S02E04 - Woe’s Hollow

I mean, maybe that maybe not jerk off in a national forest. I hike in those things. I don't want to be coming around some old timey Quaker looking dude just cranking his clock. That'd be just go off the pathways. I'd reach for my bear spray if I came upon a person doing that. Yeah. Welcome to the Waffle Potty, the officially unofficial podcast for Severance on Apple TV+. I'm Jim. I'm Aaron. And we're back for Season 2, Episode 4, called Woe's Hollow. Aaron, I will say this is not...

The bizarre, ridiculous episode I expected after Mark's reintegration procedure, but I did still very much enjoy it. How are you feeling about this one? I am so in the tank for this show. I realized when I was halfway through watching... The show this this episode that I'm starting to feel about this show the way I did about the leftovers. And if you're a long term bald new fan, you know that that is that is some hollowed ground. That is some woes hollow.

pond the type of sacredness that i'm talking about because there's just seems like there's no wrong answers like i was like you probably expecting to see some kind of like wild mark backstory reintegration type stuff, and instead I'm thrown into this wild winter adventure and five minutes in, I completely forgot the mark was unsevered.

And I was along for the ride. And, you know, Irv's acting so weird. And then they got me when, you know, Helly and Mark are doing pillow talk in the tent. And she's talking about how I'm ashamed of who I was on the outside. I'm like, oh, fuck. I've I was the healthy truther was wrong. The Helena truthers have been or I'm sorry that the Helena truthers were wrong and the heli truthers are right.

Because that's exactly. And then, you know, Irv grabs her and dunks her head and she calls him Seth. And I'm like, oh, no, no. The helly truthers are, in fact, the one that's wrong. But that's okay. You know, not everybody can be right all the time. I don't hold anything against you. There's a lot of conflicting signs. I can see that now. Oh, yeah.

but it's just it just is just a this is just this this is a crazy show and i love it what do you think about everything jim yeah no i also love it um i I like how crazy it is, but it also like gives you enough to go off of that. It doesn't always come out of the blue like the stuff with the weird. clones of all of the innies out in the wilderness here. They foreshadowed this. They talked about how in another branch they had animatronics of Kyr, right? And all the other Egans.

This to me is just foreshadowing of that, of what we saw in this episode. So they made animatronics because that's what Lumen does. They just didn't know about it in this branch. And I think that's why the show. never loses me with these crazy out of left field things because I should be able to see them coming. Or at least when they hit me with the big reveal of it, I realized that, oh, they've already told me this is a possibility somewhere.

You know, I didn't even put that that together that because I was thinking, did they have like higher imposters or the door factory? Yeah, it makes a lot more sense that they're. they're probably just animatronic and that's why they look weird. Uh, and that's why they're not dressed for the weather. And why they move so strangely. Yeah. So rigidly.

But that's also a sign of a good show is they're not just throwing stuff out there and I don't know, expecting me to roll with it. They're they're building to these things. But I do have to ask the big question, which is why? Is Mark acting this way after Rigabi gave him the old integration? Is it because she is, in fact, better at the integration and she's able to do stuff to where even any is unaware of it, except for. You know, maybe when you're getting down with hell ER and...

And the image of your dead wife pops in. That's a visceral. What's your take on the fact that we didn't get an integrated Mark? There was no evidence that Mark was integrated unless he is.

the deepest cover best actor right in the universe that i've ever seen it makes the gemma flash even weirder if that's true right so so my take on this is that reintegration is a process not a single procedure it's like chemotherapy right you don't go in and get one dose of chemo and you're good you get a bunch of doses and i think that's what we can talk about in reference to pete and why his reintegration didn't go so well i imagine pete

you kind of noped out halfway through that process said look yeah i remember my daughter i gotta go be with her i gotta go get out of here do something i can't waste my time on the rest of this reintegration uh yeah so i think he's got like a dose of it And he's feeling a minor effect from it. But as he continues his process with Rigabi on the outside, that will become more and more pronounced.

Yeah, that's a that's actually a really intriguing possibility. I also just I wish I could go back and slap Mark before he cuts Ragabi's explanation of what she's going to try. You know, I want to take a version of you that loves your wife and somehow combine it. Just do it. I suspect that maybe this is a more sophisticated reintegration. It could be. Your theory makes a lot of sense too.

But yeah, it was not what we were expecting. But it also, like you said, made sense in retrospect. I'm not complaining. We got a lot of, you know, the hell ER. I was kind of worried it was going to be this season-long mystery that's kind of going to divide.

the community between the people who are the various truthers and nope but even though we are getting a lot of answers and we are getting a lot of concrete stuff um there's also the dead seal uh yeah There's all of the Kier brother jerking off in a national forest and melting.

exploding eye sockets um there's there's a lot of what still solid what the fuck in in this episode too yeah and then there's the big question at the end about what the hell happens to irv I mean, not just what happens to the body of Irv when they like. When they do the now, I don't even know what procedure they're going for. They're going to wipe him entirely is kind of what they say. And what does that look like on both ends? I guess like deserve just dropped to the ground and.

Everyone goes, oh, my God, he's dead. Does does he just turn into his Audi and they have to escort him out of the forest here? I have so many questions around that. And I have a feeling that we're not. really going to get answers to that next episode. I think they're going to go more for a jump back to Mark with the reintegration stuff. Yeah, that's probably I mean, that's the frustrating thing, but it's also probably what what we got. And there's so many.

There's so many administrative overrides, you know, Beehive, Clean Slate, Elephant, Freeze Frame, you know, Glasgow is one of the ones that they did mention. which we'll we'll talk about that the goldfish there's so many different ones and it's like i wish you had said something instead of just now because it seemed because it seems like the timing is off it's like what i would think is that escort the milchek would escort irv

Yes. Out of the forest until he gets far enough away that he can't see the waterfall and all. And then they then they do whatever they're going to do. And then as well, you know, Irv, you're on a company outing and you did you did the violent thing again. We got to get rid of you. yeah is irv gone for good do you think that's the that's the real question is is this just sort of a mind wipe and then stick irv back in and

If so, how does that work with the rest of them who have not had their minds wiped? Like you'd almost have to do it for the whole department if you're going to do it for one person. So I don't know. I mean. I think with Irv's Audi being on the case and being an interesting character in their own right, there's a lot of potential here for Irv just to be gone as an innie and still working on the outside.

My mind was reeling at the end of this episode when I first saw it, because like for about half the episode, I thought Irv was going to die. I thought that was going to be the big thing that he's yeah, he's just going to freeze to death out there. And what are we going to do with that? Obviously, that didn't happen. And then my next thought is like, oh, shit, this explains the melon party, right? They're going to retire Earth.

But that can't literally be true because Milchick specifically said you are not going to get any valedictions. You are not going to get any going away parties. We're going to make it as. So it's like. There's already some fuckery about if that melon party comes to pass, because that's the opposite of what Milchak was promising here. He was promising.

You know, not a super deluxe melon party where we carve your head out of a melon. He's like, you're just going to not be a person anymore. And, you know, are some of these like, can they do that when he says remove from your file? Is he talking about something that. Is some kind of shared resource that the innies have here? Can they just like vaporize Irving from their thoughts and memories? Maybe. Maybe. I don't know how targeted they can get with those memories.

But if they could do that, why wouldn't they do that with Petey? You know? Yeah. All the questions around Irv then become. Well, why wouldn't they do this when the Audis did their jailbreak or the Indies did? This is true, right? Like all this is all the possibilities I see that see are returning or them.

you know, remembering him differently are all pointing back to, well, why would they let the Annie's come back without doing that? Yeah. So I, I don't know. We'll really have to see. Um, but that melon. party with herbs face carved might be a flashback of some kind well that's the other possibility that that we've bought gone through a cycle with earth before because there's a lot of things about earth that don't quite

you know, make sense. Um, yeah. Or that is, Marksum is very different from any other, any that we've seen. Um, and Audi. So yeah, it's, uh, it's a fascinating development. uh john turturro man what oh i never I never saw him as a menacing, dangerous guy until I saw the Batman and he plays this like super charming, confident, in control, powerful gangster. And I feel like he was channeling that as he stepped the mill chick at the end of this episode.

Dude, yeah, I was worried Milchak was going to get bit again. Or at the least, get bit again. Maybe get bit by all four members of the MBR team before his run on the show is done. Poor Seth. He's just a chew toy for innies. Don't know what you do if they come charging at you in that. In that scenario. So isolated. Yeah, he's risky. So do you have any preamble before we get into the episode? Not anymore. No. OK, because I've got two things.

Okay. Number one, thank you to everyone that showed up to support us on our Grandhog Day marathon, Lord of the Rings marathon this weekend. We had record numbers of people in chat. We raised an insane record-breaking amount of money. The current total is just over $42,000, but that...

Doesn't include some final merch totals and bits and subs and some of the other money that's going to continue to trickle in. If you, you know, we, we, we've been raising money for several years now for the cure Al's fund. They exclusively raise money to promote and pay for research and to a cure or prevention for Alzheimer's.

Uh, it's a, it's a charity that I deeply care about. Uh, it's affected my family a lot and it would mean a lot to me to get this thing cured in her lifetime. And a lot of people, man, I just so many stories. the people told and the dedications they had and their donos. It's something that's resonated with the community and I just can't thank you guys enough. We will be having a wrap up podcast. We'll probably be posted it in the prestige feed.

So if you're subscribed, if you're just subscribed to the severance feed, maybe go check out the prestige feeds that concludes all of our prestige coverage. because we're going to get with the outreach coordinator with the Cure Owls folks, and she's going to officially thank us for our efforts on their behalf and also give us an update on the latest.

uh, goings on in, uh, Alzheimer's research. So again, it was so much fun. It was very cool. Uh, I can't wait for next year and hopefully it'll just get, keep getting bigger and better. Second thing. which is an actual severance thing. The severance hive mind has been buzzing in the last week or two about this lumen water theory. Okay.

There's been a couple of independent things that come together. Some people, because, you know, we've got these files that are like Lexington and, you know, Tumwater and all the various ones. And people mentioned that people have looked into it because you know, Lexington, you think, well, here's what's that's Kentucky, right? You know, it's a state. It's a city state kind of combination. But it's also a reservoir in California.

And people have looked into every single name of one of these files that we have seen on the show corresponds to a body of water, a river, a lake, a reservoir. Mm hmm. So people notice that. Then people notice that, like, you know what? There's a lot of weird emphasis on water. The Lumen logo itself is a drop of water. Yep.

Then people remembered that there was this, I guess, a cure chronicle that was passed out at San Diego Comic-Con last year where it had a bunch of different articles. And there's one where it's Lumen brings clean water to Lesotho. which is a sub-Saharan African region. And they talk about how James Egan was visiting there and he saw these corroded water tanks were leaching plastic into the drinking supply. And they introduced this chemical that they call Tumwater.

That made it safe to drink. And this is like, you know, a new heralding of clean drinking water. They say that the active ingredient in some water is sodium bicarbonate. which is also the ingredients in Tums, the anti-acid tablet, literally Tum water. And it says it increases, it decreases the acidity and raises the alkaline, which. Sodium bar, you know, this is baking soda. Mm hmm. There was also in last season Rickon with the no dinner dinner where everyone just served glasses of water.

Uh, Irv's Audi and his wellness session said that he values water. Um, there's the cure Egan painting where it looks like he's looking over the great lakes and he's inviting you to drink of his water. What's up with water and lumen, man? It's a really good question. I mean, I assume. I assume it's some control mechanism, but maybe I've just been watching too much Silo. Right, they're putting drugs into water. Yeah, that's my immediate assumption. Like when they...

