Today's episode contained spoilers for the seventh episode, the huge seventh episode of the second season of Severance.
Be warned.
Hello, and it is Jasconcepcion and I'm Rosie Night and welcome back to x Revision of the podcast where we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture. We're coming you from my our podcast where we're bringing you three episodes a week every Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday, with news on Saturday.
In today's episode, Oh baby, we're going to the testing flow and it's gonna be terrible. We are talking Severance two o seven, maybe one of the most powerful episodes of TV over the year so far, also absolutely heartbreaking. So we will be digging into that, all of our theories, everything that we spotted that maybe you didn't, and obviously you guys can tell us what you spotted in the discord.
Also quick reminder, I've been very excited to see everybody jumping on our next book club title, which is The Magician and the Alchemist's Gate from the Ted Chang short story collection Exhalations Ed. This is a fave story of mine and Jason's. It's also very popular within the discord, so if you want to join the Discord chat about book Club. Last note and remember you can listen to our debut book Club episode about Dead Evil Borne again right now.
Previously on sever And season two episode seven, Chicky Bardo, which is the a stage of death according to the ego Buddhist ego death the Buddhist belief system. We all been on flashbacks some years ago. Mark and Jemma are both working as teachers at a university or a college somewhere. They meet at a blood drive, which we will talk about.
I say, you may notice something wrong about this picture.
And immediately one of the things that I think is like really good about this show and really patient and is not easy to do is the storytelling. Look how good Mark and Jemma look. It's specifically Mark, what is this telling you? Years of depression of grief have taken a toll on Mark, Like.
He is like so confident here they're so yeah. I mean Gemma also almost looks like a different person. She looks the way that they made her up, the way they and there is this instant chemistry and connection and even the way that their arms are being you know, drained for the for the blood drive. Means that they have to hold hands in the middle to shake hands, but it's more of an immediate intimate connection. It's it's so great.
So she's great.
A paper about Tolstoy is the death of Ivan Ilyitch and he's crating a paper about drug use in World War One and they immediately hit it off. Elsewhere, we cut to the Lumen testing floor, where we see in the present Gemma or the present ish, We don't really know the timeline right, but Gemma's getting her blood taken by Sandra Bernhard.
Way just like throw it in my mind.
She's getting her blood taken by Sandra Bernhardt, and she's living down here. She got a little apartment down on the test floor, very prison like. And the nurse asks, because it was clear that Jemma was thinking this flashback is was Gemma's recollections. She was remembering this moment because she's having her blood taken down here on the testing floor, and she's remembering, Oh, yeah, that's how I met Mark, Remember when we met at the blood drive.
And so the nurse asks, where'd you go? Just now?
And we realize that in this moment that we are in the recollections Gema's recollections of Mark. This is important the flashbacks and whose perspective the flashbacks take place in is going to be important.
We will discuss.
We get another flashback and it's Mark and Jemma living together, and it's very clear that they are happy, and again it's heartbreaking stuff. We go to Mark's house in the present. That flashback, by the way, I think is taking place in Mark's dreaming.
As regarding it, this is kind of the ebb and flow that makes this episode so interesting because it's starting to make us ask questions about what can you remember, what can you not remember? We are definitely, as we were talking out in the group chat, we are definitely in an eternal sunshine of the spotless mind type situation when it comes to what is reliable who can remember for sure? And yeah, I'm very interested to talk more
about whose recollections these are. And also if there's some kind of situation where once you have been severed, there is maybe like a hive mind element to certain parts, if you have shared history with someone else, I don't know. I think that's some really interesting stuff.
That's an interesting thing to think about. And I've been wondering that myself.
Okay.
Devin is freaking out because Mark's in a fucking coma and has been, uh, you know, doing this reintegration process without her knowing, and she's she's losing it.
Regaby's like, he just needs to rest.
He's gonna be okay, and Devin really doesn't believe it, and she's like.
You're not allowed to talking about what are you talking about? I don't know about this.
I don't know what's Devin is like, you're not allowed to do this anymore to my brother, and Regaby is like, well, this is what he wants to do because this is how he will get Gemma back, and Devin's like, we don't even know if she's live, and She's like she's fucking.
And also, Devin, interestingly, I think we've kind of talked about, like what's her purpose in the show, Like is she an art? Has been a popular conversation in fandoms, but I have to say she's an I don't think she's
an op. I think that she is as many of these characters are morally gray, but here I was really believing, like, oh, this is your brother, and you will legit kill this woman if she ever fucks with him, like, I really believe that, and also interestingly with Gaby says to her, this is how you like, both of you get Gemma back, and then we do start to understand that Devin and Gemma, Mark's not the only one grieving. Let's put it that.
Way right correct.
On the test floor, the nurse measures Gemma's vitals, make sure. She asks her, have you eaten? Have you done your calisthenics? Have you done your reading? The calisthenics interestingly mirror the kind of figures that we see on the cards, the lumen cards that we saw in season one, we will see in this episode. The nurse then asks, hey, what do you if you were to be trapped in a landslide, what would you be more afraid of? Suffocator and drowning?
She says drying drowning and she's holding like this little woe lie detector or something, and the nurse reads the read out and then they go off to visit the rooms.
