Severance - 0108 - What's for Dinner?

[00:00:00] A Music Dance Experience Don't pervert and look past each to me, okay? You are listening to a Lorehounds Plus, Properly Howard production, covering the penultimate episode of season one of Severance. This is the one with the waffle party.

[00:00:29] Okay, Steve, I'm gonna send you an image from my phone. All right, so I'm assuming that you've gotten the image. Yes. All right, so I'm reading this book on screenplay writing.

[00:00:47] You know, there's a lot of structure or theory that maybe I sort of heard of or heard talked about nominally or, you know, around the margins, but never really seen it laid out.

[00:01:02] Basically what this author does is he's created this triangle structure and the three points of the triangle represent classical design, arc plot, which is normal screenplay structure, minimalism or mini plot, and then anti-structure.

[00:01:27] And so the sort of the, the, the call marks of the classic design are causality, closed ending, linear time, external conflict, single protagonist, consistent reality and active protagonist. All right, so those are the things that you want in a film or in a screen story.

[00:01:59] Classically, my guess is that you lean minimalist. All right, so here's what, here's what you would want in a movie if with a minimalist structure. Open ending. Internal conflict. Multi protagonists and passive protagonist.

[00:02:24] Now we've not talked about this before, but I'm just curious to hear you sort of answer that accusation. I accuse you Steve Osburn of favoring minimalism.

[00:02:36] Yeah, in fact that the first screenplay and the only one I've ever written all the way through by myself kind of follows that. I think it is open ended. Yeah, that's my protagonist is fairly passive. Okay, so this is interesting to me.

[00:02:55] Open ended according to this particular author I'm reading, it means that it widens the emotional possibility at the end of the film. And so it really sort of leans on the emotionality of the audience rather than telling them what to feel at the end.

[00:03:13] You kind of leave it open. No neat bows tied up at the end and I thought that was interesting because I know that you're also somewhat a fan of short stories. Yeah. And sort of that is a feature of the short story is the open ending.

[00:03:32] Yeah, I like I think one of the things I like about short stories not only is that open anybody almost feel like you sort of just fall into a world and then fall back out of it. Internal conflict rather than external conflict.

[00:03:45] I mean, I don't think that these are hard and fast rules but I think you know I think about the kinds of like serious film that you like. And it's almost like the external conflicts important but what really draws you in as the internal conflict.

[00:04:01] Yeah, that's I would say that holds. And then I would say multi protagonist my guess is that you're like yeah sure I mean I'm fine with one or many or whatever not as that that one is probably less.

[00:04:16] And then I usually view passive protagonists as less interesting in my view than active protagonists. But the reason why I'm bringing this up is because I think that what we're dealing with with severance is something along the lines of a minimalism plot structure. Right.

[00:04:43] Yeah, and I and it might be what I'm rooting for.

[00:04:48] Yeah, I think we and I think we've talked about this was like how do you end it and I kind of like go don't like you mean it doesn't have to end right now I think that's the thing about like see our series finales.

[00:04:59] That's the number one question right like how does it end. And I think why a lot of people didn't like the end of sopranos is because that didn't answer that right. Right.

[00:05:09] Yeah, that was open I think you know severance just and or not severance but succession just ended. I think similar critique. I don't know if you have you seen Ted Lasso yet. Yes. Have you seen it all the way through. Yes.

[00:05:28] I think what we're dealing with with Ted Lasso is sort of like maybe a hybrid here. But there were quite a few bows tied at the end of that. Yeah, it's interesting that bows were tied and this is a good deal now with Ted Lasso spoilers.

[00:05:43] Sorry, severance listeners. But maybe not so much for Ted I mean kind of but like he's home but we don't know what that means exactly. Well yeah I think that for instance. I think with that one.

[00:05:59] You don't really know what happens with him and his wife you know so there are there are a bit there is a bit of open endedness there. But in terms of sort of the emotional resonance.

[00:06:13] Sort of leaves you with a happy feeling and you get a sense that all these guys are going to be okay. Right. And I think that that's that's generally a classical design structure now let me ask you this.

[00:06:27] My sense is that most comedy leans on a classical design and maybe needs to lean on that. Hmm.

[00:06:39] What would you say that I would say that this kind of minimalist structure really works for a show like severance which has comedic elements but I would not consider you know sort of a genre speaking a comedy. Right.

[00:06:56] Well so again another one that probably doesn't fall in that category yeah I was going to say better call Saul but certainly doesn't I mean it's not a laugh riot by any stretch.

[00:07:09] No no I mean certainly this is that that's a very you know the Cone Brothers used to say there are two kinds of films. There's a silly film and a handsome film. Something like Raising in Arizona is very silly something like Blood Simples Handsome. Right.

[00:07:30] And I almost feel like something like this is a handsome film severance is a handsome film. It's not a silly film although. Well there's I guess I guess we have moments of absurdity right.

[00:07:46] Well that's the thing I think is really fascinating about the two worlds right which we're not entirely sure they're how different they are right because the only. I mean we know the inside Lumen ethos is very key eccentric and there are finger traps and dynamite dynamite deviled eggs.

