Severance - S02E03 - Who is Alive?

[00:00:04] Hey everyone, David here. The wait is over, Severance is back. The Lorehounds are teaming up with Properly Howard to bring you comprehensive coverage of Season 2. Join John, Anthony, Steve, and myself each week as we dive into this amazing show.

[00:00:21] So, here's what you need to know. We've set up a dedicated feed for our Severance coverage. To join us, just search for Severance Lorehounds in your podcast player or click the feed link in our link tree. You'll find that in the show notes below. If you're already a Patreon or Supercast subscriber, don't worry. You'll get the ad-free versions automatically in your regular feed.

[00:00:46] Plus, exclusive access to our upcoming bonus episodes that we'll be announcing soon. The early reviews are incredible. Apple's marketing push is huge, and we cannot wait to explore this season with you. And unlike the music dance experience, you don't need Mr. Milchick's permission to join us. Don't forget, you can find the feed link in our link tree in the show notes, or just search Severance Lorehounds wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:01:15] Join us for what's shaping up to be an incredible season. No more poop? No more poops in our hallway? Speak for yourself.

[00:01:44] My house has it as a pre-existing condition. Don't pervert. Welcome to a Lorehounds and Properly Howard joint production covering Severance on Apple TV Plus Season 2, Episode 3, Who is Alive? With me today, he lives on a cattle ranch, David. Do I detect frippery from you, John?

[00:02:14] You might. Because I'll have you know that it takes dedication and industry to run a cattle farm. He's trying to burn the F word into his eyes, Steve. Yeah, but the F word is Frank Stallone, oddly enough. And he's got a pouch where you least expect it, Anthony. Yeah, beer and juleps cannot fill the void left by your love, John.

[00:02:39] David, the board austerely desires for you to provide a modicum of housekeeping before we proceed into the house of perpetuity and hot takes. I would like to thank the board for my ascendance. Ad free versions of this podcast without subscription. You can do a single one time purchase for five bucks and you get what we call a season pass. There's a link in the show notes. We have bonus episodes.

[00:03:06] We're just kind of doing them unplanned and we'll get you what we get you. But we've had two great conversations so far, one with Nicole and the other with Mark, both from the hosts of Nevermind the Music. And I talked to Nicole. We talked about brains and brain science.

[00:03:23] And then I talked to Mark the other night and had a very interesting theory about the four chords in the main theme relating to the four tempers and possibly the four main characters. So you get those in the bonus episodes along with ad free listens.

[00:03:45] Uh, if you're interested in that, there's go to the link in the show notes or if our regular subscribers as well, if you want to be a regular subscriber of the podcast, that would be great. More plans to do other ones. Yeah, we're going to be talking with some various people. So there'll be more bonus episodes coming at you. If you want to chat real time about the show, head over to our discord. We've got a great community there, a great mod team.

[00:04:11] And we've got threads and channels and stuff for all the different conversations about the episodes. Feedback can be sent to severance at the lorehounds.com where hand of the pod, Nancy will be glad to collate your submissions. And remember to please a like rate and review. Well, you know what it's time for now. Please try to enjoy each hot take equally and not show preference for any above the others.

[00:04:40] David, what's your hot take on this episode? Definitely. If you have an opportunity either on your first watch or if you, if you do second watches, I would highly recommend everyone listen or watch the episode with like earbuds or headphones or something like that. There is an incredible amount of sound design work that is happening at like a near subsonic layer.

[00:05:06] There's weird throbbing sounds when they're in MDR and just the way that the background music interacts with the diegetic sounds that are in the, in the space of the television show. It's really incredible. There's this weird, there was a really great sort of almost heartbeat like sounding sound effect when Mark was driving into the abandoned area to try to burn his retinas.

[00:05:36] Also the camera work on this episode was also just incredible. The, the way that it was almost kind of cinema verite style, the way that Mark, the camera was following Mark as he was driving into the parking lot or when Natalie moves from one side of Milchik to the other, the way the camera pans and turns and follows her. It just really, uh, some of the best camera work I've, I've ever seen.

[00:06:02] Um, my favorite parts is, uh, what happens when, um, like when we're Gabby's looking into his car and then they choose to still pulls back behind the car. So we're Gabby looks like she's looking through like inside his car. It's a, it's a real, um, disorienting shot that I had to look at a couple of times. Cause I'm like, wait, is she in the car? But like, they just, the way that it's framed is that she's looking from, you know, in front of the hood, but, uh, really mirrored climbing out of their own, his own head in the opening title.

[00:06:31] I'm going to go back and look at that one. I missed that one. There were some great American Gothic style imagery at the very beginning with the cobell out in the, in the farmland and the snow covered farmland, just like super incredible. But then we jumped to like a cinema verite style where we're following Mark as he's running into, to lumen and it just, uh, or, or the real hyper closeup face facial acting that's going on here.

[00:06:56] So I'm loving how this show is just so confident in its storytelling that it can mix up these different styles, which might be jarring in other cases. But in this case, it's, it's just really working really well. The last thing I have to say is I just love the fact that all of the Easter eggs that they're doing and the mystery box elements, they're all kind of in a, in good nature. They're, they're kind of fun and everybody's having a really good time.

[00:07:25] Unlike, you know, maybe a lost or something like that. We have to stop shitting on lost every single podcast. That is, that is starting to get called out. I actually, I want to say I really loved lost at the time. I really did. I had to, I had to. Everybody did. Yeah, exactly. Yes. And we all loved game of Thrones and I still love most of game of Thrones. Right.

[00:07:51] It's delivered and done in such a way that it's like fun and good natured. And I'm sure the Reddit detectives are having a great time. People were having a great time on the discord today, throwing in screenshots and pulling up little grammatical things. Oh, the board as an it, as opposed to a they. I just think that they're doing a really good job with setting up a mystery box. Again, asking more questions, but I never feel unsatisfied after an episode. Why don't we hear from them? The mammalian next.

[00:08:21] Cause that's, that's your name here today. And in our Zen caster session. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to rain on this crate a little bit here. So I was wondering whether season two was going to kind of have a drop. And there was a moment probably after the goat room where I thought, Oh no. Oh no. Is this a, is this going to happen?

[00:08:44] And I was sort of moving to the end of the episode, a bit disappointed thinking this is kind of where they have to stall it out because maybe they only had enough narrative for a certain amount of episodes. And then they needed a filler episode. And so maybe this is the filler episode. And then when they got to the end with full reintegration, I thought, all right, here we go. Here we go. I'm ready. I'm locked and loaded.

[00:09:11] It was a little bit like I had a fish hook and the line was let out. So I felt a little bit of security and I thought I was getting away. I thought, I thought I was getting away from it. And then that last scene, uh, it hooked me right back in. So that was my whole journey. Cool. Yeah. It's funny that Anthony says that cause there was, um, not so much a tone shift, but just a, there was a vibe shift in this episode for me.

[00:09:37] And, uh, the, on first watch I was like, Oh, we're settling into something a little different. It feels like. And like, you know, so Anthony was interpreting that as kind of a filler episode. I was just, like I said, it was just a vibe shift that I wasn't quite sure where we were going. Um, and it didn't, I, I was, uh, I felt like I was, it was not my, my, my two wavelengths were not lining up, uh, at first, uh, second watch, um, really dug it, really enjoyed it.

[00:10:07] Uh, the, cause I, going back to what David was saying, the visually I was still taking, I, I, almost every shot of, of, uh, cobells VW rabbit. Oh my God. It's just gorgeous. Like, I'm like, I kind of want to just look at that. So I would just, I would just, that, that shot, there's a shot where it's just, it's just, it's out there in the snow and she's wiping off the window and it's, it's just a perfect shot. And I just, I was just enamored with it.

[00:10:36] Um, plus he's driving a white rabbit, right? Totally. Right. Yeah. And so that, and she's bathed in blue light inside the car when she's wiping her window. It's like so visually perfect. Perfect. Yeah. And I'm just taken by the fact that like, there's no new cars anywhere. Um, and, uh, so yeah, so really like, I love a second watch to grab all these, these little details, um, really sold on the mark, um, trajectory.

[00:11:02] Like, you know, even though he knows he like, he saw Petey die from this thing and it's now she's like, got it a little bit better, which is, you know, kind of the reason why I've never got laser eye surgery. Cause like every time I turn around, they've improved on it. I'm like, well, can I wait until they go? Well, I guess there's no more, there's no more we can do. And so, but I buy the sense of like, like him going through this. I'm not getting better. I'm not escaping. Uh, I'm not really living. So I'll, I'll let's risk it. Cause this is, you know, why not?

[00:11:31] Let's I've already made this weird decision. If this is the closest thing I can do to undo it, then so be it. And, and if, if, if at least it gives me a purpose and which I love the two, that both marks have purpose. And so they're both like highly motivated and they're, and they're, uh, operating on feelings, uh, which is really, really interesting. Um, I, I do because I can't trust anyone, which is, cause the show is like, it does so many things where it's like, you think it's going to do one thing and it doesn't.

[00:11:59] And this episode had like kind of two major points, right? I mean, you're, you're following this, this whole beginning is, is Mark learning to, uh, communicate to as any through this, uh, retina thing. It's like, yeah, that's, that really wasn't anything. So moving on. And, uh, and then the, the pouch thing, oh, maybe this is the clone belly button moment. Oh, no, it's not. And then you find out, oh wait, there really is visitation for, uh, for Dylan. So that wasn't a ruse.

[00:12:25] Like I don't, anytime I think I can't trust something, I, I can. And then vice versa. So it's just, so now I'm like, oh, is integration all part of the big plan? Okay. Follow up question for you, Steve. So in our rewatch of season one, one of the questions that we kept asking is when is this? Right. Is this an early nineties? Is this set in the early nineties? Cause we were like, did we see a smartphone? I don't think I saw a smartphone.

[00:12:53] And then toward the end we saw a smartphone. Right. So, okay. You noticed as I did that in this episode, almost every car could exist in the early nineties or before. Right. Right. Like it's a very specific stylistic choice to choose these cars. Even, even Helena is getting into one.

[00:13:22] Like, and she's, you know, looming royalty and she's not getting into, you know, anything modern. So it's a specific choice. And I'm wondering if this is supposed to tell us something about the setting of this town or whether or not it's just kind of a stylistic choice to create a mood. Do you have a sense? Do you have a sense on this?

[00:13:48] I kind of view this as, because I believe this whole thing is a lumen bubble, that they are limiting the technology available to everybody that's in place. If you, so like, if you've got, you know, if you've got a touchscreen and your wifi enabled GPS on your car, then you might be able to have access to a world that's beyond what you're raised. Okay. So this is a good question.

