Severance - S01E02 - Half Loop

It and Milchick taken photos of people on the operating table and these guys are all perverts. All of them. Welcome to the Waffle Potty, the officially unofficial podcast for Severance on Apple TV Plus. I'm Jim. I'm Aeron. And we're talking about, it's one episode to half loop. It's sort of the other half of the premiere two episodes of the series Severance. Aeron, I'm excited to be talking about this episode because this was a real one-two punch when I first watched these episodes.

How are you feeling about it? Feel real good. On second time through, I was kind of astounded by this episode that how much it puts on the table in terms of like, we still know what the hell they're doing, but we know how they're doing it. I guess we do know what they're doing. We don't know why or what it's all purpose and does. The show's universe gets so much bigger. We find out about the break room. We have hints about what goes on in the break room and how it's kind of ironically named.

We see the wellness center. And we're starting to see the psychological systems that they're using to keep the kind of ines in line. And also the department with Christopher Walken. With Christopher Walken. And like, I remember when he showed up, I didn't know anything about the show. I was like, holy shit, Christopher Walken. And he's playing this weirdo character with another weirdo character with a weirdo character actor. He put John Tatarro and Christopher Walken in a box and shake him up.

It's, it's, you know, I just got it like a vis, just a thrill of excitement that we're going to see Christopher Walken in his very weird show. Oh yeah. See, to Jesus, Kintana, acting opposite the prophecy, the guy from the prophecy. Yeah. It's fucking weird. And you mentioned a one to punch because as many as much light as we get, there's also more shadows like what the hell is going on in this black oil. We've got the intro sequence, which also features black oil taking over everything.

We've got, you know, the, the, the, they're really getting answers about the widespread kind of panopticon that they're going under. The fact that Mark's under scrutiny for taking a day of absence and it's suspicious. And, you know, and we also got the other, that's something I would have guessed. That, a mid-season episode that we get the other half of Helle's introduction. So we see what the Helle experience looked on the outside. Yeah. We get to any and out of terminology.

We get to see the protest movement. It's not just congressional thing. There's a grass mood, the roots movement that's opposing this. And more context for Mark's testiness at dinner because we see him completely drunk and wound up taking him on this one. The stuff going on with PD. Yeah. It's a scene that the department heads day to day and the list and things that they have to do, fill up soap, you know, distribute tokens, the, the, the, the break room options.

They're not the break room options. I'm sorry, the concession options at the, at the, you know, the vending machines. It's how terrible they are. Except for to smoke me. I don't know what kind of meat it is. Kind of be smoke me a man. Smoke salmon is good. Could be smoke salmon, but I, I think smoke salmon over shriveled raisins and the dried ginseng cubes. Oh, I like the way the legions lie sometimes. They taste me. Okay. Yeah. All right. Bert, cool sugar alley outside. Oh, yeah. Good stuff.

And I think this is the start of the episode where I really fell in love with Dylan. Yeah. Just how pugilistic he is, like, you know, Irv comes back, he meets Bert. It, you met Bert. He's a fuck, you know, he's just like this very crude, but yeah, pervasive use of, of swearing and, you know, how, how he goes after Irv for napping, but kind of immediately regrets it and, you know, and he'll at least she gets her first hit off an emotional number. And he's like, yeah, stop fucking around.

It's, I just, he's, he's the fucking best, man. Dylan. He's endearingly dickish. Uh, at least, you know, in the show, I, I met all these things make me wonder who these people are on the outside. And I, you know, are we ever going to get those answers? I don't know. That might be a thing for us to talk about in the reintegration section. But yeah, I have a lot of questions about who these people are. Yeah. There is a, you know, again, it's the golden age.

We're not used to this kind of thing, but there's always a chance that this could be another X files could be another Westworld situation where we don't get the answers or the answers are not as cool as we thought they would be. But, you know, I'm, I did the, the, the steal of phrase from Foxmolder, I want to believe. I want to believe in the show's creative vision. Uh, it's consistency.

It's ability to survive a pandemic, a writer strike, an actor strike, creative difficulties between the show runners. I want, I want to believe, I want to believe. Uh, yeah. I've every reason to from what I've seen so far. Lots of great music. You know, you start to get the kind of the jazzy kind of music you'll cues that we'll see later on in the show. Um, you know, they got a great, fantastic daydream and needle drop that, you know, the lot of shows have used like notably Mr. Robot.

Sure. Use that to introduce the second season, um, which turned out to be all an illusion, so to speak. Um, yeah. And the show continues to look great. I love its palette. I love, uh, how they make the, if anything to any world is more vibrant and bright than Mark's Audi world, which is very drab and dre and dark because his light bulbs aren't working and things like that. So lots of stuff to talk about.

I don't know if you got any other just kind of like free, free form thoughts, but uh, it should probably get right into it. Yeah, I'm right. And just a reminder, uh, even though we have seen the entire season, we are structuring this review to as if we did not, we're only going to be covering things that happen in this episode or before it. Uh, stay tuned to the end if you want to see our integration segment.

Uh, it's intended for veteran watchers who want to kind of catch up before season two, or kind of play along the game with us, um, going through this and, and seeing, seeing what we missed on the first time around, but you're safe. You're safe until we get to that well marked point. Um, okay, we're going to start the episode with the reverse of the healy and, or the healy introduction, you know, Mr. Melchak bringing her in, uh, recording her orientation tape to herself.

Yep. Shocking that we get the, uh, a close up, uh, view of the whole severance procedure. Yes. Uh, hard to watch at times. I don't like seeing skulls being drilled, especially with what just looks like an off the shelf craftsman or whatever tool, power tool. Yeah. You question like, are these people medically trained because like when Melchak was like scrubbed in and he's like, oh, this is going to hurt a bit. I'm like, holy shit. Is Melchak going to do this?

But then there's people we don't know, hopefully they're doctors, but you know, they, they, they make it seem like it's a small, easy, painless procedure. And it does seem to be easy and painless. But I don't think she felt any pain. Yeah. I don't think I would describe this as minimally invasive. They are putting like a two inch incision in the nape of her neck. They're using these spreaders to stretch the skin open, reveal the skull. They're using like a quarter inch drill bit.

And you know, it reminds me of being in the doctor's office when they're like, you're going to feel some pressure. Here's some pressure coming. And I feel some light vibe. You're going to feel some light vibration as the drill bites into your skull. And the way, I don't know. The way her eye, when that needle goes deep, like in the middle of her brain. And the way her eyes kind of go and it deploys these fins. Like you're not getting, this is like a fish hook.

You're, once it goes in, you're not going to get it out. And you compare this to like what PD is going through at the end of the episode. And like this does not seem minimally invasive. And it seems like a psychological effect on her immediately. Like they don't put her effort as a procedure, but her as soon as this chip goes in, her eyes kind of get crossed and swimmy. And the next thing we see, she's out in the staircase. Yeah. I, there are some weird things that happen here.

So there's one thing that we kind of noted in the veteran section of last episode that I think we can talk about here now. One of the answers to the five questions that they ask you during the training session is given here by Milchick as he, as they're walking the ground. It's what's Kier's favorite breakfast. And he tells her it's three raw eggs and milk. And he mentions this just sort of in passing as they're touring the grounds before the implant is put in, before the severance.

And in my mind, this makes it a short term memory test. Like yeah. Yeah. The other ones like, you know, states and your mother's eyes, that's all like longer term deeper kind of memories. This is, did we get the, did we get the process out of your brain? Do you know anything about what we did to you in lead up to this? It's a quick boot check, you know, long term memory, short term memory, personal memory, general memory. There, there, you know, they're investigating it all.

And the other thing that's interesting is, at some level, it seems the Audi is aware that the inny is not wanting to be there. You know, Melchick's there like when she rushes out, oh, hey, old timer. Oh, yeah, what am I doing here? Oh, this is, you know, this staircase, you know, sometimes we'll have trouble with the integration process and we, we use this space to kind of give him the visceral experience. And she's like, oh, okay, I don't know, like this is just an objective.

But then when she does it three and one of the times she's hurled through the floor, it gets harder and harder. And, you know, Melchick actually calls it in. Like, and he doesn't seem like he's panicked. Like this isn't like crazy outside of his experience, but it's something that's, that's worrying him, right?

Sure. No, it's a, that there's a sort of implicit admission here that this is unwanted by everyone involved in the process because he doesn't say, oh, no, I assure you, you want to be there. He says something along the lines of you learn to want to be there or you learn that you do. And that's, do I not want to do? I not want to be there. You're learning that you do. Yeah, you're being conditioned. Yeah. And in some ways, it's right on, right?

Like the Audi wants them in there and they are you-ish. And so you kind of do want to be in there, but it's also really ominous. Yes, yes. And you wonder to what extent Mark went through this and like, you know, this is, maybe it's like, oh, it's a day one jitters or whatever, but you got to wonder like, are these people on the outside in really in the dark about what's going on there? Or they whistling past a graveyard? Or is it they didn't even care?

Yeah. Because she's raising concerns of milkshakes, got even like on the third time when she's like, it really seems like you don't want to be there. He's like, well, you're coming here as a miracle. It's amazing what you're doing. There's one other really weird thing that happens during this procedure when they're drilling into her brain. Milchek is standing there, kind of walking her through it, making sure she's okay.

But at the end, when he's about to leave, he takes a photograph of her undergoing this procedure, like right in her face. Is he just a pervert or does this have some official use at Lumen? Is this like going up on his wall at home? I wonder if, or yeah, like surely it's not their employee badge photo, is it? No, it can't be. She's like, got her skull cracked open at this point. So is it from, you can't see it from the front though.

