S02E02 - Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig

Did we talk about the fact that Mark's fish are severed? I don't know if I've noticed that before. Wait, what? He's got two betas in a tank, a red one and a blue one, which kind of is very... intro imagery but they're you know you can't keep betas in the same tank because they'll kill each other but he's got a pane of glass or separation between the two okay i

I thought you meant they had chips sticking out of their heads or something. What are you talking about? They're severed. Yeah, this is this giant bulging pill shape where the thing is in their little pea brain. Uh-huh. Welcome to the Waffle Potty, the officially unofficial podcast for Severance on Apple TV+. I'm Jim. I'm Aaron. And today we're back for season two, episode two. Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig. Aaron, how are you feeling about episode number two? A normalcy entertaining watch.

Really like it. There's a lot of implications to things and a lot of things hinted at that are not said out loud. The mystery is deeper. We get some, I mean, let's just talk about the episode. It's a Severn episode, yeah. The episode's still making me laugh, making me think. Again, just the way they are able to end each episode to just leave you squirming on the edge of, oh, God, I can't. Why they stop there is unparalleled. Absolutely unparalleled.

How'd you, what'd you, what'd you make of the episode? I gotta say I was surprised by it. Of all of the ways that many of these endings, I guess, to season one could have gone in the immediate aftermath. I didn't see most of these coming. but they kind of make sense in retrospect with maybe the exception of Devin's really just lukewarm reaction to her brother's freak out. Maybe this is the thing that Mark does all the time. I don't know.

or maybe she's just trying to keep the peace of the party. So Rick and this moment isn't spoiled or whatever, but she like just kind of brushes it aside during the party. And then later when she reflects on it, she's like, Oh, we should dig into this. I was just surprised by that. And. Surprised by Haley's reaction to. I guess what went on with her and her father's reaction to it and Lumen's reaction to Mrs. Selvig. All that stuff was.

Different than I guess I kind of had built up in my head, but not in a bad way. Yeah, I and again, I continue to be impressed at just how much of what we saw in the trailer has been in these first two episodes. You know, mysterious motorcycle riding. As far as I can tell, all that happened this episode. There might be some more, but the confrontation between Selvig and I guess Kove Elbig and Helena. took place this episode. Um...

Yeah, the job interview of Dylan where we talked about this is like his clone or brother from a different mother or uncle. This must be in the severed floor. Yeah, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always think that's... a great sign when you know it's like you see this trailer and it's so fucking crazy

And there's so much stuff going on. You're like, man, what a season. And it's like all from the first couple episodes. Again, there's not there's other things. There's all the goat hills, which, of course, I'm preoccupied with Gwendolyn Christie. We haven't seen yet. We haven't seen Gwendolyn Christie. who seems tied to that part of the severed floor, perhaps. And then Irv's big melon.

sculpture yeah haven't quite got a handle on that those are the the big ones uh i've seen but yeah just i think that shows a lot of confidence and it gives me a lot of confidence to know that like they're not there's so much good stuff and so much uncharted stuff And the fact that we saw that and we still had very little clue of what it all meant in context is just, yeah, it's really exciting. Do you think maybe Irv's melon sculpture is a flashback?

that is a very interesting idea because i do have a strong feeling we're going to see a lot more context for herbs paintings and and his sort of seeming like He's trying to communicate with his Annie. Yes, I think I think that might be part of it. Somehow or somehow and doesn't want Audi Earth. Yeah. Oh, my God. That scene blew my mind. When Bert drives up.

Yeah, I was expecting to be Orson Welles or whoever the new mysterious Mr. Grainer is. But no, Bert was Bert was not on my list. And honestly, like even the new season credit introduction. I feel like you'd spend an hour just analyzing all the crazy shit in that and what it might or might not mean. I wrote down a bunch of it. Maybe we could talk about some of it, but.

Yeah, I broke it down scene by scene. So. So, yeah, that should be a good one to talk about. But and there's like also there's just the stuff that's happening just all the time. Like you and I were talking before the intro. that Apple had just released this high-resolution copy of the Audi family visitation suite. And if you didn't notice last week, there's a caption that makes this explicit where they're talking about how they've repurposed a security room.

As kind of like some kind of symbolic gesture towards the innies that, you know, we're turning over a new leaf, you know, that which also heck. Yeah, that hexagonal like sitting area was where the control panels were. And so it's like, you know, I thought that was cruelly interesting. And I mean, because there's there's. That was something to placate Dylan, but it's also subtly telling Dylan, hey, that thing you pulled never going to happen again. Yeah, it rehides the security room from them.

Yeah. That's a big assumption because it could be that they're just, yeah, they're just not going to do a security room anymore, but I don't. Isn't that where they control all the severed stuff from? That's what I'm saying. Kind of have to. I don't believe for a minute that they've done away with it, but to be fair, just for, you know.

uh to throw all the possibilities out there um i thought that was uh kind of so there's stuff that's happening they did um there's a youtube thing where they had the cast of uh severance reading fan theories and making jokes and laughing about them. And people are like using that as something to make. I'm like, don't, don't believe their lies, man. This is lumen. Yeah. This is Lou.

when when erickson or uh uh stiller stiller yes thank you yeah scott any of these guys are saying something in an official capacity they are still in their role of trickster gods that are telling false things to entertain us, okay? Yeah, no, and there's probably real information sprinkled in with false information just to...

make everything a mess. Yeah. You're not going to get anything from that. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I mean, again, it's, it's not that you can't use it for information, but like, it's certainly not the end all be all if. Ben Stiller says cloning is stupid and it's a dumb idea from the fan community, that doesn't necessarily mean there's nothing to it. But I don't know. That's the one thing that it seems like they were...

kind of explicitly saying it's not cloning. I would appreciate that if it were not cloning. I think with Ben Stiller, it's a little stupid, but we'll see. See how it goes. But there's like, you know, there could be ways that it is and isn't, you know, like they could be. Yeah, not explicitly clones.

yeah they could swap chips in someone else's head there could be androids there could be simulations there could be all kinds of crazy stuff but oh yeah so i'm uh you know severance is back in full swing it's a lot of fun i appreciate the diversion And it's back in a bigger swing than it ever was. Right. I feel like season one blindsided everybody. It was like, oh, my God, this is the most amazing show. And it's over. And no one has seen it yet.

Because it's on Apple TV, which is a relatively new network. There just were a lot of reasons that people weren't paying attention. And then they heard in the off-season. Off-seasons. Oh my god, this shit's amazing. I can't believe how big like some of the big forums and subreddits have become like the official, not the official one, but the main one on Reddit is like 280,000 people, which is like another 30,000 from last week. And it was.

I don't know. There's a hundred thousand at the end of the first season. So it's like this place is, it is, it does seem to be exploding. It seems to be a lot of, you know, a lot of mean penetration on social media. Sure. I have no idea what the audience test statistics looks like. I know you're getting a lot of feedback, which is usually a good indicator for.

It's the type of show that invites it, but also the volume is kind of indication of how many people are tuned into it. Because, yeah, I was not on this from day one. But I had caught up before the season was over and I was kind of watching them as they came out for the last half of the season. And I just feels like more and more people are discovering it. Yeah.

It feels like it could be one of those Breaking Bad type things where the audience just continues to grow over the years as more people hear about it and get to stream it. Yeah, if it keeps this high level of execution, if it can kind of like Breaking Bad have that.

black comedy the thing that can make you kind of chuckle and laugh and and breaks the tension a little bit it does seem like that's a that's a secret spice and they're cooking yeah they're cooking all 11 herbs and spices trying to enjoy each one equally um should what else you got to say or should we get right into the recap let's recap it

Time to go to the break room for mandatory promotional material. To opt out of future break room sessions, check the relevant portions of the employee handbook at support.baldmove.com. Break time over. Back to Severance. Season two, episode two. Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig. begins in a very similar way to the season opener. We rejoin Audimark to the visuals of a black screen and the sounds of lots of pounding screaming for Bert and Devin.

uh, Kelly screaming about the, the plight of the innies. And then Mark screams, she's alive. And we're dumped back in to Audi. Mark. The moment, you know, he's still holding the picture. Everyone's looking at him like what? Devin's still cradling her baby. We're in the middle of the post baby abduction chaos of Rickon's reading. Yeah, this is.

Probably just a bunch of like wishful thinking on our part last episode, but it's kind of what we expected, I guess, in most regards from this episode that we would jump back, that we would see these sort of moments of the switch over between. unsevered and severed uh and that we would also figure out you know what happened to mrs selvig at the end of that when we would see her again and

It just makes sense. It's I think this is a side effect of the creators being really in tune with the show they're making and the audience that's watching it and just knowing like what questions do they have? What do they want to see? And what do we want to show them?

um you mentioned being kind of like taken aback by the reaction to devon and all that and i was too especially when i first saw it but on subsequent watches and thinking about it like what media res we jumped into that she has just thought she lost her baby she's just found the baby

Mark, who this is not something everyone in party was was keyed into that. Mark is any Mark, you know, comes out screaming that she's alive and then he gets a dreamy look on his face. I think that she's trying to play a little cool because she's still recovering.

from the drama of the child again. Like, what are you going to do? Stop the party and be like, everybody, Mark, my severed brother just had a integration moment. And it's like, yeah, it's a weird thing to play, but it's also a really weird thing to happen to you. For 39 minutes. Yeah. Who knows how you would react? That's yeah. Yeah. It's a wild circumstance. She asked him, what's my name? And this motherfucker says Persephone, which made me read up on Greek.

fucking mythology god i hate when shows do this yeah i because every time i see she says persephone and i'm like oh jesus i i knew enough that she's like the daughter of the underworld and they're and i'm like oh god i'm gonna have to read up This is a 20 minute homework assignment that I've been handed by the show. Do you want to know what I found out about Persephone? I'd love to. So Persephone is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, who is a harvest God.

You know, she's responsible for the crops and the seasons and whatnot. And her uncle Hades, the lord of the underworld, had the hots for her. But him and Zeus knew that Demeter would not approve of her daughter marrying Hades. So Zeus gave him the hoodwink and said, hey, bro. come and steal her and then we'll just make everything alright so Hades goes and steals Persephone uh

And takes her off to the underworld. And Demeter is bereft. And she looks everywhere for her daughter. Can't find her. And she curses the earth so nothing will grow. This is a problem because everyone on Earth will die. So Zeus persuades Hades to let her go. But Hades has one last trick. He feeds her pomegranate seeds. And I guess there's a rule that if you eat anything in the land of the dead, you are bound there.

And so now Persephone walks in the light of the world for three quarters of the year during the spring, summer and fall. And then she returns. uh, to Hades in the winter. And that's when everything dies because her mother is mourning. All right. I mean, if you got to go to hell, winter is not a bad time to do it. That's Judeo-Christian hell. Not necessarily Greek hell, but yeah. Okay. Now, what will start spinning your mind when I tell you that story?

If you start assigning, you know, this could just be this could be some random name that's hard to spell that Mark throws out there for a joke between brother and sister. But a woman being stole from an underworld. Like the baby? I was thinking Gemma. Gemma, okay, yeah. This person who is dead, but she's back. And in some kind of underworld. Elevator down. For limited amounts of time. Yep. That makes sense.

I don't know who Hades is. I don't know who Zeus is in this. I don't know who Demeter is, but I'm reporting you guys decide. That's just what I've came about from that. We've tried to figure out why Devin's with Ricket. I mean, maybe that's some kind of punishment. She hooked up with him. She had the baby, which is the pomegranate seeds. And now she's fucking stuck with this guy. The baby is pomegranate seeds.

Mm-hmm. How did the goats fit in? I couldn't tell you. Are there satyrs? Let me scroll through Wikipedia. Are there satyrs in this story? Oh, satyrs. Yuck. Anyway, that's everything I think is relevant about Persephone. Yeah, let us know about your theories. Let's move on to the next scene. We see Helena in the Lumen bathroom, considering herself in a mirror, feeling her throat again. When the man that we've previously called Orson Welles.

storms into there, that storms in, but bulks into the room. He's actually Mr. Drummond and he's escorting Jane Egan, who. curses her for a fetid Moppet and leaves, leaving her and Mrs. Mr. Drummond to plan their next actions. Meanwhile, Dylan's out. He stumbles out of Lumen headquarters with an ice pack on his head and Mr. Melchick is sent.

by Helena on a mission to contact all the Audis involved in tonight's events. We won't actually, we'll deal with the Mr. Milchak mission later, but this is just, what did you make of Jamie Egan? I don't know what to make of this guy. He's a weirdo. The only thing I got is he's incredibly pissed.

He's incredibly pissed, and I'm not sure exactly why. I think it's because Helena allowed the situation to get out of hand, and she should have been able to somehow control her innie and what they're doing. I don't know how he expected that, but maybe she runs this whole project. A fetid Muppet, not Muppet, Muppet, is such an archaic, weird thing to say.

