S02E06 - Attila

Yeah, I wasn't expecting successful relationship dynamics to be modeled on the show, but she's having an emotional, I need this a minute. Mark gives her that space. They reconnect. They have a heart-to-heart. And they end up having sex. I mean that's that's how you resolve an argument That's how that's how me and Jim do it every time

Welcome to the Waffle Potty, the officially unofficial podcast for Severance on Apple TV+. I'm Jim. I'm Aaron. And today we're back for Season 2, Episode 6, titled Attila. After watching this episode, hopefully... You're a student of history. You know, you know what they're getting at here because I don't. Do you want to tell me if there's any like behind these? Obviously, I know who it's all the hunt is. Yeah, that's it. Generally. But like, is it just.

A joke? Or is there something more there to dig into? Because I don't know. He's the king of the Huns. Alright. He ruled the Hun Empire around the... So around the 4th or 5th century? Beats me. One of the early kind of Visigoth-ish tribes that was rivaling the Romans for power. So maybe there's something there. Depends on what you make of the dinner conversation. Oh, I make a lot of it. That's something I'm really looking forward to talking about.

First off the bat, I want to apologize for the sound of my voice. I've been really sick this whole week. I am suffering from severe reintegration sickness. My podcasty and my normally, you know, just living two divergent lives. I try to put it back together and, you know, it all went bad on Groundhog's Day. And this is the result. But I'm here in spirit, if not fully in flesh.

Mm hmm. Yeah. So I'm going to be taking over the reading of the outline today. I do thank Aaron for putting that together. Mostly I did a little bit of editing, but.

uh yeah i'll take that over for you so you can still have a voice about an hour 45 into this podcast i was i was really shredded after yellow jackets yesterday so hopefully this will this will save it and of course this is the first episode just if we're doing all the housekeeping up front the first episode where we're splitting it into feedback episode and main episode so there is no feedback this episode but

Send that stuff in because I think on Monday, Tuesday of next week, maybe we're recording the feedback episode for that. So, yeah, get it. Yeah. Should be an extravaganza. And you can actually talk about this episode, which I think is going to go a lot better. Yeah, I am. It is. I mean, it's not nothing to be one week in arrears on feedback. I mean, that's a lot of how.

You know, you see feedback on comic books and stuff like that. It's always, you know, when they're printing the feedback is always from the previous issue. Right. So it's not unheard of, but it's certainly more 21st century of the moment. New media to have it. Oh, yeah. Mm hmm. All right. Well, generally, what do you think about this episode? You mentioned some bombshells. Thruples, thruples, thruples. I thought that they were just making a joke.

At Mrs. Cobell's expense. But I, my God, they took the throuple throttle and they put it to max. There's so many throuples and potential throuples going on in this show right now. Yeah. That's exciting. There's so many kind of potentially bombshell revelations or slips of tongue. There's also a kind of conventional slips of tongue happening into people's mouths. Other body fluids being exchanged. You know, a deepening appreciation of the Milchak-Kuong relationship.

Yeah, this is, again, it just feels like it's running downhill. And then we get to the point where, like, Helena confronts Mark in that Chinese restaurant. Oh, boy. And I'm already like, man, this is crazy. And then when she, and I forget. Got that. He knows about Gemma. Mm hmm.

Well, I didn't forget, but it wasn't in front of my mind. And when she drops Jim, I'm like, oh, my God, he knows about Jim. And this is now turning into like a cold read situation. Oh, it's a plus television. What do you think? Yeah, no, I'm with you. I'm really appreciating like if the first season was kind of an exploration of the hellish nature of the severance.

procedure for the innies this is sort of expanding it out one concentric circle to the relationship dynamics between you know everyone both inside and outside of this situation I think they're doing a really good job because that was a big question that we had like how is this all going to how would it work if

They got into a relationship with an innie and now you're introducing outies who are in relationships with innies and vice versa. And it's it's really getting complicated and interesting. And I'm very much enjoying that part of this season. Yeah, and the acting is off the charts. I thought Zach Cherry is particularly good. He's been good at being actually brave and extremely funny.

And kind of even badass in his kind of nerdy way. But he had some real, I felt like, range in this episode, playing both his Audi and his Innie. Sure. There's a lot of stuff. Yeah, like, you know, the Mark and Helly stuff. I think what the just everybody's executing on an incredibly high level. And then again, that that throuple dinner is just excellent actors with.

that they must just relish in the twilight of their careers. And it's just it's just a pleasure to watch. And then the mysteries keep. unfolding further right i mean we've we've you know kind of not sealed off the goat hole but the goat hole has been neglected for a little while the goal has been quiescent is that how you pronounce that It's dormant. Yeah, it's a live dormant. But you know what that means. In favor of these other sort of interesting wrinkles with Burt.

People, I don't know, spying on Irv. There's a lot going on here that's kind of extending it out, the mystery. But, you know, the longer that goal hole stays dormant, the more that liquid hot... Magma goat pressure is building up underneath the plate tectonics and it's just going to burst forth with a pyroclastic goat cloud running down the entire series. Run for your lives. It's going to be it's going to be a cloud of liquefied, superheated goat traveling at speeds up to 200 miles an hour.

Could be bad situation. So I hope they let off a little goat pressure. Maybe next episode. Yeah. I mean, they're definitely going to come back to the goats. You don't introduce that whole team and get them on your side. roughly vaguely and then just don't introduce the whole team you don't you don't the whole team the whole whole yeah team yeah

Or Gwendolyn Christie for that matter. Um, but yeah, I know it's super exciting episode, a super good episode, just all around. So surprise, surprise. I'm still in on this show. Yeah, you want to get right to it? Yeah. When my voice gives out? Not yet, Aaron. Come on. Your Audi is a friend to children and the elderly. Your Audi likes films and owns a machine that can play them. Your Audi avoids ads at support.baldmove.com

Please try to enjoy each ad equally. This concludes the wellness session. Now, get back to your desk and listen to more Waffle Potty. Barely started. Yeah, we start, we open the episode with Mark emotionally relaying the latest integration vision he had of Miss Casey and Gemma to Rigabi. And she does her best to reassure him that they'll eventually be together again.

It really hits, you know, Adam Scott's performance here. He's like tears in his eyes. Like he's almost confessing, you know, these feelings he's having. you know that then but he's distressed because she didn't recognize me and she's just babbling these nonsense things and she's still in there you know what's going to happen to her um what did you make of ragabi's answer about that

Is this where she just basically says she's essential, but has no further details, which to me says she doesn't really know why she's essential, just that she is. It makes me wonder. and i don't think there's any answer to this but it makes me wonder is mark important because of her his connection to jimma or is jimma important because of her connection to mark

Or are they both equally important? Are those things not the same? I don't know. I don't know. They're obviously playing with the idea of who's working on what side this episode. And we talked a lot about, you know, maybe Gemma's, you know, intentionally severed as part of the plan to help Lumen because she was always, you know, part of Lumen. But like, I don't know. I'm not sure yet

Did you I also detected and I don't know if this is just Mark being in the lowdown bargaining stage, but we've never heard anything other than that. Mark and Jim were in wedded bliss. But if you take his statements about his bargaining phase at face value, he was drinking maybe pretty heavily when they were together and was maybe not listening to all the things she was trying to tell him. What started that?

Do you think that this is Mark just being hard on himself? Or do you think that this is actually implying that there was a deeper fracture that maybe other people like Devin and Rickon weren't aware of? And it might explain. some kind of alienation she might feel from him. Cause I can't, I can't imagine that Jim would just sign up to be a Lumen slave. I don't know. Yeah. Unless she's Lumen all the way, you know? Yeah.

No, it's a good question, and I don't think there's any way to know quite yet. But it does imply... Yeah, he could just be beating himself up and making up things, like misremembering facts that aren't in his favor. to do that. But like, I think the drinking glass is interesting. Yeah. In my mind, I think like the drinking stuff might've started before her, but then the question becomes what caused it.

in the first place probably when rick and joined the group i imagine well we know they had some reproductive stress too you know they um i wonder if they tried for a child yeah I wonder if they saw eye to eye because we've only heard it from Mark's side. I wonder if they saw eye to eye or it was, you know, kind of like the inability could.

yeah yeah yeah drive him there yeah but not her because she was maybe a more more stable person to begin with she was the rock of the group right so yeah um i'm very curious to see What happens when we can reintegrate this relationship? Yeah. So Dylan tells Dylan, any Dylan here, tells Helly and Mark about Irv's drawings and directions that he found last episode. He doesn't want to help retrieve them because he's trying to stay out of looming trouble.

and they try and press him on why but he has no answers for them as heli proposes immediate action mark triggers another integration episode by looking into the break room fridge I love the Helly's response about, well, you know, I've still got my hall pass. I'll go get it. It's behind the poster of you actually being brave.

Jesus, Ellie, you're really, really going. I mean, look, this is a great thing he's doing. I was super worried last episode that Dylan was going to just sit on it, hide all this stuff. Yeah. Like I never heard of a map. What are you talking about?

uh dylan coming to them and telling them about this map is that's a plus good job dylan like i get that you might not want to tell them everything and lose your privileges to your wife but like he did the right thing here and for heli to give him shit about that

really sucks. She doesn't know, but like, that's the thing. I think she's just like Dylan ball busting, you know, cause she follows it up with like, what happened? Cause you know, she wants to go out and get it. And Mark's kind of like, ah, She's what did they sever your balls on the way down the elevator to like? I think she's just kind of like doing the Dylan thing, but she doesn't notice she's cutting so deep. Right. But right.

