‘Severance’ Season 2, Episode 9: Who’s the Secret Eagan?

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

Speaker 2 I'm Rob Mahoney.

Speaker 1 We're here to talk to you about the,

Speaker 1 as Ben Stiller said a hundred different times in the official pod this week, the penultimate episode of Severance.

Speaker 2 That's how you know he's a podcaster now.

Speaker 1 He loves the word penultimate. And he has arrived.

Speaker 1 So before we get into this episode, we're here to talk to you about episode nine, The After Hours, written by the creator, Dan Erickson, and directed by Uta Bricevitz, who is, we've already talked about her as an incredible TV director previously in the season.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 excited to talk to you about this. We haven't talked about this at all, Rob.
So I actually don't know how you feel about this episode. We're going to do sort of like a big picture look.

Speaker 1 Before we do that, some like programming announcements, and they're a little bit more detailed than they usually are.

Speaker 2 So, but with payoffs, don't

Speaker 1 skip ahead like you usually do.

Speaker 2 Pay attention, okay? Take notes.

Speaker 1 The Severance finale is next week. You may have heard.

Speaker 2 I've also heard it's 76 minutes long.

Speaker 1 76 minutes long, correct? Episode 10, 76 minutes long. So, we will be breaking down that next week.
And that finale episode is going to drop Thursday night.

Speaker 1 So, like, right after the finale airs, this podcast, we usually do this on a Friday morning. This podcast will be up Thursday night next week.

Speaker 1 but we have a bonus episode next week because we just want to like squeeze every last drop of milk out of that goat i guess uh i hated it too okay so uh wednesday

Speaker 1 at noon pacific rob and i are doing like a live q a mailbaggy thing on youtube so um we'll have links up in our socials and stuff like that but you can find us on bringer tv the youtube channel um we will be you can email us your questions, Rob, where can they reach us for this podcast?

Speaker 2 Always at pineapplebobbing at gmail.com. And of course, at prestige TV at spotify.com.
If you're, I guess, less fun or you just don't feel like bobbing today. So

Speaker 1 you can, you can send your, your theories, your questions, your queries there.

Speaker 2 Please do. We're going to need them.
Like we're going to take questions live from the chat, of course, but we got to get some fodder to get started. So please send us in theories, ideas.

Speaker 2 I think just kind of general questions about the world of the show. It doesn't have to be guessing at the end game.
Like, let's have, let's have fun with the goats among us.

Speaker 1 That sounds great.

Speaker 1 So, so, yeah, so live QA on Wednesday at noon Pacific,

Speaker 1 Thursday night drop for the finale pod, and then we'll have a follow-up pod for you guys at the beginning of the fall of the next week where we can engage with all of your emails, your reactions to the finale, all that sort of stuff.

Speaker 1 And we might have something more to do, but we will we will reveal that as it comes. So, that's all of our severance plans.

Speaker 1 In addition to the ongoing white lotus coverage, Rob and I dipped into the pit this week.

Speaker 1 Rob, this is our third prestige episode together this week. Do you have any takes left in you? Or

Speaker 1 did you reserve some takes or severance? Or are you all taked out?

Speaker 2 I'm a little taked barren at the moment, but you know, something about these severance pods in particular, Joe, just brings out the life in us, I think.

Speaker 2 You know, something about the cold, desolate wilderness of seeing Kira proper, of seeing, you know,

Speaker 2 Helena in a nice plunge pool. I just think there's something about this episode that's really going to keep us alive.

Speaker 1 Well, you notoriously love to dissect an egg into uncomfortably small pieces and eat it in front of your dad question mark.

Speaker 2 Even the egg cutter, I don't like it.

Speaker 1 I don't either.

Speaker 1 There are some kitchen implements where I'm just sort of like, we don't need this. And it makes me uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 The general rule is if it's a one-use implement, you don't need it in your kitchen.

Speaker 2 And it seems like all this thing does is dice a boiled egg into six identical pieces, which you don't need anything to do.

Speaker 1 Okay, I have a follow-up question for you on this.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 What about like

Speaker 1 citrus juicer?

Speaker 2 I mean, you can.

Speaker 2 That one I think you have to have for one, essential to your kitchen. Also, juices multiple kinds of citrus for the record.

Speaker 1 That's a loophole I thought you were going to find.

Speaker 2 I think it's allowed.

Speaker 1 Follow-up question: Apple core.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Cut your apples. Or eat the apple, you don't need a core.

Speaker 1 Do you know that I used to worked in a bakery? Uh, and um, I didn't know this, yeah, just briefly when I was a teenager, and um,

Speaker 1 we had this thing that I love that was almost like a pencil sharpener where you basically like stab the apple onto it and you like crank it and it peels the apple.

Speaker 1 And it was just for like mass apple peeling for like various like strudels and pies and stuff like that. So, um, pretty sick

Speaker 1 stuff, but no egg cutter. Um, you mentioned the cold, frosty environs that we find all of our Egans and otherwise in.
One last note on sort of timing of next week.

Speaker 1 Our listener Zach wrote in to point out that the season two finale is airing on March 21st, which is the spring equinox.

Speaker 1 Aka the day in mythology that Persephone emerges from Hades and begins spring.

Speaker 2 Holy shit.

Speaker 1 It's also full moon this week and it's full moon on White Lotus this week as well. So I don't think they're planning any of this.

Speaker 2 I don't think so either, but if they are,

Speaker 1 the Northern Californian in me loves to talk about it.

Speaker 2 So, you know.

Speaker 1 Okay, so let's start with big picture thoughts on the episode.

Speaker 1 Rob,

Speaker 1 last week's episode, episode eight, was, I would say, quite controversial.

Speaker 1 People felt pretty divided on it. A lot of people felt quite negative on it.

Speaker 1 How are you, you know, and we, We said it wasn't our favorite episode, but I thought we found a lot of like good stuff to talk about. Oh, easily.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 What, how did you feel about episode nine? Where are you sitting with this?

Speaker 2 I think you're seeing some of the after effects of an episode like that, where we talked about the sort of storytelling momentum in taking this huge diversion into Cobel's storyline.

Speaker 2 And you need that if you're going to reintroduce Cobel in the story in some way, if you're going to bring her back, you know, with Mark and Devin and loop her back into the action, you need to know what she's been up to.

Speaker 2 But that also means you have to do a lot of just kind of moving the chains on the other characters to get them now in place for the finale.

Speaker 2 And so, I will say, I did feel a lot of that, a lot of kind of positioning the pieces on the board. I also thought we just had some breathtaking emotional moments in this episode.

Speaker 2 And so that to me is a fair enough balance for a penultimate endeavor.

Speaker 1 I'm really excited to talk to you about like how well those emotional moments hit or not for me as we go through. But I agree, I had like table setter in my notes here.

Speaker 1 I had checking in on plotlines we've been away from for three weeks,

Speaker 1 only to sort of clear the deck of players because there's a version of the finale where we don't see Irving, Bert, Miss Wong, or maybe even Dylan.

Speaker 1 I know, you know, like this, this is like it's potentially setting up a just sort of like, we've put these characters to the side

Speaker 1 in the case of Irving, maybe forever, question mark, or, or who's to say?

Speaker 1 So I thought that was interesting.

Speaker 1 And then, so I don't, I liked this episode better than I liked episode eight, though, to be clear, you and I were higher on episode eight than like some of the more critical fan pieces of the fandom.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 my frustration points were a little sharper with this episode than they were with episode eight because episode eight, sort of what Damon Lindelof was talking about when we talked to him early in the season, about like sort of where in the season you can get away with certain things.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 And in an episode nine of a 10-episode season, when you have Harmony Cabell show up and dramatically say Cold Harbor and then not tell them what Cold Harbor is

Speaker 1 in a way that no human would ever do that.

Speaker 1 Only a TV character keeping us in suspense about what Cold Harbor is would do.

Speaker 1 That, that, I felt like I felt the sort of the gears behind the storytelling, you know, sort of groaning and creaking a little bit.

Speaker 2 Even the delivery, just cold harbor. It's like, this is not human interaction.

Speaker 2 I know Harmony Cobel is on her own wavelength, on her own planet in a lot of senses, but this is just not how any of this part of the story would go.

Speaker 2 I think overall, the Mark and Harmony stuff continues to mystify me as far as why that is being executed in the way it is.

Speaker 2 And we can get into it as we get into that part of the story, but I have no answers as to why almost any of that is happening other than it needs to happen to get the story where it needs to go.

