Severance - S02E09 - The After Hours

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[00:00:34] Yeah, this actor who's playing, uh, Jame, he looks like a stiff wind would like blow him over. And, and yet, I don't know if he's supposed to be menacing, but he, he, he, he looks like, you know, you could just kind of give him a, a, a slight nudge and push him down the stairs and the whole, this whole thing would resolve.

[00:01:02] Did he play himself as the life-size statue in the lobby of the Perpetuity Wing? Like, that, that was not a statue. That was actually the actor. He's certainly no more alive than that statue. I don't know. I don't know. But then I like that there's. He's, he's, he's, he's made of brooms and plates as well. Inside, he's just a overcoat of brooms and plates.

[00:01:24] But then there's this, the issue is like, no one's going to blink an eye if one of his mistresses has to be carted in after hours. Indeed. To, uh, to give birth in one of the birthing cottages. So, you know, he's, he's, he's got game. This guy. He's, he's, he's the Nick Cannon of Cure. And amazingly, all of his sons are named George Foreman. Yeah.

[00:01:53] We're going to find out that everyone is, uh, sired by Jamie. Don't pervert a handbook passage to me, okay? Welcome to Allure Hounds and Properly Howard joint production covering severance on Apple TV Plus. Season two, episode nine, The After Hours. I'm John. With me today, his bumper sticker says, if you can read this, devour feculents. It's David. Get, do you guys hear that?

[00:02:23] There's like some weird noise on the recording. Oh, oh, maybe John, it's just the hole in the back of your head. I think that's just the whistling. Uh, I told my wife about me and his innie this morning. It's steep. And I'm all right with it, actually. Did you guys kiss for a minute? Just one minute. If only I could kiss my innie. And Mr. Milchuk made him destroy his favorite hat today, Anthony.

[00:02:50] Yeah, it was a material sacrifice of the highest order. Which one did you choose? The one that said devour feculents. Do you have a substantial hat collection? I have probably 10 hats. Is that substantial? That's pretty good. For a bald man, it's not a lot. I don't know if I have 10 hats. We're on the moderate scale of the housing scale.

[00:03:20] How's your, is that like a separate temper? Or the hat temper? Mm-hmm. Okay, I just counted 30 hats behind me, so. All right. Well, David, give us the housekeeping. Well, we're coming to the end here. You can still get this episode without subscription and without ads for just $5. And then you get all the crazy bonus episodes that we've put together that we call our Supply Closet Collection.

[00:03:47] John, you have a conversation coming up with Mark, I believe, tonight. You guys are going to talk about religion as commerce. Or commerce as religion, I believe. Well, it's sort of bigger than that. It's regarding the book Sapiens, this idea that religion is something broader than faith-based items than traditional religions. It's that we in modern society have created modern religions that many would call ideologies. Nice.

[00:04:16] But they're kind of indistinguishable in a lot of cases. And you're going to talk about music. We are going to talk about music. I don't know what he has planned for that, but we'll see. If you would like to send us feedback, especially for the season wrap-up, severance at thelorehounds.com. The lovely Nancy will be glad to receive your submissions and collate them into a beautiful document that we can utilize for your education.

[00:04:47] Head over to the Discord if you would like a real-time chat. Links for everything are in the show notes below. And we always do appreciate short and to-the-point ratings and reviews on Apple Podcasts. Why do they have to be short? Why are you trying to censor our reviewers? Yeah, why can't the words be longer than a single syllable? You know... Monosyllabic only. Yeah, monosyllabic.

[00:05:16] I just, you know, get to the point. The internet's a busy place. You know? Move along. Wise words from David today. David, since you're pithy with your monosyllabics, why don't you start us off with your hot take? Pith and vinegar. Pith and feculence. I... I have one thing to say to the director of photography of this television show. Just fuck right off.

[00:05:45] Like, what the hell are you doing? You're breaking my ability to watch mediocre television. That shot of Dylan in front of the mural, the painting? Oh, yeah. That's great. I mean, just get the fuck out of here. I am not a crass person. I don't like to swear. But Jesus effing Christ, the show. That's Jessica Lee Gagne. I think that's how you pronounce it. Did you offer her a paper ring? Yeah, she was on the... Absolutely.

[00:06:15] I believe she was on the official podcast a couple weeks ago for that episode seven. Anyway, I don't have much else to say. We got a lot... Yeah, we got some things to talk about on the episode today. I didn't think of a lot of... Because otherwise, it's just... I'm going to be repeating myself and my praise for the visual storytelling of the show. There was a great scene of when Milchick and Drummond are talking and they would cut back and forth between the scenes. And then at each...

[00:06:43] Not each shot, but at each critical juncture of the conversation, the camera would then step in closer. And then it would step in closer again. And it was just a beautiful use. Or when Milchick is silhouetted in his office when he's talking to Mark. And they're having that sort of little authentic moment. Just absolutely a master class in visual storytelling.

[00:07:08] Other than that, the one big change I noticed, there was some different tempos in the music. They had some heartbeat sounds and some train sounds and some clock tick-tocking sounds. And then in a couple places, the music had a little bit... There's a little bongos or the ending music had a little bit of a different piano. Riff like they're speeding up the tempo.

[00:07:33] And I saw online in various places, you know, people have been frustrated by the last couple of episodes. And I'm like, what are you... Why are you arguing with these show makers? Why are you arguing with these show runners with the way that this plot is working? These people know exactly what they're doing and they're pacing it out so that when we hit the final episode, they're going to tell the story that they're going to tell. And I think everybody's just used to have... I don't know what people are used to. They just want... We've all been wounded before.

[00:08:04] You know, we've all had show runners that we had faith in. That's true. And then they... They didn't do well at the end for whatever reason. Right. And so we're preemptively... Yeah. Like an SNL sketch. Good call. That's some of my hot takes, by the way, John. So you carry on. Well, they have a debate over the length now because apparently in an interview, Ben Stiller said 78 minutes on the finale.

[00:08:31] And on Apple, currently it says 44 minutes on the finale. That was the length of this one. So it could just be a little placeholder or a glitch in Apple TV. I bet it's a placeholder. Yeah. I'm hoping for the 78 minutes. I don't think they could wrap this up adequately in 44 minutes. I saw Hour 15 when I looked at it this morning. Okay. So maybe it's updated since I checked the last night. Right. I guess the only other thing that I would say is like, you know, people... And we're used to that penultimate episode sort of being the apex of our action. The...

[00:09:00] What did you call it, John? Once the denouement. And, you know, then we have the resolution in the final episode. And I think they're playing with the pacing and the story structure here. And they're cramming a lot. But... And I... One thing that I am preparing, pre-preparing myself for is the fact that I don't think I'm going to have all of my questions answered from this season.

[00:09:27] But I'm prepared to be very satisfied with this season and the conclusion that they're going to bring us. So that's sort of where I'm positioning myself ahead of the final episode. Does anyone think we're never going to see Irving this season again? I think he might be gone for the season. It's possible. For the season? Yeah. I think they wrapped up a couple of the minor character and storylines.

[00:09:55] And then they've sort of paired away. And so what we're left with is just sort of the core mystery box storylines. So they wrapped up Irv. They wrapped up Miss Wong. And they wrapped up Gretchen and Dylan Gee. Those things are now done and out of the way. And then now the rest of the storytelling can just be focused on the sort of helly, mark, innie, outie stuff. And Cold Harbor, obviously. So, okay, now I'm done. Steve, are you feeling cold about the harbors yet?

[00:10:28] I'm, this episode did so much. And I was just fascinated by a couple of specific things. One is I like the, that it's, we already kind of knew this because of what we saw Drummond going through Irving's house. But when Milchek basically says, look, I got my jurisdiction, you've got yours. It does. So it's safe to say that, you know, Lumen is everywhere.

[00:10:56] And at least in terms of, you know, the people that they specifically target. Right. So, and I think location is really a key element here. We went out of the way to kind of show how close the Egan home is in relation to the Lumen plant. Now it's kind of tucked away behind it, I think is interesting too. Kind of separate from, it's almost like the Lumen plant separates the Egan's from the rest of Kier or the rest of that whole environment.

[00:11:27] Um, was Ms. Wong, um, just donning her empathy chops because she's headed off to that, uh, when she says that she, she takes the blame for not facilitating, um, Dylan's in ease, uh, you know, sessions with his, with his wife better. Like, is she already donning the, or is that what, is, is that a reveal that that's why she's picked to go to this empathy, uh, whatever it is? I wrote it down.

[00:11:55] I think that, um, she was told to go there before that whole thing happened, before that last one happened. The Gunnel Egan Empathy Center in Svalbard, which is an archipelago up in the Arctic Circle that's, uh, belongs to Norway. I just thought it was interesting that, you know, she typically is, was a little bit more robotic.

