sense of who that character is in a new way, having seen glimpses of her backstory.

Speaker 2 But she has a certain fascination with Mark that it feels like goes above and beyond maybe just scientific or professional curiosity. What do you think it is that Harmony sees in Mark?

Speaker 3 Well, it's a good question. It's sort of a chicken and the egg question because I think that, you know, there is a professional interest in him.
He is,

Speaker 3 you know, he is working on this project that is of great great professional importance.

Speaker 3 At the same time, you know,

Speaker 3 there's not,

Speaker 3 I think there's still a question of like, why choose to live next to him? Yeah.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I think that Mrs. Selvig really loves Mark and really cares about Mark.
But the question is, is Mrs. Selvig real in any way? Or is she entirely a fabrication? Is she entirely a mask?

Speaker 3 But I think you could ask the same about Cobel.

Speaker 3 You know, I think that Cobel

Speaker 3 may be a character that this person had to create in order to fit in

Speaker 3 a place like Lumen. And there's a question of who would she have been had she not been part of this machine.

Speaker 3 And that was part of the thing we wanted to sort of explore in episode eight, where she goes home.

Speaker 3 was reminding ourselves that this was a child once and she maybe felt like she had to create a version of herself And

Speaker 3 that may be a version of herself that isn't working for her as much as it used to. And so

Speaker 3 a lot of that, to go back to your question, sort of comes back to, yeah,

Speaker 3 how earnest is her affection for Mark?

Speaker 3 Is it real? Is it warm? Is it obsessive? Is it manipulative?

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I think we still don't know because we still don't know who that person is under that layer of masks.

Speaker 1 I'm sure you as a, you know, a now a seasoned TV creator prefer to enjoy each theory equally.

Speaker 1 But can you recall in across this season, obviously the theories, the connections, the literary references, the film connections, all the big ideas, philosophical ideas that have come out of this like

Speaker 1 absolutely frothing fandom that is around this show.

Speaker 1 I'm wondering if there was like a particular connection or insight or theory that you most enjoyed that felt most like validating to you, like these people really get this show,

Speaker 1 or that's not right at all, but I love the inventiveness behind it.

Speaker 3 Well, I don't want to, I mean, I don't want to,

Speaker 3 I don't want to accidentally confirm or deny any theory, you know, because they are all beautiful and valid.

Speaker 3 I will say this, and I've said this

Speaker 3 before, but there's a theory that

Speaker 3 because Rebecca in season one

Speaker 3 mentions that she has sores on the back of her head from her bird,

Speaker 3 she's like, I have sores on the back of my head, and you might see them. And people have taken that to mean that she is severed because

Speaker 3 that's where the severance

Speaker 3 hole would be.

Speaker 3 And I will not confirm nor deny that she is severed, uh, but what I will not stand for

Speaker 3 is the, the suggestion that her bird is not real.

Speaker 3 So you've heard it here.

Speaker 3 Uh, uh, Rebecca has the bird. Yes.
Bird is a freaking jerk.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 it wants her dead. And it's smart enough to know that sometimes you have to attack from behind.

Speaker 3 You know, that the element of surprise. So the bird wants to kill her, and that is true.
And that is canon. Now,

Speaker 3 is there also a severance hole back there? Maybe.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 the bird is real. And I will not stand for its erasure.

Speaker 1 Protect Rebecca's bird. I love that.

Speaker 3 My favorite character on the show.

Speaker 2 Well, Dan, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for standing up for Rebecca's bird, who, yeah, I feel like has taken some slander in a way that it just simply does not deserve.

Speaker 3 It's just, it's, it, it makes, it makes my heart hurt.

Speaker 1 Just really quickly, Dan, what does a pineapple mean to you?

Speaker 3 To me, a pineapple is, is a weird thing to give somebody because it's both a gift and a chore.

Speaker 3 It's a delicious piece of fruit that, that if you can, if you can get to it is, is wonderful, but you have to like find a way to cut through this weird, you know, spiky skin that clearly, you know, God intended to kill us.

Speaker 3 So it's, it's, it's, uh,

Speaker 3 I just thought that it was very fun that that was what Lumen would give people. It's like, here's something, something beautiful that you might have to hurt yourself in order to access.

Speaker 1 Love it. Thank you so much for your time.
I really appreciate it.

Speaker 3 Thank you very much.

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Speaker 1 Wow. Wasn't that a great interview that we did many days ago, Rob? We're wearing different clothing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I thought that was great. Now we know once and for all what the pineapple's for, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1 I really loved your question about, and as I've been teasing, your question about whether or not Severance is a sentimental show, because that really got to the heart of the conversation that Chris and Andy have been having and some of our listeners have been expressing about like, is this a show that's all flash, no substance, or is there sort of an emotional heart churning at the at the center of this show?

Speaker 1 And I really liked Dan's answer. I thought it was a really good one.

Speaker 2 So thanks for asking that question. I think, too, there's different kinds of substance.

Speaker 2 Like, I think you and I are aligned in this way, Joe, where if you give me the choice between a mystery box show answering all of its mystery questions or paying off emotional arcs for its characters in a fulfilling way, I am always going to pick the latter over the mystery box answers.

Speaker 2 Like those things are important to me too, and we're going to get into a lot of them today. But for me, it's always character first.

Speaker 2 And it's always going to come down to what ultimately was so satisfying about the season two finale, which was when you boil this show down, it is Mark and Heli and Gemma first and foremost and all of their various permutations.

Speaker 2 And the way that twists up an audience is much more interesting to me than like what is going on with the GOATs.

Speaker 1 Do you want to start with

Speaker 1 one of the most popular theories that we got sort of immediately, I would say night of, we started getting emails about this very popular theory that has since, I would say, be been definitively debunked.

Speaker 1 But this quite popular theory that at the end of the episode, it's not

Speaker 1 Mark S,

Speaker 1 Gemma, and Heliar, it's Mark S., Gemma, and Helena Eaken. Yes.

Speaker 1 And as far as I can tell, this is based off a look that people feel like

Speaker 1 Britt Lauer as this character gave to Gemma that was sort of like a triumphant I got your man sort of glare.

Speaker 2 I saw it described online as a smirk, to which I would say, ladies and gentlemen, that's not what a smirk looks like.

Speaker 1 It did not read that way to me at all. A lot of people were convinced that this was the case.
And like, honestly, who can blame them after sort of being duped at the beginning of the season?

Speaker 1 Some people were. So it's sort of like, if you're on high alert for Helena versus Helly, who can blame you?

Speaker 1 But do you want to address what Britt Lauer herself said about this?

Speaker 2 Yeah, Britt Lauer said to her,

Speaker 2 in terms of her performance, that is Helly R. And I think we have every reason to believe that to be true, not just because it makes more storytelling sense for that to be the case.

Speaker 2 Like, I understand technically, someone could pop into the back room and flip on the like the

Speaker 2 Glasgow block, and all of a sudden it's Helena Egan on the floor. That's a thing that could theoretically happen in the world of the show.

Speaker 2 And as you said, we have been kind of primed by this season of Severance to be looking for the differences in Helly and Helena's behavior. That's that's what the show has conditioned us to look for.

Speaker 2 That said,

Speaker 2 even if you flip that switch, even if that's Helena, it doesn't really make character sense. Like so much of this season, like that would be a twist for the sake of there being a twist.

Speaker 2 And shows are not above that from time to time, but it being Helly is what makes it an expression of a real and genuine relationship.

Speaker 2 And what ultimately like closes the circle or at least kind of starts rounding that corner on the kinds of conversations that Mark and Helly have been having all season as they've kind of wrestled with the idea of who they are to each other, what they can be, what kind of life they can have on the seventh floor to begin with.

Speaker 2 And ultimately were wrecked in the finale at the thought of giving it up.

Speaker 2 And so if you have those character moments where they're so tortured by the idea of what they're losing, and then you swap in Helena in a little body swap hijinks, I think it would invalidate a lot of what makes that finale so powerful.

Speaker 1 I think Dan's answer, because I did come out of the finale, my initial, after the first watch of the finale, was like, Helly wouldn't do that.

Speaker 1 Not that's Helena, but just sort of like, this is a weird character choice for a character that i understood to be sort of like noble and self-sacrificing and what dan was saying and i still feel like there's maybe like a scene or a moment kind of missing in this transition in the finale but what dan was talking about in terms of like her coming into her desire to fight for herself her life her power what she wants yeah happens inside of this sort of like

Speaker 1 normal like I keep calling it this Norma Ray moment of just sort of like we got to fight for our right to run down the hallway with Mark. Yeah.
And so I think that

Speaker 1 I think what I, the interpretation that I like that sort of bridges the gap between these two things is

Speaker 1 as

Speaker 1 we've been discussing all season, the more these innies experience, the more heartbreak they experience, the more, you know, adverse conditions they experience, et cetera, et cetera, the death they experience, this, that, and the other thing,

Speaker 1 the more they might be traveling towards their Audis because their Audis are their, like the Innies are their pure self, and the Audis are the pure self, hardened, calcified by the woes of

Speaker 1 life.