But I don't know. I really am not sure that there's actually some there there, but it seems like too much of a coincidence for there not to be. And they also in the same article, and by the way, this is posted in the show notes if you want to read it yourself, that they also the engineering team of Lumen has developed this new filtration technology called Clear spelled with a K. Of course, key are clear.

which removes 99.1% of impurities, which far surpasses any existing filtration technologies currently available. This is bullshit. 99.1% of impurities is actually kind of shitty for a water filter. Yeah. But the point nine, the nine core principles of Lumen, it's kind of like, is this what what what what is all this?

And it's such a left field from everything they've been doing with like the Gemma and Miss Casey of everything. I mean, on the face of it, a lot of people think 21st century, the big resource that we're going to be fighting over 20th century is oil. 21st century is going to be water. Yeah. And it's Lumen making a play to control all the world's water. Yeah, but I don't know how the filtration and that kind of technology fits into it.

In that regard, like I could see if they were like buying up land in areas that are highly watered or something. But. Like going to places where there already is no water and bringing water to them tells me that it's something more, more about, yeah, like chemicals in the water that can. control people's minds essentially like and i'm not saying like oh you put a chemical in the water and they become a robot automaton no order following person no i i'm saying

make them more malleable in some way to the teachings of cure. Um, and I have to imagine that's also happening in cure itself in the town of cure. Yeah. So. Anyway, like I said, that's what everyone's talking about this week. And this week was also a lot about water. We had the waterfall. We had a decaying seal body, perhaps contaminating potable water.

Another crazy fucking theory to keep our eyes on. You know, we got the goats. We got the water. We got the Gemma stuff. That's I just want to bring that to everyone's attention. Let's talk about what was hollow, shall we? Yeah, let's do 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 four, Woe's Hollow begins with Irv and what I describe as a Soviet border guard special forces outfit. appears suddenly on a frozen lake. Mark hails him from up a cliff along his way up to Mark. He finds Heli and Dylan joins them on top as well.

They all gather around a TV cart that's placed on the edge of the cliff overlooking the frozen lake where they're greeted by a recording of Mr. Melchick welcoming them to their first Orkbo, outside retreat and team building occurrence. He explains that they are in the Dieter Egan National Forest, and he challenges them to find Keir's sacred fourth appendix, deemed too sanctified to be on the severed floor. Until now.

A ghostly mark appears to point the way forward as they are commanded to follow in the founder's footsteps. Ooh, it's a lot there. The first thing I noticed is. Irv has no idea how to walk on ice. And I think that's awesome. I think he's trying to I think he was trained in desert fashion by Freeman warriors on Arrakis because he's walking without rhythm.

But that's what you do on sand, not on ice, Irv. No, what he's doing on ice is a terrible idea. You hop around erratically, you're going to fall in. You want to get... You want to spread your weight out as much as possible, not jump up and down, Irv. Come on. Yeah. But he's a child. He doesn't know that. He's never seen ice before. Other than maybe in his class.

My fear for Irv was almost instant and constant through this episode, because as he's walking and jumping and running, you can hear the ice crack. And I'm like, oh, my God, if he falls in Mark's way up there, like. Yeah, constant, constant death omens around Irv in this episode. It does make me wonder how they got into this particular configuration like. How did Irv get on the lake? How did Mark get up top? How did? How did any of this happen? You're telling me that Mark Scout his Audi

is willing to go on this strange retreat after his encounter with Rugavi and the reintegration and his suspicion of Milchak. He's just willing to go along with all this? That's so weird.

Is it hinting that they're using some of these other administrative administrative functions that like is there a. like essentially a zombie state they can put them in where the Audi is susceptible to suggestion and kind of like when the doctor puts you in twilight anesthesia you don't remember anything and you don't really know what's going on but if he says hey

you know, open your mouth wider. Hey, can you lift your hand? You can do it. You're still kind of responsive to like assertive commands. Is it evidence that something like that's happening? It almost has to be. Yeah, how else could these Audis just wander random? Did they give him a GPS coordinate to follow? Yeah, because they come too in the action here. I mean, Irv, we see him.

sort of be severed and then yeah he's just on the lake and why why are they all separated you know i noticed and this is a theme throughout the episode the heli appears halfway up the You know, the path to the top of the cliff and Irv greets her as a comrade. But he asked her a question and she's like, I don't know. And I noticed Irv's face kind of falls like he's like, oh, right. I don't. Something weird about Heli. Hmm. Yeah. I love Dylan.

You know, freaking out about there being no ceiling. I think we just talked about that in the feedback last week where people, you know, we're comparing it to like. the belters and expanse being on a planet for the first time, how like kind of terrifying it is. And yeah, I knew there wasn't any ceiling, but this is fucking insane. For sure.

The other question I had is, is this cliff, is this cliff the same cliff that Kier jumps off and flies into the sunset during the end of file animation? Definitely. As I recall, it looks identical. Yeah. And it's also the place where he offers you his waters and the painting, I think. You've got this here anthem playing on this TV.

Yep. Not the dirge version, but the kind of stirring anthem. I noticed that there's a lot of weird things. Like, for example, Mr. Milchak has a kind of almost a max headroom quality. Maybe I should explain that for anyone that's younger than 35. Or wasn't allowed to watch MTV. Yeah, there was this like an 80s inexplicably. There is this really popular dude who looked like a robot automaton and he would he would talk in front of these like digitally.

rotating backgrounds and he would glitch out. Like, you know, his name was Max Headroom, you know, kind of that thing. There's very... Herky jerky edited out of context, like lots of abrupt edits where he was smiling and he go to stern face. And also the way he's describing his outing, it seems. explicitly designed to be enjoyed during a spring or summer. He's talking about the lush meadows and the thickets and the babbling brooks. And this is a frozen hellscape. Mm hmm.

And this frozen hellscape is all contained within the Dieter Egan National Forest. Right. Who the fuck is Dieter Egan? Well, that's a really, even after watching this episode, that's a really good question. Because I don't think any of this is to be taken literally. Yeah. We also find the significance of this spot is also, and there's a grotto where he, Keir Egan, first tamed the four tempers.

and first met woe and the middle check says if you find this fourth appendix you will all your answers about here you know because all the people are who the fuck is deter um they'll all be answered uh i like your animatronic theory on the ghostly mark because i just these are so creepy man they i i refer to them as ghosts and zombies throughout this because just the way they move is unnatural uh

What do you think of Irv using the word Montabank? It's in line with all of the other esoteric language that is being used in this show. But if you had to associate esoteric language with a faction on this show, who would you associate it with? Yeah. Yeah, it's an Egan thing for sure. Mark doesn't talk like this. Pete don't talk like this. Helly doesn't talk like this. Only Bert and Irv kind of sort of talk this way. Mm hmm.

Yeah, interesting. If that means anything. If you don't know, this is just a person who deceives others, especially in order to trick them out of their money. A charlatan is the definition of this. So, you know, there's also the shambolic rube. That's kind of flowery language and Mark employed, but it's, it's something I'm noticing. Irv is kind of out of sync, uh, in a way, but, um, I mean, there's a lot of this language around.

The Keir functionary, the Egan functionaries. So they walk through this dark frozen forest. And by the way, this is kind of the other than the Irv. Melon, this is one of the last few scenes that were from the trailer, kind of big what the like, you know, like, why the hell are these guys trudging around in these fur coats and caps? Here's the episode that's going to explain it. After they walk a while, they encounter a ghostly heli who points them towards a cave.

Inside, they find Keir's fourth appendix. They begin to read it as they continue their trek. A ghostly Dylan points the way forward, and Irv grows increasingly cold and suspicious of Heli. Yeah. Is this where we're reading the book a little bit? A little bit. As they're walking, Irv takes turns reading out of the book.

He talks about that Kier was not born into the world alone. Turns out he had a twin that he shared the lodgings of my mother's womb. I believe this is Ben Stiller reading again. Yeah. Possibly? I didn't clock the voice. It was certainly the case in the first time around that they said it was Kier. And he says that they were best friends. And when they were boys, his twin talked him into essentially doing an on Walden pond.

the Thoreau type of deal where they were going to live as poppers in the woods. Mm hmm. Which who amongst us has not. at one point considered living as a pauper among the woods. I certainly cannot abstain myself from that because, yeah, I live in southern Indiana. The woods were there. It's tantalizingly possible. all the things you need to live. If you only knew what was safe to eat, you had a fishing pole. A fishing pole, a bow, and... Yeah, a good axe. That's all you need.

And a flint, maybe. Don't need money. Make it easy. Don't need money. You don't need healthcare. No. You don't need electricity. You just need to be a pot. You just need to just just be poor. You need to be cool with being dirt fucking poor. Yeah. Tom Hanks did it and cast away. I can do it. Yeah. Live the grand old life. But. To me, this is... I mean, it's so obviously written. Just the way that all the language is here. And when you connect the dots to them asking about his UUR...

This is like if this is not a just modified paragraph from his actual book to put in the name Dieter and Kier, then I would be kind of surprised. I didn't make that connection. that this could be something that they hired Rickon to write to appeal to the innies. I assume it is. It does have kind of that mouthfeel and rhythm. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

But I mean, I wrote down everything that that was said, everything that was read from this book. I don't know if I want to go through a word for word. But in my mind, the the twin here is a. It is like a emotional passenger with here. It's Dieter is not a person. Dieter is a feeling or a vice or something like that. Yeah. I'm on your same wavelength. I'm not going to rule out that he was a real person that Kier murdered somehow.

in some kind of family dynamic type of thing. But yeah, when they talk about, and there's some things that I didn't, didn't make sense when I was first hearing him, like the brother unfastening himself. I was taking that to be flowery language of him losing himself. But no, it turns out that his brother's just jerking off into the forest. Yeah. And in my mind, that's that's Kier doing it. That's Kier.

giving giving into some of his more base desires perhaps he's frolicking he's frolicking himself and and him sort of Looking at what he's doing and being disgusted, though, I will say, I don't think there's any reason to be disgusted with that. But Kier certainly did. And he kills that desire within himself. Maybe not jerk off in a national forest. I hike in those things. I don't want to be coming around.

Some old-timey Quaker-looking dude just cranking his clock. That'd be no good. Just go off the pathways. I'd reach for my bear spray if I came upon a person doing that. But yeah, I think this is him killing some sort of very human or animalistic desire within himself over the course of this story. It does seem... Certainly that that's something that's suggested here. Yeah. Yeah. If he's mastering the tempers, I would think that's part of it. Yeah. Confronting each temper and then destroying it.

when uh you know dylan has the kind of ass pull of a theory uh of like oh maybe they're like twins you know they're supposed to be like twins you know there's a twin thing going on here but that makes sense because milchik says we provided you a twin just like here These are not their twins. They don't have real twins. These are weirdo negative images of themselves. So, yeah, I think you're onto something there.

You know, Irv is increasingly suspicious of Heli and the way they kind of are whispering to themselves. You know, he accuses Mark of losing his perspective because of his feelings for her. And that's all interesting. And there's also some comic relief here. Dylan turns out, you know, we just got done watching all the Lord of the Rings. He's the Gimli of the group. He's more of a natural sprinter, dangerous over short distances, but really huffing and puffing it on this nature walk. Mm-hmm.

They're arguing about Mark's feelings for Helly when Mark stumbles upon what is apparently a dead seal and one of the creeks running through the forest. Irv wants to eat it, and the group begins to turn on him. They find all four of their ghostly counterparts atop a tall waterfall. The tallest in the world, in fact. As Melchick explains that Lumen is here to provide and protect.

Yeah, I'm... What is this impulse within Irv to want to eat whatever creature this is? He later passes it off. He apologizes for it and passes it off as like... Oh, well, I didn't know if we were going to have food or anything. It feels like there's something deeper there, though.

I mean, but you're right. That's easily explained that he doesn't trust Lumen. They brought him out here and there's frozen wasteland to die. Dylan's like, you know, nothing bad can happen to us because nothing bad can happen to our Audis. And Irv is like, you know. Yeah. We don't know what this is. We don't know anything. I think it's a symbol of him feeling adrift because he thought there was solidarity here and now he thinks there's an interloper. Mm hmm.