[00:14:12] I mean, I'm sorry to belabor this point, but we see Cobell get pretty far, you know, pretty far away from the town. I don't know how far, but that's a, that's. Well, as far as she knows. As far as she, she's, she's on a big treadmill. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, is like, we, we, we, we see things, we don't know how big, I mean, lumen seems really, really big, but I mean, it's, it seems bigger when you're in a maze.

[00:14:43] So you're, I mean, those look like, like Utah salt flats out there. I, I, I don't know how big this snow globe is, but it's gotta be a really big snow globe. You've lived all over the world, man. I mean, if, if someone's going to have, if someone's going to be able to leave the bubble, right? It's going to be someone in management like Cobell. So I, I could believe that she would be able to go farther than anybody else. Okay.

[00:15:08] So there's maybe a checkpoint or something and she was able to get through and we just, as viewers, didn't see it. I do still, I still, still like your theory, Steve, about this, the two levels of snow globe. But I just can't buy that there's a world that there's a, there's not a regular world where Rickon is, has friends. That's good.

[00:15:34] You know, though, I, I am going to put, posit a theory later that Cobell is severed. So I, I, I want to return to that later. I feel that way too. So I'm curious to see what you got. Yeah. And Stein H from Spotify encourages us to follow the white rabbit. So I think, I think that may be a key to this. I mean, for me, just my quick hot take on this episode was I too felt like it was a little slow at first, but I was like, all right, it's going to be necessary setup. That's fine.

[00:16:04] Maybe this is just the setup episode. And then they completely ripped the bandaid off with the reintegration. Yeah. And I think that's brilliant because that feels like a season finale. And that means that we have so much more runway this season than we thought. And I, I think that that's great. You know, we're, we're answering questions faster. We're not doing a whole season of, well, what did any Mark mean by she's alive? Right. We've solved that mystery. That's done. He knows, we know we're all good. The reintegration is happening.

[00:16:34] Maybe she's better at it. Maybe she's not. She's better at it now. Are other people reintegrated that we don't know about? Yeah. How do you, how do you get better unless you're working with other people? Exactly. Exactly. So I have a lot of questions on a lot of this stuff, but the way that the show resolves questions, but also raises new ones is really brilliant. It was the best way to do a mystery box. But I love this show. And I think that this goes back to what we've been talking about before. This is a show that respects its audience. We're not going to waste your time.

[00:17:02] We're not going to, there's no fripperies here. We are going straight at the heart of the matter and we're going to be moving this season along at a really good clip. No fripperies. Let's get these fetid Muppets on the road. We're going to take a quick break. When we get back, we will return with more severance.

[00:17:27] Hey Mark, I was listening to Paramore the other day and it really made me think about the amygdala and the limbic system. You just made those words up, didn't you? What, Paramore? We're the Nevermind the Music podcast, where one musician and one psychologist talk songwriting and the mind, one song at a time. We'll hear everything from Green Day and OutKast to Stevie Wonder and Dua Lipa. And we mostly try to stay on topic. Except for when we don't want to. Nevermind the Music, wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:17:57] And we're back. So, let's get right into this episode. I've divided this into several plot lines, but I've saved the most exciting one for last, which is the reintegration and all that. Kobelvig. We've already talked about her a little bit, but she wakes up in her car on a deserted road. It's 238 miles from Salt's Neck when she turns around and speeds towards Lumen. Later, she offers her terms of return to Helena, including management of MDR.

[00:18:26] Helena humbles her, then calls the board to hear her demands. Kobel gets scared and drives away. Can I ask, who thinks that they have an idea of what Kobel was feeling at the end? Were they going to kill her or something else? They were going to reset her. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So, that's what I'm getting at. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense now. Too much hubris. Too much ego. Hey, you know what? Let's just reset. I like it. Not death. Yeah. No.

[00:18:54] And that's where I'm wondering about the possibility that she is reintegrated and they're still somehow working with her. Well, they've denied that reintegration is real, right? And she's been the one saying, no, it is real. She's been pushing the board to acknowledge that reintegration is real. But we only know her point of view, which is the board is saying it's not real, but does the board have knowledge outside of what we've seen on screen?

[00:19:23] So, she's advancing this idea that reintegration is possible. Does the board already know that, but just has been keeping it under tight wraps? Yes. I mean, can I sort of challenge this notion? Do we know reintegration is possible in the long term? That's a good question. Because Petey died. Right. And it's very possible that they're like, no, it's not possible. We've been trying it for years.

[00:19:52] They all die a week later. Or when you're doing it via Radio Shack equipment like Rigabi. Yeah. But if you're using lumen sanctioned equipment, sure. So, I don't know if we know. See, I don't want to believe that the board is stupid. You know, I kind of need an evil genius on the other side of that box. Right.

[00:20:18] So, I don't know how much Rigabi's Radio Shack setup can be trusted. Love me a good oscilloscope, though. So, anyway. That was all I wanted to call out there. But is the board denying to themselves that reintegration is possible? Or are they towing the party line? Because they don't want anyone to know. Right. We don't know. Right. Yeah. I don't know.

[00:20:45] I mean, you can't trust the corporate board to giving full transparency for anything. Especially if it's indicative of maybe something of their work that could be undone. And this goes back to my same feeling, which is if Kobelvig is – I did it. I said it – is so knowledgeable about all the stuff, how can you fire somebody like that and just let them go out into the world? Granted, she's a true believer. Sure. Because maybe they've got her monitored.

[00:21:15] You know, maybe they just – they've got an off switch. Yeah. If she becomes a problem, we turn her off and then – What does Ms. Wong say? Don't share anything that could be – that's privileged information? I do like – I mean, I don't want to stray too far from Kobelvig, but I do like that there's still people questioning, why are you a child?

[00:21:42] Until that's answered, it really is the thing I'm most thinking about whenever she's on screen. Is it rude to keep asking? So I want to draw your attention towards the end of the outline. I've got a screenshot that's very zoomed in. Somebody got a high-res photo. This is from Season 1, Episode 7. They go to the security room and there's a list of all the severed people. And if you zoom in really close, you can see a faint Harmony S.

[00:22:11] Is that Harmony Celtic? What is that, DNR? It looks like DNR. Okay. Design and research? I don't know. But my point is I think it's very possible that her – that one of her given names, whether it was at birth or by Lumen, was Selvig. And that's why she went by that with Mark. And it's red, whereas the severed ones are generally – Aha. The currently severed ones.

[00:22:36] So I don't know if maybe she had an innie and she wants to recover the memories of her innie. She wants to feel like a full person again. And maybe that's why she's so into this reintegration stuff. I like that. That's why she's like, I need MDR. I need MDR. That's why she was so focused on Mark and Miss Casey and monitoring Mark in and out of life. Yeah.

[00:22:59] Like she's very – and she's very emphatic that Mark – Mark, not anybody else, but Mark is so close to finishing Cold Springs. Mm-hmm. Or if it is a reset, maybe she's been reset before. Yeah. And she wants to recover those memories. And, you know, maybe this entire town has been reset at some point. Yeah. And we know Irv has vague memories of something he's never seen. Neither of his selves have ever seen.

[00:23:30] And so what does that mean? Can these – are people being re-severed? Are they being reset? Yeah. I don't know. I feel like there's a lot of clues pointing to that. What do you think about Cobell calling Helena a Nepo baby? Maybe. There was four scenes in this episode where there are these really quiet confrontations. We had Mark and – are we calling her Heli or Helena?

[00:23:59] Helena R? I think – I call Innie, Hellie, Hellie and I call Audi. Right. And we don't know whether she's Innie or Audi. But anyway, her and Mark – This is Helena R. Helena R. Yes, Helena R. Her and Mark are in the corner. Then we have Seth and Natalie. And then we have – what's Dylan's wife's name? Gretchen. Gretchen and Dylan in the visitation suite.

[00:24:23] And then Harmony and Helena out in the parking lot where people are just being with each other. We're getting very close-ups of their faces. We're getting a lot of facial reactions. And it's just as a construct in the storytelling. It's really interesting. And I was really fascinated.

[00:24:45] I'm interested that you guys said that this was a slow episode for you because those quiet moments really sucked me in because there's so much tension being built. I don't think – for me, it wasn't necessarily that it was slow. Okay. For me, it was like, is this all filler? Like you're going to go into the goat room and walk away and not have any new information. Right. I don't – for me, it's like, oh, you're just guarding the mystery.

[00:25:11] Or this whole business with the retina burn comes to nothing at the end. You've got this little detail about Rickon's book. Or, you know, all of these little bits are like, are you trying to draw out the mystery? And if that's what you're doing, you're going to lose me. If this is only ever going to draw out the mystery further – All are lost. Then at some point I'm going to be like, eh. But at the end, it all kind of was worth it.

[00:25:40] But I will say, Ragabi just kind of shows up out of nowhere. And that's when the thing gets jump-started. So we could view this as a filler episode with sort of a little epilogue of action at the end. Cobell thinks she's going to drive away. She circles back. She's going to go in the building, but she doesn't. So everyone kind of winds up where they were before with the exception of Mark.

[00:26:09] Yeah, I think that's the whole – I don't agree with that. You don't think that's the point though? I don't think that's what's happening. I think Dylan and his wife are going through a crazy thing that I'll go into. That's true. They are not in the same place by the end of this episode. Oh, I agree with that. Devin and Rickon are in a weird place. Well, they've always been kind of in a weird place. Milchik seems to be doubting Kira a little bit, I think. I think we've had more development than you're giving credit for this episode. And I think we're setting up a lot of big storylines.

[00:26:39] My thing was I didn't feel it was filler. I just felt there was just a vibe shift. And I didn't – like, not necessarily nothing wrong with it. But like, I was just – it was a different – it was a different – I don't know if it's pace. I don't know what it was. And maybe it's intentional. Like, going back to what David was talking about with all these kind of subtle sonic elements.

[00:26:57] And it could have been, like, this is – maybe looking back, my, quote, vibe shift that I'm referring to wasn't because, oh, this is not done in a way that I'm familiar with in a bad way. But, like, this is intentionally – things are about to shift. Like, this is – it is a big shift episode. I think you're absolutely right because, I mean, we find out that, like I said, the visitation is real.

[00:27:21] And not only is it real, but, man, this is going to complicate some stuff for the Dylan character and this new character, Gretchen, big time. Yeah. You know, and that changes a trajectory. Like, I'm just already looking at that trajectory and going, oh, my gosh. What's going to happen when your spouse doesn't want – just wants to enemy you? The vibe shift thing is, I think, very real. We start with American Gothic, right? Very locked cameras, far-distance shots, quiet, cold kind of stuff.