Gem is like, how many rooms do I have? To say?
Six?
Jemma kind of like it is like a god size size. At this she goes to her closet, puts on an outfit that has been laid out for her that seems to I have not gone deep on this, but the outfits that she will wear seem to mirror a lot of the outfits that we see the Egans, the the mannequins of the Egans from the museum wearing.
Yeah. I also something I think that's really interesting about this is like the bernout character. I was like, she almost seems like she cares about Gemma as well, even though she's not allowed to the idea of like checking that she's eaten and exercised in all of that. Yeah, it does seem like they want the best test results, but I think it feels almost as an acknowledgment of like she knows what Gemma is about to go through, and she's kind of checking in like are you best?
Can you do this? You know?
Not that if for Gobi used to work on the test floor.
That would make a lot of sense. I mean, as we'll see this, this becomes a very bleak episode that tells you a little more about the way lumin does not respect humans or brains or anything anything.
Yes, the nurse takes Gemma past a series of rooms. There's various hallways with lots and lots and lots of rooms, and the rooms are labeled with project names of projects that we know the MDR crew has worked on in season one in some of season two including Allentown, Cairns, Drainesville, and on and on and on. Uh they go to a room labeled Wellington. The nurse unlocks the door using like a pomp pad that takes the nurse's blood, which is interesting and real returning to this yet a lot
of blood. The inside the room, we see doctor Mauer, who will come to be Gema's torture, and this made me wonder if this is taking place two episodes ago when we saw who we now know is doctor Mauer picking up dental tools from a storeroom somewhere and then going down the elevator and whistling that kind of sea shanty tune that he was whistling when in this episode, Jemma goes into the room, so the scenario is a visit to the dentist. Maur asks Gemma to open up Gemma.
It's clear this version of Gemma in the room is severed so that this personality only knows this room. I'm always here crying.
Is that because you go, oh, you know, I was here six you know. I was just here, you know, a minute ago, and he's like, no, it's been six weeks. Like they're not even honest, you know too, huh. I think probably of all the things we've seen in severance being an Innie who is just.
Office is the word.
That's how that's like a soul level evil.
I want to lightly push back on one thing you said, I think they are weird. I was why. I was like weirded out by the fact that Mauer is honest weather he tells her it's been six weeks, so there is for some reason they are leveling with the Innie and letting them know that even though you have not clocked that time has passed, because you only exist in this room, time has passed.
Like the same thing in the Christmas thing.
In the Christmas scenario, he says, yeah, Christmas comes back once a year.
Even though you think it's always Christmas.
It's almost as if they are trying to get these innies used to the idea that you're going to be missing time and you're going to only exist in here, but there's things going on that you don't know about and just accept it.
I found that very weird.
I do too, and then something I think is really interesting too is the it's clear that Dr Mauer is has feelings for Gemma like that starts to come across. And maybe that's also why he's trying to add that level of you know, inverted commas honesty with the different innings. But obviously Gemma has no connection to him or them, just these kind of night And it's crazy to me as well, because I think, correct me if I'm wrong.
Is this the first time that we've seen someone who has multiple innies like five or six gema?
This is her first time that we know that we're seeing it for Yes.
Yes, yes, that's true. It could be.
Yeah.
I like that that's a good way of putting it.
Outside the room. Gemma comes out, she remembers nothing of the past two hours. We go back to Marrow, but she has she has sore jaw. I think if she just that the physical pain.
She's kind of like rubbing her draw when she comes up and she rumors nothing.
Back at Mark's, Devin is like, Mark, come back, you know, please wake up. She's freaking out. His eyes are moving. We go into his memories. Now in the flashback, he goes to Jemma's office and he brings her an ant farm and he's like, because you said you like ants, and she's like, no, I like plants.
And this is.
Clearly very early on in their relationship, and then we get a montage, also clearly from Mark's perspective of their life together. I noticed that in many of these flashbacks they are working, but they break work. They interrupt each other from work, and they're both happy to see each other with that interruption. Mark has purchased a crib in this flashback, and they're clearly planning a family. Gema's like a crib who's gonna put together? And you're not much
of a handyman. Jema mentions and time passes.
Just quickly. I want to say, I felt like the amptparm gift is like a very clever kind of nod to the you know, the infinite layer of lumen that we don't Oh yeah, really no, you know there's something. There's definitely something there, and I love that she was like, well, I don't like ants, but I love farms, so you know you've got something right. But there's clearly there's so much kind of illusion in this episode to Lumen, and maybe the fact that these two were put together by Luhman.
We don't know, but there's there's a lot of strange things occurring.
Yes, there's a dinner party at Mark and Jemma's house with Devon and Ricken dn R are talking about a recent trip to some mountains.
Ricken really enjoyed it.
He's like putting himself forth as this like born and bred outdoor adventurer, whereas Devon is like, you're crazy.
That was insane, like it was very dangerous.
And here notice we and in this conversation, I think is one of the most obvious switchovers in perspective. As Devon and Ricken and Mark are discussing the vacation, we go to a little interaction between Gemma and Devon. We hear Ricken saying, hey, Mark, like, I'd love to you should come to the mountains. I'd love to spend more time with you and get to know you more in nature's splendor. And we see from Jemma's perspective her declining wine that Devin is trying to pour from her.