Oh, yeah. Fetid, of course, refills refers to like something that smells and kind of a rank swampy kind of way. And Moppet is an old timey word that means like a very beautiful child. And the way he kind of came to her and was like looking in her eyes, I think he's deeply disturbed that he could not tell that Helena was Helly. Yeah, when he talked with her before.

He's angry at Helen, of course, for letting this happen, even though she really didn't have any any say in the matter. But he's also I think a lot of this is is anger, fear and revulsion. aimed at himself like i think that he as a cure or as an egan rather thought that he would you know he'd be able to he'd be able to see the four tempers change or he'd be able to see a light that's different in his daughter's eyes and he didn't

So it's like I almost wonder if when he said fetid Moppet, if he was actually trying to talk to Helly on the inside and it wasn't aimed at Helena. Yeah, potentially. But some of that fetid stink does seem to rub off on her. She seems like she's got some ground to make up here at the Lumen. Dylan, Dylan's is funny. He's like, you imagine you're, you know, I wonder what card was left on his. Yeah. What kind of gift card do you get for a military tackle?

That's caused you obvious pain. Like you're, you're easily like limping out with this ice. Like he's got a massive headache. Got a concussion. Oh yeah. Slipped and tripped and fell down a stair. I don't know. I think you get that lifetime Olive Garden pass, right? Yeah. Well, it sounds like he didn't get shit. And that's like Melchick is like, oh, you got in a fight, obviously, and you started it. So it's killing him with a little bit of the truth there. Right. Second place is you're fired.

second place is fuck you snake knives third third is yeah Dylan I the composition of the shots like I feel like I don't say this enough But the way the absolute command, it's like a very dark palated Wes Anderson, you know, the shot of Lumen cleaning up after the party and Dylan walking out and Melchick looking on. and the lights chain going from like party mode to shutdown mode it's just just beautiful just beautiful oh yeah no they they are able to they shoot it like very

Geometric angles is not what I'm going for, but you know what I mean? They'll lock the camera into a position and then move it in one direction. It's not a very mobile camera, but it is also very... Feels a little dynamic, but also locked in. I don't know how they manage that. And it it complements the you mentioned the geometry like it's like they're very aware of the aspect ratio and the framing and having things that fit in and juxtapose and divide.

there's a great scene of Irv kind of sitting and pondering things and Melchick's motorcycle drives across like almost like physically severing his face and like a dissolved shot there's just oh my god the art that is propping up the themes and the symbolism of the show is just amazing. Uh, there's also this, this, uh, as Helena gives Milchick his marching orders, he says, should I fire the Audis after I find out what they know? And she says, let Kier guide your hand.

I was kind of debating how much of a true believer Melchick was last season. This definitely paints him. As more of a true like in more of an acolyte, you know. This is like what the Emperor would say to Darth Vader about the Force. Sure, yeah. But, hmm. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, he's not the one who says that, right?

I could see if it were him saying it, that would put a little weight on him. I guess, yeah, he could just be playing along and this is all a big joke to him, but I'm getting the idea that maybe he is... kind of high up in lumen and he's been groomed for a while and it's just a feeling i got i do think he's pretty bought in next scene we see helena meet with mrs cobel cobelvig

and offers her a promotion to the head of the Severance Advisory Council, a brand new initiative that Lumen is launching. Ms. Coble is not impressed. Yeah, speaking of those... camera techniques they're using. There's a big shot here from outside the building that tracks Heli as she walks to the conference room. That was really cool. I'll say conference room has too many chairs.

for an effective meeting. This table is too big. I don't even know that the bodyguard can hear their conversation down at the other end. Yeah. I've been in rooms that big. like like it's like like quarterly like the quarterly update that all the heads of departments give and everyone gives like five or ten minute dog and pony show and but yeah it doesn't seem like um it seems It seems like a mafia dons table.

Or like Yakuza, like I got like in Kill Bill, you know, when Orishi Inn is sitting at the head of her table after she's taken over. And it's it's designed for one person to hold court and lots of people to get direction in here is what it seems like to me. Yeah.

Sounds right. And Helly, you know, sits at the, you know, she starts off at the head of the table and Selvig is down, but then... that forces kind of reminded me of the parable of jesus you know it's like if you ever had a party don't ever sit yourself at the head of the table sit at the foot of the table because if you sit the head of the table and you've overstepped your bounds and the host comes in like who the fuck are you get get down to the back of the table but

if you're sitting at the bottom foot of the table and the host is like, buddy, yo, what are you doing down there? And you get, isn't it? And it's, I felt reminded of that, that Selvig is at the very end of the table and it's kind of a power move to make.

heli walk all the way to her a lot of this is power moves right yeah i mean she that's the thing about selva right now she kind of has a fair bit of power it's hard to fire somebody who knows as much as she does without risking that she's gonna be pissed off and take it out on you um and that's what this is all about right like this whole

this whole committee thing. This council is a joke. This is something made up on the spot to keep her close so that she won't keep her close and loyal. Yeah. And she sees through it. She sees this for what it is. Yeah, and even the fact that Helena is meeting with her... That's a big deal to meet with the daughter of the current CEO of the company, the presumptive heir. But she sees like, well, where's Jane?

Is he going to be joining us? And she sees that it's still kind of a slight. He was here in a building. Could have come up and made the effort, but he didn't. Yeah, I mean, she's got to be intimately involved in what's happening. outside of the severed floor because heli's on the severed floor like there's no chance that she didn't know heli was the daughter of the ceo right like yeah

And if she didn't know that she would be shocked by it here in this scene. So clearly she's also in close communication outside of the severed floor with the heads of. Yeah. This apology is warranted, and I love the way Arquette delivers this. It's like dripping icebergs. It's so cold and gravelly.

And Helena offers an apology on her behalf, on her father's behalf, on the board's behalf. We treated you poorly. I'm sorry. And I was as I was watching this the first time, I'm like, man, this is this is a way different apology than what they force. the innies to give down in the break room and then immediately as i was thinking that miss cobell says i welcome your contrition which is the word they use on those statements and i almost think that she's saying like

Yeah, that's nice, but I need some real could. I need some old school wrath of God cure style contrition from you fuckers, and I'm not getting it. Yeah, could be wrong, but that's the feeling I got.

um she says uh your expertise is valued she says you don't value me you fear me and helena says we fear no one that feels like bluster yes yeah they absolutely fear her they would not be offering her bribes essentially to stay quiet yeah so coble considers the generous offer she says she'll put some thought into it but as she walks out you can kind of see her face set in cold fury

Next, we get a couple of twin scenes intertwined. It's going to be the ride of Mr. Milchak with Heli or Helena recording her damage control PR release with Natalie.

I did notice that Milchek has got a pretty sweet bike. I think it's a Moto Guzzi, if not a Ducati, some kind of... kind of exotic italian cafe racer and he's got the helmet to go with it uh not a great cold weather vehicle i wouldn't think no a motorcycle no yeah i wouldn't think so but it makes sense that he'd be the one riding this thing like i was curious was it irv was it him uh but you gotta unbutton a little with that job after hours like a badass

I think we talked about this last season, but it's a refresher. The cure license plate says the Latin phrase is remedium hum hum in a bus, which is translated is to the cure for men. or cure for man ominous um so yeah uh simultaneously with helena recording this video milchik's meets with irving and dylan's outing and outies and he fires them both What do you want to talk about first? Helena's video for damage control because. Sure.

This is your standard corporate bullshit, right? Oh, I was drunk and I drank too much and had a weird interaction with a non-lumen, non-lumen skin rash cream. And it caused me to lose my mind and make a illy time joke that has hurt the Lumen family. And I apologize. And it was a terrible thing to do, but it's a human thing to do. like my any just like you yeah stuff that we know they don't believe oh yeah no this is uh a load of horse shit yeah um

Anything that we want to add to that? Or should we go into the ride of Mr. Milchak? I mean, just that we were curious how the damage control is going to go. And I don't know. I don't know if this is the end of that. If this is like, okay, well, we made our apology and all of our investors are still making money, so let's keep going. Or if there's more to come.

In the previous scene where they're talking with Miss Coe Belvig about what they've done for damage control, they mentioned that they seized all the footage that was filmed. They put out... information to their loyal press contacts um i guess the thing is is even one video gets out it's pretty damning and Also, the same thought I had last episode of how many of the people in this room were Lumen faithful.

Uh, there had to be a few given the nature of the event had to be a few people who may be leaning lumen, but are persuadable either way to kind of submit, you know, like, or else why, why would you do all this stuff just to sing to the choir? You know? uh, or preach to the choir. It doesn't really make sense, but, um, uh, Milchik visits Irv first and he asked him how his nights been. And he kind of is evasive and acts like nothing was amiss. And he's fired. He's fired. Yeah. I think Milchick.

I think if Irving had said, you know, it's funny that you're here. I was sitting on my couch and I lost like an hour of time in the middle of it. And I was sitting here with radar and he's freaking out and I'm freaking out. And I don't know. I feel like he might not have been fired. But yeah, no, I think so. That's what the following, like your guide, your heart, whatever is all about. Right. If they are.

somebody who i i don't think it's about loyalty necessarily to the company but somebody who can be trusted to not be disloyal you know um reserve cannot Irv we know is actively doing something against Lumen. And I think that's how Mark is going to squeak by. We'll talk about that when we get there. But, uh, uh,

The show gave me another homework assignment because guess what Irv was watching on his couch all night, apparently? The Barber of Seville. Do you know anything about the Barber of Seville, Jim? I know nothing about it. I'm certain you've heard some of it. If you've watched any like Bugs Bunny cartoons, this is the kind of stuff that they make cultural allusions to. And it's known as like the comic opera. It's like the most famous comic opera.

And it's about this count who loves this beautiful woman, Rosina, who's the ward of a grumpy elderly man. His name is Bartolo. And this guy keeps her locked up and shut away because his apparently she's rich and she's got a lot of money. And if he marries her, he'll get her considerable dowry. The other in the scale, this young count.

He's got the opposite problem. He's very wealthy and is an eligible bachelor to Rosina, but he's worried that she'll only love him for his money and prestige. So he wants to appear to her as just like a normal guy. And he has Figaro.

who is the eponymous, as I said, the barber of Seville, who is a former servant of the Count. And in exchange for money, he offers to help the Count get into her inner circle and woo her. And there's a whole... sequence of disguises and deception he pretends to be a drunken soldier that wants to be quartered at their house he pretends to be her new music teacher and he does all this stuff and over the course of time she starts to fall in love

with this alter ego of the guy. And it all comes to a head when the old guy starts getting wind of it and he reveals the deception to her, which pisses her off. And he, she agrees to marry him. And but the count and figure I were able to swoop in and there's a shotgun marriage that the old guys prepared with like a notary and witnesses and the count and Rosina just step into that and get married.

And then the old guy's pissed, but the Countess offers, because I'm rich, I'll just pay the dowry, and then everyone's happy. Okay. I lost the potential train of thought there somewhere.

Is Irv the dowry? I don't know. I think this is another Jimma illusion. You've got another beautiful woman who's held behind some kind of... authority there's some kind of authority and you've got a guy who's assuming other guises to get close to her like i don't i don't know exactly what it means but thematically it's kind of fits in with the persephone this

jimma thing let me throw this out there this could be heli um as the the guys to get well close to mark because she seems we'll see here in a second very interested in the relationship that heli and mark have developed down there in the severed floor and there's some super interesting things in the credit sequence that kind of put their thumb on that side of the scale too which we'll get to briefly

Then we also have Dylan. He's informed he's involved in altercation. He was the aggressor and he's being terminated. And both Bert, I'm sorry, both Irv and Dylan take this poorly. Irv, because it's blowing up what other scheme he's got, and there's more on that to come. Dylan, because he just seems like he's a desperate guy. He needs money.

yeah he needs the money so and he doesn't want to tell his wife and this is all very sudden and it's like this is the first time i thought about like it's bad enough to tell your family i'm fired because you know uh my boss is a dick or they were asked me to do blah blah What do you tell them when you're a severed guy gets fired? Wasn't my fault. Yeah, some guy we don't even know is the reason our paycheck is being disrupted. Yeah, fair. But at least we find out he definitely has a wife.

he true he talks to her on the phone we hear her voice she's got a name gretchen gretchen who is yeah who which is matches like i thought that maybe uh milchik was making shit up but apparently not um She also, the other thing about, as I'm moving on to the next scene, Helena appeals to this longstanding distrust of Lumen. That's been with them since the founding, and she's afraid that she has given them more fuel for their pernicious hate. That's some new information, right?

We know that Lumen's a controversial figure in the contemporary times, but it sounds like Lumen has been raising hell since the beginning. Hmm. Yeah. You know, both powerful and familiar, but also controversial and has a lot of detractors.