Bottom line is Lumen has successfully driven a wedge in this relationship because the three remaining refiners aren't aren't all together. aligned on their goals and i also wonder if mark and heli's relationship and dylan being kind of secretive and being about his relationship with gretchen if that's going to get worse before it gets better yeah it's possible um

It seems like Mark and Helly are back on a similar page this episode, but who knows where that goes with Mark reintegrating. That's going to get super weird, right? Especially knowing now that he's like... slept i yeah the the the sex situation is really complicating things yeah um let's listen analyze that Does Mark care that he fucked Helly R? Which Mark? Like Audi. Obviously, any any Mark is all about it. You know, waving flags, getting on the bandstand.

But is it Audi Mark or fully integrated Mark? Because I think there's a weird distinction to be made between those two characters as well. like audi mark probably wouldn't have given a he might have said oh that's not me you know let any mark do whatever the hell he wants but when you get integrated now you're just both of those are you so

I guess I should say, let's assume that he does know. Why would he care? Because it's not like he was living chaste. You know, he had sex with... uh the the the midwife last season um but that was before he knew that gemma was alive again now now he knows and his any has chosen again to have sex with heli so But it was innie, and you can separate that. It's mushy and complicated. Yeah. I wonder what the church would say about that situation.

I also started getting a pattern with these reintegration fits that he has is it seems like deja vu kind of sensory deja vu. like when his innie does something as out he does as a routine like opening up a refrigerator door bam when he's like walking down the hallway in his apartment bam you know like these things are like that everything just snaps together for a brief second

But that's really cool. Yeah, they're doing a good job with that. I also wonder if there's going to be a situation where... any mark is inadvertently sabotaged by Audi marks integration stuff because any mark has no idea what's happening. He's just starting to see flashes and. He doesn't even probably know that this is Audi Mark's memory. He's just like seeing crazy shit like Irv was. So he might accidentally give up something that he doesn't intend to give up to to a mill trick.

He's kind of I do wonder if the Helena checkup at the Chinese place was prompted by, you know, the Miss Wong examination because he was damn close to spilling some kind of beans doing that. Yeah, maybe. Don't the nosebleed? I know the board officially denies reintegration exists, but they have to know. And they probably know the symptoms and especially if they as heavily implied by this episode, Jamie can actually developed the chip, the medical technology. Yeah, I know.

All right, Milchik meets with Wong to subtly threaten the fellowship that she's on unless she demonstrates she has whatever wintertide potential is by growing the hell up. Wintertide? Winter Tide is. It's the new fragrance from Tide with pine and evergreen. It's a Christmas edition for their detergent. Yeah.

i guess it just largely means winter that's true this has got to be potential meaning so this this implies that she's in some kind of lumen youth program right um training some kind i'm trying to because the other thing i was trying to think of is like who could she be the child of that we because it would be

Maximally interesting if she's a child of someone that we've already known now that we know that she's got connections and she's trying to do things inside, you know, I wonder if this is connected to Harmony Cobles. egan school if she's a kind of like a harmony type person who's been you know adopted and indoctrinated or whatnot i saw

Uh, an interesting theory that might tie into this, but I don't buy it is that she is one of the firstborn child of the Senator's wife, Gabby. Okay. But like, she's not Asian and neither is he. she's more she's i looked up her heritage i didn't i didn't think she looked asian at all but yeah it turns out she's like mexican uh native american spanish basque but not not quite the far east so

I don't know, but there's they're both. And this is a very lumen thing. They are both kind of holding each other's careers by the throat, threatening them. Yeah. yeah i mean wong's actively reporting his dis uh discretions or indiscretions rather uh to lumen and he's threatening to pull her uh fellowship card

She grows the fuck up. I thought it was interesting when he said I'll be busy. OK, there's a couple of things I want to talk about here. I'll be busy the rest of the day. And she's like, oh boy, I get the. And he goes, you can sit at your regular desk. I think she was going to try to sit at Melchick's desk. And he's like, absolutely fucking not. Which, okay, considering the events of this episode, what the fuck is going on? What?

They are all about they're getting this file refined. And there's one scene at the middle of the episode where they just show the MDR room completely empty because everyone's involved in these intense throuple situations. What the fuck is Huang doing? I mean, Milchak's bettering himself. He's he's collating things with paper clips. It's a fine use of his time. But like either either this is.

Phenomenal levels of stupidity and lack of oversight or this is some kind of intentional thing they're doing. Doesn't feel intentional. Or they're just following the rule of cool and hoping that we're so caught up in the narratives and all the emotional stuff that we miss how just kind of silly. Because last year they got away with it because Kobo was obviously gone rogue.

She was doing things that the board didn't know about. She's doing things. But now with everyone, including Jamie and breathing down their neck and monitoring them on like a daily basis, how. Can you just fritter away an entire workday? Yeah, no, it seems like they're understaffed and overworked. And Milchak being I think Milchak being off on this mission of personal growth is.

foolish at this time because of how important cold harbor apparently is he should just be dedicated 100 like leave the leave your speech patterns for later man just figure out how to get them to do their job right now Lock them in there. Get this work done. Stand in there. Stand in there watching them saying get to refining.

Yeah. Next quarter, he's going to be working on being able to successfully prioritize his work effort because he's I hope so. He's doing the it seems like the low hanging fruit. Yeah, for sure. And not getting, you know, it's like, hey, if he left the performance meeting, say, hey, Natalie, Mr. Drummond, real quick, if you had if you had to rank one, two, three in importance. my over verbosity and my lack of proper paperclip application or getting Mark to refine this fucking file.

that'd be like that'd be like that'd be like uh like a like a two one three right And they'd be like, what the fuck? No, it's a three, two, one. You don't want to get back in here. We got another six hours to go. Three, three, three. We don't give a shit about the other two. Do that on your own time, man. Get the three done. Yeah. No, it's crazy that he's not more focused on that. And I guess it shows in Milchak a. A deficiency, he he either doesn't understand or doesn't care.

that the most important thing here is to get cold Harbor done, but they've told him. So he knows he just simply doesn't care. In this one, I'll say I won't even say cults, I'll say dysfunctional organizations, because God knows I've seen in Fortune 500 companies on down. But in dysfunctional organizations, when management. doesn't really have an idea of what the key performance metrics are and how to keep an eye on them, you'll have ridiculous things.

Where managers obsess about the things that are certainly nice and enhance professionalism or everything, but do not make dollars, do not make the clients happy, do not pay the bills at the expense of the other stuff. Because for whatever reason, upper management can see the stupid bullshit compliance, you know, but they can't see the fact that they were not getting any headway done in the actual work.

Sure. And I wonder if Lumen is a bit like that too, you know? Yeah. I mean, knowing that it must've been Miss Wong who reported him on these other things. You kind of wonder if he's not trying to bulletproof himself for the next time. Because she's gunning for his job, for sure. Jesus, can you imagine her running the floor? I can't, no.

I don't know. She might be more of a dictator than any of the previous bosses down here. She might actually get the job done, but boy, taking her seriously would be a real challenge. That's what I'm saying. She don't got a grainer. if she didn't have a mail check like yeah just again what a dictator did you know grab by the face and push down onto the floor and they can't in that attack position, their hands can't even reach you like that.

Not a great dictator. You need a you need the army. You need that. You need the ass kicker standing behind you. And yeah, they needed. Where's their new Mr. Greener? Speaking of. Yeah. Where is man in the hallway? Episode one shot one. of this second season was man in the hallway we have no idea what that was about yet wait a second did this come up on

This might have come up with my the Pete Peppers thing I did last week. By the way, we're doing that every week, every Friday night. Join one of us with Pete Peppers at 9 p.m. Eastern to have a long form discussion about this week's episode.

He mentioned that the casting for the man in the hallway was the exact same person as the evil Mark twin animatronic from the or bow. Yeah. So. that's a pretty good indication and that's just some kind of reflection of mark now what does that fucking mean or are they suggesting that there really is this kind of fake mark working with lumen in some capacity i don't know

but yeah they haven't addressed that at all yeah the show very conspicuous for sure so i don't know what they're doing with it it's before he started the integration process so it can't really be something where they're messing with his memories it almost has to be something real but i thought that guy was going to be grainer eventually the new grainer he's not yeah same same all right uh let's move on to

We go to the bathroom here where Mark confesses to Heli that he had sex with Helena on their Orpo, making them a non-consensual thruple. Stunned, she walks away to process things. I would say more than stunned. She's kind of devastated. Yeah. She's feeling real shitty about this whole thing, which we'll kind of see later.

This is kind of like the equivalent of waking up from a dream where your partner has cheated on you and... being hurt and mad about it like it's just a purely emotional reaction it doesn't have any rational basis because everything she was begging and pleading for in the last episode about it wasn't me and you couldn't you and i could not it's like it applies doubly so to mark and

I like that this wasn't because when this first happened, I'm like, oh, God, I do not want a multi episode arc of Mark and Heli being kind of distant and cold and combative. And turns out. Didn't need to worry about that for longer than 15 minutes or so. But I feel like it's a natural reaction, especially when that idea wasn't even on her radar. When Mark said I had sex with her, he's like.

