Severance - S02E01 - Hello, Ms. Cobel

[00:00:08] Don't pervert a handbook passage to me, okay? Welcome to a Lorehounds and Properly Howard joint production covering Severance on Apple TV Plus Season 2 Episode 1 Hello, Ms. Cobel With me today, he's a big fan of fruit leather and pineapple bobbing, David Hello He's in a thruple with his Audi, Steve Indeed I am Steve's my Audi And he's your favorite perk, Anthony

[00:00:37] I'm also a frolicaholic Wrathfully, David, can you do some quick housekeeping before we head into our hot takes? It's very shambolic around here, so let me get through this really quick This is going to be the last episode on the main Lorehounds and Properly Howard feeds After this, it's only going to be in our Severance feed So if you're a Patreon or Supercast subscriber, you'll get those anyway on your feed

[00:01:05] So you don't have to do anything, you get the privilege of just riding easy, everybody else Go down to the link in the show notes and click in the link tree and there'll be a link to the feed directly there You can get ad-free versions of this podcast without a subscription By spending five bucks on a season pass That's also linked in the show notes We're planning a couple of bonus episodes With some deeper dives and some of the themes and talking to some other people

[00:01:34] And so season pass and subscriber and regular subscribers will get access to those David, I have a question about the season pass Please If I sign up for the season pass, will I be put onto some subscription that's going to renew my fee every year? Something like that? It is a single purchase Five bucks and you're done You get a private feed that you put into your podcast player And you get all of the season one coverage that you and Steve did

[00:02:04] All ad-free You get all season two access Ad-free And then whatever bonus episodes that we cook up between now and the end of the season You know, previously I thought you were a shambolic rube But now I'm reconsidering I'm a tall milkshake After the Patreon uprising, we here at Lorehound Industries decided to take a look at Reform That's right We also have a community Discord

[00:02:32] There is a lot of fun conversation happening there We will have individual channels for every episode So if you're watching at a different pace, you can come in and have conversations there Without worrying about getting spoiled As well, we have a theory crafting corner on that conversation Which Alicia came up for the name with today Which is great And it is the Macro Data Theory Refinement Channel

[00:03:02] And so if you have big theories and or big clues that span both seasons You can go there and share You could wager some internet points Try to win yourself a waffle party at the end of the season And so join us there Again, link in the show notes And lastly, feedback Send your feedback to severance at thelorehounds.com Nancy is our assistant floor manager

[00:03:30] And she will be coordinating all of those Depending on volume and scheduling We may combine those We may do a spinoff We may tack them on And we just have to kind of see how the volume goes All right, I think that is it for the housekeeping All right, great So I think we're ready to roll right into hot takes But I just need to play this reminder here Please try to enjoy each hot take equally And not show preference for any above the others Alicia

[00:04:00] That's good What are you talking about? That was Miss Casey That wasn't Alicia I asked her to do that this morning And she thankfully Do you mind if I ask a question? I start with a question for each of you Sure All right So we know Steve Has spent a lot of his life in and out of offices Do you each have an office in the real world Outside of, you know I have a cubicle You have a cubicle What about you, David? I currently do not

[00:04:29] I have occupied cubicles in my past All right So we've all been in office settings, right? Yes Have you ever sprinted down the hallway in an office setting? Hmm No No, it tickles the building Steve, have you ever sprinted down an office hallway? Um, probably I mean, to me that

[00:04:59] The way that this episode opens with just a full-on sprint In that space It just It just seems like the world's ending I mean, it just seems like there's chaos Chaos happening One of the places I worked at They would do this annual food around the world Or foods around the world day Where all the different, you know People would bring foods from their cultures And they would have this big celebration

[00:05:28] And you could go from like, you know Like table to table and try everything So those days There was a little bit more sprinting To the bathroom? Yes Yeah All right I saw people commenting on Reddit and TikTok About Severance They said If I were an indie, I wouldn't wipe I'd punish my Audi like that Oh boy Here we go All right Sorry to hijack that, John

[00:05:58] No, no But as your punishment in the break room You've got to start off with your hot take Hot take First time in movie First time in film history Screen history That we saw a double Zolly camera Yes We've seen it a lot You know Post-Jaws We've seen the zoom in on the dolly While the camera

[00:06:26] Widens the lens, right? And that kind of creates the Face distortion inside the elevator Mm-hmm All right So Ben Stiller's calling this The Zolly move Because it's a zoom and dolly move With Mark We don't see any Audi We don't see any Audi scenes This This episode And so All we see is an indie perspective And so

[00:06:55] He does a double Face distortion scene Has that ever been done before? I don't think so I think it's This is the first time We've ever seen on screen A double Zolly That's pretty exciting I didn't have that on my 2025 bingo card As I can say I actually posted a YouTube video Into our general chat For Severance Uh They talked to the Cinematographer on this And she explains the machine It's got like a laser beam And

[00:07:24] Uh Computer Controlled It's uh It's a pretty sophisticated Piece of equipment actually To do a very time tested Technique Of Moving the camera While you're racking the zoom At the same time Nice Nice Very cool Anthony do you have any other Hot take thoughts? Um We also find out that That these Employees at Lumen Are severed Are severed on Multiple levels

[00:07:54] We We have this confirmed Because Irv On some subconscious level Knows about The hallway That leads to The testing floor Right? Mmhmm But he His Innie Does not know That information Right So It Confirmed We have Severance Within Severance Happening On this show I think Miss Cabell Mentioned the

[00:08:24] Testing floor At one point Yeah Yeah And of course This is news to Irv Irv Was not aware In fact I don't think Any of the Employees are Aware of The testing Floor Besides Besides Milchak At this point And of course Miss Casey Of course But Yeah Yeah I mean I have Plenty of theories About what they could be Testing after this episode But we'll get to that later I think I'm gonna go to David next Because you've already Already jumped in on the

[00:08:53] Zolly talk Mmhmm I think My My overall take on the Episode Is that I Think it was a Perfect Episode one For a season two Coming back After three years They nailed it Absolutely nailed it The Frenetic energy Of the Of the running Through the hallways And then stepping back down Into the The Normal pacing Of the Of the office Of the severed floor

[00:09:23] The sort of Little fake out With the new team Oh we're gonna get A whole new cast of characters Which is sort of a Season two thing But no We get our Our main team back Which is great And I have some questions About How Mark Why is Mark so important That they give him His team back But that's for The theorycrafting part Later at the End of the episode I I thought it was a Really smart decision To do an only Severed floor episode This time Mmhmm It It Changed the The narrative frame And Again I just think These are all

[00:09:52] Really really smart Showrunner decisions And The editing On the running scene Was incredible The needle drops The new actors Are all Amazing Um And As some folks know In our Lorehounds community I've got a little bit Of an idiosyncratic Grading scale For Doing my top tens At the end of the year And On my scale It goes One to ten And I can give an eleven To something that's Groundbreaking And

[00:10:22] That changes the industry That changes The state of television And I think Just based on this One episode This Could be A show This show Is probably Going to be An eleven Double Zolly Shots Included So I I loved Everything about This episode I was Completely Brought back Into the world Enraptured With the new Characters Happy to see The old Characters Loving the new Cobalt blue Dominant color Scheme That's everywhere

[00:10:52] Throughout this Episode And I I just Absolutely Think they Nailed it It Just Hands down It is Some of the Best television I think That we've We're gonna Have in a In a We We We Have a Bumper crop Of great Television Coming at us This year And this Is an Awesome Way to Start The 2025 I know Silo Bridged The year But at Least For a 2025 Start I think This Is Awesome It's Just A great Way I'm Happy

[00:11:25] Steve Can you Give us More Positive Take Well I'll Tell you What I A lot Of what Was already Mentioned It was Kind of On my List I mean I really Did We've Talked About Before Kind of In the Anticipation How I was Kind of Nervous You know Cautiously Optimistic But But here We are You know And it's Like So I Be Honest I was More at The edge Of my Seat Right Before The show Started Like Here We go What Are

