‘Severance’ Season 2, Episode 4: The Lumon Work Retreat From Hell

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellany.
I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood.
Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight, which streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat.
Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who'll never eat lunch in this town again. Follow the town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company, non-alcoholic brews. Look, sometimes you want one.
Sometimes you're like, I don't know if right now is the best time for one. That's where Athletic Brewing Company comes in.
They've hooked your boy up. I am a huge fan of Upside Dawn, the golden.
This March, don't miss the sports action with Athletic. Head to athleticbrewing.com slash ringer to find it near you or shop online.
That's athleticbrewing.com slash R-I-N-G-E-R to find award-winning athletic N.A. brews near you.
Athletic Brewing Company, fit for all times, near beer. This episode is brought to you by Max.
The Emmy award-winning series Hacks returns this April. The new season follows

Debra Vance making a move from her Vegas residency to Hollywood showbiz. Tensions rise as Debra and

Ava try to get their late night show off the ground and make history while doing it. Starring

Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder. Hacks season four is streaming Thursday, April 10th exclusively on

Max. And don't forget to check out the official Hacks podcast on Spotify.

She's not Helly! She's an Egan! Turn her back, Mr. Milchak! Turn her back! Goddamn it! Stop doing it! Yes! Do it, Hello welcome back to the Press News TV podcast feed I'm Joanna Robinson I'm Rob Mahoney Rob is still podcasting from the void If you're watching this on video Live from the severed floor Joe Yeah Rob's in any today I'm in Audi And we're going to switch places next week Because i'm going out to la and and rob's coming back here to the bay area so we are we're swapping places before we start to talk about today's banger episode of severance season two episode four uh i want to do some like quick programming reminders uh bits here and there if you missed it rob and i did a sort of, like little video exclusive check-in on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer news.
Rob and I are huge Buffy Vampire Slayer fans, and there's news of a reboot, a sequel, et cetera, that's coming down the pike. And we just spent, I don't know, 30 minutes or so talking about our innermost thoughts and fears about that.
So that's on YouTube. If you want to go to the press, the rare TV feed on YouTube, you can watch, watch Rob and the void and me at home talking about that.
Also on this feed, stay tuned. We've got massive white Lotus coverage coming up.
We're going to be doing two prestige episodes per episode of white Lotus. So you'll get sort of the instant reaction, Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, Joanna Robinson experience, and then you will get the sort of like deep dive, send us your emails, theories, and whatever, Rob Mahoney, Joanna Robinson experience.
So those are two different flavors that taste great together, and that is how we are covering White Lotus this season. Yeah, how do you think we're going to differentiate ourselves, Joe, other than clearly the deep dive, the theories? Are we just going to devote 20 to 30 minutes every week for Walton Goggins' fits, the innermost thoughts of whatever Carrie Coon's character is doing at a given point in time? Many passion projects for us in this particular season.
I think Carrie Corner is a must, and I think perhaps we should consider recording all of our episodes while wearing the Walton Goggins goggles in order to get the full experience. I'm open to that.
Okay. Does it make for good video content? I guess we'll see.
Well, tune in to find out. We will be covering The Pit a bit more.
We're sporadically checking in on The Pit here and there, a show we're both really enjoying. And Yellow Jackets was originally going to be on this feed, but now given everything that we're doing with White Lotus, et cetera, Malibur and I will be covering that over on the House of Our Feed.
So if you want Yellow Jackets season three coverage, buzz, buzz, baby, you will find it over on the House of Our Feed. So that's a lot of stuff.
That is what we were doing here on the Prestige Feed. But right now, it's season two, episode four, Woe's Hollow Time.

This episode is written by Anna O. Young Munch and directed by Ben Stiller.
And it is, we're leaving Devin, Natalie, Rickon, and Harmony Cobell behind because Seth, Miss Wong, Helena, Dylan, Mark, and especially Irving are out here for the Orpo. There's copious luxury meats.
And most important, Ron Mahoney, we go bobbing for some truth, would you not say? It's the best kind of bobbing you can do in my experience here we go um this is a this is a wild episode uh this is not at all what we were expecting that we had like some guesses about what this episode would be so if you ever needed proof that rob and i are not watching ahead go listen to what we thought episode four of listen to how wrong we were and are on a regular basis deeply wrong um but. But let's start.
Let's start. Opening image.
Turturro in furs as Irving in the middle of a frozen lake. Did you think.
First of all, I want your like. Big picture thoughts on the episode, whether or not you liked it.
And also on this image. What did you think when you were like, we're in a dream? What did you think when you first saw the opening image of this episode? Love the episode.
This is the good stuff. And I think it's kind of severance at its best in a lot of ways, which is odd to say, because it's a setting that's totally unfamiliar to us, a structure that is very unfamiliar to us.
We're diverging from the formula of what severance has been, but it can be as baffling as ever, as ominous as ever. And I think tonally struck exactly the chord that I love so much about this show.
And some of that is, I think, from the disorientation that you're alluding to opening this way. As I'm saying, a completely unfamiliar setting.
The last we saw was Mark being maybe reintegrated or maybe beginning to be reintegrated. Could this episode be a construction within Mark's mind? Could this be an actual physical space, which I think it ultimately plays out as being.
But the fact that it opens in that manner, given the way we ended things in episode three, is just such a thrilling way to start. And I think the sort of cold open format, no opening credits, if I'm remembering correctly from this episode, like we don't get any divergences from this little adventure that we're on, this little Ortbo experience.
I had this moment where I was like so certain we were right about what this episode was going to be, that my brain kept trying to figure out a way that that could still be true, even though we opened very clearly in Irving's point of view. And I was like, that's probably not going to happen inside of Mark's head.
Oh, no. Probably not, but maybe.
Maybe it could be an out-of-body experience. Maybe it could be transportive.
There is something about the furs and the cold that is very third-level deep inception that kind of reads in a way where it's like, oh, this is a dream state. There is something so ethereal about it.
Turns out it's just Severance being creepy as usual and I really enjoyed it. I was at a party once the year that Inception came out and someone was talking to me and he was like, I want to go down to like the snow fortress layer of your mind.
And I was like we're done having this conversation now i think no i just wouldn't recommend inception level uh pickup lines at a party and in any year honestly um okay so i what i loved about this episode and among many other things this is very international assassin this is an episode The Leftovers that you and I talked about on this very feed fairly recently. It is visually quite stunning.
If you listen to the Official Severance podcast, they talked about how they filmed all of this in and around the Catskills in New York, how they were on location for a lot of this, even this opening sequence, which looks so strange. You feel like it's digitally created.
Adam Scott was saying he was actually on a cliff and to turtle was actually on a frozen Lake and they were actually yelling at each other. Wow.
And that's stunning. You know, they've somehow found the world's largest waterfall and shot next to it it's just like incredible stuff you know they actually like put a cubicle in the middle of a forest again that looks digitally created but they actually did it and um i think that gives the you know and there's like shots inside of this episode they're dressed in these incredible furs as you mentioned and there's shots especially with the four of them in in frame together it looks like an album cover i started looking at photos of the beatles i was like is there a beatles album cover that looks like this the closest of course we get is help but no one is dressed in head-to-toe furs uh in that album cover so i couldn't make the one-to-one comp but like it was it was definitely framed up as this is the band, and perhaps the last time we're going to see the band together, because the question I want to ask you, and this is sort of skipping to the end of the episode, but I think it's worth opening with, do you feel like this is the last time we see Irving be Irving's innie? What do you think? I do think it probably is.
And I don't know what that signals in terms of the overall structure of the timeline of the show. I think one of the things that's so thrilling about these last two episodes is Mark is getting reintegrated more quickly than we probably would have imagined if we were to sketch out how this season might go.
And ultimately, if this is pulling the plug on Irving B, and certainly the Helena reveal being a part of that, we're burning through some of the big developments that we are anticipating in this season pretty quickly. And that's so exciting and so energizing in terms of what the rest of the season could be.
Because I do think this is, I mean, basically, I think there's two paths here, Joe. And correct me if you see a third one here.
Irving B is gone from the severed floor, Irving B is clean slated, memory wiped as an innie and basically factory reset. Do you see a third path here as far as the innie version of Irving continuing on this show? A later reintegrated version.
Sure. Is I think the only other thing I can see.
And we'll talk about clean slate. We'll talk about the various contingencies.
We got a little bit more information on that stuff inside of this episode. but I think the only other thing I can see.
And we'll talk about clean slate. We'll talk about the various contingencies.
We got a little bit more information on that stuff inside of this episode. But I think the way it was, I guess I'm just thinking more sort of in a storytelling sense, what does death mean on a show like severance? Like this was shot very much like, you know, when Irving makes his stand, which we heard at the top of the episode, and I guess really belatedly spoilers for episode four of Severance, but like, when Irving makes his stand, knowing, like fully knowing that he is putting himself at risk for termination, and Irving specifically being the character in season one who was most closely associating termination with death when when bert was retired and irving lost his shit because he's just like you're just

killing him essentially so putting himself on the line for for heli for mark for dylan

knowing that he's putting his own sort of any at risk and walking into the woods

cameras on the back of his face then we get the front of his face the smirk he gives milchik