I don't think it would be a very good employee identification photo. Yeah, right. And I think we've seen them in their dress, you know, in their any clothes and stuff like that. So, but it's weird and all the stuff he's saying, he's like, oh, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm sorry, if I'm freaking you out because I'm just so excited to see you. The sounds that was being made, like the long squelching sound as the needles going into her brain. Yeah, it's, it's, it's unsettling to say the least.

What, and the next thing she knows, she's at the top of the elevator. It's done with the first day and Melchick's got her flowers for her. There, now we know how she got the flowers. It seems very standard. This is one day down. This is the process. They really lavish the outy with gifts and pay and, and benefits and they essentially give preschool treats to the outies or the ines, which we'll find more out. Let's talk about the credit sequence. This is the first time we're here with it.

Probably because a lot of it would be a spoiler if you just went into the first episode. It lays a lot out and it also would spoil the fact that Christopher Walken's going to be in the show, which he shows up later in this episode. But yeah, what, what, what, what did you make of this very oddly animated sequence? That's the first thing I noticed is this is a 3D animated intro sequence, which to me has a facsimile of reality kind of quality to it.

The 3D animation is close enough to reality that you can recognize these characters, but feels very artificial at the same time. So that felt like the me. What's that? You know those games that are based on ragged-all physics where you dump like 100 Bowman and then like 500 Spearman and they collapse at the end and they just kind of bounce and yeah, the ultimate battle simulator. Time to go to the break room for mandatory promotional material.

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Well, some heard a lot of good things about AMC's interview with the vampire, so we're taking a very small bite just a nibble by checking out the first episode for all new off the clock. We'll find out whether we want to go back for seconds and Aeron is then capping off his spooky season with his final thoughts on Agatha All Along. That episode is out this Thursday night. Then on Friday afternoon, we're pulling our chairs up to the lunch table for another weekly Q&A on Lunch with Gemini Aeron.

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That's what it felt like to me. All these, almost like the marks are particle physics, just bouncing off each other. You've got one mark that's in his pajamas in a bath row. He's the Audi Mark and you got the any mark who's in a suit. But then the Audi Mark drops inside the top half of the any marks head. He's piloting him. They're breaking down the separation between these two guys, I think, in this intro.

Showing the separation physically, but like the kind of consciousness connection between them. Yeah. There's lots of marks coming in and out of doors. He's got the loosens made of himself, which is weird. He spills out of a coffee cup, which is also kind of like the black goo that's leaking out of the trash. Coffee's, you know, could describe a black goo. And unless you're talking about number one, our fantastic private label coffee that you can get exclusively at fourlights.shop. I was black.

I was black. Drinking from the ceiling as well. There he is. Yeah. We're going to shop where you zoom out of the cubicle farm and the severance needle is sucking them up. It's not. Yeah. There's like the severance needle comes in and is vacuuming up all the employees. Like it's stealing their lives or something. That that was telling. Yeah. And then the overriding feeling here in kind of the action, the kineticism of it is that he's running away from something.

And whether he's running away from, you know, his trauma or he's running away from looming themselves, I don't really know it could be both, I guess, in this intro, but there's a feeling of fleeing in this thing. Until you get to the very end where they both collapse in bed. Yeah. You know, any mark and outie mark and merge, which is a tantalizing possibility, especially with what we know about PD. Sure. Anything else to mention? I don't think so.

Before we get into the next, past the cold open, we see Mark coming in as the news senior chief. He's got a senior department head checklist and seems like he's got to come in about 30 minutes early, do a little bit of maintenance. Yep. Hide all the old photos of fired employees. That was not on his checklist and it's going to piss her off. Nope. I paused, of course, and wrote down the checklist. Oh. Refill self dispenser.

Okay. Check. Yeah. If they're doing this every day, they must have washed her hands a lot. How much fucking soap are they going through? What the hell? He's got to sweep the floor, wipe down all desk surfaces, dust, lumen, compliance, handbook, and appendices, return all vending machine tokens to jar. You know, we'll see Dylan making some deductions from that jar later in the episode. Review employee lunches. That's a question I had. What are the doubts?

The doubtings don't pack them anything to eat. Like what are, what are they eating? I mean, God, if they're snacking on dry raisins and ginseng cubes, what is there? I drive beet. Is that a health thing? Half of the fucking tray. That's a trail mixed to hell. Are they worried about their health or the they worried about them, like, sneaking information in their lunches somehow?

Because if you've got a senior person that's dusting and wiping down every square inch of the surface, then yeah, anything taped underneath, the dead. any post notes, anything stuck between your ham and your cheese and your sandwich. Yeah. Yeah. They got to check the refrigerator temp. What the hell are they? You know, the employees' lunches come in a refrigerator. Acknowledged Kier Egan portrait in front of the scene verbally or silently. In spec keyboards for

week keys, that seems reasonable. He want people to be able to start their day each day a day of fresh and ready. And then final step is self-assess. Can I lead today? Yeah. Decent list. You know, they're just in the whole idea of this episode is their entire life is Lumen. They're drinking Lumen coffee, brewed by Lumen pot. And the it ends with the scene of him, you know, he's going about dust in his picture and he sees the picture of the four of them,

Irv and Dylan and Mark and PD. And he gets a little sad. He has some complicated feelings and he gathers all their portraits and confiscates them and hides them in the back of storage closet. I mean, PD was Mark's best friend and Mark was PD's good friend. So this makes sense. I don't think it means there's any recognition of what's going on outside. I think it's just my friend is gone and I'm sad.

It's reinforcing these bothered by it and then it'll come out later in the Mellon party. So we'll talk about it more there. The other employees start to stagger in because you know, we find out that they stagger on the inside and the outside and he'll ask if it's tomorrow now. This is actually Monday, which he's like, oh my God, a weekend happened. And he's like, it's like, that feels like here.

Yeah, he's like, you know, just I try to focus on the effects of sleep, you know, that I'm happier. I'm less tense in my shoulders. Spray. And she also surmises that the staggered entrances and out an exits must mean that they're not friends. And that doesn't seem to bother Mark one way or another. Yeah. Because Mark is in here. He's already given up really thought of his outy. Yep. It seems like he's been broken.

Dylan comes in and he's talking about the Tom Waterfile that he's been working on it for 11 weeks. He's got a 96% sorted. He's earned five of the four or four of the five tier incentives. Erasers, finger traps, character, portment, character portrait. He shows he has his drawer comes out. And he's just got stacks of them like the latest one is him on a surf board. He's like, I got an embarrassment of riches and that like he's he's humble bragging.

No, he's just bragging. He's bragging like like, look at all this lumen status. I've got which doesn't mean shit to helly. Yeah, but it is their life. I mean, it's it's everything to them. And then he gets most excited when he talks about the top prize and not everybody gets only the top refiner of the quarter, the waffle party. And then he'll ask about Mark's crystal head cube and his immediate to be he's like, I wasn't a prize a gave it to him. Yeah.

Which fucked it. They give Mark the flashing Y on this. It's so and it's so much better. I mean, if we're going to use such a term to discuss this, the thing is is these are these are essentially not too far off from actual corporate moral boosters. Very rare actual Chuck E. Cheese ticket redemption prizes.

What most of these are racers and finger traps and yeah, but honestly when you're looking at a lot of gifts that you get for five year service, 10 years service, pin, stuff like that, it's it's now you get you say you get a nice watch through 20th, you know, or your retirement, you give a company 25 30 years and you get let's say a thousand dollar watch. Most of the ones I've seen are not thousand dollar watches 80 dollar watches.

Or you get a gift card, you know, once you're a adult life, that's what you get. So I need to just definitely a point they're making here. And Mark is working on the console. He has to do some kind of like mechanic work to get a new console going like he's underneath the thing. He's turned why can't he just use why can't you just use PD system as is. Good question. The presence of this photo also confirms the PD is not lying about his former status of Lumen.

That was a question I had after the first episode is is this just a crazy man lying about things is Mark manipulated by this guy for some purpose. Nope, he's telling the truth. He did work here. The other thing about this though is between the photo and that maybe you know manipulation of Mark and the stuff we find out about Selvig, this episode and last and him getting extra prizes this this plaque thing. It makes me start to think that they are especially interested in Mark for some reason.

If you know Dylan and Irwin, helly and Peter not getting these awards. Why is Mark getting them? Is this is this a to look at the like sort of the wellness of it all is this sort of like an attempt to condition him a little bit more that the others don't require because of Mark for some reason is less amenable to what they're doing here.

And so they have to like give a little positive reinforcement to him, particularly or is this you know something to to make the others jealous and cause a little bit of strife like what is the deal with this award. Yeah, because it's just like it's just like a psychological test that the company is like training on like marketing or cost of consumer control or the Dylan refers later in this episode to Mark's freshman fluke that impacted how they did macro data refinement.

Interesting. So that is an interesting connection that maybe you can tease on. Yeah, there's some kind of I don't know. I've got ideas of what Lumen is doing based on the information we have so far, but nothing concrete. It does seem like Mark could be a special case because of how deep how deeply depressed he is we don't really know anybody else on the outside so we don't know if they're all equally depressed.

But if they're trying to like understand or condition human beings in general, this could be a thing where like Mark is a special case because he so deeply damaged. It could be something they're bucking him up on. Yeah, there's a lot of humor in this scene mostly from John Tatarou being a little ass but like you know he files in and he immediately.