[00:12:19] Um, she demonstrates empathy after we learn that she goes is, you know, been assigned to this empathy corral or whatever it is. Um, and so, and so it does, it makes you wonder, does she now feel free to be empathetic because that's where she got, like, you don't know what your choices are or was she sort of tracked for that was what, you know, whereas maybe Cobell was known for her ingenuity.

[00:12:41] Um, you know, maybe she's known for her empathy, which gives her another opportunity to be, uh, something, which is kind of funny because you have a wellness director who goes out of their way to make sure that you don't show preference for anything or you keep everything even keel. But yet there's this notion of Lumen has something for empathy. I don't, it's, that was just, that was just something that just kept sticking with me the whole time. Like, where is this coming from? Um, yeah, maybe the outies are allowed to feel empathy, but not the inies. Yeah, maybe so. Right.

[00:13:10] Um, I, I, I just, Milchick is just ever fascinating and I, it's, um, it, it's so hard to know what his next move is. Right. Because I mean, he's obviously being pushed and he feels like he's getting, you know, sort of squashed by all these powers. It's funny because like, there's such an emphasis on his use of language. Nobody else is backing off the weird language that is being used.

[00:13:39] Right. I mean. Yeah. But I think it's specific. It's like, it's almost like there's Lumen specific language. And for whatever reason, Milchick is playing jazz with it or whatever. It's like, well, yeah. Cause I mean, cause, cause Bert calls it out. Right. Like Bert specifically talks about the specificity of Lumen's language and like Lumen's goon. Like I would never say something like that, you know? So you have that.

[00:14:05] But then, so, so it does, so it calls attention to the fact that that language is important to Lumen and how they speak is important. Chicanery is, is, uh, thrown around even outside of Lumen. So there is a, but I, so it does make you wonder a couple of things, uh, about Milchick is, are they, is he getting in trouble for doing the thing that everybody else does? And he's being singled out like that, which is a way to sort of break him.

[00:14:32] Or is he doing, to your point, Anthony, is he doing jazz with it? Is he doing, is he not understanding? These aren't just adding extra, you know, syllables or drawing things out. There's a, there's a method to all of this. And you don't seem to get it, which might actually be a window into Milchick's relationship with the religion altogether. Like he's kind of going through it, doesn't really understand it. Like he's doing it sort of like obediently, but also at the same time, not because he doesn't, he's not a true believer or something.

[00:15:01] And he's just sort of, you know. Or is it convert? And so he's trying to prove his bona fides. Fake it till you make it kind of a thing, right? Going over the top. Yes. Yes. So much about, you know, being a company man or being sort of a religious insider is about using the, the linguistic typologies that are sort of familiar, like insider speak. I would even say with class too. With class? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:30] There's, there's a lot of signaling. Oh yeah. Yeah. Sure. And I think that like for Milchick, it's like, okay, we know that you, we know that it's important for you to find a little bit of individuality within this corporate structure, but let us show you which kind of individuality we would approve. Like you, you can look at a picture of a black cure that would be approved.

[00:15:56] You may not use words that we don't like, you know, that would not be approved. So it's, it's, it's funny with him because it's like, what actually is breaking him? You know, cause clearly he's breaking with the company, but do we really understand what it is that's motivating? I think he, he was not treated that badly by Cobell and he's being treated really badly by upper management.

[00:16:21] Cause his, his, his relationship with Cobell was like, I always kind of got the sense early that there was, he had a connection maybe to the higher ups that she was sort of subverting. That he was, he represented like, she seemed like she had been going rogue a few times, right? Like she was, she was going and getting the candle and doing things like that. And he would just sort of push her to be like, we know it works or, you know, and it kind of gave this, I got the sense that the relationship before was that he was sort of the, the ultimate lackey and he was the company guy.

[00:16:51] But now that he's in this position, it's a question of, is it cause he's in this position and this is how they treat people in this role or is this something specific to him? And it does feel specific to him, right? I mean, the very fact that they did re canonicalize the, the images and are, but in that now it feels like, is that an effort to bring him in or is it an effort to sort of push him out or marginalize him even further?

[00:17:19] It's a real interesting dynamic. And, but what I find really compelling is that after all of that with, with Drummond, he still, you know, makes, you know, he accepts the call from, from Mark and he is like desperate to get his promise that he will come in. It's like, so there's still this pull to do the job, which also kind of speaks to what were the conditions of him ever becoming in this role in the first place, being a part of Lumen?

[00:17:45] And is there some sort of like, is he beholden or does he feel beholden somehow so that they feel they can do this kind of stuff to him? Which I think is, the Milchek character just becomes more and more intriguing to me as this goes along. And obviously we have, I don't want to say straightforward because it's hard to say anything straightforward when you're talking about guys going in and out of different levels of consciousness and, you know, reintegrated with giant holes in their heads and all that stuff.

[00:18:10] But that part of the narrative feels like that we're moving, we're moving Mark very carefully to this last episode because, because Cold Harbor is obviously the thing. Well, you got to move somebody with a hole in the head very carefully. Very carefully. Yes. Yes. That's, it kind of goes without saying. Yeah. But anyway, so I, I just, I, I found the Milchek, the, the Miss Wong, um, dynamic.

[00:18:34] All of that was to me a real, uh, real key to this episode because I think it's revealed a little bit more about the world. Um, also, uh, is, is, uh, Helena back in, in the, in the floor? Oh, interesting. I don't think so. Yeah. I'm down with it's Heli, but. Yeah. So Anthony, um, besides what you've said already, what are your hot takes? I just, uh, really enjoyed, um, Mark Scout this episode.

[00:19:04] I, I need someone to kind of sort of be the voice of reason in this whole thing. You know, it's like, all right, now we're just going to pretend like Cobella's our ally. I need someone to kind of call bullshit on that. And I heavily too. Yeah. He calls it. Yeah. And so for all of the reasons why I really don't understand Devin's motivations, at least I've got Mark Scout.

[00:19:34] Like, no, that's a legitimate response to someone who was pretending to be your neighbor and your sister's lactation consultant and, you know, going through your basement and, uh, knows that your wife is alive in a basement somewhere. Um, you know, it's like. Primarily keeping her, like being the person who's keeping her there and managing. Yeah. So I, I'm not sure, I'm not sure I quite understand Devin's motivation.

[00:20:03] I don't know why she just wants to keep her brother alive. I think she's desperate to not lose her brother. Why, why choose to seek out Cobella for. When she's got Rickon. No, when she had Rigabi, it was like, she had to make a choice. I'm either going to keep Rigabi who I don't trust or go to someone who I don't trust even more. So I don't understand Devin at all, but I thought that, uh, Mark was, um, very believable.

[00:20:33] Well, I think she brought the idea. Devin brought the idea of Demona birthing center before she brought up Cobella. I think she said, let's go to Demona. And Rebecca Gravy says, no way, Jose, we can't get in there. She's like, well, I know how to get in there. So I think Cobella is a tool on the path that, that Devin wants to go through. And Rigabi was no longer a tool in that path. Yeah. I don't think Devin was like, I got to choose one or the other. I think Rigabi made her make that choice or made that choice for her.

[00:21:01] So I think she was like, yeah, I'll have you who's here, you know, cause you've got all the, the stuff that keeps my brother's head from getting infected, I guess. And then we'll bring her in and we'll all go together. I think she was just sort of grasping at straws. Cause like, look, my, my brother, I can't lose my brother too. That's, that's how I get her motivations at this point. And now she's stuck with that Rigabi. And so it's like, well, what else are you going to go with? Who else knows Lumen?

[00:21:25] And you have to go with somebody who might, might at the very least, maybe not a double agent. Yeah. I don't want to, I don't want to make it seem like I am not enjoying the show. It is one of the things that I'm sticking on this season. And that is, it seemed like the writers wanted to achieve the end of getting Mark and Cobell back in the same room to have it out. And in order to make that happen, they had to do dirty to Devin's motivations.

[00:21:56] I do not get Devin's, uh, even if it's temporary trust of Cobell in the, in the slightest, I do not buy it at all. So, so, but it's, it's a, it's a very minor point on what was, uh, uh, otherwise a great episode. I wonder if there's something else too, though, with Devin, my, my wife kept pointing out, like we, at the end, if you watch that, when, when he says she's alive.

[00:22:24] She, Devin makes a very interesting, and this whole thing is all about, there's so much face acting in this show that you can't ignore it. She does something where she looks at Mark and then the way she glances at Cobell, it's, it feels different. It doesn't make, it don't have to do this shot. You don't have to do that. You can go, she's alive and go straight to Cobell and, and have her big fire moment. You could totally do that. But they choose to have Devin be this buffer between the two.