Also, this is another thing. I also thought it was interesting. Helena is like crash after her performance because she's doing this very intensely. I care. She's making the kind eyes. And as soon as Natalie says, that's a wrap. You can just see her just all of that drain out. of her face yeah and that leads us into the brand new credit sequence whoa uh you said you wrote down some notes i wrote down some notes yeah just generally like the flow of it what's happening in any given moment

What's so one big difference from last last year to this year is last year. Mark was wearing what I would call adult pajamas when he was representing his Audi. As any Mark is still wearing a suit and tie, that's not changed. But this year, Mark is wearing a red footy. No, not footy footless pajama. This is something that you put children in. yeah i i couldn't tell if this was meant to evoke like a prison jumpsuit because it's it's bright bright orangey red so like

Coughed at the ankle and wrist with the zipper. Fair, yeah. It's been... What? 15 years since I've put a child in a onesie, but it definitely, I definitely thought that they is just the way it fit. I definitely gotten the color. It's not correctional orange. It's more, you know, firing red. No, you're right. It's probably more of a child's pajamas kind of thing. And they're playing, you know, with the child-like nature of these innies a little bit.

Having Miss Wong down there is another sort of indicator that they're playing with that. So it makes sense. Mark's Audi is surrounded by faceless babies crawling all over his bed. Yeah, that's weird. obvious goat clones i think sure uh we see that any implant being like Reverse installed brain or uninstalled from his brain. And it turns into any Mark pulling Audi Mark through the injection site, freeing him. Yeah.

Which, I mean, if that's an indication of sort of the trajectory here, Mark going to be reintegrated this season? Yeah, and I always thought it'd feel like the Audi saving the Innie, but this imagery is like reversing that. The Innie is saving the Audi. Which might dovetail into something that Milchick says. Uh-huh. About the state. When you talk about the solace that he's getting down here will filter up to you. Uh-huh. Yeah.

So the violence of him pulling him out has him tumbling and he falls into a double eared Irv mug. which overflows with paper clips, which causes Mark to jump from the shelf and land in his, in his head and almost the exact same shot where he's like a little guy piloting the, the head, the, you know, the half headed Mark, uh, any. that then morphs into and god love it god love it morphs into a goat painting uh-huh goats are important apparently that's my case

Plenty of room in a goat hole, by the way. I know a lot of people were skeptical, didn't think it was commodious down here, thought it wouldn't be comfortable. Maybe some worried about some fetid stink, but I'm telling you. You want to be in the goat hole. You want to be in the goat hole. I'm telling you. Yeah, clearly there's something to it. Then he's outside. He bumps into himself. His head turns into a balloon.

And he rides that balloon up to the kitchen table. And any Mark helps Audi Mark once again by lifting the kitchen wall, which is turned into the severed floor elevator, revealing it to be a curtain. That Audi Mark scrambles under leading to what looks like a mirrored image of the goat room that we've seen from the trailers. It's like. clearly a building but it's got the rolling hills but there's no goats no there's no goats uh there's headless marks

uh, both any and Audi variety roaming like beasts and empty Gemma. And I think Helena heads rolling around like balloons. Hmm. I missed that. This entire thing is an open book that zooms out and we see a faceless Mrs. Selvig looking at it. And then she looks up revealing that not only does she not have a face, her face is a cave. leading to a lumen style hallway where Mark S is exploring with the flashlight. Yeah. He runs out.

It turns into the severed testing floor elevator and we see a woman inside rapidly shift from Jim at the heli as it's closing What I don't know. This whole thing is so trippy. And it's like, I mean, again, it's like they're layering these things. It's all like, you know, you're talking about like, you know, Persephone is a heli. Is it like they're deliberately burning blurring the line here? Then Mark returns in his bed.

there's snow falling all around it there's like uh just drifting snow at the as as bed a baby keir keir egan crawls through the snow to his feet And as we get the trademark severance sonic stutter, it goes to the back of... uh any or audi mark's head and there's a seam that splits and you can see any mark start to kind of wriggle free before we cut the black yeah what any of it means i couldn't tell you

For certain. What, any? What about the Audi? What about the Audi? What Audi even means? I couldn't tell you either. Yeah, severanceofbaldmove.com if you've got some ideas. We'll explore some as we continue. As Rickon's party dies down, Mark and Devin debate the significance of Mark's statement of she's alive in context of him holding he and Jim his wedding photo. Mr. Milchak knocks on the door, tabling the debate for now.

And we can talk all the way till Mr. Melchick leaves if we'd want. Yeah, there are some horrible things happening in this. First of all, Rebecca, what the hell is wrong with Rebecca? Rebecca is radic because she's. She's begging Rickon not to punish the baby for this. But it's weird because that's what the other dude said, too. He said something along those same lines as. Oh, did he?

You know, like, do you think it's a good idea to introduce your baby here? Because it's going to take like it's they are all to Rickon's glory. Even the scion of Rickon does not get any consideration except for I don't punish it because it's not its fault. yeah this is wild that you would punish a baby for getting kidnapped or for disrupting your party it's like oh my god whatever i just realized that the thing in the credits the the hole that

any mark is escaping out of Audi Mark's head is kind of roughly concides with where a Beck says her parrot was pecking and caused a wound open wound. I don't know if that's connected. Gotta be. Gotta be. Can I also say absolutely not to the term worky. Get out of here with that, Rickon. Yeah. We have a term and it's not worky. Yeah, it's inny.

Don't invent even more demeaning slurs. Come on, Rickon. Although he does invent quite a good turn of phrase here. The problem we've had all last season, all first episode, what do we call... Cobell or Selvig. What do we call her in any given moment? Perfect hybrid. Cobell Vig. Cobell Vig. The man's a wordsmith. He deserves all the fame. Award winning books.

he gets right uh-huh um so there's a debate here now the thing is is this is plausible right like mark like they just got you know the baby back And he's worried about it. And he's got this picture that he was curious about. And then he runs out saying that she's alive and she's clearly talking about the baby. Because why would he be talking about his dead wife? Why would the Eni Mark be talking about.

outie mark's dead wife it doesn't make any sense and yet doesn't even know who that is and yet it's a thread that devon can't resist pulling and it enrages mark yeah i think i think mark is less scared of pulling at a thread because it might lead somewhere that they don't want to go with lumen and more about his own mental state his own relationship with gemma at this point i don't

I think he's mentally equipped to reopen that wound right now. Yeah. And it makes a lot of sense. I was trying to think, like, even with the strangeness of this night, if I went and saw my wife's dead corpse in a morgue. Right. And two years later, my sister is saying, hey, I got some information that you weren't privy to that might sort of imply your wife is still alive. Like.

That's crazy. Is this the Walking Dead? Is this Frankenstein? What are we talking about? It might be. Yeah, it very well might be. But. I don't I believe Mark did this almost insulting that you would jump there again because he doesn't know any of this information. It's all second hand. Yeah. So. The doorbell rings and Milchak is there and she he has some questions or he knows that this family has questions. And the way this plays out is the family essentially immediately.

cop to any mark being there and visiting them and even that he was complaining about the working conditions there and melchik takes an opportunity to interject coble's devious, you know, implied sexual deviancy and saying she's the one was making Mark uncomfortable. She was the one that was doing all this weird stuff. Oh, false lactation consultant.

fraudulent lactation consulting. Guess what? Mrs. Kobel, she's a disturbed individual. I promise she won't bother Mark, nor will she bother you. And I hope to see you on Monday. Yeah. Pretty sure that word is not worth the wind it's spoken on. There's no chance that Kobelvig does not get re-involved in this with Mark. I wonder if lactation fraud is a thing.

i feel like it should be a thing but it's also like how the fuck can like in normal operating circumstances like the only way you could be a fraudulent lactation consultant and i was like i guess if you're a woman and you i mean it's fraud and you haven't been pregnant and you haven't read a book on pregnancy like that's yeah like what i don't think there is a particular law in the books about lactation and fraud i think it's just fraud

yeah just just just just con man this is just uh this is your standard uh i don't know uh misrepresentation But it's funny her making a federal case on lactation fraud. Yeah, let me just throw this out there. I think it's disturbing. So in regards to lactation fraud. That seems to be the thing that Devin feels most violated by, and I agree. That's probably the most greediest sin here. Especially since she stole her baby as a diversion tactic. Yep, yep. There's a second.

disturbing thing here that they gloss over and this feels like this feels oh so real every time you click I agree on a terms of service you did not read Mark did not read his onboarding paperwork because he's fucking distraught. His wife is dead. Sure. He's a miserable wreck of a person at the moment, and he's just doing what he can to cope. Of course, he's not going to read it line by line.

Like, that's absurd to even think that he would. And it's probably buried 60 pages deep in his forms. Yeah, this is the violation to me, is that OTC can be activated at any time. And well, we didn't tell you about that in your orientation, even though it's a vitally important part of this whole procedure. Right. We didn't tell you, but we told you it's in some small text somewhere. And I even wonder if it is.

Like, I would love to see Mark's paperwork that he signed. And also, who's this? Does Mark have a copy of it? Does he still have a copy of it? Has it been altered? Right. But you're right. It's also could be there in plain text and they just know that no one's going to read it. You know, no one's going to redefine print on that. Although, man, if there's anything you're going to redefine print on a severance contract should be it. But Mark, you're a normal person. Yeah, but Mark's.

not in his right mind yeah it's exact type of person a weird cult would prey on so um and then when mark's like i don't know if i'm going back to work this is all a bunch of weird shit melchik hits him with the psychological tactic you know, your, your any, what he did was unauthorized, but it was very brave to come forward with these abuses. And I'd hate to reward that courage with non-existence.

brutal it's a one-two punch of both like praising him and also guilting him at the same time yeah yeah because that's some of that some of that praise is going on the mark himself because intrinsically he must be a brave person Right. Strip away everything. He's still trying to do the right thing down there. And you can reward him with death. You're going to kill him. Right. Yeah. Oh, man. Jesus, Mark.

Yeah, they have some serious guilt trip material that I didn't really think about. I thought about it from the perspective of dying if you cease to come back to work. But from the Audi's perspective, like. You don't want to kill this other version of yourself, do you? So you got to keep working for us.

Yeah, the person who's been earning you money for two years and you've been assiduously not thinking about and now they're giving you an escape clause. Think about him, but he's a brave person and he needs to be supported. I bet they have Audi wellness sessions, too, where they invite them in.

when they want to quit and they say your innie is brave your innie is well liked by their co-workers your innie I bet they have that I actually thought there's a lot of things in here that felt like an Audi wellness session Yeah. What Melchick was doing with Mark talking about like the man that I've come to know. Mm hmm. But we'll get to that.

So we next check in with the Audis over a series of quick scenes. Irv pets radar and considers the map to Burt Goodman's house. Dylan sits on his couch despondent. Mark drives back home and tries peeping and misses Ko Belvig's windows, but no one's home. Finally, Helena considers closed camera footage of Mark and Heli's final kiss. That's the real meat here.

i mean obviously keep keep in mind this uh uh this map to bert when we get to the phone call scene but for now it's like yeah what what is going on with heli here helena uh i think so my read on this is that she sees this footage of herself being attracted to a person i won't even say it's mark like it's not necessarily that it's mark She is having some kind of meaningful relationship with another person and she is so devoid of that outside of in her real life.

That she's intrigued by it. She's excited by the prospect of, oh, I have something down there. I'm really curious about that. And she the thing that I thought was interesting is that she knows or she suspects it's wrong because right as she. starts looking at that footage she she looks over her shoulder to make sure that she's alone right somehow instinctively she knows that this is probably verboten what she's what she's doing and the information she's getting

Yeah. I wonder who else has seen this footage if they know that Heli and Mark have this relationship. Yeah. Yeah. Milchick, I think references it. So yeah, pretty sure they do. But it also might be something to help. I don't know if he saw it firsthand or something Helena relayed to him. But it's yeah, it's interesting. The fascination she has, the forbidden fascination she has with it, the way she watches from different camera angles. And yep.

And you look at her relationship with her father. She's not getting a lot of affection outside in her real life. True. True. And I love that shot of a macro... shot of or i guess a micro shot of her eyeball you know the windows of her soul the one that her father was cursing and you can see her watching you can see the reflection of what she's watching in her eyeball and it's just

To me, that's showing that she's just absorbing it. It's really that she's taking it in. Oh, yeah. Everything about her demeanor says, I wish I had that. Yeah. And she kind of sits on the table and she's thinking about it. And then you see Milchak coming back from his late night, Paul Revere ride. And that night, or I guess the next morning, rather, Mark is looking out his window.

Drinking coffee, considering the view of the snow covered mountains when he gets a text from his sister apologizing for last night and offering to buy him some food so they can talk. I was going to point out. Prior to this, when Mark is looking at Miss Kovelvik's house and trying to see if she's home, I thought maybe he was going to break in, and I'm not certain that he won't eventually.