She assumed Jim. She's like, what in a wellness session? Like what? So it just it just blew her mind. And we already know how she feels about Helena. Mm hmm. And this is one more thing she's done to Heli to fuck with her.

Yeah, that's the thing I like about it most, I guess, is how natural all this feels. I think Mark waited the exact appropriate amount of time to tell her. He didn't stall. He wasn't like... trying to avoid like how am I going to tell her this whatever whatever he was like oh shit he was doing the same thing where he's like I don't know how to feel about this I don't

really understand what the hell just happened. He's stunned. He's been violated. We didn't make a big deal out of that because Mark's a guy probably. You know, it's 2025. We've been harping on this shit for 15 years. But yeah, Mark was violated. Mark was raped. And so like.

I was very impressed with the pacing of all this stuff. There's no way in which he runs up to her as she stumbles out of the elevator and says, by the way, we had sex. I thought it was you, but it wasn't. That would have been insane, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. to wait another two episodes is like dude now you're just you're avoiding it and you're going to cause more strife when you finally do explain it yeah i thought this was just like the perfect amount of time

One episode. Plus it gives Melchick something to hold over your head. Like if he wants to cow you in a conversation, he just has to subtly hint to that. and undermine your relationship with heli and so yeah he's completely defang do you think that milchek will go to fire that gun and find that it's unloaded later that would be pretty delicious he might

He might. I don't get the impression that they are under heavy surveillance right now, so I don't think anything... But why? Yeah, no, it's a fair question. Why are they not? Yeah, and I... I still think they were under some sort of surveillance. I don't know if it's down to seeing them have sex in the plastic room or not, but... We'll find out. And Heli is very smart and she's seeing what Lumen's trying to do. They're trying to fracture this very successful, rebellious team.

And even as she is numb and shock and horror, that's what she says. This this this this is another tactic. But your head is wrong. Actually, I think that's. that may have been part of it on on lumens part that might have been the reason but on helena's part that's not the reason helena's down there i think trying to experience whatever relationship they developed uh mark and heli you know that i've been on that same wavelength this whole time but i started wondering in this episode if

We go back and watch those scenes when we have the full context of everything. If instead of longing for human connection, she's actually plotting revenge. Like all the shit in her perspective that Helly's put her through, threatening to cut off her fingers, almost killing her. Like the one thing that Helly's got down there is this relationship with Mark. What if I just took it? Yeah.

That could be it. Still not the reason. What made me think about this is the Chinese restaurant performance. Like, but I don't know. We can talk about that when we get there. Yeah. How much of a performance is it? Well, we'll see. all right milchik in his secret supply room practices collating with paper clips uh i thought at first maybe this was vindictive paper clipping maybe he was putting a thousand on there the wrong way and then how long put them all on the other way uh

No, it seems like it was practice. It's an insane scene. I love the I don't know if this is a joke or it's just because the sound design when he pops open. That thing of paperclips, it's like hermetically sealed, like, you know, like, like if Dr. Crusher falls. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that. I was going to go with the Star Trek The Next Generation reference. But yeah, tennis balls. Sure. They still pack tennis balls and.

and under pressure it's you know i haven't opened a can of tennis balls in about me either 30 years but i think 10 for me so but um Yeah, just everything about it, just a seriousness. And I'm like, what the fuck is he doing? And then as soon as I saw that there are paper clips and he had two stacks of paper, I'm like, absolute maniac is going to collate a ream of paper.

just to practice paper clipping yeah now it's psychotic milchek once he got the note he can be like i'll just do it from the front every single time right what the fuck you gotta practice 500 times And who knows how many reams he actually did, because by the time he's done, his hands are shaking from the collation. Yeah. No, he's trying to get that muscle memory. You know, you do something enough times, you're going to.

You won't even have to think about it. I guess so. I feel like I've applied a paperclip maybe 100 times in my life. Maybe 100 times. And all of those were 15 years ago. And you know what? You put me, you put me, give me a stack of papers and a paperclip. I'll put it on right, right now. Muscle memory is still there. Riding a bike, baby. All right. Maybe we'll test that theory at some point.

But for now, let's move on to Dylan and Gretchen having another any Audi work date. And the requested hug from Dylan turns into a surprise kiss from Gretchen. Oh, yeah. Our second throuple of the episode enters the chat. Yeah, and it gets more complicated later in the episode, too, when she starts lying about it. You really are getting a full appreciation for what a...

What was that fucker on the last season of Fargo? The guy who, you know, was married to the sheriff lady and he was like spending all her money on golfing and trying to be professional golfer and. Dylan is kind of that a less douchey version of that guy, but that's still pretty douchey. Yeah. Yeah. He's doing a whole bunch of hobby stuff and trying to find himself based on.

you know her having holding down this job but it's like i don't know maybe he's more likable but he's still douchey like you know uh gretchen here is supporting the entire family i guess dylan has now finally got a job got a job back But he's wanting to buy a new car. He took scuba lessons. What the hell, man? Went into woodworking, which is not a cheap hobby to get into.

Unless you're doing like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to whittle. I'm going to get a couple of blocks. I'm going to start whittling. And then maybe I'll buy a plane and I'll have a chisel and I'll start. You got to spend some real money. You need space. It's going to occupy space. Have you looked at how much fucking hardwood costs? Yeah. Yeah. You actually want to build something that's not Canadian pine. Also, have you seen how much Canadian pine? No. Um, let's get in a garage. You're making.

he's well i mean every time i've seen somebody on television yeah what like one of those things would be harmless if that was your splash out for um Or if they had the money to burn, if they were like well off and you want to indulge your things, you're taking care of your kids and you're keeping your mate satisfied. Who gives a shit? But none of those things are happening. And Dylan, not only is oblivious to it, it's like he's like he's like a.

He's like a spoiled teenager asking his mom, like, you know, like, like pulling this thing that it's always worked for him. And it really made me not like Audi Dylan. Yeah. yeah i'm with you i i don't know much about him but everything i'm finding out about him is like oh okay he's he's not just pathetic

It might be too harsh to call him pathetic. It seems like he's depressed. I think that might be inaccurate. If you look at all the other examples in television of... people getting into weird hobbies i'm thinking like hank schrader hank didn't get into mineral collecting or garage beer making because he was

I think he was always a garage beer maker, which is a perfectly acceptable hobby. When he got into minerals. The minerals. That's when. Yeah. That's when you knew he was depressed. Yeah. And angry. So, yeah, Dylan. Hmm. I don't know. We'll find out more about him, I'm sure. But for now, I like any Dylan better. And so does Gretchen. And I think it's sweet that Dylan's not trying to undermine. He's trying to... Sure.

You don't you're like buck up out the deal is like, you know, maybe he's just trying to find his thing that he excels out like I do down here. And this is the scene where I thought Zack Cherry really shined in terms of like because I've seen him in a bunch of different things. uh turns out i was watching shang chi last weekend um he shows up in the iconic uh bus fight as the guy who's filming the entire thing and he's very funny um

But like I've seen him and he's never been anything but just funny. And surprise, surprise, another person with acting chops can bring the emotional thunder, too, because there's something very sweet about this childlike sincerity.

with the kind of tears in his eyes like i wish we could be together all the time well we are well no we're not yeah no you feel for him and you kind of feel for gretchen too like she's seeing maybe what outie dylan used to be what they were when they first met um and she wants that she misses that but i don't know if this is a way to get it back just gonna put that out there

And I do think you're onto something about there being depression or, you know, if like you feel like a loser fuck up and especially in, you know, this, even in this day and age in this country, if you're the man and you're not winning the bread and. And a failure. It's not just like they decided together that he's going to stay home and not be the breadwinner. No, he's tried many times over.

to get jobs and nothing has stuck he's never found anything he's good at it and it might be that it might be the like he doesn't feel like he's ever found his place in life not even just oh well i can't hold jobs for very long Like he doesn't have anything that he feels is his own.

I will say he could compensate by just being more present at home, like maybe keeping track of your kid's ear medication and whether their cookies need to be baked so that she literally doesn't have to do fucking everything, including conjugal visits with your any self. Yep. Yep. See how that progresses. I just want to be the first time I, wait, I just want to be the first time I said it to you, but I also find a really sweet, like.

because these are like middle aged actors, but they're getting to pretend like teenagers, you know? Yeah. Like, that's what this energy is, where Zack's like, oh, you think we could try that hugging thing again? And they do a seated hug for some bizarre reason. But it is very tentative. He's shy and she's kind of shy and they're feeling each other out. And there's it's these aren't two people who are experienced not only a lovemaking, but lovemaking to each other.

Right. They're doing it for the first time. And there's something really sweet about every instance of this happening in this episode, which is I was you'd ask me how many throuples. that we'd have got, let alone how many throuples would either consummate or get the like second base. I'd have been like, oh, zero point five to going on three with maybe two and a half. Yeah. Scoundrel Bert.

Uh-huh. Yeah, we'll see. All right, Mark and Heli both ponder their relationship while she's on her walk until they mutually decide to find each other and run into themselves in the hallway. Helly tells Mark that after reflection, other than feeling angry and used by Helena in general, she's also jealous that Mark got to or that Helena got to have Mark rather than her.