[00:11:55] You Going To Do To Me And I Was Hooked Right Away I Felt Like The Old Feels Were Back They I'm Always Impressed But how Much They Do In The It's It's It's Really Something

[00:12:26] I Gotta Say Keanu Reeves Was Born To Play A Building Just Just Absolutely Was that The voice Of Yeah Yeah Oh I Had No Idea Yeah Yeah Oh that's Really Funny Yeah So Just I don't Do you Think He's Gonna Do you Think He's Gonna An Animated Spin Off This

[00:12:56] Whole Thing A Rank And Bass Yeah So I Mean It Was Just It Was It Was Impressive The Like The Worth The Wait For Sure The I Just Really Enjoyed The Just The Amplified Milchak Like Milchak Is Always Like He's At His See Him Bubbling On The Surface Just Like Just

[00:13:26] Everything Is Just Restraint With Him Like What I Mean He Does Have A Belt Cut And Coming To Him But You Know I

[00:14:21] I I Changed My Perspective On Something And Then Rewatched The Episode And I Saw It In A Completely Different Way And I Think That's A Really Cool Way To Watch The Show And Even Over Email All Of

[00:14:53] Discussion All Right Let's Get Into Our Main Breakdown Of Season 2 Episode 1 Hello Miss Cobell Starting Off With The New Team Mark S Wakes Up At Work In A Panic Only To Find Wellness Cleared Out And A New Team In His Office Mr. Milchick Tells Him It's Been Five Months Since He And The Others Became The Faces Of Severance Reform But The Rest Of His Team

[00:15:23] Wouldn't Return The Team Also Meets Miss Huang The Child Replacement For Mr. Milchick's Position Mark S Tries To Sabotage Mark W And PR Dummies Brooms

[00:15:53] The He Has A Lumon Branded Espresso Cup I'm Just Like Oh Brilliant The The Props Department On This Show Is On Point It's So Good Yeah Yeah Um Anybody Else Have A Favorite I Mean I'm A Huge I Don't Even Know What Was The Woman's Name Gwendolyn Why Gwendolyn Why I'm All the Way

[00:16:23] Back To Arrested Development She Was Recently On The Old Man I Think She's Amazing I I'm A Little Bit Disappointed That Like Do We Think This Is The Only Time We'll Ever See These People I Mean It's Possible That We Don't See Them Ever Again Right It's Possible I Have A Feeling We Will Yeah I Have A Feeling We Will But When And How I That's To Be To Be Determined I Think Bob Balaban Did Not Disappoint He Legend He's Just So

[00:16:53] Good He's Just So Good Why Are You A I Think That Was One Of The Standout Lines Of The Movie The Episode Sorry You Know It's Funny That We Keep On Saying Movie It Does Feel Like This Is Like Cinematic The Show I I Mean Throughout This Podcast Will Probably Keep Making The Same Mistake This Does Not Feel Like A TV Show As So Much As It's Just A Cinematic Achievement Yeah I Think You're Absolutely Right The Just The Scale

[00:17:22] The Scope The Production It's It Mark Mark W Was At He Said That He Was At Branch 5x And He That He Worked With Gwendolyn Y But He Doesn't Mention Dario Okay Okay So They Don't They And

[00:17:52] Then Yes Then That That Branch Was Was Shut Down So But So Were They Transferred Again After This Or Did Mark Actually Kill them From Because He Comforts Him Later Yeah Yeah Yeah Well The Other Thing Is How Much Do We Trust Of Anything That's Being Told Nothing Right I Mean That's The Thing Is Like We We're We're Gleaning This Information Like We Get This Paper That Has All These Redactions But It's Like We Don't Know That Any Of That Happened I Mean There's a

[00:18:33] It's The Kier Chronicle Yeah Published Since 1893 No Longer Just Turning Plastic Bottles Back Into Plastic Bottles I Mean This Is A Pretty Big News And It Looks I Was Trying To Place The Photo In The Car That They're Driving It Almost Looks Like A Kennedy In Dallas Photograph I Don't

[00:19:03] I Really Thought It Was Interesting What They Chose To Redact Right And Again It's Like Is This A Real Paper I Suspect Not But There's Still Redactions The Redactions Maybe They're Just For Effect To Try To Interesting What They Redacted The Performers At The Celebration That One Really Got Me Because It's Like Because We Keep Asking You Actually Read The Whole Article Oh Yeah

[00:19:32] Steve Understood The Assignment All Right Let's Go When You Know Because We Keep Asking Ourselves Where Is This And Maybe Maybe Another Point Is When Is This And And So There's This Sense Of Without Those Performers Being Mentioned It's Like Who Where How What Does That What Would That Break For The If They If They Knew That These Performers Were There They Know Easels Exist Even Though They've Never Seen Them

[00:20:33] The Weirdest Thing About This Episode Is Miss Wong Yes And I Can't Get Over It One Of The Best Lines You Know The Exchange Between Her And Balaban And I Just My Mind Is Reeling I'm Thinking Is Is She Related To Miss Casey Is She Related To Mark Why Would Lumen Hire A Child Is This Uh

[00:21:02] Is This Sort Of An Adult Chip In The Body Of A Child That's A Good Question Is That Miss Casey I Yes I Don't Know And All Of These Things Are On The Table Because That Is Just Bizarre But Of Course On Another Level You Know It's Sort Of Like Running Up The Old Trope That Eventually If You Say To Company Long Enough Uh At A Lower Level You'll Be Managed

[00:21:32] By Someone Who Looks Like They're About Years Old And Who Was Formerly A Crossing Guard So Yeah Right And And And Mark As Seems To Like Be Or Trying To Get From Milchek Like I Can't Believe You Severed Like Someone So Young But We Don't Know That She's Severed Either Right Because I mean Milchek Is Point He Claims Unsevered Yeah I Think Anyone With A Last Name Instead Of A First Name Is Unsevered That's My Oh

[00:22:02] Yeah That's A good Rule Yeah And Her The Spelling Of Her Name Is H U Not W O And I Think That Might I Mean That's An Inglis Is Of A Origin Name From Some Other Countries And To Me That Says More Southeast Asia Than

[00:22:35] It

[00:23:11] Looking Do Like What His Plan Is I Think He Thought I Gotta Get Down There I Gotta Go Find Her And When He Can't Find Her He's Sitting In That Stupid Ball Game And In That Moment His Whole Demeanor Changes And It's Right After The Flashback To The Image Of Miss Casey In Right Or Gemma When He Sees That Flash I Think That Is Meant To Tell Us He Has

[00:23:41] He Has A Purpose And The Purpose Is I'm Going To Discover What Happened To Gemma And At That Moment He Switches His Demeanor To Be Very Amiable Very collegial And He Takes The Correction From The Supervisor He Decides I'm Gonna Keep Playing This Game Until I Can Find Out The Information That I Need Because I Think He Knows He Any Kind Of Direct Approach Is Not Going To

[00:24:11] Work Unless You Unless He Appeals Directly To The Board So Yeah Who Knows Well And He What He Is Pretending To Be You Know In Anthony's Example Is Kind Of Who He Was But The Difference Is Is That Like He's He's Not That Guy

[00:24:40] Anymore But I Think Also Especially From A Milchik Perspective He Knows He's Not That Guy Anymore Like The Veil Of Innocence Has Been Lifted It Would You Know But Again These Are Innings Right So These Are Not Super Savvy Individuals These Are These Are Relatively New Creations So Even This Level Of Like When Your Child First Learns To Lie You're Like You're Really Bad At

[00:25:15] Then You Just Run Somewhere It Was A Good Trick Though It Was Clever Like He Got Them Immediately The Break Room Oh My God The Break Room Is Sacrosanct Right Right They All Bailed For This For The Break Room So I Want To Bring In Somebody Making The KC About Miss Wong Maureen D On Our Discord Said People Are Speculating About Cloning Because Of The Goats What

