Spoiler alert.
This episode contains spoilers for the season so far and also episode five, which at the point of recording was the newest episode that had been released and that we have seen, so we have not yet seen episode six, even though that is out now.
Hello, it was Jason Eccepcion and I'm Rosie Knight, and welcome back to x ray Vision, the podcast where we dive deep to your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture. Coming from our podcast where we're bringing you three episodes a week and we're finally doing it.
You are driving you to Severance.
And now it's happening sun Server Run. Yes, the people want Severance, so here we are severancing it Up and Jason are luckily not severed yet. We still know the difference between the real life and the pod, but it's getting stranger as twenty twenty five goes on. So in today's episode in the Airlock, we will be recapping the most recent episode of Severance, episode five, and throughout the show we'll be talking about the impact and our fandom
of the series so far. Jason has a little delightful omnibus for us about the King among Commoner's Trope, which is really exciting.
And then we're gonna explore.
Our favorite fan theories and some of them are pretty wild. Guys, We're going to debate ces is it robots? Is it?
None of the above?
We'll see and remember we are hosting our very first book club. We will be covering Dead Evil Born Again, the classic comic arc by Frank Miller and David Magicelli, and we will be posting that episode on Tuesday, February twenty fifth.
You still have three days to read the comment up.
Next, the Airlock Okay Severance Season two, episode five, Trojan Horse. We open in the wake of the disastrous, truly disastrous ortbo Outbuit Retreat team building occurrence, and it's revealed that Helly was actually Helena Egan spying on the Innies and the retreat that featured the removal of Irving's Glasgow Block, resulting in his essential execution I Think I Love You.
We are somewhere inside lumin We see a worker take possession of a tray of dental tools and then board the mysterious elevator which goes we don't know where, but I would imagine we're gonna find out soon. Audie Mark is at home talking to his sister Devin on the phone, while taking a tray of strange pills and drinking a vial of stuff that looks scared early like the jars from Don't Breed There like Little fALS.
Very reference that, but absolutely true. You don't want to be drinking that stuff. I do feel like this episode is bearing us even more towards kind of the genre, the horror, the weirdness, because the fental trays, the strange files, We're really getting into some creepy stuff right now.
Should also note that weird food is a theme in this show. They're always eating like strange like in this episode they eat like watermelon only at a party and drink water and take strange pills. All of this is very strange anyway. Mark tells Devin that apparently at the or Bow his any Like took a spill, but otherwise
it's not a big deal. He continues to be unable to burn messages into his eyeballs to send messages to his any and then Recabi comes over actually to check on him in the wake of the reintegration procedure that he underwent. Nothing's really happening with that yet, Helena meets with mister Drummond and Natalie and to talk about the Calaminous Orbo. Dad would apparently be so troubled by the events of the Orbo that he is being kept in
the dark about it, according to mister Drummond. And since Mark is past eighty percent completion on whatever the Cold Harbor project is, Helly's going to have to re emerge back inside. No, she's going to have to go back as Helly, not Helena, in order to keep Mark productive somehow, because Mark is apparently crucial to this project, and which is important information that we've kind of been getting beforehand.
And we also get the important I think something important in the content of other stuff that happens in the scene. We'll talk about it. Also in the omnibus, we get this moment where Helena refers to the innies as basically animals. They're less than people. They're not people, they're animals.
Yeah, which is harsh, harsh, but also telling. Okay, I want to ask you a question about Helly Helena.
Yeah, because I saw a great video by I believe it was my fang girl Frankie, just kind of talking about like how even though Helena is you know, very very complicit, very evil talking in this really harsh language, honestly, like can you blame her for like not wanting to
go back as Helly? And every time Helly wakes up, she's like being strangled, being drowned, Like listen, it's definitely an ale muged as a very interesting and complex character in this show, which I wasn't expecting post the reveal.
What's interesting about this show, in contrast to many other Miss Your Box shows, and I would include lost in this, is that the mystery mechanic itself is actually fascinating to think about, Like if you were severed, like if you were hell Helena not Helen Helena, you'd be like, yeah, fucking Helly's not a person, what do you kidding?
I'm me.
That other me that's just inside is just like a fragment, like kill them. Yeah, it's like a racism if it's necessary, Like why are we even talking about this? I'm me? And then when that fragment of me gone, I can continue to live my life as normal, like why are we even discussing this? So it is quite interesting. Back inside Helly not Helena, actual Helly gets her first look
at Miss Wang and is like, what the fuck? And at a meeting with Milkchick, we see that none of the MDR crew is getting any of the info that they need. After the ORPO, Helly learns that she's been Helena for a while and that nobody knew the difference, and she's so confused and shaken by this. Dylan wants to know where Irving is. Apparently on an elongated cruise voyage. His audi rather is an elongated cruise voyage and any Irving is never to return. But Dylan wants more information.
He's not getting it, and Mark is now paranoid because he is like, Helly telling the truth? Now, is she hit her? Is she? What is happening?
I have to say?
And also they had sex?
Yeah, ye was that exactly? And also I'm like, I do feel like, come on, guys.
From the beginning of watching this season, all of us were like, maybe that's a light.
Now like I feel like, you know, sometimes, it was a great theory, it was a very common theory. It was cool to see it paid off, and.