Especially after this weird encounter later in the episode. Is it possible that he's the Baird Creek Bandit? That they are blaming... And maybe they don't even know that it's Mark breaking in, but in that newspaper last episode that they gave him, there was an article about another break-in by the Baird Creek Bandit.

That could be Mark himself, because that's where he lives. It could be. Or it could be Selvig, or Kobelvig. It could be... It could be Milchik breaking into Kobelvig's house. And also, it's... It's the company paper, so it could just be bullshit. But interesting. Interesting. We next see just... A scene of pure comic relief, as far as I'm concerned. Dylan going on a job interview with Great Doors Incorporated. Unfortunately, he faces severance discrimination and does not get hired.

yeah so i this is a very funny scene obviously like dylan bullshitting his way through this interview is very good and then the guy being like you know you remind me you remind me of me dylan well yeah no shit look at you Look at you two. You're clones. You're literal clones of each other. But I like how Dylan's improvised bullshit is like red meat for this guy. He's like, yeah, ever since I was a little kid and the guy's like, oh, yeah.

How old were you? A five. What kind of door do you want to be? And Dylan's like pocket door. It's good. Interesting. Tell me more. And then when he's like eggshell or satin, Dylan goes semi gloss. The guy goes. that's hot that's hot like this guy fucks doors right

Maybe, maybe, or maybe he's fucked by doors, the doorknobs. You know, he's kind of slamming the door, if you know what I'm saying. But yeah, it's just, it's just hilarious how Dylan is just improvising and whatever he's saying is just what this guy needs to hear.

like he's like you're a doorman you're a born doorman oh my god um until it gets serious and then and then it serves i think as a glimpse to the outside again you know we have protesters we have kind of like the more serious people who hate this and we have like rickens friends who discuss it very intellectually but have opinions and then you got normal people who have very strong opinions about it one way or another yeah

It's abhorrent to this guy. Yeah. The other thing we've gotten to get about Dylan's Audi is we hear about his previous history and it's like a lot of short term employment, which means you're not. You're not impressing anybody. You're getting your foot in the door, but no one's hiring you for long term until Lumen came along. And it really kind of fills in like Dylan's innie.

loves his work and likes to feel valued because maybe some of that, like Dylan's inherent kind of like, am I worth anything? Am I actually good? Am I just a bullshitter? Might be percolating down to any Dylan. Yeah. And the fear of poverty, because I also noticed this guy's driving like a 90s era Plymouth Chrysler Dodge minivan, which.

The air is not anything. It's well maintained. It's not rust bucket or anything like that. That's a shitty minivan, I'll have to say. My parents had a Plymouth Voyager four-cylinder. That thing was a piece of shit. But it also tells me he's driving his minivan like that's that's it's like and Dylan's like first thought on the inside when Irv is upset. Did you find out you were poor? There's something about the economic anxiety that.

They're suggesting some bleed through, I think. Yeah, it could be. And is that why he works so hard down there on the severed floor, too? Because I get the impression, like normally if you're a temp worker. It's like temp to hire kind of stuff, right? Like they get you a temp job in there. And then if you're a good enough worker and you work out, then they'll bring you in full time. Is Dylan just like a slacker in his Audi role?

is that any life maybe or he just hasn't found the quite the niche and this is a niche for him but but yeah i mean you see what i'm saying that like there is some kind of like pass through those those anxieties and maybe triumphs it goes both ways i don't know i don't think the skills transfer out of lumen well yeah you don't you don't gain any skill because you don't remember it and b

There's no other back or data refinement company. What job is he going to get, right? I'm just talking about like the subconscious stuff bleeding through. Yeah, but if he gets fired when he loses his job at Lumen, there's no... There's no benefit. There's no upside to having worked at Lumen for your resume. Yeah. At least not in his role. Especially when you're severed because like, so what did you do? Can you tell me a tie? You can't tell him shit. Nope. That's the whole point. Yeah.

And then when the interview goes off the rails, there's actually a lot of fucking funny things because he says, you know, a lot short term. But then there's Lumen. They make the doors in house. Fucking hubris. That is so funny. and then he's like we need you know as he finds out he's severed and he's like we need a certain type of people not a certain kind of two people what is this a carpet factory like

Like, we need to make doors here. You go to a degenerate carpet factory if you want to go in with your circumcised brain. Another banger from Great Doors. Circumcised brain. I mean, he might have a point. Lumen made their own doors for MDR and look what happened. They didn't contain them. They just came flooding out. They went to great doors.

They would have had the advanced biometric security systems, and you would need something you have and something you know, and it's obvious hubris. Fucking hubris. So good. Then we get confirmation that Milchick wasn't bullshitting about his wife's name because Gretchen calls him and he's kind of disappointed, kind of a dick.

uh yeah she seems so nice right like she's so encouraging of her unemployed husband here like ah you'll get the next one don't worry right but he's but i i think he's not just angry about Not getting the job. I think he's feeling kind of bad about being called abhorrent. Like. Yeah. Being severed is kind of like, ooh, maybe that was a bad choice. Because he's been there for a couple years, right? And.

I think so. Imagine if you're unemployed for two or three years, how you feel about yourself. You know, you're disconnected from the work. Your skills are getting rusty. Whatever relevant experience you had is kind of fading away. That's exactly what's happening to him as a severed person. He's essentially an unemployed bum sitting on the couch and his other guys getting job experience. He doesn't even know about. And now it's like, I got this gap on the resume.

That is socially abhorrent to probably half the people I'm going to be talking to. Oh, I might be fucked. I might never get a job this good again. Yeah. Wow. I really thought when he said he's going to go do go get baby wipes, that that was code. We're going to see him at a bar. We're going to see him doing something. We never do. He goes off and kind of like fucks around. Do you think we'll ever revisit that or is that just to get us out of the scene?

yeah i don't i don't think there's any there there but who knows all right uh mark and devon share a meal as they agreed to but he quickly gets angry flustered and storms out her suggestion that jimma might still be alive And ominously, we discover Orson Welles, Mr. Drummond himself, with his frolic hand tattoo, sipping coffee, watching the whole thing unfold. What hand tattoo?

He's on his left hand. He's got the word frolic tattooed. One of the virtues. All right. Like I got I got my I got frolic and I got malice. Which one do you want? Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. I bet that'll come into play at some point. It's got to, it's got to like, where are all the rest of the, the tempers tattooed on his body? he's got both cheeks tatted up malice and dread perhaps perhaps uh you know what there was a piece of information in here that i was

surprised to half hear because you only hear half of it. You hear the lead in and not what it actually is. But when Devin is suggesting to Mark, hey, let's investigate this, find out what you meant by she's alive, she says... She knows a lawyer and Mark is entitled to petition. And Mark cuts her off. And I'm like, oh, you bastard. Because I really want to know what petition he can make. Petition for a freedom of information request. A conversation with his innie via an intermediary. Like...

Yeah. What's the cutting edge of severance law? Cause you know, it's gotta be messy. It's gotta be messy as fuck. Yep. Absolutely. I was just so intrigued by that. Look at that. Yeah. And from the Mr. Drummond angle, like this is going to look really good to Lumen that Mark is. angry with the sister and not believing that anything she's saying and not wanting to pursue for like, this is, this is opens the door for the later, later conversation with Melchick. I think, um,

Oh, the other bit of information here is Mark says he saw Gemma's body. He also in passing mentions like, Oh, Oh yeah. Would you be okay with this conversation? If you were. grieving your wife whose body you just saw, who all burned up is what he says. He says her body was burned up. Is that a reference to... yeah I mean he might not have been able to very clearly identify her that that body whatever that is I yeah I was trying to decide how much

stock to put in that because the way he's kind of saying it is like identified the body and then her body got burnt up and i wasn't sure which one which where the the horse came before the cart or vice versa right i'm taking it to mean that he did see a body if she was severely burnt and it's roughly her same size and had roughly her same clothes and like oh my god that's jimma he's seen through a veil of tears like yeah

That's when you make the switcheroo. That's when you make the switcheroo, Jim. But you can see how this is offensive to him, too. Like, you know, like he did go through all this. He had to tell her parents. He had to sleep with the memory of her scent on the sheets for weeks and weeks. And yeah, that was a fact I've seen. Mark feeds his betas at home and looks at Mrs. Coble's house. Did we talk about the fact that Mark's fish are severed? I don't know if I've noticed that before. Wait, what?

He's got two betas in a tank, a red one and a blue one, which kind of is very intro imagery. But you can't keep betas in the same tank because they'll kill each other. But he's got a pane of glass or separation between the two. Okay, I thought you meant they had chips sticking out of their heads or something. What are you talking about? They're severed. He has this giant bulging pill shape where the thing is in their little pea brain. Oh, God. Anyway.

Well, a little food for thought there. And then we see Irv go to a payphone outside of his apartment complex, and he leaves a message for somebody. And he says, my Annie got the message. He hangs up. And then we pan out and we see Bert is watching in the darkness from his car in the distance. Which blew my mind because my first guess for who he was talking to on the phone was Bert.

and then well he's not it still could be because he says i understand you're not picking up or i understand why you wouldn't be picking up oh so like we don't know that it's not bird it could be bird that's true Okay. What's your impression of Bert watching him? I got a sinister feel. I got a sinister vibe from it. And maybe it's just because it's dark.

But yeah, yeah, I was thinking this is a spying thing. This is not a making sure is OK kind of thing. So the brilliant part about this is they don't show us. what happened when Irv pounded on the door for Bert. Yeah, there is a gap there that he made his way home. Presumably they had some kind of conversation, made his way home. This could be non-connected. This could just be Bert following the weirdo that showed up at our house and scared us.

And we are misdirected by what we know. But also the fact that, like, what do you think the message was? Because I got a clear idea of what it is. It's the painting, I think. Oh, really? I thought it was the Bert G house. with the phone number circled on a map, that, like, that was a crumb he was supposed to follow. Huh, okay. Your Audi is a friend to children and the elderly. Your Audi likes films and owns a machine that can play them. Your Audi avoids ads at support.baldmove.com

Please try to enjoy each ad equally. This concludes the wellness session. Now, get back to your desk and listen to more Waffle Potty. Because that's when he looks at that when he puts his hand in his pocket and he kind of looks at it um how would he know that is he got the message the pain if it was the painting he just looked at the painting it's like but you took that out of the chest and you took it out and yeah yeah yeah

To what end? Yeah, I'm very suspicious of Bert now, though, that he is some kind of agent. It's something that him and Irv are working together to take Lumen down. It's like a PD Mark relationship that's just a little bit further developed. Potentially. Yeah. Which that implies that one or both of them are integrated, reintegrated. Yeah. Very interesting. Yeah. So it was Sinister Burt.

theory is that he was either he's either been reintegrated and now is spying on Irv on the outside after becoming important to him or he was never severed. He's just down there as a spy for Lumen. Who we're talking about, Irv? Bert. Or Bert. Okay, yeah, Bert, because I don't buy the Irv isn't severed. No, same here. The whole sleeping thing doesn't make sense, yeah. Okay, all right, yeah, that's a possibility. If you had to say there's one other possibility.

of who he's calling do you have because i've got one other easy suggestion regabi regabi 100 that's the other most likely person he's talking to yep I do. Like, that's my prevailing theory on Earth right now is that he is working actively with Rigabi to try and wake up his innie to get information out somehow. So then Bert's there because he's watching a weirdo that tried to break into his house or something. Or it could be. Or Bert's there because he knows. And Lumen knows. They're just.

Making sure he doesn't succeed. Maybe they're checking to make sure the Irv hasn't been co-opted or, you know, like they got him under observation. Or know that he has and are trying to track down Rigabi. Hmm. Hmm. Oh, you're talking from like, he's on a lumen side trying to do this. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I guess you got to consider that too.

Uh, Mark entertains Mr. Melchick, who's making another late night stop, this time bearing a fruit basket, a 20% pay raise, a promise of a full investigation into the abuses at Lumen. that marks any has raised and a highly manipulative, emotional appeal, all deployed in service of getting Mark back at his job. And it's obviously effective, right? He does go back to Lumen. The 20% pay raise I thought was interesting. In what way? Because it's very generous.

But it's not quite in the land of this has got to be this has got to be wrong. You know, like if some dude in a suit with pinstripes. hits you in a mercedes and he gets out and he's like hey don't want to involve the insurance or the cops uh you got a nice car here i'll give you fifty thousand dollars let's call it even that's like maybe a guy who just doesn't want to deal with the insurance

But if he steps out and he tells you he's going to give you a quarter million. Sure. This guy's mobbed up. This guy really doesn't want the cops to show up, you know? Yeah, he's got a body in his trunk. I feel like the 20% raise is like if they're like, we'll double your salary. That's OK. What the fuck? What am I doing? Experimenting on adopted Russian children down there. Like, what kind of what kind of dirty shit am I doing? But 20%.