[00:25:45] Watch Of The Birthing Cabin Scene From Season One I Picked Up Rickon Remembering That The Last Time Mark Was In A Health Facility Was For His Wife Gemma That Does Make You Wonder How Lumen Got Gemma Do They Run Everything In The Town So Is Miss Casey Is Miss Wong A Clone Of Miss Casey And I Think There's There's A Flash Of The Wedding Photo And It Focuses Right In On Her And Maybe That's Not Like A Direct

[00:26:15] Cause And Effect But Perhaps It's A It's A Show Running Technique It's A Directorial Technique To Just Sort Of Draw Our Attention Toward Some Kind Of Similarity There Yeah Some Drawing Some Kind Of Parallel Relationship I Still Think Anthony Is Right Though And That That's The Moment That He Pivots But Yeah It Does Reinforce And Then We Get That Very Last Scene Of The Different Computer Terminal With Miss Casey And I Think This Is My Theory On That Is They

[00:26:44] Removed The Cameras But They're Monitoring Them Through The Terminals That's Not My Theory That's My Theory Okay Yep Yep So That And I Believe There's A V 25 Okay Somewhere Yeah I gotta go Where did I put That It's In The Spoiler I Put It In The Season One Spoiler You Know What I Don't Think

[00:27:14] It's On This Screen But When You Numbers Are For And What Lumen Is Doing As Its Main Goal Is To Be Able To Rebuild A Human Consciousness So The Cure Can Be Immortal That That's Just What I Think That's A big Wager That's My Internet Points Down That's My Internet Points Right Here And I

[00:27:44] Think Miss Casey Is One Of The Subjects I Don't Know If She Died And They Took Her Iterations Of Miss Casey Are What We're What We're Seeing And I Think They Figured Out Some Way To Speed Grow Flesh Here And You Know It's Interesting Is In The Bottom left Corner Of That Image She's Looking At The Screen So She It's Not Like It's Like

[00:28:14] A Profile Picture Of We're Talking About That Ending Scene So Let's Let's Get Back To That Then Because I Have A Subsequent DNA Related Theory Well I Do Want To Add That Going Back To My Plastic Pile Up Discovery And I Mean It

[00:29:01] Talking So I Think There's Something Interesting There To Be Said For Like Talking About Cloning Like Turning One Thing Into Another Thing And Over And Over That They There's A Breakthrough Apparently In This Plastic Pile Up Situation That Could Also Be A Little Bit Of A Clue To Some Of This Potential Cloning Aspect Interesting Yeah I Like It Any Other Thoughts On This Section Before We Move Into Our Favorite Innies Coming Back All Right Back Again They Are Mark Dylan

[00:29:31] Irv And Helly Arrive At Work Sometime Later All Suspicious About The Circumstances Of Their Return Mark Fills Them In With Dylan Telling Him It Was The Right Thing For Him To End their Replacement Lives Well Irving Is Distraught About seeing Bert In Love With Another Man I Have To Say That That Scene Between Bert And Irv Or Sorry Irv And And Dylan Sorry

[00:30:01] Irv And Dylan Where These Two Characters Are Generally Antagonistic To Each Other They Are Bert And Ernie Right They're An Odd Couple They're An Oscar And What Was Oscar's Roommate's Name Felix They Are They Are An Odd Couple And I Always Thought At First My Season One Read Of Them Was They Tolerate Each Other They Have To Work Together So They're Here They'll Get

[00:30:31] Through Suffering Each Other's Idiosyncrasies But Then When Dylan Has That Moment Of Authenticity And Says You Man I Don't Want You To Go Because I You're Like My Best Friend And Then They're Hugging And I'd Be Sad And Then Irv Reveals To Him That The Way They Shot That The Way They Mic'd That The Way The Dialogue Itself

[00:31:01] The Two Actors That Scene Was Exquisite And It Told Me So Much More About These Two Characters That I Didn't Realize And They Revealed This Extra Depth And Complexity To Both Of Them Individually As Well As To Their Relationship With Each Other And I Just Was Floored By That They Put That In This Episode Was Incredible I I Don't Know

[00:31:31] I Love Irv Being Dylan's Favorite Perk And Dylan Going Don't You Use Those Against Me Leave Them Out Of This Yeah That's What It Was Well And It's A Great Way To Because I Know There's A Lot Of Things That Like That That Clue Into Like Sort Of The Childlike Innocence Of The Any To Some Degree Right But It's Like The Consequence Of Knowledge Is So Well Captured In That Moment Especially With Irv Irv Just Like

[00:32:00] Irv At This Point As In Any Wants To Sever Right He Wants To Sever His From His Pain That He's Feeling Right So It's Like This Extra Layer Like We Get A Chance To See Like You Know You Go Out Mark Trying Like It's Almost Like Severin Is Kind Of Like Suicide Adjacent Right It Feels This Sort Of It's Like It's Like Suicide For Those Who Are Afraid To Die You Know You Just Get A Little Bit Of It And Irv It's Like The Senator's Wife Who Didn't Want to Go Through The Pain Of Childbirth So It's Like A Pain

[00:32:30] Avoidance Thing Right And So For Irv He's Like I Would Rather Not Almost To The Point Where He's Like When He's Saying I Would Rather Not Be Than To Feel This Way Right I Mean And Part Of That Is Is Is Twofold It's One Is The The Element Of Like I'm Sad About Bird But I Used To Be Happy Because I Used To Be Ignorant And Now I Know Too Much And To Know This Much Is A Burden That Is Just Too Much To Bear I'd Rather I'd Rather Be I'd Rather Be Gone And Free Than

[00:33:00] Alive With This With This Knowledge Wow Well And At The Retirement Party So We Know His View On This So For Him To Take That You Know That Final

[00:33:30] Final Option I Think Dylan Knows Exactly What Irv Thinks About What Will Happen Yeah Yeah And Dylan Even Says As Much He The Suicidal Ideations When

[00:34:01] You're Severed You Know Your Memories Are Erased But Yet You Still Have A Sense Of Self You Still Have All Of The Theory Of Your Body And Your Mind You Know So There's All That Stuff Is Still There But Then What

[00:34:31] Intrinsic Qualities Are Being Expressed That Bypass Certain Parts Of Your Constructed Identity Which Is Based On History I A Long Time Ago We

[00:35:18] Big Over Time He Started Relearning How To Be An Asshole And So I Don't Wonder Like When We Were Watching Hellie In Season One Who Was Rejecting This And That That Sort Of Passion And Intensity Of Will That She Was Showing That Part Of Her Character Right Mark Sweet Naturedness That's Part Of His Character As Well And So I Think I Lost The Train

[00:35:48] Of My Thought There Maybe Can Somebody Help Me Exist Outside Of Your Learned Personality It's A Good Question I Know Adam Scott Just Did An Interview Where He With Ben Stiller Do And He Talked About How He Wears A Posture Correction Device When Playing Anymark Interesting

[00:36:18] Because He Wants To Be More Like Confident And Upbeat And Apparently Ben Stiller Saw This He's Like Oh I Want That For real Life So He Bought It I Like Your Everyday Life Will Influence Your Dreams And There's Sort Of That You Know Even Though It's A Different World A Different Part Of Your Brain Maybe Is Functioning It's It's Like So The

[00:37:05] Like Like Like A Bragging Kid Or You Know Really Diving Into Like Imagination And Things Like That So It Might Be The Kind Of Thing That He He He hears A lot From His Children You Know And So There May Be Some Influence There And Like You're Saying With Like Hellies Sort Of Her Passion For Whatever Making Her

[00:37:35] Of Take Charge Person Because Maybe She's Not A Take Charge Person In Real Life Right Like I Mean Maybe That's The Other Part Is Like These Are All Like Almost Fantastical Versions Of Themselves Right That Are Influenced By Who They Wish They Could Be On Some Level And Then Their Innies Get To Do That Yeah I I Think That's Right And These Any Audi Dynamics Are Basically What Make This Whole Show Interesting And It's It's Even More Interesting That They Decided To Just Leave The Audis Out Of It For Episode One So Why Don't We Go Right To