Speaker 2 And that's not really satisfactory to me.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much for sharing with us your incredible Harmony Cabell impression. And that reminds me that I should tell listeners,

Speaker 1 we here at The Ringer at Spotify are currently unable to put clips into our podcast for very boring reasons that we don't need to get into. But

Speaker 1 you will not hear any clips from the episode, unlike last week where we crammed like so many clips in.

Speaker 2 You won't hear anything. Did we break it?

Speaker 2 Was it our fault? It might have been.

Speaker 1 You won't hear any clips from the episode, and we can't even do the berving drop. So we're going to have to rely on Rob's impression

Speaker 1 to get us through.

Speaker 2 And this week of all weeks, to not have the birthing drop is heartbreaking. It's tough.

Speaker 1 No crab rangoon. Like what we're bereft, honestly, but we'll soldier through.

Speaker 1 I wanted to start. I do want to go sort of like plotline by plot line, but I want to start with this.

Speaker 1 Like, let's check in on the opening credits because this is something that we've been like looking at every week.

Speaker 1 Not every week, but like as the season evolves, we're sort of like, oh, that's what that

Speaker 1 vial of milky goo is. It's the medicine that Mark's taking, or that's why there's an ice flow, or that's why there's this that and the other stuff um

Speaker 1 and so i'm looking at it i'm like what's still left that i don't feel like has been fulfilled by the plot yeah is it the dozens of cure babies oh we're gonna get there that's my last thing first of all more explicit mark v mark scenarios do you know what i mean yes that's such a foundational part of the opening credits and i don't know that i feel like i've felt them in conflict with each other.

Speaker 2 Would you say that in the opening credits, it is V? Because it's a lot of like Mark yanking the other version of himself around, pulling him through various holes and orifices. And it's...

Speaker 2 It's not what you want. It's not what you want to see come out of a human head,

Speaker 2 but I always interpreted it a little bit more as...

Speaker 1 Mark helping Mark?

Speaker 2 Not necessarily like helping, repositioning, maybe saving in some instances, maybe whipping about, but not necessarily being in direct conflict, if you know what I mean. Okay.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 I think I feel like there's some scenarios where it seems conflicted, but you're very right that there are also some scenarios where one is carrying the other, let's say, like under that like elevator curtain part of the opening credits.

Speaker 1 Okay, there's that

Speaker 1 Heli, so Gemma in the testing floor elevator we've seen. Yes.
But that image in the opening credits flashes between Helena and Gemma. And on the one hand, that could just be,

Speaker 1 hey, these are two women that have captured Mark's fancy. Or are we going to see,

Speaker 1 as seemed to be indicated in this episode, Heli and/or Helena get on that elevator and go down to the testing floor before all is said and done?

Speaker 2 I mean, despite all of the Mark and Harmony and Devon plans, Helly's the person who's actually like closest to getting to the testing floor to the extent that when she goes down there, she will still be Helly, which we don't really know.

Speaker 1 She won't be, though. That's the one, that's the thing I'm okay.
Here's, here's a theory I saw on Reddit this morning. Credit to the Redditors, they're the best,

Speaker 1 that really intrigued me. And again, we're going to save most of our what's going to happen in the finale, even though I just started talking about it for our Q ⁇ A.

Speaker 1 But if Helly and Mark both get on that testing floor elevator and go down,

Speaker 1 it will be their Audis

Speaker 1 on the testing floor. Yeah.
It will be.

Speaker 1 Chinese diner zoo food energy down on the testing floor. And that's very exciting to me.
They're not going to make it. Is that not exciting?

Speaker 2 They're not going to make it out of that elevator. Those two in a confined space, I put nothing past them.

Speaker 1 I think that could be really fun. Okay, last but not least,

Speaker 1 proliferation of baby cures.

Speaker 2 That's one way to put it.

Speaker 1 That brings me now to a segment I'm calling Secret Eagon.

Speaker 1 And a game I would like to play with you, Rob Mahoney.

Speaker 2 I'm so glad that there's just an endless variety of shows we can apply secret baby logic to.

Speaker 1 You know, Secret Baby for sure, but also this is just reminding me of like in the were you a Battlestar Galactica?

Speaker 2 Oh, of course. So say we all, Joe.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Secret Cylon or the Height of Thrones Mania, Secret Targaryen. Like, this is a game we like to play.
Okay, so Secret Egan.

Speaker 1 We get in this episode when they're breaking into the birthing cabins, she's one of James, right? Like

Speaker 1 that fake pregnant Devin is one of James, which the implication is that that Jamie Egan, like Elon Musk, has decided to just sort of spread his seed all around.

Speaker 1 He's getting better enough human beings.

Speaker 2 He's a busy man.

Speaker 1 There was

Speaker 1 an item in the newspaper

Speaker 1 that mentioned that a woman got pregnant while she was severed.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 That was a whole thing.

Speaker 2 I think it was a news report. It was like a TV news report where Natalie had to explain how it happened on like CNN, effectively.

Speaker 1 One of James is what I would say. Okay, so

Speaker 1 let's go down a list. And I would just like to hear your input.

Speaker 2 Number one, Rickin.

Speaker 2 Ricken's on my list. By far, the funniest secret Egan possibility.
I really hope Rickin is an Egan.

Speaker 1 Ricken's on my list. Okay.

Speaker 1 Rob says yes. I'm just going to take notes here.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Harmony Cabell.

Speaker 2 I think

Speaker 2 twofold. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Is she an Egan?

Speaker 1 And then has she had a child by an egan?

Speaker 2 I think no and yes

Speaker 2 is what we're being positioned for. Like

Speaker 2 her showing up at the birthing site, knowing just what to say sounded a lot to me like she's been on the other side of that situation before where she was the one being smuggled in, perhaps.

Speaker 2 Plus,

Speaker 1 our listener Holly wrote, Harmony, if not an actual lactation consultant, knows enough to assist Devon, maybe from personal experience.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So not an actual Egan herself, but perhaps the mother of an Egan.

Speaker 1 And we already mentioned this early in the season, but could that Egan in particular be Helena Heli?

Speaker 1 We know nothing about Helena's mom. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think if Harmony is, in fact, the mother of an Egan, it would almost have to be Helena, just based on the characters on the board, unless it's like, oh, there was a mystery baby that is since dead or out of the story for some reason.

Speaker 2 Like the narrative knots, I think, would start to tie themselves if it's someone we don't know.

Speaker 2 And so, yeah, if there's going to be a connection, it would be to Helena, which I don't love, to be honest with you.

Speaker 1 Me neither.

Speaker 1 Mark or Devin?

Speaker 2 No, I don't think so. I agree.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Drummond.

Speaker 2 Yes, but like extended family. I think he's more of a cousin or something.

Speaker 1 Or like, just like an Egan, yeah, like an Egan bastard. I mean, I guess they all are.
I don't like that word.

Speaker 1 Anyway, okay.

Speaker 1 A connected, distantly connected Egan.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 I felt a little uneasy in my heart and my mind and my soul and my stomach when I Googled whether or not the following actors were biracial, but I did do that. So let's talk about this.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Miss Wong.

Speaker 2 Possible.

Speaker 1 Possible.

Speaker 2 Possible.

Speaker 1 Dylan.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 And then...

Speaker 1 Here's my fave, personally.

Speaker 1 On the official pod this week, which was like not the most,

Speaker 1 I, I, I think I got the least out of this particular official pod, um, not out of entertainment, but like, I think they're just holding all their cards very close to the mask right here before the finale.

Speaker 1 So I understand why. But their interview this week was Sydney Cole Alexander, who plays Natalie.

Speaker 1 And she had this really interesting part where she was talking about early in the season, the two encounters between Natalie and Milchik when Milchik is trying to have this sort of like, hey, have you, a person of color, had this same experience as i a person of color can we find fellowship in common cause here yeah and what cindy call alexander said is like that she as an actress made this choice to lean into natalie's what she called light-skinnedness to say no we are not the same you and i i am a light-skinned like person of color and you are not and that makes me different slash

Speaker 1 quote-unquote like better uh like in in the warped imaginations of a natalie right so could a natalie be a secret Egan?

Speaker 2 I think it's possible. I would say the fact that she was also given the paintings suggests that I mean, she's clearly being othered in a way that's similar to Belchick for sure.

Speaker 2 I'm going to say no, just because I, frankly, I don't want too many secret egans on the board. And so, if I'm already putting one or two up there, I don't want Natalie to be one as well.

Speaker 1 Okay, so to recap, it's Ricken.

Speaker 2 I hope so.

Speaker 2 I really hope so.

Speaker 1 And unfortunately, perhaps Harmony has, you know,

Speaker 1 mothered a secret or acclaimed egan.