I noticed his last episode, but like the way the cubicles are set up you get privacy, but there's also a big gap in the middle so that everybody can see each other. So it's like. And then this was pulled down it's like a roll down petition. He just like you know it's like also John Tatarou's face slides in like to the mint like a

neighbor from tool from from from a home improvement. It's like Mark I noticed our portraits are missing. Yeah, I took him down. You weren't supposed to do that until we get the new pictures and he just keeps on kind of like as he's training. He like every minute or two he's like Mark. I just took the time to copy the relevant section of the handbook about maybe you can

say later you know he's just. Oh, do you think about Mark being a unique cases. I think we have enough to know now that Mark is was not the senior macro data refiner. Like earth has seniority and I think Dylan does too yet he was the one promoted to senior department lead. Interesting. I don't know that it feels like there's something special about Mark. I mean, Miss Cobal slash Selving is the one is like keeping track of him not yeah, or Dylan or he so yeah it feels like he's somehow special.

Yeah, yeah. So Mark explains the data refinement process that you know you open this file the data comes straight upstairs fully encoded and there are four categories of emotional responses. That he says category one numbers on site feel disconcerting or scary and she's like what the hell are you talking about because it takes a while to see it and it's like.

It reminds me of like you're more one stereo in stereographic imagery came out and it's like you know where this thing it's like the magic. Yeah, and you like cross your eyes or uncross your eyes and if you do it right suddenly like a 3D and it's like magic and a person you know I've had that experience of persons like oh you're just fucking with me.

There's this this is this is this is more than you know it's like it's like people going along being hypnotized but no there's something there if you practice looking at it long enough you can get pretty good at slipping in and out of that view and it feels like it's kind of the same thing here right.

Yeah, yeah totally but with feeling and he says so I'm trapped here and he's like she's like well if I submit he goes you know if you really don't want to be here if you're really unhappy you can submit a resignation request to your Audi. And then Dylan's like yeah good luck getting an approved and as we're sinking like that sinking in it's like okay you can submit a registered resignation from your Audi.

Right. He's like it's got a low percentage of success for probably obvious reasons and then Mark drops the hammer he goes plus you know the obvious implications like what it's like well you only exist here in Lumen so quitting would end life as you know it. Yeah, effectively in your life it's there's so much implication in all of these statements it's like yeah is and we talked about this in the first episode of these two separate people I kind of think they are.

And one of them would probably die here which it almost feels immoral to let a system like this happen and I can see why there is some rumbling around Congress over this stuff but then yeah the. The implication of like quitting is such a weird thing like you're submitting a request I presume to yourself on the outside your Audi submitting a request to resign.

And it feels like the Audi's don't really look at the innings as anything other than my work self like I'm it just like the time I don't have to spend to work yeah otherwise it's incredibly cruel like if you thought of that person as a separate person and they probably don't encourage that on the outside of course they certainly don't and like the inside they absolutely do. Oh yeah yeah they it's like almost a religious kind of.

It makes sense to forward theаств between vent ancestral new ignorance from the question of9 monkey presence the someone you don't view as a person, that's slavery.

No, that's, and yeah, obviously these things are all supposed to be things that you're, you know, and if you've ever gone back and read contemporaneous writings of people that were trying to uphold the American, you know, the North Atlantic slave trade, it's full of people, you know, like you have to deny someone's humanity and in fact, they had better options to make it work at all or fake, it's ordained by God that some races are put here to service.

And the thing is like, this might be the most complete version of slavery we've ever seen because like, you know, mankind's tried all kinds of different versions of chattel slavery through indentured servitude, all kinds of things. But in every case, like, you did get to sleep at night, you did have time off, you did get, you know, it could be too sick or hurt to work, you could run away from your master, you could escape.

This is like, even if you did, if you manage to escape severance, you cease to exist. Yeah, yeah, if you, if you, if you walk out the stairwell of getting out, you know, like if you're, you're getting out, he's like, because you aren't slaving yourself, that's the hell of it, right? Yeah, yeah. And death, I wouldn't say that like if people would make that deal, you know, people did kill themselves rather than live lives in slavery. Oh, sure, yeah.

But it's still, it's like a much darker option, where it's like, well, yeah, I might be able to get away, I might be able to run away, I might be able to find some place that's, you know, sympathetic to my, but here it's no, you're, it's why it's such, it's why hell is such a good metaphor for this thing. Yeah, because hell is a place you cannot escape from.

You're there forever and this, you know, your Audi keeps sending you back in, no matter how much you don't wanna be there, because they don't know you don't wanna be there that much. So as hell he's thinking about this, Melchette comes in with a melon party and he says, she's a god at hell well, she's fitting in. And, you know, a god is another one of these old timey words that's used in a severance. We'll see a lot of them. If you're not familiar, it's kind of amazed, jaw dropped.

You know, you're just startled at something, you know, you just can't believe it. So, and I get the feeling at this, because you know, melon parties are mentioned as kind of like, you know, some group reward and stuff. I don't know that this is a typical melon party, because this is also serving as a new higher orientation. Sure. You know, and everybody, you know, there's this tray where it did, it's just what it says in a tin.

He wore wheels in a tray that has, first of all, it's a melon ball assortment. So this is kind of like shitty fair at a continental breakfast. But it's designed like if you've ever been to any corporate retreat where they, you know, they cater into food and they got bam, they got specialty bamboo, forks and skew. Everything's very nice. It's executed as if it's like a high priced executive luncheon, but it's just melon balls. It's canalope, honeydew.

Ugh. I don't mind canalope and honeydew, but a party, it's the disappointing fruit in a fruit salad. Easily. Revolving around it is ridiculous. Yeah, but this is the, this is the climber of joy in the world, right? It's the thing that passes for reward in this place. So the team building exercise is taking a red ball and rolling it from person to person and you introduce yourself and tell them about something about yourself.

And Milchek rolls it to Irv and he says, I'm three, does he sound three years old? Or does he says I've been here for three years? Oh, I don't remember. Either way, it's like, yeah, I think you're, you're supposed to say that like, you know, he's, you know, all these people have like the emotional maturity and understanding of newborns. He's three years, he, and he knows all nine Lumen core principles and then Milchek trips him up, which is your favorite?

Well, I like all nine, but today I'd say cheer. And then he gets up and start to trust fall without anybody in the, Milchek's like, whoa, no, we're not doing trust falls today. And he goes, oh, oh, right. Like he should have known that he didn't. So yeah, what the standard, a sell it, standard melon party might include a trust fall exercise.

Seem sale. Yeah. And then Irv with like a conspirator, you know, kind of like a mischievous looking his eyes rolls with the helly and she's literally like, what the fuck? What a, no idea. What am I, yeah, I don't want to play this. I'm helly, I've been here 10 hours. I don't know anything about myself. And you know, she tosses it back to Milchek and he's like, no, sure you do. And run down your physical stats for us. Right, right.

And Dylan volunteers, he likes to imagine his out he lives on a riverboat. Mm-hmm. And then that's why you find out where it's like, oh, yeah, I've got, you know, there's ines versus outies. You explain the distinction and they talk about that they have code detectors because she's like, I got some things I want to say to my ines. She's like, oh, that's that's severely curtailed. And it's like, oh, we got these code detectors. It's like metal detectors for written symbols.

Mm-hmm. And Milchek gets frustrated because you're not getting the game, so let me take over and you listen facts about her. That she's helly, 30 years old, or allergic to Alamans, has weak enamel. And she's five foot six making her to fourth tallest person in the office. Her hair is shoulder and shoulder length. Mm-hmm. And because she's talking about like, oh, I don't even know if I have friends, if I have family, if I'm married, she points out the mark that, you know, how does this work?

If you're married and you get an office girlfriend, then you know, they don't even think about this. And he says, seeing her with you all, I definitely know she has a family. Mm-hmm. She's pretty gross. I mean, she has a new one, that's for sure. Like, it's a big kind of toxic red flag if everyone at your work talks about what a family they are. I have never been in an environment where they talk about that shit. And it has gone well.

Because, obviously, yeah, a lot of people treat their family like shit. So, yeah, for sure. What are you gonna do? Make me surprise an apartment move on me. Have me show up in the middle of the night and bail you out of jail. Meanwhile, you won't even help me out. So, some weird stuff starts to happen in this scene too. Like, black something under herbs fingernails, which, you know, going through that much soap, it's a little strange to have anything on his hands at this point.

But yeah, he's got something. He takes note of it and he's confused by it. Yeah, can we also talk about the Melchak when Mark takes over and says, he tries to say, oh, the thing I know is I love this game. Oh, I gotta call you on a mark. You said that last time. So, he gets real and says he broke protocol and confesses that he felt sad when he saw the picture of PD. So, he took them down early because it made him feel bad. And it's an incredible performance.

But Mr. Melchak, like he's still the exact same expression, but the smile completely drains from his eyes. And he puts on his very stern face because he starts saying, you know, I worry about PD. I don't know if he's drunk on the beach. I don't know if he's dead. And Melchak cuts him off and says, this is a good time to re-ign ourselves. The death happens outside here. This is not something that happens. People don't get sick and die here. It's happens on the outside.

And I think a great potential response to that is gratitude. And then he immediately switches back to Mr. Rogers mode. Yeah. And they mentioned a former employee that left Carol D. They knew that she was leaving. And so it didn't affect them the same way as PD just up and disappearing. Yeah, how do you... They're Audi films, thank you. Like that's a wild thing too.

Like they're oppressors sending in, hey, thanks for letting me dodge my worker's responsibilities, my for the entire time I was here. All, so by the way, your co-workers go to cease to exist. Yeah. And then the sort of immediate aftermath during the melon party here, it's interesting, ominous when he is talking about Milchak.

And he says, yeah, when Mark says, yeah, when Milchak says something, it's best to listen, he can't always be nice like that, which tells you that they might have seen Milchak acting in a different way. Yeah. Yeah, he can't always be that nice. I tell you a funny story that happened to me this morning.

