Severance

[Anonymous]

Agree with the poster regarding the cinematography of this episode. The house scenes and the pre-severance days used lighting and surrounding environment scenes was such a distinct, noticeable contrast. The windows in particular with the wood frames in the bathroom compared with Mark’s condo and his blinds-what a difference.

Can someone help me out with a scene? You know the one right before Mark goes in to their bathroom to give her the injection and he’s in the hallway putting on a shirt after getting it from a drawer in the wall? What is that hallway? It doesn’t look like it would be their house, it doesn’t look quite like MDR either, does it?

Also, maybe their house is the condo and because of the lighting and the way the scenes are shot, it feels like a completely different house.

[Anonymous]

OMG, just learned that the dentist in Severance is Robby Benson, I did not recognize him! My 80s crush from Ice Castles and Ode to Billy Joe, the sensitive beta male, is potentially an evil torturer. 💔💔💔💔

[Anonymous]

I too thought the blood drive was how Lumon picked Mark and Gemma. The references to the birthing cabins, Devon bringing up the CEOs pregnant wife, pretend midwife cover - all this makes me think this is about genetics, cloning, designer babies. Data refining almost looks like genetic code selection process. The weirdest part about the show is usage of dated tech equipment. Almost like the show takes place in 50s or 60s. Maybe they time travel when they go down the elevator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree with the poster regarding the cinematography of this episode. The house scenes and the pre-severance days used lighting and surrounding environment scenes was such a distinct, noticeable contrast. The windows in particular with the wood frames in the bathroom compared with Mark’s condo and his blinds-what a difference.

Can someone help me out with a scene? You know the one right before Mark goes in to their bathroom to give her the injection and he’s in the hallway putting on a shirt after getting it from a drawer in the wall? What is that hallway? It doesn’t look like it would be their house, it doesn’t look quite like MDR either, does it?

Also, maybe their house is the condo and because of the lighting and the way the scenes are shot, it feels like a completely different house.

I was confused by this scene too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I too thought the blood drive was how Lumon picked Mark and Gemma. The references to the birthing cabins, Devon bringing up the CEOs pregnant wife, pretend midwife cover - all this makes me think this is about genetics, cloning, designer babies. Data refining almost looks like genetic code selection process. The weirdest part about the show is usage of dated tech equipment. Almost like the show takes place in 50s or 60s. Maybe they time travel when they go down the elevator.

Is the old looking tech only in the severed floor and spaces? I sort of figured they had new fangled tech inside a 1989s box — the severed people don’t know any different. And it’s part of their weird pathetic choices for the severed people like why they all dress like it’s the 1980s with suits and heels. (I feel so bad for Helly having to wear panty nose and for basically 100% of her life!)
I think the religious cult stuff will figure in some way but not totally putting it together. Harmonry’s character will bring that in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I too thought the blood drive was how Lumon picked Mark and Gemma. The references to the birthing cabins, Devon bringing up the CEOs pregnant wife, pretend midwife cover - all this makes me think this is about genetics, cloning, designer babies. Data refining almost looks like genetic code selection process. The weirdest part about the show is usage of dated tech equipment. Almost like the show takes place in 50s or 60s. Maybe they time travel when they go down the elevator.

The fertility clinic also had the Lumon logo and the creepy dentist guy was there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The drowning question reminds me of Helena and Irving and the pineapple bobbing. The levels of entrapment highlighted in this episode with the different floors and maze like hallways seems so ominous to me and less humorous. The satire is sharpening.

The scene with Cobel looking at the sign listing mileage to another town earlier this season makes me think she cannot physically leave. The never-ending hallway is a highway. The tension comes from being physically and emotionally trapped and tethered by, to, and for Lumon. I wonder if the writers might be playing with the concept of revolving and revolutions. Driving, running, thinking in circles. The tiny disruptions create a ripple effect and the more Lumon seeks to control these effects, the greater in frequency (both in number and in type) the disruptions will occur. Interesting choice to have a Russian literature professor and a professor of history at the center of the series.

Is the goal compliance and ego breaking? Is it suppression and oppression? Is it an artificial sense of purpose for those who’ve experienced so much excess at the top that in order to experience human emotion they resort to extreme abuse not realizing they will fail to achieve desired results?

The Eagons fail because they fail to understand Mark and Gemma. They study and test a couple of humanities professors rather than learning from them. The Eagons cannot see the forest for the trees. The failure is to interpret finding the x Mark and buried Gemma as a transaction rather than a story.

Meant to add but they think they do.

Gemma/Mark’s connection begins while donating blood and sharing the titles of student papers they are reading. Two people donating blood to save humans spending that time reading and supporting their students while connecting with one another is in sharp contrast to the Lumon world. A little bit of suffering for the benefit of all is far more enjoyable than Lumon’s grotesque approach of suffering to scale. One doesn’t need to create cold harbor to understand why she answers the question with drowning.