[00:22:52] And there's this moment where she looks and she gets, and it's hard to know if it's a knowing look, if it's a power look, um, or like, so I, it, it almost feels, and again, this is, you know, we're trying to read what you can. It feels like there's something else that maybe Devin's not totally just operating out of desperation, but there might be something else going on here.

[00:23:12] But the only thing that they've given us about Devin prior is in episode seven, where she shares a look with Gemma when Gemma says, you know, I'm not drinking. And then Devin puts two and two together. So to me, that's the only antecedent that, you know, that's the only inputs to the equation of what Devin is up to is the fact that she, as much as she loves her brother, she loves Gemma at least as much. And once she's alive, she wants her back.

[00:23:41] And right now she's at the risk of losing both. Exactly. One again and then one for the first time. Hmm. Interesting stuff. She seems driven. Like, I feel like, I feel like as, as sinister as Cobell may be, Devin may be the one who, who at least, because as far as we know, not severed, has maybe more of the, the, the faculties and ability to, um, to sort of manage that situation. Also, I assume she pumped quite a bit before all this. Yeah.

[00:24:11] She's just forgotten. She has a baby. Anthony, you have any other, um, hot takes? I do not. And I'm going to cede my time to the Senator from Connecticut. Go ahead, David. Vermont actually, but it doesn't matter. Oh, no, no, do not. Do not. Throw some maple syrup on the pancake and it's Vermont. Oh, man.

[00:24:41] Rugabi didn't do herself any favors. Like if, if Rugabi wanted to keep Devin, keep on sides with Devin, Rugabi didn't do herself any favors. Rugabi didn't do herself any favors to her own ends. That was the only thing I wanted to add. Yeah. I mean, Rugabi's kind of mad scientist. I mean, there's a, there's a little bit of a, you know, sort of chaos monster in Rugabi. Uh, so I don't know if, I don't know if she's to be fully trusted.

[00:25:07] All I know is that, uh, no way, no way I'm ever going to trust Cobal. So that's fair. That's my feeling about it. Well, let's take our break right here and then we'll come back and we'll talk more about the unholy Trinity. All right, we're back. Let's talk about Mark and Devin.

[00:25:35] So Devin drives Mark to the middle of nowhere to meet with Harmony Cobel, who Mark is in no mood to see. The women convince Mark to call out of work before the trio heads to the Demona birthing retreat to allow any Mark to speak to them. I did, by the way, do a quick Google search on Demona. It is a Celtic, Celtic goddess. Now I have the, in my head for some reason. Uh, sorry, what was that, David? A Celtic Roman.

[00:26:03] Uh, so it's like a Roman to Celtic, like it's, you got to bridge the two. So, but who originated it? The Celtics or the Romans? Cause the Romans didn't originate a lot. I think it's a, I think it's a mixture of the two. I think they took two different aspects and stuck them together. I don't believe you. The Celts did. The Celtics did it. I don't believe you. Religious scholar? Jump in. So when, sorry, when the Romans went North, uh, Roman would, uh, the Romans would adopt almost any religion and incorporate.

[00:26:34] So they were like, kind of like the Borg, you know, they would like, they take what was most interesting. They would like to learn about your culture and they would assimilate it to their own culture. So if you go up, up to Hadrian's wall, which is sort of the northernmost part of the Roman empire, you'll find Celtic shrines that also are venerating Roman deities as well. So yes, Celtic Roman would be a fine way to put it, but let's learn a little bit more.

[00:27:03] Why is this name important? I don't know. It's, um, the name of goddess Google tells me that is often associated with cows, fertility and healing waters, meaning divine cow. Or what I think is the more interesting meaning is the tamed one. The tamed one? Yeah. Demona is also a German TikToker. Oh, good. So you can go back to the, you said healing waters.

[00:27:28] Healing waters, um, fertility and cows, but also it can mean divine cow or the tamed one. Just interesting because water is such a big deal in this episode. Yeah. Which starts with swimming. Uh, we see the water tower. I think even the cartoon that they were watching at Dylan's house was an underwater cartoon. Milchik's looking at a photograph of a iceberg or something. Right.

[00:27:55] And obviously we see, we keep seeing the shore as they're driving, uh, to meet up. There's so much water in this episode. So I wonder if the healing waters is, is more of the definition to lean into. Did you, uh, mention Miss Wong's toy? Oh yeah. Yeah. Got the rings. That's great. The, the reason the tamed one stuck out to me was I was like, is, is this pregnant laboring any, the tamed one that will go through all, all of this torture, you know?

[00:28:24] And so, so that the outer doesn't have to deal with it. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. Especially if you just like, maybe it's just, that's the cool name for the place. Cause that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The, the era of sort of religious ideology that these religions come out of, like there's a lot of sort of new religious movements coming out of upstate New York at about the same time that Lumen is being founded.

[00:28:50] Um, they have a view of nature that it is untamed and it's like the devil's domain and, you know, sort of civil society and, and sort of the higher mind is almost antithetical to, you know, the, the wilderness, the wilderness is, is sort of associated with all things, uh,

[00:29:15] pagan and because it's a very patriarchal system, you would associate that with, with women, childbirth and, and the like. So I could see Lumen having this view as well. Hmm. Interesting. Interesting. Regardless, um, they got to the birthing retreat. I, I love that shot of Cobel and David, I know you posted a screenshot on the discord, a shot of Cobel with the fires behind her, just looking totally like the devil.

[00:29:45] Just, just, I am here to wreck your day. Yeah. And they use a lot of, I mean, they have been the whole season using color to, to signal character change or character vibes, I guess you could say. So yeah, it was a beautiful, it's, it's warm and inviting in there after coming in, you know, we start with Mark and sort of a austere and, and then we go up there. Yeah. So good stuff. I wonder if they're playing too, when she, when she first meets Mark and she goes, hi Mark.

[00:30:14] And that's become like such a meme is her original, like hi Mark from the first season. I don't know if you know this. People do take talks about it. They're like, sorry, I talk in my sleep sometimes. And then they'll go, hi Mark. Nice. Um, it's, it's such a meme and I feel like they were playing on that a little bit because she doesn't have to say hi Mark. Like she could say anything. They, and they did the same thing where they're filming that, that catch light in her eye so

[00:30:41] that she looks like she's possessed when they go in for the closeup on her face. Yeah. Yeah. She is a pretty spooky, pretty spooky. I feel like we've already talked about like all the motivations in this part, but does, uh, does anyone want to talk about the code words David's logged here? Golden thimble. And the ninth floor special department. Yeah. I don't know. Is that all? That's all twilight zone, right? Twilight zone meaning the actual shit, Rod Serling, Twilight zone or?

[00:31:12] Yes. Uh, and I can't take full credit for this. I did read, um, okay. Uh, some of the, that the twilight, there's a twilight zone episode, um, where, uh, uh, I think it's a, I think it's a woman going to a department store and, um, I think like Serling does one of his Miss Marcia white on the ninth floor specialties department looking for a golden thimble. Oh my God. And it's called the after hours. Uh, yeah. Which is the name of the episode.

[00:31:40] Oh, so is this the, our decoder ring for the. And his next, and I think the next line is the odds are that she'll find it, but there are even better odds that she'll find something else because this isn't just an apartment store. This happens to be the twilight zone. Nice. And it is interesting to note, I believe this is the episode where there's sentient mannequins. So do that which you will. Well, isn't James Egan a bit of a sentient mannequin? Ah, you brought this up earlier. You said it was the same actor playing the mannequin himself.

[00:32:09] I mean, he's always very stiff. And, you know, is almost robotic. Like I can believe he's an animatronic. Is that, is that James Egan that meets up with Hellie? Is that just the mannequin making his way, making his rounds? Well, he's not eating. Yeah. I mean, we'll wait to get to that part, but. No, but he does like to moan when she eats. Ugh.

[00:32:37] And also like how intimate was that scene where she's cutting and like, it's, it's like ASMR, right? We are here. Totally. And links. And close-ups. And, and not only that, like she's taking the tiniest bite of egg you could possibly imagine. It's like a quarter of a quarter of an egg white. If I was at a restaurant and I saw somebody eat a hard-boiled egg in sections with a knife and a fork, I would, I would punch them in the head.

[00:33:04] I do want to get Anthony, maybe a surprise gift of one of those black hats that the women were wearing on the cutlery on the plates that she was eating off of. Well, why don't we go right to there next then? Because we all seem to want to talk about James Egan. Helena eats breakfast in front of daddy James Egan, who tells, who she tells that they're seeing to Mr. Bailiff. Innie Helly asks where Mark is and tries to intimidate Milchick before comforting a depressed Dylan.