Speaker 1 And so, the more that the Innies get to experience not just moving numbers around on a monitor, but all the other things that they've experienced over the last two seasons, they are becoming more and more like their Audi selves.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 if a bit of recognizably Helena

Speaker 1 behavior emerges out of Hell E R, that makes a lot of sense to me inside of the end of this episode.

Speaker 2 Especially when what we understand about Helena is all the ways in which she has been tamped down and sort of repressed by her circumstances.

Speaker 2 And so the version of Helena that we know is one that is kind of gnarled up by her relationship with her dad and her public exposure and her place within this company and all the expectations that are put on her.

Speaker 2 It's all very weird. And so, yeah, there's always going to be a commonality of something that is intrinsically.

Speaker 2 Helena and Helly that's going to start poking through the surface, as you say, the more that they're exposed to on the severed floor.

Speaker 2 And that's the biggest difference between season one and season two is just the range of elements that they're exposed to and thus the emotions that come out of those things.

Speaker 2 And so to see a little bit of Helena in Heli is not a surprise at all.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 2 Can I say one final thing on that note, Joe? All right. Just shut, just shut me down.

Speaker 2 Lock me out like Gemma on the other side of the door. I see how it is.

Speaker 2 I do wonder, too, with some of this theorizing, there is a, I'm not going to ascribe nefarious intent to anybody, but there is a certain segment of the Severance fandom that is very one true pairing driven, right?

Speaker 2 The idea that we are cheering for Mark and Helie to end up together or Mark and Gemma to end up together.

Speaker 2 And I did wonder with this Helena theorizing, how much that came out of a very sincere want to see Mark and Gemma on the outside and the idea that the only way that could be obstructed is through some sort of like foul play.

Speaker 1 I wanted to bring up in this moment, we got several emails on the, you know, because we've been talking about the mythological sense of Orpheus and Eurydice all season and this idea that like

Speaker 1 this moment where Mark turns back in the myth, Orpheus turns around, looks at his ghost wife who's behind him, and in that lack of faith moment,

Speaker 1 she is sent back to hell and all of that sort of stuff. So, so can we put a clean map of that onto this moment? No, but does Mark look back in this moment? Yes.

Speaker 1 And we got some emails that were saying this is actually the opposite of what Orpheus would do.

Speaker 1 But what I really liked, and I don't have the email in front of me right now, but one of our listeners pointed out that in Plato's interpretation of Orpheus, Orpheus is kind of a coward in that in order to rescue his wife from hell, his wife dies, goes to hell, Hades, afterlife.

Speaker 1 And in order to rescue her, he finds a sneaky back door.

Speaker 1 into doing it rather than dying himself and joining her there. Now, I'm not saying if your wife dies, you should die, but the idea is that he chose the easier path down to hell.

Speaker 1 It wasn't, I will die and join my wife forever. It was, I can find a trick, a way.
Yes. I am not choosing, I'm not choosing death, but I am trying to get love and I'm not choosing death.

Speaker 1 In this moment, it's a different set of circumstances, obviously, but in this moment, Mark S, Mark's Innie is like, I'm not choosing death. No.

Speaker 1 Like, whatever that is, whatever Gemma and Mark is, even if it is somehow connected to my soul in some way, I'm not choosing death. I'm going to go after

Speaker 1 this

Speaker 1 on this wild run

Speaker 1 towards, I don't know what. Exactly.

Speaker 1 In order, in order to do that. I'm just going to, let's just knock this out of the way.
A question I asked,

Speaker 2 which inspired hundreds of emails.

Speaker 1 was like, what the final moment,

Speaker 1 you know, invoked for people? Yes. That final image.

Speaker 1 uh and i mentioned sort of like a post a movie poster that i was thinking of and we got so many email responses and then ben stiller himself on uh twitter also talked about um some of the references

Speaker 2 what what do you want to say about the responses we got rotten honey One, I am shocked and impressed by the number of people who have immediate visual recall of the Adjustment Bureau movie poster.

Speaker 2 A movie that to me has has just been lost to time, I have to admit,

Speaker 2 but does have a certain striking running resemblance, although at a bit of a different angle and a slightly different tonality than maybe like the doomed essence of what makes this ending so powerful.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You invoked Butch and Sundance, which we loved.

Speaker 1 We got...

Speaker 1 The graduate came up a lot and Ben Stiller talked about the graduate. And this is something that our colleague Ben Lindberg, after we had recorded, Ben texted me.

Speaker 1 He's like, what do you think that final shot is a reference to? I think it's a graduate. And I was like, oh, Rob said

Speaker 1 Butching Sundance. Like, I'm not, you know, I'm not sure where we are anyway.
But so Ben Siller has definitely said that the graduate, especially the graduate in the sense of

Speaker 1 where

Speaker 1 we don't know where we're going. Yes.
We've done this thing impulsively. You take it.

Speaker 1 The undergraduate, if you've never seen it, you know, Dustin Hoffman and Catherine Ross run out of the, run away from her wedding, run out of the church, run off into the sunset together, but then they get on a bus.

Speaker 1 It's like one of the best endings of a movie of all time, get on a bus, and then slowly you see on their face, they're like, What the fuck have we done? What do we do now? sort of moment.

Speaker 1 Um, so that's that's something that's definitely in the mix there. Uh, Logan's Run was the most overwhelmingly uh popular response we got.

Speaker 1 The posts are yes, but some people sent a uh still image from the movie that actually shows the hallway uh lit up red, Oh, yeah. Sort of the couple holding hands in the hallway lit up red a bit more.

Speaker 1 That was a bit more convincing to me than the movie poster was.

Speaker 1 But what Ben Siller said was, I think a lot of images come to mind, but that graduate ending is one of the greatest endings in movies ever.

Speaker 1 Other images that come to mind were The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. A lot of people sent over the Invasion of the Body Snatchers poster.
That was a good one. Really good.

Speaker 1 400 Blows, The Sabotage Video by Spike Jones. Fuck yes.

Speaker 1 Ramahonies Piccad, Bushcasting and the Sundance Kid, Breakfast Club, who doesn't love a good freeze frame. So that's the official answer from Ben Stiller.

Speaker 2 I saw, too, that Jessica Lee Gagnier referenced another movie that many people emailed us about, which was she was citing in terms of, I think she was saying in her role for that shot, she was more kind of lighting and supervision than direct cinematography.

Speaker 2 But in terms of influence, it was a little bit more French new wave as well. And a little bit specifically of Julia Jim, which is something that many people emailed us about.

Speaker 2 And a film I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to get up on, Joe. Honestly,

Speaker 2 one of the best parts about this process in terms of these visual cues was like, maybe I've seen 65% of the movies that people were emailing us about.

Speaker 2 And so it's like, yeah, I would love to, I would love to go back to Vertico. I'd love to go back to The Graduate.
But also like, I've never seen Charade before. So let's get up on Charade.

Speaker 1 Okay, so Charade is the answer that is most correct to my question, which is that was the movie poster I was thinking of, which is Carrie Grant and Audrey Hepburn with the rings of red around them on the poster.

Speaker 1 That is the image that I was thinking of.

Speaker 1 So it may not have been what Ben Stiller and Duske Lee Gagnier were thinking of, but it was what I was thinking of. So thank you to all the people who wrote in about

Speaker 1 Charade, a tremendous film about paranoia and all this sort of stuff like that. And actually people pretending to be other people, etc.
Jules and Jim, I'm excited for you to watch that. That is

Speaker 1 an erotic thrupple, if ever I saw one. Eventually the body centrist is kind of fun in that

Speaker 1 if we think of this as like

Speaker 1 the innies,

Speaker 1 you know, grabbing control of the Audi body.

Speaker 2 Somebody's getting snatched. I don't know who and who from, but they snatch those bodies for themselves.

Speaker 1 So thank you all for your literally hundreds of emails about this. We did our best to read everything.
Where do you want to go next, Robony?

Speaker 2 Let's let's start big picture, Joe. I have a question for you before we start digging deep into the bag.

Speaker 2 As we are zooming out on this season of severance, what would you say were like the standout episodes for for you of this season? A lot of optimism coming out of this finale.

Speaker 2 I would say that is among my three favorite episodes of this season.

Speaker 2 I would go Chakai Bardo, number one, with a bullet.

Speaker 2 Not a surprise to anyone who listened to our podcast about that episode.

Speaker 2 For me, Woes Hollow is the number two episode.

Speaker 2 I think what you get from Irving, the mystery, kind of being outside the box for the first time in any meaningful way over the course of the show was such like an energizing feeling.

Speaker 2 And then I would go Cold Harbor number three in large part because of some of these emotional arcs we've been talking about and the Mark and Helly stuff in particular.

Speaker 1 I will go

Speaker 1 number one

Speaker 1 easily, Chakai Bardo. Number two, easily, Woes Hollow.

Speaker 1 Number three is tough for me because it's, I don't think it is Cold Harbor. I think it's Attila.
I think between

Speaker 1 the dinner party, which I loved and was like the last Irving

Speaker 1 scenario that satisfied me.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 the Mark and Heli, you know, romantic sexual encounter inside of the Severed Floor and the way all of that was shot.