I feel like it makes having us be in on it in that kind of sense of kind of dramatic irony to then be like yelling at the screen like Mark, that is not Helly, that is not Helly, and then have it pay off, and it makes it hard because now well it makes it good to watch because now you're on Helly's side. You're like, how did you not really lies? If you're supposedly so? You know, together after everything that happened with the OTC.
Something interesting about the Helly about Helena referring to the innis as animals. Helly. Of course the inny Helly is in love with Mark. I think that's fair to say, right, they feel very warmly for each other. I think what's interesting is in episode two, mil Chick, when he's trying to get Mark to come back, is like, you're any Mark has found love and Mark's like, what it's like? Yeah, And though he can't he doesn't tell him anything about it.
He's like, and those warm feelings will find their way to you. You just have to find time for that to happen. I thought that was really interesting. That's the first time we've really ever heard about the concept or the idea that your innies, life and emotions and emotional well being and mental health can like affect your the audie in any kind of way, and I think I don't know, because I got to say, Helena kind of contradicts that idea because she hates the innies.
That's one of the greatest questions of this show because with Irving there was like his dreams and whether that was him communicating to himself or whether that was his Outy's feelings coming in, So there is this kind of potential spillover.
But yeah, Helly is not Helly, Helena.
Not feeling that that's not something she and also obviously trying to get Mark to go back in. He is clearly here the kind of like Luke Skywalker esque.
They need him to do whatever that is.
They need him for some some reason.
Good.
He's good at MDR and he's crucial to this very very very humanity shaking. Apparently, Project call the Fucking Milchik tries to chill everybody out by telling them the story of King Charles of Sweden and his grax Schupin. I
am sorry to all the Swedish folks. If greg Schupin being like a kind of uh like robe or a cowl that commoners were and he would go amongst the people, as many have noted, like basically like ancient undercover box to learn what the vibe on the street was in order that he could better rule in their with their well being in mind, and basically suggesting, well, that's what
Helena was doing. You know, the Egan family the board or in the wake of the uprising from season one, they're really interested in the quality of life that the Innies have, and Helena was just trying to cut through the bureaucras he cut through the red tape and you know, learn the truth about what's going on down here in Lumen. And this story satisfies no one will have more on the king amongst the commoner's trope in the I don't
know this. Back in MDR. The crew, who is it just immediate, It was interesting to watch them like immediately fall back into like a refining groove. They see that they go to their workstations, and though they are all in like different headspaces, and Dylan is super mad at Mark and Helly is like it's trying to figure out what Mark's thinking. They build, they all kind of fall in line and begin working Milchick and this is interesting, Rosie.
I think that one of the things that is definitely happening is the board through Miltchick is trying to sew is trying to rip piece the MDR crew apart, and so paranoia and he they're two connected. He says, like Dylan is complaining, you know, about everything, and Miltchick and basically makes a sharp remark about Helena, and Miltchik says, you know, you got to watch what you say or your special privileges might get provoked. And this you could
see that Mark certainly notices this is special privileges. What does that mean? Dylan wants and Miltchick agrees to provide a brief because Mark wants it very brief, and I'm sure Miltchick wanted that also a very brief funeral to memorialize Irving. And this is the first time we see that Mark has this weird nagging cough. What is this nagging cost? What is when did this happen? I know, I'm very interested.
In this because I think that the notion of what the innies really are, or who the innies really are, or how the nis exist. As soon as you notice something a little bit more human, like a cough or something, you start to wonder, like, what is that?
Is it? You know, is this going to be some kind of you know.
Clone Wars style story about Mark and he's a clone and the clone is slowly dying or becoming ill or aging, Like, I'm just so interested to see web this goes.
Helly pulls Mark aside and is like are you good? And Marcus you know, kind of stand offish, and then Helly is like, could you tell it was? What was she like? What was Helena like? And he's like, she was like you, I don't know, Like I couldn't tell the difference.
Bro, don't admit it. Don't admit He's very, very freaked out.
And of course he does not mention that they had sex. Miss Hwang meanwhile, and then here we get some more perspective on how, at least how middle management views isn't certainly we know the feelings of Helena and people above middle management, but she is concerned that the funeral will further personify the innies, make them feel like full people. And then she flexes on Milchick and lets him know that she knows that his performance review is coming up.
She's like, oh, so you've got your first performance review, and he is annoyed at this. At the funeral, Dylan does eulogy. Miltchik, I think describes it fairly as a little characteristically sharp but also a little uncharacteristically sweet. Wang comes in with a cart that features Irving's head carved out of a Malaysian black watermelon, and then she sets up her terremin and like eager to begin playing her theremin, but Miltchik flexes back on her by basically canceling her
musical performance, and she's very by this. Mark is in asshole mode. He is like five minutes at the funeral. He's ready to go, He's ready to go back to work. Dylan tells Helly because now he's mad at Mark that hey, did you know that Mark was married to who oh miss Casey? That's right? What Helly is like mind blown
by this. Mark then strongly rebuffs Helly and basically says, like, what's the U and all this plotting and planning we're doing now in here when clearly everyone a rate against us, including our audies, are much much smarter than us, and they have the benefit of a more total picture of what's going on. And by the way, I don't even know if you're Helena or well who the fuck you are, and Helly's like, well, you have to trust me and
stop being an asshole please. He is really on asshole, He's I mean, I get it because I'm so shaken right now. Natalie takes Milchick up to his review Milchick and I thought was and this is one of those moments. You know, people have been asking us cover the cover the show, and I've always like been like, the show's good, I'm very interested in it. I thought the finale of season one was like wow, Thick and like, this is one of the scenes where man, the show continues to deepen,
and it really interesting. Way is Milchick tries to connect with over the fact that, hey, Natalie, you and I are basically the only two black lumen employed in management or higher How did you feel when you received the cure paintings with you know, Papa Egan colored as a black person, and Natalie is not interested in engaging in this conversation, and this is a I was listening to the official pod and Trammel, the actor who plays Milchick,
talked about asking, like Ben and Dan Erickson, does Milchick know he's black? You know, because the amount of severing of the management of the Milchick and others is like pretty unclear. But as we've seen from the Innies, while they maintain something like the base personality of their audies, they have very little other information to grasp and like no context for a lot of stuff. They're very naive. It's like, why a lot of this Like yeah, I.