[00:33:34] She finds Irving's directions to the exports hall and memorizes them as James Egan arrives to observe his daughter's innie. I wish you'd take them raw. The one thing I like it raw. That was interesting too, about that beginning scene. Besides the fact that that house would just be very difficult to heat in the wintertime. I've thought the same thing.

[00:33:58] Was the cutlery, the plates, the coffee pot, the little espresso cup thing that he was drinking from. All seem like antiques. Like from when earlier Egan had been in existence. And they're sort of. Matching none of the modern decor. Exactly. I think it's really. They call it the fetid Muppet collection. Is that, is that egg split supposed to be symbolic of the fact that she's pregnant?

[00:34:29] Five babies. And you wouldn't eat a raw egg if you were pregnant, right? Not a raw egg. Certainly not. That's interesting. I mean, that's, that's very interesting. I was thinking about that today because. What was the mad scientist's name down below in, in the Gemma, Gemma episode? Dr. Mauer. Dr. Mauer. Mauer. That's what it is. You're right. Didn't he say. And I thought it was just a lie. Mark has already moved on. He's found love.

[00:34:58] And he has a child with his new lover or something like that. Ooh. Yeah. And he does say that. And I thought, well, he just lying. But then I thought. Maybe not. Oh, no. He actually did find love. And it very well could be that Hallie's. A version of Mark did move on because he never knew, right? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I found the egg slicer on Etsy.

[00:35:23] And we know that Lumen takes care of all of their medical stuff in-house because of this episode. So if Hallie is pregnant, she probably would have gone to a Lumen doctor to find that out. Right. And so is that why Jane feels that she was tricked? Maybe he doesn't know about all this. Hey, man. I don't know what motivates this guy at all. Honestly. I'll tell you. I have a bonus quote from him. Okay.

[00:35:57] Okay. I'm just going to name a couple things. All right. There is some kind of psychosexual energy happening with Jane. And he likes to watch his daughter eat. So that's weird. Okay. There's more. He wishes that she would eat the eggs raw.

[00:36:27] Why? Does it care eat them raw? What is this weird egg thing that he's got? Why does he want to watch her eat? And why is it more pleasing to him if she eats them raw? The whole thing. I will watch that whole thing. And then the title sequence goes. And I was like, well, that all made sense. Well, yeah.

[00:36:54] They, they mentioned, I think in a season one, that, that Keir's favorite breakfast was raw eggs and milk. I think it wasn't like, Oh, is that right? Yeah. Oh, good pick. Yeah. Raw. They're all on a paleo diet. It's fine. Doing the Rocky. He was, he was, he was very impatient. Training for a fight with Apollo Creed. Maybe. Yeah, perhaps. How do we feel about, uh, Oh, you mean, hellie E, right? Right. Yeah. That was great. Fine. Yeah.

[00:37:24] And, and that might have motivated Milchak to sort of bring a comeuppance to Mr. Drummond later. You know, she's like, of course this is insubordinance. And she walks out and slams the door and he realizes, Oh, well, if she's going to be that way to me, maybe I can be that way to Mr. Drummond. Well, he'd been eating, eating shit all day long too, because everybody was disrespecting

[00:37:52] him, like throwing their bat, you know, Dylan threw his badge down and, and I think he just had to had enough at that point. He was like, yeah, you can kind of see the sort of the, the hierarchy kind of crumbling at this point. So you guys, you guys don't have any, any thoughts that this could be Helena going back down to the floor. I think it's all hell yeah. Yeah. Otherwise, why would she say what the fuck when she sees because her dad was there and he's not supposed to be.

[00:38:19] I don't think she would ever say what the fuck in front of her dad, just based on their relationship. I don't think she would speak that way in front of her dad when she was walking in the hall. When they showed us walking in the hall, her walking in the hall earlier, why would she, why would, why would Helena get the note? Why would Helena comfort Dylan? Yeah. Why would she memorize? Why would she try to memorize the directions to. She would know it. The floor. Why would she? Maybe she doesn't. She's in charge, but she's not in charge. She's in next in line.

[00:38:49] And also Milchick would have had to been on board to institute the, what's the name of the protocol? I can't think of it right now. If he, well, he, he, he knew that she had the Glasgow block on initially the first time, but that doesn't mean that he's the one who initiated it. He just, he's the one who was communicating, but it's in the security room, right? Like he would, he would see it. He told somebody to take the Glasgow block off. Okay. Make your case. I want to hear your case. What is the evidence in this episode? I don't say evidence.

[00:39:19] I just say there's questions, right? So she, she's, she's in there trying to sew some sort of, uh, movement down there. She's, um, she, when she does the insubordination speech, you know, she brings up the hellie, he brings up the hellie are when she's, when he says, you know, you've been, and this is insubordination. She doesn't say, she says something. She's like, you're right. Which is a way of saying you're actually being insubordinate to me by you not giving to

[00:39:48] me, this is actually insubordination. So that was my first thing that I saw. I was like, Hmm, I wonder if that's what she means. And then when they had the conversation, Dylan's like, and she's like, he's like, we're so different from our Audis. How come no one knew that, that it wasn't you? And that conversation seemed interesting to have. Um, and then, uh, at the end, I mean, obviously you're right. The, it doesn't track that she would say something like that by, by like, when she saw her

[00:40:17] father, cause that's not their relationship. But in that particular setting that she's trying to, you know, memorize the Contra code, she might have had that, uh, it might've been a moment of weakness. Hmm. Well, I am fully prepared to, um, devour feculents if I'm wrong. I, uh, I don't think. It seems a stretch, but at this point I trust enough. I don't doubt that they threw us.

[00:40:41] They did that to throw us for a little bit of loop and, but then James, his, um, his statement, what does he say? You betrayed me. You tricked me. You tricked me. We don't know when or what that reference was. Did we, it could be referenced to the fact that she, uh, had been on the severed floor

[00:41:04] earlier, not as helly or that, you know, she was interested in a relationship to, to Mark or that she's pregnant or not pregnant. I mean, she could have been, she's been running game, right? She didn't, she tell Drummond not to, we're not going to tell my father something earlier. I thought that that was a callback to the season finale of the, of the first season where she pretended to be the Audi at the, at the gala.

[00:41:32] Oh, like he's going down to, to confront his daughters, any incident that you tricked me. So it could be, here's how I read it. I read it as he realizes this is going to be a momentous day. We're all expecting this to happen. And the, the day runs its course and it didn't happen. He's like, all right, I'm going to go down there myself and see what's, what's going on. Um, and the first thing he says to her, because he knows this is the last time we, we spoke

[00:42:01] was at the gala. I'm going to reference the gala. So that, that's how I read it, but I could be wrong. I think I would, uh, really enjoy an episode of undercover boss with, uh, Jamie. Yeah. No one would know. No one would know it was him with the way he's so natural. He's just in the cafeteria the whole time, just watching people eat and moaning. He's taking a nap in the supply closet.

[00:42:34] All right. I want a Frazier type spinoff of just Jame. I want it to be called just Jame. Parenthetically, no S. I did see on the internets today, somebody, uh, cut up the intro again and made it into one of those, uh, like seventies, eighties sitcom with, uh, upbeat music and, you know, everybody's sort of throwing funny looks at the camera and stuff. I do enjoy all those. Those are, those are good edits. The other one was one, a particularly good one. Uh, yeah.

[00:43:03] Let's talk Dylan. Audi Dylan gets ready for work when his wife Gretchen confesses that she kissed his Annie. He gets angry and threatens to quit before leaving for Lumen. Annie Dylan gets a visit from Gretchen who breaks things off between them. Leaving Dylan to propose with a paper ring. When he's rejected, he falls into a depression, tendering his resignation. After he gets into the elevator, it appears to go down. I have a question for all of you.

[00:43:32] Uh, did you, did any of you surprise propose to your current spouse? Technically, but she definitely knew it was just cause like, I was like, well, it's cause we were living in North Carolina at the time and we were coming to visit family on Long Island, uh, which was about an hour and a half out of Montauk. And, uh, that was one of our, our date spots. And so I was like, well, we did a 12 hour drive yesterday.

[00:44:00] Let's wake up at five and drive off to Montauk for the sunrise. She was like, why would you do that? She knew, she knew, but she, it was well within the bounds of the relationship that you were, you guys were moving in that direction. It was a clear. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She had sent me rings to pick from. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, not a surprise. Yeah. No, not, not, not the, not the win and how you did it, but the fact that you were going to do it. Oh, well then I, no, definitely not.

[00:44:30] I would just say universally do not do that. Just do not surprise. No, I think you shouldn't. I think you should do it in public. Right. With paparazzi, like hire a paparazzi to take a photo of you while you're being crushed. Go on with your point. I surprise proposed, but I did not have a ring with me. And so, and it was about six months into dating my wife.