Speaker 1 Okay, so that has been the stomach churning game of Secret Egan.

Speaker 2 If you have

Speaker 1 nominations for this bleak, bleak game,

Speaker 1 you can email us at pineapplebobbing at gmail.com or press each TV at Spotify.

Speaker 2 Yeah, who else could it be? Like, like Mark W. Secret Egan?

Speaker 2 Ali a Shawcat, Secret Egan.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Sure.

Speaker 2 Random, was he an Italian? Was he an Italian guy? What was the other guy?

Speaker 2 Okay, thank you.

Speaker 1 Secret Egan.

Speaker 2 That was a hate quote, Diddy. I apologize.
It's all right. You know, James has been abroad, you know, like he's a, he is a busy man.
He's a man about town. Like, I'm not putting it.

Speaker 2 He's continental travel. Again, I think he's capable of anything.

Speaker 1 That's true. Okay.

Speaker 1 Let's do, let's go sort of person by person as we go through this episode because Everyone is kind of siloed into their own story by design.

Speaker 1 We are meant to say, wow, Milchik's plan of basically decimating the MDR camaraderie has certainly worked, and everyone's in their own little

Speaker 1 side plot. But let's start not with a member of the MDR team.
Let's start with Milchik. Okay.

Speaker 1 Milchik v. Drummond.

Speaker 2 This is an incredible encounter, obviously.

Speaker 1 What

Speaker 1 do you think that that the only reason he wasn't fired on the spot is because of this intensive pressure around the completion of Cold Harbor?

Speaker 2 Basically, yes,

Speaker 1 no other way he would not be fired on the spot for what he did here, right?

Speaker 2 This was the like, I'm throwing my badging gun on the table and storming out of the office speech. Yeah, so yeah, like it felt like he was quitting, even though obviously he is not.

Speaker 2 And I think the nature of this interaction overall and Milchik kind of asserting some of his authority and asserting some of what actually is his jurisdiction, I think, sets up pretty effectively the stuff with Mark on the phone in the subsequent scenes.

Speaker 2 Like, that almost doesn't happen if he's feeling desperate and under the gun, and like Drummond is all like on his back trying to get Mark to come back in to finish Cold Harbor ASAP.

Speaker 2 And so, like, the idea of giving Mark the day, I think, is dependent on this exchange happening. That said, Joe, I will say this exchange felt very mixed to me, and some of it very, very flat.

Speaker 2 The monosyllabically

Speaker 2 situation, I enjoyed.

Speaker 2 Him rightly pointing out, not my job,

Speaker 2 not my circus, not my monkeys out in the outside world.

Speaker 2 Devour Fecculence,

Speaker 2 way too cute.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Way, way too cute.

Speaker 1 I kind of agree with you, even though my understanding is that it is quite popular

Speaker 1 a moment among people.

Speaker 1 A satisfying thing to say to one's horrible boss.

Speaker 2 But somehow less satisfying than eat shit. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Were you, fellow Buffyhead, reminded of because our listener Vinny pointed out that when he says to put that monosyllabically, he then follows it with monosyllables.

Speaker 1 Like, it's not my fault what Mark Scout does when he is not at work. It's yours.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 Did it remind you at all of

Speaker 1 Buffy and Spike out for a walk?

Speaker 2 Bitch. Bitch.

Speaker 1 I'm always thinking about Spike when I can. I kind of agree.
And there's a few. So there's a few callbacks inside of this episode.

Speaker 1 This is more of a resolution, not a callback, but there's a few moments that call back in ways that satisfy me.

Speaker 1 You know, like this episode ends with She's Alive, which was the cliffhanger ending of the season one finale.

Speaker 2 One more for the road.

Speaker 2 If someone who does have access to clips and can put them together in a super cut in a way that we no longer can, can put together every time someone this season has said some variation of She's Alive, I would love to see it.

Speaker 1 Nothing tops the season one finale of the slow-motion.

Speaker 2 Oh, the slow-mo is so good.

Speaker 1 But, you know, there's a couple different callbacks, and some work and some don't. And yeah, some feel a little too cute for me.
And

Speaker 2 I'm inclined to agree with you.

Speaker 1 As for Miss Wong,

Speaker 1 who is sent to Gunnell Egan's Empathy Center in Svalbard, where she will work to steward global reforms?

Speaker 1 This feels to me like

Speaker 1 a Milchik call rather than a Lumen call. Mrs.
Milchik being like, you hung me out to dry. You narked on me.
I do not like having you here.

Speaker 1 I'm sending you to Svalbard, which like if you thought it was cold and dreary and cure, wait till you get a load of Svalbard. That's tough.

Speaker 1 Anything you want to say about Miss Wong's departure here or sort of the role, if we don't see her again this season or at all, the role she played this season?

Speaker 2 I'm a little confounded by the character.

Speaker 2 And some of that is like, was she just here to add to the weirdness of the dynamic and to kind of sop up mystery as we're going along and trying to figure out who she is and what role she plays?

Speaker 2 Obviously, there is the element of taking this idea of child labor, which is so critical to the Lumen identity, and transposing it into an office setting and calling it a fellowship.

Speaker 2 all good all good here no problems whatsoever it's a classic rebranding classic rebranding i i appreciate the pr work yeah

Speaker 2 at the end of the day i i solve so many questions about miss wong i hope this is not the end of her story like if if the the end of her arc is her as as a little girl with her earmuffs waiting for the bus like i'm i understand what we're doing there but it feels like kind of a missed opportunity given her presence throughout this season and given like how fascinating that character could be And so I'm I am still waiting for something with Miss Wong.

Speaker 2 And I hope this show continues to pay off her presence in the story. I'm just a little worried that she might be out of here.

Speaker 1 Let me tell you my inside baseball reason why I think this is the last we see of Miss Wong.

Speaker 1 How soon do you think it's going to be until we get Severance season three?

Speaker 2 Eight years.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this is a classic, this is a classic I source this back to the TV show Lost, where they had a kid in the first season and then he just got really tall, and they had to sort of contort the plot to write him out of the show.

Speaker 1 Tall Waltz.

Speaker 1 So, this happens all the time on shows when you cast kids. You gotta, this is why, this is why allegedly, the Harry Potter actors for the

Speaker 1 potentially ill-advised HBO show, who's to say, HBO show that they're making.

Speaker 1 I think they're making it like back to back to back to back because those kids are going to grow. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And they have to try to like outpace them.

Speaker 1 So, um, Miss Wong, the actress who plays Miss Wong, uh, Sarah Bach, I believe, has just enrolled in college.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I want to say Northwestern. I saw a clip of her, like a

Speaker 2 little meet and greet clip at Northwestern. What a dog.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and she was talking about, like, was it Britt Lauer? It was like one of, one of her, one of the cast mates

Speaker 1 who like recommended her, like, that she check out Northwestern.

Speaker 2 What a rec letter to get, Britt Lauer. Yeah, Britt Lauer rec letter for Northwestern.

Speaker 1 But, like, yeah, I mean, you know,

Speaker 1 anyway, I, I feel like that's probably the last we'll see, Miss Wong. And I think your idea of her as a mystery sponge is one thing, but I think mostly it's just a sort of show,

Speaker 1 and I could be wrong, they seem to really like her, but like, I think it's meant to show,

Speaker 1 yes, the history of child labor at Lumen. Sure.

Speaker 1 And then also, yeah, the potential

Speaker 1 insidious future.

Speaker 2 We talked about this in the previous pod, this idea that's floated in one of the newspaper clippings about uh lumen experimenting with with severing as as young as five yeah so in terms of like that uh degree of child labor grim quite grim okay i think putting us inside that process of a child being indoctrinated being brought up in the system in the way that harmony was for example different timeline but similar like similar circumstances that is helpful to have less ether like a little bit i would certainly hope i i just think overall this season what i'm coming to and maybe i'll feel differently on the other side of the finale.

Speaker 2 A lot of the backstage stuff we've gotten as to the operations at Lumen HQ, the Milchik storylines, I thought initially led with so much promise and so much like potential emotionality and ultimately kind of fizzled out for me.

Speaker 2 The Miss Wong stuff, similarly, like I was so eager to get to know this character and understand her more out of the gate.

Speaker 2 This is where we end up potentially with that character.

Speaker 2 I just feel a little disappointed, for example, if Milchik's story this season is coming into his own by returning to the similar flowery language that he prefers.