Thank you. in, knowing that he's putting his own sort of innie at risk and walking into the woods, cameras on the back of his face.
Then we get the front of his face, the smirk he gives Milchik before he goes, this sort of like sense of Pyrrhic victory, the score, everyone's reactions. I'm like, this is a big character death moment on a TV show.
But of course, we're going to see John Turturro some more. And of course, there could be a twist in the plot where we turn Irving B back on for some reason or another or reintegration.
So just sort of like taking the standard rules of television inside of this sci-fi concept. It's like how we talk about it in the Marvel Cinematic Universe right now.
Everything's possible in the multiverse. Robert Downey Jr.
is coming back because everything's possible in the multiverse. Anything's possible in a show where you can turn people on and off with a switch with a walkie-talkie call.
That's where Severance gets to have its cake and eat it too because we do get the stakes of this maybe being a send-off for Irving B. But as you said, we don't have to say goodbye to one of the beloved actors on this show and the best performances on this show.
And if this is the last we see of Irving B, I will be very sad about that. I've grown to really love this character.
And even within this episode, which is very much a Detective Irving on the case kind of structure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He is allowed to be that and to be deeply skeptical of Helena as he has been now for this entire season, but also still kind of credulous about the greater Keir myth. And I love that balance of somebody who, because of the construct of the world he engages in, still lives within the walls that Lumen has set out for him.
But within those walls, he sees someone he knows pretty well acting bizarrely and is really the only person to single and figure that out. He's got some night gardener questions, as did we.

What was the vest?

What was he wearing?

What was he doing?

Do you wear a reflective vest to garden a night?

Probably.

I would think.

I will miss, I don't know.

Yeah, we've, no, we have not heard Audi Irving speak, right?

Just paint, just listen to Ace of Spades, just slam night coffees. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Maybe he said hello to his dog, but I don't know if we have. I will say I will miss the weird mid-Atlantic accent that John Turturro has affected for this role that he and Patricia Arquette seemed to agree that they were going to do this weird accent work for their role.
I love it. And I will miss it if Audi Irving does not have that accent.
Now that you mentioned, I think we do hear him speak very briefly when Milchik shows up to his house, pineapple in hand to recruit him back, but we don't get a lot of dialogue. So it's a little tough to hear if the accent will continue.
I'm hoping and praying that it'll work. You mentioned we don't get an opening credits, but I did want to, I think we should do sort of a regular opening credits check-in because as they mentioned, there will be like moments in the opening credits that once we watch the episodes, we'll go, aha.
So I would say we see in the opening credits, ordinarily we see Mark out on an ice flow. Like that's part of the opening credits.
And then also in the opening credits, there's the glitch between Hallie, Helena, and Miss Casey, which we get inside of this episode as well. So those are just two little opening credits moments that are reflected inside of this episode.
What was your read on that glitch within this episode? Not to jump ahead, but during Mark and clearly Helena's own Ortbo encounter, you know, their own little time away, a little retreat within the retreat. We get this glitch flash, as Severance is ought to do and loves to do, from Helena to Gemma.
Do you read that as Mark's reintegration starting to click into effect? Is that the only way to read it or did you see something else in that moment? Oh, I think there's plenty of ways you could read it, but that was what I was hoping it was because we had erroneously assumed that given what we saw at the end of the last episode, we would be from now on fully reintegrated Mark. And that is incorrect.
It seems like they're going to slow roll this out. And so this is like, I think they needed to do something inside of this episode to give us like a flash of reintegration.
Otherwise you're sort of like, Hey, what did we do? Are we just forgetting what we did at the end of last week's episode? You know? So that was sort of my take on it. I mentioned Leftovers.
I am duty-bound to also mention Lost really quickly. The show is baiting you into it at this point.
It's not my fault. No.
The video that they watch on top of the cliff of Milchik talking about the Orpo and everything else is maybe the clearest lost reference yet that we've gotten on this show because if you've never watched lost occasionally they stumble across these instructional videos from a figure who goes by different names pierre chang marvin king candle edgar hollowax mark wickman there's more anyway uh it's always like this it's like a weird sort of uh soundtrack like score in the background and then like glitched and edited through so it's like it's a it's a direct lost reference the the way that this like video is presented here with the weird soundtrack you're describing is it a similar like i particularly love that it's not just the cure anthem but like cure anthem dot midi is effectively the effect we're going for here. Is it a similar kind of chip tune effect? Not quite because what they find are, I think they were made in like the 70s, so they're like reel to reel, but it is sort of a similar vibe.
But yeah, great MIDI work. You're absolutely right.
Also, I will say, this is where I'm reaching, but I will say Tent, tent sex, uh, is a, is a classic lost staple truck across the Island classic, uh, lost staple, uh, et cetera, et cetera. Let's talk about Heli and Helena inside of this episode, please.
Uh, we, Heli is finally back, uh, vindication for everyone who believed that this was Helena undercover

as Heli from the start. There was

a moment inside of this episode

where I actually experienced my

highest level of doubt

about whether or not we were right

before we were obviously

conclusively proved right. Yes.

But I will say that of all of her

acting skills,

of which Helena, very spotty actress in her Helly role throughout the season, but her sort of bewilderment when they first are in the wilderness here, she kind of sold that. I was like, is this Helly? I mean, I think she was bewildered though.
Would Helena do this? But you know, it was, it was Helly all along. I think there's something kind of perfect there in the, honestly, there is acting and there is not acting.
And I think what's so fun about this episode is parsing the moments from Helena and trying to figure out what is Helena herself reacting to authentically and what is her trying to play something as Heli. And so, yeah, her being bewildered in the woods, I kind of believe in the same sense that when she shows up to present the snow seal to Irving and kind of like chuckles nervously, very homeschool kid energy to me.
You know, this is a person who has not been outside a lot. And I particularly love the idea of putting her in this foreign setting.
And it is to her as much as it is the innies, it seems like. I don't think she spent a lot of time even glamping, as it were.
Yeah, and this is halfway between regular camping and a glamp experience. They have heaters in the tent.
Heaters in the tent, which is a fire hazard, we should say. Absolutely never put a heater like that in the tent.
Do not. I don't care if you want to cosplay LARP severance in the forest.
I'm here to tell you, do not put those heaters inside of your tent. If you are going to LARP severance, don't put the heater in the tent.
Don't waterboard anybody. Don't eat the rotting seals shaped thing in the water.
I don't know what's going on with the rotting animals. But yeah, look, the space heater makes for a striking visual in a really beautifully evocative and I think energizing episode in that way.
The visual language of Severance is so fun and so inviting and it's part of what makes this show as mysterious as it is. And it's details like that that really give you the lighting that you need and the background that you need.
Like one thing we didn't get to talk about last week was as they're navigating the halls looking for the goat room again, you get this sort of effect where the lights are kind of turning on and off behind them as they're moving and progressing through the hall. I love what they do with lighting on this show.
And usually that's very luminescent in the office, right? Like that's very white overhead light. Yeah, yeah.
Now we're getting kind of naturalistic settings for the first time. We're getting people in different spaces.
We're getting Lumen employees going wild in their little glamping tents. Shout out to those kids.
What I wrote down when Helena and Mark are having their team building encounter and they're backlit by that heater, I wrote absolute hell imagery in my notes. And what we get, we get that and then we get the conversation they have afterwards, which I think is really useful for your question of when is Helena being sincere and when is she not? They're laying down facing each other.
Their faces are half lit by the red light. So you get that nice severance divided energy.
It's very persona, sort of like half silhouette. And you're cutting back and forth between that and Irving in like freezing his ass off in the forest and his face is half lit, but he's half lit blue by the moonlight.
And so you've got that like classic Severance red, blue lighting motif. You've got the divided light on their faces.
And I will just say that I think like Ben Stiller and his DP on this episode just went absolutely apeshit with the imagery in the best way. Hogwild.
And thematically too, I think, in terms of the structure of this show, there's something so telling about the fact that the truth isolates Irving and the lies bring people like Helen and Mark together. That's so devastating to me.
It's tough. To your question about, so what happens here between mark and hella i just want to uh i just want to say this uh if you can't get informed consent from someone this is sexual assault this is not like mark cannot give informed consent to this encounter body swapping sexual politics is dicey territory.
This is, this more than anything, and maybe this is a weird place to draw my line, but like, I was sort of in on the idea of like a Helena redemption arc. This is really tough for me to watch her come back from.
Inside of the same moment, we get this conversation where talking about the who she she doesn't like who she was on the outside yeah the shame she feels which to your point i think is genuine stuff from helena so like that is appealing to me emotionally but what she does to mark here is reprehensible repugnant like devastating you know. And so when he is able to process that

beyond what he learns,

the stunning information that he learns

at the end of the episode,

the follow-up for him of what he's done here,

and then the follow-up,

I don't know, are we going to get more Helena?