Speaker 1 Uda Brisowitz as the director of that episode.

Speaker 1 I just, yeah, I really liked that episode a lot. I think that's my number three.
But three is like a crowded field. Like it really is.
It is tough to pick the third.

Speaker 1 But Cold Harbor was definitely in my top five of the season. Probably four.
It's probably number number four.

Speaker 2 But I think we're hitting on something, which is that at least for us, there's kind of that top tier. And it's mostly Chakai Bardo and Woe's Hollow.

Speaker 2 And after that, there's a lot of, oh, I like these scenes. I like these elements.
I like these plot threads. And you can pick and choose what you like based on that.

Speaker 2 But I would be curious if anybody else has a definitive other one or two other than those. It seems like there's a lot of people who really, really love this finale.
And we like it for sure.

Speaker 2 And I like a lot of the payoffs within it.

Speaker 1 But to me, like, Chakai Bardo is a, that's a high watermark to hit, especially for a finale that has to wrap up so much Chakai Bardo is one of those episodes where like you know as I watch more and more as as the TV shows I watch stack up higher and higher and higher in in my life of watching television it is harder like I can remember every almost every single episode title name of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode like that because that's like I was fresh brained when I watched that show, but I've seen so many shows since that like I can't tell you the name of every single episode, but Chakai Bardo, like the best episodes of Westworld, like the best episodes of whatever, I'm not going to forget that title.

Speaker 1 And it's going to come up as a reference when we talk about how do you do flashback episodes? How do you do, you know,

Speaker 1 how do you bring to the fore a character who has been in the background?

Speaker 1 You know, like there's a lot of things that accomplish at the highest level that is, has now entered my personal vocabulary when I talk about shows going forward. Do you know?

Speaker 2 I absolutely know. And we will be returning to that parlor game of making you recite Buffy episodes based on titles.
And we're not going to stop at

Speaker 2 the Zeppos and the GIFs.

Speaker 2 We got to do some deep cuts.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I can do that.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of things I can't do, but that's a thing I can do.

Speaker 2 YouTube content coming soon. Putting Joanna under the interrogation lights and making her name Buffy episodes.

Speaker 1 I'm currently under them in the void. You act like I'm not constantly under them.
Okay, back on topic. Let's talk about,

Speaker 1 we had a lot of people's questions about obviously, Cold Harbor,

Speaker 1 no clear, clear, clear answer of everything that's going on there. But we had a lot of people ask about a couple factors.

Speaker 1 One, if Mark is refining data on Gemma,

Speaker 1 what the hey are the other refiners refining?

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 1 Me neither.

Speaker 2 I really don't know.

Speaker 1 And I'm not sure the show knows.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm not sure either. I think my,

Speaker 2 this is what's confusing is like, as of Jakai Bardo, I was kind of wondering, are some of these other rooms, rooms that other MDR employees have completed, right?

Speaker 2 Some of the more generalized anxieties, for example, being nervous on a plane having turbulence.

Speaker 2 That's something that anyone could infer about putting a like a stress test for a potential severance chip. Yeah.

Speaker 2 The things that were so specialized, like the writing of the thank you notes, that was straight out of Mark's head, straight out of Mark's memory.

Speaker 2 But it seems like he created all 25 of those rooms that Jemba was put through, that created all 25 of those innies. At least that's my feeling based on the finale.

Speaker 1 100%.

Speaker 1 The other question is, is there another trapped person, trapped woman down there? Would it be scientifically sound to have

Speaker 1 Mark as the person most emotionally connected to Gemma be the one working on her data while the other people are working on someone that they are like a stranger to? Like, how

Speaker 1 much do you have to know the person in order to refine their data? And as it turns out, you have to know them pretty well, um, apparently.

Speaker 2 But how much does Lumen care about the scientific method? Like, do we need a control group for these things, or these goat people just like, whatever, wing it. If it works, it works.

Speaker 1 I think I, here's, I don't respect Maurer's scientific approach, but for some reason, I maybe respect Harmony Cobel a bit more. Um,

Speaker 2 loopy at times, too. I'm gonna be honest with you.

Speaker 1 Like, she is a woman in STEM, she's quite accomplished, but it's not not loopy, it's not not loopy, Rob. The candle move, but like i feel like she's

Speaker 1 i feel like my sense going back through those harmony scenes that we did when we when we covered that episode um

Speaker 1 it felt very much like she was deeply dissatisfied with the work that mauer was doing and she's like you're doing it wrong i got to do it my own sneaky way because you guys don't know what you're doing in terms of like uh reintegration is a thing like um have you tried sense like smell uh stimulation i'm gonna get this candle and put it in a room and see what i can see So

Speaker 1 that's one question.

Speaker 1 What are the other refiners refining? We don't know because it's not just MDR,

Speaker 1 obviously, at this location. Oh, yeah.
MDR is

Speaker 1 an international sensation. So what are we doing?

Speaker 2 What is anybody doing at Lumen? It's a question that begs to be answered.

Speaker 2 But while we're talking about Harmony's place in this and kind of her scientific approach,

Speaker 2 Anne emailed us, why is it in Harmony's interest to help Mark rescue Gemma? We talked last week, Joe, Joe, about kind of these allies of convenience, right?

Speaker 2 This idea that Harmony wants something here. And what is it that she's after? And Anne asked, you know, some people think that it's simply revenge for being fired, but this seems wrong to me.

Speaker 2 Her desire to thwart Cold Harbor is not recent. She was whispering in Mark's ear, urging him to quit way back in season one at the book party.

Speaker 2 It seems like she hasn't liked this Cold Harbor project or has had conflicted feelings about it since way before they fired her.

Speaker 2 I thought this was an interesting point. I also think if I were to pick any threads of the in which

Speaker 2 maybe they didn't have the clearest idea of where things were going to go season to season, Harmony is the one that jumps out to me.

Speaker 2 There's so much in her dialogue and her motivations and her behavior in season one that I don't know tracks perfectly.

Speaker 2 You know, we definitely learned a lot having seen where she came from, knowing that she created the severance chip, but Harmony is so all over the place in season one in a way that I don't think can be totally squared.

Speaker 1 And I believe based on interviews that Patricia Arquette has given and some of the behind the scenes folks have given, I think they hadn't fully found what they wanted Harmony to be

Speaker 2 initially.

Speaker 1 I know that they have said, and I believe because I've heard from people that they have an overarching plan for the show. Yes.
So I don't think they know where they want to land.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they know the end points.

Speaker 1 Right. The path they take to get there is, you know, something that should in television

Speaker 1 bend and end curve, but it's nice when those bends and curves all connect, and sometimes they feel can feel a little forced inside of a thing. So, what is Harmony's motivation?

Speaker 1 I thought, I thought that Dan's answer that he gave to your question about sort of like Harmony's feelings about Mark was interesting. Definitely.

Speaker 1 Okay, so what are the other refiners refining? We talked about that.

Speaker 1 How can, this is a common question we got, how can a crib in a room, Billie Holiday or no,

Speaker 1 be more of a test to Gemma than Miss Casey sitting down with Mark

Speaker 1 for a session or sitting on the MDR floor all day. Yes.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 that, you know, your mileage may vary. If you think the stimulus of being in front of your

Speaker 1 husband

Speaker 1 is more painful or more of a test than the stimulus of being reminded of the pains of infertility. I think that's a subjective question.
Totally.

Speaker 1 Subjectivity doesn't have a lot of place in science necessarily, but like if they think that

Speaker 1 the crib and

Speaker 1 everything that goes with it is the most painful circumstance that they can put together for her, I believe that that's something that they might believe to be true, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, also, they're not explicitly the ones putting it together for her.

Speaker 2 I think it makes sense that in a way, it's almost like the crib itself is almost more of a Mark test than it is a Gemma test because we see him in conjunction with the, with the crib and Shakai Bardo.

Speaker 2 He's the one who brings it home. He's the one who is disassembling it, right?

Speaker 2 And so this idea that he's creating a painful memory that might also be painful to Gemma, but one that's like a little bit outside of her lived experience, to me, works in this way.

Speaker 2 Because if you were to put Gemma in that scenario of taking apart the crib, she's not only thinking of her, like the fertility struggle she went through overall and the miscarriage, she's also thinking about her relationship to Mark and the effect that it had on them collectively.

Speaker 2 So it's like it's the miscarriage, it's all of the things in fertility, but it's also there.

Speaker 2 It's a true twofer, a true torturous twofer, diabolical stuff, I have to say, straight from the brain of Mark Scout.

Speaker 1 One last thing I want to mention on the sort of Cold Harbor testing front. We got a lot of versions of this email, but my, I really like this one that came from Matthew,

Speaker 1 and the gist of which is that Mark S

Speaker 1 passed Cold Harbor.

Speaker 1 In that, he says,

Speaker 1 Mark demonstrated he was fully severed from his external trauma. His wife is screaming, yearning for him, and it didn't matter to him.

Speaker 1 His life is fully severed from the most significant trauma of his Audi.

Speaker 1 In choosing to stay, he's actually the one that passed Cold Harbor, showing the pain of the Audi is fully divorced from his life and experience. What do you think of that?