20% is like, hey, you're vital and we need you. And we're really serious about it. Mm hmm. Makes sense. Would you make it? Well, the regular wellness checks. I thought that was interesting because the innies do get regular wellness checks and this Miss Casey. Is she pretend are they considering her an outside since she's a part-time severed like I'm trying to think of like yeah, I don't go back to Melchek. Oh, if we take this at face value

Where's the weasel words in here? Because you know damn well Lumen's not letting an outside organization into the severed floor. Yeah. No, that's fair. I don't know. Yeah, I guess maybe they would consider Miss Casey, but... But she never leaves. That's the most inside you can be, right? This is the least independent possible. So I don't know. Also, the other consideration is Lumen is so big with their parent and they could have multiple.

companies that are loosely connected but you know what i'm saying like what is a what does an outside org mean to a multinational that has billions and billions of dollars in revenue i yeah yeah it's the forced arbitration thing right like exactly we basically own this other jurisdictional entity that's going to right declare you guilty because we pay the impartial no i think you pronounce it wrong Right, right. And then the final is a emotional appeal and it's a dangerous one.

Because he says the third question, because he asked a question, you know, like, would 20 percent make you feel more valuable? Would a promise to fully investigate your innings claims and have these wellness checks make you more excited to work? And.

I want to talk about your wife, Gemma, and you can see Mark like instantly all his walls and guard go up. It's like, what about her? And he talks about, well, you put it on your primary motivator. You said that you felt like you were choking on her ghost. Do you still feel this way? And Mark doesn't respond. But Milchik's like, the Mark I know is happy and he cares for people and he's funny. And this is so much a wellness check on Mark. I'm going to tell you things about your innie.

And he knows nothing of the pain you feel. He's even found love, Mark. You haven't done that, have you? How'd that last date go, Mark? Right? That's got to be intriguing to him. Milchik says, I have faith that if you just give us more time, the solace that he's feeling down there has got to trickle up to you. Of course. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's plausible.

And that's why Mark goes for it. Yeah. No, I think it's, yeah, definitely calculated. And it's working on a psychology. And I love that it's the opposite of what the innies are getting down there, but equal. Yeah. And it keeps the plot going. So, hey, there's that. Mark reports to work on Monday as scheduled, and we see Melchick, Helena, Mr. Drummond, and Natalie talking through the MDRB team plan that we saw executed last episode.

It appears that Mark completing the Cold Harbor file this quarter is absolutely vital to Lumen's interest. And we observe the next few days some Mark's Audi's perspective. We just rapid fire go through the B team flame out. Yeah, this is interesting. They claim that they need Mark S back to work long enough to complete that file. Implying to me that he's the only one who can do it. And not...

Because he's such a great supervisor, a department lead. I think it's because it's directly related to Gemma, this file. And that kind of connects the final shot we saw from last episode where it flashes to Gemma on the screen with the heart rate and all that over it. And he's doing macro data refinement. I think the file he's working on is directly related to her.

Like we wondered if that's just like a flight of fancy of filming, right? Like, oh, well, she's on his mind. And so now we get to see where she's actually at. No, I think he's actively working on her. I do too, but what's confusing is I thought that was one of the most promising theories of last season, that Mark's freshman fluke was refining Gemma because he was her husband and he had that inside advantage. Well, it's possible she needs to be redefined.

refined yeah they're on like what version 25 of her again if you take everything you see at face value uh Yeah. And we see also that there's a couple other things we learned that Mr. Drummond's surveillance of Mark kind of put him in the clear because he's like, yeah, seems solid. His sister's more uppity than he is. Interesting word uppity. in the context of people that we've been talking about as slaves and former slaves.

And then he says, who are you bringing in to MDR? And he's like, well, we got the floater from overseas. You know that, Dario. And he's like, and a pair laid off from 5X. And Mr. Drummond's eyes go way up. He's like, 5X? What the fuck is with 5X? Futuristic, automated Egan family that's more spacious than NDR. That's the other thing that we didn't talk about. Mark W says that this seems cramped.

Right, that massive room with four desks in it. You can play full court basketball in the spare room in the MDR floor, and he's saying it feels cramped. What? Yeah. What's... 5x seems infamous from within the company. And it got shut down. It got liquidated recently. And they were laid off. Yeah, I don't know. And Milchik doesn't say anything to defend it. He's just like, I had 48 hours. What'd you want me to do? Right. I'm just trying to throw some chemistry together here. Uh...

So we see Mark clock in and out, and we notice that on the last time he does it, he goes down at 905 and he comes up at 913. And Mr. Judd's like, Mr. Scout? And he's like, good evening, Judd. I assume he figured.

out that it's not evening we don't get that reaction but this is the day he got quote unquote fired yeah yeah and they connect that with him like kind of blacking out in the elevator too but that yeah that's another weird elevator transition that kind of kind of an echo of what we saw last last season uh finally what i'm calling the damage control team which is drummond and milchick and helena and and uh natalie uh

They consider Mark's message that he sent to the board of directors. That was received. That was recorded. They play it. And Mr. Drummond says that they're going to give Mark everything. Dylan, Irv, even Helly are back. And we focus on Helena's face when he says that. And next we see them all return to work as the B team is disposed of. Mm hmm. So.

Why is Lumen outside of the server floor using tape recorders? That's weird to me. You wouldn't think that every all the board communication wouldn't be recorded automatically. Yeah, recorded, but not on tape. That's insane. This is 2025 for God's sake. Oh, oh, you're saying the technology. Yeah, that was super weird. Look at their fancy ass building and look at their old ass busted tape recorder.

But that's that's kind of the that's kind of the severance blend. Like, you know, they got these old outdated cars, but it's modern day cell phone technology. But he's using a flip phone. But. His offices look like 1950s retro future. An aesthetic, yeah. I mean, no, I'm just giving the other side of it because, yeah, you're right. Why isn't that some kind of digital file that they're playing? Right. I thought it was weird, but it might just be a show aesthetic thing. I don't know. So...

We see Milchak going back to Irv and Dylan with the fruit baskets. Parenthetically, I'd love to know how he got all those there. I'll buy that. Okay, did he make two separate trips? Because I don't think you can get more than one fruit basket on the back of that motorcycle. And you can't stack them. No, he's making two separate trips.

Jesus, I guess so. Right? Or at least a sidecar. With a truck. Yeah. Or, you know, they make lockable. I don't know. With the pineapple, it's a pretty big basket. Yeah. But, you know, they make storage solutions for motorcycles. So, yeah, Mark, I love that when Mark's going back in. You see the five X people like Mark W is screaming about, I just broke a lease in Grand Rapids for three days of work and he's threatened to sue them. And he says, fuck you, Lumen, which hits on last season.

Yeah, the sentiment is growing. Everything that Lumen is doing is pushing more people away. Yeah. And next we see Dylan and Irvin Helly stagger back in with five in five minute increments. Man, I thought I was on to something because I noticed that Helena did not change her watch. Oh, no. And I'm like, fuck, this must mean something because, you know, I rewound it. And the first thing you see is Irv strapping on the severed watch. And I'm like, oh, I've got this is the smoking gun because.

I will say that, by the way, this is an announcement for everybody. Me and Jim are partnering with Pete Peppers on YouTube. And every Friday at 9 p.m. Eastern, we're going to be doing a Q&A with the listeners and kind of just talking about the episode and running through the theories and all.

that kind of stuff uh and one thing that shocked me because you know i watched this episode and then it came out and i saw people's reaction i never would have thought that people would be this divided on whether what we're seeing down there is helly are or Helena up to no good, but Oh my God, it felt like an even split like 50, I'd think it's like 90, 10, but it feels like a 50, 50 split.

Well, I calculated some stats based on the feedback we got. So maybe our audience is just primed because we believed it so heavily. Yeah, it could be. We'll talk about it. And everyone that's on the Helly R just dismissed our podcast for rubes. Rubes and idiots. Here's the thing, though. She looks so nervous getting into this elevator. Why would she be nervous unless she were...

like that excited kind of nervous or I don't know. Cause Mark's going to have. Unconsensual relations with her. And that's gross to think about, you know, I don't know. I mean, I guess, but. I want to get away from the watch thing because Dylan also did the whole thing and he did not switch his watch either.

So are Dylan and Helly just rocking the severance watch outside of work? Maybe. Because I thought it was going to be the smoking gun to use against the Helly R-Truthers, but unfortunately. Dylan also not severed. down there. No. Um... Yeah, I don't know. It's so it's like all we got is facial expressions because I got the same thing that she stares directly at the camera as the things closing and she looks apprehensive, fearful, I would say. Yeah.

It's really interesting knowing now how she feels about her Annie having this relationship with Mark to recontextualize some of the stuff from the first episode where she's... asking questions of mark right like things akin to like you trust me right and like we're we're we've we've got a thing going here don't we and now i'm looking at all this through the lens of this is

A woman who is very curious about this side of life going and infiltrating a relationship that she is not familiar with, but knows exists. Yeah. and i don't know if i'm supposed to be interpreting it that way clearly not the show has not told us that yet and i don't know if they are waiting for this big reveal

On something that I already think is like 99% certain. I, I hope this isn't like a season long mystery because man, I feel like I'll tear the community apart just by, I don't know, either we all got to get religion or not. because yeah it's it's like one of those gold dress blue dresses like the other people just cannot see it man yeah uh and it seems so immediately obvious to me i like yes from from the moment she appears on screen i'm like that's not heli

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like a little bit behind you, but he is equally convinced. But yeah. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? We'll find out. Oh, the other thing that this conclusively proves is the five months is bullshit. This was a weekend when Mark returns the office for the first time. And then the day after he got fired, he's back. So there's been.

No real time elapsed for the Audis and Melchick is telling peeps of big lies to the innies, which we pretty much knew. But this is confirmation. Yeah, right. So after work at night, Mark returns to his house and he finally sees Kobelvig seemingly packing up her possessions to leave. He angrily confronts her, demanding to know what all this was about and what it has to do with Gemma.

Kobelvig finally snaps, screaming and honking and nearly running Mark over as she peels off into the night. End episode. I mean, the look when he says, do you know something about Jemma? That look says it all.

Oh, the shaky breathing. She had a huge reaction. The debating inside her mind whether or not to say something or stay loyal to Lumen. Yeah, it... drives her insane in the moment uh and obviously he can't get answers right now he's not going to sit down at the end of this episode and get all the information

But this has got to put him back on to Devin might be up this because like the fact that he brought it up means that what Devin has said has been percolating back there and salvage reaction is a bingo. Yep. So his mission now has got to be. find cobel Vig and figure out what she knows.

Yeah, because up to that point, her whole attitude is just dismissive. Oh, Mark, you're so stupid. Oh, Mark, you're so gullible. Oh, Mark. Oh, you sold your soul for a pineapple. Weren't you quitting? And as soon as he mentioned Jim, that. brings her up short and also just provokes this intense rage. She has a tap into the malice of her tempers. Yeah, I think it's because she's torn between being a compassionate human being and being a loyal luminite, right?

I think she wants to tell Mark. I think she kind of cares about Mark, but if she tells him she's disloyal to the other things she believes in. Yeah, I don't know where it's going because like part of me is like, you know, my pet theory is Miss Koval, Koval, Koval big, Koval, Koval, Koval big Jesus. that she is somehow the reincarnation of Kier's original wife. Uh-huh. And I'm starting to get another baby theory off of that, that, um, Gemma, uh, like the Cobell is the imperfect copy.

and they're wanting to perfect her with jimma and she is maybe opposed to that or maybe she's on board with that because it's what was best for kier i don't i don't know There's some things I'm playing with. I'm throwing out there. Yeah, it's so weird. Gemma's personality or affect down in the severed floor. Absolutely nothing like the Gemma we hear about. Severance at ball move dot com. If you'd like to send us an intercorporate email.

We like to read it. You can also support what we're doing here at Bald Move, support.baldmove.com to get ad-free feeds, extra. information, bonus podcast, all kinds of stuff. Check it out. Support.baldmove.com. Jim, I'm assuming that we have a decent amount of feedback on a popular, much anticipated puzzle box show. Am I wrong? You are not wrong. There was a ton of it to the point where I made some pretty brutal cuts. Sorry if your email doesn't get read, but we have a boatload.

Everybody who wrote in either for or against the Helena is helly theory. I just totaled everybody up. I'm only going to read. I'm because I almost did. I almost did a poll and I kind of think I'm there's still time because we're recording this before the fact. I could put out something. It's like, hey, before you watch tonight's episode of Severance, where are you at with the Cobell?