[00:08:12] Very silly right. Yeah there's there's but but but it's all done. The reason why it's so absurd is because it's it's done in like this sort of like almost worshipful. Religious. But you get the little the little graphics like the little computer graphics. Yeah. Egan flying away.

[00:08:35] Double dragon cut cut scene and but then but then meanwhile we don't know much about the other. We know that Catholicism exists in outside world. We know that so that we see that's part of our regular world but we do know that Bell's mother was a Catholic. Right.

[00:08:53] So we do know for for some of these people though somebody like a rick and it matters which is absurd right. I mean because well or the people around him have sort of allowed him to believe that he matters. That's fair.

[00:09:09] Yeah that that could be true but I mean he exists and he's published doesn't look like it's self published but it's you know so that exists. Oh no I would totally say this was a self published book. That's been my you know it's on all of his list.

[00:09:27] No. I do not now. I do not now. Hey I have self published a couple books myself so I won't knock self published books but Rick and well you are the rick and of this podcast. I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me.

[00:09:49] So all right so this I feel like this is a you know it's just interesting I was reading this book this morning. Shout out to Robert McKee. This is a sort of a classic book that you would read in a you know screenwriting class.

[00:10:11] And I was just realizing it looks like Severance has a pretty minimalist structure which really kind of works pretty well for both a pilot episode and a season one because. There's no expectation to wrap everything up right.

[00:10:31] So I do I do think that this has worked so far pretty well of course there's always the danger for people who prefer classical structure.

[00:10:43] That you might you know you get to the end of lost and you'll kind of be disappointed or or alternatively for someone like you who is like wait the reason I like this.

[00:10:57] Is because it was sort of like it really guarded the mysteries well and I didn't like that they tied a bow on the end. So I don't know it's interesting.

[00:11:09] I like that if it's if it becomes one of these things where it's like so well crafted in this work it's really you have to write from the ending backwards right where it's where it's so well crafted that when you see it come together.

[00:11:21] It's like oh look at all this was all leading to this moment right and yeah. And even then you don't have to necessarily tie a bow on it. Are you good at tying both.

[00:11:32] I was thinking about that not probably a couple days ago as I was tying my shoes and I'm still doing this. Like it's it feels like the silliest part of my outfit no matter what even a dress shoot has a bow like a little tidal bow.

[00:11:47] And I do it in a way that I was taught when I was a child and how many things you know like that you that you were taught that you don't know how to do that someone else would do for you that you're like OK good now I can be you know close to 50 and I can hide this little bow on my shoes.

[00:12:06] You feel like you mastered it by now. Yeah I think I got it.

[00:12:10] But I also think like this like this is I mean I understand we you know there's Velcro in this world and there are buckles and there are all these different ways you can have on your shoes but it just seems like even the bows like.

[00:12:22] Just I don't know. I just I thought by now we would all have transitioned to Velcro. I do have some shoes that I could lace up with an app which is nice with them. App yeah I just had to remember to charge my shoes.

[00:12:40] So you you've got back to the future to shoes. It's the same design it's yeah they're they're Nike's they're not the back of the future full like those are very expensive to get the actual but they're the same it's the same technology.

[00:12:54] Do you have a hoverboard and a jacket that can dry itself. This is what I'm talking about. We get we get like we got to the bow thing and then we just we kind of ended it. We skipped right over to AI.

[00:13:07] So the shoes are an actual homage to the film. Yeah they are I mean there's a lot there's a lot of styles in these in this particular.

[00:13:16] But like you know I can put it nice I can control the little like the buttons on there that you know can actually if you don't have your phone you can lace and unlace with buttons on the shoe and you can also control the colors of those buttons.

[00:13:30] Do you feel like they they get the right tightness. Oh yeah you can always adjust it's got as little it's got a little scroll thing on there so you can make it lose her.

[00:13:40] All right next time I'm over at your house drinking I'd like to see these things in action. I know you would.

[00:13:46] All right this is episode eight what's for dinner Irving's Audi is shown to be living alone in an apartment where he repeatedly paints identical images of a dark corridor. He's it he also he also has a dog. He has a dog. He's got hot coffee.

[00:14:14] And he lives alone and he and just paints and listens to motorheads ace of spades as as his muse. And the only note that I wrote for this is that I'm kind of jealous of Irving's Audi's. Yeah everything everything about it is like what that sounds amazing.

[00:14:34] I was like I was I was watching him drink coffee and hit that button for ace of spades. This guy is living life and I was supposed to be sort of dystopia but wow I'm a little jealous.

[00:14:55] Yeah no he I mean he doesn't talk as far as yet anyway as far as we know I mean kind of just sits there and looks out he just sits and looks. I get the sense I mean he's he's out he's in a park.

[00:15:09] He's he's dressed warmly he's reading a book he's got a dog. I think that it's meant to tell us I think the story that you're trying to tell us is this guy's lonely. I gotta tell you. Yeah gotta tell you looks attractive.

[00:15:26] Lots of lots of days this was like what would you do if you won the lottery and like that looking at it. Maybe I'd mix it up maybe it wouldn't be ace of spades every time.

[00:15:42] Well I think it's okay not only that I mean the other take away that we're supposed to get from our brief look at the Irving's I mean you just paint the same thing over and over again. Yeah yeah but what's odd.

[00:15:55] You get the sense that maybe this is sort of compulsory. Right so that's the thing.