[00:38:04] Keanu Let's Go And And Mr. Milchik Tells Them They Have Until The End Of The Day To Decide If They Want To Stay Their Innies Not Their Audis

[00:38:34] Mark Shares His Audi Experience And Heli Lies About Hers Can Include That And The The Animator Who Did I Forget The Name Of The Animator Who Did That But It's Not Actually

[00:39:04] Stop Motion Okay It's Made To Look That Way And It's The Same Animator Who Did A Movie Called Animal Lisa I That Scene With Irv's Head Just Lighting On Fire That's Totally Taken From That Particular

[00:39:33] Christmas Show I Loved It I Loved It So Much And It Is Probably The Most Nefarious Part Of This Episode Because So Much Thought Had To Go Into Reframing These Personalities So To So The Whole Thing Doesn't Blow Up In Their Face How Can We Get

[00:40:03] These Characters Back In This Space And Remain Our Slaves What Was It Cobell Said In Season One He Says She Said Something Like The Best Way To Keep A

[00:40:52] Was Offered Again Come Up Someone Someone Some Corporate Mind Came Up With These Things Like Ooh What Could We Give Them To Make Feel Like They're Actually Humans How About A Hall Pass Would You Like The List Yes We've Fruit Leather Cut Beans Christmas Mints And Salsa Hall Passes Pineapple Bobbing And The Mirror Room As Activities I love The Mirror Room One That They Talk Up But For Whatever Reason They

[00:41:22] Animate Irv Freaking Out Like He's Sweating He's Clearly Terrified Which Adds Just Like That's What I Like About Everything That Happens In This Show Whenever There's Even Something Kind Of Ridiculous Like That It's Like There's Just A Little Bit Of A Boat Weight And There's An Intentionality To It That I Find Very Fascinating Again Going Back To What Can You Trust Why This Isn't For Every Inny That Comes In Here

[00:41:53] Would Not Know That There Was Ever An Uprising Or Was There Anything Of That Nature Because The Inny Is Basically Starting Fresh So I Mean It's It's A Fascinating You Know Ploy And It's Like And Just Everything Makes Me Nervous On This Show And I Love It Nothing Makes Me More Nervous Than Pineapple Bopping Oh My Gosh I Don't Do It Don't Do It She Basically Cuffed Like She She Basically Cuffed When She Doing It Because The First Shot We See Of Her

[00:42:22] Hands Are Bound Behind Her Back And I Was Like Oh That's A Little BDSM Weird And Little Bad Right Like Fruit Leather

[00:43:04] It's

[00:43:34] As Deal With This Anthony You Can Think About It None Of This None Of This Sounds Good I'm Going To Forgo The Snacks And Go To The Hall Of Mirrors And Just Yeah Yeah And Again That That's Looking Like Torture So Is So Is The Being You Know Trying To

[00:44:05] The Hall Before Why Do They Need Hall Passes Now Right And The The Way That They Subtly Make Fun Of Each Of Them Like With Dylan Going Crazy In The Snack Room And Even His Little Face Afterwards I That Excited About Perks But I Think You're Right John That There's A There's A Definite Under It's A Milchik Kind Of Thing It's Smiling On The Surface But Underneath There's This Very Insidious Very

[00:44:34] Dangerous Institution Organism Something There That You're Getting All Of These Subtle Warning Signs To Not Don't Poke The Bear Don't Poke The System And Then There's Just No Reason The Building Has To Acknowledge The Water Tower That's Right Water Tower And Also I Think It's Just It's An Exaggerated Critique Of Actual Corporate America Totally A Company Virtue

[00:45:04] Signaling For Some Targeted Group And Donating To Politicians That Fight Against That Group That Kind Of Thing Right Like There's Something Insidious Going Underneath The Surface Well I Think It Was Coca Cola And It Was One Of The Kardashians And She Was At A Protest And She Like Gives The Cop A Coke Or Something Did You Guys See That One Wasn't It Fresca Was It I Don't Remember What The Drink Or Was Was The Boys Parody I Don't Remember No That Yeah I Don't Know But Anyway It's It's That Whole Kind Of Thing Of Like Look We're

[00:45:34] You We're Changing The World With Uh All Right Uh Can We Talk About The Conversation That They Had After This Whole Thing You Know They've Been Told Their Innies Can Leave At Anytime They Want Their Audis Aren't In Charge Anymore And Also

[00:46:03] Big Emphasis On There's No Cameras Here Plus Guess Who Emphasizes That When They're Like We Have To Whisper Helly R Says Oh But They Said There's No Cameras And She's The One Who Pointed It Out As Well When She Walked In And She's Like There's No Camera Are You Suggesting That Maybe Helly Is Not Severed Is This Not Helly R This Is Helena I'm I'm Convinced On A Second Watch I Am

[00:46:33] Convinced That This Is Helena And I'll Make My Case now All Right And I Think It's Same Thing Eon Pretty Much Said That You Know Completely Disgusted With Her Out But For Me There Were Several Things That Made Her Suspicious One She

[00:47:03] Mentioned The Cameras Twice And Heli Has Been Suspicious Since The Beginning She's Been Really Careful About Everything She's Been Really Calculated In Her Planning And All Of A Sudden She's Not A Thing About Her The And That's Such A Tool Right Like If You Knew That You Had That Much Power On The Outside That's Such A Tool That's Such A Marketing Chip With Management Why Wouldn't You Tell Your Coworkers If You Were On A

[00:47:33] Mission Three Is That She Acted Like She Was Recounting A Story From A Long Time An Inning Because She Just Woke Up Right So This Would Have Been Hours Before She Experienced Her I Mean Irv Is Pounding On The Elevator Doors Like He Was Pounding On Bert's Doors Right He Like Cut Like That Right Probably An Hour Before She Experiences He's Like Oh I Think The Shirt Was Maybe A Save The Gorillas Who Knows

[00:48:03] Some Nature Show I Just Kind Of Her Being A Bad Liar Sure Well But Why That's One Element Of Here's The Thing Is She's Fresh Out The Elevator That Means Like To Your To Your Point She Just She Went From Making A Speech Yeah And Outing Everything To Coming In And Then And Then

[00:48:33] Having In That Span Of Time Going All Right I'm Going To I'm Not Only Am I Going To To Not Say What I Did I'm Going To Come Up With This Other Story It Seems Odd I Mean It Just Seems Like Of All Like Everybody Was Coming Out Even I Mean Dylan Is Still Upset About His Belt Right Right So It's Like Yeah So So It Mean Could Be

[00:49:12] Which Any Is The Is The Biggest Problem To Send Back Right Okay For Whatever Reason Mark Is Important And He's Always Been Important And Why I Want To Put A Flag In That Just Right Why Why Is Mark And I Think About That All The Time And Especially At This Episode And So There's The Miscaping Sorry to Interrupt You Steve But He Gets What He Wants Nobody Else Gets What They Want But He Gets What He Wants Which Is His Team Back A Team Of Troublemakers Sorry Carry on I didn't Mean No Totally Right And Andy Also Knows

[00:49:42] That There Is Somebody That Is Alive That He Thinks Is Dead In The Other World And Like That's Also A Problem That That Would Be A Complication That You That That's That's Kind Of That's The Kind Of Information That Like That That Trumps Everything That You Throw In There So It Would Make Sense

[00:50:12] That It's Like All Right Your Audi Or You You You Have You Know As Part Of This Big Thing We Don't Know We We'll Find Out In The Next Episode I Assume What What The World Of The Audis Is Like At This Point I'm In Charge And So That's An Element That You Can't Have Go Back So I Think That Adds A Little Bit More Credence To That She's