Are we going to get more Helly?

They turn Helly on at the end of this episode.

Is there a reason to keep her on? Like, are we going to see how she feels about Mark having sex with Helena? Or, you know, what are we going to do with that is my question. I think we have to get that beat.
We have to have Helly being told what just happened and everything that someone has been doing in what is her body. Like, I think we think about and talk about these things in a way because of the agency involved as, you know, someone like Mark Scout has signed up to sever himself and give over part of his consciousness into this innie form.
But like the innie form, that is their body too. And they're having to co- like coexist within it with everything that their Audi version does.

And in this case, the Helena character has done some terrible things. And has done some terrible things, to your point about her arc, for reasons that are very humanistically understandable.
It's so fun watching her try to navigate this with Mark and what she says and doesn't say. And how she's trying to engage and connect with him.
because on the one hand,

she doesn't know Mark well she's like trying to engage and connect with him. Because on the one hand,

she doesn't know Mark well enough

to really be in love with him

or to have feelings for him

in the way that Helly did.

Like Helly and Mark

have been through a lot together.

Yeah.

Helena saw it on tape,

decided she wanted some of those smooches.

Yeah.

And more.

And more.

Jumped in and is so starved

for not just physical contact, it seems, but just deep emotional intimacy that she's inhabiting someone else's skin to try to attain it. She's full of so much self-loathing and exists in a world where people look at her, I don't like her, that she is just desperate for someone to look at her the way that Mark looks at Helly.
And so she's like, yeah, she wants those goo goo eyes, baby. On the hell imagery, I did want to read, we got several emails from people last week, not only disagreeing with how we felt about the goat room, that's its own thing, but a lot of people were like, hey, you missed this biblical illusion.
So I think it's worth talking about inside of the context of this hell imagery here. Because we've been talking about, we talked about the Greek underworld a lot, but let's talk about Judeo-Christian underworld inside of an episode where we're getting these incredible sermons sort of situations.
Anyway, Kevin Dean- Let me tell you, even as a raised and lapsed Catholic, this will not be the last biblical illusionusion we miss. You know, it's a dense book.

There's a lot to parse.

Yeah, and as a dyed-in-the-wool atheist,

I'd do my best.

So Kevin D wrote in to say,

I was surprised you didn't touch on the biblical allusion to the parable of the lost sheep.

Close enough.

And Mark's positioning as a savior figure.

He was trying to resurrect his wife

and arguably performed an exorcism of a sort at the end. Not that any Mark is a demon, but two entities possessing one body I think is analogous.
Maybe now Mark's identity will be defined by a new contradiction, the way he is fully two people in one as Christ is fully human and fully divine, or how the Trinity is three persons in one entity. I think like you guys, I don't want Mark to be any Jesus, but it seems like they're pointing towards that.
So we got a lot of emails about the parable of the lost sheep and how close sort of

some of what Mark was talking about in terms of like, what if it was your goat missing,

would you care, is very close to Jesus and the parable of the lost sheep in the Bible.

So Mark being positioned as Lumen Jesus, which yes, we have explicitly said we weren't like

terribly excited about, but I think if that's something that they're doing is worth

Thank you. So Mark being positioned as Lumen Jesus, which, yes, we have explicitly said we weren't terribly excited about, but I think if that's something that they're doing, it's worth tracking and thinking about.
Oh, yeah. And this is a show that has not just mythology, but religion so clearly on its mind.

Not overtly as there is a savior-like figure, unless Mark turns out to be that, or some messiah.

It's more about the mythology around these things, the way figures and stories propagate.

Even the, you things, the way figures and stories propagate. Even the recital and the reading that we get of this fourth appendix.
Look, it's creepy as hell. And I want to personally salute whoever is in charge of literally writing these texts because they are hitting the exact strand and the exact point that I would like them to hit.
And I'm having so much fun with the text within

the show. But they do have

kind of an old world

mythological bent

that is very hard to strive

for when you're purposely trying to strive for it.

Well, I think it's interesting that like

in the

Bible, again, I

am an atheist, but in the Bible

but I was a child once. So I do know that there's the figure atheist, but in the Bible, but I was a child once.

So I do know that there's the figure of

Onan in the Bible.

Onan sort of

famed, famously

sort of shunned and punished for

spilling his seed on the

ground and wasting his seed on the ground, which is sort of exactly

what we're talking about when we talk about

Dieter Egan inside of this episode.

So, great stuff. Severance, the demented show, I love you very much.
Yes.

Um,

also,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think,

I think, I think, I the outie world because I think it's good to think about that in contrast to what what Helena said um earlier in the season when she's like we owe them nothing yep like

she's talking about the outies but really talking about the innies like they don't really we don't owe them anything we don't you know she doesn't she's trying to convince herself that they're not people that you know so she could do whatever she wants with them um our listener rebecca c wrote into reference

another sort of dystopian

near future sci-fi story

Never Let Me Go

which is the Kazuo Ishiguro book, which has turned into a film.

This is a great call.

Yeah.

And she says, uh, she wrote, if you recall that book slash movie, it's about farming kids innies so they can live unfulfilling lives and ultimately be organ providers, uh, for their outies.

And like the same as severance, you have to separate yourself. so they can live unfulfilling lives and ultimately be organ providers for their outies.

And the same as severance, you have to separate yourself from the idea of the cruelty you're doing to this innie so that you can benefit from what they provide, in Rob's case, the ability to never do the dishes.

But that innie is a real person with real feelings who falls in love and feels pain but is stuck doing their duty.

You feel me?

So this idea inside

of the story of never let me go an incredible book and a great movie um if you if you grow humans or clone humans or whatever uh you know to help you you know are are you honor bound to treat them as a human with their own thought of mind and soul? Or are you able to think of them as merely chattel? Like, what do you do in something like this? So, you know. And I think it's an especially fascinating question for someone like Helena under these circumstances, when, as you say, she is on the record that these are not people, that they are not capable of making their own decisions and yet she's also somebody who even though she may on like think of mark s that way also at least kind of wants to care about him or wants to feel a kind of connection with him like that paradox is really juicy i think again overall all the positions that helena has put in within this episode and especially when you think back on them and reflect on them or go back for a second, watch.
Things like her cracking up at the campfire at kind of how ridiculous the appendix reads. Yeah.
Because she's the only person who has like actual real world context to be able to say, this sounds insane. Yeah.
And the fact that she might not even be familiar with some of these texts that are read and presented to the innies. She's like, this is what we're teaching? This is our corporate anthem? This is it? Jerking it in the forest and turning into a tree? Do you think when Helena and Mark were having their encounter in the tent, do you think Dylan went down to the waterfall to drown out the sound of it so that he didn't have to listen to it? He did say it was very smart.
He thought it was a really good idea. It was very smart.
When she says stuff like, that was mean of me to say that to Irving. Well, let's go back and say this really quickly.
Helena's biggest mistake inside of this episode, she's talking about Birving. Everybody's talking about Birving.in.
Everybody's talking about Bervin. Everybody's talking about Bervin.
That was her tell. That was like where she put her toe over the line.
She brought up Burt. And she says to Mark, that was a mean of me to say that to Irving.
And I really feel like that's Helena being like, I don't want to be that person. I don't know.
I don't know if you have this. There's like, maybe covering.
Like there's an interpretation of that that she's just covering her action and playing the part of Helly. But I also just think, I can't believe this is the cop that's coming to mind, but in one of my favorite films, You've Got Mail, don't email me.
Pineapplebobbing at gmail.com about anything else, but not about You've Got Mail. So embodying someone else's body for an encounter, not good.
Hiding your identity within the context of the internet. Fine.
Fine. But Tom Hanks encounters McBride and he says something really snarky to her and then he's just sort of like, God, I hate that there's that part of me that comes out.
Like I hate that about me, you know what I mean? And so it's like, if Helen is like, God, I can't help but be an asshole, even when I'm given this like fresh start opportunity to be this lovable coworker, I, this like shitty part of me comes out anyway. You know, I just think that that's, again, very human inside of a really shitty reprehensible series of moves that she pulls inside.
Oh, yeah. And we talked previously about within the context of Dylan and Gretchen, the idea of meeting your significant other or someone who cares about you kind of like for the first time again, and kind of the freshness of that experience.
One thing we don't really know is what the broad cultural awareness is in the outside world of Helena Egan. Like, is this a figure who is on the front page of every newspaper and people know in a very public, like front-facing CEO type way? Or is it sort of, oh, people might know her name.
People might know that there's this broad, like powerful Egan family, but don't necessarily know what she looks like. Right.
And so at least within the context of the company and everything adjacent to it, everyone she meets would know who she is and how powerful her family is, if not exactly how powerful she is. And yeah, she gets a fresh start with these people not only as helena versus heli