[00:16:02] So here we so here's a glimpse of somebody that you know we've only seen this the first time we see him out right so we've we've seen Halle and we've seen Mark and we've seen just the dash of Dylan. Yeah.

[00:16:18] But so this is the first time we get to see Irv and and he's very methodical nothing nothing seems like it just seemed like yeah like you said there's a loneliness to it there's a there's a routine to it.

[00:16:30] And then he goes to painting and what I find very interesting about the way that they choose to portray this which you know suggest to me it's a clue of some sort is he's not like he's he's painting in a way that's kind of like you said compulsory and maybe a little manic but not not nothing leading up to it suggests that's how he is in everything.

[00:16:55] There's a there's a pragmatism to this. To whatever it is if you know if it's madness if it's because if it's madness it doesn't it doesn't portray itself that way up until the point he starts to until you see oh he's painting that again.

[00:17:12] Yeah so I have some head cannon on this and I'm not going to save this for spoilers just because I don't think it spoils anything.

[00:17:20] Here's my head cannon and I don't know if this is the case but this is what I've kind of convinced myself up and clearly I could be wrong.

[00:17:29] My sense is that Irv has decided to undergo severance so he because he is sort of an artistic spirit and he thinks this will allow me to focus only on my art. So I'm going to sever my sever my brain and I won't know anything about office politics.

[00:17:48] I won't have to that won't have to occupy any of my thoughts. I will be an artist only in my spare time.

[00:17:57] I will live the life of an artist thinking that that's going to be good for his creativity and then what ends up happening is that the severance procedure so messes his up so break his head off. The severance procedure so messes his up so breaks his brain.

[00:18:12] The thing that he thought would enhance his creative ability has really almost frozen him.

[00:18:20] And so now he's now he's just simply trying to process his trauma and he doesn't even know what his trauma is but there's something deep in him that wants to get out that he can only.

[00:18:34] I mean I guess that's what trauma is the trauma is having to relive an experience over and over and over and you have no control over when you relive it.

[00:18:46] And so that's that's my head can and about him because I think he probably was artistic even before he went on another procedure and but the only he's producing is the same image over and over and over and over.

[00:19:01] And it's kind of a commentary on the severance procedure actually is horrible for work life balance.

[00:19:09] Right right. Yeah and you can go maybe even a step further and say that if he's if you follow that he's an artistic soul and he does he he's painting this like he may have it may be one of those things where he paints other things and he has painted other things but when he painted this when this one came up it triggered something in the subconscious right.

[00:19:31] It brought him to something that was like you know how like well P.D. would have these like the split visions after being reintegrated maybe maybe just by the virtue of creating something that he didn't really realize what was coming from once he got once he made it it sort of brought him the same way like Mark made the tree.

[00:19:52] Yeah sure sure you know like something like he doesn't know where it's coming from but it came from somewhere and he but he's maybe not putting that same level of thought into why whereas Irving might so maybe he keeps painting it because he's trying to chase that feeling or trying to

[00:20:06] He's digging for something authentic and he knows that there's something down there but yeah and even if it's the same thing the action of doing it might trigger more.

[00:20:15] Yeah and all he ever gets to is this corridor which suggests I mean just very literally it's a passage it's not actually a destination so it's interesting. I will let's get back to the painting a little bit later because I've got more to say about this but.

[00:20:34] Helly reaches 100% on her data refinement file thereby meeting MDR's quota for the quarter and this results in a celebratory video game graphic from the 80s. Yeah and I just really laughed hard when Keir turns around and says I love you.

[00:20:59] Well what I love about it is he doesn't just say I love you because I love you like. He stutters.

[00:21:08] Yeah there's like a moment where it's like either he's like oh I'm not sure if I'm ready to say this part or dramatic effect whatever it's so bizarre that it's choosing to be like so authentic in that.

[00:21:22] And the look on her face is like wow wasn't really expecting that. It really was it brought me back to the I don't know if you remember the final celebratory graphics for Street Fighter 2. Oh yeah.

[00:21:42] I didn't get there very often because as you recall I was a one trick pony on the video game. I was all e Honda thousand point slap almost all the time. Yeah no it had. It had to it just had that feeling like hey great great job.

[00:22:05] Now you get to I guess it's a little odd. You know after you've gone through this massive process to see these kind of lame graphics. Right. I mean looking back you know I spent literally hours trying to beat these video games.

[00:22:24] And then your reward is like something that you wouldn't choose to watch. Right. If you if you actually flip that we're flipping the channels and like saw that on the TV you wouldn't like stop and say oh let's see what this is about.

[00:22:43] Just yeah if you knew that you'd like what am I this is what I'm going for.

[00:22:47] But you know I guess if you're in an environment where no one's telling you that they love you a little computer graphic Egan saying that and then flying away might be meaningful to you. Perhaps.

[00:23:04] I thought it was a little odd that it's like if everything's down to the wire like there's like a debt like like a really hard deadline for this. Right. And it's like sometime in the morning. Yeah.

[00:23:19] Or it's like a midday deadline but it has to be like down to the minute because after she's done they've got time for a big party. No one no one explains why the quarter has to be. And they're like boy if we don't. So is this contrived.