[00:50:42] Audi On The Inside Yeah There's More Too I Think I Mean She's Going Oh You Can Tell us What You Saw Even If It's Bad That Line Got Me And Finally Was Her Conversation With Mark Where Mark Saying Well You Know Miss Casey Is My Audi My Wife And She's Like Oh Well It's Your Audi's Wife And She Keeps Emphasizing This Difference And He Goes Well It's Kind Of The Same It's No We're Not The Same And Then She Takes A Beat She Goes

[00:51:12] We're Not The Same You And I Think It Really Shows That She Lost Her She She Got Out Of Character For A Minute Right And She Corrected I I Agree With That And Also What She What She Does Next When She Says But If It's Important To To You

[00:51:41] She She's Like I'll Help You But She Does It In A Way That She And If That's Where She Was Even In That Sentence Then Next It's Like But Hey If This Is What You Think Is Best And This Will Help Your Out And That That Part Was Such An Abrupt Turn From Where

[00:52:11] That Conversation Should Have Been Going Especially If She Like Oh Kind Of Little Looks You Could Kind Of Read It As Faux Jealousy Or You Could Also Kind Of Read It As Keeping Him Off The Sent Right Right And If She's There Steering And Manipulating Them Subtly To What

[00:52:41] End Why Have These Four Back I Think Because They Don't Know What Happened To The Others And And Here's My Thing I Believe Milchik That There's

[00:53:23] Because They Leave They Come Back And Now There's This Whole Video Presentation That Doesn't Just Happen Is That An Overnight Thing You Can You Get Keanu Reeves That Quickly I Don't Know But The Idea That Everything That's Happening It Was Five Months To Get To That So Why In Five Months Did It Take That Long For Milchik Stuff To Get Into The Office Yeah That's Exactly What Uretha Franklin Said On Our Discord Server Unless Lumen's IT Department

[00:53:53] Is Very Slow Why Is Hello Miss Cobell Still Up Right I Mean He's Got Crates That Are Me Move House It Takes Me Years Side Note The Triptych That

[00:54:23] Miss Cobell Had Up Behind Her Of The Storm Clouds That Was I Noticed That In The Storeroom When Mr. Milchik Takes Dylan Into That Back Secret Room To Look At The Plans For The Visitation What Do They Call It The Visitation Suite It's The We'll Talk About It In A Second But It's The Audi Family Visitation Suite That's It Yeah Let's Take A Quick Break And We'll Be Right Back

[00:54:56] And We're Back So Why Don't Why Don't We Go Right There David And Then I'll Let You Respond First So That You Can You Talk About Your Your Theory Crafting With It Uh Because We Kind Of Talked About The Irv And Miss And Helly Scenes You Miss Huang Invites Dylan To Mr. Milchick's Office Apologizing For Not Who

[00:55:25] Apologizes For Not Hearing Him At His Needs He Shows Dylan The Audi The Design For The Audi Family Visitation Suite And Asks Him To Keep It A Secret From The Others Out Of Jealousy Dylan Returns To His Desk And The Four Innings Start Working So David Yeah What's Your Thoughts Um I Was Just Talking To Somebody About This The Other Day About It's A Strange Context But We're Talking About

[00:55:55] Secret Police And Neighbors Ratting On Each Other And Nextdoor.com Yeah And This Idea That How Do You Incentivize Your Neighbor To You Know How Do You Recruit Somebody To Rat On Their Neighbors And It Textbook Of Your Wife's Name You Know And He Knew

[00:56:25] That He Already Had A Prior Knowledge That Dylan Was Very Motivated By Knowing Who His Kids Are And This Could Be A Thing Where It Never Gets Built Or They You Know They Sort Of Fake Built You Know They Could Drag Corporate Wise They Could Drag This Thing Out For A Long Time But They're Recruiting Dylan To Be Another Pair Of Eyes And Ears On The Floor Right Because You Don't Really Need To Incentivize Him To Stay That's Kind Of He Seems To Be

[00:56:55] All Plan He He's Good At It Right He's Good At Macro Data Refinery Right So To Add This Other Incentive Suggests Yeah It's Another It's A Different He's Recruiting Yeah But Steve Answer Me This Question Is Gretchen Real Does Dylan Have A Wife That's A Great Question Or Is She Even Gretchen Right I Mean Doesn't Matter Right He Doesn't Have To Be Honest With Them About Any Of This Right

[00:57:25] Especially If They're Not Going To Actually Make This Visitation Wing And The Visitation Wing Is Just A Carrot And Even If It is A Real Thing You Can Bring Anybody You Want In There To Play You Can You Right To Play Your Family Yeah The College Theater Majors Are Going To Get A Lot Of Work In This Town Because I've Watched A Lot Of Spy Dramas And Read A Lot Of Spy Books That's Good Recruitment If

[00:58:06] Caught Up In Your Own Lies If You Only Get Caught Up In Your Own Shoelaces So To Speak So Go Ahead Well And I Had A Question For You Anthony Because You Mentioned That Your Daughter In The Past Has Some Color Theory Knowledge And Stuff I Would Love To Get Her Take On

[00:58:36] Opinions I Will Definitely Ask Her That I Just Wanted To Sort Of Lean Into John's Theory Crafting Which I've Been Thinking About Here Because It Hadn't Occurred To Me Before That It's Actually Helena We're Watching And Not Heli Are Right So This Is Kind Of A New Concept For Me So I'm Piecing This Through The Family visitation Center Is The Perfect Perk Or At The

[00:59:06] Perk If I Can Be Alliterative For Dylan Right 100% And Then This Whole Ruse With The Fake Team It Could Have Been Just Like A Carrot Stick Thing With Mark Like They Were Eventually Planning To Bring Back The People Anyway But They Wanted To Make It Seem As If Mark Won Won This Little Round Yeah Right Intensifying It Yep They're Not Sure If Irv Is Going To Stay

[00:59:36] Or Not Right I Think It's Possible That They're Waiting To See If They Can Incentify Irv No Attempt Is Made To Incentify The Person Who Tried To Commit Suicide The First The No Attempt Is Made To Try To Recruit Hellie And It Could Be That They Think Well There's A Romance Brewing Maybe That's Enough But I Think It's

[01:00:06] I Think It's Telling That There's A Specific Attempt To Incentivize Both Mark And Oh Shit And What Way To Incentivize Irv Maybe Is To Bring Back His His His Lover From Out of Retirement His Lover From Another Husband All Right Flash Flash Theory Mark W Says That

[01:00:44] And So What's Different About This Team This Team Hits Quota You know Dylan Is a Good Macro Data Refiner Mark Is a Good Macro Data Refiner Going To Your DNA Theory The Four Humors During The When They Visit The Perpetuity Wing The Voice Over Of Egan Is About The Four Humors Yep And By Various

[01:01:14] Percentages Of These Humors And In The Macro Data Refiner's Handbook Which Is At The End Of The Lexington Letter Which You Can Get Through Apple Books Man The Marketing Tie In This Is Wild I Was Listening To The Official Podcast A Little Bit The Ad The Host Red Ads That They Are So Weird Because They're For Other corporations It's It's Freaky Anyway The In There They Talk About The Four Different Humors And That You're Refining

[01:01:44] Those Into That So If I'm Starting To Get Convinced Of Your DNA Cloning Theory Thing Here John That They're You know If A Person Or A Cell Or Some Part Of Is Made Up Of These Humors Then They're They're They're Doing Some Sort Of Cellular Level Refinement David This Is Great Because This Is Leading Right Into My Theory If You

[01:02:14] I'm Not A Shambolic Rube I'm Actually A Professional Podcast If You Google Severance Sorting You Will See It Pull Up The Four Categories You Can Put The Numbers Into Those Are W O F C I Have This In Our Theory Crafting Channel On Discord As Well Okay So That's It Lines Up Yeah With Woe Frolic Dread And Malice Which Were The Four Humors Yep Outlined By Kier But

[01:02:44] Weirdly On Their Terminals There Are Five Buckets There Are But If You Click Into Any Of The Buckets You Get Those Four Items Okay Okay So I Don't Know I Wonder If It's Different Souls Are You Playing The Game Like There Isn't They Didn't They Make A Macro Definement Game I Don't Know I Didn't Do That Okay All Right I Think There's A Game Out There On The Internet Somewhere So Also To Create The Parallels With DNA There Are Four Nucleotides That Make Up All Of DNA