Or I'm sorry, with the L-E-R Helena. Yeah. Yeah, if you want to, go for it. As it stands, out of the emails we got and the sentiment I detected, there were eight for Helena being... helena and there were two for her being heli down on the severed floor so our audience at least seems on track with us which kind of makes sense

Yeah, we've self-selected for the people who agree with this. Right, right. And then there was a one. Come on, sheeple, wake up. It's Helly. It's Helly R. This is a test and you've all failed. Guess so. And I'll read one email that concerns this from TFN. I'm still not 100% convinced it's Helena and not Ellie. My first watch, all signs pointed to Helena. That just seems too obvious for the show too soon. So it's either her with a twist added to it.

or it's heli but she's been reprogrammed a bit to not remember what happened outside yeah i will say that That's weirdly the strongest evidence that they're making it so obvious in the first episode that it's not Hellier, that there must be something else to it. And it is interesting that...

You know, we talked about, oh, maybe she took a different elevator or maybe it was a different process. She's going the full separate process. So she's riding down that elevator. They've either custom deactivated her chip, reintegrated her. with heli are which would be weird um or she's severed i mean those yeah those are the options yeah yeah

She could be reintegrated. I don't know. I think the twist and the way they'll kind of worm out of this is I assume very soon they will confirm or convincingly deny it. And that way we can get to the actual important thing that they're doing here, which is forcing her to grapple with her affection for Mark and his role as a... freaking test subject and slave in her organization that's what I think they're really getting at like the twist here is she actually has affection for Mark

And that, that is what we did not expect. Like this, this could be Helena, but a Helena who wants to experience something that her in he has. uh a helena who's being forced to confront the humanity every any and that her famous propaganda is bullshit yeah i can see it Yeah. And in that way, like turning Helena into Heli at some point, because we all kind of wondered about that, too. At the end of last season, we found out that was Heli was actually the daughter of the CEO.

Yeah, is there going to be some kind of arc where she turns against Lumen? I could see it happening with her and Mark. Yeah. Agreed. Let's move over to Alan who says it was strange and incongruous. Incongruous. I don't know how to pronounce that. That Irv laughed in response to the orientation video. I expected him to be shook by his experience with Bird and indeed later on he absolutely was. So what was the deal with his jovial reaction at that point? I mean, fair.

Any Irv is above all else a square. He finds... things that other people think are funny and jokey annoying and he finds things that are straight up lumen propaganda enjoyable and comforting so it's like it made perfect sense for me to him have an inappropriate out of step reaction from the other group yeah but he is in a moment here where his mind is really on oh for sure

For sure. But I mean, it's it's the it's the laughing in a funeral. Like sometimes you have like in you can't you can't abstract everyone's reactions to. uh what the typical things are so right i mean the next scene he's trying to kill himself so yeah tears the tears of a clown All right, let's go over to Randy, who actually sent in a link to some information about the place where they are filming these scenes at Lumen, which I thought was cool. This is a real life building.

It's located in Holmdel, New Jersey, and it's the former home of Bell Labs, which is like a very prestigious research firm. Obviously all roots all the way back to Alexander Graham Bell himself. So that's his company when he started. And this building is just the building. i mean the only real cosmetic changes they've done to it is slap a lumen logo on the outside it's meant as like this a giant is that sculpture of skier is that like alexander graham beller okay no no no no no this yeah but

Yeah, it is. That is I can't. So that's an old building. It looks so modern. Yeah, no, it really does. It was designed in like the 50s as like a modernist piece. And they. It's a weird place nowadays because it's meant to be some kind of community in a box essentially in the suburbs of new jersey where you have like all your schools and your jobs and your fitness and your residential all in this one self-contained building

It's like a city in a box. Yeah. Really weird place, which kind of fits with the aesthetic of the show, too. Seems like it'd be depressing to live there. Like it feels like living in like a mega city from Judge Dredd. You know, you're in this concrete box with, you know, you don't ever leave it. Yeah. But that's why it has such a massive... lobby because that's meant to be like a communal space with a common area thousands of people potentially congregating there yeah

Kind of crazy. Is that outside the actual building too? I figured that they're dressing up as some CG to add to the water tower and reflecting pool and the massive parking lots. But it also makes sense if they're at a massive parking lot. That's essentially a city in a box. Great location. Kudos to the location scouts. If you want to go look at it, I can include a link in the show notes.

They have a website. It's really interesting. Perfect. Let's go to MTB says so happy for the company of your coverage of my feed today. Two quick thoughts. One on the flashback style images of Miss Casey Gemma and whether she was voluntarily severed.

Does anything change in your thinking if you remember one of the very first things Devin ever said to Mark was that Gemma would be proud of him for having taken the job? It was right after they'd had that shitty experience at the no dinner dinner party.

Doesn't that suggest that Gemma was pro-Lumen to at least some degree the whole time, at least since before Mark went to work for Lumen, which happened only after she died? I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Gemma was the first of the two to go work for Lumen and to have been severed voluntarily. Maybe for some research studies she believed in, or some culty reason that eventually escalated into her current existence, where she's dead on the outside and living permanently inside.

Let me think about that idea, that maybe she was severed before Mark. I would feel somewhat burned by the fact that that hasn't come up in conversation. Because it feels like something that would have. And all the times that him and his family have talked about Gemma and why he started the job and why they're skeptical of it. Somebody would have said, you know, Mark, just because Gemma was there.

Like it feel like something that would have come up because, you know, obviously, you know, two years into the situation, they're familiar with it. We're not. It sometimes feels artificial when people talk about things that you'd already know. But I feel like that would have come up.

They like directly address things that that should have come up for. Yeah. And I do think there's a point where it's too late to reveal information that essential, uh, in the show, right? Season five, they suddenly reveal that I might be too late. Now they could do something where... some kind of clever severance thing or double severance or some of those other administrative protocols that would make it make sense and cool in retrospect. But just my first blush is I feel like that's a rug pull.

Yeah, a bit. I'm with you. Yeah. And number two on... You can do anything as long as you do it well. Fair. Number two on Heli and Helena, your conversation about Heli being Helena alongside your talk about how different Mark S is to his usual self makes me think that Heli Helena is a red herring. Could it be that Mark S is Audi Mark?

Or that he's successfully integrated between seasons. Maybe what you're reading is Helena posing as Helly might just be Helly noticing the man she knows is a little off. Ooh. Unless they're getting really tricky with time. I don't see it. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I mean, he brings up a point like about him sort of seeming lost running around the hallways that you can expect. You can explain that with he's out of sorts because he's just had traumatic experiences all around.

So again, I know what I said at the beginning of the podcast about you can't believe anything that they say in public things, but you know... Adam Scott and Ben Stiller have a podcast that they started last week where they recapped all the previous season with a bunch of interviews. It's a really fun podcast, but they talked about the envisioning of that and it started with Erickson and Stiller like. talking to adam scott and it's like well if this happened to you

and you're running down, and you're going down the elevator, what would you do? And he says, I would run. I'd make a beeline. I'd make a desperate run for wellness, because I just got to find her. Mm-hmm. And then they started kicking the idea around. It's like, oh, that's correct. Because it's like a mirror of like last season where Mark's walking down that long hallway to get the MDR. And it's very staid and slow. And he's just going through it. Now it's the frantic version.

Yeah, it's good. I feel like there's a lot. I mean, and I, again, I'm skeptical. Like, I'm not taking that as gospel, but that. feels like a perfectly artistic way to go about it and a perfect explanation for why mark is running like a chicken with his head cut off yeah i can see it

All right, let's go to Renee from Yosemite. He says, how did Mark know about the speaker box and that it connects to the board? Can I recall him being present when Miss Cobell was speaking at them? I don't know. I really don't know. How he knows about the speaker that connects to the board. Hmm. Yeah, how does he know? He gets an orientation that everybody else doesn't. yeah was the box hooked up when he got his promotion there's god he's gotta have seen it because if he hasn't that's

Yeah, unfortunately that I just recently I watched those episodes, but it was a couple months ago and a bunch of speculation and other things have come to light. So I don't but like. yeah surely that's got to be something we can find i'm gonna check it out for next week because if if he never saw that box then it's a bit of a mistake yeah yeah

There's no, there's no way that's, that's gotta mean something. Right. Ian K says, I was listening to Adam Scott and Ben Stiller's new podcast and they mentioned that the locked doors in season one weren't a new installation.

Doors were always there. They just removed an outer layer to reveal the original locked doors. What? They always had locks on the doors. They just didn't use them. Wait. And why remove a layer? For macro data refinement, they've always had... armed doors according to Ian Kay's listening of the podcast the official podcast yeah I haven't listened to all of them but like that doesn't seem like the story they were telling but okay what does that mean

So what? What does that imply? They were ready. They knew something like this could happen, maybe. Something like this had happened before. But why the artifice? Why the panels over the door? Just... Give them a key to it and say, yeah, you're not locked in. Again, I don't subscribe to this theory, but if I want a devil's advocate, if I want to steel man it, I would say that...

that would point to the fact that this isn't the first time Lumen has tried to do some bullshit with reforms. Like this has happened before. And when they restarted it, it's like, well, we, you know, we can't. It's just like what it wasn't. It wasn't a cobell that said that the best way to keep a man prisoner is to make him believe he's free. So like that seems that seems exactly what Lumen would do.

But that kind of shocks me that they talked about that. So, like I said, the only implication, I guess, is that this isn't the first round of bullshit reforms that Lumen has tried to sell people on. It's the only thing that makes sense. Yeah. The.

ODR massacre or whatever I'm sure they install the locks then uh joe r says curious on your thoughts on this not sure if it was mentioned in your coverage of episode 201 mark w in the new crew mentions how his previous branch team was a bunch of dirtbags and never met quota uh He's talking about the 5X guys, I guess. In chapter five of the UUR, it states, your job needs you, not the other way around. Wondering if Lumen truly needs Mark S and company.

We know that Mark had the freshman fluke and the team seemed to perform quite well. Maybe in other situations, Lumen could just dispose of someone causing trouble. However, maybe Marques and company is the key to bringing Keir Egan back from the dead in some fashion. We now essentially know they're refining Miss Casey Gemma. Well, not as of the time of writing of this. I don't think we knew that. Now I'm pretty certain. New shit has come to light.

mark is for some reason absolutely a linchpin and what they need to do this cold harbor file which is probably jemma yeah no you're right yeah i mean this this email seems 100 right that's Kind of the subtext here is that they need not just his expertise, but him specifically. Yeah. uh i saw okay i saw another i can't remember why i saw this but that that made me think of it that i thought this is a pretty neat theory that

So, so right. We're, we're saying that knowing someone intimately is a cheat code to refining them. Well, yeah. Yeah. Is it significant that they put Helena as an MDR, macro data refiner? And if they're, you know, the perpetuity wing and that they're trying to like, you know, there's been all this vague theories about them trying to refine the immigrants of Egan's. Like, is it something only Egan can do? She's like learning on the job training and what she'll be doing is leading a team.

to refining the deceased board of directors or whatever the fuck they're doing. And it's, she had to be an NDR. So it's a publicity stunt, but also it was another thing that they were doing. Serves a purpose. Yeah. Yeah, if the publicity stunt is really just an add-on benefit. I can see it. I don't know. But yeah, they definitely need certain people for certain reasons. Yeah.

It doesn't seem like they have to be consciously aware of it. Like Mark doesn't know anything about Gemma. Mark S. And Helly R wouldn't know anything about the Eagans. But there has to be something like biological, like in the bones that's crucial if this theory is right.

Yeah. Something that bleeds over. Yeah. All right. Let's move over to Latanya. He says, when I first saw the first few minutes of season two, episode one, the camera movements used to follow Marcus reminded me of the title sequence for season one.

The title sequence was glaringly missing in this first episode, but I remember it being so unsettling. I got the same unsettling feeling during the scenes when Mark first got off the elevator and the camera swiveled around him and followed him as he ran through the severance floor hallways. As if the animations from the title sequence were being brought to life. Yes, you're right. That does give you that same otherworldly kind of off-kilter vibe. And I...

I can't remember if I included this email or I cut it, but someone had pointed out how it's basically like not possible to film it the way they filmed it. These are shots you can't get if that were a physical space. I think that helps sell that too. Yeah. And I, they detect a link to how they did that. There was treadmills involved. There was mocap, synchronized cameras. There was moving walls and green screen. And they said it was like 10 or 11 different shots.

all blended together to look like a one. So nice. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't, it wasn't real. I mean, there's a lot of the, the real hallway that they're doing, but they, they had to do a lot to pull that off. And I'm feeling like this new. especially this new intro, it feels like an AI made it, right? It's got that, like...

Kind of nonsensical like none of this connects. What are you doing? You're putting together images of old men babies. That's stupid. Yeah Yeah, yeah, it's it's you're hallucinating. Yeah you're just spitting out garbage and that's what it feels like although i know it was handcrafted by a person and so it's intentional and now i start to analyze it and go well why is this that way

I even go back to last that you can say the same thing about the last credit sequence. It does feel like some kind of hallucinating AI generated movie thing. That's it knows. Yeah. how to do things and how they should interact, but also very loosely understands the relationship between things and how they connect and what they mean.