[00:23:39] Is it like this is sort of part of the experiment.

[00:23:42] Let's get these people to think that if they if you know there's a time limit on this and if you if you don't get it done before the time limit then something horrible is going to happen or does this actually matter for does the quote actually matter. Right.

[00:24:01] Yeah because you mean cobell is she seems pretty sincere. And in the office seems to think this is really important like they're they're actually worried that maybe this is not going to work.

[00:24:11] Maybe this is not going to happen now I can see for the four employees that wanted to have this little plan at the end in order to make the plan work. They need to have the party right. We need to have their quarterly party experience.

[00:24:27] So that that raises the stakes for them but then it then we're back to sort of cobell's motivations again.

[00:24:35] Why does why does everyone act like this is an important quota because there's just so much mystery around like well why does it why does any of it matter you know and we still don't know why angry numbers or scary numbers matter.

[00:24:49] And is the same kind of fervent expectation on like in like Bert's tote bags like right or they're going to get out. Are they gonna they're going to print in time right right at the deadline here.

[00:25:06] Everyone in this office like geez I gotta touch up this painting in time or else. These baby goats are not ready. I like to think that there's someone whose job it is just to make devil eggs. Oh yeah. Yeah if they're not just right.

[00:25:25] They're pretty good at it. I don't know if you've had a bad devil day but I mean why have I got about it. I mean there are there are good devil days and I've only had them was your twice in my life.

[00:25:40] I see the thing is that I think the majority of devil eggs are the same in the world but when you get a transcendent devil egg. It's never as great as how bad a bad devil day is.

[00:25:53] It's like the reverse pistachio it's like you know that you know that one in 20 pistachios is going to be rotten. Oh yeah. It's gonna be rancid it's gonna make you never want to eat another pistachio. I need a pile of fingernails what are they.

[00:26:08] But then you end up you're like I gotta get this taste out of my mouth so then you eat another pistachio. Yeah I'm gonna wash this pistachio down with another pistachio. Devil eggs are the opposite about one in 20 is actually worth eating. So why do they still exist?

[00:26:24] I have no idea. So yeah I have no idea why the quote is important and it's weird that in this show it kind of doesn't matter. Everyone's kind of selling the importance of this without really knowing why. Okay.

[00:26:42] Cobel schedules Mark for a final wellness session with Miss Casey during which Mark and Miss Casey failed to remember each other as husband and wife. Cobel orders that Miss Casey be sent back down to the testing floor.

[00:26:55] Does Cobel want confirmation that they won't remember or is she trying to make them remember? What's going on? Yeah this moment feels like she's trying right. That's the vibe I seem to get on this rewatch. It was almost like I'm gonna try this one last time.

[00:27:18] Because even Milchek's like it's been proven functional we proved it. It works. So the sense that she's like testing it again or like we're gonna do this again it's like either she's trying to find a flaw or she's trying to break it.

[00:27:37] Well she already found a flaw because he sculpted the tree right? Right. So then I think she's trying to think okay I wonder if we do this one more time maybe I can prove that there's a gap or something. Right.

[00:27:53] Yeah and to the extent that it's like even Milchek doesn't think she needs to be sent back down to the testing floor which makes the testing floor sound that much more ominous right?

[00:28:05] Okay so let's talk about that right so we find out that the testing floor is looks exactly like Irv's paintings right? Which tells me would be on a shout of the doubt that Irv has been to the testing floor. Right.

[00:28:20] And based on Milchek's sort of demeanor based on Miss Casey's reluctance based on Cobel's tone of voice everything has told me that the testing floor is kind of horrible. Yeah, yeah.

[00:28:38] It sounds like anytime you would I don't know that a person going to a testing floor always sounds like that.

[00:28:45] So alright so yeah so this kind of is why I think there's a trauma element to what Irv is doing and I don't know what kind of trauma we're dealing with like maybe it's a painful experience to be wiped or maybe it's more like you know because we do have the break room.

[00:29:11] There's a lot of that that goes down there I'm not sure. Well you're dealing with the chip inside of brain so it's entirely reasonable to consider that that might do lasting damage to somebody right?

[00:29:25] So what we know about Miss Casey or Gemma is she's 107 hours old and most of that time is in the half hour sessions.

[00:29:41] So there's a lot that's being told here right is one how many half hour sessions does she do in a day is her whole job half hour sessions or does she come in for half hour.

[00:29:53] She's a part timer right or at least consciously part time and the most because it has to be right because the most she's ever been awake was when she observed Mark's crew. Yeah eight hours those were her golden moments.

[00:30:11] Those were her golden year so she's never been awake as long as everybody else so she just comes in little spurts and fits whenever they go it's almost as if she gets activated right and that's kind of bonkers right.

[00:30:28] So that sort of speaks to what we've talked about I think in previous episodes is just like what is her role does she ever lead because I mean she can't be seen outside by Mark.

[00:30:41] So she's not getting airlifted in as far as we know so she's now is devils eggs.

[00:30:47] Now this feels like now this really feels like Mark is a key experimental cog here right or at least right there's several of these maybe but but this is a this is a very specific experiment it seems and so it's so then it starts a beg the question is like well is she just what else what is she doing when she's not that is she are there multiple.