Speaker 1 I feel like we've got more

Speaker 1 with the with the with the potential clearing out of a number of other characters, Milchik is primed to be in the mix

Speaker 1 next week. And so I hope there's something more than plot for him to do.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I just feel like Drummond as word police is such a goofy place for this plot line to end up.

Speaker 2 And I think that's what undercuts some of the power in, like Tramel Tillman's given an amazing performance. The best.

Speaker 2 And I think ultimately delivers some absolutely phenomenal phone acting with Mark as he's sort of navigating the aftermath of these conversations. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 I just think it's a weird exchange and it's a weird place for this character. And who knows where it will end up.
But so far, I'm having a little trouble with the

Speaker 2 milk chick stuff overall.

Speaker 1 Who among us hasn't stared at a too small iceberg photo on the wall to inspire us to give grace to our our

Speaker 1 colleagues as they call in.

Speaker 2 Should we throw one up in the void?

Speaker 1 Yeah. For me here, some ambiance here in the void.

Speaker 2 I think it'd be nice.

Speaker 1 I also really like that Mark's like, I just need the day. I'm not sick.
I just need the fucking day. That's, I support it.
Okay, so let's

Speaker 1 turn from those plot lines to something more overtly emotional, which is like Irving and Dylan.

Speaker 1 We'll talk about them one by one, but I wanted to group them together here

Speaker 1 because

Speaker 1 I'm going going to go ahead and call him friend of the pod. Alan Seppemal was talking to me about this episode when I was like expressing some of my frustrations.

Speaker 1 He pointed out, and I really like this point, that like Irving and Dylan inside of this episode exist as this sort of like cautionary tale for

Speaker 1 the love triangle, quadrangle, polycule that we're tracking with Mark and his various ladies.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Previously, Harmony Cobel said quite memorably that there's no honeymoon ending waiting for Mark, right?

Speaker 1 And that hasn't stopped us from trying to like do the math that will make it work out.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of math involved, though. The geometry is getting increasingly complex.

Speaker 1 How can Gemma be happy and Helie be happy and maybe even Helena be happy and all the marks be happy? Uh, you know, and and what we see here with the

Speaker 1 absolute dissolution of the Dylan Dylan uh Gretchen Love Triangle, yes, and um, the Irving, the Berving.

Speaker 1 You wanna you wanna give us

Speaker 2 Everybody's talking about Berving.

Speaker 2 Everybody's talking about Berving.

Speaker 1 Rob is incredible, and I really appreciate you.

Speaker 2 You know, I have to go to a really deep and dark place in my soul to channel Billy.

Speaker 2 You got there. I appreciate it, though.
Thank you, Joe.

Speaker 1 No, thank you.

Speaker 1 And then Irving and Bert, and this

Speaker 1 sad ending for them. I do want to talk about this.
You mentioned feeling more emotional. I got really wound up by the Dylan stuff.
the Berving stuff.

Speaker 2 Oh, that didn't work for you.

Speaker 1 Well, it did and it didn't. Okay, so we're in,

Speaker 1 I had, I had texted you before you saw the episode that there was like an unexpected say nothing crossover. You thought I was talking about a cast member.
I assumed. But what I meant was

Speaker 2 they smuggled in dollars price into this show? Yeah.

Speaker 1 That they took a plotline of a main character of say nothing and this idea of how implicated are you in the dirty deeds if you're just driving the people to the place where they get shot or otherwise mangled or buried.

Speaker 1 So it turns out that Bert, as we expected, is an enforcer of some kind for Lumen. Bagoon.

Speaker 1 A hench. And

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 has such

Speaker 1 like unexplained feelings for Irving that he is trying to smuggle him out of Keir before Drummond can do anything to him, right? Yeah. So they go to this train station, which they filmed in,

Speaker 1 I'd still have pronounced it Utica. I've always pronounced it Utica, but I think he's right and I'm wrong.
Anyway,

Speaker 1 in Utica on the East Coast, there's a Utica in California as well, but that's not where they were. And then they say goodbye.
And there is this.

Speaker 1 Here's what I'll say. I am a huge crier at TV shows.
You know this about me. I've told you that I cry during episodes of the pit.
Like this is

Speaker 2 the pit is pulling the heartstrings. They're really going for it hard.

Speaker 1 Are you a TV crier, Rob? I don't know that I know if you are.

Speaker 2 It takes a bit. I think for me, it really takes like more than just a moment.
It needs to be sort of the culmination of a storyline, right?

Speaker 2 Like, you take me on a journey, and that payoff is really going to hit hard by the end. And so, yeah, I'm not getting there with this.

Speaker 2 And I think that speaks to maybe some of the way the burving stuff is handled in general, which is a little chopped up, a little bits and pieces, a little disparate, a little,

Speaker 2 there's some, there's like an emotional distance within so much of Severance, right? These are characters who are trying to reconcile different parts of themselves. And so I feel the distance.

Speaker 2 I just think in this case, I also am such a sucker for the looping and the callback and the reference and overall the way that they are trying to close that, like these two characters who are so desperate for connection, trying to close that distance together.

Speaker 1 So the callback that you're referencing here is in season one, episode six, in the plant room, Irving and Bert share this moment where Bert is like, Hey, there's nothing in the handbook that says we can't have live-to-live contact.

Speaker 1 And Irving's like, Well, actually, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 And Bert kind of goes for it. Irving says, I'm truly sorry, but I'm just not ready.
Yeah, and Bert says, and re-watching that, this scene actually kind of got choked up.

Speaker 1 The season one, episode six scene. Yeah, the way that walk-in as Bert delivers,

Speaker 1 just stay,

Speaker 1 stay here with me.

Speaker 1 So I'm not ready, just stay here with me, versus I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.

Speaker 1 Bert's saying bon voyage, buddy.

Speaker 2 Well, he gives in the I can't first, or we can't.

Speaker 1 Yes, yes, there's more tender stuff, but like in versus just stay here with me, bon voyage, buddy.

Speaker 2 I did not love bon voyage, buddy, but yeah, no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not anti the writing of it.

Speaker 1 Uh, it, it's, it's a crushing

Speaker 1 attempt at, you know, distancing himself from intimacy to say buddy, yeah, all of that sort sort of stuff. I will say this, I feel like I'm kind of an easy mark for a cry.

Speaker 1 And thinking about, you know, some of the shows that I love the most, some of the shows that you and I, like thinking about the leftovers and thinking about, like, if you think about a moment like this in the leftovers,

Speaker 1 given the way that they built all of those stories,

Speaker 1 I would be like sobbing through this. This would be devastating.
And there is, you know, and Chris and Andy have been flagging this all season. There is a sort of like slightly antiseptic quality.

Speaker 1 I will, I will about to uh reverse completely when we get to Dylan. Like, we'll talk about that in a second.
But there is a slightly sort of like chilly quality

Speaker 1 that kept me at a slight remove. And I wanted to just sort of like

Speaker 1 be devastated and feel it and be swept away by it. But that's sort of like where I sat with it.
How about you?

Speaker 2 I don't, I don't think it is a devastating moment. I think it is somewhat of a bittersweet thing.
And that looks, that is my zone zone as far as this kind of content goes.

Speaker 2 Like, that's exactly what I am looking for.

Speaker 2 And so I think part of it is these characters are not going to have that sort of emotionality. These are two people who, in their respective ways, are quite repressed, right?

Speaker 2 Like Irving, as he explains, has never experienced. this kind of love or any kind of love like it before.
And so he is desperate to hold on to it so tightly.

Speaker 2 And I think the whole idea of what does it feel like to be loved with an action like this is such a poignant idea. And I really love it.
I really, I really gravitated towards that as much as anything.

Speaker 2 And then, you know, Bert, in his way, is not repressed because he's in an openly gay relationship. He has a partner.
He has a different kind of life.

Speaker 2 But he's like, this sort of relationship is one that I just found myself wondering so many times with them, as we have with many of the character interactions throughout the show, is Bert feeling some echo of what his inny self felt?

Speaker 2 Or is he merely trying to honor the love that he knows existed between him and the inner version of Irving?

Speaker 1 I think and,

Speaker 1 you know, I think, I think, again, Damon Lindelof put this really well when we were talking to him about it.

Speaker 1 This idea of like your soul is your soul is your soul, whether you're an idiot and an outie. And if you are drawn to someone as an any, you're going to be drawn to them as an outie.

Speaker 1 Like see also Helena and Mark at the Chinese restaurant. This is just sort of like idea of a connection that transcends whatever.

Speaker 2 And so that brings brings four heads together, apparently.

Speaker 1 I do think he feels that

Speaker 1 and has, you know, this obligation to Fields or this understanding that there's nothing they can do because Lumens

Speaker 1 would never let this happen and it would put Irving in danger and all this sort of stuff like that.