but as a not so famous person and like just an innocuous kind of encounter with a co-worker versus oh you are helena egan right and uh yeah very like prince and the pauper like what's it like to sort of like walk amongst people and not be genuflected to uh or i prefer a man in the iron mask, but to each their own. The doubling.
We've already talked about some of the imagery in here, but we get these literal doppelganger figures, which you can... That's the goat room level aspect of this episode because because like everything else exists pretty clearly inside of the, other than the, like the weird rotting seal thing, everything else exists inside of this premise that we've already understood, which is that you've got a chip inside your head that severs you.
And that's like sort of a part of the show that we were like, we're buying in on that technology. What are we being asked to buy in when we get these weird, freaky doubles in the woods? Are we Kanye hologramming? Have we hired a woman who vaguely looks like Helena Egan to stand in the snow in a pencil skirt? That seems like an ocean violation.
Is there room in the budget for that? I don't know. What's your sense of what these figures are? Clearly, we are being led down a road of expecting some sort of bodily cloning, recreation of forms.
That is the overall firmament of the show. It's out there.
This idea. At the point where I'm kind of wondering

if that might be more of a head fake

in certain ways.

And this does end up being

a little more smoke and mirrors.

This does end up being

something like a literal like

hired stand-in,

body double type situation.

I love that it's there.

I love that we don't know.

I love that we never see

those people too closely

and we have to ask these questions.

It is a little bit, not to night country this thing, a little Travis Cole. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just like mysterious figure pointing into the cold wilderness. Like that brought me back a little bit.
But I actually really like this element and I like how unanswered it is. I like that we honestly may never know.
This could be one of those details that we get to the end of Severance and it's one of those things that's still like, wait, what the fuck was up with those body doubles in the forest? There's some room for ambiguity and there's room for mystery even within a show that's like five mystery box levels deep already. I'm so glad you invoked the mystery box.
I have already invoked two Damon Lindelof shows. I will invoke no more of Damon Lindelof.
Oh, actually, no, we got to watch an email. Okay, I'm glad.
We will come back to another Damon Lindelof. But Lindelof was so inspired by Twin Peaks in making his eerie sort of worlds.
And so this is so Peaks-y, these sort of like grinning doppelgangers. We got a great email about sort of

the Twin Peaks, um, elements, uh, inside of like Mark's hand twitch that I think I want to return to when we spend a little bit more time with reintegrated Mark, but inside of Twin Peaks, which gives us, especially Twin Peaks, the return, which gives us doppelgangers and that duality of people, the evil side of people and the good side of people and all of that inside of that world. I think it's worth thinking about when we think about these creepy little doppelgangers.
If you have other ideas about what these people invoke, these figures invoke in the woods, pineapplebobbing at gmail.com. I'm sure there's other things I'm missing.
Clearly there's the twinning aspect of the story that they even mentioned within, like, Dylan calls out directly, right? The whole idea of Kier having a twin brother, the Annie-Odie sort of balance overall. So many parts of this episode, in particular the ones that I love, and I include this among them, are almost more mood pieces to me than they are clues.
And like my experience with Severance, I imagine everyone is a little different on their balance, is like 70% mood, 30% mystery. Like the mystery matters to me and drives me, but, and when done well, those things are almost inextricable as far as the mood and the place you're put in the story relative to trying to solve it.
But both are important parts of that formula. Yeah, I don't think I'm trying to.
I hear what you're saying, and I think I can certainly fall into the finger trap of trying to solve a show. I definitely do that all the time.
And there are ways in which you can just sort of let something wash over you for the mood and the vibe. And that is certainly in David Lynch's world and the Twin Peaks world that's certainly what Lynch wants Lynch wants to push you into like a position of emotional uncertainty and just sort of like let you dangle and twist there like that's what he does not want you solving his show and so not to be guy who watched Mulholland Drive this week but the visage of the woe the the woe bride that we get is very woman behind the trash can in Mulholland or behind the dumpster in Mulholland Drive this week, but the visage of the woe, the woe bride that we get is very woman behind the trash can in Mulholland, or behind the dumpster in Mulholland Drive.
Can we take a two-minute sidebar? You went with our guy, Justin Sales, to see Mulholland Drive. How was that, Rob? He took me on a little date.
We went to go see Mulholland Drive in the theater. It was a religious experience for many different reasons.
Also, you know, just a great thing to do while you're in Los Angeles. Just really learn about the hellscape that you're inhabiting.
It's an important rite of passage, I think. Which theater did you go to? We went to Viddy.
It's in Eagle Rock. Yes.
Which is the place to see it. Had a wonderful time.
Thank you to our guy, Justin Sales. Okay, Justin's on this call.
Thank you, Justin, for giving Rob the true LA experience. But yeah, that like I'm fine with just letting, I don't need to solve this.
I don't need, I will say this, I don't need the, I don't want to be in that space that some of the sort of bad faith lost fans were, were at the end of the thing. They're like, you never explained the doppelgangers in the woods in season two, episode four.
I don't need an explanation for that. I just feel like it's dipping a toe in a new layer of surreality that we have not.
We've been experiencing like sci-fi, but this is like surreality above this sort of premise of the world that we've been given, if that makes sense. I think this episode two invites it because we're in such a different physical space, right? This is clearly an area of land that Lumen must have some control over and ability to dictate the conditions of as far as who gets to be here, who doesn't, bringing in these clones or doubles or whatnot, setting up the campsite and the cave and all that.
All of that is part of the larger office experience, but it's not an office floor and a literal office building. And so we are brought into a new physical space.
And with that comes all sorts of questions. You know, like how does severance work in a literal physical outside space that is not the office where they did not go through the elevator? How did they get here in the first place? How does Irving wake up on a frozen lake? Like, how does that work within the sci-fi constructs that we know? Do their Audis know that they're doing this? We're told that they do, but who knows? Yeah.
Like, are they going to wake up with some sort of windburn, like, chapped lips and be like, where was I? Somewhere quite cold. Okay, let's talk about Irving's dream.
So again, to reiterate, this is real fog. They said they didn't use any digital fog in this.
This is real fog that they captured in a burned out woodland area that they found in the Catskills. While they were shooting something else, their location scout found this area and was like, that looks like a nightmare.
Let's go shoot there. So that's where they shot this.
My favorite, there's a lot to talk about in this cubicle in the woods here. Yes very favorite thing and these might be digital they didn't they didn't talk about whether or not they were but the moths around the glowing computer screen i just thought that was incredible detail whoever came up with that uh whoever was like we should put moths on the screens in the woods i was like, you get the marshmallow experience.

It might be canceled for other people.

Oh my God.

But you who thought of moths,

you get that.

Even more reprehensible in retrospect

that it is Helena

who cost these three innies

their one chance

to taste roasted marshmallow.

Unforgivable.

Marshmallows are for team players, Rob.