And he's lost his connection to, I guess, his normal life with Bert. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of what Bert can just disappear and be gone forever. Yeah. I think a lot of what Helly accuses here, or I guess Helena accuses here later, is kind of baseline true, too. He is feeling isolated. You know, he did have an experience that was very different from the others. And he also noticed that as Irv kind of turns against the group, he gets coarser. Irv is not a guy that's casually dropped the F-bomb.

Or to call Dylan who, you know, they just shared his tear in their eyes, man hug, call him a dumbass. Uh, yeah and and dylan it shakes him he's like you know what the why why is this why am i catching strays here yeah he he Mark brings up the fact that he had a bad experience last time he was outside and Dylan claims he didn't say anything about it. So what's going on there then? Because I believe Dylan.

Yeah, I don't know is mark just throwing throwing stuff out there guessing Can I confess something? I cannot recognize this as a seal. I guess there was like a flipper when you see the backside of it. But to me, this looked like something, some kind of carcass from that Natalie Portman shimmer movie. What was that called? Annihilation.

oh okay yeah yeah it's like this weird rotted translucent skin uh the face it's like there's some canines there it's kind of bearish but i i guess it i guess it does have flippers um I mean, obviously a seal can't just be here, right? This is like the polar bear from Lost. Mm-hmm. It's it's supposed to feel wrong, but the Audis don't or the Indies don't know that. Right. The Indies don't know that. Oh, yeah. There's just not seals in the forest of North America. Right. Like, would they.

would they even recognize a seal a if they saw one but b yeah they have no context for where why this is weird why would the stupid lie about this being the tallest waterfall in the world I mean, it's an impressive waterfall. Look, I'd gladly hike three hours to go see this. No doubt in my mind. It's a nice waterfall. But yeah, there's easily as impressive waterfalls all throughout Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky. Like what?

you know, Niagara, uh, Niagara or some, some South America ones. It's the joke. It's, it's not anywhere near the biggest. But I think it serves to increase, you know, the grandiosity, the grandeur of it all to impress the innies and make them feel like they're seeing something special here, courtesy of Kier. Yeah.

To really sell this message. I would like to point out that of all the ghostly counterparts to the MDR team, I thought it was extremely funny that Mark is the one that's standing funny. do you notice that he's kind of like his chest jutted out with his arms kind of like a 45 degree angle and his feet are he's he's just yeah he's standing weird that's awesome Are these animatronics also like a weird? It's one of those things where I feel like Lumen doesn't quite.

fully consider the implications of what they're doing here because to me like showing them these animatronics could also serve to reinforce how hollow their lives are and how meaningless, like you're showing me a robot version of myself. That's, that's just as easy to go one way as the other, you know? Yeah. And we're saying. I mean, we're going with this animatronic. Just, you know, if people fell asleep during our intro. We're not...

100% sure of that. That's just a gem. I think it makes a lot of sense, and it could be people and Lumen playing a part, or it could be a lot of different things. It's clearly not a figment of their imagination, though, because... milchek acknowledges it and says yeah this we provided with these to give you the whole cure experience it's it seems like it's they're trying to set a certain mood you know yeah they're definitely

Yeah, I don't know exactly what that mood is because they're just trying to guide them along this path. And I think they're doing it by trying to have themselves... guide them along the path you know it's it's like well lumen's not taking you through this you're taking yourself through this and and try and reinforce it as more of a journey but like yeah i don't know i don't know it doesn't work for me

And it doesn't seem like it works for them. Yeah. So as darkness falls, Milchak leads the team to their camp. They're provisioned with luxury meats, marshmallows for roasting. torches and a frozen shitbox with four ply toilet paper luxury TP my god four ply what could what could a person do with four plies at least two of those are redundant

Put a one inch layer between your ass and the toilet seat in this sub zero outhouse, because that's the real problem here. You're shitting outside and it's frozen. That's no bueno. But they've been offered comfort and safety. They are issued torches. And at this point, Irv tries confronting Heli about her supposed lies in her tent, but she refuses to elaborate on her Audi experience. Mm hmm. I give him a piece.

that she yeah it's very cute cute it's cute and he's at this point i think he's ready to he's still not he doesn't trust heli and he knows he he thinks he knows she's lying about her experience but i don't think he's jumped to like you must be an egan yet yeah So after they've had time to rest and relax, we rejoined them around a campfire as Miss Ho Long, who is also there, accompanies Milchik on the theremin.

Which is really weird. You know, have you ever heard like a 1950s spook show that has that really high pitched and reedy kind of whoop? That's that's this weird device called a theremin. And she's you play it by interfering with elect interfering with electric fields along these antennas with your body. And it changes pitch and tone. And I thought it's funny because like it felt like just like mood music. And then it turns out it's diegetic. And I thought that was hilarious. Yeah.

So he reads from this fourth appendix a gruesome story of Keir's twin brother Dieter's apparent death, which leads to Keir's first meeting with the temper known as Woe. And at the end of the story, the group kind of laugh and giggle over the masturbation, over the lurid details. And this angers Milchik, who orders Miss Huang to throw their marshmallows into the fire. And then he and Miss Huang retire for the night, leaving the MDR team sitting by the fire. Yeah. Yeah, man. I can't.

I can't quite square everything that I think is going on here with the writings of Kier. But but maybe we can go through them and see what we think. Because I did write them all down. Hit me. So. As best I can recap it up till now. Dieter. The. apparent twin of Keir has just jerked off all over the woods and potentially himself because it picks back up Dieter Leigh unwashed in his bedroll though the hollows pool was primed for bathing so

Would you say he skeet, skeet, skeeted from the meadows to the waterfalls? I think so. And then they ate of the hair that they'd caught and told each other rhyming jokes till our gullets ached. But at last, the thought tickling my mouth emerged, we must return to father, I said. but I promise to look after you in the ether mill. I will pause there for a second. So, so it's interesting because I, I think there is a, like a, a,

killing of a vice here or killing of some perceived impurity within himself based on everything that comes before. But here he seems like he's going to take this back with him. Is he is he saying like essentially I'm I'm not giving this up, but I'm going to keep it secret when he says I promise to look after you in the ether mill. This is something that we'll we'll do again.

yeah it feels like a coming of age metaphor like he is putting you know he's putting away the childish things and he's growing up and i i know i can't cosplay being a woodland creature forever i gotta go back to family business apparently ether mill we know that that's where he meets his wife um as a swab girl swabbing ether um And like his inner child, if you want to go with this analysis, there is no twin be moaning and be wailing his fate. And then he just disintegrates.

Uh huh. There's two layers of this. One is like this is like a biblical parable where it's like, well, a guy wasted a seed on the on the forest and the forest subsumes him and consumes him. And there's also a lot about like him being filthy because we know there's a lot of fixation in the Egan Lumen sphere about cleanliness and washing your hands. And it's talking about, you know, he just laid there in his own filth, even though there's a pool prime for.

bathing so this could be read as a punishment you know like this is what happens when you jerk off in the woods and you don't you try to run away from your industrial responsibilities But it also works as, like I said, a coming of age story that you're you're essentially killing the boy to become the man. Yeah. And he used this pool. He walks out into the pool eventually knowing that it would drown out his brother's cries.

So it would it would rid him of, I guess, the the guilt he's feeling here over the whole encounter or thing that's happening, which I love Dylan's reaction to that. Yeah, that's actually really smart. Yeah. Someone's screaming, yeah, just head through the waterfall, drown him out. But then at the pool, he encounters Woe, the first temper.

A gaunt bride, half the height of a natural woman. She spoke to me directly from her eyes and said, this is your doing. You suffered his wantonness. Now he's no one's brother. Only chaos is whore. What is this? Because this is where the metaphor breaks down. Right. Like.

you suffered his, I mean, I guess it's still, if it's like, you know, you, you, you, you're frolicking out here as a boy and you're doing a bunch of naughty stuff and you're not doing the right thing and you are becoming chaos as whore and he has to reject that. But also... But this is a temper telling him this, you know? Yeah, which is already a metaphor. Uh-huh. Yeah, whoa.

it's taming his tempers. Is he like sad that he's going to have to give up? Because is this the small, is, is Dieter essentially cure rebelling? I have to go to work at the, in the ether, the ether mines, you know, that. That sounds pretty right to me. Now he's no one's brother. Only chaos is whore. Huh? And I'm guessing that the thieving nanny is going to be one of the other.

aspects of the Kier tempers probably the maiden I forget what she corresponds to dread is it I don't remember or maybe she's frolic but Yeah, I don't I don't know, because like all obviously taming the tempers is got to be metaphoric, you know? Yeah. Unless he's going in like Luke Skywalker went in the Yoda's cave and confront, you know, literally confronting some kind of spiritual manifestation. But yeah, I actually got strong. Yeah. Dagobah vibes from when they started going in this cave.

I did too. I was watching with Cecily and I was like, uh, leave your weapons. You will not need them in there. You know, kind of, but, um, but Milchick asserts that everything is literally true. But also Milchick is the guy who says that's the tallest water fountain or waterfall in the world. So, yeah, completely full of shit. Five months have not passed. That's not the tallest waterfall. There's a million ways in which he's lying.

Again, I think this was all written by Rickon, but I don't know how original it is. Because when Natalie's talking about it, she's like, oh yeah, with a couple of small tweaks, we can make it. you know fit fit in with what we want to teach the the innies I was quite a bit more than small tweaks to his writings. You know, you're completely changing the subject, the object, you know, you're the set and the placement. And yeah, perhaps. I mean, maybe.

maybe rick and had an adventure with woe and a twin because i i feel like man i can't remember exactly now back to what we're back to the rick in theory He's a key acolyte. But I do seem to recall something about...

him mentioning twins or a brother or... Because I know there was that one passage where he chose to live as a pauper and when they... brought up the term popper that to me triggered by my thought of oh this is written by rick and it's probably just modified from some of his writings that already existed Oh, this is him wandering the world and living on the fortunes of others. Just a repurposed version of that metaphor. Interesting. Yeah, potentially.

It's tough to say, because like a lot of this does seem to fit exactly with the kind of the rhyme and meter of the we've heard, you know, tears writings before, you know, when like Bert and Irv are quoting him, it does. It's got this kind of like highfalutin language as well. I noticed something very interesting that like, you know, Heli gets to giggles about this story and taking it seriously, which is interesting already because this is Helena laughing about this bullshit.

And Dylan starts to kind of laugh along with them, but then he just kind of collects himself and goes dead face. Did you notice that? And if so, what the hell was that about? I imagine he doesn't want to upset Milchick. At this point. He just got to see his wife. He's got a whole new room built for him. He's trying to be good. He's trying to hold his shit together, yeah. Yeah. He just wants everything to get along, to go along, so he can keep getting his bread buttered. Mm-hmm.

Milchik chides them, says we only we often laugh at what we don't understand. And he's surprised that they're not processing this new information more thoughtfully. And he destroys her marshmallows, which pisses Dylan off. Oh, yeah. You know, and it's also like I like how Mark's attitude is kind of like. What are you doing, man? Like. You know, like Mark has grown up a little bit. He's no, this isn't no, this isn't like a child who like he sees how meaningless and pointless and stupid this is.

uh marshmallows are for team players dylan um so yeah yeah there's so what is what is helena's deal here in this scene why is she the one cracking up why does she turn to milchik and laugh in his face when he says every word is truth earlier in this scene like She seems to be the instigator pointing out how stupid all this stuff is, but she's also, as we find out, absolutely devoted to all of this. What is that?