[00:44:58] We were very young and I just popped the question. It was in union square in San Francisco. So there were people around. There was an exchange with the unhoused man who interrupted the entire thing. Hmm. Um, who she actually married originally because there was a lot of confusion. True. It's true. Steve, Steve actually had wrote a little note, you know, will you marry me? Yes or no with two boxes on a piece of paper.

[00:45:26] And then he gave it to me and then I was supposed to bring it to Heather. And we had no idea which, which one she was going to try. Did you fold it up into one of those little origami things where you open up the different laps? A little cootie catcher. The cootie catcher. She actually told him that she'd only marry him if he could play the hoop game and win five times in a row. Yeah. Yeah. What was your point on this? Yeah. Where are we going with this? Just don't do it. Just don't do it. Just don't do it.

[00:45:56] Just don't propose? No, don't propose. Don't surprise propose like that. Oh, gotcha. Because you're just putting, you're putting both of you into just a very awkward and difficult situation. And she, we see her. This is all preparation for marriage. Like, how are you going to deal with this awkward situation? Right. No, I just felt very bad for, for both of them. I'm a little, I'm a little surprised. Like, what did he make the ring out of? I thought he made it out of the finger trap.

[00:46:26] That's what I thought too. Oh. It looked like it was taped. Yeah. That totally makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Did, did Ms. Wong fail to facilitate what was happening here? Should she have stepped in after? She was nowhere either. Should she have stepped in after they kissed? Yeah. Interesting, right? I mean, how much facilitating was she doing? It doesn't sound like very much. Just watching. Just a heartbreaking scene.

[00:46:54] Just, just absolutely just gut wrenching. Well, he kills himself. He kills himself. Do we know? Do we know that he does that? I don't think we know. That's his intent. No, no, quit. That's his intent. Right. Oh, right. But then they're going to send him down, aren't they? Well, he's resigning. So that in his mind resigning, I mean, it's the equivalent of, I will not exist anymore. You're right. That's. But the last time we see him, he's sitting next to the elevator. We don't actually see him go through. We see him in the elevator.

[00:47:21] And David, you posted a great screenshot of him sitting in front of that painting with Kier. Kier pardoning the, uh, the trailers. That's what it was. And, and he's in the position of one of the people about to get with the, with the hand on him. Yeah. Like Kier's hand is on him with the, on his head. Yeah. Yeah. It's perfectly framed scale wise too. They perfectly framed it. It's just like, I think they must have to make that shot work.

[00:47:49] They had to go back and, uh, recommission that so that it was bigger. So it's scaled. Right. So they did a lot of setup to get that shot work, to get the camera at the right distance to get, you know, uh, uh, Zach cherry's, you know, body. And then they had to take that piece of art and stretch it and position it just so. So just to go back to what you said, Steve, you think you saw him in the elevator? He goes in the elevator. Yeah.

[00:48:19] And then later we see an elevator going down, but it doesn't, it's not exactly clear that that was Dylan, but it appears that Dylan goes down. Oh, well the, the, the arrow's up, the arrow, the arrow is up when he gets into the elevator, uh, elevator, like that has an up arrow, which doesn't mean it can't go down, but at least that's the location. And later there's the down elevator. Right. So the question is, did he ever, I don't know. Did it redirect? Yeah. Hmm. Is he going to the testing floor? Or essentially is the question.

[00:48:49] But the, you know, I mean, these elevators seem pretty specific because that's why they have to find the elevator that goes to the test. Right. Right. So it would, it would be weird if they had multi-purpose elevators. Then this whole mystery is like, well, just go to the one you came from. But maybe that's part of, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we can't trust anything in this facility. Right. They took out the cameras, but the cameras are still there. Right. We just can't see it. All right.

[00:49:19] Well, it's very sad with Dylan. There's not a lot of plot here. It's mostly just like, what are they going to do with Dylan on the testing floor if he goes there? Yeah. I don't know. Go ahead. What would the advantage be? Like what? I mean, I guess, you know, because Irving has been eliminated from the testing floor and then he's, so his Audi is just left to do whatever. So, I mean, why, I don't know why Dylan would be important enough to hang on to. If he wants to resign, he could resign. And then what? He's just an Audi Dylan.

[00:49:47] Unless they want him as a hostage for Mark to finish it, to finish a cold harbor. Like maybe they're like, well, it's not working to be nice to him. Let's get, let's use a hostage. And especially if, if cold harbor is really as like world changing as they're saying it is, maybe they're like, we don't give a fuck who we piss off. We don't give a fuck about laws. We're about to like create immortality in some way. And, uh, you know, maybe it doesn't matter what happens to Dylan in their eyes.

[00:50:15] We're going to find out cold harbor is just like a new Mountain Dew flavor. They're willing to, to, at this stage to do whatever is necessary to, to finish cold harbor. The only other little clue bit that I was curious about in the scene was that they gave us very clear shots of Gretchen's uniform. She's a nine one one dispatcher for the town of Kier at the emergency operation center or whatever.

[00:50:45] And they make sure that we see it. Uh, and so I don't know if that's just one of those, you know, chasing shadows or if that was an actual clue, but it, that's, that's what it was. Yeah. It was like interesting that we'd now know, cause I think we saw the uniform before, but we didn't know what her role was. Right. I kind of figured, oh, maybe she's a late night security guard, but yeah. Um, now it appears that she's actually a little more official than that. Yeah. And is she involved in these disappearances, right?

[00:51:12] Like somebody gets injured and they're like, oh, we're going to send, I'm going to call Lumen instead of the ambulance. Right. Lumen's going to send its own ambulance. Oh, I will say too that for the man who is, uh, for the spousal partner who is not necessarily carrying his, uh, weights in the relationship, the fact that he throws out the line, I'm going to go to work and earn a paycheck to feed our children.

[00:51:41] Like that was a real, that was real BDE energy. So. Well, I thought it was petty toxic energy. He, um, well, yeah, so maybe not BDE. I meant to, that's what BDE is a positive. We gotta, we gotta, yeah, yeah. I got it. We gotta clear up those things. I don't know all these kids with these fangled terms and stuff. Well, the, I, I thought of a TikTok phrase today because I don't know if you know this, but when you find someone attractive on TikTok now, some people comment, Rod, next question. And I was thinking about that with the Jay Meekin thing.

[00:52:12] Anyway. Yeah. It was a very toxic thing for him to do. It was very toxic, especially he throws the solid vegetables in the sink instead of the garbage. Mm-hmm. Great. I did, I did like when he, you know, says what you're going to say, it didn't mean anything. She's like, no, I wasn't going to say that. I thought that was pretty great. Like, I really liked that as a response. I really like, uh, the character of Gretchen.

[00:52:37] Um, there is, there is a kindness, you know, that seems very authentic. And we, we heard it on the phone when she was being encouraging, even though clearly she's had, has to be fed up with his, uh, ineffectiveness. Um, but she's still very, you know, encouraging and she's, she loves, it sounds like she loves the Dylan that was, and she hopes that he can return to that. Right.

[00:53:00] And now she found a shortcut and, uh, yeah, it's, that's, it's, I did not expect that element to come out, but man, how it manifests itself and what it does to, you know, so now, I mean, there is no Dylan that she can go to, you know, it's kind of wild what, what that means. Right. I mean, I mean, Gretchen in an effort to try to win back the Audi Dylan, uh, the Dylan she

[00:53:29] might even be more in love with. And now, you know, what is that relationship going to be like on the outside? And, and especially if he's going to not be working again, if he truly is resigned and now he's, he, we see how, how it is for him trying to get work. Uh, that's not gonna, that's not going to make things better. I just want to call out that there are too many people in this show. Is it all of them?

[00:53:55] I don't know how many people in this show are of the opinion that the any and the Audi are two separate people. It's almost everyone, everyone in the show kind of takes that as a given. Yeah. And, and, uh, it's just not my view at all. And so that's how Lumen advertises it. Right. So if you're not experiencing that on a daily basis, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Loon.

[00:54:21] That's certain sort of the Lumen company line, but even a lot of the people who are not Lumen employees seem to take this view. I don't know. It's, it's an odd, it's an odd thing to have because it just, it just seems so counterintuitive to me. It's like, no, that is me too. That, that me just has different memories.

[00:54:48] Well, I guess, yeah, perhaps, I guess the idea that if, if, if there's somebody that exists that you have no access to, then they are a different person, I think is how the brain is, is interpreting this. And that's why you have the resistance who's kind of on the outside looking in and why there's so much flack, not just in the resistance, but from other, obviously from other political sources saying that this is, you know, this is somehow unnatural. And then, uh, for those that are sort of living it, it's like, you almost just get used to this, right?