Then she cordially invites him to take her to Poundtown, which in this case is a dimly lit room full of plastic wrapped cubicles. I love this. Poundtown's gone to hell. Since the hurricane blew through, it's just all boarded up plastic. I don't know, man. This is good. I they're making spare tents or tents from like.

you know the spare desks that have been kind of in the background all no they're they're making they're making a blanket fort out of cubicles and plastic this is such a teenage thing to do it's like yeah we got to go make our little bit of privacy here

in a world that affords us none. I think it's great. Also, hardly any foreplay, which is very much a teenage thing to do. Yeah, I think they really nailed... the experience of two teens kind of getting it for the first time yeah and um I want to go back to this part where they're pondering, too, because there's this really amazing shot of, like, Mark's alone MDRing, and he's, like, holding his head and his hands on the left side of frame while on the...

Or on the left side of frame or on the right side of the frame, there's this like this severely undershot image of the freshman fluke trophy just kind of grinning maniacally and spinning in place. It's like, you know, the old Lumen him versus the new. heli him and um it's uh pretty pretty pretty pretty good pretty good camera work um and yeah i just love i man So many shows and movies generate tension by having people just not talk about things. Yep.

And like I said, I was dreading that they would pull this out because that's what a lot of shows would do. A lot of good shows do. And I hate it every fucking time. But these people like, I mean. Yeah, I wasn't expecting successful relationship dynamics to be modeled on the show, but she's having an emotional, I need this a minute, Mark gives her that space, they reconnect, they have a heart-to-heart.

And they end up having sex. I mean, that's that's how you resolve an argument. That's how that's how me and Jim do it every time. Speaking of every time, is it is there something interesting here where. Helena slash Heli have both had their first times with Mark, right? they've each slept with mark for the first time so now they have two of those if they are reintegrated this is almost like a cheat code for getting two first times with someone right where like now she'll have the memory of

doing it with Mark for the first time twice, which is crazy. Yeah. And there's also the dynamic of like Helena pulled Mark's V card, but then Mark pulled Heli's V card. Oh my God. this gets so complicated so fast yeah um there's also there's a there's a you know because she's talking about you know um She's talking about how she's mad that this woman who controls her and controls this whole company and controls their business also got to have something that I didn't.

And she finishes her rant. And besides, she dresses me each morning like a baby. Like, I don't think that's what Helena is doing. I don't think she's sending her down there and deliberately unsexy, alluring things. I think. I always thought Helly just looks like a pretty professional woman going into clock work day. Yeah, no, I took that to mean like she dresses her as if she were a baby, not in baby's clothes. But also...

because all hell he knows is when she went to her body, she's in his gorgeous evening drown a gown with all this jewelry and her makeup. And like, I wonder what hell he felt like to see that in a mirror. Like, oh, my God, this is it's like.

katniss everdeen in the hunger games i got kidnapped and scrubbed and quaffed and fitted and painted and all that stuff and so i wonder if she there is i think you're right it's the idea that she dresses me like a baby yeah like i'm a child and then sends me off to school or whatever and mark's such a horny teenager because like you know he's concerned with heli but like when he realizes what she's getting at and he gets that like big smile on his face

He offers to describe their time together in the tent. I'm like, no, come on, man. Yeah. I mean, he's like, again, for, I mean, we keep on some teenager, but like. More like a four-year-old, right? Or even a two-year-old. Yeah, I go with teenagers because they're having the rebellious streak here. Right, yeah. Against Lumen.

the other thing is like obviously the contrast between the ultra romantic setting this tint in the winter and there's a heat like it's almost having sex in in a teepee on the plains in the winter with with a fire raging in the background and they got these ultra high quality lumen sheets and bedding and pillows and here they're just rolling around on

Drop cloth, plastic drop cloth. Yeah. But which which thing would Mark would would Mark enjoy more? You know, I do wonder objectively which one Mark enjoyed more. yeah i don't know maybe we'll find out next episode i imagine he enjoyed both of them equally i yeah especially when you're a teenager it doesn't matter where you're doing it it yeah it literally makes no difference you could be doing it on a jagged rock poking into your back the entire time and you don't care.

I've had sex a lot of places in my 20s that I would not countenance in my late 40s now. I'd be like, no fucking way. It's not worth the thrown out back in the next day. But we need to find that work-life balance. We'll be right back. Reintegration is complete. To avoid further non-worker related interruptions, please see the company policy on advertisement avoidance at support.baldmove.com.

But it's just incredibly sweet just how innocent they both are. They're just like shy and they're giggling and, you know, they confess that they're both nervous about it. You know, Mark checks to make sure she's still everything's all all good and the foreplay. And, you know, it's like, again, these are middle aged people.

But it's not like like Steve Carell is a middle aged guy having sex in a 40 year old virgin. But it's not doesn't feel like that. It feels a lot more like it's, you know, kind of just this wholesome, pure, just very sweet experience. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. All right, let's go to Milchik, who has collated until his hand shakes. All paperclips, paperclips affixed front to back properly.

He then tackles his next personal review flaw, his verbosity, by simplifying his language as he stares himself in a mirror, willing himself to grow, grow. Yeah, this is an insane scene. You remember that scene in what what season of Ted Lasso was it was a two where Nate.

was starting to go bad and we start realizing how badly he hates himself and he's like looking the window or looks at himself in a mirror and he like spits at himself and i think he slaps himself i got a lot of that same energy that he's You know, delivering his flowery, you know, when he's talking to Miss Wong, the you must eradicate from your essence, this childish folly. And he slowly simplifies it. But he's kind of talking to himself. Totally.

yeah he's telling himself to grow get get better get stronger uh yeah i i do think it'll be funny to see if he becomes monosyllabic on the next episode or something. If someone comes into his office, he'll just tell them yes or no or get out or... gonna start sounding like people from idiocracy just totally yeah everything's at a fourth like usa today front page everything's just at a fifth grade level yep maybe use the f word less that'd be nice uh yeah

Yeah, but I don't know. It seems like it takes a great effort for him to get his language down to something more simple. So I think he's going to still struggle with it. I don't think the old Milchick is gone. Such an intense scene because he ramped up the intensity of every single iteration until the end. There was almost like this release.

You know, like it's more and more intense, more and more loathing and contempt. And then when he find it, the last grow he gives, it just kind of like leaves his body. The other thing I clocked is and I was wondering if you did, too, is like he backs himself into a partial scripture quotation. Oh, yeah, yeah. when he says you must abandon the childish things that's a pretty good paraphrasing of first corinthians 13 11 yeah for sure uh

I wonder if that's intentional because there's obviously a lot of spiritual religious imagery here. And there's nothing flagellation kind of thing. You know, and also it's like I there's nothing that connects looming to Christianity like they're not a they're their own thing, man. I don't know that they believe in God or if they do, it's here. Yeah.

Yeah. And the episode sort of makes a weird, like, I don't know, a slight connection there with Bert where he says, Jesus Christ led me to Lumen. But of course it's not, it's not anything that Lumen's involved with.

with the church it's just perhaps to be unless he was a ceo illumined 20 years ago oh yeah we don't know we don't know we'll talk about that But Helly and Mark head back to the department with obvious sex hair and clothing all smiles until Mark's nose starts to bleed This sends him to first aid where Miss Wong attempts to treat him while he has another waking reintegration moment

And this snaps us back to Mark's basement as Rigabi tries to further his integration process. She wants to try something a little more invasive, but Mark storms out of the session. Yeah, it was like, Rigabi can be this way, right? They were talking about on the official pod last week about their dynamic and how they're kind of like the odd couple here. But even I, as much as I want to see Mark integrated, as much as Mark wants to integrate it, when she just starts like.

prying his crack open in the back of it, you know, just like, Hey, I'm just going to do this. Like you're on board. And he's just like, you know what? Fucking no, I need to go eat. Yeah, this is insane to me also. I'm going to say there are very few inconsistencies I experienced watching this show, but this felt like one to me. Rigami saying...

we need to enhance, speed up the process. I'm like, wasn't it you just an episode ago that said, nah, we need to take this very, very slow. Do you think? That fell wrong to me. that somehow she knows that they're on a clock too that she's got to get mark reintegrated before they get this uh this file for the old harbor maybe yeah that's the only thing because you're right because she would know that last episode too

I would think. Yeah. Or maybe as, I mean, she's just getting like, she's got the what finish line fever, you know, she sees the end and she's kind of getting tunnel vision of it. Or maybe I do. Maybe he's progressed to a stage where now if they don't speed it up, he's going to be. They could have explained this better, that change of pace. Let's just say that. Yeah. I was really impressed by the moves of any markdown here.

uh audi mark seems like a smooth motherfucker which we'll talk about later when he's not drunk and belligerent but like the way you know because uh they're they're they're walking back like i said a tousled hair they've had their afternoon delight and They're all smiles. And she asked, was it different with me? But just why the fuck would you ask that, Helly? What, what, you know? What is the answer you want there?

Instead of it, instead of answering her, he just kind of like gently pushes her against the hallway and lays a smoldering kiss on her and also smears blood off her face. But, you know, he didn't he didn't know it. His nose is bleeding.