Speaker 1 So I think, I think he is feeling it, not just like honoring it intellectually, but feeling it emotionally. That's my understanding of it.

Speaker 1 And it's, I, love a like, Bittersweet is such a good description of it. I love

Speaker 1 they wanted to, but they didn't. That's like a, that's a, that's a really good

Speaker 1 storytelling mode that I absolutely love, the brief encounters, like sort of thing. Um, so again, I just sort of expected to feel much more than I wound up feeling.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 Maybe, uh, maybe the pit sort of just like drained it out of me on the new

Speaker 2 severance. I think

Speaker 2 I think what sealed it for me ultimately was yes some of the echoes in that exchange and we even get like the same sort of pondersome uh music cues that are from that sort of garden scene in season one here in the train station like we are bringing everything full circle for these characters uh but once irving gets on the train and the sort of smile that toturo is playing there i think is part of what brings it home for me and this idea that

Speaker 2 Sometimes you do have to let people go. Sometimes you do have to get on the train.
Sometimes you, this is what a relationship is meant to be, to be a thing in your life that is not meant to last.

Speaker 2 I love that landing point for these characters because they can't, like, there is not a plausible way for them to have a happy ending, as Harmony laid out for everyone else.

Speaker 2 Like, it's just not in the cards. And so put him on the train, bring radar.
Good boy.

Speaker 1 What a good boy.

Speaker 2 And I like this send-off. I will say.
Yeah. Is there a non-zero chance this is the last we see of John Troturo on this show?

Speaker 1 Absolutely. Listen, there are some questions that still need to be answered in terms of like who was he talking to on the phone this season yes like all that sort of stuff that that makes me feel like

Speaker 1 we should see him again should for sure but also

Speaker 1 troturo has been saying things in interviews all season that makes it sound like he here's what here's actually what i think the state of affairs is yeah toturo's not sure if he wants to come back so they've done in like an apple-esque save like we put him on a train and we could bring him back if we need to or that's the last time you've seen Irving, you know.

Speaker 2 Um, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think I'd be devastated, honestly. Yeah, I would be really crushed if we did not get any more Irving, but it's possible, as would I.

Speaker 2 And I hate that you have to write yourself into those corners, but just, yeah, from a cast perspective, I could see John Troteau being like, Yeah, I had fun, we did it, I'm on to the next thing.

Speaker 2 He's a working actor who's in lots of stuff.

Speaker 1 He talked about how much he hated

Speaker 1 a sad thing, I think, for all of us is like we haven't seen the MDR team together since the Orpo right

Speaker 1 and we haven't seen them together in the office since like episode three which is like what we initially understood to be like the premise of the show and they bent over backwards to contort the plot to get them all back together but yes for one episode yep you know so when we see and we're meant to feel that when we see helly alone at the four desk, you know, setup, like we're meant to feel that.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 Tatora has said a a number of interviews how much he hated specifically filming under the lights of the office.

Speaker 1 So, I wonder if, like, Taturo's, like, I'll come back, but you're not putting me on that office set for more than like a few days.

Speaker 2 Um, exteriors only for John Taturo from here on out.

Speaker 1 Um, on radar watch, yes,

Speaker 1 uh, and I should say that, like, Mallory Rubin, when watching this episode, texted me like five minutes in and she's like, is a radar going to be okay?

Speaker 1 You need to tell me this before I watch more of this episode. Um,

Speaker 1 our listener, Elena, Elena, probably wrote in,

Speaker 1 and with a fun fact that I didn't know, the dog who plays radar is also the dog who played Mondale on Succession. The dog is named Ditto,

Speaker 1 very good boy, playing both radar and Mondale. So here's the question from Elena.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Is this dog better off with

Speaker 2 Irving?

Speaker 1 But it won't be. So I guess with Irving on a train going somewhere, or

Speaker 2 uh

Speaker 1 with Shiv and Tom.

Speaker 2 Easily with Irving, yeah, I agree. Shiv and Tom had their dog

Speaker 2 in like a little playpen, despite their massive flat,

Speaker 1 like the tiniest crate for that dog, despite so much room.

Speaker 2 Those are not good dog owners, it's just no, you could tell it from every aspect of their personality, devastating, devastating for our guy Irving.

Speaker 1 You know, how old is Jon Totaro in his 60s? Would you say? Seems fair guess. To have, you know, someone like that say, like, I've never experienced romantic love at all in my life.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 As an Audi. And then we get to Dylan, an Innie who says to Gretchen,

Speaker 1 like,

Speaker 1 my life started when I met you.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I did not exist. before you.
And she's like, sure, you did. And he's like, nope, it was just finger traps and erasers.
And that was it. It was nothing, you know?

Speaker 1 So I think it's really poignant to have both an Audi in Irving and an Innie in Dylan be like, I've never, this is my first

Speaker 1 like brush up against the concept of love. Yes.
What a heady, powerful thing it is. And to think about every innie on this show, Helly and Mark definitely included.

Speaker 1 Every relationship we've seen, this is like first love,

Speaker 1 which is like an extremely potent brew.

Speaker 1 To quote Mali Rubin, so Dylan and Gresham Gresham and Dylan.

Speaker 2 A proper Mickey 17 thrupple in action.

Speaker 1 Nice Mickey 17 reference.

Speaker 1 I feel like there's a way these crazy kids could have made this thrupple work.

Speaker 2 You think so?

Speaker 1 But,

Speaker 1 and I mean, I'm with any Dylan. Like, why wouldn't he be happy that, you know, we all get to it.

Speaker 2 I don't know. I feel like that's shortchanging Audi Dylan's anxieties quite a bit.
I think there is.

Speaker 2 Fair. Obviously, look, there's the, I love that as we are getting this more complicated love triangle, quadrangle geometry happening, we have all of these different aspects of the emotional fallout.

Speaker 2 I think Irving's version of that is not even experiencing the love, at least Audi Irving, not experiencing it, but feeling the pain of losing it.

Speaker 2 That's such a weird kind of sci-fi idea that I think not a lot of genres can tackle in the way that Severance can tackle.

Speaker 2 Helly's pain, as she's confronted by Dylan in this episode, is this idea that the other version, no, Helly's, as she's, oh, yes.

Speaker 2 You know, she and Dylan have the debrief where he he confronts her with the idea that, like, Mark couldn't even tell the difference between you and Helena.

Speaker 2 This idea that your romantic partner wouldn't know you well enough to separate you from your other self.

Speaker 2 And then I think for Dylan, it's that Gretchen can tell a difference, but she likes the other guy better. Like, she, she likes the other version of you better.

Speaker 2 That she can tell a difference between Audi Dylan and any Dylan and she likes any Dylan better is what you're saying yeah I mean the whole the whole conversation with her and Audi Dylan when she was he he kind of braces her and preempts like oh are you gonna say it didn't mean anything and Gretchen's responsive I wasn't gonna say that like it clearly meant a lot to her like she doesn't say better

Speaker 1 here's here's my here's my she's going back to him for a reason right like and she's keeping it secret for a reason like here's here's here's my like sunshine and lollipops hopeful sort sort of

Speaker 1 once again, representing the Bay Area pro-thupple thrupple argument.

Speaker 1 We love a polycule.

Speaker 1 Isn't there a way in which the any

Speaker 1 Dylan and Gretchen interactions

Speaker 1 could like help reawaken Gretchen's connection to Audi Dylan, remind her what she loved about him in the first place, and remind her to look for those things in him in his Audi version, not just him being deeply inept around the house and all the other things that are true about him.

Speaker 1 Do you know what I mean? Like, yes.

Speaker 1 Or, you know, and this is certainly what Audi Dylan is afraid of. She gives up on Audi version entirely because she's got access to any Dylan.
Like, for sure, that's the fear.

Speaker 1 But I feel like there's a way in which

Speaker 1 all of this could make... A rising tide could raise all boats and we could all sort of like get something out of this.
Again, I'm trying to force a

Speaker 1 honeymoon ending for fucking someone in this debacle.

Speaker 1 And Dylan and Gretchen and Dylan are like, I don't know, maybe my best option here, but maybe not.

Speaker 2 I love everything that's happening between them. I just don't see it.

Speaker 2 I think Audi Dylan might have been through too much

Speaker 2 to, like, I totally agree with you that from Gretchen's perspective, she is seeing a version of the person that she loves. Yeah.

Speaker 2 From Dylan's perspective, he's saying, you cheated on me with this other version of me.