[00:27:51] Then we go to a Verite style where we're following, you know, Mark running into the building. And then I swear, listen to this with headphones on because, like, when he's in MDR, there are subsonic things going on in there. When they're in the mammalia section, when Mark is trying to burn the thing into his eyes, there is stuff that is going on underneath. I happen to be – just last night, it wasn't even intentional.

[00:28:19] I just had him in, and I think there is – I think they're doing something in this episode that is – I marked contrast to the first two episodes. I'll also say I trust the writers of this show enough that – 100%. A throwaway line can be something that matters so much later. And there's an example that this episode – a couple examples of it. One that I can think of here that we've already been talking about a little bit is, oh, a thruple with your innie and outie. Yeah, you know, that sort of joke almost.

[00:28:49] Cobell is in a thruple with Mark's innie and outie. Now we have that possibility with Dylan and his wife, right? Like, right there, that's a throwaway line that ends up being something. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And that – again, it's like there's what they do in setting things up, and you're like, what's Milchuk going to do with this visitation promise that we don't believe is real? And then I don't expect it to really – I mean, even this episode, I didn't expect, oh, maybe that's not really Gretchen. Right? That's not really the wife.

[00:29:19] And then you find out it is, and it's like that's what I just absolutely love about this show is like the second you're like, ah, never mind. But in like – in kind of a way that keeps that mystery going. And again, this could still very well end up being clones, but I don't know about you guys. I was like, oh, they're looking for belly buttons. Like, they're looking for belly buttons. If you don't have a belly button, clearly a clone. And it's like, no, it's a callback to the pouch thing. And you're like – because even when they lift up the shirt, Mark's belly button, very clear. Hell, he's not – I don't see it.

[00:29:48] So I'm like, well, if it's that, it's not going to be – wait, maybe – and then, no, it's about pouches. It's like, ah! So I want to talk about clones for a minute because I made a TikTok about the pineapples and whatnot and the goats. And when I tell you that every other comment was, the showrunners have already said it's not cloning. Listen to me, folks. I don't trust showrunner interviews with a shred. Mid-season, yes.

[00:30:16] With a shred of credibility after Lost and Westworld. They're the board. Both of those, they just were completely lying about major plot points to keep it under wraps. And, yeah, I don't buy it. I think it could still be cloning. I don't think it's only cloning. I think cloning is a part of something bigger because cloning itself only would be boring. But it can absolutely be part of something bigger. Right. I think the cloning might be a vehicle to something more sinister. And I think that's what I'm looking at.

[00:30:45] Any other thoughts on Kolbelvig before we go further into the Lumen staff? Just that Arquette's, the shape of her face and her eye, maybe it's her actual eye physiology or I don't know if it's the way that they're lighting her. But the catch light, the little light that is in somebody's eyeball when you're shining a photographic light or a videography light in it, there's a little bit of sheen in your eyeball.

[00:31:13] And I swear to God, the way that they're lighting her, it looks like her eyes are unnaturally glowing in the dark. It's – Yeah. It's a very cool effect. Makes her more sinister. It gives her a lot more sort of a creepy vibe to her. One more thing on her. So when she walks away, like she – and again, it's hard to know what clues and things to trust.

[00:31:37] But she gets real close to going in and then she stops, but it's an abrupt stop. And she had already been – the word reset had already been said when they were in the parking lot. She makes it all the way almost to the sidewalk. It appears as though she's triggered by the up-close look at the bodyguard or the assistant.

[00:32:05] So there was that moment where I'm like, is that triggering a memory of this guy important? But like it's an interesting moment that it was like when she abruptly stops, it wasn't like – again, it wasn't at the term reset. It wasn't at meet the board. It was something – it felt locational. And it's – that's – it just adds another mystery as to, you know, if they really wanted her, there was a bodyguard that could go get her if they really felt like they had. Agreed. Agreed. You know what I mean?

[00:32:33] And so they let her go. So that – it just – it just again, it – sure, she's leaving again. And she didn't go in. It's like, yeah, but what there? I mean, you know, what happened right there? Because she was willing to – if they had said – because even if they had said, okay, you're going to get MDR back. We're going to fire Milchak. Come follow us. Because whatever would – danger might have been lurking would have still been lurking. Agreed. Right. Agreed. Well, let's get on to Mr. Milchak because Seth has a lot to do today.

[00:33:04] We finally find out his first name. Milchak angrily confiscates Mark's balloons before finding Natalie in his office. The board through Natalie presents Seth with reimagined paintings of Keir's history as a black man, which he later tucks away on a high shelf. Man! Who wants to tackle this one first? Who wants to tackle this one first? What?

[00:33:29] I've done a lot of work on the image of Jesus over the centuries and how Jesus always takes on the visage of whoever the artist is or whatever the dominant ideals of the culture are. My favorite is the monster truck driving Jesus. Yeah, of course. So Jesus is always reimagined. You can find, if you want to find an Asian Jesus, you can find that. If you want to find a queer Jesus, you can find that. If you want to find a black Jesus, you can find that.

[00:33:57] Jesus is always fertile ground for either subverting a cultural ideal or extolling a cultural ideal. All right? Sort of like the Santa Claus emoji. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. To me, this is an interesting problem because I think there's a few little bits of Christ typology that came out in this episode.

[00:34:20] And clearly, this is meant to mimic the artistic style of these early colonial, you know, Mormon-esque paintings. Yet, this is kind of being foisted upon Milchek. And the key thing to know about these Jesus through the centuries reimaginings is that it's the artist who reflects him or herself into the image.

[00:34:48] It's never given from on high. You know, they come from the non-establishment voice. People who are looking to see themselves in the mythology. That's right. That's right. So, I think that there's this knowing, almost glare between Natalie and Milchek at the end. It's hard to read into their faces, but there's something being unsaid in that moment.

[00:35:17] Maybe they don't feel like it's safe to say this. I think that Milchek is not too thrilled. He's not too thrilled with the sort of the delivered from on high subversion to the narrative. I read Natalie's looking at him as if she was very happy for him. And she was looking for a mirror of that so that they could be together.

[00:35:45] Like, she did not get along well with Harmony, right? So, now she has somebody that she could actually have a good, a more positive workplace relationship. I don't think you can trust any smile from Natalie. Yeah. I don't. It very well could be that Natalie has sort of eight layers down. There's something real down there.

[00:36:12] Natalie is like layer upon layer upon layer of board ideology and corporate speak. And, you know, she's basically the voice and face of the board. I don't know if we're ever going to get to the bottom of her. All I know is that they are putting Milchek in a position to be discontent with the higher ups. And I think maybe these paintings are kind of the straw that broke the camel's back.

[00:36:42] Well, I think that's a really good point because also it's like his, I took his reaction. It's like, I, this wasn't what was missing in my life. This, this isn't, this wasn't it. Like if you thought that maybe I was like, whether I was becoming a skeptic or becoming disenchanted, this wasn't the ticket in. In fact, this is the most reductive way you can do it and go like, oh, you know, your problem is, your problem is, is you just probably just too, there's too many whites. Here you go.

[00:37:12] And, and Natalie has, Natalie has an, it's an amazing line that she has when she says the board wants me to tell you essentially that I was really happy with it too. The board wants to share with you my feelings. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And, and so I don't know. And that's where you start to wonder about, is that Natalie, is that Natalie's code to him being like, I don't like it either, but the cameras are watching my face.

[00:37:42] You know, so it is hard to know because you can't trust, right? Like, I mean, that's the whole thing is you just don't know what to trust. But the idea that this could be chipping away at Milchek's loyalty in some way adds a, yet a new wrinkle to what's, what's going to come next. Right. Especially now you've got Cobell wanting him gone. Like, not even just like, okay, I want him back to my, you know, into his old role. Assistant floor manager. You got to fire him. Right.

[00:38:12] He's not up to the task, she says. Not up to the task. No. So that's a, that's a really, I mean, his reaction with the balloons when he comes in. I mean, he's already on one, right? I mean, it's just, he's like, when somebody, when somebody rejects your balloons and then they don't even come to pick them back up. The ultimate insult. Right. Right. And then, and I, yeah, so you were talking about, you know, you were talking about the sort of the, the Jesus imagery.

[00:38:39] I was also kind of brought back to kind of the notion of like when Mormons loosened their, like some of the racial, you know, guardrails. You know, it was, no, no, we've always been cool with this. I mean, just don't, don't need to read back anything. Like these are the new pictures. Look at these new pictures. Look how cool we are. And that's what I was getting.

[00:39:02] I think it's, it's just such an empty gesture that it, it feels like it is like the LaCroix of inclusion. Like it's essence of inclusion. There's no substance there. Just drink the water. Right. Like we don't need, we don't need a little extra smidge. You don't need to breathe coconut into this water. I worked for a corporation that was said when Martin Luther King day was like on the verge of becoming, you know, a actual, you know, a federal holiday. There were a lot of people saying we should have it off.

[00:39:31] And they said, well, where we're going to do is to honor Martin Luther King Jr. We're going to have a day on for him. So they had, you could, you could take an extra break in your conference room to go to go on the conference rooms that had a bunch of information about his life, you know, on your break. All right.

[00:39:56] So one more little thing on this, you know, I've, I've been kind of looking for this kind of Mormon subversion stuff throughout. And then when I saw Cobell out in the middle of nowhere, it looked like, I don't know if you've ever driven through Utah, but it looks like the salt flats. And it's weird to be there in the middle of the summer. And it looks like snow everywhere because the salt is all white. And so I thought, oh, this is all plain. And then she sees that sign.

[00:40:25] It says, what does it say again? Salt something. Salt's neck. That's right. It looked like salt flats. And then it said salt's neck. I'm not sure if they're actually making, trying to make some commentary on the Mormons. That's a good question. A quick, another quick note. We had a, we were having a fun discussion in the discord today around some of these linguistic things like salt's neck. And Natalie in this scene refers to the board as an it.

[00:40:52] And some people were saying, well, yeah, in my company corporate culture, we refer to our board as it. And I've served on boards for nonprofits. I'm on a board right now. And we always refer to ourselves as us, we, they kind of thing. Because we're all very small and connected. But if you're like very remote and distant, it, you know, calling it an it depersonalizes it in some way.