Right. Tony H says in season two, episode one, when Irv and Dylan are by the fire escape and Irv's trying to leave, why didn't they take advantage of the situation to talk to each other's Audi? Like Irv could have stepped through the door, transitioned to his Audi and Dylan could have asked him some questions.

and vice versa Irv knows that his Audi has an interest in the inner workings of the severed floor so he'd likely he'd be likely to engage Dylan in a conversation I think Irv just had more pressing matters on his mind than to try and come up with some arrangement like that and Dylan too he's trying to prevent a man from killing himself yeah

His goal is just to stop what's happening, not to try and leverage it. Mm-hmm. I mean, yeah, that's the whole point of the scheme is Dylan truly cares about Irv. Yeah. Even if it's for selfish reasons. But it's not like there's definitely some genuine. And in fact, it's like the selfish reasons were there as this kind of an emotional distance prop. Right. Right. Like this is how our relationship always is. So, yeah.

It'd be gay to admit that I love you. So what I need you is to help me be good at my job. That's not gay. That's insulting saying that to a gay man. But. Quite. Yeah. But it's something Dylan would do. It's something Dylan would do. Probably is. Yeah. All right. Andrew says, I believe that Mrs. Wong is doing clerical work when she's dropping the zeros into columns on the computer.

similarly as obtuse as the macro data program. She looks up expectantly when Miltrick enters the room and then when he slams the door at her, Mrs. Wong sees it as an opportunity to goof off by taking out the toy. I think the visual similarity between the work on the computer and the hoop game is pointing out the way the line between work and play is blurred in a hyper capitalist system. How many modern video games are just work simulators?

How many of our leisure activities are being gamified to be competitive and productivity based? Are you keeping your sleep restfulness stat up? Dude, I think about this all the time. The way I will sprint back to my bed in Stardew Valley to make sure my character is well-rested so he gets that old bonuses. Oh, yeah. But my meat sack... Fuck all that consideration. Bare minimum of sleep. Shit food. Poor quality tools. I don't got I don't got gold. I don't got gold water sprinklers over here.

I don't got diamond pick axes. Yeah. No, Andrew continues. The theme of this season appears to be the way we choose to dedicate our lives to work when given the illusion of a choice. the ne's sit down to the workstation at the end of the episode acquiescing to the system they had just openly revolted against given the kinder lumen makeover the only challenge milchik really offers to the rebellious spirit is what do you want to do you either work or cease to exist

And then what's the point of fighting a system that you seemingly volunteered to participate in? Damn. Asking the real questions. I feel indicted. I know. I feel seen in like a searchlight spotlight kind of way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, it seems like we're living in a society where plausible deniability went from... This is all you need all you need all you need is like a little like a like a little bit of doubt

that what you're doing is hurting people or leading to bad outcomes or hurting yourself and you can just cling to that and what's it going to do? Kill ya? And if you're dead, you can't learn. So yeah. Yeah. And once you need the thing to actually live. No. And it's a system that you can't escape unless everybody decides to escape it. Right.

Or enough people decide to escape it because enough prisoner dilemma with 8 billion people. Yep. All it takes is one person to collaborate and we're all we're all we're all fucked yeah seemingly yeah all right nick writes in and says i've been an og listener since the walking dead days

Even donated some Bitcoin back in 2018. Oh, man. What could that be worth now if we still had it? This is my first time writing in, but I wanted to thank you for the countless hours of joy and intrigue you've given me over the years.

I was hoping you'll come out with a light roast coffee soon. Ah, we were leaning more in the other direction. Yeah. Or, I mean, you're, you're, I think the first person to request the light roast, a lot of people requesting the dark roast, which is something we're working on in the background, but, uh,

Yeah, speaking of being fed a load of crap and acquiescing, everybody's trained by Starbucks to like that dark roast, man. Right. Just burn it until you can't taste anything. Yeah. Put enough milk in it, it'll be a treat. yeah it's like uh it's like putting on ketchup on your well-done steak not there's anything wrong with that intrinsically look i have opinions opinions dark roaster for espressos come on yeah yeah

But I don't know. I could see us having three skews. The number one, light, medium, and dark. Sure. It makes sense. He did write in to say something more than that. While watching the season two premiere of Severance, I noticed something interesting during the claymation sequence. In the background, there's a song that sounds similar to the green Christmas, white Christmas claymation dance sequence from the Heatmiser, I guess, the guy who does this dance. Wait, what? Which...

Which, what, what, what? Because I'm familiar with the Heatmiser. What is he saying? He does a green Christmas, white Christmas claymation dance. The music that's in that severance claymation. thing is very similar to what's in that Heatmiser thing. I don't know. I've never seen it. But it might just be a nod to, yeah, this is the style we were going for. Yeah. It definitely felt, was that rank and bass? Yeah. Which I always thought was rank and bass. Yeah. Silly, I know.

We need to find that work-life balance. We'll be right back. Reintegration is complete. To avoid further non-worker-related interruptions, please see the company policy on advertisement avoidance at support.baldmove.com. All right, let's go to Christopher who says, so if the Helly is Helena theory is true, which it sure seems true, I would be very interested in subsequent episodes to see how Mr. Milkshake interacts with her. Is he more timid? Does he treat her the same?

Also, is he extra stressed when the other innies act out? Surely he would need to know about the undercover boss scenario, right? I mean, think of it like this. If you were a middle manager and the daughter of your multinational corporation was undercover in your apartment, wouldn't you constantly be on edge making sure you do everything perfect and by the book? Yeah. So what does it mean when they're not?

I mean, and it's all on him now, right? Like before he had the cover of, well, I was just doing what Ko Belvig told me. Right. And she got fired and he got promoted. So now it's all on him. Yeah. In this episode, he took full responsibility of the Mark S outburst, but the board didn't care. They need him that much. Yeah. So. But how much do they need Milchak? He better watch himself.

I mean, it's never a good sign when your immediate predecessor gets fired under shady circumstances and you're stepping in those shoes. Yeah. I mean, it can be fine, but whoo. Yeah, and I don't expect things to get calmer and cooler down there. I expect Milchuk's job is going to be in jeopardy. Oh, especially now that they know it's possible and they can do this stuff and they've been brought back. And like, if anything, this is going to embolden them.

Now they got to start like, you know, they moved the security equipment and they've moved around the floors and Mark's PD map isn't right anymore. Like they can definitely stym them, but.

this like why would you ever give up if you're any now because you know it's possible if you keep on kicking at the at the cage you'll find a weakness and as you're saying this I'm I it's making me think Lumen is crazy for bringing them back, but they bring them back, which means they absolutely need this team like they've laid off entire branches before.

They don't need any given branch, but they need this team. They need Mark. How is Mark so vital to the general, like the large work that Lumen is doing? Unless it's this Gemma connection. And we know that the freshman fluke apparently led to a massive change in the efficiency of the MDR department. So it's like he might just be a savant at this or the personal connection to Gemma that he's just refining her 25 times. So the 25th time.

Sure. All right, Steve says, looks like it was Keanu Reeves. We, I guess, confirmed this moments after we called it, but there was a deadline article that talked about the cameo. They wanted somebody who... uh, was a recognizable voice, but had a kindness in their voice. And yeah, I think Keanu Reeves gets there. Uh, David says, has anybody mentioned cure mentioned the cure backwards? is basically reich

If Helly or Helena is revolved into the next leader, she would be the Third Reich. Just found this interesting when pondering the name. Other than the world domination ambitions, I don't... Know that there's a lot of there there, but okay. How is she the third Reich? Because there's been like, she'd be like the potential ninth CEO or tenth CEO. I think our Reich, our empire counts are a little off there. Yeah.

I'm with you. I don't know. I don't know. Just why not? Why not throw that in there? You rearrange the words Mark Scout smells nice. I am Lord Voldemort. Good Lord. Bradley from Indiana says speaking of good Lord. Rickon equals Lord of the goat hole. I just got this targeted ad for a short service trailer on Facebook. Is that Rickon? It's just showing the guy with the antlers. He's like, oh, is that Rickon? Rickon, Lord of the goat hole slash hill.

I felt the chill hand of an icy theory claw grabbing my heart on the live stream with Pete last week because someone pointed out that Rickon. is literally Rick in. Yeah. It would be a hell. I mean, that would be a hell of a coincidence. I'm not on the Rickens evil theory because even this episode, like it doesn't. I mean, I guess he's off of the.

You know, he's trying to draw attention from Jim being alive. But like, I feel like that's and he was highly skeptical of Milchak. We didn't talk about this when Milchak is like wanting to stay like Rickins, I, you know, like and then he's kind of surprised and Mark agreed. I'm still not buying Rick and Zeevil, but Rick in is the first clutch at my heart from a theory I don't want to believe taking purchase. Oh my God.

All right. Oh, let's go to Brian H. Who says when the gang is in the break room talking about what they did. Helly gives a terrible lie. A night gardener. If she were Helena, wouldn't she have come up with something better? to tell the group, or is she as much of a shambolic group as Mr. Milkshake? So it's the only point that makes me think he could be, it could be Helly lying instead of Elena spying. Yeah, a lot of people cite that as evidence.

That's fair. That feels like a naive, ignorant thing that any would say. Like a night gardener. We don't know that those don't exist. That's what I'm saying. Like, Irv said that, but not in like a deeply skeptical, like, oh, Night Gardener. And there's also, you know, like just if you think about it for one second, you know, from an like. Where do gardeners go home after a long day of gardening to another garden?

I don't know. They go to their apartment or their house or wherever they stay and they'll be out in the yard, maybe walking their dog or getting their mail and they'll look like a night gardener. They don't garden at night. fair yeah they gotta get home they don't have lockers to change into in the garden although what kind of garden is he the more important question is what kind of fucking garden is he doing in the winter but like irv doesn't know what the weather is like you're right so yeah

And that's like I said, the none of the innies know what fucking season it is. They don't even it's not like they bring bulky coats down with them. So, yeah, there's something about the way he says it, like a night gardener and she.

her response is fucking bizarre too like it's not yes oh yeah i guess that's that's strange maybe he wasn't a gardener no he she says maybe he had a different job during the day yeah what so he is a night gardener no it makes no sense and i don't know why it's such a sloppy lie that's so poorly thought out but also they didn't have five months to practice they this was something they threw together a weekend like

I think 24 hour less than 24 hours notice like they fire mark at 9 a.m. By next 9 a.m. They have to be ready to go with all this. Right. It's a really bad story. And she's also. Making stuff up on the fly, too, because they're asking questions. But surely she should have anticipated that the first thing they would do is... debrief each other i guess that's like 24 hours if you had one thing to do practice your cover story yep

Brian also says we have a moment where Irv tells Dylan about his Audi's paintings. We have discussed the implications of these paintings. but I think there's something we're missing. Irv paints them from the perspective of Mr. Milchick with the down arrow lit up with red. Was Irv previously in management? Is that why he has a list of employees in his trunk? And there were a couple of other emails that came in.

that also sort of had this question about Irv's past. William from Ottawa and Matt from Bristol. William says, did Milkshake bring Irv and someone else only to tell the other person to go into the elevator while Irving watched? And Derving maybe has a similar role to Grainer and Milkshake and escorted people to the test floor. And Matt wonders if he previously worked for Luminate in an unsevered capacity. I'll...

All of those are possibilities, I suppose. Especially with the Burt stuff we found out today. There is something fishy going on with Burt. Yeah. But Irv's... Audi is working with someone to bring down. Yes. And knowing that kind of. throws a little cold water on my theory that it was Irv's innie who much like Pete had seen the security room had seen the testing floor elevator I was thinking oh maybe his innie saw and it bled through because he wasn't sleeping now

Audi Irv's got this image in his head, but knowing he's actively working with someone against Lumen, to me, says Audi Irv has seen that. And he got the message. Tells me he's trying to communicate the other direction. So maybe any herb hasn't seen it, but how do you see it? They anticipated that. They anticipated his Amy seeing like a, it stands to reason that he said my Amy got the message. That means you anticipated the message that you had a message that the guy would see. Right.

Right. Which means they were anticipating this heist somehow? Maybe it's a two-way communication. Maybe Annie Irv saw... The elevator. Maybe it's just like once Rigabi, if he's in communication with Rigabi, once Rigabi gave Mark the door key, it was just a matter of time before they were trying to handle everything. But God, that's a reach.