[00:55:17] Like this is what we're used to. I mean, I don't ever, like Devin has no access to, uh, any Mark. So any Mark is another person in that regard, right? Yes. I know it's Mark, but I know they know that's Mark conceptually, even though in actuality it's, it's true, but it's like, it's, they just can't, it's, it's a hard thing to process. Right. I mean, it's like, cause you're locked away. You're gone. I mean, nobody has access to you except for. Right. There's no continuity of memory, right.

[00:55:47] Between us. We don't have any shared, we don't have a relationship because we don't have a history that we can remember together. So it's almost like, that's how you reconcile it. Right. Like, so it's not, I don't even think it's so much the fact that we're like, oh, well we, this is how we're choosing to see it. It's like, how else did this is such a bizarre thing. How else are we supposed to think of it? You know, I mean, it's, I mean, it is, it's an unnatural reaction to an unnatural thing. Yeah.

[00:56:12] If I were, if I were Gretchen and I was, if I were Gretchen and I was having that conversation, I would absolutely say, I did not have an affair on you. I had an affair with you. I'm sorry that you can't remember it, but this is not me being unfaithful. I mean, that's exactly the, the, I don't know.

[00:56:38] I don't know why everyone, why, why there aren't more characters in the show that are questioning the central premise of severance. Hmm. Hmm. It's a good question. I don't know. You know what I do know? Question. I do know that we're about to take a quick break and we're back.

[00:57:07] I had to stop using the fancy break music because we kept getting videos taken down from YouTube for copyright violations. So we're back with the, uh, the nice little, little elevator ding. Uh, why don't we talk a little bit about Milchick and Huang Milchick allows Hustace Wong. It was just, who was surprised by that name. Uh, you haven't heard that one in a while, right? To graduate from the winter tide fellowship and send her to the gunnel Egan empathy center

[00:57:35] in Svalbard before she can move on. She, he makes her destroy her ring game. Later Milchick is reprimanded by Mr. Drummond for failing to control Mark Scout. He turns things around on Mr. Drummond and refuses to take the blame, but it still extracts a promise from Mark to return to work tomorrow. I've also taken a couple of screenshots here. You can see, uh, Eustace Wong's, uh, placard or on her, on her head of Jamie or one of the Egan's.

[00:58:04] Uh, yeah, it is Jamie because it's the Jamie Egan fellowship and it says it's the year of vision. And then I took another screenshot from episode eight that says Harmony Cobell. Wiles was gotten in the year of wills. Wiles. Wiles. Oh, you're right. Yeah. You're right now that I'm looking at it again. So is, is, is this like a, uh, a horoscope kind of thing and an astrology kind of thing where we change the, uh, the year and we cycle through them?

[00:58:34] Or is this like every year is a different year for the Egan's? Something that HR cooked up to keep everybody motivated. Wasn't Wiles one of the nine? Uh, I'll check. And that makes me then wonder if, if vision is one of the nine as well. You might write another interesting thing about the. Wiles. Yes. Yes. You got it. Oh, you're right. Is vision on the nine? Vision is. And, uh, yeah.

[00:59:04] So, so it could be that there's like a cycling through. Nine. Why nine? I don't, that doesn't really work, but, um, yeah, it very well could be like, you know, instead of year of the dragon, it's year of the wiles or something like that. Right. Right. Something else that's interesting about Svalbard.

[00:59:27] It's the, uh, current location in our world of the seed bank where they are collecting seeds from plants from all over the world to, uh. To clone? On cold storage to, in case of environmental disaster, we have a library of seeds. Hmm. Hmm. And they chose it because, oh, it's way up. It's cold, but it's still accessible.

[00:59:56] And of course now it's warming up and like, they're like, oh no, we can't keep all these things at the right temperature. Interesting. Yeah. We had some feedback on Milchick and Huang. I just want to pull that in quick. Uh, the TCS wrote on our discord. I don't, I think don't fuck with Milchick was the theme of the day. Ms. Huang and Mr. Drummond are learning some things. Maureen D came in saying Milchick is, uh, doubling down.

[01:00:19] Down on the, uh, on the words after Drummond is giving him a big, big hard time on, on using these big words. So, uh, who is Milchick? Was he someone who had been in prison and studied the dictionary? Like, I don't know. I don't know. Thank you, Maureen. Um, and then we also had some Ms. Huang, uh, feedback from Sub-Zero. Milchick told Ms.

[01:00:46] Huang that her internship was over and she was being assigned to a facility. It's Svalbard, which is a remote Island in Norway. Svalbard was an interesting tidbit. That's where the global seed vault is. So that's what you were saying, David. And Ms. Huang's exit seemed anticlimactic. I thought there would be some kind of payoff that was relevant to the main story, but it doesn't seem like it. I wonder if they cut her internship short because they really don't want her around when Cold Harbor is completed. Whatever that means. Do they need her once Cold Harbor is completed? Because they were expecting that that was the day that.

[01:01:16] Right. The data was going to be delivered. The numbers aren't moving. That was, that was, yeah. So that was supposed to be the end of it. So it was maybe that was, uh, coinciding. But Milchick certainly was taking some delight in sending her on her way. Right. And when she thought she was finished a quarter, maybe she didn't realize that Cold Harbor would essentially end that quarter. Or that there wouldn't be further going on. So I don't, I don't necessarily see her, uh, exit as anticlimactic.

[01:01:41] I thought it was a really, uh, uh, very, um, uh, heartbreaking and gives a better glimpse into Cobell. Uh, the idea that they moved her stuff from her parents. So she's out, she's gone. Um, and not only does she get to, she doesn't even get to bring the souvenir thing she likes to play with on this ride. She had to smash it, uh, as a, as a, you know, sufficient totem. Um, so it kind of gives you a sense too of like, makes you wonder what did, what did Cobell have to destroy that she enjoyed?

[01:02:10] And now we know why she didn't even get to say goodbye to her mother. So I thought, I thought that, that the, the Miss Wong thing is, is like, it was, was actually a pretty powerful exit. There's also like, why does she have this attachment to this? Like really crappy, like if someone gave this to you when you were a child, I don't know about you all, but I would, I would play with this for like five minutes and never touch it again. Because it's just frustrating to me. I used to be really good at one of those.

[01:02:38] I actually played with it quite a bit and I would, uh, this is a, I had one that was a dolphin and it had, um, uh, red, yellow, green, and blue rings. And I could get in, in kind of a quick amount of time I could get it. So it would go red, red, yellow, yellow, green, green, blue, blue. I could go red. I could mix them up. I, I, I, yeah, it, it was something that I actually, uh, and again, I don't, I didn't have any more.

[01:03:03] And you have to keep in mind that you're on a podcast with three guys that can remember the world before Atari. All right. We had Furbies. We had Furbies when I was a kid. That's what we had. I just wanted to compliment Steve, uh, the, obviously his skill at the water game. Look at where you are now, Steve. Congratulations. Like all of that time paid off. You're just, just so you know, so you are my peers. Fair enough. Fair enough.

[01:03:32] Um, I w I was just thinking it was, it reminded me of severance, not severance. This is severance. It reminded me of silo where you have like that Pez dispenser. That's a relic of a past age. And like, you know, we have this whole debate over when severance is right. Is it, is it a kind of a dystopian future? And I don't know, is this something that's sort of a relic of a past age where more toys were being made? Okay. This is a world where finger traps are like, you gotta have them.

[01:03:59] So, I mean, I don't realize she's not in any, but like they, they, they keep it pretty, uh, they, they, they keep it pretty, uh, you know, low, low death out there. Yeah. That's fair. This episode, uh, is kind of a goodbye episode, right? We, we close out three relationships with, uh, Irv, with Miss Wong and, uh, with Gretchen and Dylan, but it's also the breaking people episode.

[01:04:24] And it's like this, not only is she breaking her toy and of course Milchick is breaking her and Drummond is trying to break Milchick and there's tension with El Heli and, and Jane. But that, that, that all of that sort of breakage is embodied in the fact that she's smashing the water toy, but not just smashing the water toy, but what do they show us? They show us the broken cure. Right. That's in there.

[01:04:53] And each time she strikes it, she's smashing it more and more and more, and it's coming apart more and more and more. Yeah. And I, it's a, it's obviously an intentional scene.

[01:05:04] And the question is, is this, um, because cure is being undone and maybe he doesn't realize it or like the legacy of cure is being undone by, by the reintegration efforts perhaps, perhaps, or is this a sort of, um, the cure is, as we may remember him is being destroyed. Or are we setting here free of the water of the box? Oh, is he being, uh, being released from the waters of life? The womb. Interesting. Maybe cold Harbor.