Mean when Helly fust be going back to season one, the first episode, she seems to be the first person who's been in there who's like, what the fuck is going on? Like everyone else kind of naively just turns up to work and does that thing and says, well, we've got out.
He's in Inni's and hell He's like, no, this is terrible. And that's before that.
There just isn't really even that kind of acceptance that being trapped in work for your entire life is.
Messed up, you know, let alone connections with the actual outside world.
Yeah, it's like the like the orp Bow outdoor Retreat Team, billion Currents and the other acronyms that like appear in the show that feel like really unwieldy. I've been thinking about it, and it makes sense from the perspective of if you're an any and you don't know what stuff is. You don't know the meaning of things. You would need these hilariously like long titles of things in order to try and give you some kind of base context for
what you're taking part in. Dylan, meanwhile, back in the funeral room, is lost in thought and he remembers Irving's final word to him before the Glasgow block was removed and he was essentially killed. Hang in there, and he sees in the room the breakroom a poster with the same words, and behind the poster is a note with a sketch of the mysterious elevator and on the other side directions to the elevator in the hilariously labyrinthine halways,
like how to navigate them. Mister Drummond runs the review, which is going to take a long time, over four hours, certainly to the point that like, here's a menu and we're going to order food milk chick. On the surface, appears to be doing pretty good. He received the cure paintings. He received the cure paintings gracefully, says the report, which I think suggests that the Egans understand that these are offensive in some way and that they're purposefully offensive, like
we're trying to offend you. But will you just respec Yeah, will you just will you just respond gracefully if we offend you, then there's the issue with the paper He never misses work. This is all the positives and he is. His blood tests show that he's not like smoking dope. However, there is one dinah right, he's using too many big words. Guilty is charged. He uses colloquial in his in his attempted retort, he is not putting the paper clips on
the reports correctly. And most seriously, his management approach appears to be a fiasco in the making. And we need only look at the recent orpo Now this can't go on, Drummond says, because like Mark is at eighty five percent on Cold Harbor, and we got to keep you know, Cold Harbor, he says, is going to be like one of the greatest breakthroughs in the history of mankind, which is okay, like that's pretty big, stakes huge, Yes, sounds pretty huge. So Miltchig is like, listen, I get it.
I'm going to crack the whip from here on out no more, mister Nyska. We see that after the funeral, Audi Mark, and after his conversation with Helly, maybe his the reintegration process is beginning to kick in, because there's a moment where you see that maybe something happens and his AUDI broke through maybe for a second. He goes to the elevator. He's leaving work six minutes early, as Milchik says. Milchick then invades his personal space and asks,
what's up? Why are you leaving? And how did you like the funeral? Mark is in full like wise ass student like talking back to the teacher.
It's so interesting to see mak in this episode, like, yeah, I'm intrigued.
Melchick then gets even like steps even further into his personal space and is like, did you tell Helly that you fucked her? Audi? Mark has absolutely nothing to.
Say, probably because he could.
Be the and this is the first time he's learning of this. But it's unclear. It's not clear it's that, but I think unclear.
That's how they want you to feel. They want you to not know.
And I think that the introduction of Helena, we knew it from the end of this season one who Helena was, but the introduction of the idea and how he can make it into Lumen, adds like an extra layer of paranoia and strangeness and will I'm sure kind of lead to whatever the big reveal is.
At the end of this season, he walks out of the building and Helena is in the lobby kind of watching him, unbeknownst to him, watching him leave. Devin is dealing with her husband's now Lumen sponsored.
Writing crowd could you do this?
So she is furious about this. She's like, well, Lumin hurts people, and like, yet you are gladly like helping them hurt people. And He's like listen, And I do empathize with him on some level somewhere. He's like, listen, what's more important, like me getting my message out to the widest audience possible, including enies, or like me just continuing to be like a niche self help writer. And also, Honey, it's a huge Megan a.
Lot of money, Megan, a lot of money, a lot money, Mam.
I do think that this.
Is very interesting because yeah, I like the argument about like, oh, it's getting to the innies because then I'm like it goes back to that conversation we were talking about about
like what information do they actually have? What are they receiving inside, what connection are they Also, we know that the severed floor of Lumen is essentially like a labyrinth, So I'm interested to know how many people are down there, how many people have been severed, how much of a community of Innis are there, And yeah, obviously, like I just think that Frickin is a legend, and I love that they actually released the book. You can read it as an ebook online. And I also just think that
it's kind of funny. This is a show that does a really great job of bringing in.
A side character who is Ricken.