And this is one.
Of the best examples of good writing in which a character tells another character that they're pregnant without telling them they are pregnant exactly.
And the emotional range that the two of them get in this interaction is huge.
We angle on Jemma's eyes and the light goes from cold to warm, and we realize now that time has passed, she's in the shower and she's just miscarried.
Mark finds her in the shower.
The rain goes backwards, and I think there's another hand over here to Mark's perspective because the rain goes backwards and see market MDR from sometime last season when uh uh, Miss Casey was working with them on the MDR floor. And then we follow wires in the MDR floor up somewhere through the Lumen building to a team of observers who are observing the MDR team one person per MDR
team member Mark Kelly Dyllon and irving. Mister Drummond is there observing the observers and doctor Mauer is with him. Mister Drummond says the severance barriers are holding Mauer is like, yes, the technology is working, it seems. Mauer admits he has a fondness for Gemma, but Drummond tells him, like, at the end of this year, you gonna have to give her up. We learned that Gemma had previously attacked. Mauer says, you know, I'm fond of her, and she's fond of me too, I think.
And then Drummond says.
Didn't she almost break your finger once? This, I think is and I think we probably agree on this, right, that this seems like a reference to a previous escape attempt.
Yes, right, definitely.
We go back to Lumen time unknown Gemma on the test floor. She's dressed in a romper. Now we cut to the outside world. It's a flashback Mark and Jemma at a doctor's office. They're seeing a fertility specialist, and we see that maur is there. He's one of the doctors. As Gemma is filling I stop here. Yes, as many are now noting, and as I dimly remembered, there's a line in season one in which Devin says to Mark, hey, are you still seeing that therapist with the creepy mustache.
That's got to be mass.
Got to be him, absolutely, and not just that in the first room. I mean in the first scene of this where we see Gemma and Mark meet, the testing equipment has like lumin logos on it, So I think ye for whatever reason, these two have been in Luman's kind of suckle for a while.
They picked them up, probably at the blood drive, and then started to really drill down, and clearly they are involved in events in ways that we don't know, much more significantly than we know, and I think that the reason it's notable. Then, in a lot of these test room scenarios, there are different things that seem to mirror events from Gemma and Mark's life that sometimes Gemma on the test floor would not have known about, like a comment by Mark or a particular thought that he had.
For instance, we'll see an escape attempt like doctor Mauer disparishes, the death of even Iliach, the book that Gemma was grading when she met Mark.
There's all these.
Little things, and I think it's from some of it, at least from these therapy sessions or other ways that Luhmann has been collecting information about Mark, and anyway, in Gemma's test floor space splace space, we're in her recollections now she's remembering the past. We see fast images of someone molding.
Clay m HM into like a tree, yeah.
And various winter scenes, and then we end up on Mark putting clothes away in a hallway. This is from Jemma's perspective, I think, because she then asks Mark, hey, help me, it's time to inject the drugs. She's nervous about it. He's like, don't worry. Like he's very charming about it. It's like, we're gonna get that little girl. She's out there waiting for us.
And then he and jem who we've you know, maybe we've already met her in Lumen.
Yeah.
Back on the test floor, maur is examining Gemma I think in her apartment or in a room adjacent to her apartment. Various scans are being taken in real time, and the observers and the observation floor are looking at the scans. We see that Jemma is indeed chipped. There's a chip in her head, although it seems to me like the chip looks different than the way that we see in Mark's bigger or something right. Maur is asking Jema how many rooms have you visited and what if
anything she remembers from those rooms. She doesn't remember anything, just kind of like lingering physical pain from different places. He asks if when she exited the rooms, did you feel any of the four tempers, you know, woe and despair whatever. The only room she has not been to, she says, is cold. There's only one room I haven't been to.
It's cold Harbor.
And he is interested in the way that that she recalls this and knows this, and when she goes there, she asked, what will happen when I go there? He says, you will see the world again. In the world will see you. And she's like, oh, that means I get to see Mark again. And Mauer is like, super evasive.
Then about the thing. Yeah, Jemma gets mad. She's like, well, you just fucking speak like a normal person, like the fat We do a fade cut to a flashback to the outside world, Gemma in the bathroom feeling sad and Marks so clearly her recollections right, and Mark calling her from the kitchen telling.
Her that the coffee is ready.
I think that this fade cut is important because now we're entering the era of the flashbacks, in which a distance is growing between Mark and Gemma related to their inability to get pregnant and the struggles around that something I think a lot of people can empathize with. We cut to daytime at Mark's in the present. Regabi is like, Okay, Mark's fine. Now, he just needs to sleep and he's going to be okay.
He's just journeying. We see him dreaming.
Regabi insists that whatever this procedure is working and we just need to give time. Devin is like, hey, you know the any cottage where the people who've just been severed become their inniase, and and Gaby's like, yeah, Demona Birthing retreat, what about it? And she's like, well, there's this lady we know who worked there, Harmony Cabell, Like why don't we contact her and get her help with this?