Sure. I'm seeing a therapist and we're talking about, how and things go bad in life that you know, there's, you know, you could fight against, you could rage against, you could run from it, whatever. But like, you know, a healthy reaction is to accept it sometimes. Jesus, I've accepted things where we are. And then my therapist said, and another healthy response would be to reflect with gratitude that you're alive and you're sitting here in this room and you're trying, I just started laughing.

He's like, this is not the response I was going for. No, it couldn't. But literally just like I came, I finished my notes, left home with the therapist and he's like, he's, he's male checking me. But it's like, that's the thing is like, God damn, almost anything could be twisted into something terrible and toxic if it's done for the wrong reasons and the wrong environment without agency and all that stuff. But it's, I don't know, I thought it was hilarious. Yeah, that's pretty good. So yeah.

And then he, he'll just sprint. She's like, I'm done with this. I'm out of here. She writes down a note. She takes off for the elevator. Yeah, yeah. And she also says, because all of the code detectors is like, frankly, that sounds made up. Have you even tried it? Yep. And she takes off, Mark takes off, and she makes it to the elevator and red alarms go off. And she's instantly caught and grainer shows up. And he, okay. This has been a long time since the Baltimore communities heard this phrase.

I've seen him appear in Madman. I've seen him in Mr. Robot, but this is the most government-issued face man that I think we've ever encountered. Like this came, this guy's face came from, from a Department of Minitions shipment. You know, this guy is the embodiment of bureaucracy. Yeah. Yeah. He looks like every bureaucracy. He looks like every McCarthy era FBI agent. Yep. In a cheesy political thriller, in the like the 60s, the 70s.

Like he is establishment, he is authoritative, he is to be feared. He does not have a Melchic side at all. In fact, I can't picture this guy in any clothes other than a suit and tie. Like I'm trying to imagine him in like a pair of jogging shorts and a t-shirt. I just, I can't do it. My brain won't allow it to happen. Yeah, no. No, this man takes showers in the suit. It might be a skin. Try to take him out of it. Just rips off of him like a husk.

Oh. Yeah. So this is a very scary thing and Mark fully takes it. He goes, oh, you found my wayward trainee. You know, I forgot to tell her about the, this is her first real day. I forgot to tell her about the data policy that's really on me. And you think that Granger's gonna let it, but he's like, oh, it's on you then. All right, follow me. And he takes him to the break room. Shhh. The break room.

Now, I've been hourly per, I've worked at, I've worked at Walmart, I've worked at FedEx, worked at Fortune 500 companies. I've all of them had a break room. Break rooms are placed, we go and you get away from work for a minute. You drink a Coke, might have a snack, might shoot the shit with your employees or have a water cooler, talk about that awesome show, Severance, you saw last night. Get the feeling this is not that kind of break room. Different kind of break.

Different kind of break that they're going for with their employees here. And he's escorted down these endless hallways that all look identical until you get to a door that has a long, dark corridor that's so narrow, Mark's shoulders almost touch as he goes down and it leads to a door that's just as wide as the corridor. And he looks scared. Yeah, and the door opens and Miss Cobel is there to create a Miss Cobel, which is already scary.

Yeah, like this episode does such a great job of creating fear and questions around the break room like what could possibly happen in there between this scene where we see the sort of entry way to it and the scene where PD plays the recording from the break room for Mark. Yeah, of himself. And it seems pretty innocuous, you know? He's being forced to read an apology statement several times over. He thought that was a knock him us? Yeah, fairly.

I mean, there's no screaming, they're not beating him. There's nothing like physically violent happening here. He's simply being asked to read a statement over and over again. Like writing out, I will not throw spit wads in class anymore, 500 times on the track. There's nothing, something like threatening about that. It's just a punishment.

Yeah, cause I thought it was something like, like I took it as like a more sinister, like 1984, Winston having to confess to, you know, not loving big brother or North Korea. No, that's in there for sure. They caught an American, spitting on a Il Jong statue or something and they're wanting to make a political statement video and they're making them read the statements and underjurusse. I didn't get like, oh, it's Bart Simpson writing on the chalkboard about spit falls.

But yeah, the name break room, I mean, I think of like breaking horses, right? Where they are trying to train you to act correctly. You only go there when you misbehave and you're forced to do this thing that has meant to sort of break your will or, yeah, or twist your mind up a little bit. Yeah. And we'll get there. We'll get there. But it's big miss, the big scary missuscobal down a long skinny corridor. Then next time we see that Mark is on the outside and he's on a date. That's healthy.

Trying to move on after your wife the way he's doing it. He's bombing. He's bombing like a B 52 bomber. I mean, he's drinking copious amounts of booze which his date notices and is a little nervous because of and then drain into the state of terrible. Right. As he gets more and more awkward, he just drinks more and more. That she starts asking about Lumen, you can tell that he's very uncomfortable about asking questions about the severance problem. Oh, it's the Lumen.

It's like half the town or feels like that. Yeah, that they talk about half the people working there. Yeah, so it's the big jobs in turn to town. And this is the conversation where you know, she's considering him as a romantic partner. We find out that she is a doula type of midwife and she marks sister hooked him up, you know, cause this is her midwife in particular. And you know, it's just something you'd ask a person. It's like, oh, so you're severed for eight hours a day.

What if you have an office girlfriend? What if you get married down there? What if, you know, how can you commit to a family? And you're gonna, you know, forget that they exist for eight hours a day and Mark says, well, for some people, that's the point. Yeah. They move it outside and they're talking about weather. What's that? Boy, that's like, you're at the small talk phase after the date. It's a bad sign. And he gets, you know, the fact that he's drunk and he's not pay attention.

He minstakes, she coming from Montana with Minnesota. And he, she talks about him living in assisted housing, a subsidized housing, employee housing. Mm-hmm. And then we come across the whole mind collective. Yeah, it just looks like a group of maybe students, they're very young, they're passionate and they are organizing against severance. Mm-hmm. And drunk Mark walks up and like a Baptist minister seeing a Jehovah's Witness on the corner going at, he's gonna go at him.

He's gonna take these guys down a peg. And it's ugly. Yeah. It's pretty ugly. It's a real bad look on a date, but it's totally understandable. I mean, with the, the, the, the seeming amount of damage that Mark has personally and the depression and the reasons we know he signed up for Lumen and the severance program, it's to run away from that. I mean, they just don't get it. They don't get it. This is a coping mechanism for him. This is not something that's like a moral decision or whatever.

So something he kind of has to do to deal with his pain. And these people are calling him a bad person for doing it. And he gets pissed. I understand. There's also, there's also a lot of like free will versus predestination here because he kind of trots out, are you a slave to your past self to chose to come out here in the middle of the night and be a prick to people on the sidewalk?

And you know, it's not the same thing because this guy could get five minutes in there and be like, this sucks, I'm going home. It'd be more, it's like if he stuck on the sidewalk eternally. But you know, there is this gray area. It's like, whoa, what about the, you know, they're talking about forced severance. And lobbying against his Jane Egan, who's the currency, oh, yeah, and he's like, oh, they're doing forced severance now. Oh, yeah.

What do you think about those self mutilating types that do it willingly? They don't even know their victims. They're crazy. And it makes Montana this doula very uncomfortable. Oh, yeah. I hear, I hear if you're severed, you go to two separate hells. Yeah. Yeah. A real bad luck. He won't be getting another second date. He comes home and he does what Mark does. He flips on the TV and he starts drinking.

Mm-hmm. And he's interrupted by Miss Selvig coming with a peace offering for the trash can Fiasco. Nope. Can we talk about these cookies? Because just talking about, oh, I'm experiencing with Camimil. I apologize in advance, but when you look at those cookies, they are flat, they are hard, they are dry, they're like a greenish gray. They're the worst cookies I've ever seen. And I've seen the oatmeal raisins that they've got at subway. Your Audi is a friend to children and the elderly.

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Let me say they're good. I want to get something outside here. This is a it's not it's not Patricia Arquette. I get the Arquette sisters refuse. Patricia Arquette. She's an attractive woman. And she kind of comes on the mark. She talks about like, oh, my husband's dead, but you know, he designed us this house with an apartment for any man that I might meet between us and meeting again in heaven. And I drew blueprints, which I keep in my purse. That's interesting.

I took it as her kind of like making a pass like, yeah, like all this like, hit you up with bad. I'm a shit to you about your recycling. I'm making you bad cookies. I'm talking shit about you not being a replace your light bulbs. Talking about like my husband and how I'm available and like it's like it's like a open relationship with her with her with her dead husband. And then she leaves and says, oh, I can I can hook up the mug work bath bomb.

Like it like something like sounds like actual witchcraft to help you to help put you to sleep. Yeah. No, that's. Is this some like weird power fantasy? Because I like my assumption here is that cobalt is Selvig like in my man body. Like she knows that she's she's not severed in the way that Mark is and she's keeping an eye on him. That's the vibe I get from these scenes. For sure. So is this some kind of power fantasy like where, oh, I've got this employee inside.

What if I could make him my husband outside? Wouldn't that be fucking weird and gross? Yeah. Like, like it's a thing about the type of people who would voluntarily work for this essentially severance plan. Yes. Yes. They might have that like, oh, I this is my spec he's also got the special gift. We don't know why. And middle check. And taking photos of people on the operating table and these guys are all perverts all of them.

Yeah. Yeah. They're the exact type of people you don't want looking at your nude pictures at the airport, you know, the back or at the right. Right. Yeah. They're the reason why they had to blur out the the pubic area and boobs because people with power love to abuse it. So she leaves and mark like deflates. He turns back into depressed mark and but does have the motivation to replace the basement bulb. And he finds a box marked the gimme's Jim is crafts. It's his is his dead wife.