I thought that was a really good reveal to the show on her face and have him express concern. He's like, oh, no, you're bleeding. And then when she's like, no, it's actually your nose. And we as an audience who know what this means, we're like, oh, my God, oh, my God, he's in trouble. Yep. He's on the stage of PDing. Yeah, which makes it even scarier when he's going to go, you know, all out when they're going to enhance the speed up the process.

Do you think that Miss Wong is clocking anything weird here and the examination she does? Because he is acting weird as fuck. If so, she's hiding it very well. I felt like every time he acted really weird and there was a potential for her to raise an eyebrow, she just kept right on with her business. So I don't think so, but she probably should be picking up on this stuff. It is a little weird.

Especially if there's any information out there about integration. Yeah, because if they know any of the symptoms, he's exhibiting all of them. Is that why Lumen is so interested in the employee's health and that like all coughing and stuff has to be reported to because they do have some kind of coat, you know, like up high, they have a list of integration sickness symptoms. Okay.

And there's like a page in the manager handbook that says if an employee starts coughing, nosebleeds, seizures, disassociation, call upper management immediately. Like I could see that. I could definitely see that. I could too. Yeah, we'll find out what Huang does about it, I guess, soon enough. But then Irv arrives for his date with Bert and his husband Fields.

And Bert tells Irv how his personal connection with Jesus Christ led him to Lumen. And maybe lets a giant bomb slip in the process. Third thruple, baby. Yep. Thruple up. Found it funny that Irv's Audi also uses a similar mustache comb. You think they let him take his own mustache comb into work? That's a good fucking question. Or do they have the exact ones? I have the exact same mustache comb. You do? All right. Handy as fuck. Yeah, I keep one in a car.

Do you have a separate beard comb? You have a mustache comb and a beard because you couldn't be combing out your beard with that mustache comb. Oh, no, I use I use a brush for my beard. The mustache is just for like literally parting it. And I usually don't do it often unless I'm wax. You know, when I get really fancy and I wax it. but gotcha yeah but uh it uh it helps keep you it helps it keep it helps keep everything put together you know there is a lot of sparky sexy tension um

You know, this could be a scene in some kind of like thriller, right? Like some kind of psychological thriller. Yeah, you could be sitting there on Hannibal Lecter. Yeah, Irv's going into a bottle of wine and the other guy that he hasn't really met is... you know, I don't know what you would call this where he's kind of like putting Bert down, but he's also welcome to the home and.

And he says, what's mine is yours. And the way he looked at Irv when he said, what's mine is yours, you know. And you brought wine. Yeah, everything up until John Noble does his excellent work. in a scene from now where he kind of breaks down a little bit. Everything up until then feels like they're just a playful couple. They're just having fun, you know?

Like everybody knows the score here. We're just going to tease each other. There's no harm, no foul until you get to John Noble breaking down, which is pretty amazing. But we'll get there. Did you see the pepper grinder collection that they have? No. There's a shot when Irv walks into the kitchen and like all three of them are in frame and they kind of like you can see, you know, like a lot of people have those void spaces above their cabinets. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He must add 200.

pepper grinders of all sizes, shapes, materials. So you have those big four foot ones that you have to be a giant to use. I love those things, man. Those are so over the top. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like a good pepper grinder. But they're not cheap. And they got like a couple hundred of them. So what did you make? I believe is what they would call them. Oh, pepper mill. That's true. That's true.

What did you make of all this? Because this took me completely by surprise. So Bert, tell me, what brought you to Lumen? Well, I guess Jesus did. Like I was Irving this whole thing. Like, what the hell? I got to hear the story. But it's kind of interesting, right? I mean, I kind of buy it. It's but it's weird.

Like, I don't know how I'd feel if I was a 78 year old gay man and my lover is like, well, of course you're going to go to hell because of whatever you did in your youth. I don't want to be lonely up there. So let's. Let's put pull a pull a microwave burrito soul out of the freezer and I'll be with him Yeah, I wonder like what kind of existence do you get integrated like a free integration when you go to heaven?

Will he have all the memories of being with his husband for decades? Well, that's the other thing. This is the church position. Who knows what God actually thinks, but... Sure, sure. No, this is... yeah it's interesting i mean i guess it's better to have some part of him like he says right um feels about going and visiting his audi uh bird's audi

It gives Bert a real kind of edge to him, too, because like there's a bit of darkness to him when he said, you know, I was a bit of a scoundrel. But, you know, when there's talking about the and he can go to heaven while the Audi burns. And I bet that's not intended to exactly mean working with Lumen on the severance project before it was officially existing.

But that's probably part of what he means. Like probably imagines he's going to burn for that. Yeah. Yeah. No, this feels like a weird get out of jail free, like a loophole for getting into heaven, though, because. But honestly, I'm going to say it's not that dissimilar from Catholicism where you can just go to confession and that cleanses your soul, essentially. Well, that's right. I'm not. I don't know much. You could be.

Hitler and if you're on your deathbed be like sever me and get to go to heaven because well other part of you It doesn't create a soul. If you think Adolf H would be anything like Adolf Hitler, like, come on. adolf h didn't do nothing it's true adolf h did nothing wrong clip that ship it around the world um can you imagine when adolf h is reintegrated

Oh, his fucking mind is going to be blown at his Audi's behavior. Yeah, it's not good. It's not good. But you know what I mean? It's like you could be the worst person in the world. And it gets severed and some part of you is going to heaven. That feels like a loophole. I don't think Jesus intended that. I will say I don't know much about Lutheranism other than, you know, the dude banged a bunch of stuff on the door and wore hair suits and caused a bit of ruckus in Europe.

But like do they not believe in the redeeming power of Jesus Christ sacrifice like guess not What kind of scoundrelly do you do? What, what kind of, did you like sin against the Holy spirit bird? Is that kind of discoundrel you were? Cause there's very few things you can do to damn you. Yeah. Forever.

without an act of contrition and, you know, getting right with God. I just, yeah, I don't get it. I feel like helping create the severance project should be qualifying for that though. Well, that harm that's going to do. Yeah, we're getting ahead of ourselves on that one. Meanwhile, Mr. Frolic himself, Drummond, arrives at Irving's house and lets himself in to take a look around. Also, Gretchen evades her husband's questions about her any date.

This is where we get Dylan trying to buy a new car and all this stuff on Gretchen's money. You finally see this guy's frolic tattoo? Yeah, up close. On his hand. Can we open up some old business about Mr. Drummond? Yeah, please. I was watching, I think it was the previously on. And there's that thing where Heli is like, does father know of this? And he doesn't say. Mr. Egan or James Egan or whatever, he says father encouraged it. Does that imply that.

he is related to is that he's the natural son of of jay megan as well is he like some kind of bastard son or is he hell he's legitimate full brother half brother or do they just call him father that way

It's weird because his name isn't Egan. It's Drummond. So I wouldn't think he's a legitimate brother. So bastard brother? Or again, is this just a religious term? I've never heard anybody but... heli column but i something i wanted to call out i don't know he's clearly as devoted as anybody to this so it's possible Ooh, Gretchen. Gretchen Lyon. Like, to me, I don't know how I would feel about this. Like, is this cheating? Is this having an emotional affair with your innie?

But like, I think it's pretty clear that if you feel guilty telling your partner about it, that you think it's cheating. Yeah. And Gretchen is therefore cheating on Dylan. Let me throw another potential out there. She does not want to have an awkward conversation about the state of their relationship. She's avoiding the inevitable conversation that comes up with, well, why would you?

kiss him why would you hug him why are you spending time why don't you go with why wouldn't i you know he's providing he's putting food on the family's table he's a great guy he's literally you You get to have me all the time. He just wants a hug and to look at her kids pictures and to know what he's working for. Yeah. But the kiss. I just I just think it's emotions behind it, too. It's definitely the emotions behind it. But also, I don't know what.

kind of guy dylan is on the outside and maybe he's a very angry jealous man and she knows that this conversation is going to lead places that she doesn't want to go right now because she's got to get to work or whatever but either way it's it's borderline dishonest and borderline cheating I agree I would put it over to borderline and I said I'm starting to not like Dylan the Audi Dylan but

I really liked him at first because, you know, he was, you know, he's very funny. He's quick on his feet in that door interview. But then I remember us saying that, like, God, he seems like he's being a real asshole to his wife. Yeah. And now that I know they're dynamic. Like, man, she has been nothing but loving and supportive towards him. And, you know, this I don't know if she's shown this frustration towards him or if like seeing how.

put together and attentive and appreciative of her. Any Dylan is it's, it's really, it's really coming to the, to the forefront. Yeah. She doesn't even tell him that she went to see him. She says the whole thing was cancelled. Forget about the kiss, the hugs, all that stuff. The whole thing was cancelled. Didn't even see him.

Yeah. Where do you think this is going? Is this, does this turn into like a weekly thing? Does it turn into a daily thing? Is it something that Dylan's going to fuck up and get their access revoked and that's going to provoke things with Gretchen on the outside? Cause she wants to go see him. I don't give a shit whether he does. I want to see my husband. You've been letting me see my husband. What is this a punishment? Like.