Speaker 2 I think it's a great point.

Speaker 2 I think overall, like all the dynamics between the various Marks and Gemmas that we see in this finale is such a great construction to have of all of their various reveals, all of their moments of recognition and not recognition.

Speaker 2 And I want to talk about some of that from Gemma's point of view as well as we go through these questions. Of course, yeah.

Speaker 2 But yeah, the fact that Mark is ultimately tested in this way and chooses something that he knows to be true. And like, and I say that in literal and emotional terms, only on the severed floor.

Speaker 2 Like he's choosing his severed existence over this existence that he's been told about, but doesn't fully understand.

Speaker 2 And I guess like technically has glimpsed through the overtime contingency, but that's a world that's totally foreign to him.

Speaker 2 And the idea that you can put a person in this situation, tell them all of these facts about their outside life in a way that should stoke some kind of memory, some kind of recollection, give them all the smells you're talking about, Joe, that they could possibly want to evoke those memories, and yet they're still going to pick the person and the life that they found on the severed floor.

Speaker 2 That's, that's a really powerful bit of technology, I got to say.

Speaker 1 What do you want to say about Gemma's point of view?

Speaker 2 I want to segue into another email we got from Caitlin, who talked about a bit of a personal story. Specifically, this is from Caitlin's email.

Speaker 2 Six years ago, my father was hospitalized for a very serious injury. And as part of his treatment, he had a reaction to a drug that caused him to hallucinate for 24 hours.

Speaker 2 I stayed with him all day while he spoke absolute nonsense,

Speaker 2 completely out of character for my usually stoic dad. He hardly recognized me, and I barely recognized him either.
He was just some confused, scared old man.

Speaker 2 I often think of it as one of the hardest days of my life. But the next day, the drugs had worn off, and I could tell the second I walked in the room.

Speaker 2 I really cannot describe why or how I could tell so quickly, but it was an immediate relief. I think there's something completely ineffable about the way we know the people we love.

Speaker 2 I know Mark would have understood the Gemma in the Cold Harbor room was an innie, but I think it's fair to think he couldn't have been sure that the hallway Gemma would have been his.

Speaker 2 Just layers of severance down there, but he saw her immediately. Not to throw shade at Helly, but it's something Mark missed in her earlier in the season.

Speaker 2 A newer romance and a weaker bond, I suppose, Caitlin says, which I thought this was such a beautiful email and such an interesting thought to kind of project onto severance, this idea of how we know the people we know.

Speaker 2 And specifically, I want to kind of apply it to our interpretation of this scene in the finale, where

Speaker 2 by the logic of the story, Gemma does not know that Mark is severed at all. She has been on the testing floor.
She doesn't know what his process of grief has been like.

Speaker 2 She doesn't know that he lost his job at the university, that he became, you know, that he went so hard on the alcohol, that he's had such a hard time.

Speaker 2 She doesn't know anything about his life since she disappeared, presumably, other than what Dr. Maurer has told her, true or not.

Speaker 2 And so when she sees a man who she should recognize as her husband, picking this other woman who she may or may not know as Helena Egan, like that is her, that should be her mark by the logic of the story, or at least what we understand Gemma to know.

Speaker 2 And I think what's filling in the gaps of that scene, and Deeshan Lachman has talked about this, is that to her, not unlike Britt Lauer's clarification, she sees that as she can immediately tell that this is not exactly her mark, that this is a different version of that person making a different choice.

Speaker 2 And the pain that she's going through and feeling and expressing is not the pain of my husband is betraying me, but of so desperately trying to coax and break through to the severed version of him and get him through the door.

Speaker 1 I saw her talk about this on the, they did a Palefest panel on Friday.

Speaker 1 Last Friday, and she spoke about that on the red carpet, this idea that like she knows right away that this is a severed mark because her mark would not do this.

Speaker 1 Also, like, she has at least the seconds of information of like the switch that happens in the elevator when she has to be, you know, like, like, who's who's pulling whom

Speaker 1 when and where. Um,

Speaker 1 but I also thought that was really interesting because we got a lot of emails from people saying, oh my god, think of it from Gemma's point of view. She must now think what Dr.

Speaker 1 Maurer said was true, that Mark has moved on, that he does have a family with someone else, all this sort of stuff like that. And

Speaker 1 at least what this performer is saying, and sometimes a performer interpretation is not, at the end of the day, what the writer thinks, but totally, you know, from her interpretation, she knows that that's not her mark.

Speaker 1 And I, I also found that really powerful. And I've, and I really loved

Speaker 1 that email from Caitlin. So thanks so much for reading it out.

Speaker 1 And I, you know, all of our listeners all season and across all of our shows, I feel really lucky about the stories that they share with us

Speaker 1 about what they get out of this stuff. And that's the thing about something like severance and science, and I will say bigger picture sci-fi fantasy in general.

Speaker 1 When,

Speaker 1 you know, more articulate people than me have said this before, but when you engage in a story that works on a big,

Speaker 1 loud, weird genre level,

Speaker 1 it's almost the further it gets away from our real lived experience, the closer it actually can feel. to your specific experience because, you know, no one has ever experienced severance.
Right.

Speaker 1 So then it becomes, what can you put on top of this story of severance that makes it feel personal to you? And I think that's why, despite,

Speaker 1 you know, some people feeling they don't feel emotionally connected to this story, a lot of people feel tremendously emotionally connected to this story.

Speaker 1 And Caitlin's email is a great example of that.

Speaker 2 And the number of people who have emailed us, Joe, over the course of the season about their fertility journeys and specifically, you know, as we were trying to negotiate, is this something that Gemma would have unwittingly or wittingly signed up for?

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 Would she have, in the effort to get pregnant, in the effort of not having any alternatives for something she so desperately wanted, would she have turned to Lumen in some way and disappeared at the end of Chakai Bardo and kind of let herself down here?

Speaker 2 I think a lot of the emails we got from people about their own journeys helped kind of illuminate, specifically for me, this idea of how worn down you get through that process, how desperate and how, how much you reach that sort of point of bargaining that we've been talking about of like, I would do anything for this to work.

Speaker 2 And including like, would you be willing to give up some other aspects of your life?

Speaker 2 Would like, would you be willing to give it up thinking you might be able to get it back, but you would have this thing you've so desperately wanted? I think those are such interesting ideas.

Speaker 2 And as you said, you can kind of, you can tap into them in a human sense in any drama, but you can tap into them in this very different, like, I think severance at its, at its most limiting can be a little clinical for some people.

Speaker 2 But when you have elements of this kind of emotion injected into it, like, how can, how can Gemma's journey feel clinical at the end of the day?

Speaker 2 I just, I don't understand that read on the show because I think the emotion is like coming up through the seams.

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Speaker 1 I want to talk about this concept

Speaker 1 that a couple of our listeners hit on in their emails about

Speaker 1 the childlike nature of the innie.

Speaker 1 versus the outie.

Speaker 1 So one email that you pulled from Kelly, who is a YA book editor,

Speaker 1 said, in the books I work on about teen relationships, all written by adults, we're constantly putting ourselves back in the headspace of a teen in their first real relationship.

Speaker 1 It's so easy to be dismissive of those relationships now, but when you're in it, it's all consuming.

Speaker 1 Audi Mark's condescending suggestion that Mark S, quote, likes someone, and Addie Mark's immediate declaration that he loves her feels so true to this. Adults don't understand our relationships.

Speaker 1 Screw them. That's part of what makes our love so big.
The adults/slash Audis are jaded and don't remember what this feels like.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I really love that email. And I also love this email we got from Devin about Dylan and how Dylan helped sort of illuminate this, the Dylan's conversation.

Speaker 1 We didn't spend a ton of time talking about the Dylan's, though

Speaker 1 we brought it up with Dan certainly.

Speaker 1 Devin said, what I think is so beautiful about the interaction between the innie and Audi versions of Dylan is that Audi Dylan, as the quote, adult in this situation, decides to sit down and work some stuff out with his innie.

Speaker 1 I think Audi Dylan actually displays the most humanity for his innie because he has a conversation with him and then gives him the choice.

Speaker 1 As far as Audi Dylan is concerned, his innie could read this note and still want to resign, in which case Audi Dylan would still be out of a job.

Speaker 1 And we saw earlier this season how hard it was for him to find any other work. Still, he puts the ball in his innie's court.

Speaker 1 The one example of an Audi giving an innie full and undivided control over a choice that affects both of their lives. And I love that observation from Devin.

Speaker 1 And the one thing that I want to add to that is: is Dylan of all of the Audis that we've seen Irving aside because he doesn't, but like versus Helena versus Mark Scout,

Speaker 1 Dylan's a dad and not only a dad, but like a dad we constantly see engaging with his kids.

Speaker 1 And there's ways in which Gretchen is frustrated by that because it kind of feels like in some of these scenes, she's just got another kid at home.

Speaker 1 But like Dylan's Audi is a guy who's just like regularly interacting with children and understanding what it is to parent and compassionately parent, it seems like.

Speaker 1 And so, you know,

Speaker 1 Mark Scout as someone who has like no experience and no ability to think about

Speaker 1 his innie in that, in that way.