[01:03:13] And So If Anthony You You Mentioned The Cold Harbor Location And I Actually Saw Somebody Online Say Cold Spring Harbor First So I Don't Want To Take Complete Credit But Cold Spring Harbor If We Add The Spring In The Middle And I Think It Could Be A Reference To Both Of Our Things Cold Spring Harbor

[01:03:44] Is The Laboratory In Which Watson And Crick Gave Their Presentation On The Double Helix On Where The Soul Is Being Decoded Like DNA Was Decoded In The 1960s That's Where I'm At And I Don't Think I Led Into That Properly Cold Harbor Is Written On The screen That Flashes That

[01:04:14] Has Miss Casey's Face On It At The end Yeah That's Correct It's Well Yeah And Hard To Know When You See That It Almost Looked Like Cold Harbor Was The Was The Job Title And And The Percentage Was Showing How Much How How How Far He Is On That Particular Task

[01:04:43] I A Lot Of The Email Descriptions Of What's Going On It's A lot Of Stuff That I Already Kind Of Understood Just From Basic Watching Of The Show But What I Found Really Interesting Was There's A Complete Copy Of The Macro Data

[01:05:13] Refiners Employee Handbook At The End Of It And That Is Really Interesting So Definitely Check That Out Well I'm All In On The DNA Theory I Don't I Feel Like You've Convinced Me I'm A Little Bit Bummed That The Two Hours Of Research I Did On The Civil War Today I Want To Hear It No Yeah What is Civil War Stuff Because No No No No It's It's It's

[01:05:53] It's Uniform And There Are Troops Standing In The Back With Rifles With Bayonets That Look Like It Could Be From That Era And From A Time Frame If Lewin Was Founded In 1870 That's Only What Six Years After This Battle That Anthony Is Talking About And The Gear Gazette Is Published Since 1893 I Think Yeah Yeah In The Masthead Yeah So This Whole Company At The Mythology

[01:06:24] What Do We Call Antebellum America All Of The Art Work Sort Of The Early Mythology Was Kind Of Really Gave It A Mormon Feel Yeah Yes Yes Yes The Religiosity Of With

[01:06:54] Kier Kind Of Represented With The Old Timey Sword That Fit And The First Thing I Looked When I Did A Search For Cold Harbor It's A Town In Virginia But It's Where A Famous Battle Was Fought And Basically We're Looking At An Uprising We're Looking At Sort Of Trying To

[01:07:23] Reconstruct This Company After The Uprising So There's A Theme There And The More Research I Did On This Particular Battle It Was It Sort Of Remembered As This Major Turning Point In The Civil War But One That Revealed The Inefficacy Of Grant As A General And The Reason Why He Didn't Walk Away From

[01:07:53] A Breakdown In Communication Between Him And His Generals They Were Just Not They Just Didn't Have Any Faith In Him And They Were Following His Orders Which Is Exactly Kind Of When We Go Back To Milchek We See For The First Time We See Milchek Kind Of At Odds With The Institution As A Whole And I Think That There's Going To Be Something Major With Milchek This Season Where He As Middle Management

[01:08:22] Has A Breakdown With And Maybe A Bit Of Disobedience With Upper Management And So Cold Harbor Is Is Meant To Represent An Institutional Breakdown Of I Guess I Mean It's Basically It's An Army In This In This Analogy But I Think That That's What We're Looking At With Lumen We Had An Uprising We're Trying To Reconstruct The Institution Post Uprising Trying To Fix These

[01:08:52] Breakdown In Sort Of The Chain Of Command That Happened Previously And Yet I Think Here We Have Milcheck With The First Little Little Colonel Little Seed Of Discontent As A Metal Manager I Like It I Like It A Lot Also DNA I Think It Can Be Both Though Right And May I Add On That Civil War Painting They Were Still Buried Up To The Neck

[01:09:22] Right Like We Didn't See What Happened After That Yeah But Then He Pardons Them That's What It's Like Kier Pardons His Yeah And Then He Leaves Them Where They Are And He Promises Not To Harm Them Anymore Well They Can Bob For Pineapples He's Definitely Wearing A Blue Colored Uniform Okay One More Thing About This Sorry Yeah No For Sure I Don't Know If This Is Just A Rorschach Test It Could Just Be That They

[01:09:52] That This Show Knows That There's Going To Tons Of Theory Crafting Going Oh Yeah Red Meat For The Red Death And So Let's Just Make Sure We Throw Throw People Off The Scent And I Totally Would Be Fine If That's What They're Doing Just To Keep The Mystery Box Intact Well And There Is Kind Of A Meta Moment Right Where I Mean It It's It's It's Showed Up Before But I Think It's Even More Poignant With This Much Time In Between The

[01:10:33] You Know And I Like So We're Kind Of The Innies Right Because We Don't Know This World At All Like We Only Know Whatever Part Of This World We Get To See So We're Left To Do This Theory Crafting And That's What They Do As Well So I Think That's Kind Of A Fun Idea That To Be Aware That They're That As

[01:11:03] Blue All Right The Blue T-shirt Or The Blue Undershirt By The Way That's That's My Standard I Go And I Go Into Work I Got The The The The Color For Shirt Underneath I Need To Know Do You Have Patches On Your Elbows With Some Yes I Do Okay Some Some Some Of The Tweed Jackets Have Elbows Will Patches Noted Okay Thank You They Don't Take You Seriously In Academia It's Like A Lab Coat Without A

[01:11:33] Stethoscope Come On That's Because There's So Much Like Army Crawling Going On In Academia Is That Like What They Have To Protect Low Crawl High Crawl Yeah The Blue Shirt's Important In Terms Of Plot Because After Mark The Very First Scene When Mark Running Around Yep Standing Behind Him Yes And My Initial Thought Was Oh It's Milchek But If You Look At It

[01:12:02] He's Wearing A White Shirt Yep And Then Milchek Walks In With The Balloons Wearing That Blue Turtleneck And You're Thinking Well Who Was It Who Was Standing Out There Yep So Anyway I Just Thought I'd Throw That Out Yeah No That's A Good One That's A Good Watch Because I Just I First Time I Watched It I Just Assumed It Was Milchek Even After The Fact And Then I When I Went Back To Wait They're Not Wearing The Same Outfit So That Just

[01:12:51] Unsevered Man I'll Carry That Knowledge The Rest Of My Life So There's This Great You Know Melchek You Know Sort Of Coming Straight With Mark And All This Kind Of Stuff But At The Same Time It's A Very The You That Is You Sort Of Silly Statement Like I'm Not Severed So I'm Going To Remember This The Obvious Statement You Sort of So There Was Like

[01:13:21] Just Like Melchek There's Like This Surface Smiley Thing And Then Underneath There's Something That's Very Very Sinister Or Something And So I Just You Know Melchek If He Says That If He Recognizes That Mark Is Not An Animal But He Treated Him Like An Animal Wouldn't That Signal That Melchek Has A Sense Of Morality Of What Is Right And What Is Wrong No That He Is A Value

[01:13:51] I Really I'm Going To Argue With You About This Fair Enough Yeah Did Even Even Is That Contrition He Thought It Was Bad What He Saying Is It's My Pain It's Not Your Pain It's My Pain That I Have To Bear It's A Classic Non-apology Totally Classic

[01:14:21] Non-apology Then I'm Not Even Sure It's Pain I Just Like I He He's Talking To Dylan About The Family The Audi Family Visitation Suite Dylan Says Is This Real Or He Said Does This Mean I Get To Meet My Family And Mr.