Speaker 2 And look, maybe that's the strongest case yet for any personhood: to Dylan, any Dylan is a different person from him. To him, this is adultery.
To him, like his wife has betrayed him.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think that's where it's hard to reconcile some of the differences between, like, are these different people? Are they different versions of the same people?

Speaker 2 Or is Annie Dylan a less jaded, more naive version of Audi Dylan, like we've been talking about all season? Like, I think all of that is kind of true.

Speaker 1 I just, here's what I think. And admittedly, I've never been inside a love triangle with myself and my wife.
But like,

Speaker 2 with the other version of you that your wife told you not to worry about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't worry about it.

Speaker 1 But like, are we not all being a bit hasty? Like, Gretchen breaks the news.

Speaker 2 These are matters of the heart, Joe. They happen in hasty fashion.

Speaker 1 Can't we just say, hey, listen, we got to pump the brakes on this for a second. You're out.
He's having a hard time with it. I'm going to keep talking to him about it.
Let's see how we feel.

Speaker 1 He's threatening to quit, which is effectively killing any Dylan, right? Like, I'll kill him, essentially. Right.

Speaker 1 Um, so I understand why Gretchen would be like, I got to put the stop to this to save you, essentially. Um,

Speaker 1 but I just feel like there's a way.

Speaker 1 I mean, I understand we're inside of a TV show and it's full of drama, but like, isn't there just a way that we could all just like take a beat, go to some couple's counseling?

Speaker 2 Um, but who's going to the counseling? Which, which version of Dylan?

Speaker 2 Everyone, I think, honestly, I think that's such a huge part of what makes this sort of setup so fascinating is that any and audi dylan can never have a conversation right he could get reintegrated he could become one more complete dylan but he's never gonna know and so his idea of what the any version of himself is is always gonna be even worse and even more intimidating and even more painful than the reality via technology you want you want to use bust out that retro camcorder yeah send some tapes back

Speaker 2 i mean you you know? Did that go well? No. Okay.

Speaker 1 We're going to come back to that. Also, the heartbreak, the Dylan, Zach Cherry, like screaming, Gretchen,

Speaker 1 the proposal with the ring.

Speaker 2 The ring is quite elegant, I got to say.

Speaker 1 Beautiful stuff from our guy.

Speaker 1 This is the second podcast this week. I'm going to say this, but

Speaker 1 any Dylan hidden Swifty paper rings? Who's to say?

Speaker 1 I say yes. But

Speaker 1 yeah, very, very sad stuff.

Speaker 2 Does do the Indies know who Taylor Swift is?

Speaker 1 That's a great question.

Speaker 2 I guess what transcends like pop culture knowledge and transfers into knowledge of the world? Because I would argue knowledge of Taylor Swift is less like, are you familiar with this band?

Speaker 2 And more like, are you familiar with this cultural event?

Speaker 1 Severance

Speaker 1 with love and respect is so inconsistent on this front. We've talked about this.
Aaliyah Shawkat being like, what does win feel like? Yes. Versus like

Speaker 1 they know how to dress themselves. You know what I mean? It's just sort of like, there's just like, what do they, what do they retain?

Speaker 1 And earlier in the season, we did get like long emails from brain scientists who are just sort of like, this is how memory works or whatever.

Speaker 1 I feel like Taylor Swift might be a big enough cultural event that it could sort of permeate.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Bigger than wind. Taylor Swift, bigger than wind.
There I said it. Okay.

Speaker 1 Let's talk about the Egans,

Speaker 1 the not-so-secret Egans.

Speaker 1 Egg Egg stuff go is what I wrote here. And this, we've already talked about the egg stuff a bit.

Speaker 1 One of our listeners, Francesca, pointed out that Helena was eating the,

Speaker 1 taking small cuts and only eating the boiled white, the outer,

Speaker 1 the Audi of the egg.

Speaker 2 I'm not 100% sure on this because I feel like when we cut back to the plate, I think it's a great call. And I love if this is true.

Speaker 2 When we cut back to the plate, it's a little obscured by the angle, but it looks like some of the yolks are also gone. So I'm not 100% sure that she's an Audi only.
That's it.

Speaker 2 If you were in any only, if you're making boiled eggs and only eating straight yolks,

Speaker 2 I'm concerned.

Speaker 1 I've never

Speaker 1 heard your accent come through stronger than on the word yolk.

Speaker 2 It's because of the y'all hybrid, you know?

Speaker 2 Yolk. Just

Speaker 2 the hard why sounds really bring it out of me.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 And then our listener who signed the email Ted Word, so I'm just going to take them for their word that that is their name. Okay.

Speaker 1 Says, would you rather eat a raw egg while Jamie Egan watches you or watch Jamie Egan eat a raw egg in front of you?

Speaker 2 I'm really scared of what that looks like for him to eat the raw egg.

Speaker 1 It's so ghoulish.

Speaker 2 I mean, but look, is there something so wrong about a proud, supportive father who just wants to watch his daughter eat raw eggs?

Speaker 2 Is that so wrong, Joe?

Speaker 1 I would rather you had taken it raw.

Speaker 2 Everything about this was horrible. Jesus Christ, James Egan.
Oh my God, it was gross. And honestly, look, the whole, I really enjoyed.

Speaker 1 I wish you'd take them raw.

Speaker 2 Please do.

Speaker 1 That's what he said.

Speaker 2 No one say that again. In the history of the world, no one say it again.
Also, if you are sitting across the room and watching your daughter eat boiled eggs, do not softly moan to yourself.

Speaker 2 Don't do it.

Speaker 1 Or even I let's

Speaker 1 or loudly moan. How about no moaning at the breakfast table?

Speaker 2 No moaning at the breakfast table.

Speaker 1 No moan zone at the breakfast table.

Speaker 2 I think we can all agree upon that. Okay.

Speaker 1 Do you think he is not eating himself

Speaker 1 because of his revolving?

Speaker 2 Oh, this dude's a straight blood bag, Joe. Like, he's being pumped full of nutrients.
He is not consuming food of any kind.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 It's soylent. Soylent and blood bags.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Something is keeping him alive and it's not eggs. Okay, great.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 This is what Dan Erickson said in the post-episode

Speaker 1 thing that went up on Apple

Speaker 1 after the episode credits. He says, Jamie Megan is never going to give her the foundational love that we all need in order to be human beings.

Speaker 2 Duh.

Speaker 1 I mean, like, I could have told you that, but not duh to him, but like.

Speaker 1 Is this something Helena is only just reading, realizing as she is

Speaker 1 bisecting and bisecting and bisecting a boiled egg in front of her creepy, creepy father after her cold plunge swim?

Speaker 2 Also, am I just like

Speaker 2 unwashed swine that I'm, I feel like she is being overly delicate with this egg white? Like, she's cutting it into the smallest possible piece.

Speaker 2 You can just eat the one sixth piece of egg white in a bite. That is a reasonable sized bite.

Speaker 1 You can all, I mean, not to be like an absolute rube, but you can also just like take a boiled egg and take a bite of it, right?

Speaker 2 You can. I will say, I once in a different life, Joe,

Speaker 2 played middle school football.

Speaker 2 My middle school football coach would come into the locker room and eat an entire hard-boiled egg, not in bite, just pop the whole thing in his mouth and then mash it while talking to people.

Speaker 1 It was horrendous. With like yolk crumbs.

Speaker 2 Of course. They're spraying all over the place.
It was terrible.

Speaker 1 That's it's a simply a no for me.

Speaker 1 Listen,

Speaker 1 this is a big day for Jamie again.

Speaker 1 Everything, it's all coming, it's all culminating around whatever's happening with Cold Harbor, et cetera, et cetera. We don't really understand what it is.
Do you take it by design?

Speaker 2 Is Cold Harbor to him a breakthrough that will lead to something, or are we supposed to interpret that like his revolving is supposed to happen today?

Speaker 1 I think Cold Harbor, they have to complete Cold Harbor

Speaker 1 so that he can revolve. Yes.

Speaker 1 And I don't know how those two things are related, but that's what feels true to me.

Speaker 1 And as Harmony points out in this episode, in that process, Gemma is either literally or at least figuratively dead. I mean, I think.
As good as dead.

Speaker 2 She makes it sound straight up actually dead.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 What does she say exactly?

Speaker 1 She says, and if you've completed it, well, well, what? She's already dead. But like, she's already dead, honestly.
And this show, like, severance could mean like a number of things.

Speaker 1 Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 The plausible deniability of this show. Really tremendous.

Speaker 1 On this idea of like revolving who sits with Kir, all this sort of stuff like that.