And Regaby's like are you fucking Like.
Yeah, She's like she and she says something very interesting, Why would you do that? She says she was raised by them, she's she says something else first, soldier.
Yeah, she says something else first, which is like, these are two different things, like that's severing, this is integration, Like this is yeah.
And then you're right.
She's like no, Cobell is tried and true, like she was she's raised in this. She's a she says, she's a soldier. And Devin, who I'm kind of mad at in this episode, though she's doing understandable stuff, is like while I'm calling her anyway, and Goby's like, okay, then I'm done by yeah, exactly where Andy's And Devon's like, wait what you can't leave me with this, and Goby's like, yes, I'm leaving, by the way, don't call that woman bye, and she leaves and then Mark that advice, take that advice,
and then Mark, well, Devon is like hesitating. She may be about to call Cobel, but then Mark begins to kind of like mutter.
The title to the episode chick i Bardo chick Diabardo.
We cut two flashback Mark's recollections. Chick i Bardo is, according to Jemma, the the her analysis of one of those like personality test cards from Lumen and it shows a man doing what appears to be calistenics but also like maybe pushing back another version of himself. And Jemma says, it's ego death. It's a guy like fighting against himself.
And this came in the mail for her, Okay, you know, like probably identified by the blood tests and other testing that they have been doing, and she needs to interpret these Varius drowings. Mark is like why are wasting your time with this kind of asshole? Mark future Mdr Mark a little bit, and Jemma's like, don't.
Why are you?
Why are you?
Like, why are you criticizing this thing that I'm enjoying. I'm enjoying this and you know, don't tell me how to feel about this. And he says like, I don't have any idea how you're feeling, so like, what is it? And Jemma is like, basically says like I'm exhausted, I'm beat up from trying to conceive in this whole struggle around conception, and so Mark.
Is like, okay, let's just stop then.
Now time passes and it seems like now here's another handoff. Right to cut to Gemma waking up at Lumen. She brushes her teeth, she makes her bed, She's in her little apartment. She gets dressed in her outfit. It to go to one of the rooms, and this time the room is a harrowing plane ride with severe turbulence. Maur is the flight attendant and he's like getting all thrown around.
I think it's really funny because he's like trying to reassure her again that kind of care for her coming. He's like, don't worry, it's normal, and he's getting like float flung around. Also another horrible room to be stuck in, and interesting that you think, like dentists' flights, they are almost testing her on like really obvious and kind of well known human fears that a lot of people share. What's your biggest fear going on an aeroplane, the airplane clashing,
what's your biggest far going to the dentist. These are things that are maybe like a baseline of kind of how humans in general who have these fears would react. I think it's very interesting.
I think it's very interesting as well. We cut to the observers. Maer notes that Marcus stuck at ninety six percent refinement on Cold Harbor, holding up their progress. Drummond is like the nosebleed set us back. Drummond tells Maur that again, when they're done, you're gonna have to say good bye to Gemma. Maur accepts this, and they both kind of say for cure, Gemma makes a weird little meal.
That looks like Star Wars food.
Yeah. Yeah, even the food, the food that they put on her table at when she's in the airplane is also weird food, Like it's very weird. It's almost like you can't there's something about lumen where they can't like replicate this very normal thing that people do, which is eat food that is appetizing instead of all the food is slightly off, slightly weird, very star.
Wars Drummond, continuing the conversation, wants to know why Maur is continuing to wear his little Christmas sweat, and we will, as we will see soon, it's because in that particular room scenario, maur and Emma are a couple, so he probably is quite fond of that little scenario. We cut to Gemma and her lumin apartment putting on a wedding ring. We see her and she puts on like a kind of fifties kind of outfit, and then we see her
in this Christmas room. She is writing out various thank you cards, which he expressed in one of the flashbacks, the thing she hates doing, yeah, various Christmas thank you cards to people for Christmas gifts. So many in fact, there's a pile of them that her hand is like aching and shaking, and she's thanking of mister Tisdale for his gift of a growder, but it's actually, as Maur corrects, a d grouder.
Now.
This is as many have noted online. This If you watch the miscarriage scene, there's a shot towards the end where the camera lingers on the tile and the grouding which does look like a little overdone, like it needs to be scraped out. If you've ever done any work in the bathroom, you know what I mean, see you, it would require a degrounder.
Again, seemingly a reference to their life. They seem to know.
All of these scenarios seem to contain little details from their life. She's done with the card mowers, like you're done, you don't have to do anymore, and then they go to leave. They're going somewhere in this little scenario, and Mauer says I love you and basically pressures jem into saying because she doesn't say it back, and then she says it. This also mirroring the last time Mark and Jemma saw each other.
As we will see we go, She goes back to her apartment.
She's listening to Billie Holliday. She recalls we go flashback now to Mark, very angry in a fury disassembling the crib that he had made, and very clearly now there's a space between them. There's an emotional something, there's they're arguing. There's something between them now tremendous madness, frustration, et cetera. They are growing apart clearly. Now here is where I will say, Okay, so let's first recap it.
So okay, yeah, yeah, she's in her.
Apartment, she can barely eat. Maour comes in and asks, how are you feeling? Same old thing?