[01:14:51] Milchik Says If You Take It At Face Value I'd Say So That Doesn't That Did Not Say Yes That Said If You Take This At Face Value If You Take The Name At Face value Yeah Yeah Yeah Then Yes Yeah Milchik Is Painfully Honest But It's It's I Sedae Speak Totally I knew You were Going to Say That The I Sedae And The Wheel Of Time Have A rule Speak No Untrue Word That Does Not Mean They Can't Lie That Means They Can Mislead You Without Saying Untrue Words

[01:15:21] And So Here Milchik Is Saying Yeah That's What The That's What The Name Means Doesn't Anyway I Just I Just Wanted To Point That Out Like He Really Didn't Make Any Good Promises Here He I Plead Very Carefully With His Words Yep I Think You're Absolutely Right I I Think It It Would It Would Make You It's That Thing Where Somebody Says Hey What Color Is The Sky

[01:15:50] And You're Like Why Are Right But But These Are Just Basically These Are Two Factual Sentences Yeah So I Think You're Right I Think You've You've Gotten Me Off The Point There Which Is Yeah There's There's Nothing In The Statement I Didn't Yell No For No Reason Right I

[01:16:31] There's Something About I Don't Know Why But I Felt Kind Of Sorry For Him About The Well The Title Is The Title Of The Episode Is Is Tells You That That Is An Important Part Of This Of This Episode Right I Mean It's Not Just A Throw A Thing That That After Five Months IT Theoretically Five Months IT Hasn't Gotten To This Screen Which Is Also You

[01:17:00] Can't Change It I Guess He Doesn't Have Admin Rights To This Computer But It's An Important Thing Because He's Everybody's An Experiment To Some Degree If You're Not Egan Even Helena To He May

[01:17:30] Believe That Same Thing That Cobell Was Saying Right You Know Like He's Convinced He's Free As An Unsevered Man He Makes A Point To Say That Right And I Thought That Was An Interesting Thing To Say Because I Mean While It's It's Fine In Conversation It To Me It Felt Like An Exclamation Point In An Otherwise You Know Regular Declaration Like It Did Like So

[01:18:00] I Immediately When He Said I Wonder If He Is We've Never Seen Him Outside Right No Wait We Have We Have We Saw Him With Dylan He Interviewed I Would Yeah Oh Yeah You're Right We Did We Did And I Would Absolutely Allow him Dillon's In Dillon's What We Because

[01:18:30] I Kind Of Hmm Let Me Think How Do I Want To Say This Lumen Had The Wherewithal And The Creativity To Create A Stop Motion Video To To Redo The Break Room To Construct Instead Like They Took Out The Supply Room And They Put Up The Shell

[01:19:00] Or Or Whatever Yeah Right They Can Do All Of That And In Five Months They Can't Reprogram His Computer To Give Him The Proper Greeting So That's The That's One Thing And Then The Other Thing Is It's A Total Flex By The Board Right He Has He Doesn't Have Admin Rights On His Own Computer He Doesn't Even Have Enough Admin Rights To Make The Setting Change Himself

[01:19:30] So It Has To Be Intentional And It Really Shows You That Milchik Is Just As Much Of A rat In A maze As Anyone Yeah Yeah Well And That Look He Gives Miss Wong When He Closes The Door It's Kind Of I Mean There's Just Something She's Not His Creature Right He Didn't Hire Her Exactly And So There's Because So Yeah There Is There's A

[01:20:00] Lack Of Agency For Sure And That Might You Know Because Again We Don't Really Understand Cobell's Backstory All That Well Either We Know That She's A Believer Or She Was Up Until She Ended Up Getting Fired And I Don't Know Where Milchik Fits Into All That Right And So There's I We You Talked About David You Talked About How Like Just Oh This Was A Perfect Entry To

[01:20:29] Second Season With This Much Anticipation Going To It And And I Talked About How My Anxiety And My Level Of Like Apprehension And The Reason Why I Embrace This One So So Heavily And Agree With You So Wholeheartedly Is Because I'm Like I've Got More Questions Than Answers And That's What I Want You Know Like I Didn't There's Nothing Like It's Just I'm Right Back Into This This Absolute Quote Mushy Environment Like It's

[01:20:59] I Just I And It's The Less I Know What's Going On The Better I Feel Somehow That's Wild Because I Was Thinking About This Earlier Today Before We Started Recording And I Was Thinking They Have They Answered Any Question Or Have They Only Posted More Mysteries They've Told Us Who The Audi I Think That Was A Big Reveal Goats

[01:21:29] I Mean Chip I Don't Know There's Just So Many Mysteries That They Barely Paid Off There's No Significant Payoffs And We Were Talking About The PTSD From Lost Right But Yet Here You Are You Are You Are Like You're Settling Down At Your Terminal You've Got A Snack Machine Humming In The Corner Ready To Go And You're Happy As A Glam This Fruit Leather Takes A Long Time To Nash On So You Gotta Watch Something While You Do It

[01:21:59] Well The Thing I Didn't Like About Lost Is That It Was Trying To Somehow Like It Felt Like It Was Untangling Something And Going Oh No No We'll We'll Get It We'll Tell You What

[01:22:30] To

[01:23:00] sort of like jazz epiphany. I'm like, for me, this show does feel like jazz a lot, right? And there's a lot of crazy notes being hit, and there's a lot of things that go, like, how is this working? And how have I been in this song for so long, and I'm not tired of it? Man, it's covered so much range. I thought I was listening to two or three different songs in this time frame, but it's just that same one that's gone from here to there. And so I think that's what I really, really appreciate about this show,

[01:23:27] is that it's, like we talk about time is such a fascinating thing, and not only in the show itself, and like, has it been five months? What's happening on the outside world? How much time? Because like, they have no concept of time, yet I feel like this show does so much with time in real life by being able to construct so much of a narrative, but at the same time, like, well, what was said? What was done? What did we accomplish? We're about the characters, right?

[01:23:56] And I think that's going to move us forward. David, do you want to give us your needle drops quick? Yeah. I was really impressed by the music selection last season, and we have Nevermind the Music as part of the extended Lorehound podcasting network, and so Mark and Nicole have been in my head a lot about the music, and so I've been really paying attention to it anyway. Burn & Coal, 1969 by Les McCann.

[01:24:23] That was our open and running maze music, and then there was a brilliant transition out of that into the Severance theme music, so it was masterful sound editing. Yeah, I caught that too. It was amazing. Yeah, and then we have a song called God Walked Down, released in 2016 by The Allergies, and that's a band that I know nothing about. You don't know anything about allergies?

[01:24:53] Good for you. Yeah, and specifically not this one. Both of these songs to me were just so well-picked and so well-edited and gave me, without being gratuitous, it gave me the right amount of needle drop. I mean, there's been some shows recently where it's just like, oh my God, or it was a movie. I think it was the Wolverine. Deadpool v. Wolverine. Yeah, it was just like, oh, come on. It just got exhausting at some point, and I just used these really smart.

[01:25:21] So I'm going to make sure that I call out the songs in the future. Maybe we'll make a little playlist. I'm sure somebody out there will make a Severance playlist. I've always appreciated Ben Stiller's use of music. Like in Zoolander, he had some really fun opportunities to let music kind of be a comedic punchline at times. And I think he does it in a way that doesn't feel overwrought,

[01:25:50] and it just adds a little punch to it, right? And I like to see that with whether it's contemporary music that you sometimes find in Severance or some of these jazz choices. Again, I looked up the allergies as well. I was not familiar with them at all, but the song just worked so well. It was remarkable, right? And to have something work like that and have it not, you know. And almost to the point where it feels like, I'm like, I think I know the song. I for sure don't.

[01:26:20] But I'm so into it at that moment and so present with it in that scene that I feel like I know it. Yeah. So we're talking about music. Just a note here, one of the many interviews that Stiller gave. At one point in this season, there will be a character who whistles a tune. And I'm about to tell you the name of the tune. So I guess if you don't want spoilers, skip it 15 seconds or whatever.