At first, Michael Channis, he seems like he's a kind of comedy relief, can comedic, but actually in season two he is becoming a really important kind of player. And the idea that he's willing to sell out and hurt, you know, potentially hurt the Innis or take money from women who hurt people is a kind of a sinister twist for him, and I'm I'm really interested in where that goes.
It's a sinister twist and it's also like a very I mean, this is the very real struggle of art. It's the struggle of creators since the beginning of time is like in order to make the projects create the things that artists imagine, and often requires an infusion of resources that they cannot get themselves. So what are the trade offs? And I think this is a really this is somewhat is really interesting to me. Yeah, Audi Irving at Night, I'm so glad we see him again.
I just I'm so this is such a great role. Honestly, you know, we kind of drag.
Pros pro, but you know what the truth is, Like, I was annoyed he didn't come back for The Penguin, and I thought his reasoning was quite silly as we talked about seeing as he played a serial killer in the movie, a serial killer of women, his idea that he didn't want to hurt women was kind of wild.
But you know what, I'm happy he didn't come back for the Penguin.
One because I thought they recost him really, really well, and two because I need him to be in this show as van. Like, I am so just I don't know if I've anticipated an episode more in a while than the next episode where we know that he's gonna meet you know, and his husband, And I just think that's so so interesting.
So Irving spends the evening taking his paintings down. Then he goes out in order to call someone from a payphone and whoever this mystery person is. And now we're getting like a key holes view into a much wider kind of conspiracy and a deeper kind of and maybe longer running kind of resistance to what's going on in Lumen than what we saw in season one. Irving's talking to someone but then notices that there's like a car
idling nearby and he's being watched. He goes over and it's Audi Burt, and Bert is like, remember when you came to my house screaming? What was that? What was that about? And then he says, Donna's dreaming? Oh sleep, And then Bert says, well, listen, you know I was recently fired from Lumen and they told me it was because my INNI got into a quote, unsanctioned erotic entanglement. And then all of a sudden you show up at
my house screaming my name. And this, of course was at the end of season one, when the Glasgow block was removed and the Innies got out for brief periods of time. He mentions. Bert mentions that his husband Fields as like kind of furious about this reveal, and like, what do you think? Bert says, like, we're ore innis an item, and he says, like, listen, here's what we should do. You come over to my house, meet with me and my husband, and let's talk all of this.
I cannot wait to me that the ham did not Totur has been all over the place teasing about it.
Too, and a really expensive wine they mentioned really also.
I don't know, maybe it's just because of the cost thing. Maybe it's just the conversation.
I just felt like there were so many layers to this, like does but no more? Is he inviting him over because he knows that having is like calling people about his any like is he is?
This? Is this the example that Milchick obviously self servingly laid out to Mark when he was trying to get him back of someone who's inner, positive emotional life reaches their audi. I don't know, you know, I think that's one. You know, I think we are always predisposed. You can think of a million.
Stories like this ghost yeah yeah, yeah.
One where it's like love transcends some kind of like barrier, right, and we all want to believe that, But is that what's happening here, it's very interesting to think about. Mark returns home after work to find that Regab is rifling through his late wife's stuff. She's looking very closely at a necklace that was his wife, and she says, she's hoping that, you know, because this reintegration bridge hasn't really
kicked in yet all the way. She's hoping that like some item of his wife's will like shake Mark's memory and make stuff start happening, so that maybe he can remember if his any has seen her. Inside of Lumen, Mark finds a box, apparently with an urn containing her ashes.
He's like, who's in there then? And Regabi is like, that's like some other Lumin person and they've got all pass to like I guess ashes, And she promises that the reintegration will start working soon and they'll start getting some answers, and Mark wants to know, like are they hurting her down there? And she's like, I don't know. And then all of a sudden he hears his wife say you're Audi and starts saying stuff about your out,
you're out here. Out of the bridge is starting to work, and then he finds himself the out he flashed into lumin, and he's in a dark hallway. He's walking towards the door. He opens the door in there are the bright halls of lumen and the area that seems to be like around MDR, although in the hallways you can never tell where the fuck they are. He turns around and he finds his wife and then he's boom flashes back to the outside. He's his audi back outside and he's crying, and that's it.
Boom wow wow. Whate episode thoughts, Rose, Okay, fought well.
I think this show is really good, really engaging. I love how much it has enticed the TV viewing population. I think, for obvious reasons, we're all living through kind of end stage capitalism right now. So I think that a show that talks about the way your job can consume you and the separation between your job and your life and whether there really is any separation, is very interesting,
very relevant. I love how this has gotten the theorymongers back again, because you know, I love make a theory, so it's been very fun to see that.
I want to ask you a question. When we first.
Checked in on season two and the first episode, we were kind of in that conversation again like with Lost, like with the Yellow Jackets of like, are they gonna give us answers? How are they gonna keep us interested? Are they kind of longing out the mystery? How do you feel about it at this point after watching episode five and episodes what two to five.
I'm I think this show is really good and there's a chance to be like, actually great. Mm hmm, I was. You know, it's interesting because episodes one and two one almost feels like a step back. It almost feels like season one point.
I was gonna say, it's almost like they used to do those two one point five x Men one point five like DVDs where they tell you how in between the addition.