Like the rooms?
Did they cause you to feel anything? Do you remember anything from them? And it's clear that Gemma is coming to a decision, and she's as she is coming to a decision. In the flashback, if you watch it back, there's a moment where something comes into her eyes as Mark is destroying this crib, and here she appears to be coming to a decision as well.
She is like she asks.
About like Mark and when she's going to see him, and Mars like Mark is remarried and has a daughter. Now it's been many years since you were gone, and and sorry about that. Then he goes to the bookshelf and he picks off Tolstoy's death of Ivonne Ilitch and starts to disparage. It is like, let me guess spoiler alert, like he fucking he dies at the end, which again mirrors exactly kind of what Mark said when he was
looking at her paper. She flips out naturally, hits More over the head with a chair and goes to flee. She's running through the hallways. She gets to the elevator, the nurses in pursuit. She gets into the elevator and it goes up, but at the top it's the severed floor and she boom reverts to Miss Casey. We cut two Mark's recollections of the last time they saw each other.
Gemma is going somewhere to charades I think with Devin and Ricken or somebody she doesn't say, but a charade somewhere, and she's playing it off, but it's clear that she doesn't think Mark is gonna come, and she doesn't want Mark to come. She's like, are you sure, gosh? Then she says, did you get that de Nalli thing I sent you? We don't know what this is, but it might be lumin information right, paperwork right to some indoctrination thing. And she's like, I'll be back at ten. She says
I love you. Mark is so engrossed in whatever he's doing that he doesn't respond. She says I love you, and then he's like, oh, yeah, I love you too.
We cut two.
Miltchik now meets Miss Casey, who is like trying to wander out of the dark hallway at the at the end of the elevator to get outside.
She's very confused.
Miss Casey clearly thinks that she has an AUDI that is in the outside world, so this is interesting. But she's clear that there's lling.
Her is kind of saying like, don't worry like you out.
She doesn't find Yeah, she doesn't.
She can sense it.
She can sense it right because of the same panic that she entered the elevator in fuck Meltchick.
Now it's fuck Meltchick at this.
We then cut immediately to Mark's flashback his perspective, hours are passing. Cops show up to tell her Gemma is dead. We cut back to Gemma in this like hell like existence the nurse facinger. We cut back to Mark. He's looking at the door. The cops are approaching, and now they do a very interesting edit where it's a match. It's like a match edit left side of the screen is Mark looking.
At the cops.
Right side of the screen is Gemma looking at the nurse, and they are looking across this space at each other, almost like a mirror image. And then Mark wakes up. Devin is relieved. We see a quick light of Jemma's eyes as I guess he's remembering that he knows Missus his wife. He's seen her thereon Lumen is miss Casey, and then he begins to cry. Let's go to an ad break to process all this information and then discuss what we.
Think is happening after this. Okay, we're back, all right.
A lot of things to talk about here, and first let's talk about what we know for sure. We now know what that Gemma Won is alive, which we knew, but we know for a fact that she's alive now because we've not seen her in season.
Two and she has multiple anies.
We now know that they can sever people multiple times, and that this might be more common than we think. We now know what the MDR team is doing. They are refining scenarios so that after a severed person experiences these things, they will be essentially bulletproof. On the other side, no stimuli no emotions, no feelings from no memories from that event will reach the person on the other side of the event that we know. Now here's what we
don't know. What is cold harbor? I don't know, and a lot of other things.
Yeah, okay, so let's talk about cold harbor, because Jason, you have a good theory.
I have a theory about cold horror. Might be wrong.
Yeah, and when I was watching this episode, I also think I have a theory that's probably wrong, but I'm interested to talk about it. So Jason, go for it.
I will first lay out my theory. So each of these rooms, and there are myriad rooms, right, are like negative things, and they and it seems like they have to do specific rooms for specific negative type of events that correspond to these four tempers that they are trying to tamp down. Right now, I think cold harbor, or like, what's the worst negative thing you can experience?
I guess near death.
Maybe like it could be that she experience of Jo's. I think, what's the worst thing you can experience is like losing someone you love?
Right?
And I think what's worse than losing someone you love? What's even worse than that is losing someone you love and it's your fault somehow. Yes, So I think that Jemma did make a decision to go with I don't think she knew what it would all entail, but I do think she slipped away that night to go with Luman.
And I think that the editing the way that they do these kind of mirror flashbacks, specifically towards the end, where if you watch, it appears that Gemma is watching Mark's grief as he is talking to these cops and experiencing this. She's like watching all of this happen to him. And then when she wake when he wakes up, she's almost smiling. I think that's because she understands that she's The decision she made caused Mark a lot of pain.
And so I wonder if Cold Harbor isn't the room in which they are testing to see if all of her memories, feelings, emotions, senses.
Of Mark can be completely killed off.
What I mean is, isn't could Cold Harbor not be the scenario in which maur As himself says Mark has moved on, he's remarried, it's been years, he has a daughter. And by the way, this fucking stupid book from the from the time when you guys met that's this book is fucking dumb as.
Shit is a dumb book too.
Yeah, and if she accepts that, right, and if she is just like okay, then Cold Harbor will have succeeded.