Yeah, no, it's a good question. If I'm looking at this holistically, I see Mark integrating, reintegrating, whatever you want to call it. He's going to now have all the memories of his friends. down on the severed floor surely he's gonna want to enable them to potentially have the same procedure he did And I could see a situation where Dylan is reintegrated, not knowing that his wife has been having this relationship with him and has very difficult time dealing with that.

And knows who he is. Maybe it's more difficult because he realizes that that Dylan is a better guy than he is. And trying to come to terms with that is rough. I do think that Dylan... Hmm. I, I, I kind of been thinking that too. Like what is the, what are, where is the kind of mid game?

um, the middle game of this show. And I'm like, are they going to do like a super group, like an Avengers or a justice league where they get all these severed and unsevered people together. And where Gabby's kind of like their professor acts.

Wouldn't that be interesting considering like that's kind of what the idea that Milchick introduced with that fake newspaper at the beginning, right? Like this is true. You guys are the heroes outside. They become the Lumen for it's a prophecy working on the inside and the outside. It's.

Right. It's a weird spy game. But they're also setting up like where that might be siloed up because we've seen Mark retreat further away from the people helping him, including his sister. Irv's already got his own thing and now he's getting into this intrigue with Bert.

And I don't know that they would want to reintegrate if you just came to him and said, hey, we're trying to reintegrate everybody. He'd be like, well, yeah, I don't want to fucking do that. Maybe if it meant being with Gretchen, he might.

want to do it now yeah i assume you're talking about any no i'm talking about audi jill dylan oh oh because i assume any of the any of our four lumen people would want to be reintegrated no problem except for heli that's everything what is yeah what's heli do with that Talking about oil and water. Are they going to have to push her to the outside as the others get integrated? They know they can't reintegrate her, so she'll have to get pushed out of the any group as well.

That's going to be a conflict of interest. I don't know. They need... What? What Mark needs to do, Mark and Ellie need to do as soon as they get bored boning or whatever, or before the next session is they need to come up with a safe word, not for sexual purposes, but for in case like we're going to invent some kind of weird rutabaga goat. Dylan blue. If I, if I ever suspect that you're Helena, I'm going to ask you what's the safe word. If you don't say rutabaga goat, Dylan blue.

then we're going to beat you. I don't know what you do then. You can't beat her to death. Tie up extension cords. Yeah, you can't. But like, you know, they need they need something like that because that's the thing. It's like, I think it's safe for them to work with Heli because they're.

two different people. But you've got this thing where Helena might try her bullshit again. But knowing that integration is possible, anything Heli knows, Helena could know. That's what I'm saying. So you don't integrate her, but you still you don't isolate Heli on the inside.

Yeah, but what if Lumen can integrate her at will? What if they can just flip a switch to integrate her? Then you'd have a battle of wills. Who do you think? Who do you think wins, Heli or Helena with the battle of wills? Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, probably Heli. My whole episode, like that scene in Superman three, where the bad, the evil, the evil Superman.

is battling the good Superman and kicking the... Have you seen that movie? This is the one where the guy traps him in an elevator and throws him into space, right? I don't think so. He gets the good Superman. There's a golden Superman. Oh, this is Superman 4. Superman 3 is actually kind of good. Not legitimately good. I don't remember it at all.

Yeah. Quest for peace is a big piece of shit. Yeah. But like I did like evil Heli and and there, I guess, Heli and Helena battle out for two gets, you know, physical control of the. Helena robot meat robot that we all are. I love it. I think Heli wins that hands down. I do, too, because she's a little bit more. She's got all the natural piss and vinegar of Helena, but she hasn't been beat down by.

30 plus years of cult indoctrination. And she's got actual feelings for Mark, giving her a boost. Whereas Helena, who knows what fucked up stuff she's on, but Ellie wins. True, true. All right, let's go to Mark wolfing down Chinese food when Helena Egan walks in, introduces herself and invites her to his table.

They make small talk before things turn dark when the topic of Jemma comes up. Mark tries to hide his emotions as he excuses himself and heads back home highly agitated. He's just eaten like an animal. just man i and i i knew i was on the mend when i was watching that this morning and he was just shoving his face with chinese and my stomach started grumbling i think it's the first time i felt hungry in five fucking days dude nice um

But what is she? What is she doing? This is some kind of vibe check of him, right? Yes. And my question is, is this a personal thing or is this an official Lumen thing? And I can't quite tell because I know for one thing for sure, this is not a coincidence. Meeting him like Helena Egan is not eating in some rundown Chinese buffet. I don't care. You live in Keir, PA. PE is the only place to eat.

That looked amazing. Honestly, some of the best Chinese food I've ever had have been in places that look like shitholes. The big neon glass palaces, mediocre Chinese. You go to a place where there's just a hole in the wall. That's where you get the fire stuff. P.F. Chang's stock just went down two points. Oh, fuck. I didn't. God, I hate P.F. Chang.

I actually would rather eat Panda Express than PF Chang. How about that? Oh, shit. And I would almost rather eat any Chinese buffet out of a dumpster than Panda Express. Clearly strong opinions on Chinese. This place is key. I know I love this place. The waiters are all dressed up and fancy. I don't know if this is a shithole. This might be like a nice. What I'm saying is the place that.

Helena Egan goes to eat Chinese food is not the place that Mark Scout goes to eat Chinese food. Yeah, this wasn't a random. This was not random, which means they're following Mark. Uh-huh. And does they mean Lumen or does they mean just Helena? God, it's Kobol all over again. Get in there. Yeah, yeah, a little bit. Speaking of. This is a personal mission from her. I don't think this is sanctioned.

Speaking of holes that have laying dormant for a few episodes, what's going on at the Cobal Caldera? Yeah, man, I talked with Pete about this. We haven't seen Covell in... what three episodes now it's been a while and then last week and then this week yeah That's another one that the magma's backing up on, and God help us all if the two calderas merge. It'll be a super volcano. It'll take out all of the west coast.

Like everything west of Jellystone. Jellystone, yeah. Jellystone, yeah. We're Winnie the Bear. Yogi the Bear. You better grab the Ranger and get the fuck out of there. I don't know what they're doing with her. She's off the radar, off the grid. If she's smart, she's off the grid right now. I thought she won another piece of Mark, because she was a little flirting, and Mark, he's a champion. I thought this was excellent flirting. Is it flirting? Excellent flirting.

i called it i saw you put flirting in your outline i changed it to small talk because i didn't get the flirting vibe jesus how do you get laid jim yeah are you kidding well but i mean Yeah, like I remember not. I remember the sensation of in retrospect, thinking, oh, God, that one was hitting on me. But like, holy shit. Yeah, there was sparks. Huh. All right.

You wouldn't talk to another woman like that, would you? I guess I might, because I didn't realize it was flirting. You're going to take me home to your dad already? Oh, it's my first time. I mean, it's not. Flirting's not like creepy Sylvester Stallone and like Cobra. Hey, I want to grab your tits. It's subtle. It's humor. It's playful. It's what it is. Yeah, I guess you're right. I guess they are flirting here a bit.

uh or maybe i'm wrong but because hell it's been it's been 15 plus years since i've been in the game too so right yeah um but no i i Is it real, though? Like, OK, yeah, maybe they're flirting. Maybe they're talking about bringing home a boyfriend. She says, you know, it'd be the first. Is that true? Because I kind of get the sense that maybe she's never taken a boy home to dad.

It might be true, but also look at her dad, but also, um, yeah, it's, it's, she's an Egan. So I suspect that everything she says is a lie. That's true. But she I think I think this is all a mistake. I mean, unless you're right. And this is just like a vibe check from Lumen on Mark. When you drop the name Gemma, even.

before Mark had started reintegrating. Well, he doesn't. She doesn't drop her name. She drops the wrong name. Would you can see like Mark's eyes click like he's. And that's the first time in a conversation I realized, oh, shit, I forgot Mark. Mark knows the gym is still alive and which because she just made the point that, like, I basically run the company, Mark. You know, of course, I know everything that goes on in there that by like Mark must surely realize that she knows, too.

as soon as she mentioned it like and i think she was looking for a reaction maybe that's what the flirting was all about just to kind of like you know sucker punch him emotionally get him off his guard and then yeah uh Yeah, it doesn't seem doesn't seem like she would just forget the name. I don't buy that. But but then as far as being a pure like military style commando mission.

When Mark stands up to leave, they had this really weird like she's looking at him expectantly. It's almost exactly the same framing that they used when Heli was. Well, when Helena as Heli was kind of like not going to kiss Mark, but kind of leaning in and kind of like half closing her eyes, expecting it. That has huge kiss energy. Huge. Yeah.

I half expected it to happen even though that would be insane in this scene because it was so coded that way. Maybe Helena truly doesn't know about Gemma. That's a secret that she doesn't know about. I mean, it's possible. The work's mysterious and important. Yeah. Do you think Drummond would know? I don't know. Somebody has to know. Somebody fucking knows. Obviously. And it wasn't just Grainer. That information isn't lost to time.

the board knows probably jamie knows i think i think yeah i think helena and uh mr frolic and and those people know as well it's just i'm not sure like surely cobell knew Because obviously she was doing all that psychological experiments on seeing if they'd recognize each other. Yeah. And I think Helena knows she's. Yeah, it seems like she knows. But this also seems very personal. Like she is.

trying to get some kind of recognition of their experience during the orpo here um and there's like a longing in her eyes too it's like that's why i'm getting the kiss energy is because there's some kind of longing it's not just analysis you know I'm getting very strong emotions from Helena here which makes the possibility of her being there for her own purposes

and just want to get close to Mark. And she's using the wife thing, sympathy, and she just got the name wrong. But I mean, she's a rich asshole. Like that would be that'd be classic rich boss behavior to get your name wrong when you're trying to. But I don't know. I don't think that, but I'm trying to keep an open mind because this show is mysterious and important. Very true. All right. Mr. Frolic rifles through Irv's secret lumen research while Irv's dinner with Bert and Fields continues.