To the point yeah, even to the even to the point that ste Episode two is the first episode with the new credit sequence, so it almost feels as if and it's a cooling different episode, whereas episode one is all inside and episode two is almost all outside, and it created this feeling of almost like you're throwing away an episode. But by episode three, and certainly by episode four in the ort Bow, there's as I said, it's not a lot of mystery box shows where the mystery
mechanic itself is fascinating to think about out beyond the story. Yeah, and it's just like we crashed on an island. How do we survive? Like yeah, and so what's emerged here is or like.
Yeah, look, Jacket's they crashed and they crashed.
In a wood and what does that mean to our life?
Now?
I'm not sure you know, like, but you hit on it with the kind of larger metaphors about work and workplace politics and capitalism and governance and all that kind of stuff that's super interesting. What would it mean to be severed? Is your inny? Would your any be legally a person? All of these things are fashioning to think about. And then you have actors. I was gonna say, walk off, who are giving you performances where it's a two for
one across the board? You're getting the Any and the audi and like, I mean, britt Lower has a like has a Helly there's a Helli walk that is completely different than the Helena walk, Like it's just.
By the.
Well, you know, lay to walk. Yeah, but it's true. I feel like I would yeah, I feel like that would be some gay maybe like the gate would be. But I just think that as the characters have grown richer. The central way the mystery works has become more interesting as well. We'll be right back with the Omnibus after a break, and we're back. Welcome the omnas where Lauren understanding come together, and today we're going to talk about
the old as old as the written word. King among the commoner's trope Milchik in order to calm the mdr Crew tells them about this legend of the grip shooting, the gris shooting grass shooting. Anyway, this king of Sweden who would walk around and listen to his subjects in order to understand their thoughts, their feelings, their concerns in order to better govern them. Now, this is a trope
that you find inklings of it. Literally in the earliest kind of writing about rulers, you will find these little snippets about the ruler being concerned about what people are thinking. And these kind of stories work on several levels. On the one level, it's this idea of like benign kings who care about their subjects, and it's a nice thought.
It's like you know that they're they're concerned about your well being and their acting in with your with an eye towards your benefit, right, and there's of course the other level that the surveillance level, where this is also the undercover boss thing exactly on the workers trying to find out, trying to find out like what they're up to, who's wasting time, who's breaking the law, who's breaking the rules. And it also works on another level of social cohesion.
You know, be careful who you're rude to, because it might be the king in disguise or the prince disguise.
Ends up getting turned into a into a beast.
United's rude to a to a witch in disguise.
There are a lot of examples of stories about rulers throughout history who would walk them, bust their subjects, and listened to them. Julius Caesar was purported to do this. Napoleon me Napoleon might have the most actual, like eyewitness reports of him doing this. There's, for instance, the writings of his valet Louis Constant Werry, who mentions this several times.
He mentions once that Napoleon, while emperor, addressed as a colonel and then went out and wrote around and he said, quote, his Majesty in the uniform of a colonel rode every day on horseback and one morning, while on the road to Vienna, saw a clergyman approaching accompanied by a weeping woman, and he asks them. He goes on to say, like he ask them about like what's going on in their grief,
and is very charming to them. There are a lot of stories about Napoleon doing this, so it seems like he might have done it.
I just love that his valet was like just like making notes.
He was like, I'm just like all He's like, I'm just like writing about my boss, like just like spilling the tea on his good deeds.
Very hilarious.
Several of the Ottoman emperors are purported to have done this. In Carolyn Frankel's Osmond's Dream, she quotes from a poster that appeared in the eighteenth century in Istanbul quote, you should immediately venture out in public and disguise and mingle with your subjects to get a sense of the public
mood and negotiate for peace. YadA, YadA, YadA, And all of this might make you feel like you can understand the utility of a story like this in the times that they appeared, because again, it would one incentivize people to be nice and nonviolent, to each other because you never know what spies are lurking about. It might be the king or the prince, or someone a general or someone close to the king. And it also suggests like, oh, your rulers care about you.
Yeah, he can. However, he's on the same level as you. Blah blah blah.
But as we see with Helly in this episode, an understanding of the plight of the lower classes does not always breed beneficial circumstances and actions. Look no further than the word villain in our language, which of course, in current usage means the bad guy, the evil person, the antagonist in the story. Villain has its roots in Latin. It originally meant you know, a commoner, someone who lives
in a villa, or a villain. It was as early as thirteen oh three used as a term of like rude or harsh address, basically suggesting that the villain that you are talking to is like a base, low born, uncouth, uneducated,
very potentially criminal person. And it continues from there, and you see how the meaning which was originally commoner then merges with class consciousness and what was certainly would have been a extreme contrast in diet, in clothing and comfort stuff in the ability to care for oneself, such that the ruling class would be on average healthier, although there are studies that say the average peasant in certain periods
of the Middle Ages was fine in certain areas. Whatever, it's very clear from the evolution of the word villain that your rulers are not necessarily talking great about you all the time. And the way villain evolves from commoner to rude, dirty criminal person to the evil person in the story is I think illustrative of some of the dynamics at play in Milchik's recounting of the Grab shooting. We were at back with theories after this, Okay, theorious I'll tell you that I don't know.
Yeah, I mean definitely, I'm in a I don't know which I think is the power of the show is it still makes you interested even if you're not one hundred percent sure what's going on.
If we've moved past the oh is it?
And I think this is largely to do with episode four that really felt like a step into the weirdness and the wildness and the bigger story of severance that I think is really interesting and past the kind of I'm not necessarily I love theories. They're fun, but I'm not like waiting for the show to reveal the truth. I actually want to see where the story goes and see the auties are doing and what the innies are doing.