Speaker 1 We also got an email from a listener that you and I both did not particularly love that was talking about how, actually, we had a couple emails from people talking about how like innies are not people and they don't deserve any rights.

Speaker 1 And I just, I don't understand.

Speaker 2 It's a take, Joe. It's certainly a take.

Speaker 1 I don't understand what show you're watching or why you're watching it. Like, that's not, that's not what the story is about.

Speaker 1 It's not about, I don't know, I, I'm, I'm, uh, shocked and appalled, honestly, by this state.

Speaker 2 I think, look, severance raises a lot of interesting ideas about identity and personhood and kind of where those lines end between the different versions of yourself.

Speaker 2 I cannot find any read of this show that would corroborate the idea that people like Dylan or Heli R, for example, do not have a legitimate right to exist.

Speaker 2 And we got many emails that suggested this to be the case. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I was stunned.

Speaker 1 What else do you want to say on this sort of innie and outie relationship front or adults versus more childlike versions or any of that?

Speaker 2 I think a lot of the stuff specifically with Mark is what's fueling some of the kind of shipping based reaction to the finale that we've seen where both Marks, in effect, are making really emotional decisions.

Speaker 2 Even Mark Scout is like so weighed down by his grief and so desperate to get Gemma back that we talked about all the ways in which he maybe doesn't make the best plea to Mark as far as like

Speaker 2 cooperating with the plan, why maybe he should have approached things a different way, but like he's in a very tough situation himself.

Speaker 2 Mark S on the floor, I love this conceptualization of it as like a teenage sort of romance and the intensity of that comes with that.

Speaker 2 Like this is something that John Green has talked about a lot in terms of like the way he constructs his books and kind of like why the emotions are as overwhelming as they are.

Speaker 2 And of course they would be. Like it absolutely makes sense that they would be.

Speaker 2 And this is why even if you really want Mark and Gemma to end up together at the end of the day and have a life together outside the severed floor, the emotional decision that Mark S makes choosing the only life and the only love he's ever known, what could be more relatable than that?

Speaker 1 I can't believe we got here. Rob Mahoney invoking a fiction author, talking about fiction.

Speaker 2 I've invoked other fiction authors. I've invoked other fiction authors in the past, but it's mostly been like, fuck Charles Dickens and not, here's this thing John Green said.

Speaker 2 So we all contain multitudes, Joe. Okay, listen.

Speaker 1 And at the end of the day, that's what you believe. Fuck Charles Dickens.
John Green, a master of his crafts. And who would disagree with you?

Speaker 2 One of those guys gets it, you know?

Speaker 1 All right. Let's briefly talk about sort of the conflicting Toturo reports.
I've been trying to put together all the information that I can,

Speaker 1 including some behind-the-scenes information that I got from some people about sort of what's going on with John Toturo slash Irving on this show. Toturo himself.

Speaker 2 I think many people who have worked with John Troturo over the years have been trying to figure out what's been going on with John Troturo. Like, he's a mercurial kind of guy, it feels like.
Is he?

Speaker 1 Because, like, what I will say is that I've never heard a bad thing about I don't mean a bad thing.

Speaker 2 I just mean like he's he's doing his thing, he's doing his thing, and it may not always 100% align with this other thing that we are trying to accomplish.

Speaker 1 Right. So, here's here's the deal: Toturo gave an interview to my pal Josh Wiggler at THR about

Speaker 1 how he there's more that he would like to do with Irving, that there's more of Irving's story to tell, all this sort of stuff.

Speaker 1 We've made it very clear based on the phone conversations they showed this season that we would be feel

Speaker 1 not only bereft because we love John Totoro and we love Irving, but like we would feel like this is a real thread.

Speaker 1 You know, years later, people love to enumerate the many questions that Lost didn't answer. Sure.

Speaker 1 And I will tell you, if Severance ends without anything, the who was Irving talking to on the phone is going to be on that list.

Speaker 1 If Irving doesn't come back, when Dan was talking to us, it sounded to me like he felt like they were done with Irving's story.

Speaker 2 Potentially, yeah.

Speaker 1 What I've heard from some sources is that Totoro is not going to be on the show anymore, that Irving is not going to be in season three. How do we square that with what Totoro said in THR?

Speaker 1 I think we have to go back to sort of my initial response, which is that

Speaker 1 this seemed like an open-ending,

Speaker 1 open-ended place to put a character. Yes.

Speaker 1 Where it's sort of like, if the actor is not getting along very well with the production, and again, I want to say very clearly, Totoro has like no history of not getting along with people.

Speaker 1 He's not considered a difficult person.

Speaker 2 That's not what we're intimating at all.

Speaker 1 But, you know, if they're like, hey, man, we can bring you back or not. It's kind of up to you how much you want to be here.

Speaker 1 That's kind of where they left it. Could Irving come swooping in later and do something? Yes, but kind of only if Totoro,

Speaker 1 Totoro being kind of out on Severance to a certain degree was kind of clear from the moment he did not show up to Grand Central Station, which we flagged at the beginning of the year. So I don't know.

Speaker 1 It's a bit messy. I've heard some conflicting results reports.

Speaker 1 Totoro seems to want to do more. Whether or not Severance has more to do with him remains unclear, you know?

Speaker 2 We certainly hope it does. I love Irving.
I love

Speaker 2 many of like so many of the components that he brings to the show.

Speaker 2 And what is always interesting is when an Irving-shaped character disappears after a couple seasons, do they try to replace the presence with some other kind of version of that character, right?

Speaker 2 Is there a replacement on the MDR floor? Is there someone from another department who they bump into who kind of becomes a part of this sort of core clique? It's a very tempting enterprise.

Speaker 2 And I'm curious to see how Severance handles that sort of thing going forward.

Speaker 1 Bob Balaban, what are you doing?

Speaker 2 What are you up to? He's right there on the phone in Grand Rapids, ready to jump. You give this guy some corporate housing, he will be there.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he'll break his lease once again for you, for your needs. Okay.

Speaker 1 The meaning of I'm her, we got a bunch of emails about this, and this is like a really interesting

Speaker 1 proposition. In this scene, one of the scenes that we really enjoyed, which is the sort of very intimately lit cubicle scene between Mark S.
and Heli R. When he's finishing Cold Harbor,

Speaker 1 by the way, sidebar,

Speaker 1 Adam Scott has said that he based sort of looked for inspiration for the sort of the

Speaker 1 not furiously making out, yet sort of feeling like you're furiously making out energy from the telephone scene in It's a Wonderful Life. And I sent this to one of my best friends

Speaker 1 who I used to work with at Vanity Fair.

Speaker 1 we re-watch independently on different coasts, It's a Wonderful Life every year at Christmas.

Speaker 1 And every year we talk about how we think that telephone scene is one of the like sexiest scenes that has ever existed.

Speaker 1 Basically, if you've never seen It's a Wonderful Life, what are you doing with yourself? Or

Speaker 1 if you don't re-watch it religiously every year,

Speaker 2 that's me. I'm in that camp.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 You have Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart with their ridiculously hype

Speaker 1 differences sort of crouched over sharing a sort of like handheld old-timey telephone. And they are within like breathing distance of it.

Speaker 1 And they're like theoretically talking on the phone, but really they're just sort of like looking at each other and like kind of panting, honestly.

Speaker 1 And they're just sort of like, it's the moment that they decide to like screw all of their life plans and be together.

Speaker 1 But like the scene goes on and on. And it's just them like carrying on a different conversation, but like just looking at each other and making this decision in their heads.

Speaker 1 And so top tier reference from Adam Scott for invoking that for this scene. But in terms of Helie saying, I'm her,

Speaker 1 what is your interpretation of what she, you know, we talked about this a bit in our previous episode, but

Speaker 1 based on the various reactions we got from our listeners or interviews you've seen with cast and crew, what's your interpretation of what that line means?

Speaker 2 Given where Heli R is at that point in time and what they're talking about, I take it a little bit more literally than I think some other people do. Like, I take it as her trying to nudge Mark that,

Speaker 2 look, we're fucked. Like, this is cosmically messed up and I am never going to be able to get out of here, but you might be able to, right?

Speaker 2 Like, you might be able to go reintegrate, but I am Helena Egan at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 And that she changes her mind about that

Speaker 1 via exposure to marching band.

Speaker 2 Doesn't necessarily change your mind to it. Like, I think what's so great about this finale and specifically the final scene is that Severance can have its cake and eat it too a little bit.

Speaker 2 Like, they got Gemma out the door. Mission accomplished.
It wasn't exactly in the fine print that Mark also needed to go out the door.

Speaker 2 And so it's like they, they can have their runaway moment and their ability to like extend this love and this relationship for as long as they can get away with it on the severed floor.

Speaker 2 But they also did the thing that they set out to do.

Speaker 2 And the thing that I think many people looking at the show see as being an objective right, like saving this woman from captivity and torture is an objective good.

Speaker 2 But once you do that, there's a little bit of wiggle room as far as like, what do we want within the context and the construct of this show?

Speaker 1 There are three, as I see it, interpretations of the line, I'm her.