They don't just hand them out. But some of the team were team players it wasn't their fault dylan should get a marshmallow here's my question so these are marshmallows with keurigan's visage sort of stamped on them and i i thought as it melted his visage kind of gets a little scully in the flames a little bit i don't know if that's deliberate or just me projecting but that's what it looked like to me.
Yeah, it was bubbling up. Rob Mahoney, foodie that you are, whose visage would you most want stamped on a marshmallow? Honestly, you could do much worse than a John Turturro, than a Chris Walken.
I would welcome any of the cast members. Look, if they want to make and market severance marshmallows with the cast members faces on it, I would support it.
I am 1000% certain those exist and are going out in an award season swag bag. I promise you that they're quite conscious of these things for sure.
The Apple box that they, the swag box that they sent out for season one, I don't get much TV swag anymore,

and I like that about me,

because it just adds up,

and it's just a lot of stuff.

Yeah, not to be ungrateful,

but it's a lot of stuff.

It's a lot of stuff,

but the Lumen box they sent out,

among other things in there,

they did have Lumen snack boxes

from the vending machine that were in the thing.

So I'm confident that whoever is doing Apple TV swag saw those marshmallows in this episode was like,

oh,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, is from the like vending machine that were like in the thing so i'm confident that whoever is doing

apple tv swag saw those marshmallows in this episode was like oh thank you for doing my job

for me done and done thanks so much okay um the dream okay so here's a couple things we do get a Bert a burving appearance

Yep

We get

The woe

Bride

Appearance and then the jump scare the absolute jump scare that like got me um and uh and then we get the refining uh image on the computer and we get the letters E-A-G-E E-A-G-A-N form Helena's

face on the computer.

And so... and we get the letters E-A-G-E-E-A-G-A-N

form Helena's face on the computer.

And so something that I think is really interesting

to point out, worth pointing out,

we've had Irving sort of snooze a bit on the inside

and that's when we got the black paint

sort of gooing over his cubicle in season one.

But the Annie's don't sleep. This is the first first time they've ever gotten to experience it do annies dream of electric sheep like do they dream like we already know they do they do and so what truths uh are hiding inside of an any dream uh we don't get to see what mark was dreaming about we get to see adam scott's tremendous smash into the pillow sleeping face but we don't get to see what Mark was dreaming about.
We get to see Adam Scott's tremendous smash into the pillow sleeping face, but we don't get to see like, uh, what truths he might've found inside of his dream. But Irving gets the answer to his suspicions inside of this, who would have been powerful enough to send their Audi onto the separate floor.
And he gets the, the letters Egan shaping Helena's face on the monitor for him. And this was something that people had emailed in already since this episode came out about how specifically did Irving know that Helena was an Egan? And this is the clearest answer we get within the episode.
He does articulate exactly what you said. Who would be powerful enough? Who would have the authority to do this? Right.
I think maybe there's a little bit of a jump there between, oh, this is a high powered Lumen employee to this is an Egan specifically. And it needs this sort of dream assist to ultimately get there because otherwise, how would Irving know? The one reason I'm pretty like a little bit more willing to play ball with it is we have seen historically Irving is maybe the character who has the most porous boundary between innie and outie

in terms of the black goo.

He's been actively trying in his outside

life to infiltrate the

mind of his innie and pass information.

And is it possible that even if

it is subconsciously, granted, this is

one of the only times we've seen Irving fall asleep

and that might be when he's most susceptible

to receiving the information that his outie is trying

to send him. Could his outie be trying

to tell him specifically

that this is Helena Egan

And sleep. And that might be when he's most susceptible to receiving the information that his Audi is trying to send him.
Could his Audi be trying to tell him specifically that this is Helena Egan that's on your floor or look out for this person. She is an Egan.
I think that's very much within play. Absolutely.
And I think also to your point about sort of the permeability between the Innie and outing and Irving, which might mean that like we will miss any Irving less

because maybe between the innie and outie and irving which might mean that like we will miss any irving

less because maybe he's much closer to outie irving than we sort of like originally were

given to believe yeah i i think when we first met outie irving we were like this guy is cool

in a way that any irving is like distinctly not cool but like yeah who's to say but um

what we know is that outie irving is on an intensive investigative investigative prod like

Thank you. distinctly not cool but like yeah who's to say but um what we know is that audi irving is on an intensive investigative investigative pro like project he's got you know phone numbers and addresses and maps and all this sort of stuff and so uh you know all he needs is the yarn wall and then he's he's set and so this idea of detective irving like this is a part of his audi character well, is that he is like a guy trying to get to the bottom of something.
Yeah, he has the mind for it, clearly. And he's able to, he's putting things together in a way that none of the other innies are.
He's noticing these clues. And yeah, does he get a little bit of an ethereal dream assist? Possibly.
And Severance's first kind of foray into horror, as we've said, which is exciting. This is a very different tonality for the show that has been surreal, that has been unsettling, but crossing the line once we start seeing ghastly figures in the dream flesh.
That's a different level. And I think one thing, too, to note is the seat in which Woe is sitting is typically Helly's seat, kind of diagonal from where Irving sits within the cubicle.
How he's putting all this stuff together, who's to say, but the brain works in mysterious ways. And Burt's and Dylan spot? Is that right? I believe so.
Okay, interesting. The file that he's working on is Montauk, which to me, a non-East coaster immediately invokes Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Of course. Meet me in Montauk.
we already invokes eternal sunshine of the spotless mind of course meet me in montauk uh we already talked about eternal sunshine of the spotless mind uh as a as a possible comp for some of these things um but uh i can't find the email so it must have someone sent it to me on on either like twitter or blue sky but uh also worth noting the uss montauk was an ironclad warship during the American Civil War, just as we track our Civil War references. This message is brought to you by Apple Card.
Apple Card is a no-fee credit card that gives you daily cash back every day. That's 3% back at Apple and 2% back on every purchase made with Apple Card using Apple Pay.

Apply for Apple Card, the wallet app on your iPhone today.

Subject to credit approval, variable APRs for Apple Card range from 18.24% to 28.49% based on credit worthiness.

Rates as of January 1st, 2025. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City branch.

Terms and more at AppleCard.com.

This episode is brought to you by The Home Depot. It's starting to look like spring and spring starts with savings at The Home Depot.
There are savings for every project, whether you're starting with a clean slate with convenient cordless power, like a new pressure washer or leaf blower, or starting to love the yard again with colorful flowers and fresh mulch.

Start your spring with early savings at the Home Depot.

Shop now at homedepot.com.

This episode is brought to you by Max.

The Emmy Award-winning series Hacks returns this April.

The new season follows Debra Vance making a move from her Vegas residency

to Hollywood showbiz.

Tensions rise as Debra and Ava try to get their late night show off the ground and make history while doing it. Starring Gene Smart and Hannah Einbinder.
Hacks season four is streaming Thursday, April 10th, exclusively on Macs. Don't forget to check out the official Hacks podcast on Spotify.
I have a question for you, Joe. about, you know, one way to read this is Irving subconscious feeding him information about Helena being an Egan.
One way to read it is our guy who's just a working nine to five stiff, having a stress dream about his job in which the numbers are swirling. The letters are swirling.
He's panicking. The moths are being drawn to the screen.
Have you ever had a podcast related stress stream? No, but I had a brief stint. As far as I know, the only time in my life I ever was sleepwalking was the first time I had a real job.
I was an arts and crafts counselor at our summer camp. It wasn't like a sleepaway camp.
It was like a day camp, but it was like a nine to five. It was like, I was a teenager as my first like nine to five summer job.
And I would walk into my sister's room and start talking about like what the like craft project was. I like, I have to get all these lanyards sorted.
I have to like get the beads or whatever. And I was like sleeping and talking about my job.
So that's like, I've definitely had other stress dreams about work, but that is like the most extreme example was me sleepwalk, anxiety sleepwalking over my arts and crafts counselor summer, like summer camp job. But I can start a lanyard very quickly to this day.
If you ever need one. If you want to tie dye something, I'm your person.
How about you, Rob? Have you ever had a podcast nightmare? Not a podcast nightmare, though. I do regularly still have school-related nightmares, specifically a college-era nightmare in which I think I have dropped a class but find out shortly before the final that I have not.
Oh, no. That is my recurring nightmare that I'm just living through on a daily basis.
And so if anyone out there wants to tell me what that says about me, please do. But I'm delighted about your arts and crafts nightmare, Joe.
And to this day, part of your job is just yarning up a wall, just drawing lines from conspiracy to conspiracy, innie to outie. We're putting it all together out here.
Thanks, Rob. Thanks, Rob.
If you're a neurologist and you're listening to this, as we we've seen a lot yeah we've got a lot of emails

from brain science people uh if you want to diagnose rob's uh stress dreams about his fix us please yeah fix us at pineapplebombing at gmail.com um rob my hope for dream you uh nightmare you is that it's at least a pass fail class uh you know it's not like it can't be or else it wouldn't be a nightmare. I know it's not.
Okay.