[01:05:34] Gemma, Gemma is going to be seen by the world and the world's going to see her because she's going to have cure his mind. Oh yeah. So the idea that, I mean, and again, it's hard to trust anything, right? Especially Cobell, but like Cobell's basically saying that, but if cold Harbor is, if he completed it, Gemma's already dead. And right. Right. I mean, it seems, it seems like a pretty literal thing to say. I don't, I didn't, I didn't catch it as sort of some sort of figurative language, you know? Yeah.

[01:06:02] We don't exactly know how or why, but it's also kind of disturbing to just see Dr. Maurer. Like, is he just sitting there watching, like waiting for the numbers to move? And so he can just watch this object of his affection just die. Or is he, is he looking at her longingly while she's still alive? I don't, the Dr. Maurer thing is creeping me out. And why were the other people gone? Why were, why were all those doppelgangers gone? And it was just no one else was refining. So, and he was watching Gemma. Yeah. And nobody is refining.

[01:06:30] I mean, their productivity is, they're not going to, you know, they're not going to hit quota this, this quarter, obviously. No, they're not. And nobody else at the other branches are either. And what are they doing at the other branches? There's so many questions that I have for, for this whole thing. Yeah. They're just creating different egg meals. That's right. Different tools to use to create different egg meals. Nancy in our feedback document suggested we do boiled eggs as a second breakfast topic. Oh, okay.

[01:07:00] There you go. All right. We've got Irving and Bert left. Irving finds Bert waiting at his home, reading Irving's notes that call Bert a goon for Lumen. Bert invites him on a ride, confessing that he severed to create an innocent part of himself after he was a driver for Lumen's shady activities. He buys Irving a train ticket out of town, refusing Irving's pleas for a relationship. Irving and his dog get on the train. Okay.

[01:07:28] How I read this was when Heli says to her father, or sorry, when Helena says to her father in the first scene, we're taking care of Irv, which she uses his last name, Mr. Bailiff. Right? Taking care of Mr. Bailiff. I did not put that together, that that was Irv. This is the first time I've come together with it. Okay.

[01:07:55] When she said that, then I thought, okay, so they've got a plan to eliminate Irv. And then when Walken, what's his funny name? Bert Goodman. Bert, when Bert shows up, he's in his apartment like an assassin would be. Mm-hmm.

[01:08:23] You know, he's just sitting there going through his stuff. The worst guard dog ever. I think he's actually looking at the footlocker. Right. Yeah, yeah. That's right. And so maybe that was his job. Maybe his job is to say, okay, we're going to need you to go eliminate Irv. And he decided to go a different direction. He decided, no, I'm going to send you out of town. Maybe I'll tell them that I killed you. But really, you're going to be just gone. Just never come back.

[01:08:52] That's his solution. Now, that's how I interpreted it. But I know that I'm reading between the lines on a lot of this stuff. I think you must take him to another location where Irv was going to be tortured or killed. Because he said specifically, like, I never asked what was happening on either side. I would just drop people off places. Right. And then Irving says, is this one of those times? And he doesn't answer. So I think that's what was happening. I don't think he's the hitman. I think he's the driver. Agreed.

[01:09:19] What I thought was really interesting is when he puts him on the train, he says, this will take you as far as you can go. It's like, that is, to me, that was a, like, I took that as like, is this a finite world that these guys live in? I mean, we believe that, you know, Lumen is global. Yeah. But we also, there are people that at least believe that a very small waterfall is the biggest one in the world.

[01:09:46] So there are a lot of things to not necessarily trust. I don't know. I mean, it could just mean that, where is this train? Where is it going? He can never come back to Kyr, but it's taken him as far as he can go. It's Coney Island. That's the edge of the universe. He's going to go, he's going to go to one last Zoltar machine. Oh my gosh. And then he's going to be big, right? Or smaller. It was one of the. You want to talk about age?

[01:10:14] My grandpa used to tell me for hours, all the things he used to do at Coney Island in the thirties and forties. Ooh, I don't know if he should have been telling. Not all the things. Well, all the things he did as a kid at those times. And then he would watch you eat eggs. None for me. That's right. That's right. Oh boy. I was going to ask Steve, did you think that Walken was playing down his Walken-ness? I kept waiting for that. I've got a goon.

[01:10:44] Yeah. He played it very flat. He did. And I think it's showing. It's funny how, and Anthony, I talk about this a lot in other podcasts, about how the De Niros and the Pacinos and Walkens would just sort of play to the impression for a while. Like that was kind of what they, like when in lieu of reinventing themselves, they just became that caricature.

[01:11:05] But I've noticed Walken a little bit more so lately, going, kind of going back to just, just kind of playing it a little bit more, more chill. And, and it was, and this was, this was the opportunity to really, to get in there with the wakoon, you know, but like he did. And it was a nice touch. Yeah. I mean, that, that, that sequence where they're, I mean, head to head, I mean, it was just, it's just, it was such a beautiful scene. And just, and Totoro, Totoro has really just blown me away this season.

[01:11:34] And I don't think that Bert, that Irv actually thought that Bert was innocent. When he's like, oh, I know you're not one of them now. I think he was just playing the whole, like. He was just saying that. I, don't hurt me because I don't suspect you. Right. No, everything's, we had dinner. Everything's great. I know you're not a cool. It does suggest that the world that they are living in is really small because, you know, Irv has lived his whole life.

[01:12:02] I don't know if he's lived his whole life in this bubble or not, but it would explain maybe why he never found love. Mm-hmm. You know, we find that out about him. We didn't know that before, that he'd never found love before or no, he'd never been loved before. Mm-hmm. And the way that I took that as maybe he hadn't come out of the closet. Yeah, maybe. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

[01:12:29] Until he sort of was tagged as, you know, basically by Lumen. Mm-hmm. Maybe he was outed by Lumen and then put on the radar. And then Bert used that information to kind of get what he needed to get from him. I don't know, but it's just tragic. The whole thing is tragic. Yeah.

[01:12:55] And in an episode where, you know, Dylan's like first love, first kiss, you know, first everything basically just walks in and says, I'm never going to see you again. And, you know, whether he commits suicide or not, he has the intention to commit suicide. And then to see this train scene.

[01:13:22] So, yeah, just gut-wrenching. That's the Utica train station in upstate New York. Yeah. According to filming locations. I heard Walken say that he had only been to the train station once before when he was a child and he was working for a circus. This guy is the wildest.

[01:13:49] Can I just say on the size of the world, something interesting for me is that they're going to move Miss Huang's bed from her parents' house to Norway. Like, if you're moving overseas, you're probably just going to buy a new bed, right? Like, it's cheaper to buy a new bed than it is to ship one usually. Flat pack. You can't keep your ring toss game, but their bed, we'll let you have your original bed. Yeah. Lumen's got money. I mean, Lumen can afford to pay Keanu Reeves just to do the voiceover for the animated building.

[01:14:20] So. Mr. Water Tower. These locations that have been referenced on the show, and I know last week you all were debating, like, where is this place? We have the representation that Kear is in Pennsylvania, right? Like, it is officially labeled Kear PA. Okay. And then we have these references to upstate New York, but the other named places in Rickon's book, he says he was born in Colorado. And we have now Norway.

[01:14:50] We have Svalbard. Is that what it was? Svalbard. So, we are expanding our world as we go. And we also have the locations from the other innings that came in. Yeah, the other innings. What was it? Peru? Or something like that? I think it was Peru, yeah. And they were guessing they were in Wyoming. And then you brought up an interesting point about Irv and his being gay.

[01:15:19] And it made me think that the show has glanced on two interesting topics, workplace sort of topics, but not delved into them. But even just with this glancing sort of pass by these topics, you know, the issue of race and being black in America in the workplace or being gay in the workplace. And then I think there was a… Or just being gay in a small town, you know. That too. Yeah.

[01:15:48] There was an article, I didn't read it in the New York Times, examining Heli and Helena's relationship with each other and sort of the frustration and tension that some women have with their self-reflection. I know we just need more men podcasters talking about women's issues, so I'm not going to speak to the article necessarily.

[01:16:15] Did you all see the review we got that said, this is the only podcast of white men I will listen to? Yeah, that's what I was kind of playing off of. For the record, I'm Italian. It's interesting that they are able to really impact these questions and bring up these topics in these really quite profound ways without ever actually going into them, right?

[01:16:40] Never spending an episode on it or illuminating it more or really getting didactic with it. They just kind of pass by, and as we pass by, it's like, whoa. Like, I hadn't really thought about Irv and his sexuality at all until you just brought it up now, other than that fact, oh, you know, he loved Bert, you know, whatever. I just sort of treat it to normal. It just seems odd to me that he's never found love. He's so old. Yeah. I mean, I'm very, very progressive, but when it comes to age, I'm very ageist.