Things get awkward as Fields has a bit too much wine and starts asking very personal questions about the other two's innies and gets a bit confused about dates for some potentially important Lumen events. Or does he? What's going on here? He says 20 years ago they were having drinks. I had an intense debate with myself for about 15 minutes the first time I watched this episode.

And it's it's diabolical what they're doing here because they set up that where essentially fields, they get in an argument that's not about Lumen at all. He's like, oh, so we started calling each other on 10 years ago. And John Noble's like, no, no, no, it was 20 years ago. And so it's like you already get this like, OK, well, he does get things fuzzy, maybe, or at least there. And then he goes and says, well, the Lumen thing with when you were having.

what dinner with your lumen partner 20 years ago like this is pre severance way pre severance um it would be like yeah and it did like it did have to be like super testing floor Let your innie enjoy the next few moments. We'll be right back. The premium ad-free waffle potty experience is reserved exclusively for listeners in the top quartiles of intelligence and probity.

For more information on how to enhance your listener status, see support.baldmove.com. We think the appropriate response to this information is gratitude. But we also know that they had the chip when Helena was, well, we don't know, but the way she talked about her father showing her the first version of the chip made it seem like she wasn't even a teenager. So, yeah, if you believe that Heli is in her 20s, late or otherwise, that could time out, right?

But I mean, what's the sinister implication here that that Burt is a lot higher than we think he is, that he's secretly a member of the Lumen executive staff? Let me ask you this. Would anybody that we've seen as an employee of Lumen describe Milchick as their partner? Their Audi's partner? No, absolutely not.

And yet that's the exact word he uses, partner, your Lumen partner. That to me says that he is intimately involved in the business of Lumen and the business of severance, not the actual just employment. Seeing that these are two game in, and we're talking 20 years ago, is there room for...

When he says your Lumen partner, that that was like maybe the Bert was married to someone or was was seeing someone that was a significant other's partner. It's a lot. That's the that's the language was used before we allowed gay people to marry in this.

country language a lot of people use now for their partners gay or otherwise right right uh yeah that could definitely be what he's talking about um here's the other thing i'll point out look at where they're living this is not lumen assigned apartment housing like mark's living in this is not irv's house this is a very nice house with a lot of very expensive

things inside of it their expensive taste for wine the beautiful lighting in this place like this is a house of a wealthy person they are manifestly like aristocratic gay like they're like ian mckellen they're like dressed nice they're yeah they're you know they're very educated and mannered. And, you know, these these guys have made it and they are very comfortable. That is. But on the other hand, this isn't something that Bert did because he needed money. He was trying to. Get.

Fields, a companion in heaven that doesn't have a black soul. So it's like I could see a guy doing it just for religious reasons now. OK. So here's the other thing I come back to. Maybe maybe Fields is just slipping a little bit. You know, John Nobles. I couldn't. That's the other thing is when I finally saw him in this episode, I'm like, holy shit. Denethor has gotten really fucking old, but he's like.

A movie came out 20 plus years ago and he's 78 now. Yeah, he is old. Maybe he's slipping a little bit. We Bert told Irv. Is any self that he had been working? Well, he said he's been working in optics design for seven years. Even if you say that Fields is having a senior moment.

He's still putting this conversation 10 years ago, which is three years before he would have started. So maybe this is a middle ground where they're they're having us have this big question. What you're supposed to notice is the little lie, which is. Where is the other three years of Bert's background in Lumen? Sure. Because that doesn't even paper over it. What Bert then tells him. Uh, yeah.

No, I think either way, there is a deeper connection between Bird and Lumen than we first thought. He's not just a separate employee. I got big, which is very much like. And here's the other thing. I mean, I think it becomes apparent by the end of the episode that this. Dinner date is a guise to get him out of his apartment so that Drummond can go in there because Drummond doesn't.

survey the place to make sure that Irv's gone. He walks right to the front door, puts the key in, turns it, practically announces himself, walks straight in. But there's a problem with that too, right? Like he kind of like the camera beelines on Bert G. So like. If he knew about that and set it up, what what is with the camera misdirection?

When I don't know what you're talking about. When he was rifling through the papers, the final one he he stops at and then the camera zooms in on this. The name that was centered in the screen was Bert. Yeah. I mean. Maybe they think, oh, no, he's on to us. Yeah, I don't know the implications of that quite yet. That could be that he's we think we're on to him, but he's he's on us. Oh, that's a good. Because I was thinking that he was just, you know, casing Bert's place. And I saw Bert leave.

Let it, you know, a couple of minutes ago and then and then went for it because he's got a key to the apartment. That's the other crazy thing is Bert still living in gloom and housing. Bert? No. I don't think Bert is. I'm sorry, Irv. Because it does look like one of those developments, and Mr. Frolic did have a key for it. Mm-hmm.

I don't know. Maybe it takes time to not only fire someone, but to evict them. Even here. Yeah. You know, there's some strong. I give 30 days and it takes 90 to make. Yeah. Herb's just squatting and looming apartments. I love it. I love it. I guess so. I'll tell you what. This is a big bombshell, I think. When Irv goes, you know, this corn is very special. And then Fields comes back with, do you think you two had... unprotected sex down there

It was very Jesse goes to dinner with the whites. Like I could, I could feel like Irv just gulping down water while he is watching the electricity fly between fields and Bert. And the thing is, he's got the right dad. this question and he's i think he's if he's being sincere and i think he is he's a little in his cups too maybe he's slipping a little bit too but i also think he's sincere in that i just i yeah i have a right no it's nothing personal

But yeah, if you guys are boning down, that's like, I don't disapprove of it. You know, obviously you guys have your own separate souls, your own separate lives, but you do share the same penises. So and I don't know where this has been. Does he want to give her a check? Let's go to the clinic, Irv. Yeah. That's next episode. Irv's just going to spin it in the clinic. I don't think so.

And I thought it was actually kind of beautiful how he said, you know, I think I've been talking to Pastor Gale like he's he's been soul searching this. And he says, I do think that he's deserved experience love. And I mean that I hope it was beautiful. I believe them. Yeah. I do too. I like the different take, you know, on any, cause it's always been pretty hard stances across the board. This one feels like a more nuanced one. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if.

what the majority of the churches feel about. And I probably go, I mean, like Catholics versus Lutheran versus Baptist versus Protestant versus conservative versus liberal versus. Yeah. versus non-denominational. I wonder if there's a feeling. It's a weird moment of creating the thing that only God can potentially create, right? The soul.

it's it's yeah we might be able to clone a body or whatever but that's never going to be a soul but they're teaching that it's a new soul and humans can create that that seems like a subversion of all of god's powers at that point although i would think you think about it sacrilege blasphemy almost who creates other humans but humans we already have the power of creating new souls we just put the p into v and yeah but it doesn't nine and a half months

I don't know. I felt like God was the manager of the souls, but maybe he's, he's on board with Lumen and he's giving, he's handing out new souls as soon as they get the chip. I mean, he's got them up in heaven. You know, he's got souls up there. Whole soul stash. Yeah. We have a run out. I was like, all these soulless babies being born. Had a rash of soulless babies? Yeah. I wasn't aware. Yeah, he's got to have a surplus. Mm-hmm.

All right, let's go to Mark, who runs down the basement stairs. He's now a thousand percent committed to do whatever crazy shit to his brain that Rigabi wants to do. And it is pretty crazy. Involves jabbing a foot-long needle into his brain and flooding the chip with fluid from her syringe. As they're finishing up, Devin makes a house call, which he has to take. Clearly, in physical and mental distress, he tries to keep his act together and put Devin off.

but unfortunately collapses on the floor of his kitchen, going into seizures. And Rugabi rushes upstairs to attend to Mark, leaving Devin to ask, who the fuck are you? Yeah. Um... Man, I tell you what, I'm pretty tough when it comes to gore. Me too. Sharp things to eyeballs. And I just now found sticking a foot long needle in a living person's brain while he's conscious in their basement. What's the sonogram as it's.

It's just a step above what they were doing to Neo in the first Matrix, where they had to rip that thing out of his belly. It's like, I was highly squicked when I saw that the first time. Me too. and i'll say this is not how anything should be done this operation is so haphazard so ramshackle like he's not his head isn't even strapped into a position it's he's just like taking an eye test he's got to put your chin here yeah

Or twitches or brainstem or yeah. Yeah. This is not secure in any way. The mold from his basement is just leaking into his brain cavity here. Yeah. Oh yeah. But honestly, we said the same thing about the official lumen thing. It's not like in a surgical theater or anything. It's just in like an eye doctor's office, maybe. And it's crazy.