[00:41:17] There's enough ambiguity in here for people to think this is an AI thing to kind of play with that idea. Yeah. Yeah. Though somebody else on the discord, I think mentioned that, that later Heli does or Helena says them when referring to the board. So it's kind of a, it could be, it could be, you know, again, like you said, David, like just leaving a little enough ambiguity. And, and we don't know if the board lives in Natalie's head or not. Somebody, somebody, let's see.

[00:41:46] It's in the feedback from Nancy. Bim said on the discord that Natalie is the mouth of Sauron. Which that's pretty funny. And I don't know if anybody watched franchise, but there's a whole character that that's all his thing is, is he is just the voice of this guy named Shane, who is the main showrunner keeper of the stories. And so this little intern like dude shows up and says, Shane thinks this and Shane thinks that and then goes away. It's very funny. And so to have it here as well as. Yeah. So Yoshi Bob, I just want to bring a couple of pieces of feedback.

[00:42:16] Yoshi Bob on the discord said, you know, Natalie and Milchik felt like they had a moment. So you're not the only ones picking up on that. Some kind of connect over the paintings. And Maureen D basically said, the board is clueless. Like this is clueless giving Milchik these things. And we see later, right? Milchik is, is throwing that stuff up on a shelf where he can't even see it. But did finger traps, little holographic thing. I mean, all of their gifts are very innocuous in this way.

[00:42:45] They're very corporate. Hey, the, you know, we're giving you this mug. Isn't that great? Oh, you serve 50 years in the company. Cool. We're going to give you a cheap knockoff watch. You know, it's, it's, it's very corporate. All right. Let's move on to any Helly and Mark. So Mark prints out flyers of Ms. Casey to pass out to other departments. He and Helly head to the goat room with Mark appearing suspicious of Helly on the way. They go through a tunnel in the goat room to find a goat cult called mammalians nurturable.

[00:43:14] Led by Gwendolyn. Chris, after initial resistance, they convinced the goat unit to allow them to continue their search. But not before they check Mark and Helly's bellies for pouches. I know the answer to the pouch thing. If you want me to just skip to that. It's a callback to season one. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Irving. Doesn't Irving bring it up? Irv and, and Dylan go to O and D, I think for the first time. And they meet Bert. And this is what Bert has to say. We don't trust you guys.

[00:43:42] You, the king of fucks, don't trust us? I do. But people just talk about MDR, stupid old stories, jokes even. What do you mean? It's literally silly. Like they say, you all have pouches. Pouches? Like to carry young? Yes. According to some, you each have a larval offspring that will jump out and attack if we get too close. That's fucking psycho.

[00:44:10] I mean, it's a joke, of course, but I don't know. The sentiment, you know, somehow holds. People are weird. Though I'd be remiss not to say that in this theory, the larva eventually eats and replaces you, which Irving would solve the mystery of your youthful energy. Wow. So that's a lot there. That's a lot. I completely forgot that. Me too.

[00:44:40] And then, so Ghost of Partition on the Discord brought this up. Nice one. Really good pick. So thank you very much, Ghost of Partition. So this is just a rumor going around the entire severed floor that MDR has pouches with larva. Is this another clone clue, right? Like are they being replaced? Or are they being reset to the point where people think that it's a new version of the same person? And does the, are you coming to kill me? Is that because she knows they're from MDR and they're bringing their dangerous larva patches?

[00:45:10] Or is she, you know, nervous that someone's getting fired, which in any parlance essentially means being killed. Not that this is exclusionary in any way, but it's also, would it not serve the purpose to keep departments away from each other to foster rumors? I think that's it. I think it serves the same purpose as the painting did. You know, the grim barbarity of optics and design, right? There were these two different paintings that were showing these two different departments

[00:45:39] at odds, but in this sort of horrific depiction of them. One is the aggressor and one is the victim. And then you have the reverse and the other painting. And we know that Milchick is running this particular play to separate these departments. So much so that the play has like some kind of code, like you're going to run a 267 on optics and design. So, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So it has a code.

[00:46:08] So this is sort of a, in the, in the lumen playbook. Sometimes you will create a mythology about to kind of create dissension between departments. And it could be that this is one of the things it's MDR has pouches and the pouches have larva. And the, in Dune, we call this the mission area of protectiva, right? This is how the Bene Gesserit seed mythologies throughout many worlds so that they can protect themselves when needed.

[00:46:38] Right. I don't know. I mean, it very well could be that it falls into the cloning theme, but on the, on the face of it, I just read it as a callback to that particular joke. And I'd never even thought about the belly button thing, Steve. I was just thinking that they needed this grand, elaborate setting to do a pouch callback. Right. Which could very well be the case.

[00:47:05] But I, I, I just, and I wonder how many, because now we're watching the show differently, at least I know I am, than maybe the first season of the first season, you sort of digest it, you know? And then this time, like I'm savoring like every single bite to the point where it's like, you know, it's a, it's a trudge to watch the show with me. And that's why I do a second watch alone. Because it's going to be a lot of pausing and a lot of, well, wait a minute. And what was that? And so my, my initial reaction, because I was like, you know, I wasn't thinking along those lines, like, Oh, I wonder if she's going to ask about pouches.

[00:47:34] And I bet you most people necessarily weren't, you know, maybe, maybe people are, were that in tune, but I'd be, because I was thinking like a first thing I was thinking was, Oh, this is going to be, you get another clue. And then I think it was, and I think that, you know, and again, maybe I'm reading too much into it, but the very fact that they pulled up their shirts and you could see one belly button and not the other. They don't make small mistakes like that. Right. So to me, it just seemed like that was like a slight moment where I was like, Oh, wait a minute. She doesn't. And then it immediately goes to pouches, but was pouches also trying to throw me out. The whole thing.

[00:48:04] Just like, I, I trust nothing. Yeah. The, this show doesn't make those kinds of mistakes to omit showing us Hellie's belly button, but is it a, is it a throwaway line that's going to play out late, you know, thing that's going to play out later? Or is it something to throw everybody off into a direction so that the Reddit detectors go crazy over? I don't think it was, I think it was pretty intentional that the, the punctuation on the joke is it proves nothing.

[00:48:34] I mean, that, that certainly works on a meta level as well. Right. And that's, that's how I took that too, from that perspective, which was like, Oh, it's a reveal. No, it doesn't. It's like, I do want to go into the mammalian nurturable thing really quick. Yeah. Yeah. Mammalians obviously is the plural of mammalian and nurturable is to the ability to be nurtured. Right. So this is the department where they may nurture mammals, but it got me thinking.

[00:49:00] About the characteristics of what defines or differentiates mammals from other living organisms. And I don't know if there's, there's kind of eight criteria, um, by which, you know, people, you can't teach me science. So it's warm blooded having hair for having four limbs, a backbone mammary glands, a four chambered heart. That's a new one. I didn't realize that that was a criteria diaphragms, circulatory systems, and placentas.

[00:49:29] Pouches are not a mammalian criteria. I'm reading way too much into it, but I just, I had some fun with that. Interesting. That comment made me feel that we almost wound up where we started. We got a little, little lag in this podcast. And we're going to bust it all open in just a second. Right. What, um, what did you all think of the hill people? What are their Audis?

[00:50:00] Well, we, we know one of the Audis. Well, he's, we've seen him in real life. Right. You know, the, the black goat guy, he was at the Capitol on January 6th. That explains the stargazing. So my wife is, uh, kind of into the show, but it's been years since she saw the first season. So a lot of this is not kind of registering for her as, oh yeah, that's a call back to this. Or, you know, she's not on Reddit board. She's not listening to podcasts.

[00:50:30] So when we get to the goat people. Not even this one? No, of course not. Okay. She doesn't listen to anything. You think our wives listen to our podcast? No way. Sarah doesn't listen to anything with Steve on it. So, um, when we get to the goat people, she's like, all right, that's too much. I think I'm done. And you're like, but we've been talking about goats more than anything else. This is, we've been waiting for the goat people. So she really wanted an explanation.

[00:50:58] Like, you're going to have to make this make sense to me if I'm going to stick with this show. All right. These people are severed just like everyone else. But their entire culture is not like an office culture. Their entire culture is in this weird little room with goats and a hillside. And so. Tanks. And I mean that if this is your entire life, this is the only thing, you know, you're going

[00:51:26] to kind of try to build not like a office corporate culture. You're going to build this little pastoral life. And maybe you start to worship the goats. Like, like you have, you have the very artistic people in O and D. You have the mathy nerdy people in MDR. They only exist to be around goats. And so the question is, is the goat outfit, is that required uniform? Or is that just if you've been there long enough, it just starts to make sense.

[00:51:55] This is one of their perks. It's like you, you had the best performance this month. You're goat for the day. You get to be goat man. You get to be black Phillip. Yeah. Yeah. I love that the goats have a smaller hallway. That's just basically a replica of the other hallways. The ceiling tiles, the lighting fixtures. It's amazing. It's, it's. It's so good. I wish it makes me long for a working in an office building where they're like, you can poop in the hallway and keep going.

[00:52:29] They say one thing about how Miss Casey used to come and give her class or her sessions in the husbandry tanks. Yeah. What are those? The tanks in which husbandry takes place. I think you're overthinking it, man. I think I'm overthinking it. Can I ask, what is a dry cleaning bill for somebody working in this unit?

[00:52:58] You're wearing a suit, a full suit to care for farm animals. You coming home stinky. Very. I was thinking about this. Do those people go home? I don't know if these people go home, but I think that if they do go home, there's probably some other protocol where they have to go through some kind of decontamination, decontamination, something like that. Heather just figured that these are, their, their Audis are homeless and they just like come in and they're like, Hey, look, you're going to come in here. You're going to leave full.

[00:53:26] You'll be, you'll be well fed. Is it, is, is the, the comment of, are you here to kill me? Is that a reaction because they know it's MDR or why are they always worried about being killed? The larval offspring. I think that this is a sort of shows that culture wide with the innies, they all view the sort of the wiping of memory as some kind of death. Hmm.

[00:53:54] So this is sort of her way of saying, am I being fired? Right. That's how I took it. I don't know if that's the only interpretation. Yeah. That's how I took it initially. Then post pouch, I was like, well, maybe, maybe, you know, these guys give off MDR vibes. I mean, you, how would you know, right? How would you know that these are? How would you know the color of your badge or I don't know? Perhaps. Yeah. That's a sign. Well, they do. They do say we're from MDR, but not. Yeah. But do they say that before she says you come to kill me? No, no. They say it after. One little last note on this.

[00:54:24] I do think to sort of bookend the Christ imagery. At one point, Mark says, if you had a goat that went missing, would you not go to fire? Oh, I caught that too, for sure. So that's totally an echo of a parable from Jesus, which suggests that they're kind of painting friction between a priest and prophet.