Speaker 1 There's the one you just enumerated, which is sort of like, I'm Helena Egan, so we, there's no future for me, there's no reintegration for me, there's no honeymoon ending for me, right? Okay.

Speaker 1 I'm her in the sort of SAT prompt way, which is like, Mark Scout is to Gemma as Mark S is to Helie, right?

Speaker 2 Sure, yeah, that's a thing that exists.

Speaker 1 Like, think, you know, when it comes to your certainty of whether or not to rescue her, just put yourself in his shoes. I'm her.
I'm the Gemma of the situation.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 And then the last but not least, and this is the one I kind of favor.

Speaker 1 I kind of favor all of them, honestly, but like the last one is kind of ties back to what I was saying about the Helena, the inner, inner Helena, sort of emerging of just sort of like, I'm hers and like, I've got some Helena inside of me, and I will, I can wreck some shit if I need to.

Speaker 2 So while it's in the mix, you know, I don't know if this is a fourth interpretation or a sub-bullet point off that third interpretation, but we talked about your credentials as an aspiring ball knower last week, Joe.

Speaker 2 In this context, not uncommon for basketball.

Speaker 1 So many messages from like genuine real-life friends and family who were like, why was Rob giving you such a hard time about this? And I was like, no, I mean, it's not like that, honestly.

Speaker 1 the, Rob is a delightful person who would never

Speaker 1 genuinely mock me.

Speaker 2 Of course not.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 but anyway, go ahead.

Speaker 2 You

Speaker 2 are an NBA podcaster, it's on record, you're on video, asking NBA questions of Damon Lindelof, like that's out there in the world.

Speaker 2 Uh, but as far as like not uncommon for an NBA player in a moment of triumph to announce, I'm him, is this an I'm her in like an I am that bitch kind of way, right?

Speaker 2 Like this, like, you need to acknowledge my command and my supremacy of this moment and the impact that i have not only on you but on the entirety of this floor she is her capital h her

Speaker 1 uh i'm her

Speaker 1 the oscar winning uh music artist i am her sure the underrated joke in phoenix sci-fi film i mean if that's underrated we failed as a society we have bigger problems i think people should rate that movie higher okay

Speaker 1 What about all the emails we got?

Speaker 1 We have one here from Evan, but we got a number of emails about this. Why didn't Audi Mark,

Speaker 1 in the conversation with any mark

Speaker 1 ever say, hey, remember your friend Petey?

Speaker 1 I know him, and I talked to him, and he reintegrated. Don't worry about what happened next.

Speaker 2 Yeah, this is the thing.

Speaker 2 It's fine.

Speaker 2 Don't bring up subjects in which you have to overtly lie about the answer because the follow-up is, oh, what happened to Petey? How's he doing? Why isn't he here?

Speaker 2 And it's, oh, that dude is absolutely dead. That dude's super dead.
That dude is super dead for reasons that have to do with the reintegration process.

Speaker 2 And we have no empirical proof that it actually works.

Speaker 1 And later, someone drilled a hole in his head to remove the very chip. All of that happened.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, perhaps that's a reason to not invoke Petey, but I do think there's a way in which Petey could have been invoked in a way that might have satisfied

Speaker 1 audiences, but not completely screwed Mark Over and his recruitment here.

Speaker 2 Also, will we ever hear reference of PD ever again on this show? I honestly don't know.

Speaker 2 Like, he may just be one of these threads and like little facts of season one that kind of fall, like, get melt into the sauce, so to speak.

Speaker 1 Petey's daughter, I still want more for her and from her.

Speaker 2 Okay. From her band?

Speaker 1 Speaking of bands.

Speaker 2 Or was she seeing the band or was she in the band?

Speaker 1 I think she's in the band, isn't she?

Speaker 2 Okay, I hope so. I hope she, whatever she puts her mind to, I hope she's having a great life.

Speaker 1 Let's talk about a marching band. Let's talk about the goon squad.
or lack thereof, etc. Let's talk about staffing at Lumin HQ.

Speaker 1 Where do you want to start with this?

Speaker 2 I want to to start with the goons because we got a great email from Rachel

Speaker 2 proposing that the reason why Lumen might be as understaffed as it is relative to our expectations for keeping all of these innies in check was that it is a panopticon style structure in which the point is the surveillance and the intimidation and the idea that you are watching at all times, right?

Speaker 2 These like Lumen is listening, Lumen is watching kind of concept and the way that we internalizing that fear, keep ourselves in line as a result.

Speaker 2 And I got to say, I think this is right on the money, Joe.

Speaker 1 That's part i think that's part of it i love a panopticon uh invocation uh jeremy bentham who uh

Speaker 1 came up with that concept uh if you're listening at home that's a lost reference but um but like uh

Speaker 1 i also think

Speaker 1 this idea because everyone who's on the severed floor is severed this is a question people had the people in o and d are severed we know that because of burt

Speaker 2 the marching band i guess is severed we're gonna have to talk about that i i i i would assume so but i don't know.

Speaker 1 The logistics of that are.

Speaker 2 It's a quagmire, to say the least.

Speaker 1 Our listener Q said very minor detailed question, but I find it mind-boggling. Is the marching band severed? If not, is there a larger elevator so that it's not one in, one out?

Speaker 1 If severed, how long have they been practicing this? Are they held to the same arrival standards as MDR? 10 to 15-minute intervals of arrival time? That must take forever. I'll hang up and listen.

Speaker 1 So that's- That's what?

Speaker 2 Like a 30-piece band? Like

Speaker 2 they've got ranks, you know, like they have a whole formation of of people that they've got to get up and down those elevators. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Uh, so if everyone's severed

Speaker 1 is the idea that, like, severance makes you so docile that this shouldn't be a problem.

Speaker 1 That's something I could swallow in season one, but after the events at the end of season one, the fact that they haven't hired a few goons, it kind of feels like, in terms of managing the severance floor, it's almost like the rule of the Sith in Star Wars.

Speaker 1 There must always be two, a master and apprentice, but like no more, right?

Speaker 2 Well, they had three, they had Miss Wong in there.

Speaker 1 I was thinking Miss Wong Wong and Milchik. I guess Drummond is like

Speaker 2 he's kind of bouncing between floors to be,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 I don't know. And I understand that the work is mysterious and important and you want to make sure that like as few people know about it as possible.
But

Speaker 1 I still think

Speaker 1 if it were up to me, I would have hired a goon or two.

Speaker 2 Well, I think the other part of this that we have to acknowledge is just straight up hubris on the part of Lumen. They're like, oh, we can keep these people controlled.

Speaker 2 They're not actually going to fight back. And then, you know, some emailers also raised the idea of staffing issues of just like Severance itself, we have seen is quite unpopular in the outside world.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of resistance to the idea. I would still believe that there'd be people desperate enough for steady work, especially in Kir doesn't seem like the most well-to-do place in the world.

Speaker 2 Like somebody must need a job.

Speaker 2 And so I would think they could still staff it if they really needed to, but let's throw it out there.

Speaker 1 Also on the marching band front,

Speaker 1 I just want to shout out Georgia's, Georgia's email because georgia says does cure have a large enough population of coordinated brass enthusiasts yes and that's just an incredible phrase to form a choreography and merriment department or do these innies learn how to to dogie and play trombone on the severed floor and if so would their outies be able to play trombone on the outside georgia incredible question i

Speaker 2 My thought is this has to be a severed skill that they are learning on the severed floor, but also where are you doing band practice down there in a way that

Speaker 2 no one's ever going to hear one of these trombones?

Speaker 2 Like no one's ever going to hear the drum line that stuff is going straight through a soundproof wall i don't know i mean i feel like if any if any place

Speaker 1 because you know we we saw the ghost we we haven't been hearing the like bleeding of the goats like i feel like that's true lumen i think drum line and goats are at slightly different decibel levels i could be wrong

Speaker 2 but i have questions my other question was do the people on the severed floor know what a marching band is? Like, do Dylan and Helly know what a marching band is? And even if they do,

Speaker 2 when the marching band comes in, isn't this the first time they've ever heard live music before?

Speaker 2 And if so, why are they not reacting like breathless aristocrats listening to Mozart play a sonata in like a in a parlor somewhere? You know, like, isn't this a powerful emotional moment for them?

Speaker 1 They've got a lot on their mind. I mean, perhaps that is the excuse we can give to Mark that he lingered so long before he took off for the testing floors.
He was like, what is this feeling?

Speaker 1 I'm feeling,

Speaker 1 you know, it's day whatever, 45 of Rob and Joanna asking the questions of what do the severed people actually know or don't know in terms of like, what does wind feel like versus whatever else?

Speaker 1 So it remains slightly unclear to me.

Speaker 2 On the on the

Speaker 1 cryogenia merriment front,

Speaker 1 we got some emails about Milchik.

Speaker 1 First of all, Tramel Tillman,

Speaker 1 there's this image floating around from his yearbook about how he was in Marching Bin and when he was in high school. Charming.

Speaker 2 Absolutely.

Speaker 2 Everything about that man is charming. Every interview, every appearance, like Tramel Tillman cannot help but kill it.