That makes it seem like it was an inside job somehow. Maybe Ragabi when she was inside, when she was doing the severance stuff, saw the testing floor, maybe got. photo of it or something or relayed that information to Irv and now he's relaying it to his Annie to try and get him to search for that yeah I can see that Ragabi being kind of the link there because she did work

As an unsevered employee for Lumen doing severance stuff. Yep. Seemed to be high up, like maybe the leader of that project. Yeah. uh matt from bristol also has another uh thought here um i'm surprised more has been made of the reference to inspectors in the finale of season one where mark asked evan if there are inspectors it hasn't any

And she says, yes. How do you think this will pay off? I don't know. The petition thing is interesting. Mark has the legal right to petition for something in regards to Lumen and severance. So I think those are kind of connected. Like there might be inspectors that would go in and do something. I'm predicting the next episode. Mark's going to be going to go back and have a heart to heart with Devin and be like, OK, I'm ready to hear what you're trying to tell me.

Tell me about this lawyer. Yeah. Yeah. How can we get a message into my any? How can we do something? Because I don't think the legal route is going to work or. Especially since they have an idea of how they can firm it up. She's got some kind of plan, right? Yeah. Mark just needs to listen to it. Seems like it.

uh mac then use ace of spades is surely going to be played to the innies at some point this season causing herb's mind to be blown do you agree he's going to guess it happens in episode six wait what do you say they're going to play ace of spades to the innies and Irv's mind will just like rupture. Oh, oh, oh, I thought.

I thought it was Ace of Bass. And I completely, I was like, what? I was going through my library of Ace of Bass songs trying to think, which is the one that has something about, you know, okay. All right, it makes a lot more sense. It's going to hear Wheel of Fortune. Like it's a Manchurian agent activation when he hears that. Oh, are they conditioning?

Are they conditioned? Like, is this all part of some conditioning thing that they're going to try to get some kind of non-obvious nonverbal cue that will. Oh, maybe he knows that. alongside Defiant Jazz and all the other things, Ace of Spades is one of those songs. And he's trying to connect it between the music and the paintings and the image. There's hoping. That's how we get the melon bar.

Yeah. He's going to have the Irv Melon Bard. He's going to request Ace of Spades and boom. That's the kill. That's the kill word. Honestly, I could see it. The weirder things have happened in this show. Uh, let's go to Brian K who says Devin's indulgence of Rickon has piqued, uh, questions about why she is with the man. I would speculate that Devin encouraged Mark to undergo severance.

Devin, being a good sister, coerced or convinced Rickon to move to Keir. I think that's the name of the town. And their agreement was that Rickon would have decision-making authority after they moved. As such, Devin is not... indulging her husband but meeting the terms of their agreement hmm it's a lot of speculation without evidence a lot

Although I will say that it's something I've thought, like, why the hell are all these people that didn't work for Lumen and don't. Why would you live in a Lumen town? For sure. But I guess people live in Bentonville, Arkansas, that don't work for the Waltons. Don't work for Walmart. Yeah. I know how big here is. It doesn't seem like it's a huge Berg, but yeah. I don't think anybody lived in Jonestown that didn't work with Jim Jones.

I didn't believe in his stuff. I don't know. You might be on to something there. Yeah. Let's go to Steve and Angela. I have some thoughts on Miss Wong. My partner and I were watching season two, episode one. And we picked up what we thought was some foreshadowing during the scene where the new MDR team sat down to play the icebreaker ball game. Mark S. introduced himself, then paused for a moment thinking about something to say about himself. The photo of him and Gemma flashed into his mind.

and he immediately took a significant look at Miss Wong, as if recognizing something about her. It was a long moment, where even Dario and Mark W. looked at both of them. We got a pretty strong impression that perhaps Miss Wong is actually Mark S. and Gemma's daughter.

Was it some part of his locked-off mind seeing them both in her, recognizing her? We've been trying to work out the logistics of the theory. Supposedly, it's been two-ish years since Gemma's crash, so the timeline doesn't fit with her being pregnant during the incident. Would have been difficult for her to hide it from Mark earlier over several months. But the show does play with the idea of severance around pregnancy. The only thing that maybe fits is linked to the.

version 25 T's and more general clone theories. Perhaps there are many clones of Gemma and the pregnant one was swapped out. It's an interesting theory. It did come up a lot during Pete and I show last week. But I don't I don't know. It always bothers me sometime when people like use that kind of racial cues to be like, oh, there's two Asians on the show. They must be.

Right, right. They must be related. There's also the obvious difficulty of how... Well, yeah, yeah. Some shows just do that, yeah. But it's also it's like it's there's the obvious like, you know, you got to start constructing a lot more theories. And Mark's been previously severed because he's what we know he said is that him and Jim had tried to have kids a lot of times. Unless you have speculate that, like you said, she was secretly pregnant.

And then gave birth and then they rapidly age this thing up that might have something to do with the baby goats. I mean, who knows? Who knows? I'm throwing goat bricks from my glass goat hole here. But but still, it's just like, yeah, I need it's an interesting thing to keep an eye on, but I need to see a little bit more evidence. Yeah, I'm with you. All right, Gene.

Just piggybacking on our theory that severing a coma patient would create a functional innie outie mark and a desperation move allowed lumen to sever Gemma. Wait, what? What is this theory? We had a theory like that? What's the theory again? Piggybacking on your theory that severing a coma patient will create a functional innie, Audi marched in a desperation move allowed Lumen to sever Gemma. Is, I think, the add-on to it.

I think that I think we are. Didn't we already add that on? But yeah, that's one of the theories I've been kicking around. The fact that like Gemma in a coma is in a coma, but they severed her and the places in her brain that. were bifurcated weren't affected by the coma so she's a functional person when she's in any mode yeah and then when she's at outie mode she's still in a persistent coma state gotcha again

Very little evidence of that. Yeah, I mean, he puts a little bit of heat on that, saying it might be illegal in the world, so that's... perhaps why he kept it secret from everyone and this might contribute to his alcoholism knowing he might have made a deal with the devil and his motivation to become severed himself in order to reunite with her.

So my objection hiding a lot of shit. Yeah. Mark, knowing about that, like I'd start to feel used by the show. If all the conversations that he's had with his wife or his sister and his brother-in-law and his dates and this never came up. never yeah this feels like a thing that you would need to clue the audience into and then have it be something that's tearing at him knowing he's lying when he's getting all self-righteous about you didn't see your wife's body burned

Knowing he's lying, that would be an interesting angle, but not knowing it, I can't get behind that. Like I said, you can do anything as long as you do it well, but... the degree of difficulty on that would be, I think pretty high. Uh, we've got EP. There's, um, Aaron said something in the last waffle potty that I couldn't shake.

And calling Mark ungovernable, he reminded me of how kids change when they enter adolescence. In that light, it's easy to see how the end of last season was symbolic of a child's first rebellion. entering season two we then see how difficult it is for authority figures to get a preteen or teen to play along let alone comply with the rule they don't like upon rewatch mr milchak reminded me of an exasperated parent or junior high teacher

Fuck you, Mr. Melchick. Yeah. Right. Fuck you, dad. Fuck you. Yeah, nuts. That tracks. We saw him fake cheerfulness through his own feelings, offer new snacks and vending machines. New levels of privacy by removing cameras. New freedoms with sanctioned hall passes. Offer bribes trying to split up the clique that threatens the order. Envisioning the team as adolescents also gives us more depth to Irv's heartbreak.

It's easier to understand his grief and desperate urge to end it. The microdat team is surely headed for more rebellion this season. It'll be interesting to see how they fare and how the hall monitors and teachers react like Miss Wong, Milkshake, Helena, and the board. Yeah. Yeah. If if that is the story they're telling, I and I kind of can see it like playing with the idea of them being children and sort of growing out of that phase.

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And it's right. It's hard to put the genie back in the bottle once they start to get that little anti-authoritarianism in them. Yeah, you're not putting them back in. You're not getting them back in the cage very easily. But it does sound like a parent trying to compromise. I won't let you...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I won't let you do that, but I'll give you these kind of half measures. Yeah, I'll recognize your maturity, but not fully let go of the strings. And yeah, it tracks the metaphor tracks. All right, and finally, we have an email that's a little bit spoilery, potentially, assuming it's all true. Oh, this is something that came out of a commercial.

on the official podcast and it caused a bunch of kerfuffle because people are going to spot. So it's like, I don't think it's a huge thing, but a lot of people saw it and wish they hadn't. So this is the last thing we're going to do. If you don't want any spoilers, then turn off now. But yeah, let us hit it, Jim. All right, it's Jess from London writing in to flag something potentially spoilery.

I was listening to the severance official podcast hosted by Ben Stiller and Adam Scott for season two, episode one. I think Ben Stiller accidentally spoiled something in the ad for confluence, which was around the 31 minute mark. The ads are recorded specifically for each episode. So let's say something catchy about the episode.

they're recapping and then move into the ad. My first time listening to the episode, I heard Ben say something along the lines of, Mark is feeling the effects of reintegration. And I was shocked to hear that as reintegration wasn't something I was thinking of during the episode.

Perhaps this is what those flashes of Gemma were supposed to be. Even weirder, I went to check the ad again a few hours later and they changed it. The mention of reintegration is no longer there. And instead, Ben says something about the MDR team searching for answers after they implement.

Implementation of the overtime contingency. That is interesting. There's a couple possibilities here. Number one... someone who's not super familiar with the show uh wrote some copy that ben stiller didn't x out with his fat red pen like

How could he not know the context? It's not a great... Because I was about to make an analogy because sometimes our producer, Talitha, these... transitions that we do from commercial to stuff a lot of times she makes a first pass at writing that and sometimes she hasn't seen the shows but she just kind of like

you know she's heard us talk about it for yeah she reads a couple paragraphs on wikipedia and starts and she's heard us talk about it so but every once in a while she'll get one it's like i see where you're going with that but that actually is not quite and we'll but we we don't read it as is we fucking right

write it so it's like ben stiller you think he would go so the other thing is is that this happens this season maybe early in the season and they thought it would be or that this was a ad that was supposed to come out like an episode eight and it just got away from somebody ran it out of order now

I don't think it's a huge spoiler because there's a lot of things where it could just be this would be fucked up and bullshit. Or he could be speaking metaphorically, like reintegration in terms of being. confronted with the fact that you're out your any has escaped into the outside that could just be uh like it's it's integration and that mark's life is kind of like getting messy and getting it's it's starting to blend together um

But yeah, and the other thing is, it's not a huge spoiler because, like, don't we know that this is where this is going? Kind of, yeah. So it's like... I mean, getting Rigabi and Pete all involved, yeah. Yeah. Right. But it would be it's a bummer. Kind of like if mid season one, they had an ad about we know Mike's Mark's excited about his wife being back alive. Like what? Yeah. Yeah.

Um, it's unfortunate and regrettable, but I don't know. I don't know. It means anything. And also, even if it does, I don't think it would change. I was like, okay, Mark gets integrated at some point. Where does that get us? Yeah, it's a plot point. It's not a mind-blowing reveal. Like, it's not going to be revealed that he was reintegrated all along. Yeah. So, yeah. I feel like someone in season six of Game of Thrones said, Hodor's name means hold the door. Mm-hmm.

Okay, that's literally true, but also doesn't mean anything until you get to the context. Like, what door is he holding? What circumstances is it? What does it mean? You know, what? So it's like, yeah, no one in the market's reintegrated. That's like... 99% sure that's what would be the end result. Now, I guess it's a surprise if it happens this season. Do they use any mark as a weapon against Audi mark? Do they forcefully reintegrate him because they've tamed him so well?

And Audi Mark is out of control. I mean, there's something there is a little uncomfortable about how quick Mark is to sell out any Mark. For the promise of a little bit more pay. You know, it's like just like how like that plausible deniability. Oh, they're doing the right thing. I don't I don't need that. They're making steps to the right direction. Yeah. So, yeah, like.

Annie Mark being the real hero and Audi Mark being kind of a positioning into a villain. That'd be kind of a cruel interest, the idea that they're diametrically opposed. But then why would that be allowed to go on? Because it needs him so much. I was thinking Audi mark gets too close to the truth and he needs a little injection of cure so they reintegrate the cure pilled any mark you're filled Yeah. Based and cure pilled. Well, see, that was quite the email. Yeah. And quite the podcast.

Severance at baldmove.com if you'd like to get a hold of us. And if you'd like to support us, we'd appreciate it. Severance, I'm sorry, support.baldmove.com. Integrate your credit card. with our membership systems. It's safe, it's secure. As far as you know, support.ballloof.com. You have no idea what we're doing with your credit card number. Is that what you're trying to say?

It's not us as Patreon. We're completely unaffiliated. Oh, an independent board of Patreon. Yeah, we'll have an independent organization evaluate the finances of Patreon. That's it for us this week. Obviously can't wait for next week. And tune in tomorrow night, Friday, 9 p.m. Eastern. Jim will be joining our buddy Pete Peppers on his YouTube page. There will be a link to that in the show notes.

for a live discussion of this episode, and that'll be happening every episode this year, this season. Pete Peppers on YouTube. Again, check the show notes for links for all the stuff we talked about. Have a great weekend. and we'll see you next time.