[00:54:50] So the priest is meant to guard the mystery to sort of uphold the establishment, you know, and to care for the flock, right? This is kind of Milchek's job, basically. And he also takes confessions, right? Hmm. The prophet is there to burn the structure down.

[00:55:11] The prophet comes along every now and again and says, everything about your religion is corrupt, and you've lost the true message, and if you follow me, I'll lead you along the right path. And so the prophet is almost always anti-establishment.

[00:55:31] And of course, Mark is given a parable of Jesus to preach, and all of these goat people think this sways them for some reason. And they're not entirely hostile to him after this little parable. I want to bring it back one more time to the Hellie and Eenie Mark relationship. Oh my God, so good. Because a lot of people pointed out, you know, some awkwardness.

[00:55:59] Ashley S. said, you know, I feel like there was some moment where he cornered her, that they're showcasing her micro-expressions being subtly different, and Mark is sort of picking up on this, right? She's not quite there. The tension between those two, I don't know where – I don't recognize Britt Lauer from any of her prior roles. I quickly looked at her filmography today.

[00:56:22] But her – the whole sort of awkward, meet-cute part of it, like are you going to kiss me or you're not? This is weird. We're looking for your wife, but we're having a moment. It was just so well put together, the scene between them. And then when they were walking in the hallway before they got to the goat room, the way that the lighting – Steve, I don't know if you caught that, but the way that the lighting –

[00:56:48] each time the lights moved, they were lit differently, and they went from like silhouettes to fully – it was incredible. Yeah, great scene. But that pre-kiss tension was just so – it was so palpable. Yeah, and I read that. I'm reading that as Helena pretty hard still. Yeah. Especially because it's like she's like, oh, here it comes.

[00:57:14] I think this is how I get – because this feels like it's simultaneously a mission of like, okay, I'm going to go in there and work as a double agent, but also I'm going to get a little something out of this. And she's trying to get it, and then Mark is – and I don't know that Mark is sensing something different about her, or maybe it's an and-or situation where he's also like, well, but if Miss Casey's my wife, I mean, it just complicates things.

[00:57:42] And it's like, you know, Mark's a middle schooler by nature at this point. He's like, I got two ladies, you know, and I got – And he's got a hall pass. He's got a nifty hall pass on his – And a hall pass. All right. Well, let's bring in a buddy of ours. Aaron from Radioactive Ramblings called him with a voicemail about this helly situation. Hello, Lorehounds and Properly Howard team. Great job on the coverage so far this season. I'm really enjoying the Severance podcast.

[00:58:09] I just wanted to come in and comment on some of the big theories going on this season, first of which being LER and Helena Egan. Who is really on the Severed Floor? This is one that I feel like I'm going to lose some internet points on, but I have to take a stand. I think that it really is LER on the Severed Floor. I just don't see Helena Egan being there.

[00:58:32] I think it's far more likely that Heli R is just a little bit confused about how to handle her newfound knowledge that she is indeed an Egan. I don't think that Lumen really needs a spy. I think they possess enough technology to be listening in and watching the people on the Severed Floor without them actually knowing it. So I do believe that Heli R is just having a bit of an identity crisis that she doesn't quite want to share with the crowd yet.

[00:58:59] There's a bit of a big question on who is Severed and who isn't. This one is a little bit more confusing to me. Given that we don't see many people outside of Lumen, aside from Rickon, Devin, and Rickon's weird friends, it's a bit hard to tell. And I think that we might just be in a situation where we're seeing a lot of people outside of Lumen that are a little odd and flighty, and it's not an indication of them being severed, but rather just the company that Mark's family keeps.

[00:59:29] As to who is Miss Huang, I don't think that there's any possibility, as a lot of people on the internet have been saying, that she is the child of Mark and Gemma. It feels like another intentional misdirection from the team, and the timeline doesn't quite add up in my head. Thank you guys so much for the great coverage this season. Can't wait to hear what sort of theories you all cook up, so thank you. Well, thanks, Aaron, for calling in. It's always great to have voicemails, and go check out Aaron's podcast, Radioactive Ramblings, in the link tree in the show notes.

[00:59:59] Aaron brought up surveillance, so I want to draw everyone's attention to later in the document, there's the management control panel, and that's what I took a couple screenshots of what Milchik was looking at, and I don't know about you, but these look like something's active on surveillance. Yeah, it says active surveillance. So I don't think they've turned off the camera. Yeah, they've not turned off the cameras. They've just hidden them. Or is it something else? Yeah, it could be. Well, it's so clear, I mean, about the listening thing.

[01:00:30] Again, you talk about things that aren't, you know, nothing's unintentional, and then there's another element, too, of like, the show has been so trusting of the audience. We've talked about that. So there's a part of me that felt like it was a little heavy-handed about their listening moment, right? Because, you know, Dylan mentions it. Oh, I thought that they were saying that they're not listening to us and what our needs, they're listening in on us.

[01:00:55] And then Irving, you know, echoes it, and then later Miss Huang is clearly listening to everything all the way down to a whisper. So it's an interesting thing that they do all that, because I think we're all kind of took that already away from it, but that it was emphasized so much in this episode just makes me really wonder, especially with the idea that, like, maybe Natalie was putting on that face, because she's like, it's more than listening.

[01:01:21] I mean, I'm trying to tell you everything I can with this face, and that's as far as I can go. But I wonder what that means. Like, I mean, what more to it? I mean, we know the surveillance is part of everything, but, like, it appears if everything is being surveilled, then how are they getting away with anything ever at all? It's a good question. I don't know. I don't know if they are getting away with anything. Right, right. And that's kind of where I'm landing on it.

[01:01:50] How are they even going to meet quota? You know, how are they going to make their numbers for their quarter if they're, like, going on goat rodeos? Well, Dylan's going to do everything. I think that's kind of what's happening right now. But then Mark needs to do it, because they need Mark to do it for some reason. Well, we've got a lot more to talk about, so let's take a quick break, and when we get back, we will get into the rest of the episode.

[01:02:25] Hey, everyone. David here. I'm really excited for Severance Season 2. From what we're hearing, the new season is living up to the hype. The Lorehounds are teaming up with Properly Howard to bring you comprehensive coverage of the new season. Join John, Anthony, Steve, and myself each week starting January 17th. I think this is going to be a really big show. So here's something special we're doing. We're offering a season pass for just five bucks.

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[01:04:32] So let's talk Dylan here. Dylan declines Irving's invite and chooses to focus on MDR. Miss Wong brings him to the security room where he finds his Audi's wife, Gretchen. They have an awkward conversation where he's kind of in awe of her and his kids, but he understands that his Audi isn't the most successful person. Later, Audi Dylan hangs out on the couch while Gretchen, on her way to a night shift, can't even get him to make pre-made cookies. So I have a concern about Gretchen.

[01:05:01] So it seems like an odd thing to immediately volunteer that Audi Dylan isn't all that successful. Like he can't keep a job. It seems like it's an odd thing to inject into that conversation. We have three kids, and you suck. Yeah, but if that's what you're living, then I kind of get it. You know?

[01:05:30] So it makes me feel like someone's got to her. In the same way that Milchak is trying to massage Mark's reintroduction to the corporate life, and Natalie is sort of going to be taking an editorial pen to Rickon's book, could it be that someone got to Gretchen and said,

[01:05:56] we need you to come in and say this, these exact words to Dylan so that he doesn't quit his job? Well, we know that he did have a lot of short-term employment before Lumen. So that does track with his record. It does. It does. It does. But why are you so sensitive about what kind of information can be talked about?

[01:06:19] But it's okay to tell Dylan this specific bit of the truth that would maybe communicate to him, this is a really important job. Please don't walk away from this job. Well, the other, I mean, the censoring of the information was anything related to Milchak, right? Like they didn't want Milchak's first name out. So I think it had to do more with Lumen that she was monitoring for. She didn't even care that she showed him what the kids look like.

[01:06:45] And I'm just looking at it from, so Gretchen, you know, assuming she's not severed, she's entering into this world where she has to go see her husband. It's almost like visiting your spouse who's been like in rehab or prison, or they're coming back from war or whatever it is. Like this version of your spouse is not only someone that you, like, like you, well, the thing is she's just saw her spouse, you know, probably that morning. Right.

[01:07:12] And he was probably not, she was probably reminding him for like the thousandth time to just, could you just make those cookies that are just already, you had to slice them up and put them in the oven. And so she goes to his work and it's like, she's probably first and foremost on her mind is like, yeah, I have to tell this guy to do stuff all the time. Maybe there's a fresh start with this particular version. He's sweet and genuine and innocent and.

[01:07:42] And he's working. I'm still stuck on this, this bit of dialogue. We have three children and you suck. Yeah. Like why? But she, but she's also kind of defensive about it too. No, she, she says, she says explicitly, always proud of you. Yeah. Yeah. He says I suck. And she says, no, no, no. She softens it the same way she softened. She was on his side in the car when he was being rude during the car. Think about that for a second.

[01:08:12] The last thing we saw, he was, couldn't get the door job because you know, of his, of his, and so she's goes out of her way to encourage him. And then he kind of lashes out. And I, that's the kind of dynamic. Let me paint the, let me paint a scenario. All right. So let's Steve, you have amnesia and I walk in the room and I'm introduced as this is someone who knows you really well. I say, I introduced myself as Anthony and I say, hi, Steve, how are you doing? Are you okay?

[01:08:40] I just want to let you know that you've never really found your thing. Like, like, it's just a weird thing to say to someone. But doesn't he ask her, isn't he asking about himself? Not really. Like their life does not look super spicy. So the things that they get to do are occasionally make cookies. They take photographs in costume. They're living the dream. That is the most, no, to me, that is, that is the classic example of look, we went and did something.

[01:09:09] What more do you want? I have photographic evidence that I took you out sometime. I thought it was very, uh, an odd bit of dialogue for sure. Well, every Audi so far has not, I mean, with the exception of maybe Devin has had an odd bit of dialogue. So I'm, I'm willing to, to say that this is yet another window into this Audi world that, that is not just our world.