That's my theory.
And now there's here in the drawbacks to this, yes, the drawbacks of the theory. Or she says she's never been in the room and Maur agrees that she's never been in the room, My pushback would be one, why do we don't believe anything? Maur says, right, yeah, lying to her in this scene, he's telling her Mark has moved on and is and it's been years and he has a daughter now, all of which we know is untrue.
So there's no reason for him to believe that. If he's telling her you've never been in Cold Harbor, that we should accept his truth truth? Why should we not believe her? Probably because she wouldn't remember it if they had designed.
Maybe I was gonna say, this could be this could be this severing is that. Yeah, they could set out so she doesn't remember coming out the room. There's no reason why that couldn't be an any for that too, Okay, so my theory is similar to that, but because of what they said, where they're like, you know the world, you will see the world, and the world will see you. I I wonder if cold harbor is literally you getting
to go back into the world. But the reason it's called cold harbor is because you are essentially disconnected emotionally for everything very B two K like the ice box where my heart used to be like.
Yeah, your honaries, you're.
Exactly You're somebody who all these things that have happened to you you can now leave be in the real world. You'll never reveal Lumen, you'll never remember any of the things, but you are you know, fixed or cured or whatever they're trying to test for. Because it seems to me like the sale aspect of like what Lumen would do, the way they could monetize it is that if you lose a child, you can forget, if you lose a partner,
if you don't get the job, you want something. I also want to mention because it was in the recap and I thought this was so interesting, so I went back to watch the episode when they included in the recap as well as in the opening sequence, the title sequence.
There's so many babies this time. I thought it was really interesting that they included the conversation Devin had with Harmony, where Devin's like, so, could you get severed so you don't remember you're pregnant because being pregnant is like a truly horrific experience, like a body horror experience. I thought
that was very interesting. So I wonder if what Luman's trying to do is essentially make severance something that anyone who has the money can do to not have to live through, essentially creating like a servant cloth with them.
Okay, okay, so here's what I noticed in this episode. A lot where you get severed can be a door. Yes, right, So the elevator has felt like this very big change, right, you're dropping floors, there's multiple like you, we don't understand, there may not even be science behind it, but it has felt so specific. But now the fact that they're like, not only do we have clauses that allow you to pop out of your severed self at any point in time by a chip, also an archway might just transform
you into an entirely different person. And if you look at the way this show has had like a commentary on modern day workforce. This is a very terrifying thought of like literally checking yourself at the door, and also beyond that, like who do you sell this kind of technology to. It's not your average person, and what can you possibly do with this technology of if anyone crosses this threshold, they are now essentially a severed entity.
That's very terrifying, Okay, Joelle. Also, you have another theory about kind of a big pharma aspect that Luman could be doing, So will you talk a little bit about that?
Okay.
So I've been thinking a lot about Luhmann as a pharmaceutical corporation. All of the elements of stress we saw testing were either actual medical procedures or they were like
psychological triggers. Those as mentioned earlier, can sort of like exist in anyone And I think it's such a if you think about what you want to cure, you know, as a medical company, typically what you're trying to do is prolonged life or make better, but not fully cure, like the goals to keep people coming back and purchasing things. In this idea that we have a cure for literally whatever might stress you out, you know, from pregnancy, two. I mean embraces, like.
Where's the line I would actually I would.
Get don't need to be saying I have.
A fantastic dentist. Now shout out Dr mart I love you. She's done a great job. But before I met her, I would have got severed to go to the dentist. I would make I'm sorry, I would make my Inny do it. I hated it so much, I had so much dental trauma. Like I would, I would do it, you know, so I do think.
And Joel, I think you're right. I think clearly Luman is hoping to go wide with this. Right, they're like consumer they want to take this to the consumer market, not just like the corporate workforce market, because frankly, like that's not a lot of money if you're just marketing to corporations and their employees. And that made me think that I think probably what listen, brain surgery is brain surgery.
Like if you go to the consumer market, then and I have to and I like your product what it does, but I have to get a chip and plant in my head. I'm not I'm probably not doing it. I think that their end goal is severance without a chip. Yes, I think whatever. I don't know if it's that's cold Harbor or whatever, but I think what they are working on is the ability to like do these switches, to enact these switches without having to drill in your head and put a thing in there.
Because also as well, I would say something I think that is really resonant about this is we have seen, you know, people who've chosen to go to get the Elon musk chimp in their head because they feel like it will make them be able to communicate better if they are in a situation where it's not easy for them to communicate. Also, you know, so Amazon has those chips that people put into their hand to paper stuff
that you can see at Whole Foods now. So I think it feels very resonant this idea of like how much would you sacrifice or take on in order to live the ultimate life of you know, convenience, you don't have to experience any of the tough things in life, like, so what would you do for that? Also, I do want to say I do think I think the Big Farmer thing is very likely. I also think if you think about most this is very different to most Hollywood movies.