Speaker 1 One of our listeners wrote in to underline the fact that in episode eight, when

Speaker 1 our favorite character, Sissy, is talking about

Speaker 1 like the rooms in the house. She says that room stays shut until all all who remember her sit with Kir.
Yeah. So the idea of sit with Kir as a phrase just meaning

Speaker 2 dead. Yeah, right.
Pass on.

Speaker 1 Pass on. Uh, you know, I think that's just something.
Again, that's just sort of like flowery language to think about when we parse whatever they're trying to say of like,

Speaker 1 be at my side of my revolving. Like, what does that, what does that mean, you know, in the, in the language of this world?

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 Helen, the only, you already mentioned the Dylan and Helen conversation, which I thought was really good. Dylan identifying the most hurtful thing that he could possibly say to her.

Speaker 1 But her being the kind of person who's like, fuck it, I'm going to do this.

Speaker 1 But her being like, Irving did know the difference.

Speaker 1 And what did Irving want? Irving wanted us to figure out what was going on with the elevator. So I'm going to do this thing that Irving wanted.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And that is her goal. She's the last faithful, to use trader's language, left at the cubicle.
And then

Speaker 1 here comes dad to say

Speaker 1 my helly you tricked me

Speaker 1 um okay so i mean it's better than every other thing he said in this episode that's deeply true i wish you had taken it raw okay so like um my hella you tricked me do you think this is just a reference to the season one finale uh where she did indeed trick him there.

Speaker 2 I didn't even take it that way necessarily. I interpreted this as he was promised two things.
One,

Speaker 2 mr. Bailiff was going to be dealt with in this episode.
I don't know that he knows what happened with Irving as if yes. I'm going to say it's not related to that per se.

Speaker 2 The other thing was he was basically assured today is the day. Today is the day that Cold Harbor will be completed.
And it's very clear we are stuck at that 96%, Joe. Has not budged all day long.

Speaker 2 Nope. And so I saw it as him coming in.
It's, you know, 6.30 p.m. He rolls into the office.
He's like, what the fuck?

Speaker 2 We did not deliver on our deliverables.

Speaker 1 On the one hand, yes. And thank you for using

Speaker 1 the proper Silicon Valley language. On the other hand, tricked is such an interesting word.

Speaker 2 True.

Speaker 1 Right? Like, you let me down, you lied, you know, like you lied to me, like something like that. Like,

Speaker 1 you didn't follow through something, something, something, but like, you tricked me

Speaker 1 speaks to like a level of deception, which is not really the case here. It's just a failure.
Yeah. If you want to call it that, you know? So that's me.

Speaker 1 That's why I thought maybe he was talking about, and he calls her Helly.

Speaker 2 He does call her Helly, you know. But did he, but did he call his daughter Helena at one point Helie, right? Like, maybe that's why she, this Helly was Helie in the first place.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.
Um, I do know.

Speaker 2 See, I thought you could put yourself squarely in Jame Egan's mind and just channel and understand everything that that blood bag is going through.

Speaker 1 I haven't had my soilet this morning.

Speaker 2 It's very early, Rob. I don't know what to tell you.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Anyway, Anyway, anything else you want to say about Heli, Helena?

Speaker 1 Like, how is she going to get out of this one

Speaker 1 sort of situation that we find her in?

Speaker 2 I echo her what the fuck on Jane reaching the severed floor.

Speaker 2 Seeing him down there is a thrill, I think, because especially we are seeing so many of our core four splintering off in these different directions, right?

Speaker 2 We don't know if Dylan will ever be back there. We don't know if Irving will ever be back there.

Speaker 2 You know, Mark is in the process of reintegrating and doing whatever it it is that he's going to do.

Speaker 2 Having Helly as kind of the one person holding down the fort, you need something for her to bounce off of.

Speaker 2 And I think James showing up is a pretty interesting variable and a pretty interesting curveball on what otherwise is quite a small cast of a show.

Speaker 2 Good luck to her. Yeah.
I'll also say about her conversation with Dylan, where she is encouraging him to save the ring. You know,

Speaker 2 see who else you can meet down here in O and D with the GOAT people. Maybe on OP.
Not the GOAT people. No?

Speaker 2 Dream bigger than the GOAT people. I feel like you're being very judgmental.
You know, I feel like there's at least a couple of those GOAT people who might be open to it.

Speaker 1 Well, I hope the GOAT people.

Speaker 2 I hope we never go back to Mammalian's Neutral. Yeah.
But that's not to say Dylan couldn't go back there in his free time. And I support whatever decisions that that character wants to make.

Speaker 2 But it did feel like exactly the kind of thing where

Speaker 2 she's giving advice to herself in a kind of way, not to seek someone else out, but like she's telling him specifically, that woman is not your wife.

Speaker 2 And she almost could not be talking more directly to herself vis-a-vis Mark and Gemma, right? This idea that like

Speaker 2 you are a different person. I need you to be a different person who is not that woman's husband.

Speaker 1 I feel like what we really should have seen in this episode is Dylan and Helie

Speaker 1 go

Speaker 1 prowling in O and D for new partners. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 A little mixer? Yeah.

Speaker 1 A little O and D mixer.

Speaker 2 Let's Let's put on those like the dance lights. Yeah.
Let's crank up the music.

Speaker 1 People in that department.

Speaker 2 So many.

Speaker 2 And you can make anything you need for a proper like date mixer setting.

Speaker 1 That sounds great. Now compare that to the like little shit tunnel that they had to crawl through to get to the GOAT people.
And I think the choice is obvious. Clearly.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 Harmony, Devon, Mark.

Speaker 2 What are we doing here? Marks. What are we doing?

Speaker 1 Let's start at a high.

Speaker 2 Let's start on a high. Okay.

Speaker 1 With the sarcasm tweet.

Speaker 1 Who do you think had the better zinger?

Speaker 2 Oh, these are. I already know where you're going, and these are both so good.

Speaker 1 Was it Devin saying, sorry, the wind was whistling over the hole in the back of your skull, so I didn't quite get that?

Speaker 1 Or was it Mark

Speaker 1 saying to Harmony, oh my God, so good. My wife is being held at Lumen and I just had brain surgery in my basement.

Speaker 1 Who is the better wielder of the snark in this episode, Rob?

Speaker 2 It's got to be Mark, just because I can see party down, Adam Scott, coming out to play, and he's always welcome here.

Speaker 1 So good. 100% party down.

Speaker 2 Although, honorable mentioned to Devin for the Am I Me or Am I a Copy Machine? I also very much enjoyed that bid. Very good.
Very good.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 2 I'm very frustrated.

Speaker 1 by this, but I'm hopeful for a payoff in the finale. But I do feel like quite sort of strung along by what happened inside of this episode with this trio,

Speaker 1 or actually,

Speaker 1 square of people.

Speaker 1 I did what something that I did like, I didn't like the like, let's hang out all day and not talk about anything.

Speaker 2 Like, that what are they doing for hours and hours and hours?

Speaker 1 Maybe she brought some ether and they all like, you know, give us some something, you know,

Speaker 2 hook us up, please.

Speaker 1 But when we are in Mark, any Mark's Mark S's S's perspective, when he comes into the birthing cabin,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 he's like, what the fuck? And he tries to like walk out the door. And Devin says, if you walk out that door, he's just going to come right back in again.

Speaker 1 Okay, of course, this is like a callback to Helie and Helena. Yes.

Speaker 1 In a way that could feel overly cutesy.

Speaker 1 But to me, I really, really liked it because

Speaker 1 unlike, so the thing with Irving that pings for me slightly is like, it's Audi Irving saying something that builds upon something any Irving said. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I guess if in like a deeply romantic sense, you could say he just knows that he wasn't ready before and he's ready now or something like that. So let's put that to aside.
And I'll say here.

Speaker 1 Devin has no way of knowing that this is like something that they have said to Heli or Helena on the floor. She's not consciously referencing anything.
But what they are doing in the

Speaker 1 pursuance of their goal is like using the weapons, like what, like

Speaker 1 the machinations of their enemy.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 They are treating Innie Mark as like someone without autonomy in order to get what they need, which is to get to Gemma. It's true.
Are they still heroes that I'm rooting for? Yes. But like,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 what will they stop at to get to their goal? And when we've seen people treat Innies as like prisoners or people with no choice of what to do, those have been villains.

Speaker 1 So, what are we to make when maybe our most beloved character, Devin, is the one doing it? You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 I think part of what makes that snag too is, and this is a problem, I would say, with mystery box storytelling overall, where the show doesn't want to show its hand as to, for example, why do we need any Mark?