Anything else you want to say about

a gone... a pass-fail class.
You know it's not. I know it's not.
It can't be or else it wouldn't be a nightmare. I know it's not.
Okay. Anything else you want to say about a gaunt bride half the height of a natural human? Whoa, woe's hollow.
This idea of the like physical representation of one of the four tempers. What do you think? I never envisioned that we would ever get to see a temper on this show.
It just doesn't feel like it would be of the world. And yet we got here in a way that feels super organic.
And then, you know, these characters have literally just been shown like picture book versions of what Woe would look like. And so it's very easy to kind of see how that would infiltrate the brain into dream form.
I don't suspect we'll see the others, but I'm just delighted that we're here and I'm delighted that we've edged into even darker territory within the world of Severance. And dream states are tricky territory with shows.
You don't want to over-index on them. You don't want to lean on them too heavily.
Little bits and pieces as seasoning, I think, can go a long way. This one I loved.
If we're doing this every episode, I'm probably going to feel pretty differently, but for one of the more grounded characters in the show to have this sort of out-of-body experience during the first time where he's basically allowed to sleep felt very poignant to me. Yeah.
Yeah, I think if we see the tempers in the dream space, again, a dream space is a place where I never need an explanation or a logic explanation or a logic about that this is a dream so that's fine all right let's talk about the confrontation slash uh the glasgow block glasgow does relate to the civil war once again we can find a connection but uh i don't know i'm just inclined again to overly i opened this uh flood gate and i'm so sorry please do keep sending us emails about this, but someone on Reddit posted from the sort of stop motion animation macro debt propaganda video that we saw at the end of the season. There's the shot of Hellie's sort of cartoon figure bobbing for pineapples shot from underneath the water the way that helena is shot in this episode with who irving hang like standing over in the background in the background of this animated like it's up through the water it's a pineapple our fave her face underwater and then irving behind her and i'm just sort of like great job severance you're the best um maybe the pineapple really is truth, ultimately.
I'm trying to think of what the stand-in is, ultimately. Like, symbolically, if we're going to really chase that thread down.
I don't know. We'll find out.
I have a question if, like, Dole or some other big pineapple, like, has incepted me in some way. Not to the Snow Fortress level of my mind, but, like, I've been eating so much pineapple eating.
Don't ever let Dole into the snow fortress level of your mind. I don't care how good they say Dole whip is.
I don't like a Dole whip, but I, I've been eating so much pineapple since we started talking about pineapple on the show. I've just been sort of like insatiable for it.
You're that impressionable. Well, that's what I'm saying.
I'm like, do you think Big Pineapple was like, we want to put pineapples in this show and we're going to get dummies like Joyner Robinson are going to be like, pineapple, that sounds refreshing. I was like, what? See, you say this, and I think there is a portion of our listenership that will go, fruit lobbies don't operate that way.
And I'm here to tell you, they do. Please look into the marketing and production of different apple varieties.

It is a vicious, cutthroat, consumeristic,

very peak, late-stage capitalist world as far as how you make fucking Cosmic Crisp a thing.

It's an insidious space.

You only need to watch the highly problematic

yet undeniably entertaining trading places

from the 1980s to know that the orange market

is not to be trifled with. Not at all.
Here's the thing, Rob Mahoney, that I love about you podcasting in the void. This is like, I don't know if you do this on, you've got this great like pointing at the camera thing that you did.
I'm just trying to speak to the people. That's great.
Okay. Our listener, Tyler M., wrote in, and we've gotten a couple emails about this across the season to go going back to that scene, the screen that we see.
When Dylan is initiating the the OTC, the system functions had a number of other options. options.
Tyler sent us an entire list of it.

Beehive,

Branched... had a number of other options.
Tyler sent us an entire list of it.

Beehive, branch transfer, clean slate,

elephant, freeze frame,

Glasgow, goldfish, lullaby, open house, overtime.

So now we've filled in, we know what overtime is and now we know what glasgow is um do you have any thoughts or feelings about any of the rest of these i mean branch transfer just maybe seems like branch transfer yeah we saw that from mark's other team but like beehive clean slate feels fairly self-explanatory. Elephant, restore all memories.
I kind of like that. That was Tyler's guess for that.
An elephant never forgets. Goldfish, extremely short memory span.
Amnesia, something like that. Anyway, what do you think? Beehive is definitely the most evocative to me.
Yeah. And I'm trying to put together what that could apply to in terms of maybe recalling people in some way.
I don't know. I love how ambiguous these are too.
I love that they invite this sort of speculation and yet I can't quite put my finger on it in any meaningful way other than, as we said, clean slate makes sense. You don't need to get too cute with all of them.
But I like that the programmers at Lumen you know they got to stretch out a little bit they got to have fun they got to be like okay yeah glasgow fuck it elephant let's do it um okay uh i love this confrontation we we heard a clip at the beginning i do think that to turro's reading of when he says Seth.

Yeah.

Chills every time that I've like rewatched that or clipped it or anything like that.

Just like he's just snarling and he's just like acid.

And the switch that he makes, we didn't mention this earlier, but.

Britt Lauer in the scene in the tent when Helena shows up with a little snow seal for Irving. The first kind of double down moment for her.
Yeah, and she's like, I mean, do this snow seal, blah, blah. And he's talking to her and then she goes like Irving, like very cold and then sort of tries to warm back, like defrost herself a little bit.
So that is great stuff.

But the switch we get from Irving's stand here of like, you know, shoving her face in

the ice cold water, demanding this happen, and then tenderly cradling her when she's

helly again.

Guess what, Rob? This is a great television show. And that was a great TV moment.
Yeah. And to put this all inside an episode in which we're propagating the myth of Keir's twin and this idea of abiding the sins of your brother and therefore contributing to their demise.
And here's Irving, knowing full well that if he even attempts to out Helena for what she is, that he's basically going to be turned off, that his existence will blink out. And being self-sacrificial in that way in pursuit of the truth, for the sake of this kind of little group and little posse that he's found at work, it's an honestly really beautiful thing.
And you're right, the performance of it and the self-righteous, the righteous anger, the skepticism, the acid, the delivery from Turturro is so sharp at every single turn, whether he's investigating, whether he's giving his big proclamations at the end, whether he's revealing everything that he's found. I love this performance.
I love this show. I'm, I'm so, I'm just so thrilled that they've allowed Irving to be this, that they allowed Dylan to be this, that this isn't just a, a Mark and Helly show or a Mark South centric show.
It's a really fully act like fully actualized, uh, ensemble performance. Yeah.
And I mean, this is a very Dylan, but, but let's, we get this Dylan moment, right? Dylan says, I'm sorry. I didn't like listen to you.
I didn't believe you. I didn't help you.
And Irving says, um, hang in there, which we can only assume as an allusion to, there's a poster in the break room of Dylan you know operating the two switches on the OTC that says hang in there and so do you think he's like did he hide something for Dylan behind the hang in there poster That's a popular theory I've seen floating around.

What do you think?

I would enjoy that.

I also think we're just naturally set up for Dylan,

who has been tempted at this point by the family visitation room,

by the idea of even further perks

than he was ever entitled before,

to pick up Irving's quest for the elevator, right?

He was the person who was first told that information.

I think there's all the reason in the world to expect that he is now going to be on the hunt for it. Having seen what happened to Irving, now knowing Helena's betrayal within the team, he's going to be looking for his own answers and his encouragement to maybe look behind that poster or pick up on some other clue that Irving is trying to pass to him.
Like they have an interesting connection and one that's been fraught at various times, one in which they are naturally at odds given their personality types, but became sort of unlikely friends and at least allies in this one way. Rewatching, again, if we never see Irving be any Irving again, if this is a true character death, I think on rewatch that moment at the beginning of the season when he and dylan like share that embrace or the moment where we see him in o and d like talking about burt reminiscing and getting

another hug like these are in retrospect it's funny because like in the you know at the end

of the episode you know severance is doing that classic hbo inside the episode sort of

like little moments,

uh, interviews at the end of the episode.