It's another that's could be a Selvig trying to make a connection to her because she knows his wife's dead. I got a dead husband. I got an apartment could be had I got a I got a new husband quarters installed and have ready to go. What one of the things that they is the does red and green candle and we see it's kind of winter time and it was two years anniversary. I wonder if she died around Christmas. Okay. Sure. Red and green makes sense.

Yeah. There is one thing that Selvig says that she leaves. You mentioned it where she says like come by the shop. I'll give you the mugwort bath bomb or whatever. How does this woman have time for a shop? I don't believe that there is a shop because if she's manning a shop and going to Lumen and potentially keeping tabs on market night, I just don't see where she has the time in the day. Well, it might be an offer that she makes because she knows Mark will never be able to take advantage of it.

If you know my my my which is brew shop is open from 10 to four. Right. Right. Close on weekends like when is he going to when's he going to go? You know, yep. That makes sense. This identity is a lie though quite obviously. Yeah. For sure. And he after she after he does all that he falls asleep in front of the TV with the bottle booze by his side. Next morning's cold and gray the ice is melting. He gets in his car. Somehow the the clear mind initiative got him a severance flyer in his hand.

And he thinks about it and he impulsively goes back inside and gets the red letter and calls in sick. Yeah. And all this time like as he's you know calling in and driving out to half loop road. I'm like, are they tracking his car? Is this how deep does the surveillance go? Is it mostly just inside or is it just having a neighbor who's connected? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that yet. It doesn't seem like it just from the way Melchick responded.

Like if they knew he had a tracker, there wouldn't be a question about whether he's sick and he's faking. And like Mark is also really cagey. Funny timing. Says I'm sick and oh, what's wrong with you, Mark? And he's like, oh, it's just like a stomach bug. You know, because that avoids the half and the dude, oh god, I feel like I'm on. You know, it's like, you might not sound raspy or sick if you just ate something bad and you're you know, you got the you got some kind of foodborne illness.

But yeah, Melchick says that you calls him Mark is Mr. Scout on the outside. You know, they're they're equals on the outside. And later we have a call with Cobal and a grainer. No, it's an in-person meeting and they talk about, you know, like is this suspicious? Timings funny. There's keeping an eye on him. And if they had a tracker, I don't think that would happen. So there is a flaw under Panopticon. It's not quite pan enough.

Yeah, and I don't I don't know like sneaking PD and do his house if that's possible. If he's being heavily surveilled. But Selvix right next door, man. I know. Yeah, so that's yeah, look at there's the light bulb being out thing. She takes note of that. It almost makes me wonder if there's some kind of surveillance happening inside of his house as well. She's been in his house because she comments like, oh, the bulb still burnt out. Yeah. And maybe that has to do with surveillance equipment.

I don't know. So we're going to go take a quick check and see how the any team is dealing with Mark's absence. Irv comes in and you know, distressed that Mark's not there and he hasn't done his department lead stuff. And Dylan opines that well, they wouldn't bounce Mark and PD at the same time. And Irv's like, well, that's good because I'm not looking to be department chief. And there's like this kind of real lack concern for Mark the way we didn't see with Mark and Pete.

Like it's an it'd be an inconvenience to the team. They don't care one way or another. I felt like. And then Dylan says, oh, you're showing a lot of confidence for a man who got disciplined for dozing, which he a meet like and if you know Dylan, this doesn't happen very often. He immediately realizes he stepped over a line and apologizes. Because this wounds Irv. Yeah. Irv is very dedicated to the Lumen lifestyle. Yeah. And he feels sorry. He feels sorry.

I can't help that I was hired older than you. I have a physical disability, you know. And he comes in and there's like this is like kind of this kind of standard office, you know, like a spree decor kind of like, yeah, never ends, huh? And Dylan says, nope, endless toil. And he assures us, they wouldn't have fired him for your note because she expresses, you know, oh my God, did they do something because of the note and he's like, he did his stint in the break room.

That's how you talk about a prison sentence. Or like a stint, like a stint in a cooler. If you're in, there's not Hogan's heroes. It's the great escape, right? Yes. You don't talk about going down to a traditional break break room in those terms. But then we see Mark drive out to an abandoned greenhouse. This is the 499 round loop or half loop road drive. And it's very short scene, you want to say anything to say about it? Nope. More to say about it later.

Mark has left Dylan to resume helle's training. So he explains like, you know, what the racers are for. They don't have pencils or decorative finger traps are fun. If you know how to safely use them, it's what we, it's what they represent, which is Lumen Cloud. Yeah. And she asked a reasonable question. Why don't we finish some files? And he says they, they expire. They expire.

And they only finish one in five before they expire on average, which is a better rate than what it was before before Mark's freshman fluke. Is this why he's got? Yeah. A river, because like, you know, Riverside, like I thought it's like, well, maybe that's where Mark is from. But it sounds like it's the name of, like now it's starting to name the name of a file, you know, because they always have the talent. Is that the name of the name? Well, I went out, you're right. Allentown.

Um, yeah, this has got to be what it was for the freshman fluke where he must have done something people didn't think was possible. Um, maybe I don't know, sorted a huge number of files of numbers or something like that or created a new way to sort. Maybe he had some kind of innovation in the process, perhaps. I don't know. But it does seem like they're connected. Yeah, and as this is happening, the camera pushes in on Irv and you think he's going to fall asleep and maybe he does.

Maybe this is waking dream, but he has this kind of vision of this black oil pouring over his cubicle and consuming his cubicle and it starts to flow over his desk and it consumes his keyboard. It's about to hit his fingers resting on it. He jerks away in screens. No, which puts us back into real world. And Melchick's there to observe the breakdown and oh boy, what's what's going to happen there? It's interesting. Yeah. Uh, I will get to the aftermath of that.

But yeah, the black goo is like you saw in the intro. It seems like it's important, but I don't know how. Yeah. Is it some kind of leak in the implant? Is it like the consciousness is leaking together? Perhaps, I don't know. Tough, tough, tough to say. Can we talk real quick about the finger trap as a reward? I feel like this is a bad reward on Lumen's end. Oh really? This has the potential to kill productivity, especially in a finger based. Oh my god.

Yeah. Can you imagine you get stuck in that for 30 minutes? That's 30 minutes of productivity down the drain. That's that's data refinement. You're not going to get back. Imagine Dylan's got enough, you got him on all five fingers, they've used him inappropriately, you couldn't get him out. Yeah, he'd be stuck down there. I mean, I've seen a positronic Android struggle with a finger trap. So it's, you know, don't, don't dismiss it. It's a real, it's a real thing.

Uh, so he goes out to, we see Mark exploring the abandoned greenhouse and he eventually comes to a hobo camp and the hobo live in there is PD. Uh, we still don't have a lot to talk about in that scene. So let's move on. Yeah. Uh, where Mel check is taking, erve away and is explaining that, oh, we can deduct the time lost your dosing from your ines pay or your outies paycheck, but what's harder to fix is myself and Mrs. Cobles trusting you. Mm hmm.

And you're thinking, oh god, erve's going to get the break room. But instead he gets to go on a wellness check with Mrs. Casey and then we'll go for another. Interesting. And he arrives at a white and gray room flanked with quotes attributed to Kier Egan, let not weakness live in your veins and tame by tempers. Erve seems nervous, excited. Yeah, surely he's been in a wellness check before. That's quite possible. He did doze before. So he probably got a wellness check then.

Um, yeah. No, I, I, I could understand after seeing what happens in the wellness check why he might be both excited and nervous. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which again, we'll get to. Mm hmm. Uh, he's looking at the number fields and declares she sees nothing scary yet, but then she jumps and says, oh, god, a four. Uh, which she gets it and erve and Dylan are right there. Dylan's like, stop fucking around. Um, and she, uh, starts, you know, you know, getting it essentially.

And she asks like, well, what, what are, what are we cleaning? And Dylan says, my theory, the ocean, obviously people sever and shit's gone bad on the outside. People are going to want to live in this, you know, uh, plagues, famines, global warming. People are going to want to live in the sea. But there's in eels and we're driving automated probes that have the eels location. And, uh, when we successfully decoded, we can tell what's eel, we can tell what's eel from that eel.

We kill all the eels. Uh huh. She's like, she's like, that's the leading theory. He's like, well, erve thinks we're cutting out swear words out of, uh, out of movie. Yeah. Working for the M3WA. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. This, this, this feels very much like, uh, almost winking right at the audience saying, what do you think is happening here with your limited information? Especially with no idea.

Especially when you smash cut off the mark and he's talking to PD and he says, what are we actually working on down there? And PD is like, I don't know. I thought the de severance project would make it make more sense, but it doesn't. But they revealed that he has been working on a map. He has a full scale map, scrolled on a piece of plywood in his hobo camp, but he left the original in Mark's office. That's interesting. Yeah. Um, so I, yeah. Where, where did he leave it?

Because Mark hasn't seen it and Mark is like thoroughly cleaning all the shit in the office. Yeah. You would think if it was there, but maybe, maybe he's supposed to actually take those encyclopedias out of the shelves because I noticed when he's dusting, maybe he doesn't take them out and fully dust them. He just kind of half dust them. Maybe they're in there. I don't know. It's just a dedicated bookshelf custom made for yes.

Like if that, if they have a new appendix, they have to go and rebuild the bookcase and all like, it tells you these books have not changed and a very long time. Or they are that anal about it. Like they want a special case where they will update when it's revised. Yeah. Possibly. Uh, the map is interesting. It's, it's, they'll go ahead. Well, I was going to say and then there's this recording that we got to talk about. All right, stick with the map first. Um, this map is interesting.