[01:09:39] Okay. One more little bit on this scene. Did you notice the cartoons that the kids are watching? Yes. Yeah. But I didn't recognize them. No, I think that they're made specifically for the show. And I think if you look carefully, one of the ducks or creatures is having a severance procedure done. Really? Yeah. If you look carefully, if you look carefully at the cartoon, one of their brains is being

[01:10:07] drilled into like, as if you're seeing it through an x-ray. Yeah. Oh my gosh. And you, a little something's being implanted into the brain of the cartoon character. I'm going to that. Well, David picked up something else. Another detail. You want to tell us, David? What do you mean the cure doll? Yeah. There's a cure doll on the floor next to Dylan's foot. Somebody else on the internet, somebody else on our discord picked it up too. I forgot the person who it was. But yeah, there's a, at, at Dylan's feet, there's a little, a baby cure plushie, a stuffy doll. I want one of those.

[01:10:38] There's definitely control that's going out. We don't know what Gretchen's night job is. She was dressed up like a security guard. Security, yeah. Some, some look very official. And she's working the night shift. Which makes you wonder, is there a, is there a night shift of severance? Is she working? Yeah. Security. Yeah. She's wearing a blue shirt. Blue again. This room is blue. So everywhere is blue. A blue jacket. Yeah.

[01:11:07] And a tie and like kind of cargo pants style. It does make me think that, I mean, I did read that as sort of like this relationship is maybe on the rocks. Yeah. And they're, they're coexisting. Yes. They barely see each other. She might've actually been okay with the notion of him being severed because like whatever it takes to get him maybe out of the house. Cause when he's at home, he's just sort of loafing.

[01:11:35] Um, it's, uh, keeps his job. Yeah. And so the idea that there was a maybe sweeter, uh, version with a better work ethic in existence, um, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe she was like using, like, maybe she was having a conversation with her husband that she can't have because he won't let that conversation happen. But she, when referring to the, when she uses the phrase, he hasn't, you haven't found your thing.

[01:12:02] Um, it shows that she has a level of confidence in him or at least she's convinced herself. She has a level of confidence. She says she's proud of him. So it's like, it feels like she really loves this guy and he's kind of taking advantage of the fact that she's, she's sort of enabling him. And so now there's this version of him that works hard and, and isn't, you know, being flipped with her and seems to appreciate her hugs. And it's suddenly, it's like, ah, look, there he is. Or there's, there's the version.

[01:12:31] And I wanted, I would love to talk to my husband and this is the first time this one will listen. Anthony, you're so right. The, they bring in a, uh, mouse, another creature that's all tied up and then they're poking something into its brain. But then the next round of, uh, that we see is like a spaceship going through a bunch of tubes, but there is definitely a severance procedure. At the beginning.

[01:12:57] This is one of those things where this is one of those shows where you have to pay attention to every detail because someone on the production team, they put in the effort. There's like a scientist who's pointing at an x-ray at something in the brain of the creature that's on the screen. So they're not injecting. I think there are, they're pointing at something that's already existing in that creature's brain. Gotcha. Yeah.

[01:13:23] So we did get a piece of feedback from the discord from Maureen D saying, I find myself thinking more about Dylan. I think his life has become so hard that I wonder if he doesn't resent the burden of his kids and his wife a little. But once all of the exterior BS is removed, those are the things he cares about most. In fairness to Dylan, he also worked all day. He just doesn't remember it. Not unemployed on the couch all day. They both work trade off watching the kids and never see each other. An exhausting life.

[01:13:52] And Dylan is obviously brilliant, but cannot succeed in the messed up Audi world. Not succeeding at jobs like the door factory that makes him a better person, really. And of course, Lumen is evil for exploiting what people care about most for their own nefarious purposes. Is Dylan really brilliant? Are we sure about this? Or is he just like doing volume and he thinks that he's like the best person at this ever? He has the most finger traps. They're not just giving those away. It's true. If you judge us. But if they only need bar.

[01:14:22] If you're judging IQ by the number of finger traps. Well, he's intuitive. He's intuitive, right? The reason why he's able to do so well with macro data or refinement is because he's – I think maybe he's an empathetic person. One of those people who picks up on that. I could buy that. I don't know if I would describe him as brilliant. As controversial as it was, the phrase door prize was a real quick genius move and I don't think he got enough credit for it.

[01:14:51] Everyone knows that puns are the epitome of intelligence. Irving is next up. Irving returns to O&D for the first time since Burt's retirement to pass out Miss Casey posters. He's greeted by Felicia who reminisces about Burt's nervousness when going to see Irv. Looking through Irv's drawings, she recognizes the exports hall. Irv asks her if she still remembers the way there.

[01:15:15] Can I also say he spent two hours doing his hair before he went to go see – before he went to record the podcast today. That was a contender for one of my opening lines, but it ended up scrapped in the editing room. Nice. Anyone want to opine on this? What is it? Well, first off, I love the fact that Irving just can't stop obsessively drawing the same thing over and over again, whether it's Burt or whether it's a hallway. That's true.

[01:15:43] This – along with Dylan's sort of sweetness on his innie and Irv's artistic abilities, this goes into the bonus conversation that I had with Nicole where like what lives where in the brain and how does the sever chip work and what are the rules for severing? And I think this is, again, one of those interesting cases because with Irv, he's the one character that we've had consistently have burn through from the two worlds, right?

[01:16:12] He's had those visions of that black goo coming out, obviously the paint that he uses to paint his paintings with. And he's at home obsessively painting the exports hall. So did he – okay. So yeah. So when did he start drawing Burt? Only since they've been back and only inside, right? Because you can't – Did Irving start drawing when he realized that his Audi has the ability? That's a good point.

[01:16:41] So I wonder if that brief moment – if that's the case, that brief moment of being out kind of inspired them to take on certain aspects of their outiness, right? I mean, it seems as though that's the case. And Dylan did not get a chance to go out except for that one time in the closet.

[01:17:07] So that – and that really did inform a lot of what Dylan wanted. Like he's like he knew he had a kid and that sort of – it sparked something, right? So – but with Irving, now we've got this artistic sensibility. Mark is definitely trying to go help his Audi. But there's like this need, this relationship with the outer part that is now kind of almost superseding whatever they thought about the Indy. Like they're – that like, yeah, going back to that notion of like the veil has been lifted, right?

[01:17:36] They've eaten the apple and now they realize that they're naked. And so everything's changed. And would they rather have never known to begin with, right? Like is – Right. Is Dylan learning things about his outer life that makes him go, yeah, the dream of it was nicer? Right. Right. And then – and now you've got this complication potentially, you know, unless Anthony's theory is more accurate where Gretchen's like, well, maybe I want to go visit any Dylan a little

[01:18:05] bit more, you know, because she almost didn't even talk about it with Audi. Dylan as if – as if she was cheating on him. Yeah, there's this moment where Gretchen says, you, and then she stops herself and says, uh, I mean he, right? It's almost like she has to remind herself that it's sort of company policy to view these as two different entities. But she – but she did say – she did feel the need to say I love you.

[01:18:36] Yeah, that's right. Yeah, she did say that. And then he – she apologized for it because of his reaction, right? So I think that there's something to that theory. I do think that there's something about Mark learning that he's married that has cooled him on hell ER. Right. Right. Yeah, for sure. If I'm married out there and I'm sort of made it my project to find Miss Casey in here,

[01:19:05] I don't know if I want to pursue this relationship that really was sort of at the very, very beginnings anyway, right? Right. Well, and Halley is so – was so anti-Audi. That's why – I mean I know that there were some elements of that in the first episode where it kind of made it feel like it was still Helly and not Helena, which we still don't know. But I mean she was so anti-Audi. She had so much against her Audi. And you would think she'd have so much more against it now and that there would be more

[01:19:34] of an inclination to try to get these innies to sort of not be trying to work on their Audi's behalf. It does complicate things. And I did read something saying that they saw the – when Irving mentioned some trepidation, Helly says, Irv, we've got you.

[01:20:00] And they saw that as a mark in the Helly R box. Like look at that compassion she has for him. And I was like, well, or it could be read as we, Lumen, we've got you. That's how I – that was my other read into it was sort of like, yeah, I mean she may have been sincere, but it could have been like, no, no, no. Uh-huh. Or she's just feigning sincerity. So I think that there's some parallel there.

[01:20:27] And I think – I think that there really is something to be said for this idea that Irv now knows that he's an artist. Now that he knows that he's an artist, he's kind of put this – the rest of this together in his life. Like I'm going to draw. I mean, you know, this is something I'm going to do over and over again. I'm going to start looking for exports. Felicia says that they used to go there all the time, and now there's some guy that does it.

[01:20:57] Now there's a guy that does that. The other thing I noticed with this episode is that there's a lot of repurposing of previously problematic rooms, right? The break room is now sort of like a viewing room. And it's the old control panel room. The security room is now a visitation center. Yeah, the security room is now a visitation center.

[01:21:23] So could it be that the old export hallway has been repurposed for something else as well? And that's why there's a guy that goes down that way and not everybody else. But again, it also leads to – talking about repurposing being a theme. We've heard the term reset. We do know that Irving's Audi has memories of this place, but the Innie does not. And the Innie would be the one who you would assume would have had the interaction with this,

[01:21:53] which suggests there's something else perhaps bringing that reset thing. Well, why don't we get on to the main event? We've been going a while now. And it's just time to talk about Devin and Audi Mark. I didn't see the ending. Don't spoil it. Mark times the time between his car until the point of his conversion to Innie is 2 minutes and 18 seconds.

[01:22:18] Devin finds Natalie pitching Rickon a book – a version of his book for Innies. By the way, Apple put out a version on Apple Books today of the UUR. It's 39 pages. And you can download it for free. Oh, really? Jacob A. on Patreon commented on one of our posts and let us know. So you can go – I think I'm going to read it before next week. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. And it references the events of this episode too, apparently.

[01:22:48] The crossover marketing on this show is phenomenal. Yeah, absolutely. Just downloaded it, by the way. Oh, very good. Devin leaves them to find Mark, who discusses his plan to burn the question who is alive as an afterimage for his Innie. As Mark tries to burn the afterimage into his eyes, he is interrupted by Asal Rigabi, who tells him it won't work, but she can help him. She tells him Gemma is alive or was alive the last time she saw her.

[01:23:15] And Mark agrees to reintegration, which Rigabi has gotten better at. Rigabi performs a procedure, causing Mark to be unable to answer basic questions and culminating in him remembering his Innie's life before going to credits. I just want to say up front, dude's about to grieve Petey hard. We hear Petey's voice, right? We hear Petey welcome him to the room. So I just want to call out that I am hearing the baby goats in the background.

[01:23:44] I don't know if it's David or John. John. Yeah, it's definitely loud baby goats in the background. Yes, there are loud baby goats. They're chasing each other and having a great time, but they are loud. Very good. Now, I was just noticing that at one point, Devin calls Mark a good egg and kind of fitting with the egg theme.