So there's two possibilities, I think. One is that she is playing a part to get a desired reaction from this team. Okay. And now I don't know why calling bullshit on and everything and laughing about it would suit, you know, the Lumen agenda here. But that's one possibility. Second possibility that I actually believe is I think Helena.

is getting a taste of outside the cult freedom and liking it and like being able to voice doubts that she might have had ever since she was a little girl in a place where they can't be gainsaid or when she's like as it's right in front of milchak and like you know like i know she's powerful and she's the uh the daughter of the current ceo and uh you know they owe her big time for the hell er experience and all that but

It seems like a crazy dangerous thing to say to Milchick and in front of Mrs. Wong where her father could find out about it. And.

milchip didn't seem like he was playing either like i i'm supposed to be heli heli would laugh at this of course i laugh at it right i gotta sell it otherwise we're not going to get the information we want from these innings could be could be yeah a little bit of plausible cover there but it was weird that she was so antagonistic yeah because she could be very passive if she wanted to be you know

Yeah, and we've seen her be kind of shaky acting before as Helena. This felt, I mean, take this for what you will, but this felt a little bit more like there's some there there, you know? There's some real there's some truth in this performance is what I'm trying to say. Yep, I agree. So after Milchak leaves, Irv doesn't find the situation funny at all, and he begins to attack Helly and Mark for making goo-goo eyes at each other while Mark's dead wife molders in the grave.

Mark and Dylan both get offended at this and turn on Irv, which causes Irv to grab his torch, say, fuck you guys, I'm out. And he stomps into the woods alone. So much for the Ortbo. The Ortbo has failed. There's no team building happening here. Team destroying. Yeah. But it's all going to work out. So, uh, the big thing is that, that turns the mood is helly saying, Hey, it's okay. Irv's just upset that he can't ever see birth again. And he's lonely.

Is this a cruel like, OK, is this a cruel thing to say if this was actually hell ER? Because I didn't think on the face of it, it was cruel. It was acknowledging a true thing. I think it's the way it was said, the pointedness of it. She's speaking to Irving here. She's not speaking to the group. She's pointing out his pain to him. She's throwing it in his face is what she's doing. And I. I'm not exactly sure, again, why Helena as, you know, a spy here would want.

to do this i maybe maybe that's the whole intent she's going in there to just fuck up the relationships between these people so they cannot collaborate them You're right, because Dylan, peel Dylan off because he's trying to be good. He's not going to help him anymore because he's Twitter pated with his Audi's wife.

Get Irv worked up about Heli. Get Mark worked up about Heli. And then Mark would be like, you know what? Fuck these guys. I don't need any of them. And then. Yeah. Then Lumen's got him. And you get you get Mark the other way. Right. You.

get him to do whatever you want with uh right the relationship that he's got with heli i can see it uh the the thing that really if you're like knowing now what we know and you're keenly observing there have been a whole the whole things about elevator dings and all of this to say oh is it elena or is it heli uh i think one of the very big tells here

is that she constantly calls irv irving and no one no one who's severed calls him irving they call him irv he's a friend yeah you're outie 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.

I'm trying to think if there's anything else we're missing. The other thing is, like, I kept on, because I was first, like, even though I was a big Helena R. Truther, I was like, God damn, Irv, read your room. This isn't working. But also there's a fine line between, you know, fuck you. I don't have to explain myself to you. And also it would be so easy for you to explain yourself. This is a weird situation where there's a lot of mind fuckery going on. So tell, yeah.

give us some more detail about this night gardener. And it seemed like it was pretty telling that she refuses to do this. Oh yeah. Obviously by the end, we'll know for sure. So after Irv leaves and everyone goes to their tent, Mark visits Helly's tent and they get intimately acquainted and engage in some pillow talk in their toasty tent.

Simultaneously and interwoven throughout, Irv wanders through the dark woods, eventually tripping and fouling his torch and getting lost. He then leans against a rock as the weather worsens and he closes his eyes. And at this point, I'm like, Irv's dead. Irv's fucking dead. Yep. He's got no shelter. He's lost. There's no heat. He's going to drift off in a sleep and he's never going to wake up. Yeah, I thought the same. But no.

He'll be fine. I noticed here at the beginning of this when Heli is, you know, talking about Mark's wife. She says something about your wife, and Mark doesn't object to that labeling at all. He doesn't say, well, you know, it's my wife-ish. And yet he still goes into the tent and bangs her. So, Ooh, interesting. So this is a little hint that maybe the integration is taking. Uh, I.

I don't know. I mean, I'm not subtle. I'm not sure. I'm not saying that he's aware of it consciously. I'm just saying that, like, you're right. That's a big change in his language, even from the last episode. Yeah. Last episode, he's pointing out, well, it's it's it's mushy, I think is the word he used. Yeah. And yet, you know, despite it being mushy, he's still willing to get down with Helena here. So, I don't know. It's pretty disturbing.

seeing gemma i guess while that's all happening what did you make of helena be seeming to be genuinely bummed in her tent you know and is this still a performance or This is such a curious thing because when she tells Mark, you know, about who she was on the outside, she said, I didn't like who I was on the outside. I was ashamed. And he, you know, tries to interrogate who were you? And then she doesn't answer.

And I'm like, I'm, I'm with the heli truthers on this. I imagine they're like, aha, just like we said, it's all making sense. And then 20 minutes later, but knowing now that she is in fact, Helena Egan. What does she mean by this? Because this could easily apply to Helena. She's not. She's not happy with her life on the outside. That's that's fine. I don't think there's any contradiction here. I agree. I agree.

And I also see this as an opportunity to change that or to live a different life temporarily. But I was thinking it's interesting, too, that like before where she kind of leans in and is giving all these signals that I am receptive to these things that are happening. She still doesn't take the first move. Mark is the one that takes the first move to initiate the kiss.

He's the one that takes the first move to start fumbling for clothes. I did get a kick out of them having what's apparently lumined, issued, generic, white, long johns, thermal underwear. Sure. I wonder if they have are the old timey onesies that have the butt flap for sure. Yeah. All right. Yeah. I mean, if you got to go to use an outhouse, you got it. You got to have that. So, yeah, they get they get down and dirty.

And there's this reintegration weirdness happening with Mark. He's seeing Gemma. He has flashes of Gemma. Yeah. And to me, it's super interesting to see this from the Innie's perspective because the Innie has no idea why this is happening. Yeah. If if Audi Mark were seeing flashes of his any, he'd be like, oh, reintegration is starting or something like that. Right. No, this is just like, fuck, I'm seeing her everywhere, you know? Yeah.

I also thought it was interesting how, you know, hell, he's like, I'm ashamed. I don't I don't like who I was out there, which I think might be at least shades of the truth. And then Mark says, I don't care who you are out there. I care who you are with me. which is especially significant because she is Helena. She's she's she's both she's the same person in both places. It just Mark doesn't know it. Yeah.

Which there's you know if you want to you could you could point out the dubiousness of the consent in this situation uh sure yeah this is like literally an evil twin sneaking into your bed and fucking your boyfriend uh without his knowledge this is some this is some shady shit she's pulling here uh-huh Um, so Irv wakes into a nightmare world of cubicles and gaunt ghost brides before being startled awake. And throughout this entire time, I'm like, oh, he's definitely dead.

This is his death vision. This is like Yellow Jackets 101. This is the weird thing you see before you die. What is it, though? Especially because he wakes up in his suit, and I was like, oh.

That's okay. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, this is probably a dream, I guess. I guess we're just not privy to him waking up the second time. Or... I guess it's a waking hallucination of some kind I thought it was interesting that you got these flies buzzing around I don't know what the hell that's supposed to mean Uh, the, uh, you just, uh, Bert kind of lowers his partition and smiles at him and then he raises it. And then I think, doesn't Irv sit county, uh, catty corner from heli.

Yes. I think it might be significant that Woe is sitting in Helly's chair. Yeah. And everything starts getting corrupted. The numbers to Irv sees on his screen are swirling. They start turning into letters, which is not something that they do. and his completion starts fluctuating you know like it starts the the completion percentage in the file starts bouncing around going down going up like his world's being turned upside down and then whoa jump scares him i think this is what

I think this is what convinces him that Heli is not just acting weird, but she is a mole and she is an Egan. Yeah, it's got to be because he comes back with that idea of fully formed. yeah uh but it's it's interesting i guess like this is this is him working through some of his stuff with bert too right because like whoa being a sort of woe is me kind of thing is very much connected to how he's lost Bert, um, showing them both here at the same time. I don't know if he's.

mastered woe here in the cure since but he's definitely having some kind of interaction with his feelings about losing Burt yeah But yeah, woe jump scares him awake, which then we rejoin Mark and Dylan waking up in the morning, the sun shining brightly. They find Helly and Irv missing and they quickly get Mr. Melchick. Meanwhile, Irv has followed. Heli down to the waterfall where she's looking at it, smiling, reminiscing, and he grabs her and then screams for Mr. Melchick.

When he arrives, Irv's demands that Milchak turn her back into normal or he will kill whoever this imposter is. After he dunks her head into the frozen water a few times, Helly screams for Seth to do it. And he radios in to release the Glasgow block, which snaps Helyar back into place. For this crime, he is handed down the ultimate any punishment, summary annihilation. Mm hmm.

I think the name Seth has slipped maybe once before. And so, you know, when he hears it again or hears it, he's like, yes, Seth, do it. Mm hmm. This is this is really good. I mean, the other thing I think that he's really like working through with Helly here is what he says about her never being cruel. It's not who Helly was. So this cannot be Helly because that was pretty cruel. Yeah.

And then he's like, you know, he makes a lot of logical deductions here. You know, if you're not Helly, then who are you? Who would have the power to send their Audi to the severed floor? And there is, you know, because at this point, watching the first time through, there is the tickle in my mind that maybe Irv is wrong, that he's got it wrong and that he's going to kill Heliar.

And what what the fuck consequences could that be? But no, it turns out. So this Glasgow globe go block is something that we you know, we we talked about that in the season one coverage where Glasgow is in the name of a coma scale. It's like a five factor test about what kind of responsiveness you're doing to certain external stimuli and a person.

uh with the low scores essentially dead and the higher or the high i can't remember if it's the lower to score i think it's the lower to score the the more dead you are and the higher to score the more functional you are okay And there is interesting because, you know, we know that the Gemma was in a coma before she died. Still might be in a coma when she's not being severed. But this is interesting because I wouldn't call what Heli was in a coma.

She just was not severed or she wasn't severed into any. So what the hell does that mean? The Glasgow that we are theory are theorizing was a coma scale. Seems to be used to just override the normal operation of the severed system. It's something where she's got like, you know, you've got varying degrees of reintegration, like access to the innies memories as an Audi.

Interesting. And so the innie is the one in the coma to varying degrees. I wonder if it's also, yeah, that there, that there's levels to it too. Like you can do a full Glasgow. or you can do a partial glass cow is that kind of what ragabi's trying to ape with mark perhaps yeah maybe using some of the mechanisms of the chip itself to actually reintegrate

I really like the contrast between how vicious he was with Helena and how instantly gentle he is with Heli. Like, you know, he's got her and he's apologizing and say, I'm so sorry. You're back. You're safe. I thought it was also interesting that Mark and Milchick set out the exact same time to go to the exact same place, and Mark beat him by quite a lot. I imagine that Milchick was just stalking like the Terminator, and Mark is frantically running to Helly, who he now loves.

Dylan probably huffing and puffing stays up top. By the time I roll down there, everything will be done. So I'm just going to, I'm going to sit and bear witness. This is going to impact Dylan quite a bit, right? Yeah, everything has changed. I mean, this this blows it all up. I don't know how you go forward with Heli at all as an any.

Like when, how would they ever trust her? Yeah, I don't know. I, that's you're right. Like, but then again, I thought that at the end of last season and look at us here. Like I. you know are we going to get to know some of those other administrative protocols are we going to because like yeah it almost feels like you have to one thing i thought about after to watch this a couple times i was thinking about this morning is that

We were primed to experience Mark S's first awakening, right? What if next, what if next episode we get that? but it's because he's been clean slated and he just gets, you know, all the four macrodats get put back together in the same department with Mr. Milchick as their boss. Yeah, you're talking about the scenes in the trailer, right? Like the idea that we're going to see. somehow marks integration.