It's not finished. There's some hallways that don't connect to other hallways and he's got big areas marked off with question mark, question mark, but there's a couple places. Unfortunately, don't tell us much. There's a team building area. Um, there is the break room. There's the wellness area. We know about those things. We're going to know about those things. There's another one is blocked by a chair that says partition something ending in an I and G. Yeah.

Um, and then Pete breaks down and weeps and hold his head and he says he's got something called reintegration sickness. Mm hmm. Um, and we're going to see how much that's affecting him later. Then there's, and that's why he says he can't go home. I don't know if that's because he's afraid of spreading it. Um, but he also holds up a tape recorder, which purports to be a session in the break room.

And as you said, it's just a person asking him to read this thing where it's, let's see, I think I wrote down the whole quote. Um, forgive me for the harm I have caused this world. None may atone for my actions, but me and only in me where there's, well, there's staying live on. I'm thankful to have been caught. My fall cut short by those with wise and hands. All I can be a sorry and that is all I am. And then this voice is probably Mr. Granger says you don't mean it again.

Uh, you said this seems that does seems kind of innocuous marks instant reaction. What the fuck was that? And Pete says that's the break room. I, I think this is pretty fucked up, man. I mean, look, there are no rats and cages strapped to your face. So okay, sure, lesser than, uh, less bad than it could be. Yeah. No, you're right. I think it is. I mean, I have a lot of questions around it though.

Like, first of all, they record these sessions apparently for what purpose or do they record them or did PD somehow get a recorder on mark before he went in and PD recorded it? How did he get the recording out of Lumen, uh, an out of severance? Did it win? Was this recording taken? I, I just have a thousand questions about this recording and it does such a good job of just intriguing me as a viewer, especially since we also find that in the scene. He's only been on severed for two weeks.

So like, all of this has happened in the last two weeks. Seems like we, we surmise, but maybe, maybe we're wrong about that. So Mark has recently been in the break room. Boy, I thought he was a better employee than that, but what he has not recently. He's been, you think this is Mark's record because I thought this is PD's recording of himself. Oh, this is a recording of Mark. How the fuck did PD get in this recording? Right. So that's why I have such a big question around that.

Yeah. How did he get this recording? Interesting. Huh. Who actually recorded it? All right. Well, uh, we're going to return to Irv. He waits in the room. He stands up. There's this bizarre painting. He's this man who's painted like a Renaissance style painting of Moses or some other great prophet. There's blinding white light coming from him. He's got his arm swung back like Jesus driving out the money changes in the temple. He's got a graded cat and nine tails.

And there are in front of him four figures cowering. There is, um, I described them as, uh, they're all people. They're all anthropomorphic people, but there's one at the head of a goat. One with the head of a jester. And I guess going on like Game of Thrones terminology, there's a crone and a maiden. Sure. Uh, and we assume that this also bears a pretty good resemblance to the cure profile. I think so. Pretty sure this is cure. Yeah. What the fuck?

As we're pondering this out walks Christopher walking. Um, yeah, Bert, who is from Optics and Design and Irv is all about Optics and Design. He compliments him on his paintings. Like, oh, I don't paint them. I just place them. And he calls out, it's like, oh, I really, I really loved when this painting was in the perpetual wing. I really liked when this and he's like, oh, uh, what does he call him? Um, I, I'd rared a meat as a fisticate.

You know, Bert some frest that most people think of, oh, and D only when the new handbook tops come in. And he teases that there's a new one coming in next month and Irv's like, oh, that's all I'll think about between now and then. Uh, these guys are kind of like, it's a meat cute, right? It seems like it. Yeah. I mean, and he defends him later, right? Like Dylan calls him a fuck. He's like, he is not a fuck. He is not a fuck.

And it reminds me of like two bold guys that have obscure, like, imagine two guys, uh, you know, at the office and they just find out they're both train collectors. Yeah. And he's immediately starting nerding out about model trains and, you know, which gauge they use and that it is like, they're just some pataco man. Um, but as we're processing this, a very attractive woman invites Irv into the room. She turns down the light.

She turns up the sound, which is like these jungle forest kind of relaxation sounds. And she says she speaks very low, very seductively, uh, soothingly, calmingly soothingly. Yeah. Ah, there's definitely some seduction here, I think. Hmm. Okay. I don't think she's picking that up, but I suppose. Okay. Well, I'm recalibrating my expectations as a, as a masculine presenting person. I thought this was seductive. Maybe I'm just being a pervert.

Uh, maybe you're just ASMRing out on an attractive woman speaking in low tone. You know, I, I think that like if my mom spoke to me in these tones, it would weird me out. Like these are not sued. These are not matronly. Uh, but I don't know to each a zone. Uh, severance of bulb. Absolutely. If you want to send Jim to the break room, uh, and she says I want to share some facts about your outie.

And she starts saying your outie is an exemplary person, uh, and relax your body, be open through the facts, try to enjoy each equally. Don't share them outside the room. They're years to enjoy. And she says your outie is generous. He's fond of music and owns many records. He's a friend to children, the elderly and the insane. Uh, he's, it did, she goes on and on like 100 different things. He helped the person lift a heavy object. And then she says he's splendid. He can swim gracefully and well.

And that makes her like chuckle like, oh, he sounds like a hell of a guy. She immediately stops. And in a different tone of voice says, please try to enjoy each fact equally. 10 points of been deducted. 90 remain. So every centers himself and she goes on, uh, you know, um, and she says other things like you, you won a game two weeks ago, you value water. Uh, you, your outie has no fear of muggers or naves. He likes to send a radar. Like send a radar. What the hell is that positive?

I, I don't, that's weird one to me. What's like, all these things have like, you know, there's like, it kind of is like, you know, he's a friend of children, the elderly and the insane. Like what the fuck did that come from? Like we can handle what, what, what, what are these? Like some kind of weird legs. And then she says, you're any, your, your outie is skilled at kissing and love making. And that really gets or wound up. And she says 10 points have been deducted. Um, 80 remain.

And he tries to protest. She says, please stop talking. If you talk again, the wellness, all points will be deducted and your wellness session will be over. Yeah. Uh, this is some kind of crazy conduct conditioning, man. Yeah, totally. And it's, it's interesting too, because this is the only place in which Lumen willingly breaks the any outie barrier. They, other than that, they refuse to tell you anything about your outie.

They don't even want you thinking about your outie while you're in there. Um, but here, I'm giving you information. But my first wondering is this is a pack is this a pack of lies? Is this is like, she have like generic white middle aged man and she just pulls it from the file, you know, generic, uh, or she have an earth. I mean, it's, it's the, the combination of identifying emotions in these numbers and sorting them.

And then being given this weird positive reinforcement, to me tells me that that must be like custom tailored to the person. Yeah. Cause they, they're learning things about and the whole maze like rat, rat and a maze like experience that they've got going on here feels like this is some kind of both observation and learning experience for Lumen, but also a conditioning experience for the participants. That's how I feel. Oh, yeah. They're, they're trying to portray this. Yeah, I agree. I agree.

And it's also, you know, like you're not supposed to share this outside. So it's also something that's like foamence. You know, there's like some things of foamence team togetherness and some things that foam and team compartmentalization. Yeah. They're like being pushed and pulled in every way, like trying to be held in like a magnetic containment field. Yeah, some kind of balance. Yeah. Watch it close, but not too close. This could be a pressure relief of some kind, right?

Or when the innies get a little, a little out of hand, there are a couple of ways they can go about it that can either give them this positive reinforcement or they can force them into this weird, potentially dangerous experience of the break room. But different people need different things at different times. Yes. All right. We're outside the wellness office, Pete, Haley and Dylan are left alone.

We see Dylan take his one of his two tokens per person per day and exchange them for some shriveled raisins. Oh, yeah. The options you have from the break room that we saw are loom in. There's all loom in smoked or dried edamame. Is that a thing? Okay. I usually have it's in and like spiced and, you know, whatnot or buttered and salted and oiled or you got the dry roasted edamame, shriveled raisins, peanuts roasted and salted, beets dried and sliced, worst ever. Blueberries dried.

First thing I heard it sounds appetizing, ginseng cubes, sunflower seeds. That's the favorite of Jim. Oh, yeah. Jim, Jim, Jay, a meat smoked and salted. He goes with the raisins and then Haley grills him over the co detectors. They just send the elevators and the stairwells and he's like, just let you got to let the info smuggling go. And then Irv comes in noticeably more chipper. He's got his high kids, what's redinner joke and says wellness is very restorative. It seems like it.

I think this is really funny. The way Irv and Dylan go at each other. Yeah. He's like, oh, I met the Oh and D chief and apparently Dylan has to he's like, Bert, I met that guy too. He's a fuck. You need to tell him where we're at, right?

And you know, Bert is not a fuck and then they start quoting the employee man with each other and Irv gets all pissed because he's the employee quota and Haley tries to get his redemption because she's having a strong reaction in these numbers and they coach her through fencing them off, which involves kind of drawing a path around the affected numbers. And then she drags them into the right dumpster and she says, until it's like boom, fucking refined.

And she goes, oh my god, those numbers were scary. And she's physically relieved to have done it. Another conditioning tool. Yeah, it's crazy. Crazy response to numbers. All right, we're going to leave the severed floor for the day and go to Mark's apartment or as condo where cobalt slash Selvig is staring lasers into Mark's windows. Looks like he's got an empty bedroom where the light is on his actual bedroom, the light is off. And we find that he has rescued PD from the greenhouse.