And Adam Scott was like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like,

I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm interviews at the end of the episode and adam scott was like you guys are gonna go back and watch the last few episodes oh my god it was it was all along and it's like oh no we we knew that already but the character beats you're right i think ring differently. But for Irving, as these episodes leading up to this as a goodbye for that character, this emotional sort of send-off for this character, that's going to hit differently.
Again, if we never see him, I don't know if we will or not. But the structure of this show too, I think, asks you as a viewer to interrogate what you want.
Do you want to see full reintegration for all of these characters we've come to know and love in various respects? Do you want to see the any versions who are much more familiar with overall find some way to continue their existence? It's such a tricky territory where having one existence kind of snuffs out the other and also reintegration may be dangerous and not even possible for everybody and being put in our position both ethically in terms of story telling like what do you want is such a huge question to have to ponder. Yeah and we entertained this before and my earlier sort of idea was like I want everyone reintegrated because I don't want to like snuff anyone out.
Yeah. But Helena and Helly at this point, that is a torturous reintegration.
That's my switch in this episode. I'm like, Helena, you're done for me.
I want that body to belong to Helly. That would be my end of the day preference.
I like to root for difficult women, but this was a, this was a, this is gonna, I, we can't come back. She's making herself quite difficult.
It turns out. Okay.
It will be as if, as if you Irving B never even existed, nor drew a single breath on this earth. Devastating.
And then we get a shot at the end. One thing, my one tiniest nitpick, tiny quibble.
And I'm not mad about it. It's just a funny staging thing.
Milchik and Mark and Dylan are at the top of the waterfall and he's down there sort of like plunging her head into the water. At the very least, Mark is running down there a bit faster than he is.
He just stands there and he's like, oh my God, stop. And I'm like, get a fucking move on, Mark.
What are you doing? But you also can't make it. If she decides to plunge her head in the water, you're not making it in time.
It's not that tall of a waterfall. It's the tallest in the world.
It's a short little jaunt downhill to get to this woman you just had sex with in a tent. Okay.
Something that they said in the official podcast, which I thought was interesting, is they contemplated several different endings for this episode. They didn't know if they wanted to sort of like black bag, you know, people swoop in and sort of black bag Irving and like drag him off or how dramatic they want to be.
And what they decided to go with is they do, you know, the reverse Zoom dolly pull out that they've been doing for the inside the elevator severance moment without the ding, obviously. But I did love, by the way, the ding that we get when Heli is turned back on while being plunged underwater.
Just wonderful little ways to execute this stuff. But Stiller was saying that they wanted it to read more like this is just Irving himself realizing that it's the end of something or accepting the end of something rather than the physical process happening then and there.
This is a mental sort of emotional severing from what's happening there. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, there's ways in which the style can sort of literalize, and then there's the ways in which it just speaks to the moment.
And I think you've zeroed in on that really nicely, Joe, in the sense that everything about the structure of this episode, and in retrospect, the last few, points to this being a long walk for Irving to here, to this moment, to this decision, to putting himself out there in this way for the sake of unveiling the truth. And I hope that those stakes stick.
I'm not saying I don't ever want to see Irving be again, but this is a meaningful sacrifice. I agree.
I was watching this and I was like, if they just undo this, then re-watching this episode will not feel... Like, thinking about a show like Lost,

which has these very sentimental,

sacrificial death moments

for certain characters,

that's not a spoiler,

that's just the premise of Lost.

People die on this island.

Like, thinking about all the times

I've cried over the death of characters

on that show,

or something like Buffy the Vampire Slayer,

which we just talked about. Sure.
These shows like really get you with these big emotional deaths and i i wasn't like weeping for irving this episode but i was genuinely torn up about this ending and then while at the other time there was a voice inside my head was like are you watching a show where they could just flip him back on if they want to. So, like, I don't know how seriously

I'm supposed to take something like that. You know

what I mean? To our earlier discussion, I think that's

where Severance gets to still

have Troturo on the show and still gets to have

Irving as a presence on the show. And if anything,

now is such an interesting

variable to have in the outside world,

right? And what his level of involvement is going

to be with the other characters who we've never

seen Mark Scout and the

Audi Irving interact before, right? Now

maybe they have more reason to be in contact

I'm not sure. and what his level of involvement is going to be with the other characters who we've never seen Mark Scout and the Audi Irving interact before.

Now maybe they have more reason to be in contact

as people who are trying to put the pieces together

or with Devin or with Harmony.

We don't know how any of these people

are going to bump into each other.

And I suspect the deeper we go into this show,

the more and more important

the outside part of the story is going to be.

And so I'm glad to have Irving potentially in the driver's seat of some of that. No, I mean, I am beyond thrilled that we're going to, that we get to have more Turturro on the show.
I would never want to say goodbye. I never want to say goodbye to John Turturro and Severance.
Okay. Quick sort of a few emails to get to, maybe some odds and ends, and then we'll wrap up here.
Our listener, Kevin K., when wondering about inside of the Civil War theory, there's this question of are we in a world where the South won the Civil War and that's the fallout that we're seeing? Our listener, Kevin K., pointed out that during Mark's initial mind-melling, quote, protocol survey, he's asked to name a dam, and Mark says Hoover. So he's like, the Hoover Dam exists.
So Hoover exists as the very first president of the United States, possibly, et cetera, et cetera. Also, for the record, I could not name another dam.
I don't know if that's an indictment of me, but I would also reach for Hoover. The Orville dam? There's a dam in Orville, California.
You could convince me of anything. Name any fake dam and I will buy it.
Okay. This is what he says.
He says, quote, I have noticed television writers play with points of divergence as a way for viewers to theorize about these worlds. In Lindelof's HBO Watchmen adaptation shows a shared world through Nixon's first term

until Robert Redford becomes president.

Redford's impact on the culture and counterculture

is part of the show's backbone of messaging

and it gave space to revisit other historical blind spots

like Tulsa 1921.

He also mentions Counterpoint,

the J.K. Simmons sci-fi show,

and that has a very specific, I think, 1980s

sort of divergent as well.

Man in the High Castles,

such a clear touch point here too.

I don't need to know when history diverged so that Egan, a corporation took over. They don't need to do that, but it is a fun thing that like some of these shows play with or whatever.
And that this is a show that consistently rewards you for that level of investment, of parsing the background of scenes, of reading every bit of text that a character has in their hands or has behind them. This is the thing overall with Severance that makes me so thrilled to be covering the show week to week with you in this way, Joe, is there's such a clear level of care put into the construction of it, going back to it, you know, as you said, like the propaganda video having this visual echo of Helena being plunged underwater.
When things like that happen, it's like, oh, it's a nice little closed loop and it's a cool detail, but it's also just indicative that these people know what they're doing and that they have a certain range of foresight to know, okay, here's where we want to go. Here's what this is going to mean.
Here's how these reveals are going to twist up the audience. This is what's going to change the emotional stakes of the show.
I think it just speaks to having a very steady hand at the wheel of severance. Great point.
I also just like podcasting with Rob in general. It's a delight.
It's better when it's a great show. This is the thing.
But it's disclaimer i'm happy to be here okay uh book book club corner really quickly we we're getting emails from people suggesting like sort of extra reading material which again takes me right back to my last days um and i have purchased two books based on recommendations from people and i've read one and i still need to get to the other. But in fairness, it doesn't take much of a nudge to get you to buy a book.
Okay, Rob. I'm just like, that's not a character flaw.
I'm just saying, you know, you've been gently pushed in the direction of some extracurricular reading. Just because you don't read fiction does not mean, but are you going to read the like neuroscience texts that they, I think, I should be your job i'm certainly not gonna i guess we'll all have our homework okay um luke recommended um this a play uh because you're talking about the myth of orpheus eurydice and luke recommended this play called eurydice by sarah rule um and i bought it and i read it And I mean, it's very thin, it's easy to read, but, um, it's really, really good.
It's from Eurydice's point of view. And, and the reason that he recommended it, and I really see this is because like in this play, it's a lot about memory and like when you go down to the underworld and you lose your memory and what is the blessing in that and what is the curse in that and what are you trying to hold on to that doesn't exist anymore and so the story from which is often told from your orpheus's point of view the story from eurydice's point of view this question of of memory and identity uh and what makes you you i can really see how they might be sort of playing with that um inside of gemma's.
I would say in particular, we talk about this show so much as a show about consciousness, but it really is a show about memory. And I think the more that the innie and outie versions of this character are meant to reckon with the things that the other version of them have now done, like those are memories you might wish you could wipe out in an eternal sunshine kind of way.
those those that engagement with that sort of idea i think is right here for severance to play with basically anytime it wants to one of the really cool visuals of this play this this is like a very stylized play and i was looking up sort of videos of tons of uh iterations and performances of it but one of the main visuals that most of the performances follow is when Eurydice arrives in the underworld, she does so in an elevator where it's raining. She shows up and there's like a ding of an elevator.
It opens and it's raining and she's got this umbrella inside of a raining elevator. So the elevator ding, the memory, all of that sort of stuff, it makes sense that this might be sort of in the in the water of severance yeah other recommendation we got that i have that i purchased but i have not gotten to uh and and i'm fine to wait on this because it has to deal with uh cobell so i think maybe we'll delve into this when she re-enters the scene yep um but our listener brett recommended willman's national book award winning novel, Europe central, which has a, that is a tome.
That is, that is a thick boy, but there he's recommending this. There's like a 50 page short story inside of that book called clean hands, which is a story of a, of a man called Kurt Gerstein, who basically infiltrated the Nazi organization.
And in very small, if you want to put it that way, sort of like functionary ways, operated to save lives inside of the Holocaust. So just sort of by recommending, like, Clean Hands is, I haven't read this short story yet, but sort of Brett summarized it.
But this idea of like operating inside of an evil organization, executing evil orders inside of that evil organization, but trying to make small changes to, to do what you can to mitigate the loss a bit like Schindler's List, but it's sort of like, even sort of-