That's the hook that made me realize, you know what, this is like really good and has the it's got the jew chance to be really great. I think so that the show's creators, Adam Scott in particular, has already discounted the cloning theory, which when it first popped up and we were discussing it some weeks ago, I was disappointed if I was like, you know, it may be clones, but I hope it's not, because that is just like
really so simple. It's Spider Man, it's Star Wars, it's Founding, it's been done so many time times.
Well, it's also like, so it would be the if you showed this show to anyone and you've ever seen a kind of like series like this or a sci fi thing, and they go in the elevator and then it's like very the you know what's the the Christopher Nolan movie The Prestige, where it's like every single time that they go in the elevator, they would be creating essentially like a new clone that is, it's been done,
and also it would be very complex. But I do feel like episode four did try and tease us in that direction with the reveal of like the shadow versions and also the.
Twins. Yeah, the twins. There's also like the constant goats and the shepherds around the goats and their whole interesting kind of Nietzsche legends that maybe the MDR folks have pouches and that like all of that suggests mucking around
with DNA. I will say that, like the Cold Harbor project, so various theories about this, the ones I've seen often reference the Civil War Battle of Cold Harbor, and there's a lot of theories now about like this is some kind of extension of the Confederacy and they're trying to act slavery been in a high tech way. I think it's interesting.
I think that's very interesting, and it does align with a lot of how people have kind of responded to to the story of like, yeah, well, obviously this is a set you would essentially are creating, you know, enslaved people, but in a new way. I think that's a very interesting I would be very open to see if they had the juice to make that land in a way that felt realistic and interesting.
I don't think it's that, but who knows that Cold Harbor Cold Spring Harbor in Long Island is a place that's central to the evolution of our understanding of genetics. It's where Watson and Crick disc structure of DNA. Let's let's let's just.
Talk more about that, because I think that's a really interesting has an interesting connection as well to the fact that they've you know, we learned an episode for this.
The idea of Montalk. What is mon Talk? Why is montalk important on island?
And Montalk is on Long Island and my mom loved, love loves mont of course.
Mon Talk's like very beautiful. I've never been there, but I've seen lots of pictures of it, and I will say, then mon Talk is very interesting. And I don't know if this is a you know, a Red Herring bar.
If you have watched Stranger Things and you're a Stranger Things fan, if you've ever if you're a screenwriter who has ever kind of looked at the original Stranger Things story bible, the inspiration for Stranger Things is the Montalk project, which is essentially a conspiracy theory that alleges that there were like a series of United States government projects conducted at Campiro or the Montalk Air Force Station in Montalk
for the purpose of creating psychological warfare techniques and allegedly time travel, which of course is hugely influential on stranger things, and that is what inspired the eleven kind of connection to the US government and the other side of the universe and the strange alien creatures, etc. But yeah, this is since the eighties. So I think the kind of the Cold Harbor, the Montalk, I think there's some kind of connection that to these true sides of American history,
but also this conspiratorial side. So I think that that the Cold Harbor call is a really good one that Jason I also think we should.
I think there's I would also mention that while we're on Long Island conspiracy theories, Yes, there is a there is an island called Plumb Island that's off some couple of miles off of Montalk of Orient Point, the North, the north fork of the Eastern Tale of Long Island.
If you think of Long Island as a fish, and it's where the government has a Animal Disease Research Center, that there are a lot of conspiracy theories that lime disease leaked out from there and across the Long Island Sound, and that's why it appeared in Lime, Connecticut, right across
the bay there. That said, fun reference to Plumb Island in Silence of the Lambs, when Clarice Starling offers Hannibal lecter some you know, as a reward for helping the government, he would get like two weeks at Plumb Island Disease Research Center anyway, So there's yeah, are these other connections very interesting.
Also, Let's so we talked about clones, Let's talk about the.
Other obvious one that came out after the ORTBO, which is kind of the realization that ABO is obviously an anagram for robot dieta egan is an anagram for AI generated.
Jason tell us your tell us your thoughts on anagrams as clues, and.
It's never, it's never the fucking anagram having I just feel like having been through having opened many mystery box stories in my life and having written stuff and knowing writers. Yeah, I always feel like the thing that a writer who is writing something that's like a thriller or a mystery based story. The thing that they would be terrified of is that you could get the answer by unscrambling somebody's fucking name.
Yeah right.
I just feel like it's never the anagram to me, and generative AI, I mean like AI or AI generated is like it just feels like a reach. This the first draft of this story was written like in what twenty sixteen before Generative.
AI really dealing with that thing.
Yeah, and even two years ago when this show first came out, like it was that was like it was a blip then, So I feel like it's not that.
Yeah, I agree, So I do, like, you know, as I love the quote that Adam Scott gave to EW when it was talking about clones and he was like, this sounds like what Luman would be in a super boring version of Severance. I think a simple idea like a robot is not necessarily going to be the answer.
But I do think it's kind of incredible that the show is so interesting and layered that we're not just stuck on the fact that there's multiple versions of these characters, because that should be the big reveal, but actually we've already moved past that okay, Jason, miss Swang Mark's child.
Potentially that would be.
Pretty I think they could take this show to pretty bleak places.
I was always a fan in season one.