He's given him, you know, he's got his, it looks like he used to be a camper. He's got some cats, got some sleeping bags. He goes to clean himself up and suffers from what I will call severe severance, reintegration sickness. Integration sickness. Yeah. It's pretty bad. He's bleeding from the nose. Yeah, he's got, it has like this, what feels like a massive headache. It's winding. Yeah. Bloods pouring out of his nose.

He gets in the shower and has a waking nightmare of him still looking at himself in the mirror. And he sags to the floor as Daydream and Blue, the remix by Imonster plays. It's good song. I like this. It's great song. It's in second season, Mr. Robot, as we mentioned, Noah Holley's Legion. A lot of shows involved heightened senses of reality and being pulled over various eyes. That's it. That's the episode. I wonder how much cobalt Selvig knows. I wonder how long he can hide PD here.

It doesn't feel sustainable. How carefree. It feels lucky. How careful was he? How careful does he know he needs to be? Yeah. Did he like drop PD away three blocks and PD went through the back of the woods in the back door because Selvig looks like he's got a good view of front and back of his house. And Mark overall doesn't know he's under surveillance. So does he know to be careful? Oh, maybe he smuggled him in in one of the bins that Mrs. Cobal crowded out. That would be fitting.

Yeah, it's taken the trash. Just take the trash back to the garage. So yeah, that's it. We got the veteran section, the integration section to go through. But if you have not watched past this episode, now's the time you want to hit stop on recording because you'll get spoilers otherwise. If you'd like the innocent feedback, severance at ballboob.com, we welcome it.

If you'd like to support us, avoid commercials and get extra bonus features and extra content, you can go to support.ballboob.com, follow us on social media. And then yeah, we'll see you here back next week for episode three. Everybody that's seen on past episodes, it's seen the entire season to be clear. Come with us to the spoiler section. We need to find that work life balance. We'll be right back.

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All right, we're in the integration system section. I hear that we have feedback from the first episode, Jim. Yeah. Yeah, we do. Hit me. Hit me with them files. Start with some fairly non-spoilery stuff and then get into the spoilers here in a second. But JJ says, ball guys, I think trying to figure out when the show is taking place is an interesting exercise. I think it probably takes place between 2000 and 2006. Here's my supporting evidence. It all comes from outside the Lumen office.

Mark is driving what appears to be an early 2000s Volvo. You're assuming that Mark has a new car. Mark has a built-in. Yeah, I'm driving a mid 2005. What were you trying to apply here? You're trying to apply. Mark's made a money. He's a fucking history professor. Come on now. No, no. He's making the big bucks being seven. Oh, yeah, the big Lumen box. Uh-huh.

He's got a built-in above-range microwave, which I guess that means the Lumen housing appears to be modern, maybe even more modern than 2006. We haven't seen any smartphones which were introduced in 2007. I have a built-in microwave range. My house was built in 1910. Built-in? Damn. I mean, it's not that old. I replaced it myself, but I'm just saying.

I mean, obviously, we've seen enough that these, uh, these, uh, these buildings, you know, since we're an integration system, they do seem to be new construction. So yeah, I was trying to definitely don't look like the 90s houses that I've seen. So this is two, this is 2000 plus decorations, certainly. Sure. Okay. I'll go with that. Or, you know, interior design. Um, so I think all the old technology inside the Lumen office is limited to the floors where the severance employees work.

Uh, so why more expensive and difficult to maintain old technology for severed workers, probably just to ensure that they never get access to the outside world via the internet. I also think the work, the severed employees are performing is not real work. I think the entire severance program is just an experiment for some bigger plan. Interesting. Uh, the big problem with the conjecture that this takes place in early 2000s is it's definitely against the express statements of the showrunners.

They've numerous said that you're supposed to think that this is happening in current day. Uh, well, it's crazy that we've not seen anyone use a cell phone that's modern. Like, it's more unlikely the mark would have a flip cell phone in this is outside. Self has a flip phone or is that just PD having a burner? No, I mean, when he gets his messages on the phone, uh, in a future episode, we're not. Well, we're not seeing it. Yeah. I know.

Which we definitely didn't just record a podcast on, uh, I think he's got a flip phone in that. All right, I looked at it. Yeah, you're right. No, that's a smartphone. That's one of the, what do we call the black mirror in modern parlance? This actually could be a black mirror ontology series the way it's unfolding. Uh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so I, I, I just, yeah, I don't think that there's any evidence of it. Your only evidence is his microwave oven and the car he's driving.

So, yeah, sorry, JJ. We just refuted everything. This has to be later than 2007. Unless we're just playing a deep psychological game to make you think you're crazy. Could be. All right. What else are you going to? All right. Bren from the Boston area says, listening to your wonderful coverage of seven season one episode one, hit me. How amazing that line is when Miss Selvig says that Mark is good people. And it's amazing because she knows him as two different people. Oh, I like that.

And also, I like that he probably authentically pronounces waffle potty the way we entered into. A friend knows. A friend knows. Uh, all right. And here we're going to get to this spoiler you feedback. Just one, one piece here, but I thought it was interesting. One more safeguard, one more safeguard for the, the foolish listener that's in over their head. Last chance. Get out.

Sarah says as I was watching a listening to Helena's testimonial playback at the Lumen corporate gala, which this has not happened. Yes. This is where now at the end of the series. Yeah, sure. Yeah. We're integration. We're reintegrating everything. No problem. Uh, I know that's that whole thing is celebrating her successful severance procedure. Sarah says she noticed that she mentioned phrases she heard repeatedly in other specific experiences she had growing up.

Is it just me or these things sound 100% like what we would consider a cult conditioning or even brainwashing from early age? Yeah. If you're telling me that the eagans have like mantras and very rigid sort of language structures around their habits. Yeah. 100% is as a cult. Yeah. Like, um, that's one of the things that cults do. They have the slightly skewed use of language that allows people to identify each other and also sets them apart.

I know in the cult that we grew up, uh, we didn't call our churches churches. We called them congregations or kingdom halls. You know, we talked about preaching as doing field service work. Uh, things that like an outside would be like, what the hell are you even talking about? But like instantly would recognize, uh, so this is some from inside, you know.

Uh, so yeah, I think that's entirely likely that that, that, especially someone that high up in the Lumen organization would be heavily brainwashed. And now, you know, in the context of severance, we get to be talking about literal brainwashing, uh, literal men that, you know, like physical brainwashing. And we'll be talking more about that. I've been actually waiting for this episode because this is, this is the one where I think it's appropriate to drop a lot of integration knowledge.

And in, in that regard, you're talking about episode five, which is not this episode you're listening to. So the one we just recorded. Shit. Yeah. This is all very confusing. We, in fact, I'm going to try to, uh, you know, I think the way it is to try to avoid meta referencing, just take the emails as they come. All right. I've learned something. I'm sorry. Yeah. That's fine. So Sarah continues, uh, kind of along that, that idea.

Like so when Helena was severed, she lost that conditioning or, who may be called a, a lifetime brainwashing. Hella R is unaffected by the way she was brought up her father, grandfather, the wealth, the conditioning to believe a certain way. I wonder what you all think about a nature versus nurture argument, just opposing Hella R versus Helena, Egan, um, or Helena. I guess how that pronounced it.

Are we seeing the ramifications of having an entire belief system sewn grain in her conscious and subconscious that severed it, um, that it creates her constant state of agitation and reveals her true nature? Is our human nature to question and rebel? Seems that way, right? Thus to control people, severance and the integration protocols are actually now a political and corporate weapon in development.

And now that senators are getting involved in Lumen, uh, is Lumen positioned to use, meaning sell this technology as a way into military contracting. Okay. So two, two big things here, like how much of this is nature versus nurture? Do thing? Do does your true nature just automatically come out when you're down there, uh, in the severed floor? And that's what kind of we're seeing with Hella R, um, or is there some of that that bleeds over, can conditioning sort of follow her down there?

And I would say, yeah, I, I think the assessment here is pretty clearly the nature takes over in the nurture pretty much goes away. And I think this is consistent with Kiers understanding of people being able to be distilled into their four different humors, right? Mm-hmm. Um, that, you know, regardless of that's true in the outside world, nature versus nurture, that like you could even maybe see these, uh, severance projects as trying to kind of validate that.

Don't you, you strip away literally everything about a person other than their core biological you know, wet wear. What do you get? And we've seen from this, you know, from the very first episode that Hella is very headstrong, she's very presumptuous, she's very entitled, uh, you know, is that biologically because she's a Kier and she's been, they've, they've, they've had this breeding program to have these, uh, headstrong, uh, tough charging executive type people.

Um, mm-hmm, yeah, obviously we're exploring that, uh, is that the actual in-game of Lumen here? I don't know. Um, is there a way to see some, some flashbacks to the sort of training of like a mark or a piti or a Dylan, right? Dylan seems like he's a guy who would have a nature that is rebellious. So how did they break him?

It would be interesting to see an episode that is just or maybe they intro each episode in season two with like, this is Mark's training, this is peace, this is Dylan's training, this is Irvin's training, this is Bert's training and we can kind of compare and contrast there any and outy self, but I don't know that might be given away too much. They might have to like slow, slow deliver that information.

But it would be effective if the, if they're trying to question the nature versus nurture idea. Uh, that'd be fairly effective, I think. And then the other question is what is Lumen's in-game with this technology? And I hadn't even considered it until you brought it up, but this would be a fairly effective, uh, this could have many uses for the military, I would think. This would effectively eliminate PTSD from veterans.