Sounds like maybe even more compromised than that.

Yeah, more compromised than that.

So is that something that we could think about

when we think about Harmony?

If we think of her as someone

who maybe has infiltrated Lumen

to exact revenge,

but can we reconcile that

with the shit we see her do in season one?

Can we think of her as someone

who is on the side of the angels

to a certain degree,

but is like playing the games of the devil

Thank you. can we reconcile that with the shit we see her do in season one? Can we think of her as someone who is on the side of the angels to a certain degree,

but is like playing the games of the devils in order to get there sort of idea?

We are due for a Harmony episode.

Maybe not the entire episode,

but one in which she is significantly involved in the action.

We've seen her drive.

We've seen her drive back.

We've seen her not go into buildings.

She is absent this week, as you mentioned.

I feel like five or six, we're going to get a lot of Harmony.

I hope so.

Also, I don't need to read the emails, but we have gotten several emails from people saying that we're wrong about the chamomile cookies. Rob, are you willing to try a chamomile cookie recipe to see if the listeners are right? I'm willing to try baking anything.
Yeah, I know. So yeah, if someone wants to send us a chamomile cookie recipe that they earnestly believe in, we will try it.
Okay. Last but not least, our, what would you sever a section has, has reemerged here.
We talked about dishes last week. We talked about a number of other things.
We got several emails about the same concept this week. First, before we get there, I will say Rachel H.
Ro in to say she was shocked and appalled to hear me talking about severing anything other than doing my taxes, because she's heard me over many years of listening to a podcast talk about how much I hate filling out a form. And that's true.
So probably I would sever taxes if I could. But Alan L., Grant H., Amy S.
all wrote in to say like going to the gym and not because they don't want to go to the gym this was the part that threw me for a loop like the exact reasoning yeah which was the same across the board i think for all three of them which is like imagine getting to go work out whether you're swimming or lifting weights or whatever it is without the burden of the rest of your life sort of hanging over you.

I don't know if I've talked about this on this podcast, but something I've been doing in 2025, because for a while, back in 2024, I started doing this sort of get jacked weightlifting thing, which is great. But it's really come to bear in 2025 because what I do is I read the news and I get mad and then I go lift heavy things in the gym.
That's sort of been my process of coping with things. But what if I could do that without the sort of like burning, roiling anger at the state of the world? Would that be an even more enjoyable experience? What do you think, Rob? It might, but I think you're hitting on something that's so important, which is the release of those activities.
On the one hand, you don't want something weighing you down while you go to the gym. But on the other hand, when you do hit a runner's high and it gives you that pacifying feeling where you do forget everything that's happening, any version of you wouldn't have that moment of relief.
They would just feel the endorphins of exercise, but they wouldn't feel the relief from not having to think about the outside world. This also presumes that your chosen form of exercise is a solitary activity, whereas Rob, you love a game of pick-up basketball, right? Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, and you wouldn't want to sever yourself from that. That's communal.
I would never give it up to the point that at some point, I'm just going to run my knees and Achilles into the ground. There is this famous thing where eventually you get old enough and you either have to actively stop yourself from playing basketball or you will have to be carried off the court at some point.
I'm going to die out there. On your shield.
That's just the life that I've chosen for myself. So yeah, I'm not giving my any minutes of my gym time in that particular

way. Rob's coming home on his shield

from the basketball court and

that I think is our

season two episode four Severance Check-In.

Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you want to make sure

we reference? One thing

that's very important to me in terms of

the overall mood setting of this episode when we

get our fireside recital

of Appendix Four, we also get Miss Huang playing a mean theremin. Thank you.
This would be a great invitation for me personally, Joe, seeing it on screen, to finally learn and understand how a theremin works. Yeah.
I don't. Okay.
There's a reason I am not a physics podcaster. It seems very complex as instruments go.
Pineapplebobbing at gmail.com. I want to let you know that on the official podcast, they had Teddy Shapiro, who is the composer for Severance, was on this episode.
He did not understand how a theremin works. He composed this piece for the theremin.
A truly baffling instrument. And he's like, I don't know, you block a wave.
And that's how it makes the tone. Anyway, what they were saying is that the actress who plays Miss Wong learned how to play.
So she's actually playing the theremin. She shall made this thing? Yeah, she did.
She just disappeared and learned how to play all the songs of Bob Dylan on the theremin? Full timbo. Absolutely.
All the way. Anything else? Yeah.
Well, I also learned that apparently, so I've always known it as a theremin. I learned that they're also called an etherphone, which is just bang up job.
Bang up job by the instrument naming authority. Wow.
Okay. Well, this is amazing.
Anything else you want to talk about? The only person I want to give a special shout out to, because I don't think we touched upon him much in this episode, aside from his waterfall superlatives. Great Milchick episode.
The fit. Great Trammell Tillman episode.
You know, as his readings of things that are clearly ridiculous and line deliveries of things that probably would be silly coming out of the mouth of many, many other performers with him always do have that edge of danger of authority of just like, this is not someone you want to get on the wrong side of. And yet he obviously has the very like corporatized plastic smile thing that he can go to whenever he wants to.
So great, great Trammell Tillman performance. Just incredible outfit.
I loved, I loved his outfit. Uh, and also I think it begs the question.
I think this is something we need to keep asking ourselves is like, is Seth? Yes, Seth do it. Uh, is Seth a true a true believer? Because is his offense that he takes over them snickering, which results in the marshmallows getting thrown in the fire, is his offense like a personal religious one? Or is it just sort of like, I'm playing by the corporate rules here, you know? Seemed rude either way.
Great Great question asked. No need to throw those marshmallows into the fire.
If you, like us, are quietly yearning to learn more about anything, you can send us an email, pineapplebobbing at gmail.com. Press ccv at spotify.com.
Again, we're getting so many emails. They're all great.
Thank you so much for sending them. They're really, really good and varied and I will continue to buy books and pineapples thanks to this show.
A genre of email that I have enjoyed, that I would enjoy more of if people want to call these specific examples. An emailer, I don't have their name at the tip of my tongue, I apologize, pointed out one of the very specific visual callbacks in the show, which was Harmony Cobell's rear view or rear lights, tail lights on her car as she's leaving the parking lot in episode three.
This very black background, these red lights at the end of effectively what is a long lane, or in this case, a hall, is basically exactly like the mysterious elevator. Yeah.
I'm loving all that stuff. So if you see anything that strikes you visually in the show, I would love to hear about it.
I liked that more with no offense to anyone than the like, uh, Dylan's wife is dressed like Pam from the office. I'm like, I don't know what that gives me that Dylan's wife is dressed like Pam from the office.
Great shout, good observation. It just doesn't do anything for me thematically.
We're not going to mention the office on this show. That's, that's not what we're doing here.
Okay. And that has been set for in Season 2, Episode 4, Rob Hates The Office.
FindAppleBobbingYouTube.com if you want to talk Rob out of that. Thanks to our office mates, John Richter, for helping Rob navigate the void here.
Justin Sales for helping us navigate the void that is the scheduling around all these prestige TV shows coming up.

And as always, on the

Burbing Drop and everything else, Kai Grady.

Thank you so much. We will see you soon.

Bye!