Or Mark. No, I'm saying like I'm saying that the last scene that we saw of the last episode was him laying on the table with PD saying, hey, you know, and take this quick survey. And I was thinking that was going to be a flashback, but it also could. Lead to the clean slate and maybe it won't work because Mark has been partially reintegrated and they don't. I don't. I still don't know if the board believes in that or if.

That's something that's on their radar or something that they can detect. Yeah, I mean, with the way they can manipulate. the the memories of people i think they have to be aware of it i think this is all denial like public denial to their employees like this is not possible even though We know they have so many protocols. I mean, the Glasgow block basically admits that it's possible to to mess with these memories in that way. So.

And from a remote, they don't need physical access. This is something they can all do remotely. And that makes that. So I take it as a matter of faith in the show's internal logic that anything that Lumen can do, Ragabi can do. Maybe it's more primitive. Maybe it won't be as easy. Maybe it won't be as precise and clinical, but she has the same access to that ship as Lumen does. Yeah, I would think so. Being.

Someone who if if I can't remember, if not designed the procedure, then was absolutely involved in administering it. A hundred percent. Yeah, that's that's been made clear. Yeah. I don't know, man. I don't see necessarily where they go unless they're going to wipe everybody. And that's a weird clean slate that I guess they could do with Brigabi on the outside kind of undoing it slowly. Yeah.

How do you translate somebody when their Audi is working with a memory recovery integration specialist? That's going to be that's going to be tricky. But man, that the other complication here is they apparently need Mark S. Like, and I would think intact Marquez. I don't think you can just wipe his memory and have him be as effective as he would be on this cold. Although his freshman fluke, he was a natural. So maybe they don't need. Yeah, maybe they can wipe him and he'll be just as effective.

Or more so, yeah. Yeah, because he's not fucking around in the hallways trying to find Gemma. Maybe. I don't know. I'm intensely interested with where they go from here. I did think that like... Everything that that Milchick was saying felt very biblical. Like this feels like something that a prod old school. prophet would like you know declare to some king that he's going to god's going to do he's going to wipe you off the face of the earth like you never even existed

You know, like we kind of talked about this in the intro. Like, how do you even do that when there's three people here that see it happen? Can you like go into their memories and pluck it out? Like, how is this going to work? There almost has to be, right? So the lines that Milchak says about what's going to happen with Irv, this is grounds for immediate and permanent dismissal. Your Audi will be notified forthwith.

don't see that necessarily as him being fired in the way that he was before, as in not returning. I could see this as, well, we had to wipe your Annie's memory. And the permanent part of this is... the earth that we know is gone i mean all that memory is wiped um but there could be the possibility for irv to return as a blank slate any

But that's all because this is all we've seen this before. Like Milchick essentially threatened Mark with destruction and Mark thought it was going to happen, but he got overrode.

uh we know like literally this can't be true because unless the trailers are lying to us because irv gets some kind of melon retirement party it seems yeah maybe so that's not erasing all memory of his existence that's kind of making a a monument to it and they saw what happened they know what helena is you can't gaslight them that hard i wouldn't think but Who knows? Yeah. Irv is just so heroic here. You know, like he does this difficult thing. He faces down Melchick. Dylan's up. He's like.

A little kid. He's like a little kid crying about old yeller, like leave him alone, you know, and he's just completely helpless. You can't do anything up there. And Irv is like, it's all right. It's all right. And I noticed that he gives Dylan one last kind of jaunty smile. Before he walks off into oblivion. And that's what I'm saying. Like, I don't see how Dylan can just keep going the way he was going before, no matter what reward is offered. Unless I've greatly misjudged Dylan.

No, I don't think you have, especially his any, you know, maybe his Audi would look at this and go. Right. But is any? No. And I was genuinely as much as I could be worried for a villain. I was genuinely worried in this scene for Milchik because he has already told you you're going to be destroyed. You have no future. So why? And then he's trying to say refrain from further speech and and walk into the woods with me. I'm like, why? What incentive does he have to cooperate?

any manner at this point what incentive does he not does he have not to grab a rock and try and bash your head in like yeah Were all these, all these adults, your only protection is your own physical process. Milchik does seem like a bit of a bad-ass. It's four people like and miss Hwang what the hell she gonna do like they could all just get the guys Yeah, if you can get that walkie leave him for dead. Yeah, I'm over to waterfall Uh-huh We've got we now we know we've got an Egan

Uh, we can hold a holder, hold them hostage. But yeah, no kidding. And I'm kind of surprised that they did with, they did the full on severed treatment. Like we follow them out. They did the camera zoom. Like. I kind of thought maybe they leave that ambiguous to see, you know, I'll see what happens next week. But it does look at least temporarily Irv is going to be disappeared. Yeah.

And I would kind of, you know, other than the the melon party that was teased in the trailers, that's the only evidence I have that he. Has any future footprint inside the severed floor? Mm hmm. We hit. the credits and they're playing some upbeat happy music which I looked up and it's Wave by Antonio Carlos Jobin. Hmm. and it's just like there's there's nothing it's just it's considered like um i guess an uncovered gym of atmospheric jazz okay yeah you know it's like

Yeah. Yeah. So I but it's kind of I think it's it's incongruous that you've got this very dark thing happening and it's kind of happy, chipper, upbeat elevator music. Right. Totally. For him being unsevered one last time. I guess so. So that's where we're at with this week on severance. Anything else that we need to talk about before we get to. The interdepartmental memos. I don't think so. All right. If you'd like to send us some feedback, consider some theories.

build off some of the stuff we've been talking about here. Severance at bald move.com is how you get in touch with us. And of course, if you'd like to support what we're doing here at bald move. You can do that at support.baldmove.com. Get ad-free feeds, extra bonus audio content. And oh, also, this is probably still going to be open for a couple of days. But if you did miss out on the Groundhog thing and you do want to donate to this very worthy cause.

It's still not too late. You can get yourself some nice commemorative merch, or you can just donate straight to the project at groundhog.baldmove.com. That will be open for at least a few more days while we're getting... all the final amounts trickling in and before I before me and Jim cut the check to the cure house people. So. Severance at bald move dot com, Jim, what do we got? We got a lot of feedback.

I had to make some cuts, but we got down to Gary here who says, the thing I love most about the show is it isn't afraid to advance its own plot and won't linger on questions for the sake of dragging out a mystery. Was that really Dylan's wife or Lumen just playing with him? 15 minutes later, yes, that was his wife. Doesn't mean they're not still trying to play with him. We'll market a message to his innie and find out his wife is alive.

No, but there's this character I bet you didn't remember who can just outright tell him that he does just that. Or Anne does just that. All these things on any other show I feel would drag out several episodes before getting an answer.

The ending in particular, the way it was shot, the editing, the build up and release right into Eminence Front. We're talking about episode three here. Any other show would have saved a moment like that for a season finale, mind blowing cliffhanger and an audience would have loved it. But here it is. Reintegrated Mark in episode fucking three. Yeah, man. You're right on. The show does not linger. It asks questions. It raises weird scenarios, and then it just jumps both feet into it.

Yeah, the confidence of this, you know, a lot of the other puzzle box shows we've dealt with in the last decade or so feel self-conscious, like, oh, God, you know, trying to do a magic trick, but I'm worried about that guy that's sitting. you know a little too far right and he can see what i'm doing where this show is just like oh you think this is the big season

You think this is the big arc of the season, Mark getting unsevered? Happens in episode three. Oh, you think the mystery over Heli and Helena are and the truthers? arguing about is going to be a big, long arc. We're solving it in season or an episode for like it. It feels it just feels masterful. Yeah, that.

They're giving us so much information and yet we still don't have any idea what the fuck is going on. And yet it's still compelling at an emotional and character driven way like that. That's the hallmark to me of like leftovers, which is, by the way, my favorite show ever. that they can do ridiculous shit that completely throws you off your game and changes everything. But emotionally, it still resonates and feels real. You don't feel jerked around.

you feel like you get a greater appreciation of what's going on, even why there's still things that are mysterious. Yeah, it's not like they're... completely obfuscating everything either you know because it'd be easy to keep people in the dark and right and you know keep steamrolling ahead if you gave them no information but they still give us all these teases

And it's just oblique enough to where we can't quite put it all together. They're really, they're able to walk that line. And like you said, it does feel effortless. It feels like they just know. They know exactly. And maybe maybe they've got like just the best testing department. Like they run just dozens and dozens and hundreds of.

you know, these test screenings where they ask people like, what do you think here? How are you feeling about that? What are the questions you have? And they know which ones to answer. I don't know, but however they do it. Or it could be that they've really... paid attention to the golden age of television and, you know, it's an arms race, right? They're trying to fool us. We're trying to figure out.

It seems like the Internet has been beating the odds, the hive mind of the Internet. Millions and millions of people speculating are beating a handful of writers in Hollywood. But this show so far is. Beating the odds. Maybe they're flooding the zone with bullshit. Maybe this Tumwater stuff is like, there's so many things that are kind of like red herrings and things that are beside the point or not even the point of the thing.

And, you know, when I mention leftovers, I guess you got to say that it's not like the leftovers answered every question. Oh, no, no. They answered the questions that were important to true fans and left enough open for interpretation that everyone felt satisfied or damn near everyone. Yeah. So.

It could be that Severance is going for something like that, too. That sounds good to me. Yeah, I would be tickled. All right, Jared says, you guys were wondering why Mark is asking about Heli having cold feet.

He's asking because they had an intimate moment and now they're on the search for his wife. So he's asking her if she's okay searching for his Audi's wife after they just kissed. It's not about her loyalty, but about if she's comfortable helping find his wife when they have a connection. A lot of people wrote in about this.

Yeah, I think I did not quite put that together in that last episode. Yeah, that's plausible that she's she's asking if he's OK. But like, I don't because now that we know this is Helena, there's also shades of. Does she care? Is this a bit? Is this to serve some greater purpose? Is this her acting out down there and rebelling against her masters? Yeah.

Um, all right. Yannick says in the scene with milkshake, I thought Natalie looked like a hostage with a gun to her head when she relayed how receiving the fucked up cure paintings really made her feel seen. At the end of that sequence, Milkshake conspicuously stashes the paintings on a shelf. I wonder what would happen if a devout Keir head like Kobel found this sacrilege. Think he'd be in trouble for hiding these paintings up there?

Should he be displaying these? He could just say the paintings are too big for me. I like really small paintings. I love the paintings. It's just too large. I mean, I don't know. Because it was made. So this goes into like, is this a test? And is this Milchak? And there's so many different ways you can fail a test from religious figures. You know, I think about.

There's this tale of this metaphor of Christ dealing with his followers in the form of like a master, and he's got these different slaves. He appoints different responsibilities to each of them. It's like, hey, I'm going to give you talents, I think. Let's say I'm going to give you $100 and I want you to go do. I want you to take care of it for me. And he goes to the other slave, and I'm going to give you $10, and I want you to go out and take care of it. And he gives the other one a dollar.

And the other the two two slaves go out there and they make smart investments and they return like tenfold or fourfold or whatever it is. And the one guy. Says, you know, I was I know that you're an exacting guy and you really care about your possessions. I was so afraid that I would lose it, that I went and buried it. Here is the original thing that you gave me back. And the Lord said, get out of here.