Oh my God. Ever them while they're on the battlefield, while they're out, you know, doing the horrific things they sometimes have to do and then come back to a blank slate, just who they were before they left. And you could condition that person to just be an unthinking soldier that would be probably a psychopath in the outside world and then, then, uh, resever. Our producer, like you've seen this show, uh, said that this is part of the premise of the, uh, oh, the homecoming podcast.

I thought this was actually the homecoming series she's referring to. Oh, um, I've not seen the same smell series. I haven't. No, it's not. Yeah, I've ever seen it in the podcast. Dramatic podcast.

Yeah. Um, it's also imagined like, you know, like a Manchurian candidate if you severed a president or a senator to where they think that they're a true blue patriot of their country, but behind closed doors where they have all the access to the sensitive information, you could flip a switch and have that agent reactivate, collect and disseminate all that information and then deintegrate in that your back to completely pristine senator has no idea what they're doing. It's what about spies?

Spies could be, uh, it could be a lot easier for them to disavow knowledge if they were unable to recall it. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of practical applications. Um, yeah. I hadn't even thought of it, but I could totally see that as a source of funding. What else you got? That's it. That's all we got. All right, we're closing up to feedback part now. We're getting to Gemini's thoughts on reintegration. What do you want to, what do you want to talk about first? Ah, man, I don't know.

They have a ton of stuff. A lot of my, um, reintegration stuff revolves around Irv, like his character later in the show in the Black Goo. We kind of know that this stuff is paint.

This sort of seeping through these personas here, maybe, and like also going the other way perhaps because Irv, on his Audi, uh, seems to have had some kind of experience or just at least has an image in his head from, uh, down in the Lumen severed floor, this hallway that leads to the tested floor, uh, in the elevator to the tested floor. He's seen a glimpse of that and he keeps obsessively painting that. And we don't really know how he was able to catch a glimpse of that.

Yeah. There's some, like that's one of the big mysteries is, uh, you know, it's interesting because PD describes Mark as his good friend. Some people speculated that maybe Irv is his best friend and maybe there is some kind of collusion on the outside or, you know, more of that. We see the, he might not understand why his nails are dirty, but we know that that's from the paint.

There's maybe some signs that Irv's late night fixation or his driven nature to do to draw this is robbing him of sleep, which is why Irv is always tired on the inside. Yeah. It's some, some interesting stuff. And there's a, a comment from Bert, you know, about him being a sophisticated, right? Uh, that makes sense knowing that he has this background in art. Hmm. Yeah. He's got that appreciation that he just doesn't know. So, uh, I want to talk a couple other things.

We see the picture of, uh, Kier taming the four tempers. And it's that illustration, a biblical illustration of, uh, Kier with a cat and nine tails, whipping the four tempers, whoa, frolic, dread, and malice. I, I, I, I, you know, did an nature of integration, I get integration sickness. I'm not sure what we've covered and words. It's filming, they're recording a somewhat out of sequence, uh, because, uh, of reasons, uh, due to integration.

Um, but just in case these images of the four woes are the waffle party revelers that we see later in the season when Dylan gets his waffle party. Yeah. I think we talked about the image, but not with the waffle party. And he's got a cat and nine tails, he's whipping them. You could presume that he's using the nine virtues. Oh, there you go. I like that. So, that's interesting. Another thing that came out this episode is the, the show's emphasis on threes.

Rickens child is going to move through three beds over his life. Uh, his sister joking, I'll pay you $3,000 to forgive me for the dinner party without dinner. You're drinking about three fourth bed, the deathbed. But, you know, who am I to criticize, Ricken? He clearly knows a thing or two about life. Uh, true. Have you written a book about the, uh, I have not written five. No, certainly. Uh, cure drink three eggs each morning. One in three light bulbs are burnt out.

A third of Mark's life has been sleeping three paintings behind Mrs. Cobal's desk. And you'll notice that this trip arc has the first two, there is this stormy scene, but the first two are like calm, like the calm before the storm. And the third one is like a cluster of tornadoes raging. Hmm, term, that's like, that's interesting. Is that, is that the, the one third of Mark's life spent in the severed floor? Uh, sure. Sure. So anyway, notice, notice the count did the, the repetition of threes.

Uh, also, this is where we realized that Mark lives in corporate housing, implying that they have access to their house, his house at all time. And we will later find out that that is true. Mrs. Cobal's going through his house like, uh, like, like, like rummaging around that, uh, at a thrift store bin. Oh, speaking of rummaging around, there's some stuff about Mark's ex, uh, here that we don't have context for yet. But we'll learn that Gemma is, uh, Ms. Casey inside. Wait, what?

Gemma is, no, Gimmah is, you're talking about, um, selveg. Gimmah is his ex wife. Yes, she's Miss Casey. Mm-hmm. Oh, you said Miss Cobal. Okay. Okay. Either way, either way, what I mean, I'm really grateful sickness. Do you see this? I'm doing the best I can here, Gemma. Yeah, we find out that she's Miss Casey, right? Uh, I don't remember when we find that out, but it's much later. But there, and, you know, there's, there's the hints are going to be coming fast and furious.

And again, our style is not to tell everything, you know, like we're trying to catch you up on the things you missed in this episode. A contemporaneous interview with Derek Erickson, one of the show creators and runners with Variety Magazine, um, they talked about this, uh, Mark Allen town cube and how this relates to his freshman miracle.

Um, Erickson said there's a whole backstory there that it's just kind of alluded to, but basically the idea is that Mark came in and he was inexplicably better at refining the files than others were, at least for that first file he worked on, which was called Allen Town. Each of the files has a different name and we generally went with place names, city names for the files.

Mark came in was able to really quickly refine this file and then they were able to reverse engineer a better procedure from what he did. We don't get into it super far, but the idea is he had a kind of, he was kind of Cobal's golden boy in that way because he came in and had this great success right when he was first there, but he since tapered off and people have almost forgotten about the big success that he had.

There's a contemporaneous theory that, um, well, not a contemporaneous, but this is, this ties in with a theory of what they're doing down here. One of the leading theories is that they are actually refining data sets that are people. And one of the theories is Gimma who we find out is a Gimma or Jimma. It's Gimma. I say Jema because I think the British say Jema, but I don't honestly know. Jema's supposedly died in a car accident, but we later see her in a severed floor as Miss Casey.

One of the things that Lumen seems to be perpetuated with or fixed on is the idea of immortality, reversing death. And one of the ideas is, you know, we've got this idea of them doing nefarious things like bombing competitors and whatnot. But the other thing is is maybe that they're refining individuals that are on a cusp of death and that that's one of the reasons I have a limited time to solve the thing that they're essentially encoding.

And I don't know how like whether they're going to like this is actually, um, they're trying to convert a human data file that they probably get through some kind of reverse severance procedure. And they're trying to encode that in some way that Lumen can clone it or bring it back.

But it would make sense that Mark would have unique insights on his dead wife's or his dying wife's personality file that would lead lead him to quickly sort her and encode her in a way that saves her, which makes question leads to other questions, which is why is cobalt who seems to be one of the most loyal Lumen acolytes. Why is she trying to set Mark up to remember Gimmett?

Why we'll see in episode four that she's going to send him for a special wellness check where Miss Casey has him mold something out of clay. He molds the tree that we know that she wrecked into. She provides Miss Casey to Christmas candle that she burns during the wellness session. Why is Miss why is Miss cobalt trying to put Mark and Casey together in such proximity? Is she actually fighting against some kind of faction at Lumen?

Yeah, she had enough of being frozen out of the board and now she's turning on them. Maybe I don't know. No, there's a question because she's not actually dead, right? That's the thing. He feels like she is. Or she's dead in the clone. She's been to this case he is a clone. Yeah. Okay. This only fits the actual theory that the refinement are dying people and that's why they have a limited amount of time. If you don't, yeah, they could have just saved her. I missed the clone part.

Yeah. It almost has to be a clone situation. It can't be where Mark just thinks she's dead because like, did he not see her body? Did he not identify her? It's seen? Did he not have a funeral? She survived the car. I think she'd be fucked up. Pretty bad. She'd have physical scarring, some kind of thing, but she seems like perfect just exactly how we later see her in her photograph. There's no obvious physical disabilities. There's no scarring.

We know they're doing weird things with baby goats and they got a perpetuity wing and there's a whole building listed mind. So yeah, what is the mind? Are there minds of people? The houses where the clone people are staying at? We'll later get hints on what Mrs. Casey's any experiences that I'm not quite ready to talk about, but I thought that was interesting.

Yeah, I'm curious to see more of Mark's past and him dealing with and grieving over Gemma because I feel like that could inform a lot of why he might be so good at this too. What if Mark comes in and he's just so good at this, not because he's working on Gemma's file or something, but if he is just more attuned to it because he's experienced more grief and more suffering. And so he's able to why would have be obsessed paper off after the first anomalous success he got healthier on the outside?

It certainly doesn't seem like it, but I don't know. Or if they did refine the process based on his input is now like everyone's got the advantages that Mark's got. There you go. You're able to encapsulate it and that's why he had his success and his tapered off because he just regressed through the mean once they get it. It's not that he codified those insights, but I don't know. It's also very interesting that because he started Lumen just weeks, I think after Gemma he thinks he she died.

So if she was in a coma that she was saved by Lumen that there's, you know, the Lumen could manipulate him with an ad campaign or even with Mrs. Selvig's who knows, but I thought it was an interesting thing to talk about with the Alentown, the prominent Alentown placement this episode. That's pretty much all I got. Yeah, same here. All right. Well, same thing. We told the non-integrated people if you want to send us an email, severanceofbaldmove.com.

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That's going to be it for this week. We'll see you back for the next episode, the third episode in perpetuity next week until then. I'm your host Aeron. And I'm Jim. See ya.