I don't know much, but I know you can't open up the human brain without some level of sterilization. Yeah, I'm pretty sure when they because they do operate on people when they're awake. on doing brain surgeon a lot of times, but I understand that they have like some kind of steel halo that they literally screw their skull into so they cannot move. Because yeah, if you move a million, a millimeter, you might lose your ability to speak. There goes your memory of grandma's voice. Yep.

There goes your first kiss on ice. But I Swiss cheesed all your memories. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, that's insane. It seemed physically overwhelming. I felt that speaking of the Matrix, I thought that Mark reintegrating was almost down to the sound cue.

filmed and presented identically to like Neo learning how to do Kung Fu. Like just this like kind of like bass rumble and when he's shaking and his eyes are twitching and just like he's gaining new memory. I don't know what that looks like, but apparently that. The Wachowskis and Ericsson and Stiller, they're all on one accord of what it looks like. I thought the procedure itself, like what they were doing to the chip was interesting. They're flooding it?

so you can't really remove it it's got these two spikes that like dig into your brain yeah it's like like those uh things that you put in the wall the anchors for drywall where you put them in and then you

As you tighten it, it pulls the flaps out. Yeah. Really anchor it. It does that to your brain. So flooding it. Is that some kind of like fluid that blocks the signal? It has to be right. Cause I. i would think like that's not water fluid on your brain yeah you don't you don't want to inject a bunch of fluids into your brain um and if you have water on the brain it's probably pretty bad uh so yeah it must be some kind of thing that just blocks it

not short circuits it and unfortunately Mark's not supposed to move his head after this happens for a while and we know that one of the reasons Petey went bad is because he didn't follow the aftercare procedures And here is not only is Mark because she was just like, because Mark sat up from the chair into distress and she's like, don't move your head. Now he's walking upstairs. He's trying to interface with his sister. His head looks like it's about to split open.

And my God, when he collapses on the floor, you could see his head. It's like, is Mark going to be OK? Is Mark going to? Is he on a terminal PD course now? That's an open question. I think it would be a really ballsy thing for a show to do to kill off what's clearly your main character before it ends. And I don't see him doing that.

I don't either, but that can pay off as we saw in Game of Thrones. You know, it can really, you know, especially if they intended it. It's not something that like Adam Scott was like, you know what? The show sucks. I need out. Right. If they had planned to do this and so this is actually all about Heli or this is all about Dylan or this is all. But yeah, I don't think it's going to happen either. But boy, it's a danger. It's a it's a dangerous, stressful situation.

yeah i mean i could definitely see him like heading down pd's path a little bit a little ways but not all the way so yeah but man how do you fake that at work like That immediately gives up the game. Your nose is bleeding. You're walking around like you can't turn your head at all. Surely it's like like it's not permanent. It's just like, you know, until the fluid settles or whatever.

yeah she says it'll happen fast so i guess maybe it'll be over fast too and then he's fully integrated maybe because like i said we don't we don't know why pd didn't work we don't know um i did worry as the scene was going for the first time that like this is going to strange dylan from mark but

Now, you know, obviously after seeing the whole episode, I don't think she's going to hold this against him. Like maybe she'll be hurt that he kept it from her and she's worried that he's letting this woman is that's not using a sterile field to put a. fucking needle in your brain, but yeah, because he was a real jackass to her. Yeah.

I agree. No, I like this development because now he can't hide it, right? He was set up. He was doing everything he could to deny. Yeah, I'm doing this other thing, but I'm not really going to talk about it. But now there's the cat's out of the bag. So Devin's in.

and i'm excited i did notice that and this has got to be intentional that a lot of the scenes that they showed flashing and the intense kind of uh integration scene were him having sex with helena him having sex with heli him remembering wellness sessions with um miss casey and i think there was a couple of maybe outside severance outside lumen shots of jimma from when they were married baby

Hmm. Okay. But it's like, seems like those, like maybe the most intense things come back first. That makes sense. Yeah. No, I wouldn't think so. Yeah. The most solid connections in your brain start to fire again. Yeah. I got a question for the doctors in the audience. I know we got one, probably three, four. Does that... hole in the back of mark's head ever going to heal or is it just stay that way and i don't know skull hole the skull hole so because it's not a fracture

Right. Like you like bone. Like if a bone breaks, you can't stretch it an inch apart and it'll just knit back together. Right. He's not Wolverine. Not even a little bit. Although Wolverine does have his memory issues, too. Yeah, is that just, yeah, you just got a hole in your head for the rest of your life. They probably put plates in for that exact thing, right?

Because that's the thing. You can't just have a soft hole in your hand. Yeah, it's like Data in Star Trek. If you knew where you could put your finger in there and just fuck him, he's done. Just turn Mark off, yeah. Yeah, I just stuck my finger all the way in your medulla oblongata, buddy. Try to regulate your body temperature and control your heartbeat now. Yeah, Lumen just doesn't give a shit, huh? Yeah.

The heart, the heart, I think, is independent, but the lungs aren't so. All right, let's go to the final scene here where Burton or say goodnight to each other after the dinner. Apparently Irv has a little scoundrel in him too, as they both float the idea of seeing each other without fields next time. Yeah, I thought, uh, Ooh.

Bert, or I mean, Irv, you homewrecking slut. I don't think this is... Pretty bold. Yeah, so this is not... an emotional request to me to me irv or sorry bert is telling him hey we should see each other without fields because he wants to prevent any future slippage of information but maybe that's just my bias i don't know the scoundrel and the gleam and Irv's eye makes me think that there's more than pure motives behind it. But then it's like, man, again, these actors are so fucking good.

i was really considering it's been this this like i said this this reminds the show reminds me so much of uh the last or not the last of us um the leftovers and even mad men where you could spend like 30 minutes just analyzing someone's facial expression and like what you know there's so much going on here Bert, as he's watching him go, he goes through a lot of complex feelings and some of them are pretty dark, maybe.

But it also is like that could be dark and like, am I really going to cheat on my 78 year old partially senile husband when I'm already in my 70s? Like, my God, when is this going to end? Just be disappointing themselves or it could be. Yeah, I've got I've got the Irv trap set or it could be a lot of different things going to be so happy with me. Yeah. I don't know. And where was this Christopher Walken at the end of Dune 2?

The fuck, man? He's so good in this. I mean, it sounds like maybe the direction was not there. Oh, did he forgot how to direct that scene? Like I said, I mean, what are the other options? Christopher Walken was on massive amounts of drugs, I guess. I don't know. He's being a scoundrel. He didn't believe in science fiction because I was bitterly. I was so excited at the prospect of him being the emperor of the known universe, but he kind of played it like as a Saturday Night Live skit.

And it was bizarre. And but but like you can see here that he could do a really commanding, imposing, powerful figure. If you're familiar with his work, he's done it a bunch of times before. But yeah. Yeah, these scenes are phenomenal. I agree. And they bring up just so many questions. And it was, I thought, odd that he reemphasized that, oh, you know...

Fields gets things wrong like that 20 years ago at Lumen thing when we know Severance doesn't that. Oh, yeah. And it's like super interesting. Mm hmm. Yeah. No, he's I think he protests a little too much. I think he is working with Lumen in some capacity. That's why this show is so brilliant because it's so easy to see both sides of the story because, you know, Bert was kind of menacing when he was scouting out Irv.

you know, watching him from the shadows and considering him. But then when Irv confronted him, I was like, okay, well that kind of makes sense. But now we're back to this shit again. So it's like, maybe this was sinister from the start. Yeah. No, I come back to that music cue that they played there. I'm like, is that just to fake us out as an audience? The show doesn't do a lot of fake outs thus far. Most of the stuff, like in retrospect, you're like, oh yeah, shut down.

So I'm thinking there's something less innocent about this. Even less innocent than cheating on your 78-year-old husband. Yeah. Shame. Shame on you, scoundrel Bert. You scoundrel of a Bert. S.O.B. We have anything else to talk about this episode, Jim? I don't think so. Don't forget, we won't have feedback on this episode because we'll have a super feedback episode out probably Tuesday of next week, maybe Wednesday.

But do get your email at the severance at bald move dot com. We'll clean up everything from last week and this week as well. Also, don't forget that I. Assuming I don't. Die of whatever is inside my lungs will be on with Pete tomorrow night at 9 p.m. That's Friday 9 p.m. Eastern on his YouTube channel.

Just search for Pete Peppers. We'll put a link, put a link to his channel in the show notes. We'll be doing that each and every week. Me and Jim taking turns, keeping him busy or keeping him company. And it's a good time. I. meant to because i i meant to watch your thing but then i got super sick because i was excited because you were did you actually get to make it with with quinn's ideas because he's a guy i'm kind of a fan of yeah and i was

okay i was like medium jelly of you but uh it's a good time i asked him i told him you're a fan of his and he said thank you uh i also i've never heard of him Yeah, I said, I've never heard of you. I don't know you from a hole in the ground, but. But yeah, we'll be doing that this Friday night. And if you would like to support us and what we do here at Bald Move and pay for my pseudoephedrine.

Support.baldmove.com. And not just help me feel better. You'll also get ad-free feeds and a bunch of bonus content yourself. That's going to do it for this week. We'll be back in just a couple of days after the weekend to talk about feedback. Can't wait to see what y'all think of this one. Until next week, I'm Aaron. And I'm Jim. See ya.