Speaker 1 But also the way in which this band

Speaker 1 invokes the culture of the HBCU, the historically black colleges and universities, and how that might, you know, even more feed into whatever it is that they,

Speaker 1 your mileage may vary. We have heard from people on both sides of this, but like, you know, their

Speaker 1 effort to engage with his racial identity as part of his storyline this season.

Speaker 2 And his frustrations as a character in that moment where, like, Milchik is not severed. He, he's out there putting in the work, learning these routines.

Speaker 2 Like, he clearly takes a lot of professional pride in his ability to perform under these circumstances.

Speaker 2 And so I thought this was a great point in terms of the HBCU connection in particular and like as an expression of blackness for that character.

Speaker 2 just something we did not talk about coming out of the finale pod. So I'm really glad we have the opportunity to circle back on.
I think it's a great call.

Speaker 2 And also, like, it is clear whether in the initial dancing sequence in season one, in this performance in season two, like Milchik does care about this stuff.

Speaker 2 Like, he is dead sprinting down the hall to get in costume, to hit his marks, to do, like, to do the whole drum major thing. It's an important part of his life.

Speaker 2 And so, the idea that he is being thwarted by his own employees who just refuse to acknowledge the specificity and the precision of his marching brilliance. Like I can connect with that idea 100%.

Speaker 1 I also want to bring up, as we're talking about sort of race, racial identity, I want to bring up this really interesting email we got from Kat about sort of social class inside of

Speaker 1 this story, which is not something we've talked about, but is something that is so key to understanding any kind of like worker rebellion, which is what we're witnessing here.

Speaker 1 And something that Kat pointed out that hadn't occurred to me, I think is so smart is that Mark and Gemma

Speaker 1 were professors. They were intellectuals.
They were part of an upper echelon of society.

Speaker 1 And the way in which that positions Mark, leaving Gemma aside, positions Mark as someone who comes from privilege and has some privileged attitudes that some of the other characters might not.

Speaker 1 So Kat wrote, Scout is similarly to Helena, a privileged man who had largely in his life escaped the drudgery of the working class.

Speaker 1 It's very interesting that he started as a professor and is brought, quote, down to the factory, as it were, whereas the other characters we see are very much raised to it.

Speaker 1 He's not only allied to Heliar, but to Helena. In terms of class solidarity, I think the show does something very interesting in showing their chemistry on both sides.

Speaker 1 Lumen, like real world corporates, is not interested in his workers to the extent that they must source the subjects of their most important project from outside the company.

Speaker 1 I think the writing with Dylan, I agree, less successfully, Milchik, and Miss Wong, communicates the dichotomy of that life successfully.

Speaker 1 Dylan and Milchik are both black men who are forced to fight for a life that is designed to destroy their spirit, their identity.

Speaker 1 Milchik's greatest humiliation in the series is being called by his first name, a humanizing representation of the individual he's been groomed to abandon.

Speaker 1 Dylan, in his purest form, is strong, assertive, proactive, and poor Miss Wong is denied her final performance and sent off to, not quite, Siberia without her comfort toy.

Speaker 1 We see the extent to which trying to survive on the outside has stripped him of their positive qualities. The same is true with Milchik's use of language.

Speaker 1 There's such a richness to the portrayal of an extremely educated black man being mocked for that education. The goalposts are always moving.
So I really love inside of

Speaker 1 the racial identity questions, which we've been talking about all season with Natalie, with Milchik,

Speaker 1 with... Dylan to a certain degree, with Ms.
Wong,

Speaker 1 with Gemma, as Kat invokes later in this email, and how that interacts with social class, the social class element, thinking of Mark as like a professor who has,

Speaker 1 you know, moved in, moved from his like well-appointed home into this soulless corporate housing and has sort of accorded, according to the other intellectuals, like the people that we met via Ricken, sort of,

Speaker 1 you know, doomed himself. to drudgery or whatever the case may be.
That's not how I think about office work necessarily, but like that is something that

Speaker 1 is definitely part of Mark's decision here to abandon one life for another, which I think is interesting.

Speaker 2 And I think it's ultimately maybe one of the reasons why when we're talking about the differences in the way Mark thinks about Innies versus Dylan, that Dylan is more sympathetic, right?

Speaker 2 Like that he, his station is maybe not so different from his Innies in a lot of different ways.

Speaker 2 He's been looked over, he's been taken advantage of, he's been going in and out of job interviews for how knows, who knows how long, and ultimately has to take this job because he needs money and he needs stable work.

Speaker 2 And so he is subjecting himself to this in a totally different way than Mark is, who kind of just wants like a psychic break from the grief and the, the pain that he's dealing with, which is a totally different consideration set.

Speaker 2 Totally.

Speaker 1 Versus someone like Harmony, who like came from the factories and has been raised up, up, up to this management position.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 2 What else do you want to talk about, Rob?

Speaker 2 I want to circle back to one more kind of consistency, continuity, like a logistical question about the way that the testing floor worked that I saw a lot of people asking questions about, which is specifically the idea that when Mark enters the cold harbor room, his innie is not triggered in the way that Gemma's is.

Speaker 2 And we don't get a lot of concrete examples as to why, but I think this question kind of hits at something that is specific to Gemma that I think is worth answering, which is, as much as we think of Mark as Lumen Jesus, I think Gemma is such a specific and powerful figure for Lumen that

Speaker 2 those rooms are kind of attuned to a different frequency.

Speaker 2 This is just my read on it than the regular severed floor is, that there is something about her kind of 25 innings subconsciousness that requires a different level of hardware.

Speaker 2 Like that's a specialized chip that she has in her head that maybe is different from Mark's.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think that's, I think that's really interesting. I mean, that makes sense to me.
Um, not everything necessarily makes sense after in terms of like the elevator.

Speaker 1 Basically, his chip, the only thing about his chip that is true is that it works on the severed floor. And that's how his chip is programmed.

Speaker 1 And that Gemma's fancier, more advanced chip works differently. That all makes sense to me.

Speaker 2 Someone did bring up to me that Mark S's experience is that he goes down the elevator holding the bolt gun to Drummond and comes up making out with his therapist, which I thought was just an incredible turn of events for that character.

Speaker 2 He's been going through a lot.

Speaker 1 I also like the observation a lot of people have made that like the question of who killed Drummond is

Speaker 2 like nobody. The blood is all over both of them and yet their hands are clean.

Speaker 1 Severance, the concept of severance killed Drummond?

Speaker 2 It's true.

Speaker 1 We also got this email from Terry that I really liked about

Speaker 1 in terms of relating to the goon squad and lack thereof. Terry says in this last episode, it really struck me how much Lumen invests in religion to its own detriment.

Speaker 1 Of the departments we know about, only MDR's work is fully committed to the, quote, science of severance.

Speaker 1 While optics and design is a mix managing objects used in severance testing, but also things like cure-focused paintings.

Speaker 1 I used to think the investment in religion was to help make the innies into better workers. For instance, the perpetuity wing was supposed to give them a sense of purpose.

Speaker 1 But now we see that the goat and band departments are completely useless from that perspective.

Speaker 1 Most of the people hired in the underground floors contribute to ceremonies that occur after the, quote, mysterious and important work is done.

Speaker 1 Couldn't one of those departments have been used to beef up security instead? So I think that's interesting. The fact that the whole goat

Speaker 1 setup, and we didn't talk about this explicitly in terms of the conversation around Emile,

Speaker 1 the baby goat. Yes.
And the idea that he is.

Speaker 2 May he grow to be strong and have even more verve than we saw in the finale. Sturdy legged.

Speaker 1 That he is going to be killed so that he can be buried with a woman of great importance. Yeah.
I think

Speaker 2 a cherished woman is Drummond's language. Entombed with a cherished woman.

Speaker 1 Entombed with a cherished woman.

Speaker 2 What's your read on that line?

Speaker 1 I love an ambiguous, an ambiguous line.

Speaker 1 The obvious answer is Gemma. Yep.

Speaker 1 But could it be a Helly of some?

Speaker 1 I mean, that Helly thing doesn't make sense to me because like, I understand that Jamie Egan's like, I see the fire in you and it wasn't there in my daughter, Helena, but like,

Speaker 1 wouldn't he then just like keep Helie around rather than kill Helena, which is what some people thought? Yes. The implied move was there.

Speaker 1 I don't think that he would want to kill Helena, but I could see him like, but effectively kill her by keeping Heli around sort of thing.

Speaker 2 And if the ultimate goal of Cold Harbor and Gemma's chip is to create a severance chip that's so powerful, it can basically wipe identity or completely subsume an identity.

Speaker 2 Is there a way that it could play a role in Heli becoming the default setting for Helena Egan versus Helena?

Speaker 2 Now that James is so kind of infatuated with the idea of her and the fire and the cure that he sees in her, I think that could be part of the play here, but in that case, Entombed with a Cherished Woman would be purely a symbolic idea.

Speaker 2 That's like a ghost goat taking this consciousness into the afterlife. And I don't know if we're going quite that far down the rabbit hole, but it's on the table.