[01:17:09] He's very old to, you know, sort of later in life to recognize, I have never been loved. And maybe it's hyperbole, you know, or maybe it's like, maybe he's not talking about romantic love. It could be that he had cold parents or something. I don't know. But that seemed notable to me, that this particular character who's in his...

[01:17:38] 70s at least would reveal that as he's sort of saying goodbye to his first lover and not a lover at all, right? Like, this is really the one that got away, and yet it is sort of the first love. Well, like you said, he's all, I don't really know. Yeah. Because he asked him, and he's like, well, how does it feel? I was like, well, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I know I'm experienced.

[01:18:04] I know I've experienced love, but I mean, it's, you know, it's somebody else. It's another version of me's memory that has this, and I want to explore it. And this is the only, I mean, again, we don't have a ton of data, but I mean, this is our first any Audi similarity, right? That has, I mean, Mark certainly sees Gemma inside, and there's no extra connection.

[01:18:33] Mm-hmm. But so it almost, it feels profound that Bert and Irving would have this attraction, both versions. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it seems, that really stands out when everything, and it doesn't suggest that it's because there's this connection that's a memory of any sort.

[01:19:00] It's just, it seems organic and authentic, and it's, I mean, we see now, you know, I mean, obviously Gretchen and Dylan have a relationship, but he, they know, like, she's neutral on, she's the same on both sides, and then, and then Dylan Enney is just like, well, I'm getting glimpses of my family, and I want that. So, like, that's different, right? I mean, it's specifically introduced to him as his wife.

[01:19:26] Yeah, but yeah, Bert and Irving have this, this mutual affinity for each other in both versions, and they just, that, it makes, so I think it makes that, that's all these sequences even that much more profound, because, like, their love feels, like, even more true than any other true love that they've had, that's been represented on this show. Right, because there's no continuity between, there's no, they're both in these different states, and yet they still feel an attraction. Yeah, because Mark would spend significant time with Gemma and never know. Right.

[01:19:55] Yeah, the other line that got me was, I think he said, I'm ready? Mm-hmm. I'm ready for this or something, you know, suggesting that maybe he was never ready before or something. Something like that. Yeah. And maybe he's ready for the fight, too, to maintain it. Yeah. And also, you know, he's going, I've never been loved, and while he's holding his dog, who's like, hey, hey, dad. It's like, yeah, we're a pretty bad guard dog. Do I mean nothing to you? Yeah, he was a pretty bad guard dog, just staring, just staring at the assassin.

[01:20:25] I don't think that we've seen The Last of Irv. No. I don't know if it's this season, but we're going to see more Irv. And Joe H. from our Discord pointed out that we never learned who he was calling earlier in the season. That's true. So it might not be resolved in this season, but certainly in the future. Yeah. And as I was saying at the top of the episode, I'm not expecting that all of the questions that I might have to have them all answered. Right.

[01:20:54] But I'm going to be, I expect at the end of this season to be like, wow, that was a great season of television. Right. And hopefully it won't take more than two years to. I agree. This was almost three years. So I hope it doesn't happen again. Anyone else? We got a writer's strike, right? I mean, we shouldn't have that again. Yeah. It'll never happen again. Anyone else have thoughts on this episode? No needle drops. Yeah, right.

[01:21:24] Just all background music, but they were doing different stuff to the background music. So I'm curious to see if Mark has anything to say when you talk to him later. I'll poke his brain on it. Yeah. Fun fact about this. There's definitely some tempo shifts. There was definitely some different instrumentation, instrumentalizing. I don't know how to, I don't have the language to dissect music, but they were doing different stuff with theme music specifically.

[01:21:47] I will say that I was convinced that there was going to be some major homage to Martin Scorsese's After Hours. Yeah, that's what I was just going to say. Anthony and I, we talked about this a lot yesterday. And I meant that we both watched the, we decided to both watch the film. Yeah. Nothing. And so I'm looking for anything. It's wrong after hours.

[01:22:10] I will say, Anthony, the one thing that I caught that if I'm going to insist that our exercise in finding the movie and the title of this to be somehow relevant to each other is at the final scene, you know, where you've got Patricia Arquette standing in front of a fireplace. And she's like the fire woman. Rosanna Arquette was, there was a lot of issues about fire with her. Oh, maybe she had been burned. Yeah, that was the question.

[01:22:39] And then he had been in a burn unit when he had his tonsils taken out. So fire was kind of an ongoing theme. She had a candle, all that. It was an ongoing theme. So we do at least get an Arquette in a room where there's fire. So I will accept our exercise as not futile, but actually worthwhile in that regard. Nice catch. I just want to bring in ice cream trucks. A couple of nice words people sent us. Jess R sent us compliments on the pod in an email. Allison M also sent us some kind words.

[01:23:09] Did have one correction that somebody already told us as they didn't. Rogabi is not eating ice cream. She was eating icing. It looks like, which is an even weirder thing to eat alone. Ice cream. I feel like you can eat that alone. Does anyone eat icing only? Is that a thing? Yeah, I think people do. And I don't like to hang out with them. Well, I'm a known cake hater. I don't like cake. Is it the frosting specifically? No, the frosting is okay. But it's just going to remind me of cake.

[01:23:39] So I don't want it. Allison M also said two things. My husband points out that sissy actor Jane Alexander was in the cider house rules as nurse Edna. This movie also had an ether related thread. Michael Caine's character, Dr. Larch dies when his huffing mask doesn't fall away. Interesting. And then also Maureen and Abby were with you, David. The production is fantastic.

[01:24:08] So everyone's in agreement. Hear, hear. Quickly, properly, Howard, what are you doing? Anything? Actually, Steve and I just started doing a reread of The Night of the Seven Kingdoms, which you can search for. Steve reads Bukaloo. Reluctantly. And yes, Steve does read when I force him to read. So we're going through bit by bit through The Hedge Knight right now.

[01:24:37] And I am quite enjoying making Steve miserable. I made him watch Cocktail. Have you read or listened to, rather, the Viserys actors' audiobooks of those? Because they're fantastic. Who's the audio? I mean, I've listened to some. It's the Daenerys brother. Yes, that's right. In Audible, it's Harry Lloyd that does the movie. That's who it is. Thank you. Is the voice actor. Yeah, and he's fantastic.

[01:25:07] Yeah. Yeah. I listened to those. I was on vacation in Ireland. And I listened to those as I was hiking through some nice nature. That's a nice experience. It was a very pleasant experience. And that will always stick with me. So I'll be listening to your coverage. They're very good books. They're nice and light. So Steve doesn't like them. That was part of the selling point. Lorehounds, just going to say we are already deep into our Wheel of Time coverage.

[01:25:36] Alicia and I have four pods coming out this week on the Wheel of Time since they dropped three episodes. And we've got a season pass for that if you're interested in that with bonus episodes, lore casts, and show guide for that one. So you can get our visual guide to the episodes. And please check out elsewhere on the network for radioactive ramblings, never mind the music, which you'll hear on the next Supply Closet episode that I record with Mark. Never mind the ramblings. Don't forget that podcast. Never mind the ramblings?

[01:26:04] Yeah, never mind the ramblings of the ring of the silo dust. If you say so. Alicia's got some Dune stuff coming. We've got Rings of Rituals. Always check that out. Got plenty of stuff on the network. We've got stuff planned for Andor. We have a really exciting coverage set for that. And The Last of Us is coming as well. So, I think that's it, folks. We'll see you on the other side of the finale.

[01:26:32] This podcast is a joint production of the Lorehounds and Robert Lee 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 the Frank or the beans? Hey everyone, David here. Severance is back.

[01:26:58] The Lorehounds are partnering with Properly Howard to bring you in-depth weekly coverage of Season 2. Join me, John, Anthony, and Steve as we unpack every twist, theory, and revelation. We've created a dedicated feed just for our Severance coverage. Simply search for Severance Lorehounds in your podcast app or find the direct link in our link tree.

[01:27:25] Our weekly episodes dig deep into the show's mysteries, themes, and bigger questions about identity and consciousness that make Severance so compelling. Season Pass and regular community subscribers get ad-free access to our weekly episodes, plus exclusive content like our Supply Closet bonus series featuring fascinating conversations with experts like the team from Nevermind the Music.

[01:27:51] We've explored the neuroscience of memory and personality, decoded the hidden meanings in the show's musical themes, and there's much more to come. You'll also get Steve and Anthony's complete Season 1 rewatch series. We believe in total transparency with our listeners. And unlike Mammalians Nurturable, we're happy to share all of our secrets. Find the link for the Severance feed in the show notes below,

[01:28:21] or search Severance Lorehounds wherever you get your podcasts. Come theorize with us about what's really happening at Lumen.