You wasted your opportunity and that, that, that, that, that, that, that. So it's like, I kind of thought about that with Milchick. Is he burying his talent here? Is he is, is, but also. I got the feeling the board didn't give a fuck about Melchick. Like they don't, they tell him how they think he's going to feel. And then they disconnect before they find out how he actually feels. So, you know,

If he's like, oh, well, I can't have, you know, this is just for me. I didn't want anybody else to see it. I go back in a room and I gaze at it all the time. I don't know. How much trouble do you think he'd be in?

yeah no that's a good point i i guess i don't think he would be in that much trouble um if any because i assume they would just move on to the next manipulation of him well that didn't work let's try some other thing right it is funny there's manipulations all the way down and all the way up yeah like even down to helena

Like everyone except for maybe Jane Egan, who could be manipulated by the ghost of his predecessors, like, and or the board, whatever the fuck that ends up turning out to be. Yeah. Yeah. Who knows? It's I mean, that's it's this cults and the cult of personality. It's hard to know where you stand in organizations like that. Oh, yeah. All your footing is quicksand.

He could be on the in one day and on the out the next day. Yep. Let's go to Joe from Cincinnati who has a couple points here. Number one, talking about the extended any population and the five month hiatus. Irving last episode said to Felicia, I'm sorry to pop in after all this time when they have their kind of reminiscence session about Bert. So one character in this conversation thinks he had five months off.

And the other doesn't? We're all innies told that five months have passed and a severance revolution is taking place in the Audi world. With the increased communication amongst indies and departments, wouldn't Mark Helly Irving stumble upon the lie that Lumen is fabricating about the five months not passing? No way they had time to make and show the claymation to the ever-growing list of severed employees.

So I could see this thread starting to be pulled in upcoming episodes by innies. It's interesting. So they tell Felicia, yeah, you went out of the office yesterday and then you came back five months later. But wouldn't she be just... in the same flow of her work the next day? Or did they disrupt her work and said, yeah, you need to start over again because it's been five months. That's a damn good question. Your resin has gone stale or something.

No, that's a damn good question. I mean, I guess that they I don't think they would tell all the innies that, hey, yeah, we've gotten five months off because why would they risk spreading the intellectual contagion? you know why we have five months off oh because the lumen for what the hell is the lumen for oh is the people there and that's why we got like is is felicia if she acts out does she go to the bad break room uh

Yeah, that's an interesting point. They almost have to because they don't have the wellness sessions anymore. They don't have. Like you said, the bad break room anymore. Maybe it is something that they're doing, you know, a lot because a lot of times corporations are forced in their lore into doing when corporations get forced into doing the right thing. They try to like get ahead of the actual punitive and. You know, I remember when I was like 16 and the last time we got.

Increase of the minimum wage. You know, my boss at Walmart took me aside like two or three weeks. We're supposed to. It's like, hey, we're going to give everyone across the board. It ended up being like five or ten cents more than what the new minimum wage is going to be. And to just try to be like, you know, to get something good out of it rather than like, well, the government's putting a gun to our head and say, we got to do this. Yeah.

So it could be that they're like, good news, you know, this has happened and maybe it is treated like that. But the other thing is, it could be that. It could be the Lumen is just trying to improvise and they have lost control of the situation and all of this is just going to spiral out of control. That's also a possibility. I mean, I've been feeling that since. I mean, Helly showed up in episode one. Yeah, it all feels like it's been spiraling since Helly came on the scene here.

Because there's no there. They aren't gods. They don't know everything. They don't have control of everything. They do fear things. Yeah. Yeah. I'll see how that plays out. Number two here is.

uh charlotte cobel which we think is uh co cobelwig's mother um as your podcast delves into lineage and parentage i thought one uh one thought i have is harmony cobel's Deceased mother is somehow tied in with the Eagans specifically an illegitimate lover of Jamie Or maybe his father even which could either make harmony Jamie's daughter or could make

Helena, Charlotte's daughter, depending on the timing of everything. Could also explain Harmony's obsession with Lumen, her devastation of being fired, and her apparent disdain for Helena. I don't know. Anything about that? Any chance that... cobell's mother was involved with jamie yes there are those chances yeah um sure oh i don't yeah and that's the thing it's like what is the evidence other than it's plausible and you can't

outright contradict it and then also what the what would it mean for the story yeah and i can't say that i see any clear meaning for the story Other than just complicating everybody's relationships, which could also be fun. Yeah. And of Lumen goal to, you know, split this split, but drive a wedge in here.

Because, I mean, it's like, you know, go back to the other what we were talking about. It's like this isn't the first time that Lumen has done big reforms. Like Bert says, like, you know, we used to be able to go from department to department. We used to be able to have big team meetings. We used to be able to have all this stuff. And like.

Lumen culture has changed in response to maybe the grim barbarics of optical design or whatever that they're doing. But it's like, yeah, the whole like, oh, guess what? Everyone I got five months off and we've changed a whole bunch of new stuff. is not unprecedented even from what we know of Lumen. Yeah, that's true. Because the employees remember this is also complicated by Burton Irving.

being kind of weird exceptions because, you know, there's a lot of theories swirling around that Logan, maybe they were previously severed. Maybe they've resevered. Maybe they used to be a couple and that. So yeah, it's, it's, it's tough to say, but like, I think it's intriguing that like Bert. remembers when things change remembers when the handbooks changed remembers when the policies changed yeah all right let's go with skid roads who says um

The theory he's got is that Irv called the Whole Mind Collective. Someone at the Whole Mind Collective could be. And also, I don't think the elevator itself has anything to do with the Indies becoming Audis or vice versa. I think the Switch is done in the control room, which, yeah, we've seen before. I think whoever runs the Switch just watches the camera and flicks it at the right time.

So what is the point of that, you ask? Belief in the automatic switching would support belief in the code detector, which I also think is a sham. I think the constant surveillance does the job of the magic code detector. Now hold on. You have no idea how Mark W's note was discovered. I think the sound bites of the MDR crew that were in the video the team was shown supports the theory.

do you still believe in the code do you still believe in the code detector why do you both believe the proximity causes the switch also why are you on the clone train so hard well I'm not on the clone train so hard But I'm not on a clone train. I'm in a goat hole. I don't know how much I can say there's no trains and tracks involved. I might ascend the goat hill later on. But right now I'm down here with the goats. I don't know what it means. I don't know if there's cloning.

just I'm just I'm just asking questions man but what about the code detector I mean they have shown us in all these like sound bites that they play which I think also Jillian S wrote in with some of this the The sound bites they play for them of the surveillance stuff makes me think that they could detect that some code was being written, even if they could detect code was going up the elevator.

I just come back to the Lex, is it, was it the Lexington letter where, you know, Peggy was talking about her, that she had this twin language that she used to pass notes from her Indy to her Audi. And like, I'm sorry. If a code detector is worth its salt, it should be able to detect human language, right? Like, is this some kind of like, oh, well, this is a like, if you went, if you had, if you had a Navajo code talker, could you pass?

Could you pass the stuff from any in an Audi? Could you like I mean, to me, that shows that it's bullshit and that it's that they're using their omniscient surveillance. But now they. don't have at least a heavily visible omniscient surveillance. Um, right. But yeah. And also like, maybe it's not an automatic switch in elevator. Um,

But like the point of them being consistent with the visual and audio storytelling techniques was correct because guess what? Helena or Helyar wasn't Helyar. She was Helena this whole time. They were telling us that that was a smoking gun. Several of the smoking guns that we identified were correct. But it's just like, I don't know. It just seems plausible. like did you you know what is ragabi doing but like passing these electromagnetic hoops around uh mark's head it it doesn't

It doesn't defy my explanation or my understanding to that they're passing through some kind of electromagnetic field that just flips their thing. And that's far more safe and reliable than counting on Judd. who just goes up and takes a piss sometimes when founders of the company are swinging from the rafters of the elevator dying. Like it just seems more plausible that that, whereas a code detector that can magically detect.

Things that you've written on your arms and scraps of paper that you've chewed up and swallowed like it internally scans you and externally scans you and detect everything. But like fucking. Jodie Foster twin speech like tie tie tie in the wind. I yeah, I just that that that doesn't make sense to me. But it could be true that none of this stuff is automated and they're all, you know, Judd's up there flipping switches. I could be.

yeah i think i think they almost have to like if you had an automatic mechanism then how does helena get down there as herself you know i mean they get to turn it off after yeah exactly and that's what i would say But again, I'm not saying that my way is the only way. I'm just saying that that's how I came to that conclusion.

Ian writes in and says one thing that has really been unclear is what exactly Helena's role is at Lumen. She isn't the CEO, but apparently she has some position there since she is in a position of authority. In season one, there was a scene where Mark almost hit her with his car. I could be wrong, but it looked as if she had a normal parking space or was further away from the entrance. Now we see her leaving Lumen with her own security and a car with a driver.

Flumin has hundreds of locations and you think someone in an executive position would have spent a great deal of time on company matters. Since she's there from 9 to 5, is she doing this at Lumen after work with enough time to be productive and also get home, eat, sleep, and then back to work at 9? What do you guys think? Almost hitting her with the car. That's the thing that stood out to me in this email. I'm like, oh.

yeah you're right she's walking to the back of the parking lot and this could just be all part of the ruse just an in case you know well or just like the the whole point is she's having an authentic lumen experience and if it got out that you know it's like you find out the bear grills between drinking

Yeah, you find out Bear Grylls in between drinking his piss and jumping off waterfall stays at the Radisson Inn in Mumbai or whatever. It's like, oh, well, that's not cool. That that that makes me think that this is all a bunch of bullshit. Whereas, you know, if an investigative journalist, no, actually, she just showed up like anyone else, drove her car into work, did the thing, no special treatment.

It's it tells the story more compelling. But again, Lumen lies about everything. You can't trust anything they say. Everything is for show. Unless it's not, you know, it's like, it's tough. It's really tough to say for sure one way or another, which is why I'm trying not to be, I'm not trying to make too strong a claim either way here.

TFN has some, a couple of small Easter eggs and a point or two that I wanted to go through. Small Easter egg, which I noticed is that Dylan's cul-de-sac is in the shape of a Lumen logo. It's legit. Drop of water, I'm guessing. Oh, my God. Kind of neat. We all know they live in corporate housing. So, of course, it's going to be lumen-laced. The tum water strikes again. Uh-huh.

Another small Easter egg, the nickname of one of the former CEOs was Pip, if we haven't mentioned it already. I don't remember where that was said or where that information comes from, but I guess it's something to keep in the back of our minds. Pip? What's the significance of it? I don't know. But maybe it'll come up later. Um...

Also, I seriously get the feeling that if the visitations continue for Gretchen and Dylan, she's going to fall for his innie over his outie. His innie is like the same guy she married years ago, still full of vim and vigor and willing to take on challenges, etc.

He seems like a younger version of his Audi to her versus his Audi who's been beaten down by life, three kids and financial stress. It will seem like a fresh start for her, but with the same guy she married years ago. That could be an interesting plot line. What do you guys, what do you do in that case? I mean, that does seem like exactly what they're hinting at. That's what I got, too, that she is potentially falling for Dylan. Yeah, where do you take that? I mean, do you ask to get his innie?

back if reintegration becomes possible. give me give me the well it'd be interesting here's an interesting development what because like so far all of the innies or all the outies have had a vested interest to stay innies or all the outies that have vested interest to keep their innies in there right Bert, I mean, Irv is up to something. He's doing some investigation. Mark is now working for Ruggabi and he was trying to forget his wife in the first place. And Dylan, you know, needs the money.