I was really enjoying a lot of the theories. I liked the kind of Miss Casey is Grace's theory, and that obviously end up being true. But it gets really really bleak when you start to bring children into it, and when you start to kind of why are they so obsessed with Mark and his family?
Like, what do they know?
Mark is really okay, Well, here's my yeah. I think that's somehow Mark and probably a lot of our other MDR people, maybe not Dylan, are connected to the Egan family in some way and an important in some way.
I have some sort of Mark certainly, I believe has some sort of inate ability, some kind of innate insight that allows him to arrange the numbers, whatever the fuck the work there is they do in a way that's beyond the ability of others, And so I feel as if maybe what it is is an attempt to like bring back to life the Egan ancestors, like the Egan patriarchy, whose memories and life information is stored in DNA, fragmented
down the family tree and in different places. And what they're trying to do is they refine, is assemble these pieces somehow and through that process, not by cloning, but by the severing process, bring this person at least their consciousness.
Maac.
That is my crazy theory.
I love that theory.
And I'm gonna say, I do you feel like if that is the case, I feel like they could be making a very If almost everyone at who is severed at Lumont is actually a descendant they would beat That would be a really interesting commentary on like George Washington, you know, the way that people are still finding out that they are descendants of famous slaver George George Washington.
And also I think that you're onto something very interesting there because we are once again going back to our favorite plot line, of course, that there was no issues with Palpatine. Sometimes he's somehow he's returned.
You know.
I love to see these kind of the stories that we're interested in retelling. What is it about the idea of bringing back someone.
Really terrible that haunts us?
I think it's about the rejection of the horrors of the past, you know, the rejection and I think that the idea that the those things could come back, and of course this feels incredibly resonant and awful in twenty twenty five, Jason, I think, I mean, you might they might be calling you for season three, because I feel like that's a pretty fantastic theory.
I mean, the thing that I keep thinking about is that we don't truly know how many times characters in this show have been seven.
I think this is a big deal.
And I think there's a world in which because like Helly is severed, she's basically a leader in the company. We don't know if mister Drummond is severed, but he
might be. And if severing yeah is naturally and if, as in any you would not have any knowledge of the other parts of your life through this process, I think there's I think there's a possibility that these characters have quote unquote forgotten, do not know who they actually are because of how many times potentially they've been severed and this, and I think a lot of the stuff, like the pictures the paintings, are an attempt to elicit
an emotional reaction that would show that that would somehow break through these severing walls. Somehow to suggest that like, oh, we got through to the real person. They're reacting to this painting. Therefore that means, whatever, we mind this person further for more stuff.
I think that's a great cool because I definitely had been thinking about Irving. Has Irving been severed more than once? And that was definitely something that people on the internet were talking about, especially as he seems to have these ways to communicate with his inny.
He's much Yeah, he's much more adept at navigating the barriers of any audi and seems to have like a much more established conspiracy as Mark struggles to like burn images into his eyes, you know, of navigating these So it's very interesting Irving, like finding out more about Irving. Yes, I can't wait.
I think it's key, Okay, I do want to tag in super producer Joel Monique quickly. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.
And we're back. Is she available? Is she available?
I really just just before we stop talking about theories, I really would love for you to talk a little bit about like the more philosophical readings of this and kind of mystery box shows like The Leftovers, because there is and always has been an idea that lumin is some kind of like purgatory space and that maybe they're like, you know, trying to they're reading the quality of people's souls or like all these kind of deep, wild thoughts that very much in that kind of leftover space.
So would you talk little bit about that?
Yeah, I loved hearing you guys sort of talk about this idea of Lumen's space being not just like a thought experiment on corporate life. But I think they've sort of wriggled under something that's really horrifying for a lot of Americans. Is something we've talked about for a long time. But I think maybe we're feeling extra after a pandemic that allowed us to break free from the confines of our office space, and that's like how much of your
life are you selling to a corporation? But then also by doing an any audi version of it, they've sort of tapped into this idea of like how are you
different from other workers? You know, it's the thing that haunts me as I watch it, the way people have like even if you're any is different from you, if you view them as a different person, there's this lingering, haunting feeling of like they keep saying, just throw them away, though they like that's you still like that's your body, it's your time still technically like this is still minutes of your life. And for them to be so disposable
on such a large scale, it's haunting. And I think what makes this show really great is they I think they stumble into things sometimes. There's been a lot of discussion around Natalie. I have heard, but have not been able to source properly, that the character of Natalie was not written as black, or as mixed race or anything like. She was just the character naturally, and that now we've sort of stumbled backwards into this like constant conversation between
Miltchick and Natalie. These weird like even the cinematography scenes. There's a scene where Miltchick is backlit so instantly, if you backlight somebody to become darker, all of the light is spilling on Natalie. It makes her lighter, And you're like,
is this on purpose? Are you trying to tend the Because the space the show leads so much space open for philosophy, both current to Jason's point and yours to sort of higher more religious philosophy with these paintings in the way the corporation has sort of structured itself with these or do you like profits? Essentially all the leaders are sort of prepositioned as being profits and you want to follow their text almost in a biblical way. It sort of gives the show this extra layer of mystery.
So in addition to having what's going on between the Innies and Audi's what's the corporation's overall goal, you're also sort of getting like a how do we treat just like your average worker? Then I find this show so deeply distroyed this sometimes I have a hard time pressing play and sort of like in The Leftovers, I think I waited like two years to watch the finale of The Leftovers because I was just like, philosophically, I'm not emotional, I just want who do they come back? Or no,
I'm just scared. I just I don't want people to be hurt.