But I think about you know, Jurassic World or like The Man Curing Candidate or all these different kind of movies. One of the things that science always wants to do it or companies like this always want to do, is like create weapons and create soldiers and create people. I think the idea of some kind of inny army and the idea that you could sell this to the military and essentially create entire you know, generations of soldiers who have no I who have no remembering. But the innies
are constantly twenty four seven basically able to fight. And I do want to say how atable workforce skare exactly and they can't argue, you know. Also, I'm thinking back to Jason's really interesting idea of severance and the lumin being a space where people can be rehabilitated. It definitely has me thinking of like incarcerated people and the way that they are used as an exploited labor force. I
think there's so much interesting stuff here. I also do just want to shout out our discord mod legend, Heidi, who did basically check me in the x ray Vision Goggles channel and was like, Babe, I don't I think they're just lying about the time to mess with the innies, like I don't necessarily think it's a timey wymy thing. And I was like, Okay, great, cool, But I do still think there's this notion of we don't know how
the innies experienced time. We don't know if everyone else in the team has separate innies, Like how well, Gemma, that's as you are.
I want to this is do we talk about this last.
Week that I think that Milchik is a permit any I think that Milchick is an inny contract inny who has been allowed to basically jail break his audi, which is why he is so obsessed with and dedicated to personal growth air quotes in the ideology of Kre and the egans like, because I think that he has to follow those protocols or else just erase him and he's his AUDI again. I think that's why he's such a
loyal employee for them. And I think it's possible that like Natalie and some of the others, maybe mister Drummond, are like that too. They are innies who were trained in the ideology of Kre and Lumen and when they've displayed enough loyalty or then allowed to become permit and he's who work doing the most hardcore shit for Lumen.
I have a different but similar thought process on Miltchik, which is that whatever Spacel Culvert was raised in, that he was there too, like years later behind her, a freshman to her senior sort of situation. But I to me, the more I think about Milchick, the more it feels
like he's literally waking up. Like we go back to the like portrait thing, like if you're if you think about Lumen as a cult space where you're brought up in it, inundated in it, adhering to it, and then you reach a space where you are very suddenly othered and also your job is threatened by a child he started to like, so he feels like he's waking up to uh, the real world while still have like working through his like brainwashing conditioning space, which I find really interesting.
We need to figure out where did.
She why did she die? Also, Joelle, I like this. I like this as a as a point to jump on because something I have been interested in is like, could it be that people like Cobel and Miltchick and maybe Gemma honestly, is it like there are levels of lumen where you go through a certain amount as an inny to basically and when they think that you are loyal enough, you can basically earn your OUTI status back.
And I think that is why Miltchik keeps talking about needing to grow and he's on a deadline because he wants to be able to be an OUTI. Like how Cobel you know, had this out e life. I'm just interested to see where it goes, because I think something that's so majestic about this show is you will watch an episode like this and be completely moved and just scary heartbroken, but you still are engaged in the mystery.
It's so good. It's so hard to balance that. And now you know, yes, yes, yes, talk about.
Who like winter overlay on all of the show. And then when we get these flashback scenes which are so beautifully shot, and I think Ben Stiller shot most of these. The cinematographer of the series directed this episode.
And when we see how the mark go through fall down, go through the wires, that was all done practically, no cg. That was something she actually put together. She said it was it was the hardest. I think she called it like a diversion or a side quest, but she said it was like the hardest thing that they had to do was work out how to do that shot all in one and then go down the wires. I mean, truly an unbelievable talent.
The effort is entirely visible. It's so beautiful and you get this other fresh air where we're seeing Gemma among the plants, like very ear representation of spring. This idea that if she did choose to go down into lumin like it is this her version of descending into hell, which brings back to your point, Rosie, which like can she earn her way out? And if she does, are they now? Like? And even to sort of Jason's idea of like what if Milchick's a permanent any sort of
on deadline trying to earn something? Does you have all these people being persephonees yep, Like actually to break out of hell is really intriguing.
Well, definitely, like the moment where Milchick stops missus Casey slash Gemma and tries that's very posephone, like don't look back, babe, just walk past him, like just try and do it. See what happens. You don't have to just listen to him. It's like, oh, it's heartbreaking.
I wonder like.
Letting Gemma out as any or audi would require that everybody who knew her would forget the fuck she was right, So, whether she's whatever, no matter what personality is dominant when she leaves the Women building. So either she can never leave right truly, or they need to figure out a way where they can make people forget specific people ever fucking exist.
I think when the tests are over, they just eliminate Gema, like the conversation of like, you're gonna have to say goodbye to her once we complete this test. I think some folks get to go out because either they don't have connections or because some their group of people think they've agreed to this.
Uh.
But I think Gemma was sort of tested for on a much more intense level than everybody else, and she is definitely not going to get out.
One more thing. I want one more thing.
I wanted to ask, so Mark is there specifically, because it seems like all the MDR crew that are working on things specific to tempers that they personally are dealing with on the outside, right, Mark is dealing with grief. Dylan is dealing with an unhappy marriage. Irving is question mark. Helly is dealing with potentially the fact that she's being kept out of her father's graces and is not part of the board, which I think she clearly thinks she deserves to.
Be just a thing to note.
I don't know where that goes, but I think it's interesting because it leads me to wonder, like, why are the what is the importance of the rest of them?
They must be Mark.