[00:31:11] Severance options is she does she exist in Lumen in other ways on other floors.

[00:31:19] You know during the day or she just you know it's it's a fascinating idea can you flip a switch and now she's you know she's doing exotic dancing right because I'm on the floor you know right we don't yet exactly because these other folks are wearing you know the masks being worn.

[00:31:39] We don't you know that's kind of my first thought was like is one of them Miss Casey. And so yeah it create let's say you know that the testing floor is bad and what is it how often has she gone down to the testing floor.

[00:31:56] You know is that where she spends a lot of her time I mean the fact that she's at Center back. What are they doing what what changes. Well they're making double dags. They're practicing their dance routines.

[00:32:12] They're conducting wellness checks there's a lot that has to go on I suppose. Yeah no this these are all questions that the show has not answered and I don't know if it will answer it.

[00:32:23] I do like the idea that these wellness checks are complete falsehood right we know that Mark on the outside is a total jerk. And you know he's it's well earned he's he's grieving or whatever but he he certainly I wouldn't think that he can brighten up his life.

[00:32:39] I just don't believe any of these wellness check facts so-called facts about any of the people in here and of course it just kind of goes to the point that nothing nothing is going to be done. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point.

[00:32:57] I think that's a good point. No one's got to go back to the wellness check facts. So-called facts about any of the people in here and of course it just kind of goes to the point that nothing nothing in this office space is what it seems.

[00:33:13] I mean I like to think that it's possible that Audi mark can get a tent up in under three million. That's that's the thing that is the lunch pin for me that's the smoking gun. The smoking gun. It is impossible. There's no way, there's no way this guy.

[00:33:27] No one has ever got a 10 up in under three minutes. Not as drunk as Mark is. Not unless it's a euphemism. All right, next one. Cobel is suspended by the board for withholding knowledge of Helly's suicide attempt and her extracurricular activities as Mrs. Selvig.

[00:33:49] Meanwhile, MDR celebrates with the coveted egg bar Do you have any thoughts on this? There's a lot of this was the office party. Yeah. How do you like office parties in general? I mean, it beats working but I mean, the office party can often be a good-

[00:34:12] I would prefer work. Sometimes yeah, sometimes work is better than the office party, especially if the office party is like, okay now that you've done the office party you have more work to do because you wasted that time. It's like the classic,

[00:34:29] oh you don't worry about doing the dishes on Mother's Day mom, they'll be there for you tomorrow. I mean my feeling with office parties is like, I don't even like parties that much. I mean, I realize that the purpose of these things

[00:34:48] is sort of quote unquote team building. I don't ever really felt like after a party, I feel like. I feel better about this team. I'm the guy that would be like, hey we did a barbecue or we got this thing catered

[00:35:05] come on into the break room and I go in there and I make a plate and then I go back to my desk and somebody pointed out that like, you're pretty anti-social. And I said, no, I like hanging out with people. I like.

[00:35:28] Right before you kill them in the shed in the backyard. Exactly. All right, symbolism of eggs. If I was gonna say to you that the egg represents a symbol in what way is an egg symbolic? Any thoughts? Well I guess it's like life, right? Sure. Fertility.

[00:35:56] Fertility, sort of nascent. I mean you could almost sometimes people you would say like he hasn't come out of a shell meaning maybe he's not quite social yet. But I think new life is probably the one that I would most think of.

[00:36:20] And the reason why I bring this up is not just because of the egg party but I noticed this episode that the official signage for Lumen in the O, the negative space of the O is like a teardrop.

[00:36:39] Similar, not the same, but similar to an egg shape, right? Okay. And then there's a lot with arrows in this show. Like if you're gonna go up the elevator, there's a little arrow above the elevator that points up similar shape. Teardrop, egg, up arrow, similar shape.

[00:37:05] And it makes me think with a show that is sort of demonstrated that it is very intentional with the details, I'm starting to wonder about what these images are. Suggesting. That's the thing, right? That's what this show does is because there's so little information being given

[00:37:26] you're forced to try to find clues. Right, and then of course, all right, so if you saw Lumen, which suggests to me like light, right? Right. But then the only image that you see in the text is like a drop, either like a water drop

[00:37:46] or a teardrop or something like that. What would you think that company does? Yeah, because it looks like a globe first, right? Like there's a globe surrounding. And then yeah, I'm gonna look at the logo. Yeah, because it's an interesting thing because all the letters are the same

[00:38:08] except that O is purposefully different, right? And it's to the point where it's that would be the logo and it's the O itself. Yeah, the O itself is the logo, right? Yeah, and it's very much droplet, I suppose. Yeah, it's a droplet. It's a droplet.

[00:38:28] So like if I saw that, I thought, is this a light company? Is it a water company? Water filtration. Maybe. Maybe not worth noting at all but I did pick up on that a bit this episode. All right, so the MDR team prepares for Dylan

[00:38:46] to remotely awaken them on the outside. Hell, he kisses Mark before departing. So the plan here, this is their big plan is to go into overtime mode on the outside, find someone trustworthy and tell them everything. Is this a good plan? Well, I immediately get nervous, right?