[01:24:12] So I'm wondering if there's something like a Humpty Dumpty thing happening here where it's like, this guy's split. Once you crack that egg, you are not getting it back together again. So, you know, there has been an egg theme running throughout this, mostly season one. But the fact that she calls him a good egg, that was notable to me. Yeah, I caught that too.

[01:24:34] I also thought it was really interesting that the UUR is now going to become – this is how I read it. The UUR is now going to become kind of lumen propaganda. This kind of happened to me when I was fired from a place once. I was fired from an institution because of a book I wrote, and the higher-ups didn't like it.

[01:25:02] And so a bunch of students got together, and they wrote this letter in protest. Well, one of the administrators got a hold of the letter and had a meeting with the students and said, we agree with you. Let's just recraft this letter and make it about the real problem. And they rewrote the whole thing so it had nothing to do with my dismissal.

[01:25:26] And then it had all the student signatures under it, you know, as if the students had signed on to this other thing. I was thinking, like, they're kind of doing that with Rickon's book. Like, they're going to have their thumbprints all over this thing. And all of those passages that made these innies want to rebel against the institution, I doubt that this is going to have the same effect. This is going to be more like the handbook.

[01:25:56] You know, the employee handbook has a number of revisions, we found out in the first season. And over time, these things kind of get shaped and reshaped and reshaped and get smoothed over. And my guess is that the any version revision of Rickon's book is going to be very lumen friendly. You know, they said they respond better to certain verbiage. It's going to be passive voice, right?

[01:26:24] It's going to be no one's responsible for what's happening to you. It's just the way things are. Right. Why was Rickon struggling with the English language so much? Because he was getting flirted with. Like, he could not. Yeah. Couldn't remember the word result. Natalie was shining her bright pearlies at him. So you think the flattery and the flirting tripped him up so much. No, I think he was fishing for it. I think he wanted to hear Natalie say it again.

[01:26:55] I think he was like, can you just, I really want you to say what you just told me. And I want you to say it again so that my wife can hear you say how great this book is. So I thought he was fishing for her to kind of compliment for Natalie to kind of reiterate all the nice things she just said. I buy that. So, and it also just, I mean, completely revealed Rickon as an absolute fraud when it comes to his moral stance against Lumen and all of that stuff, right?

[01:27:24] I mean, like, all you have to do is just a spoonful of flattery. Yeah, and a book deal. It is completely revealed. And I just, I just, line needs to be highlighted here. Beer and juleps cannot fill the void left by love. Indeed, only wine can achieve this. But it is famously costly, which is why sadness is among the most recurrent issues facing the poor. So Natalie says.

[01:27:54] Astute. That's astute. He says, oh, that's what I was going for. Do not let the troubles of today get you down. They will be replaced by something worse tomorrow. It's true. He's got so many good quotes. We did get a little bit of feedback about Mark and Devin at Pips. This idea that Mark says that Gemma's body was burned in the crash.

[01:28:20] So is it possible that burned beyond recognition, essentially, and they just, like, put enough identifying, like, similar traits? In, like, the body part that Mark was able to say, sure, that's her? That's one of the main reasons why I think that cloning is real in this world. Yeah. In addition to cloning, quick muscle growth, all of these things. If you're going to fool a husband like this, you're not going to fool him with sort of a knockoff corpse. Right. I mean, that. Right.

[01:28:50] And that was Soph YB, by the way, who wrote in with that. So reintegration. I mean, crazy stuff here. We've got this whole electric ritual that she's doing. His hand's going to go up. The one thing you don't want to hear the person doing your dangerous procedure say is, like, holy fuck, or whatever she said. What is the one of them? It's not great.

[01:29:19] I think someone in the Discord was joking about it like that. So apologies if I stole your joke. But we've got this cymatics. Is that what it's called, David? Cymatics. Yep. That's the idea of putting these, like, sands or powders and using sound to put them in different shapes. Four different orbs sort of form around the center. Is that symbolizing the four tempers? Right. And is she using?

[01:29:48] Well, doesn't it expand further as the process goes on? Not that there's multiple of these circles that happen. So, like, it starts with the four and then it seems like it expands further. I have the episode open now. Well, I want it to be the four tempers, Steve. So I'm ignoring you. Well, I think it starts with the four tempers, but there's so much more. And, of course, we had the cymatic stuff in the rings of power as an opening motif in the credit thing. So several people caught that.

[01:30:17] Something that really struck me in this whole closed world, and I want to just say, you know, we did get a little bit of feedback from Jesse saying, you know, this might be a closed world in, like, Russia or Canada or something with all, you know, all the things we discussed. But something about it being a closed world where everybody's monitored is that Rigavi says, like, oh, why are you trying to burn it into your retinas? Because your computer told you it was a brilliant idea. So Mark's Googling, how do I write? Yeah. Yeah.

[01:30:45] How do I get a message to me if I lose my memory or something like that? I wonder if Lumen just has pre, you know, pre pre filled answers for Mark. Could be. I mean, I wasn't sure what to do with that. I mean, I could just be that Rigavi is like a legit scientist. And she's like, you, you, you really thought you were going to WebMD this? Come on.

[01:31:11] Or has she dealt with other severed employees who've tried similar tactics? I love it. It's like, hey, don't do this. You'll go blind. Also, if you do what I did before, your brain will explode. So I don't know how to read Rigavi either. I think that I want to view her as sort of like a legit scientist who knows what she's doing, who's fighting against the system with her Radio Shack setup.

[01:31:37] It's very, very well could be that she's one of she's kind of like a diminished version like Rick and his friends. She's very passionate about something. And she does have scientific know-how, but she's she's limited in the way that almost everyone in this town is limited. So I'm not really sure how to read her. I'm reading her at face value that she's part of the resistance. Well, yeah.

[01:32:06] But is she smart? I guess the question is like like I want to read Mark as smart. Like I want to like he was a history professor at, you know, and I want to think that he was. But what history was he teaching? Yeah. What was he teaching? Like like are any of these people in this town working with a full deck or are they working with a very, very limited amount of information? And what is on this computer?

[01:32:31] If you did a search in the town of Kier, are you going to have like a highly. They have firewalls basically. Yeah. Yeah. Is this is this is this search going to be everything that's within the globe that Lumen allows in the globe? Right. Because, yeah, I mean, I think that's I think that's a great question about all that. And again, yes, she could we could read her as face value as she's she may be the smartest resistance person that's out there.

[01:32:57] But does that make her like, you know, kind of kind of somewhat smart? Yeah. There's an entire room of people that want to go and listen to Rick and read his book. This is a weird, weird world. Right. Right. Right. No. And that's considered just a regular part of that world as well. So that's that is it's everything is like everything. It feels like it's like it's up for grabs.

[01:33:23] And that's why I'm like, because there's all these other elements of like, OK, so why was Cobel the like excited that Mark was going to quit when she was talking to him, you know, outside of it, you know, when it was Audi? And then now it's like, well, I want to go in there, make sure he finishes Gold Harp. So I don't I don't buy that was what the real intention is.

[01:33:45] But what is what is her investment in Mark as quitting versus not quitting versus finishing? And then how does reintegration work into all this? Is reintegration like so, you know, is reintegration? This is how we're going to get Mark into the bottom of everything. Or is this going to make Mark really finish whatever Cold Harbor really is?

[01:34:10] Is Cold Harbor just data mining or is there is there another level to this Cold Harbor that the only way it can be completed is if a reintegrated Mark isn't in there? I want I have a question about brainwaves. I know you go. You're all experts on brainwaves. Absolutely. Let me just let me pull up my thesis. She says that there are five different brainwaves. And she lists them.

[01:34:34] She sort of shorthands them as Delta, Ada, Alpha, Beta and Gamma. Is this I'm wondering if there's been any sort of discord discussion about what these represent? According to the Internet, these are legit titles and and they're all different frequencies. OK. Yeah. All right. So this is probably this is not a show only thing.

[01:35:03] This is actually they're borrowing from brain science. Gamma waves, insight, peak experiences, synchronization, beta waves, alertness, concentration, thinking, alpha, meditation, creativity, relaxation, theta, visualization, trance, dreaming, delta, deep sleep, transcendence, restoration. That's what I was looking for. Thank you very much.

[01:35:26] Now, I noticed the questions that are being answered that are being asked relate to shame and love. Hmm. Interesting. Why didn't we get any questions sort of representing fear or, you know, these other these other bits? He's already afraid. I don't know. It's a very good question. She she's trying to sync them up.

[01:35:54] She has specific questions related to see here. Who am I? Where are we? What was your mother's name? What was her eye color? This sort of representing, you know, immediate short term memory than longer, longer term memory, then memory that's emotionally charged with love and a long term memory emotionally charged with shame.

[01:36:18] I mean, these are all very interesting questions, but they don't kind of align with some of the other theories that we've been playing with. I think this goes back to that conversation I had with Nicole where there's there's different kinds of memories. And I think maybe do certain memories jump these wavelength things in some way?

[01:36:44] Because she's trying to get she's trying to get two personalities in sync with each other. And so do these questions, do these emotions have some sort of jumper cable effect in bringing them? Or maybe he reintegrates before she needs to sort of play with the other kinds of questions. Right. Maybe she's got a full set of a full questionnaire that she's going to ask.

[01:37:13] But he reintegrates somewhere along the way so that she doesn't need to ask the later questions. I wonder if those are the follow up appointments that Peter missed and is why, you know, like really, she said if he followed my instructions, it would have lived. I wonder if he didn't come back to finish things. It's almost like a rehab. Now you have PT after this, right? You got to get your physical therapy in. Otherwise, you're he didn't wear his retainer after those braces. Totally.

[01:37:45] Shall we go on to the music of the episode, David? Sure. You've got the needle drops and we have a piece of feedback, too. Right. We've got two needle drops. We have Love Spreads by the Stone Roses. And that was partly diegetic music that then came into background music. And something I really enjoyed about that, too, was the way it carried the energy from Cobell into Mark.

[01:38:11] And so that it was the music served as a bridge between these two characters with these two different motivations and these two different visual styles. Anyway, Love Spreads was Stone Roses. It was released in 94 as the first single off their second album called Second Coming. And then the final was Eminence Front by The Who. And that was sung by lead guitarist Pete Townsing.

[01:38:39] And it was the sixth track on their 10th studio album, It's Hard. That was released in 1982. And that song, Townsend has been on record about talking about this, that this was about a song about delusions of drug use that the wealthy and hedonistic are pursuing. And, you know, he's describing a party at which, you know, people are all hiding from this,

[01:39:06] you know, the facades, hiding behind facades that they've created while they're, you know, getting high on cocaine and, you know, having a good old time. And so he called that facade the Eminence Front. So, and if you read the lyrics, it's all about people forgetting and being disconnected from their daily lives. Right. Right.