Speaker 2 I do think it's worth questioning whether it has to be Gemma or whether there are some other interpretations here.

Speaker 1 He died doing what he loved most, Entombed with a Cherished Woman.

Speaker 1 Okay, I have a reading list that was, somebody literally asked me to put this together. I didn't, I didn't make anyone write this email.

Speaker 2 email somebody wrote it so any excuse i'll take anything you want to mention before we get to that and then i think we should probably put this beloved tv show to bed one last thing to kind of circle back to terry's email about the ideology versus kind of like purely capitalist corporate interests of lumen

Speaker 2 I think this is one of the richest ideas within Lumen proper itself, you know, putting all the ideal, like putting all the conceptual stuff aside as far as what severance means and identity and all, you know, all the questions you've been wrestling through all season, all the show.

Speaker 2 There are a lot of very big organizations that have to invest in ideology in order to further their actual agenda. Like it's a very potent way to get very fervent support.

Speaker 2 And I think for a company like Lumen to get a very willing and pliable workforce, to get people who believe in your mission wholeheartedly, even though they may not understand fully what that mission is.

Speaker 2 And so things like the GOATs, to me, are either a remnant of that version of Lumen that now these two threads have become so intertwined, they're basically inextricable.

Speaker 2 And also, there does seem to be quite a level of investment on the egan part of that as far as like

Speaker 2 if even if the egans themselves don't believe in the mysticism around Lumen and its operations, they're at least fluent in it enough to parrot those things to the people who work for Lumen and to the people of Kier, of Salt's Neck, like the people who are ostensibly in their orbit in order to curry favor, to, again, to bring more people into the factory, into the severed floor.

Speaker 2 Like this is a weaponized kind of ideology as much as anything.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I think that's really smart. And I think as we look around our current,

Speaker 1 let's say, American society and the way in which these tech innovators are

Speaker 1 revered in some spheres, I think it's a great cautionary tale.

Speaker 2 Hmm. Hmm.
Hmm. Okay.

Speaker 1 Reading list. There's a non-fiction on here, just for you, Rob Mahoney.

Speaker 2 Wow, look at that.

Speaker 1 But mostly fiction.

Speaker 1 Someone asked, sort of like, if severance is done and I'm still jonesing for that severance vibe, or i want to continue to engage in these ideas what are some books i can read um so i'll just go through some books that i've mentioned so far this season and and other ideas as well we'll link it in the before you get into the actual books can i ask you a process question about this prompt where's your starting point are you thinking tone are you thinking genre are you thinking philosophical concepts like where are you entering into this list um i started with books we specifically talked about this season and then sort of extrapolated from there and i came back to the list like three or four different times, and I was adding things that I think try to answer all of those prompts.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 so something like Lincoln and the Bardo, which we talked about earlier this season, as a good example of the concept of the Bardo by George Saunders, or Escape from Spiderhead, which is a George Saunders story that a lot of our listeners invoked as similar in some way.

Speaker 1 Never Let Me Go by Kazoo Oshiguro,

Speaker 1 Never Let Me Go as a story story of people,

Speaker 1 people, if you prefer to think of them that way or not, who are basically like invented and grown and farmed in order to be organ donors to, quote, real people.

Speaker 1 And so, do those people who are grown and farmed, are they allowed to have wants and needs and desires and a life of their own? Are they allowed to fall in love? Are they allowed to do all this stuff?

Speaker 2 Also, we should say, for the non-fiction readers out there, the Team Rob Among Us,

Speaker 2 also very watchable in film form in a movie I quite like.

Speaker 1 Yeah, great movie. A lot of these are movies, actually.
Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl, the play that I talked about, quick read, great story about the underworld, about forgetting, all that sort of stuff.

Speaker 1 Story of Your Life and Others by Ted Cheng.

Speaker 1 Ted is one of the great sci-fi writers of our time, and Stories of Your Life and Others includes the story that Arrival is based on, a film that Rob Mahoney

Speaker 2 is fucking rips. Fucking rips.

Speaker 2 Front to back, emotional sci-fi storytelling. Let's go.
This is what we're here for joe this is why we play

Speaker 1 crying of lot 49 by thomas pynchin of all the postmodernist novels about sort of like creepy uh secret societies and following clues down rabbit holes uh that have to do with like um

Speaker 1 I don't know, the mysterious iconography of our world.

Speaker 1 Crying of Lot 49 is one that I think about all the time. That is a classic postmodern book.

Speaker 1 Pure and Easy by Susannah Clark, which the animation studio Leica is turning into a movie.

Speaker 1 I don't know how they're going to do it, but Susannah Clark, who wrote Jonathan Strange and Miss Norrell, Pyrrhonese is a very disorientingly weird book that I had a great time with.

Speaker 1 It came out a couple of years ago.

Speaker 1 And in terms of being lost in a maze somewhere, in terms of like Minotaurs and all kinds of stuff and remembering yourself, memory and remembering yourself, Pyronesi is a fucking bullseye on

Speaker 2 that. Don't question what Leica is capable of.
As far as bringing a weird, ephemeral story to life, this is kind of the zone.

Speaker 1 The Southern Reach trilogy, which is now actually a quadrilogy, by Jeff Vandermeer. The first book, Annihilation, was turned into a film that Rob

Speaker 2 Joanna Robinson, Annihilation Pod Win.

Speaker 2 When are we doing it? How can we talk about this movie?

Speaker 2 Fucking rules so hard, it's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 But the second book, Authority, is sort of even more engaging in the ideas of this world.

Speaker 1 The Circle by Dave Eggers. This is a book that Eggers wrote that's based, you know, Dave Eggers, a barrier boy, Dave Eggers.

Speaker 1 So The Circle is about a shadowy tech corporation and blah, blah, loosely, very transparently based on like Facebook and Google.

Speaker 1 And then to round it out with nonfiction, Sarah Wynn Williams just put out a book called Careless People, Colin, a Cautionary Tale of Power, Green, and Lost Idealism

Speaker 1 about her time at Facebook. And it is a book that Facebook is trying to suppress.
And they don't, I mean, what a great marketing tool.

Speaker 1 The book Facebook doesn't want you to read, but they have tried to sue her. And she signed a non,

Speaker 1 what is that, non-disparagement clause, I think.

Speaker 1 So she's not allowed to promote her own book.

Speaker 2 Interesting. But

Speaker 2 so we're doing it.

Speaker 1 Careless people calling

Speaker 1 of power, greed, and lost idealism. I actually heard

Speaker 2 this podcast, the Prestige TV podcast. This is the pod that Luma doesn't want you to hear.

Speaker 2 You know, we're the only people speaking truth to power. So please, please hang with us as we continue to talk about severance and otherwise.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, severance, we did it.
Thank you for your literally thousands and thousands and thousands of emails that you've written to us about severance over the course of the season.

Speaker 1 You guys all make it

Speaker 1 just such a like a much richer experience for us in terms of bringing your various perspectives and areas of expertise into the conversation. We love talking about television with you all.

Speaker 1 Thanks to everyone who's helped us this season, be it Kai Grady,

Speaker 1 John Richter, Justin Sales, Donny Beacham, if he perhaps filled in, CT, if he filled in, all of the people who have helped me hang out in the void with you, Rob Mahoney.

Speaker 2 It takes a fully stocked floor of goons to get you onto the void, Joe. It's true.

Speaker 1 Whoever puts new LaCroix in the fridge here at the office,

Speaker 1 you know, all of all of the all the people doing the great work.

Speaker 2 I hope we are back talking about severance sooner than later. Oh, yeah.
I have one final question for you along those lines, which is a notoriously long layover between seasons one and two, Joe.

Speaker 2 If you're throwing a dart at the board right now, what is the premiere date for Severance season three?

Speaker 1 Well, no, they're going to want it for Emmys.

Speaker 1 So, um,

Speaker 2 what is, yeah, what would you say is Emmy's season? Like, how should we, how can we construct that and reverse engineer from eligibility?

Speaker 1 Uh, it's like

Speaker 1 what has become increasingly true is that they want to clog it in and around

Speaker 1 early spring.

Speaker 1 So, you know, this was a January premiere. This was so smart.
Severance was so smart this season because they had January all to themselves.

Speaker 1 And even as the field has gotten more and more crowded, like they got that toe hold in. And it's just sort of, you know, the pit is here, people care.
White Lotus is here and people care.

Speaker 1 Daredevil is here. Yellowjackets is here.
Blah, blah, blah. But like, Severance is like, we were here.
We planted our flag. So why, you know, know, why not?

Speaker 1 And they were, they were a December to January show in season one. So like, why not own your January beat? And I would say 2027, January 2027 is what I see.
What do you think?

Speaker 2 That feels 2027 feels realistic. Q1, 2027.
Q1, 2027. January into February, March, if you prefer.
But like, I think that's what we're looking at.

Speaker 2 That's a long wait for a show like this that we love talking about so much, but sometimes you have to wait for good things.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, thanks for sticking with us for this super sized episode of the the Press DV podcast.

Speaker 1 We'll be back with white lotus coverage, of course, with pit coverage, of course, and whatever else comes our way. We'll see you soon.
Bye.