[00:39:14] Cause we see where Mark's out he's gonna be. I mean, it's sort of like, it's the kind of thing that like, I guess is the first step but my feeling is that they don't really know what's gonna happen next. They're just gonna give this a try

[00:39:32] and kinda see what happens. Well, they don't have as much awareness of stakes, right? I mean, that's the other side of it, right? It's like they still sort of see their outie as kind of a fantasy creature and the outside world as, you know, like who knows, right?

[00:39:50] I mean, they have memories of things so they're aware of language and can speak to things like muscle shows. They don't know why. Yeah, they've got cultural test zones. They can like name a state. Yeah, so they're not gonna go into a world

[00:40:09] and be like, well, what is that thing? Oh, it's a tree, you know whatever. But they don't, they have no idea what they're about to get into. And they're so, we've talked about the childlike nature of the inning. Yeah.

[00:40:25] And it would make sense what they're doing to them because they're still pretty self-absorbed. They don't have a lot of other things to consider. Yeah, this plan is almost childlike. Right. Who knows, it might help, but it's like they've got no idea what it's gonna be.

[00:40:40] You ever run away from home when you're like little? Oh, many times. Oh yeah. And it's like, you don't know where you're gonna go and what you're gonna do. Get to the bottom of the road and turn around. Yeah, you get to the bottom of the road

[00:40:53] and you go, well, I hope that sure top them a lesson. They're probably missing me so much right now. I'm gonna go back. I went so far as to get a stick and tie a little. I made a bend. Little kerchief.

[00:41:09] Yeah, and to the point where I was looking for a kerchief. Right? Like I didn't really, that in exactly, you don't understand hobo culture and the idea isn't like, it's not like the kerchief on a stick is the best possible way to transport anything.

[00:41:23] I live in a house where there are tote bags, backpacks, there are suitcases. I mean, I could have, I mean, if I was really serious, I would have been fine to take stuff. You don't know how much time. I spent most of my time looking.

[00:41:37] You're like, if I could just find a kerchief, I couldn't run away. Yeah, and it seems like if you find the kerchief now, it's like, now I gotta find a load bearing stick. I can't tell you how much of my childhood was fantasizing about becoming a hobo.

[00:41:58] Oh yeah. You ever jump on a moving train? Nope. Pretty terrifying. You have? Yeah, a train that was just taken off. We were like, hey, let's jump on this train and then we get on it and it was that same kind of, and we're old, like we're not,

[00:42:13] I mean, we're like 18 years old and it's like, ah, this is a bad idea. And then one of the guys stayed on for a long time. Like we jump off and you're like, oh, so scary. And then the next thing you know,

[00:42:23] like he's down, he's probably like, I don't know. 100 yards, 200 yards. We finally jumps off and the train's picking up a little more speed. We thought that was it. I thought he lived in North Carolina. All right, Dylan receives a waffle party as a reward for meeting quota.

[00:42:48] Ruchi dawns a Cure Egan head and sits with a replica of Cure's bedroom in the perpetuity wing while ritualistic and seductive dances are being performed in front of him. I mean, we've talked about the waffle party before. I'd like to point out that in this scene,

[00:43:19] the masks by the seductive dancers are a jester, a bride, a ram and an old lady face. Yeah, and the bride seems a little aghast. The bride, yes, she seems like she's not too happy with her situation. Yeah, yeah. And the jester seems sinister.

[00:43:47] Oh yeah, ram's a ram. Yeah, but that was the one that was a little bit most disturbing to me. I don't know about you. Well, it sort of does, like it brings to it a certain like, like a pagan ritualistic sacrificial perhaps. That's it, that's it.

[00:44:05] That's right, and it's interesting because we've seen goats. That's right. And then the old lady face, and I'm wondering, all right, so there's four masks, there's four dancers, there's four key employees. Would you make any connection there? Yeah, I was trying to figure that out if there was,

[00:44:26] but I mean, it would be very specific to MDR because we know that the other departments have different numbers of people. To me, there's like, there has to be all reason, right? Like those are four very specific choices. I did notice that the old lady's hair

[00:44:44] is somewhat similar to Miss Cobel's hair. Yeah. Not really sure what to do with that. I think if anyone's a jester, it would be Dylan, maybe given that Mark and Helly have sort of like joked about maybe being married on the outside. Because remember,

[00:45:11] I think that they were planning on doing this for Mark. I don't think that they were prepared for Dylan, him to actually say. So you think this isn't just the typical, no, I think that they- Every time you get the waffle part, you get the same routine?

[00:45:25] I think they designed this for Mark. I don't know about the Ram, I don't know about the old lady face. I'm not sure about much else. Jet, I'm just calling it out. Just calling it out. It is one of the more memorable scenes of the show so far.

[00:45:43] It's so macabre and then it's juxtaposed with Cobel's just full on meltdown, right? She's tearing down her altar and- Yeah. So to me this is interesting. I mean, this is sort of the one thing about this show, I shouldn't say it's the one thing about the show,

[00:46:03] but it's an outlier because it's almost like this is a reward for something that includes some sort of psychosexual- Well, and beyond that, it's an award that is given because of a team effort. Yet one person gets to experience it. So I'm wondering if there's something about like

[00:46:31] if you're any only ever experiences office life that usually would mean that your any doesn't get to have a sexual identity or at least, the fraternizing is sort of forbidden. So they're all kind of like monks. They're sort of discouraged from lip to lip contact or whatever.