[01:39:30] And additionally, if I read correctly, Townsend wrote this after his own stint at rehab. And it can be read somewhat autobiographical in some aspects. And I like that not only because like some of that is the song lyrics kind of spot on for where we're at in terms of where we're, you know, forgetting and putting on a front and like he's going to, there is an element of like, hey, he's going to go up there and pretend

[01:39:59] maybe to be something he's not at the same time. And, and then, but then you also have this element of post rehab realization. And Mark is going through this where he's going to like his, his world is going to get real weird, real quick. Right. Like, I mean, there's a lot of realization. There's a lot of rehabilitation that's going to have to go on to, to get through this. And he's going to have to balance two worlds in a way that he's never had to.

[01:40:27] And how are you going to be, you know, how are you going to manage that? So I just musically, it's, it's a wonderful song. Uh, it's by the who the, the, the title of the episode starts with who, uh, it's, it's, it's peppy. It's, it's, uh, it's got, you know, layers. Um, it works so well. Well, it's got that, that synth lead in and then that hard drop. And then they, of course they cut that, they cut the right there. It's perfect.

[01:41:02] It gets like, talk about it. Like, cause the show that's very like this episode, you know, like I said, I just kept using the term vibe ship because I did feel like something's happening. Something's different. The show feels different. Uh, the, the pacing feels slightly different. Uh, what's going on. We're going back and like, you know, what's, what was that even about? Why did we go through all of this? If not, if not for this and then, and then to just end with this jolt, uh, and then to just fire you up. Like, I'm like, maybe for some reason, the fourth episode is somehow glitched out.

[01:41:32] Or we got these screeners or something like, and it, it, it worked so well. I was doing like fist pumps in bed. I was like, Oh my God. Oh yeah. I, and I, I have, I, I really dig this song too. So it's like, it's one that I just, I, I resonate with. It's just such a, it's such a jam so that it was like, it was so, I was like, no, no, it can't be. Well, and then the stupid apple, like it clicked over to start playing an episode from another show. It's like, don't you? I know. I know. What are you doing? Get back over here.

[01:42:02] Get your mythic quest off my screen. I got shrinking. Oh, really? I think cause I already watched a lot of shrinking and they were like, no, you got mythic quest No, you're done. Yeah. You're Algo with, uh, yeah. You're any Algo. Well, you know who else was pumping their fists in the air for this music is, uh, Ethan, Ethan. Our friend, Ethan. And Ethan, uh, I guess you met on blue sky. No, he was around the bold move community on the discord for a while.

[01:42:28] And then, yeah, now we were used to be on the other, uh, bird site and we were chatting on blue sky. I mean, yeah, he was messaging me before he was like, Oh my God. And I asked him about the song and then he was like, I got to get my feedback in today and everything. So yeah. Right. So, uh, this was edited from four pages for our sanity. Apparently allow myself to, to introduce myself. I'm Ethan, AKA Opus and the machine.

[01:42:53] And I run a YouTube channel dedicated entirely to the who not exactly mysterious, but important, especially when we're back in action soon. I thought I was done analyzing TV through a who lens, but severance has pulled me back in Ben Stiller and company. Absolutely crushed it. No show has matched Judd Apatow's freaks and geeks in turn in sheer who usage five songs in one episode, all centered around a concert. Well, not prestige.

[01:43:22] Apatow is the who music King and given his longstanding ties to Stiller, it's fitting that severance picks up the mantle when evidence front appeared in the teaser. I knew it wasn't story driven yet, but in episode two, as Dylan drives to his interview, we hear young man blues, not the who's live at Leeds version, but an older take. Still, the lyrics resonate. A young man ain't got nothing in the world these days.

[01:43:51] Perfect for a struggling father. Then in episode three, who is alive, Eminence front returns at a key moment, just as integration happens, merging the two marks. The final words we hear, PD asking any mark, who are you? So why did Stiller and crew use who are you? So arguably the who's biggest hit, maybe because Eminence front is simply a better song or maybe like CSI stole it.

[01:44:20] Well, you're jumping the gun, Anthony. Maybe like true fans, they know who are you is too overplayed forever linked to CSI and the mass singer. And honestly, I'd rather take a grapefruit spoon to my ears than hear it used one more time. If there is another who song this season, oh my Lord. Thank you for your time and attention, Ethan. Thanks, Ethan. That was lovely. That's right. That was lovely. And yes, they are diehard who fans over there.

[01:44:48] Who are you is definitely overplayed. So this was also, it's probably much more expensive. Who is alive? I don't think we addressed that quite like, is that how does that work as a, they had to think through that and plan that and what can we fit on a shop light to be able to burn into my retina? I don't know how that works as a trigger for the innie. Because the innie said she's alive. She's alive. Oh, it's a question relative.

[01:45:18] Oh, okay. Duh. Who is alive? And then of course the innie is supposed to reply with a name, I suppose. Yeah. I need to go drink some wine. Everyone, this was a lot of fun. And Stephen Anthony, can you talk about the soon to be wrapped up properly Howard season? Yes. A Few Good Men. Steve and I are reviewing that this week. We both love this film. We loved it enough to make it a theme for an entire season.

[01:45:48] And we have a lot of fun talking about it. Oh my God. The cocktail episode was hilarious. That was one of your best. That was a high water mark. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Very cool. We love a good properly Howard season. I can't wait to see what you draft next. I'm sure it'll be crazier. You know, if I were trying to induce Steve into reintegration, I'd probably start asking him about Teen Wolf. Oh, baby. Yeah.

[01:46:18] Yeah. You got to start with Teen Wolf 2 and we're going to go back. All right. We got Nevermind the Music. Check that out. They did Grammy coverage. They've got, what do they just do? T-Pain and auto-tune? Yeah. That was pretty funny. Crazy stuff. Crazy stuff going on over there. And then, of course, Mark and I had that conversation about the four chords in the main theme song of Severance. And you can hear a little teaser of that.

[01:46:45] So don't stop playing this until you hear that because it's just before the credits. So you can hear as soon as we're done talking, we talk a little bit about what we talk about there. And then, yeah, Nicole. And then we'll have some more bonus episodes later this season. We're just kind of picking up whomever we can. David goes, we'll do one or two. And then he does one a week. I know who David is. I'm motivated. I know who David is. I'm a lore hound. Yeah. And Radioactive Ramblings doing Castlevania Nocturne, I think they're doing right now.

[01:47:14] And then they're going into Invincible Season 3 soon. So that'll be a lot of fun. Check out their feed. You can find all these in the show notes in the link tree. We'll shift dust wrapping up silo. I don't know what's next for that. And then on the lore hounds feed, we're going to have some Oscars coverage coming. Yeah. Alicia is leading the charge on that. We've got more Silmarillion stories coming. We've got we're bringing back Star Wars. We're bringing back the Star Wars movies. We're up to a new hope.

[01:47:44] We've been up to a new hope for a year. We're finally going to watch it and talk about it. And yeah. And Marilyn also has finally outlined Earthsea for us. So we're we're we're finally ready to do that. And then we've got what? Wheel of Time. Last of Us. And or White Lotus in between. Yeah. We'll throw in some light coverage of White Lotus in between. A lot of stuff coming, everybody. Enjoy everything. It's going to be a lot of fun.

[01:48:12] And for now, stick around for that bonus episode sample. This podcast is a joint production of the Lorehound and Properly Howard. Click the link tree in the show notes for links to more podcasts, our Discord server and ways to support the show. Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities. Is it to Frank or to be?

[01:48:40] Mark from Nevermind the Music, you have been doing some theory crafting. Can you tell everybody a little bit about what you've been working on? Well, we've got the severance theme. I'm sure you've all heard it. We got four chords in that, David. Yeah.

[01:49:06] David, how many main characters are there in severance? I believe that there are four. How many tempers? How many of the tempers did here say make up the soul of a person? Also four. We have woe, frolic, dread, and malice. I wonder if there's a connection between any of these things and the music that we just heard.

[01:49:31] If only somebody had a podcast where they could start to take apart the chords a little bit and discuss the way that these chords affect us psychologically. If only. If only. Well, everybody, you can hear Mark and I have that conversation. It's one of our bonus episodes for our season pass and regular monthly subscribers.

[01:49:55] If you're interested in subscribing, helping out the podcast and getting some great bonus material, we talked with your other half, Mark, Nicole from Nevermind the Music. And we talked about where personality lives in the brain last week. And then we're definitely going to be talking at another episode later down the road about the needle drops, both from probably both seasons, but mostly this season.

[01:50:18] And Nevermind the Music is one of the affiliated podcasts in the Lorehounds extended community. Mark, what do you guys have coming up next? What's an episode or two that you've got? We've got an episode on T-Pain that just dropped. One of my favorite episodes we recorded about T-Pain and auto-tune. And when someone leads the way and gets criticized for something that everybody else starts doing. And then we've got an episode about how to have tough conversations in class and what our role as teachers and.

[01:50:47] Right, because both you and Nicole are college. Yeah, I teach music. She teaches psychology and we have the same conundrum sometimes. Excellent. Mark, thanks for swinging by. Again, if you're interested in getting this bonus material, check out the show notes. There is a link to our season pass, which is only five bucks. Or you can join either Supercast or Patreon to support the community. Thanks again, Mark. We'll talk to you soon. See ya.

[01:51:23] Frank O' De Beans. Hey everyone, David here. The wait is over. Severance is back. The Lorehounds are teaming up with Properly Howard to bring you comprehensive coverage of Season 2. Join John, Anthony, Steve, and myself each week as we dive into this amazing show.

[01:51:53] Here's what you need to know. We've set up a dedicated feed for our Severance coverage. To join us, just search for Severance Lorehounds in your podcast player or click the feed link in our link tree. You'll find that in the show notes below. If you're already a Patreon or Supercast subscriber, don't worry. You'll get the ad-free versions automatically in your regular feed. Plus, exclusive access to our upcoming bonus episodes that we'll be announcing soon.

[01:52:24] The early reviews are incredible. Apple's marketing push is huge, and we cannot wait to explore this season with you. And unlike the music dance experience, you don't need Mr. Milchick's permission to join us. Don't forget, you can find the feed link in our link tree in the show notes, or just search Severance Lorehounds wherever you get your podcasts. Join us for what's shaping up to be an incredible season. We'll be right back.