But if Dylan thinks that his wife has fallen for this dude on the inside, maybe he's like, you know what? Fuck this. I'm going to I'm going to find a different job. And that's like a complication, right? That's just one of the things I could think of. Plus, it's just it's an interesting concept. Yeah. What is love? What is a person? It's almost like the road not taken sort of.

fantasy right like i mean yeah this is all what dark matter is about this season right absolutely yeah like what if you know we hadn't had what if we could rekindle this what if you can and also it's kind of proof that like dylan could get him shit his shit together if he but then again he's working a fake nonsense job so what does that yeah and without the complications of life right i mean i'm sure three kids of that age really changes how you live

I'd have to. Yeah, if you're doing it right. Yeah. Jonathan B. I think the reason Miss Wong is a child is because she. She like Gemma slash Miss Casey is a coma patient. She mentioned her previous career as a crossing guard. but she was crossing guard for her school and maybe got hit by a car and falls into a coma and then her body somehow ends up in the hands of lumen in the same way that jemma's did

That is a pretty, that's a pretty good, that's a pretty good theory. The crossing guard. As soon as, as soon as he said crossing guard in reference to Gemma, I'm like, of course, of course. Yeah. Again. I don't know what that would mean, and I don't know, but that seems plausible, and I like it. Yeah. We need to find that work-life balance. We'll be right back.

Reintegration complete. To avoid further non-work related interruptions, please see the company policy on advertisement avoidance at support.baldmove.com. All right, Casey writes in and says, I think that Luma's plan to keep Dylan compliant is short-sighted because at some point, his Innie is going to want to live his Audi's life.

That's when he'll turn back to the group because he is not going to be satisfied by brief visits with his wife slash kids. This is what I'm talking about. Everything that Lumen does to try and manipulate. and keep these innies on the right course also seems to have a potential side effect of giving them hope or desire to see the outside and live that life. But aren't we giving him visitation with his wife? He's got to be jealous of his Audi.

Aren't we missing a big, big factoid that the show gave us this season, which is they need Mark to finish this one file. They don't need to keep this team together forever. They need to keep this team together for him to get this over to finish line. And then maybe they're done with all of them. So they don't need a durable permanent solution. They need to get Mark.

Fucking working on this thing. So that's that's the only flaw I see in that analysis. That does seem like a longer term move, right? Like they're trying to get Dylan to stop investigating to stop. rebelling and just get back to work that feels like longer term kind of thing than just well let's force them back to work temporarily I don't know yeah

But like, again, when they're done with all this, they can just dispose of Dylan. And it's like. But you're right, because all this is getting external, like, you know, like this. This is something that Dylan could go to Times Magazine and be like.

You know, they said I assaulted somebody and they fired me and they came back two days later and gave me pineapple and said to come back. But then they said they wanted my wife to meet my any and a bunch of weird shit. And I got fired again. Like that's that's a complication. But again, maybe.

maybe Mark finishing his file and slaves the entire world. And it's like, you know, it doesn't matter. Yeah. What if you could do something in the real world that would make any criminal thing that you did completely irrelevant, you know? I don't know why they don't just literally chain them to their desks and have Milchik there with a whip telling them to fucking work on this file. Like if all they need to do is get that one file over the finish line, force them to do it.

I mean, maybe the only thing I can think of is that this is... Yeah, this is a very intuitive, emotional process. Like you are getting the feeling by looking at these numbers. And if someone's sitting there like physically abusing you and like if it's not of your own free will and you're not somewhat relaxed and baseline, how.

hell could you ever do that you know it's impossible it's like asking a surgeon to do brain it's like hey why don't you do this brain surgery while i got rocky balboa punching your kidneys like okay he can try it but Every time you can use a punch, you just want to take that scalpel and just slice off part of your brain. Yep. Could be. Could be. All right, Jessica.

I was convinced that Gretchen was fake and Lumen had hired an actress to play Dylan's wife, but that theory was almost instantly crushed when they show the pair at home later in the episode. That got me thinking. Why would you bring an uncontrollable outsider down to the severed floor when you could have someone trustworthy just pretend? Milchick knows Dylan sees, didn't see his wife, only his kid. We know Lumen has no issues photoshopping pictures to control the innies.

Dylan would have no idea if she was fake, especially if you sprinkle in a few details he thinks he already knows. But what if the visitation room isn't just an attempt to control Dylan, but a chance to run some experiments? Lumen already has weird throuple ideas in mind since they use the excuse with Mrs. Kobel. Kobel? Kobel? Kobel. Kobelvig. Kobelvig, yes.

They could be looking to see if some relationships can transcend severance, or they could be looking at any number of things. I've always thought the severed floor's main purpose was experimentation on human behavior, but now I'm even more convinced. Yeah, I mean, this is, that's...

Something that I mean, we widely speculated that Mrs. Kobelvig was up to something like that. You know, why was she stealing Mark's candles and using them with Casey's room and trying to like and observing it all like she was conducting an experiment? Yeah. Yeah. Dual purpose. Makes sense.

Steph writes in and says, it reminds me so much of period movies and television shows that have multiple black East Asian, South Asian, et cetera, characters, but living in a world where they certainly would not have the same opportunities.

or power today. Obviously, it was more overtly a nod to the faux DEI initiatives that were instated by many large companies put in place in the summer of 2020 that they now have completely removed. We're talking about the... paintings last episode obviously uh yeah additionally i loved seeing the looks exchanged between milchik and natalie after the call ended it was absolutely the look uh that the only two black employees give each other when bs is on the loose

I think Milchak will end up subverting the system, aka the pet to threat path that many black women especially have in corporate America. I'm not familiar with that term. And Natalie will, of course, continue to smile through being a diverse puppet. Oh, yeah. I think Natalie's not going to join him if he rebels. I think you're probably right. She seems. completely lost in the lumen sauce.

Huh. So apparently the pet the threat phenomenon is a description of where like management will support black women's careers, but only to a certain point. It's like, oh, we really are. We're so proud of you. You're advancing. But then. Oh, you want to make partner or oh, you want to place on the board? Oh, maybe set your sights down a little lower. Yeah. Yeah. You know, because Natalie.

Like she's in a very high position. Will she ever sit on the board? Will she ever be part of revolving? Well, she, you know, it's like, I could see that. Or she just looked at as an assistant to the board and that's all she'll ever be. I don't know. I do see Milchak like. that scene that scene is the one that makes me think yeah milchik has to get fed up with this at some point right he sees yeah the sham he sees how silly all of this is and

he's also bought into it, but for how long? Yeah, no, I totally, totally agree with that. I mean, it seems plausible that like, and that's one of the things that I guess. lumen's gonna have to deal with because the more we meet lumen people the more we see how fucked up and weird everything is and the more likely it's going to be that uh people notice and and have human reactions to it yeah

Unless they're going to do an end run with the Tumwater and alkaline everybody and make them completely subservient. Sure. Nathan G. Writes in and says, in episode three, I noticed Mark and Helena slash Heli avoiding poop when crawling down the hallway to mammalians nurturable. I can't wait to see where this goes. That is not goat poop.

I don't know how familiar you are with goat poop. That's not goat poop. I grew up on a farm and can tell you goat poop is typically tiny brown pellets. Goat-human hybrid cloning theory confirmed? Oh, my God. This is so hilarious because yes. So yesterday before the boys who came out to help us produce the Groundhog Day marathon.

Went home. We had like three hours to kill. And I'm like, all right, Eric, here's Cincinnati. What do you want to do? He's like, you know, I've heard a lot of good things about your zoo. And these guys wanted to go to the zoo. And I'm like, OK, let's go to the zoo. OK, so I'm going to go to zoo and Eric gets excited when he sees the kids zoo. And he's like, oh, I want to go pet some goats. And the.

uh, exhibit was closed until the spring, but the goats are still out there. And I just casually noticed like, Oh wow. Look how small these goat turds are. Like they're the sizes of like smaller than whoppers even. And I just like, huh? But. You're 100% right. This is not what goat poop looks like.

Okay. Yeah. As the guy living in the goat hole, I, this is, I am on cloning. This is a human goat hybrid. This is what other explanation is there? You know, what what gene could you splice with a goat to give him human poop ah I'm going to go with lumen gaslighting. They've harvested poop from elsewhere and they've thrown it. The knowing that the innies have no idea what go poop looks like. They've thrown it in there for the purpose of the herders.

No, the innies. They knew they saw Mark and Helly coming that way. They're like, get the poop. Get the poop. We've been preparing. Get the poop. How do they keep the goats from pooping in front of the innies? And they'll be like, well, why is this goat got a health problem? Oh, my God. He's shitting these balls now. I don't know. I don't know. I can't explain why this is not goat poop, but.

hybrid cloning theory could be could be it it is something you're supposed to notice oh my god how how did i was i was too far in the go hole i need to poke my head above it every once in a while All right, let's move to Brett from Hawaii. Says, can we get your thoughts about who you think the board members are? Disembody electronic consciousness of previous CEOs, goats, space Mormons.

I think it's Jamie Egan and and Jamie Egan and some people we haven't met yet. I don't think we've met the people. I think it's the gestalt consciousness of all the Eagans who've ever lived inhabiting some kind of severed space in one person's brain. Like. Yeah, James, either either there's like a literal machine that does this or James Egan contains them inside his brain. And like when he sits like on the papal throne, X was an ex cathedrus when he's.

when he's in this a certain thing that they're all able to speak through him. I think ironically, what I think is that's that's. That's unironically what I think is actually happening. And I think the revolving is when a new host gets those gets gets gets put on the carousel, essentially. Yeah, we'll see. It's definitely possible.

That's not something I have a lot of evidence for. It's just that's been one of my pet theories that I've had in my back pocket. Yeah, I'm trying to stay as grounded as I can so that I won't be disappointed when they reveal something that is maybe less. interesting or fantastical than i thought yeah and i don't think i'm married to that either like yeah if it turns out that it's something else then you know because i bet a lot of people are fucking disappointed this week

I bet a lot of people were way on the heli is heli train and like looking through the details and saying, yeah, I just proved it to myself. There's no way this can be any other way. And then they find out here and they're going to be. Annoyed. They might not quit watching, but there are people out there for sure who will be annoyed by that.

Yeah, I know that we definitely seen that before. We've been doing this for almost 15 years. And the idea that people get kind of married to their pet theories and then it's like the show betrays them. But I don't know. I don't know. I don't think that if it had gone the other way and that. meters wrong and that was helly the whole time I think I'd be able to look back and be like well you know the signs were there and

At least the helly R-Truthers are happy. And this is an interesting way to go with the show. But I consider myself a fairly rational and reasonable person at most times. So I can look at that and say, well, I never. knew for sure one way or another i just had a feeling that it was this way and well it was the other way so yeah but i don't think some people i got faith in the severance community i don't think they're going to be that reactionary

Yeah, overall, I doubt they will be. And if so, report to the break room. Yep. And write, I... was try i i did wizened hands tried to save me from my stupid hell er trutherism and i stopped no i Just, yeah, like try not to, you know, try not to let your own investment in theories interfere with your enjoyment of where the show is actually going. All right, well, let's throw another theory out there with Jeff R's email. Maybe.

Helly or Helena is not truly an Egan. Her any surname is Riggs. She's Helly R and not Helly E. And we were questioning this, like how how that lines up. We thought, you know, they just gave her a different initial so it would be obfuscated that she's an Egan. But if you look at her name tag, it definitely says Heli Riggs on the LinkedIn page. I suppose that's possible. That she's not actually an Egan. It's possible that she's not actually an Egan, correct.

But what, thinking all of Jamie's kids die or something or you never have kids to pass this on to? Well, have we ever seen a redheaded Egan before? I mean, she could just dye her hair, but like, are they going to go with like... Uh, that she was adopted from one of the Egan girl schools or something because Jamie, Jamie Egan couldn't have biological children. Maybe.

i don't know the simpler explanation is they just made this last name up for her so right yeah they didn't want her having a last name connected with egan to throw off their experiment so yeah but but yeah there's a lot there's other there's other ways to look at it too all right andrew So as I had this thought a few times in the first season and sometimes already in season two, all of the severance world building usually sort of pulls me out of the show.