Speaker 2 Like, what information does he have that Cobel doesn't have that would be instrumental in finding Gemma? Like, she knows so much more than Mark does.

Speaker 2 She doesn't know what's been going on for like the past week at Lumen, but that's about it.

Speaker 1 She knows what Cold Harbor is, and Mark certainly doesn't.

Speaker 2 She has a lot more information. I certainly don't.

Speaker 2 So much more. And so, as a result of that, like, normally, in order to set the stakes of the show, you have to give us some indication of what it is that we actually need out of these interactions.

Speaker 2 And I don't think we have that. I think we just have characters saying, we have to do this.
We have to do why. Devin says in this episode, we have no choice but to do what Cobel says.

Speaker 2 I would argue you have many, many, many other choices that you could make.

Speaker 1 The only pushback I have on that is like the thing that Mark has that Harmony doesn't, and it's the reason why he's been able to get away with any Mark, been able to get away with so much, is like some ineffable understanding of

Speaker 1 the numbers that you need to complete cold harbor. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 I don't know how you interrogate that in a, in a meaningful way, but that, yeah, you're right that like the woman who fucking invented Severance and has run the severed floor and knows knows the ins and outs of Lumen has much more intel.

Speaker 1 This is the one thing that any mark has that she doesn't have. Though again, I don't know if he knows even how to explain

Speaker 1 what he's done with Cold Harbor. I thought we got some really interesting feedback from

Speaker 1 actually two mics, one who went by Mike and one who went by Michael. Mike wrote, and maybe they're any and out of you, who knows, but Mike wrote,

Speaker 1 I'm just as confused as I'm sure all the other viewers of what the fuck is going on with this quote, reintegration of Mark.

Speaker 1 Each episode since the long needle in the brain has given us hardly any Mark time.

Speaker 1 But when we do see him, we get no reintegration reveal outside of the one right before he passes out, which seemed like some sort of info dump overload. So like

Speaker 1 the idea of giving us, we were like, holy shit, they did reintegration for Mark at the beginning of the season. But like, they did not.
Where are we now? You know, like this many episodes later,

Speaker 1 still sort of twiddling our thumbs, waiting for this whole thing to come together.

Speaker 1 So, which I am feel pretty confident it will in the finale, uh, in a way that will probably smooth over a lot of these like minor bumps and scrapes along the way. But it's just like in the

Speaker 1 current, and this is the only time this will be true because after that finale airs, ever after, people can just like binge the season and will not feel this sort of like mid-season antsiness.

Speaker 1 But as it stands right now, though, the cadence of the reintegration reveal is like

Speaker 1 pushing my patience slightly.

Speaker 2 I think that's entirely fair.

Speaker 2 I think they have stretched this stuff out to a degree where we've gotten a decent amount of mark screen time, but not a lot of mark propulsion or progress, or even emotionally speaking.

Speaker 2 I'm not saying it has to be reintegration. I think episode seven is the high watermark for that, not just for Gemma, but also for Mark in terms of getting his elements of the backstory.

Speaker 2 Like that added to the character in a really significant way.

Speaker 2 It feels feels like there are so many balls in the air this season that a lot of the payoffs have nothing to do with what's happening this year, right? Like the Berving stuff is a great example.

Speaker 2 The reason that that Berving kind of like farewell moment works to the extent that it does for anyone, and as you said, Joe, for you, it was a little bit more mixed, it all hinges on season one.

Speaker 2 It does not pay off like everything that happened between Bert and Irving in season two was misdirection, was taking them down a side path, was setting up Bert as a potentially nefarious figure, which he kind of is, but ultimately did not really contribute to the plot or the or the emotionality of these characters in any meaningful way.

Speaker 2 And I think you could say the same thing about a lot of what's going on with Mark, where there's a lot of him tripping out post-reintegration, him collapsing into the floor, him seeming to regain consciousness, and in a way where I just thought there would be a little bit more bleeding over at this point.

Speaker 2 But the very fact that we have to go to the birthing cabin to advance the plot tells us that this is not a reintegrated character.

Speaker 2 This is a guy with a hole in the back of his head that's oozing that for some reason we throw in the back of a pickup truck. That's a bad choice for a guy with a hole in his head.

Speaker 2 Do not do that either.

Speaker 2 Okay, to recap, no moaning at the breakfast table.

Speaker 1 If you've got a hole in your head, you get to sit in the front of the car.

Speaker 2 Is that unreasonable?

Speaker 1 It's despite the cloak and dagger of the sort of operations that they're in. Are you saying we, okay, and I'm not opposed to it.

Speaker 1 Are you saying we should have slapped a wig on Mark and put the baby bump under his shirt?

Speaker 2 Of course.

Speaker 1 Okay, great.

Speaker 2 I would love to see that. Or get a different car.
Do whatever you have to do.

Speaker 2 I feel like putting him in a bumpy, like,

Speaker 1 there was no room in the rabbit. I'll tell you that much.
No.

Speaker 1 No room in the rabbit at all.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 Michael wrote, and this made me laugh, maybe the cure Lumen is really working on is a way to make people not slow down to one tenth speed every time they say the words cold harbor.

Speaker 2 But how are you going to project how ominous it is if you don't say it at that speed? Cold harbor.

Speaker 1 Anything else? I think we've gone a little long and we've got plenty that we want to say for like our Q ⁇ A and stuff like that. Anything else you want to touch on in terms of this episode, Ramahoni?

Speaker 2 I think just one thing as we're kind of closing the loop here from the secret egans into harmony, getting them into the birthing retreat, which is we get an email a couple weeks ago from Elise who talked about how every adult woman on the show so far has been in some way connected to the idea of birth or rebirth.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I think Elise brought it up in the context of the great pregnancy debates that we've been having all season about. Is Helena going to be pregnant?

Speaker 2 Is like, what is the situation with Gemma and her ongoing fertility?

Speaker 2 Like, all of this stuff has been in the air, but it's also in the air with Harmony 2, who is not only the mother of Severance, as we found out, but if she does end up being Helena's mother or the mother of an Egan child of some kind who met some end,

Speaker 2 I think that would make sense thematically with a lot of what we've been dealing with.

Speaker 1 And it's why more than ever i don't want helena slash helly to be pregnant because

Speaker 1 that's interesting

Speaker 1 but uh i would like there to be some women female characters on the show where that is not it's an ambitious goal joe um okay thanks thanks for rooting for me before we go uh this listener asked to not be named but i did

Speaker 1 we got an email from a listener uh telling us to check out the track in the bath by lemon jelly did you did you have a listen i did have a listen to this one minute into that track. It's a long track.

Speaker 1 It's a six-minute track. One minute in, if you care to listen on Spotify, wherever you get your music,

Speaker 1 you'll hear the Severance theme song, a very familiar progression of notes.

Speaker 1 And I haven't been able to find an interview where the composer

Speaker 1 references this song.

Speaker 1 So I don't know.

Speaker 1 It's interesting.

Speaker 2 Is it a direct inspiration? Is it the collective unconscious? Is it an inny and outie in alternate lives in music?

Speaker 1 Is Lemon Jelly actually the Audi of the Indie that is the composer? You never know. The Severance theme.
Shout out to the Severance music. It's amazing.
And like this, this idea certainly

Speaker 1 lifting a little bit, a few notes from something happens all the time, obviously.

Speaker 2 One might call it art, you know?

Speaker 2 This is how this stuff is made a lot of the time.

Speaker 1 It is a wild moment. You're like in this vibey track, and then all of a sudden sudden you're like, oh, what is this existential dread I feel?

Speaker 1 Why do I have a, why do I have a compulsion to not eat any eggs in front of anyone ever again?

Speaker 1 All right. So, pineapplebobby at gmail.com.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Ringer TV on YouTube is where you'll find us next week at noon for a live Q ⁇ A. PrestigeTV at spotify.com is where you can also send questions, comments, concerns, theories, observations.

Speaker 1 We have a few, like, sort of bigger picture observations that are less than Theory Corner that I want to save for that. So, I'm excited to get to that.

Speaker 1 We've had so many amazing emails from you guys this season, it's been really incredible.

Speaker 2 Wonderful.

Speaker 1 Um, thank you to the early morning crew on this, our last Severns Friday morning record. So, thanks to John Richter, to Justin Sales, to Johnny Beacham for filling in for Kai.

Speaker 1 And um, thanks to Rob Mahoney, thank you, Joe.

Speaker 2 Thank you to eggs, thank you to James Egan.

Speaker 1 Yeah, make sure to eat your yolks, and we'll see you soon, y'all.