[01:26:49] One of the characters is whistling. Gordon Lightfoot's The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Edmund Fitzgerald. And he's asked, Stiller's asked directly, isn't that song a meta-narrative for this entire season? And he gives a non-answer. So it could be he was just like, you know, pointing, you know, pointing folks in, you know, a wrong direction or something.

[01:27:17] But the non-answer made me really curious. You know, I hadn't really looked at the lyrics of that song before. But I spent a lot of time listening and re-listening to that song. And I have no idea. I have no idea how it relates in any way to this, aside from sort of the naval theme that Irv has given us in season one.

[01:27:45] I don't really know how it relates. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know the song well, but now I want to go look it up. We did get a piece of feedback via email at severanceatthelorehounds.com if you want to write in from Art the Non-Musician saying, Watch Severance a while ago. Listen to your podcast. Watch Severance again after six months. Notice the bumper music for the first time. How do they make the five notes so creepy, disturbing, pleasant,

[01:28:14] and off-putting depending on the mood of the show? It's really the underlying chord structures. I mean, it's essentially the fifth of the scale, the minor seventh, and then it goes down chromatically until you get back to your fifth. The fifth is like kind of a safe note, but it's not quite resolved. I'm trying to be Mark from Nevermind the Music. I'm failing at it. But, you know, da, da, da, da, da, da. You see how you're inching back down?

[01:28:43] And depending on what kind of treatment you give it with the chords underneath, that's going to sound prettier. Like Eleanor Rigby has something very similar, and that's prettier in there. Or perhaps Melancholy. You're totally channeling Mark right now. I love it. I'm trying. I do have a degree in this. I just forgot most of it. But also in here, you can have it be really creepy, like in the intro. It's very cool stuff, I think. Anybody else have thoughts? Nope. I just...

[01:29:11] You knew what you were saying before, Steve, about Ben Stiller and his use of music. I just... Prior to season one, like when I... I was like, oh, he's directing the show? Okay, whatever. And then like, wow, this show is really good. And then coming into this, I'm like, holy shit, Ben Stiller is going to be one of our great directors. I better never see him make Blue Steel again. He's only making movies now. I didn't get the reference. Blue Steel was the look in Zoolander. He can't act anymore, is what I'm saying.

[01:29:41] Do you realize that? I've never seen Blue... Oh, right. We've never seen... That's been on our list for a while. Yeah. All right. All right. Well, somebody laughed at that, maybe. I got it. Steve, for a while, Zoolander was one of Heather's favorite movies. Yeah, she liked it quite a bit. Yeah, I mean, it's... See, he is... I think he is a very good director. I... And I was an early adopter of Ben Stiller, from the Ben Stiller show. Do you remember that?

[01:30:11] Vaguely. He had his own sketch show on Fox, briefly, and it was... Was that next to In Living Color? Yeah, it was kind of around that same time. And it was Janine Garofalo was amongst it. Bob Odenkirk, Andy Dick. Wow. Those were your main players. And they were... I think this was right before Reality Bites, I think.

[01:30:39] But it was very clever stuff. I was just... I remember thinking, oh, this guy's going to be... This guy's going to be huge. And then he just wasn't for a good long time. And then he found his way back. He was on SNL as like a bit character, briefly. He would play Tom Cruise or a grown-up Eddie Munster. And I just think the... What is it? Which one was it? What about Mary or something?

[01:31:09] Something about Mary. Something about Mary. That whole sort of puerile, that adolescent humor. I'm a kind of a doofus on the outside, but a sweetheart guy. And that whole... And then the Tannenbaums, I think it was, with the family. Like, I just kind of boxed him into this like, oh, he's a goofball comedian. Mm-hmm. Right. Well, yeah. Yeah, growing up as, you know, son of a goofball comedian duo, right? Yeah.

[01:31:38] There's that New York Times interview with him that just came out the other week. It was really, really interesting. It was a really good interview. So, another shout-out to a good source. Will anyone else have any parting thoughts on this? I actually... One thing I want to say is, skip five seconds if you don't want to know the title for next episode. But it's Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig. Yes. I think all of the episode titles are out. Okay. There's a severance wiki that's really good.

[01:32:08] If you just Google severance wiki, and they have all the episode titles. Oh, I'm sorry. They have the episode titles up to number six. I just have one more thought. And that is, I think that we should retire the sarcastic good luck. You know, when people say, well, good luck with that. In favor of the new phrase, enjoy your balloons.

[01:32:32] If you say, enjoy your balloons in a condescending tone, it's just the sickest burn ever. It's the sickest. It's so beautiful. Oh, my God. Yeah, there's also on the paper, there's a whole thing about the Baird Creek Bandit. And I think Baird Creek is where Mark lives in that area. So, Steve, I have a question for you.

[01:32:59] Did you just go to Reddit to do this? Or did you actually screenshot and read it yourself? My second watch today, I had it on my, I guess, 65-inch TV, and I just paused it. And I just sat there. Dogs just watched me read a newspaper, a heavily redacted newspaper on my screen. God bless you, sir. God bless you. Keir bless you. Keir bless you, yes. I'm sorry.

[01:33:27] People within company policy here, sir. I need a trip to the break room. Only I am responsible for my… Listening to Keir, we thank Keir for those four. That's so funny. I thought I recognized that voice. I was like, where do I know that voice from? It's John Wick all along. Yep. All right. Great. Well, before we head out, can you just tell people what you can find on Properly Howard? Yes.

[01:33:53] This week on Properly Howard, you will see our coverage of the film Cocktail. Oh, God. Actually, no. Strike that. This week on Properly Howard, we're going to be covering the movie Moneyball. Oh, good one. Oh, that's a good one. Steve and I both really enjoyed that film. We're both Bay Area baseball fans. And, you know, we cover a lot of crappy movies.

[01:34:22] But every now and again, we will cover a movie. Every once in a while, Anthony picks a movie. So, yeah. No, that's what's going on. And in a couple weeks, we will cover A Few Good Men, which was the theme of the season. Very cool. Very cool. Go check that out in the link. The ghost episode was particularly sublime. Other affiliates?

[01:34:49] Quickly, we'll shift dust finishing up the silo season. I was actually on the finale. Oh, hey. Nice. Yeah, I subbed in for Luke. Luke wasn't feeling well. So, I came in. I binged half the season in like a week so that I could come in and do it. But it worked out. It was a lot of fun to record. And she's got her book club and everything in her Patreon and Supercast. So, check out Alicia's links. You heard her voice. She's been doing yeoman's work over there. So, definitely go check it out.

[01:35:19] Very thorough researcher. Radioactive Ramblings doing their Red Rising book series. Read through. Did you get their... They just gave us their update. Oh, yes. I did see that. But I know generally what they're doing in the next couple weeks. So, I'm just going to say quickly. Also doing Studio Ghibli films. They've got Spirited Away Out. I'm going to always say Ghibli. Nobody's going to stop me. Nobody's going to stop me. I don't care. I don't care. I'll go to the break room as many times as I need to.

[01:35:48] Enjoy your balloons, sir. All right. All right, everybody. Set down. Go watch. Go listen to their podcast. I need some salsa. Lorehounds, quickly. We are doing this. We are doing a Nosferatu one-shot already recorded coming out within the next week. We're just trying to not flood the feed with too much stuff. Agatha Long finale where we did a bunch of game show stuff is coming out soon.

[01:36:16] And we've got Marvel's What If coverage. Yep. We've got plenty of other stuff going. David, you're doing a live show soon. I think people should keep peeled for that. Yeah, yeah. We just got that set up for Star Trek Section 31. I'm going to be a guest over with Ian and Danae on their live stream on Monday the 27th at 12 p.m. Central to record a reaction pod. Well, it's going to ultimately be a podcast.

[01:36:43] But they do live streams while they do their recordings. So they graciously invited me to join them. So I'm really looking forward to catching up with Ian again and to talk about Star Trek Section 31. Very nice. All right, everyone. Be well. Enjoy your balloons. Fucking Rube. This podcast is a joint production of The Lorehound and Properly Howard.

[01:37:10] 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?