There are often elements too that point to some sort of clue to the wider world and discussions of it sort of absolutely don't work if we try to use our world logic at all. The way the media, government, and public react to Severance seems overwhelmingly negative.

but Lumen seems overly successful. But when you have the Doors Incorporated guy causes more confusion for me. I guess I finally felt okay assuming this is a totally different world, not a science fiction conceit dropped into our own world. I will, however, be frustrated if the show tries to place a foot in our real world down the road. There are just too many alternative reality elements for the show to pretend otherwise down the road for me.

Doesn't this doesn't matter when it comes to characters, but it feeds back how we understand them. I guess I confess I don't understand this criticism. I've seen it mentioned a few times before, but it's like, yes, this is an alternate version of our universe because severance doesn't exist in our universe. Lumen doesn't exist in our universe. There are no chips you can put in brains that can magically make people's consciousness. It is doesn't exist. It is the.

science fiction that you got. Now, that doesn't mean that this is literally Earth two in some alternate dimension. And this could be the only thing that's different, you know, like that's science fiction. But like, I don't know, maybe you just don't like science fiction. To me, it only pisses me off when they introduce a rule and then violate it later without having a very good reason or explanation for it.

Because then it's like, well, then they're just making shit up as they go. And who cares? Yeah, with you. And we had a few like I wouldn't necessarily call them. that negative of emails, but a couple that came in here also from Matt S. He says, I enjoyed the weird vibe and mysteries in the show, but this episode seems to go over the edge to me. I know they're giving the innies more freedom, but it's a little ridiculous.

Irv has a hall pass so he can go to another department all day. Mark and Heli wander all over. It feels like it's not a workplace and these people are just clocking in and getting paid to do everything but work. Why would Lumen allow this to happen? Kind of felt off to me. I mean, that is one of the mysteries. Why, why, why, you know, are they hoping to give Mark enough answers that they can get just enough work out of him? Like we don't, we don't know.

Yeah, it's part of the manipulation. And then what Cobell says earlier in season one about the best way to make a man not realize he's in a prison is make him think he's free. I think that has a large part to do with why they're able to free roam here. Um, but, but again, it comes back maybe to the goat poop. I don't know, as this is all like part of the plan. They want them.

to do a controlled sort of interaction and answering of their questions in order to stop questioning and get back to work because they got you know then and because the way to look at it from lumen's point of view is like well you know um They need Mark to get back to work. They were got a heli that's going to be subtly prodding them in that direction. Like, hey, that's true. We got a we got a they got Dylan, who you'd think.

We'll start saying like, hey, I get it. We want to find Gemma and I want to, too. But can we get a little of our work done? You know, like there's there's a couple of things that they got to going to kind of try to redirect Mark to his job. And we just haven't seen that.

Take effect yet because we're just days after all this is happening Yeah, right Kevin says some of the previous feedback danced around this topic, but I'm really starting to believe Love and or affection is going to play a pivotal role in this show could possibly be even part of solving reintegration. My biggest piece of evidence for this is in episode three when Rugabi says, I can sew together a version of you that loves her with a version of you that can something before being cut off by Mark.

But even but even before Ragavi said this, there are breadcrumbs throughout the episodes. If you think if you think about it, love and or affection has had a profound effect on each any. Dylan sees his kid in season one.

and Lumen starts to use his growing interest slash affection for his family in season two. Dylan gets to see his wife in episode three, and one of the last things she says that really hits him hard is, I love you. Then we have Irving and Bert. They were growing a deeper connection in season one.

before the relationship was severed by Lumen, no pun intended. Irving is still processing the effects of the separation in season two. However, similar to his Audi continually drawing the exports haul, Annie Irv is now continually drawing Bert.

Will anything come of this? Then we have Annie, Mark, and Heli. Their relationship culminated with a kiss in season one. Helena sees this and it obviously leaves some type of impression. So much so that she is presumably going to go undercover on the severance floor.

What makes this relationship even more complicated is Audi Mark is now trying to get back to his apparent wife who is trapped in Lumen. What role will love and affection play in the future episodes? Will it somehow be the bridge between the innie and the outie?

How will any and Audi mark square their separate love for both Heli and Gemma? Can't wait to find out. Yeah. Some interesting stuff. I really liked the thing about, you know, Irving on the outside has been trying to subconsciously fuck with Irving on the inside by repeatedly doing art and now Irving is doing the same thing organically.

Is that why that Irv up top has got like a fixation on Bert and is like paying him special attention and has looked up his address and he doesn't know why. But there's something about this Bert Goodman that's that's really maybe important. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that, uh, that sleep stuff has leaked through the other way. I took it. The Irv has been doing this ever since Bert left, right? Like we didn't know it last season, but he's been doing it for a while.

Yeah, I could see it being like, well, he was already sort of investigating Lumen on his own because he knew about this hallway. But then like Bert. fell in love or sorry Irv fell in love with Bert as an innie and now he's starting to see things when he goes to sleep yeah it's like I'm looking at these names just like the numbers kind of jump out there just something about this name that makes me he might not be articulated but it's like you know why did he go and map Burt's

house out. There's other theories. I saw that there's... What about this week's thing where Irv is sleeping? Maybe Audi Irv is seeing this thing with Woe and Burt. Because he's sleeping at that moment, right? Holy shit. I just realized this is the first time these innies have ever slept. Yeah, Irv has micro slept before, but he actually really slept. And then, yeah, Mark can...

Slept for the first time, which I guess is just a lot like clocking out, but. Mm hmm. But they've never had the experience of sleep. Wow. Yeah. OK. Yeah, that's kind of crazy. Mm hmm. But no, I like that because we've kind of theorized that the borders between the innie and outie get weak during sleep and during, you know, unconscious experiences. And why wouldn't it work both ways?

All right, Tyson says, may Keir's divine spirit guide you through the well-lit goat holes. Watch out for the poop. Do you think they'll try to use Rickon's revised book for Lumen to get messages to the innies? Uh... Would you entertain the idea that Rickon is part of the resistance and trying to subvert Lumen with his writings? I mean, we guess and yes. I mean, if you obviously Jim's way on that theory, he thinks that he's already wrote this whole Audi experience. So.

Yeah, not having the benefit of seeing this week's episode yet. Tyson, I think you're right.

although i look i i don't know if he's part of resistance i think he's just duped he's he's flattered that they want to use his writings at all and so he's willing to go along with whatever changes they want to make yeah yeah i don't think he's like part of the resistance but eventually yeah but i'm oh i'm i'm not against ricken being in lumen i'm not against ricken being a lumen resistor fighter i just i

don't see hard evidence other than a bunch of circumstantial like rick in rick in you know um that kind of stuff all right mark s not scout uh uh maybe scout i don't know it's a mark with a c so uh all the older cars in this show reminded me of a story i read in a car magazine about classic cars in cuba

Because of Cold War embargoes, Cuba was not able to import any vehicles made in the United States or their allies. The options they had were either to buy low-quality Soviet cars or just continue to maintain any cars bought pre-embargo. The result is that there are a lot of extremely high mileage classic cars from the 40s and 50s in Cuba, some with up to 500,000 miles. Could Keir P.E. be a similar situation? A sovereign nation that was cut off from trade for some reason?

That could be why we see a lot of older cars and some older tech. We see enough modern tech that I don't think they are still cut off. Maybe they were at one point, but have recently joined the United States. Maybe the tech being developed by Lumen was just too good to keep embargoed. That is possible. Be an interesting explanation for all the sort of older cars we see. Yeah. But there's also like I feel like that. to me it's already

Now that I think about it, kind of bugging me that no one has actually addressed the fact that they live in cure P and what the fuck that means. And we're halfway through season two thereabouts. Like if there was a full blown embargo, that's causing them to drive 20 year old cars. And this is a kind of like that. That hasn't come up yet. You know, again, it's their life. Why would they talk about it?

Sure, but at some point, that's a huge world building thing that you sort of need to know. That almost feels like an episode one kind of thing to me because it's so fundamental and important. i think we're we're headed for the reveal that like or the lack the non-reveal that cure pe is just a fictional place in a fictional country in a fictional world and it's a lot like our world but it's not

Our world. But there's like, it reminds me of, do you know the movie It Follows? Sure. Remember those weird clamshell Kindle pager things they had? In lieu of cell phones? I don't remember their pagers. Are they just sidekicks? Is that...

They did not just had these weird like Nintendo DS things that look like makeup compacts that opened up and they're a little, you know, like gray LCD screens and they were let it like the like text. And that was like and it was clearly not cell phone technology. But. Everything else about the world is the same, and I've never I've never found a reasonable explanation for why he did that, other than the fact that it's just like slightly skewed version of our world or slightly.

Unreal version of our world or like maybe he's wanting to do but it's like but like sometimes they just do that to You know the same reason that like Stanley Kubrick um did the unreal architecture inside the uh overlook hotel right it's like it's something you don't consciously perceive as you're watching it but it's something that makes you feel uneasy

Like, you know, seeing all these period piece cars in a non period piece setting might just be an effect to make us notice something is off about the world, but it's not supposed to mean it's a world building thing. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah. No, I could be. Yeah. I don't think there's a lot of there there. I'm. Yeah, I don't. I don't know. I don't have a reason to care about it yet.

Yeah. The only reason I care about it at all is because it feels like a very cult-like thing, right? It isolates this town more, in my mind. If it was like... yeah, this is happening just outside Peoria, Illinois or something and be like, well, I can buy that's a real place. I can go to it if I want and see if this is actually happening. This makes it feel a little bit more.

isolating for all the people who live there which is how a cult town should feel and i yeah i i don't see a problem with this just being a thing that you have to just take on the face of it It's cure PE. Don't think about it. Yeah. And finally, we got Patrick, who says episode three, when the mammalians ask to see bellies, we are misdirected.

to think this is an additional joke on the macrodats having patches. Of course, what it could be is them checking for belly buttons, as having no belly button is a sign you are a clone. Conveniently, Heli's skirt is pulled up, so we cannot see if she has one.

Creators keep insisting it's not cloning, so probably more misdirecting fuel for the fan theory fires, but it is definitely meant to get us thinking of clones. I will admit, I first thought, oh, they're checking for belly buttons to see if they're clones. That was my very first thought. And then they said no patches. I'm like, oh, right, right. But. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it could be. It could be. Yeah.

My thought was, son of a bitch, they're right. Also, it could be the fact that MDR has been slandered internally as a bunch of marsupial body snatchers. Yeah, it all makes sense in retrospect. Yeah. And like I said early on, they lay the groundwork for these things, sometimes just barely out of sight. But I don't know. We'll see. Clones are still on the table, I suppose.

And that's it. I guess the real question that I came away with last week is why did Gwendolyn's why did the first word out of Gwendolyn Christie's mouth is are you here to kill me? Oh, because it's, she's thinking it's the MDR. It's the barbarity of MDR. Gotcha. Cause I'm like, is that, I thought that was something about mammals, nurturable, mammalians, nurturable. It's like, are they, do they get called?

I don't know. You know, you already got one guy dressed as not ready yet. Yeah, exactly. He was the same guy who is calling bullshit about the lack of pouch or lack of whatever you see in there. Yeah. All right. All right. Well, that's it. Yeah. We'll be back next week for episode five, which will continue to delight and befuddle us. Hopefully send your feedback into severance at bulb move.com.

If you'd like to support us and get some nice Bald Move features yourself, go to support.baldmove.com. And if you are moved to... Give the Cure Owls Fund a little something something to help research cure for Alzheimer's. Go to groundhog.baldmove.com. You can either buy merch. All profits of that go towards curals or you can just straight donate cash and we'll just make that number bigger.

Like I said, it's over 42, probably over 43 easy right now. But I'm always happy to add more numbers to this checks. And again, thanks for everyone who did stop by and support. I saw a lot of people that are there first time. A lot of people said they're first time groundhoggers, first time donators. So love seeing it. We'll be back next week. Until then, I'm Aaron. And I'm Jim. See ya.