[00:46:53] So the expectation is celibacy and yet it's sort of like, okay, but if you're really good, we'll show you a little bit of pornography or something. Right. It's really messed up. The whole thing's really messed up. I mean, especially considering like someone like Mr. Casey's only 107 hours old.

[00:47:16] Right. And then you add to the idea that it's like, it actually is a literal waffle party. I mean, they get waffle. You know, you're gonna do something that wacky. I mean, we can call whatever you wanna call it, maybe this is all the scheduling,

[00:47:31] Sinafoo that it was just going to be a waffle and the dancers were sent to the wrong room. Right. It's bonkers. It is definitely bonkers. All right. Do you have anything else to say about the waffle party? No, yeah, I just was, the masks and what they represent

[00:47:53] is just still like a try not, cause I did initially when I saw the hair of the one, I thought like, well, that seems like cobell-like. But I'm like, well, why would they make a mask specific to her? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:48:08] And then the one guy comes in and he's a ram. Interesting. Cause like on one hand you go, okay, well maybe there's a story being told from the young bride to this kind of scary looking older woman. But then the other woman's a jester that appears male.

[00:48:31] I don't know. Right. Yeah, it's all goofballs. One thing I think is really important to note too, page 197 slaps. He's got it memorized. So good. He's got it memorized. All right. Mark Aten's Rickens book reading party and tells Ms. Selvig he plans to quit Lumen.

[00:49:02] Cobel encourages him to do so. Now this is after Cobel's been let go, still unsure about what she was trying to accomplish. Right. So still don't know that. Seemingly she's had some kind of transformation because she's sort of tearing down the alter to Kier at her house.

[00:49:28] So maybe she's on a similar path as Irv. You know, Irv takes the handbook and smashes the egg inside the handbook. Which looks very much like a Bible suggesting he's sort of done with the rules and regulations. And she hears that Mark's Audi might be considering quitting.

[00:49:52] And she's pretty excited about this possibility. And so that leads me to the question, is this how it works? You just, if Mark wants to quit, do they just let him quit? Because he seems pretty important to whatever they're trying to accomplish, he seems integral to it. Right.

[00:50:13] And that becomes, yeah, that to me was a question that I took out of that too. It was like, how much agency does he have to do that? And they've invested a lot of time and energy and probably finances into whatever it is they're doing with them.

[00:50:28] And he's the Audi. So you can't control him the same way and you can't tell him what to do the same way because now you've got potential press issues and things of that nature, right? Also, Cobel, can you really fire her?

[00:50:43] She knows a lot about what happens in Lumen. Exactly. She knows a lot about what happens in Lumen. Right. So if she just, that's a big assumption, right? That she's just gonna go and then not retaliate or... So there's a certain amount of confidence.

[00:50:59] Like we know, either we got something over her or we know that there's going to be a pun intended severance agreement or something like this. Or they have some sort of, still have some sort of control over her which would suggest that maybe she's...

[00:51:16] Maybe everybody's chipped in a way they don't realize. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because then it starts to, there's so many questions about like when are they being watched and why are they not being watched all the time? You know, how much can Milchek see?

[00:51:31] How much does he know? How is anybody able to get away with anything ever? Yeah. I was speaking of getting away with something. Dylan leaves Midway to access the security office and activates the overtime contingency to awaken Mark, Irv and Helly's Ennis in the outside world. Okay.

[00:51:57] Now you were the person that kind of alerted me to this in our previous conversation but I wanna call these out again. The different modes that an employee can be in when they're severed is beehive, branch transfer, clean slate, elephant, freeze frame,

[00:52:16] Glasgow, goldfish, lullaby, open house and overtime. Seemingly we know what overtime is, right? Overtime means it's your work consciousness in the outside world, right? It's something very specific. It's not like a reintegration or anything like that. It's your work self. It's the inny waking up as an outie.

[00:52:45] And you suggested before that you thought maybe Irv was in like a goldfish state. Right. Meaning like he's just going in around a circle or what did you, what did you do? Yeah, so basically just the same. Like he's got like, oh, get up, do this,

[00:53:05] do this, do this, do this. All right, let's go do that again. And then let's just do that again and let's just do that. Like it's just sort of- So he's just in a cycle, a never ending cycle, all right? Right. And I think that we suggested that,

[00:53:18] I don't know, did we say what we thought beehive might be? I don't know, but that's a question, right? Like so you could, there's a few ways to think of a beehive. One of it's sort of being just loud and chaotic.

[00:53:35] The other side of that is like that's like worker bees doing worker bee stuff, right? Yeah, you're just a drone or something. Right. So that would, you could almost like, maybe almost make the argument to some degree. Maybe Miss Casey was beehived for a while. Sure, okay.

[00:53:54] Branch transfer. That to me would suggest that you go to another department and you don't remember you were in a different department. Right, right, right. So you keep your cultural memory and maybe you've lost your personal memories of the previous department or something.

[00:54:10] Cause you can think like, all right, see you later Bert. And you know, everyone assumes that Bert is happily retired but in reality Bert could just be making deviled eggs or whatever. Right. Clean slate, you suggested before that that's just wipes everything, all memory, right? Yeah.