Is clearly more special, but like there is also something to the there's a reason the other ones are there as well, that is waiting to be unwrapped.
This would be incredibly bleak but real. I you know, someone like Irving might have been gone in there to get seven because he didn't want to feel the feelings he had romantically for like other men. You don't know the way that this kind of heartbreaking play is gonna kind of work itself out. And I'm definitely again, I just got to come in here at the last minute after saying something very serious and say, you know, when she tells Mark like, oh, did you get the Denali thing?
Obviously that feels like a reference to Ricken and the Mountain climbing. She'd also mentioned Mount Everest use this real name within this show, so you think, oh, maybe they're going to try it out because like they can't have a baby, so they got it. But just saying I'm bringing it back for the fans of the anagrams, it's a it's denial. You know, Denali is a real place, but in the context the severance where they love to do a funny anagram to get us talking, it's denial.
You know. These could actually be the different levels that you have to go through as part of lumin I'm just very I want to know where it's gonna go. Okay, we got three episodes left, Yeah, okay, what are your big swing, craziest pitch theories for what we're going to see in the last three episode.
I think we have to get a Patricia arcad what she's doing. It's gotta be the next episode too, because it can't be the penultimate, Like the penultimate needs to answer whatever the major question is for this season, which I think might be like can Mark safely or successfully integrating? Can he accomplish reintegration without offering himself and so you need you need a whole episode for that where he's really pushing the boundaries of what he's been doing so far.
So I really hope that next episode it's like I'm hoping it's almost a bottle episode. So we delicated her where we're getting a little bit of information on her background and a lot more information on what she's actively doing right now. I also think we're going to see a swing in Milchick. I can't tell which direction, if he descends further into his authoritarian personality or if we see a swing against it where he's like, you fuck
this company. I think that Luhman has set up folks that keep Mark in line to continue doing work at a regular pace, and now they've become friends and family, and they're really trying to strike like continue the balance either like he has got five percent left, just keep them happy, keep everything at peace, so we can get
this thing across the line and move forward. And I think we're gonna see you like at one percent, Mark stalls out and then lumin descended a chaos where Luman's like, oh god, it's this tragedy, this big thing we've set up, it's not working, And hopefully it brings the big guy boss man down to the low.
And let's say, I wonder if this is my really crazy out there theory. I do think there's something to the idea that Gemma was tricked into going to Lumen as a way to be like, we can help your with a baby, like that's what's ruining your life. I do wonder if there's some kind of like you know, we've all seen those demonic possession movies like the Fantastic First Omen that we talked about a lot, obviously Immacula, where somebody is having a baby that has a greater
person wears his baby stuff like that. It's usually a satanic thing. But is there a world where the reason that they're testing Gemma so deeply and making sure she doesn't remember these things is because they're going to try and have her like siah Ka egan to be brought
back to life. I think she, I was wondering. I think she may have had the next leader of you know, Luhman, one of the egans, and the reason that they're now testing her is being like, just let's just make sure she doubly doesn't know anything that goes on in these rooms because Cordarba that could also be the truth of that is that they're you know, that's where they're making babies Palpatine style, very creepy, scary stuff. So I think that I want to see a Mark and Gemma reconnection.
I think they'll probably save that for the finale, but for now, I think we need to know over the next two episodes, like tell us more about what Luman's doing, and can you do it in a way that teases what's behind the curtain without doing the four reveal that can oft be often kind of take away from the power of the show.
Gosh, my crazy theory is the one I laid out that Cold Harbor is the room in wish Doctor Martos Jemma that Mark has moved on.
I believe that.
At one hundred percent, she would have no reaction, and if this theory is correct, and that that is the reason why she has to go back into these rooms like it, it doesn't it. It seems interesting to me that she's clearly been in some of these various rooms multiple times, right why.
Yeah, I feel like this is just how the every day is there just making her Yeah, these horrible, you know, kind of pressure tests.
I guess it would be that, and then I would I Gosh, I agree with you that I believe that we're going to see Cobel again. We're going to get more on that side of things. I think we're going to, you know, whatever this idea of using Ricken is, whether it's to twist his philosophy and ideology and basically defang person that they think could be like a potentially powerful critic of them on the outside, or whether they really do see a value in his self help stuff for Innis.
I think that will be I think that will be part of it, And I think, Gosh, I think we will see Mark try to go undercover inside lumin as a reintegrated Mark.
I was wondering that too, And also so much of the opening sequence is like Mark, who is in his suit pulling you know, the inny or the OUTI, depending which way you see it, who's in the prison suit and they kind of constantly pulling each other back and forth. So I think you're right. I think a reintegrated Mark is going to go in there to try and find jem Ah. And how will that end up, I don't know, but I can't wait to see it. This is just such a great show.
It's really really great on the next few episodes of X ray Vision, We're diving into more stuff. Joelle, thank you so much for joining us. Joe, that's it for this episode.
Thanks for Lizzie.
X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Concepcion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Korfman.
Our supervising producer is Abu Safar.
Our producers are Common, Laurent Dean Jonathan and Bay Wag.
A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme songs by Aaron Kauffman.
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and Heidi. Our discord moderate, though