But it's so good.
Severance is definitely has that power over me because when we were like, Okay, we got to do this, I was like, Okay, I got to rewatch the episode.
I was like, oh man, like this is gonna break.
Me, and Okay, Joel, I'm also going to ask you a question, how do you feel about Miltchick and Natalie in the context we don't know if Natalie's severed, but in the context of I've seen some very interesting arguments and conversations about like should we feel sorry for them?
Are they complicit?
That very famous scene with Natalie and Miltchick where it seems like she can't say something was really giving get out vibes. But some people are like, well, they're working for your you know, essentially a modern day slavery company, So like what, how where do you stand on that and where do you think that storyline's going to go?
I think Natalie is the lynchpin for a lot of things, right like, because to me, if Natalie isn't severed, I was reading theories on Reddit earlier ready, y'all are funny. People were redda is they They were like, Natalie is just a calms person. This is how calms people act. She's not severed, she's not being.
Course or whatever.
She's a calms person. And by that they sort of meant like she's a person who's very easily able to separate her emotions and opinions about what the company should be doing in exchange for being THEE of the company, and that it doesn't really matter. And so I was like, Oh,
that's really compelling. And to me, I think mystery boxes are so much more compelling when and I think we talked about this a little bit when we talked about the agency, like human stupidity is far more interesting to me than like, oh it's a grand schemes, yeah yeah, yeah, yes. And so to your point, I think personally, I think Natalie is just a person. It's interesting to think that she might be severed because of what's going on with Gemma,
But to me, she just appears. And I think that you should not feel too bad for Natalie if you go, if you're at the point where you're going on CNN to make statements for a company, then yes, you are absolutely complicit. That's complicit. You are. You are going on into a very large basis. This is what's happening, and it's the correct decision to be making. I am saying
it as of the mouthpiece. So for Natalie, no, unless, of course she severed and not in control of herself, in which case then yes, of course she should be love her milkshakes to it is really really really like the style of dress for him. The short sleeves automatically denotes a lower level of management.
Get ready with Milchick, in my opinion, get ready for the anekin like turn. There is something about Milchick. There is something about Milchick where like he is a hard ass, and I think he is in a lot of ways the villain of this story. But he's evincing like empathy for the innies in ways that always surprise me. He seems to understand and speak to what they're going through in a way that nobody else has an ability to do, and that suggests to me that there is a big turn coming.
Even like even like the gifts and the parties and all of that, we don't really know if that's like truly standard practice across Luman, Like that could be him trying the funeral, you know, these are things that he's willing to do. And also I means I know.
Is everyone's favorite mil Chick look.
It's obviously the white snow bunny fit.
Like I just don't.
I love that fit. I'm gonna go for the I'm gonna go for the tout le neck.
Oh, he was looking crisp will be iconic at this point. I like the leather jacket, the motorcycle.
Oh yeah, so many Alcock.
Kind of a cool guy.
Can I just say about Miltchick before we come the leather jacket.
I have a lot of.
Empathy Melchick as somebody who comes from generations of middle class Black Americans like this idea of both being a bridge for workers to a corporation and position I currently hold is tear like every time are like, oh my god, I'm so nervous, like I can't please, don't lose your humanity. To Jason's point, I really worry about it. That scene where he flipped in the elevator so fast and minute he was cornered and kind of being called out. He
was like, fine, yeah, I'm gonna crank its tent. But we also have a feeling that the elevators are maybe their most monitored space. And if that's the case, this is a performance for someone else's I think miltcheck might that was for public consumption, for sure. I think Milchik is feeling something else outside of this company. He has
an angle and agenda. What I can't tell you is if he believes he can fix things from the inside what I'd like to call the black cop problem, or is it that he can take it down from the inside, and he's nefariously setting things up. I don't know yet.
I think he thinks that this project is overall good, whatever it is, and that though it causes significant pain and suffering to the innies, that if they can just get through this, it'll be worth it. And I think at some point he's and I think at some point he's going to question that because the way he again,
the way he operates, is so interesting to me. He's clearly convinced the board to give him wide latitude to do a lot of different stuff on his own accord, and that's really interesting, particularly as basically like the new floor manager in the wake of what was essentially like a truly disastrous corporate and pr event. So he has a lot of pull in there, and that suggests to me that they one he is he understands this world in a way that he's able to communicate that's compelling
to the board. And also for some reason, the board see him as the perfect person to do this. And none of those things have been cleared up yet and I can't wait to see where it goes.
So good?
Did Harmony cord Belle great when you'd find out? I just uh, there's a lot of theories on this show. It's delicious. I'm glad you guys decided to recap it. It's going to be a fun rest of season two.
On Tuesday on x ray Vision, we are diving into our first ever club. There's still a little time to read Born Again before the episode airs, so make sure to check that out from your local comic shop or get from.
Your local library.
On Wednesday, we'll be talking about sever and season two, episode six, what is going on at Lumen? And On Thursday were recapping the first season of Dead Evil, the Netflix series that is now on Disney Plus, and it's just as brutal as ever.
That's it for this episode.
Bye.
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 Abusafar.
Our producers are Common Laurent, Dean Johnson and Baywag.
A theme song is by Brian Vasquez with alternate theme songs by Aaron Kauffman.
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and Hi I Discord Moderator