[00:54:31] Elephants suggest that you always remember, right? Right. Yeah, that's what we said. I think we said with the clean slate too, like and think about it, thinking about it now like here these guys are about to go out, assume that this overtime contingency works. Yeah.

[00:54:50] How do you get them back? Well maybe you can clean slate them and they just come back to work and like it's day one. Another option for Irv would be freeze frame. Depending on what that is, I mean, I guess you could suggest that

[00:55:07] that person is constantly living in the same moment over and over and over again, right? Right. I did a little bit of research on Glasgow. It's possible that we overlapped research. Did you have a sense of what Glasgow is? No. Okay, I did research on Glasgow.

[00:55:26] So there's something called the Glasgow coma score and so there are different levels of comas that you can be in, you know, sort of ranging from almost conscious to really, really not conscious. And so my thought was that Glasgow means coma. Okay.

[00:55:53] That would be my guess on that. Lullabies I think just puts you to sleep. We know what overtime is, open house. Any ideas? That makes me wonder if people can get into your brain. Oh, geez. Aren't they already in the brain?

[00:56:12] Well, I mean like you're free to now see things through them or you access them. Or more people can, you know, so when I think of an open house, whether it's a, if it's an actual real estate type situation, right?

[00:56:33] You had to go in and get to see everything kind of staged. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So all right, let's jump into spoilers here. I think that we got an answer in this question. I think I might have brought up this question

[00:56:48] in a previous episode was why is the way that they're surveilling Mark so low tech? Whereas they have pretty advanced neuro technology. That's one of the things that keeps getting me about all the technology that the Lumen employees

[00:57:08] interact with versus like the medical staff get to work with. Well, I think part of it gets answered this episode. We know that Cobel's moonlighting as Ms. Selvig is totally off the books. Right. So she doesn't really have access to all of Lumen's resources.

[00:57:31] So almost like everybody once you get into that section, you are limited with what technology you can interact with. Sure, sure, sure. Because if open house is what you say it is, you know, why aren't people just looking through Mark's eyes? Right.

[00:57:52] Unless the Severance Project is both worlds. All right, yeah. The other thing for spoilers that I noted was do you know who Michael Silbury is? He's an actor. No, no, thanks. You'd probably recognize him anyway. He was the voice of the Keer graphic. Okay.

[00:58:19] And on the IDMB page, he's supposed to be the present CEO. That actor is playing the present CEO of Lumen. Oh, okay. And I guess he's an Egan descendant. So my, I mean, who knows whether he'll be in season two or not, but I thought I would,

[00:58:41] thought that was an interesting connection. It's just, as far as like a penultimate episode goes, pretty good, right? I mean, it's great cliffhanger. Oh, this is like this perfect cliffhanger. I kind of figured that the final episode would be him doing this, Dylan doing this.

[00:59:03] And then we get like a brief glimpse into the Audi world and then it's over. But it's like, I remember first time I saw this, but wait, we're gonna get a whole episode? Post, post overtime contingency? Yeah. No, it's wild.

[00:59:22] I did note that I was looking at who directed the episodes. My sense is that the writing credits for each episode are kind of, they don't tell the whole story because with writer's room, some people, they just sometimes they just sort of divvy out credit

[00:59:46] even though it kind of everyone's thumb prints is on every screenplay. But with directing, usually the listed director is the person who actually directed the show. And it looks like what Stiller did was Stiller did the first three episodes and the last three episodes.

[01:00:06] And then there was another director for the middle three. Oh, okay. Did you sense that there was sort of a lag or a tonal shift in the middle of the season? I don't think so. I didn't feel like that either.

[01:00:21] I felt like it was pretty, it kind of built. Yeah, yeah, everything felt like it was on a logical trajectory at least tone and everything just kept moving towards it. I didn't feel any shift. And I remember I made a note too, Ben Stiller looking at the director,

[01:00:39] when the director changed, I was like, I wouldn't have known. I'm sure there's some stamps that they put on their own, but I mean they did a really good job of keeping it because sometimes you do that with series, right?

[01:00:49] All of a sudden one episode clearly feels different than another, even if it's still moving the story along. I mean even with Barry, you know, I don't know if the first season was this way, but basically the last few seasons were Bill Hader,

[01:01:05] he basically directed all of them. Yeah. But even with this last season of Barry, I did feel like there were a couple laggy episodes. Yeah, no, I agree. This first season was, it was like every episode was better than the last. Yeah, it was surgical.

[01:01:25] All right, well I think we've prepped well enough for the season finale. Yes sir. Which I'm looking forward to. Is it the Franco to be? Okay David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side, green or black? John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn.

[01:02:03] I am black for life. So we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to like pick sides and fight and stuff. Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod, but we seem to agree on one thing.

[01:02:16] We both really like the show. The politics, the drama, the lore. It was made for the Lorehounds. And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the dance of the dragons. And with the season pass option and supercast,

[01:02:31] listeners can get early ad-free access to each weekly scene by scene deep dive plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragonfire hot, but probably positive takes. The Lorehounds house of the dragon coverage

[01:02:48] is also safe for team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a hardened conflict with itself and an inescapable urge to read the book fire and blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning. The Lorehounds