Why does she answer the question with drowning?

[Anonymous]

Yeah and isn’t drowning also basically suffocation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I too thought the blood drive was how Lumon picked Mark and Gemma. The references to the birthing cabins, Devon bringing up the CEOs pregnant wife, pretend midwife cover - all this makes me think this is about genetics, cloning, designer babies. Data refining almost looks like genetic code selection process. The weirdest part about the show is usage of dated tech equipment. Almost like the show takes place in 50s or 60s. Maybe they time travel when they go down the elevator.

The fertility clinic also had the Lumon logo and the creepy dentist guy was there.

I wondered if lumon botched her IVF attempt (like gave her a placebo trigger) and stole the embryos for their own experimentation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I too thought the blood drive was how Lumon picked Mark and Gemma. The references to the birthing cabins, Devon bringing up the CEOs pregnant wife, pretend midwife cover - all this makes me think this is about genetics, cloning, designer babies. Data refining almost looks like genetic code selection process. The weirdest part about the show is usage of dated tech equipment. Almost like the show takes place in 50s or 60s. Maybe they time travel when they go down the elevator.

The fertility clinic also had the Lumon logo and the creepy dentist guy was there.

I wondered if lumon botched her IVF attempt (like gave her a placebo trigger) and stole the embryos for their own experimentation.

Pp here, sorry I realize this doesn’t make sense. I mean implanted her with a dummy embryo so she wouldn’t get pregnant but stole the embryos for their own purposes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I too thought the blood drive was how Lumon picked Mark and Gemma. The references to the birthing cabins, Devon bringing up the CEOs pregnant wife, pretend midwife cover - all this makes me think this is about genetics, cloning, designer babies. Data refining almost looks like genetic code selection process. The weirdest part about the show is usage of dated tech equipment. Almost like the show takes place in 50s or 60s. Maybe they time travel when they go down the elevator.

The fertility clinic also had the Lumon logo and the creepy dentist guy was there.

I wondered if lumon botched her IVF attempt (like gave her a placebo trigger) and stole the embryos for their own experimentation.

Pp here, sorry I realize this doesn’t make sense. I mean implanted her with a dummy embryo so she wouldn’t get pregnant but stole the embryos for their own purposes

This would be very easy to do: witness all of the switched embryo cases.

[Anonymous]

Loved this episode.

I am still dying to know if Gemma volunteered for this or was kidnapped or what. How did she end up here?

My interpretation is that every time Gemma walks into a different room, she's severed. So there is a Gemma innie that only knows the dentists office. A Gemma innie who only knows the Christmas card room. Etc. Once an MDR person is done refining the file (i.e. Allentown) the room is created for her to go into. Lumen is trying to develop the technology to take away people's fear/hatred of painful, traumatic things. The end goal is to sell this technology to rich people, so they never need to go to the dentist again - their innie will go. It's already being used at the pregnancy retreat - your innie can go give birth for you. But this is trying to figure out how to sever for lots of trauma/unpleasantness in the same person's life, and they're seeing how far they can push it.

Ms. Casey is something a little different - she's not a Gemma innie but something else entirely. Something maybe Lumen has refined to have control over all the tempers and is a docile, subservient person (to be a wife, worker, etc).

[Anonymous]

- I definitely believe lumon f’d with Gemma’s fertility. My husband thought maybe they offered to help/fix if she came with them and mark did something for them. Consented kidnapping? But when they told her that he’d moved on (and wow telling her he had a kid with someone else must have been a knife to the gut) it seemed like they were trying to separate her from him.

- lumon logos on the blood drive and the fertility paperwork. Apparently the fertility clinic has a German name that translates to ‘boogeyman’.

- I think Gemma is special somehow, that she’s able to have all these different innies - each room representing another different, separate one. I think miss casey is a test on how strong the severance procedure works. There were conversations prior like “how’s it working” and they say “the barriers are holding” (not exact, but something like that)

- I think Bert is way deep involved and probably a bad guy. He may be an eagen, he may have worked closely with lumon (as he states he started way before the severed floors)

- I think the goats are related to cloning, so I could def see the mdr as some sort of consciousness… thing.

Did anyone read the ether type theories? Lumon originally created anesthetic (ether) and are trying to make a flawless anesthetic where you never have to feel any pain, grief, etc.

-adding in to grief, going back to my top point, I think they took Gemma but staged her death so mark would be grieving, knowing/hoping he’d join severance and they could learn to mdr his grief. Or something. Lol.

[Anonymous]

Other stuff
-the paper mark is grading is about the levels to which vets with it’s will go to alleviate their grief
-the paper Gemma is grading is about a character who spends the whole book waiting for his death but also within religion

-what was up with saying Ms Corbell was “raised” by lumon?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:***possible SPOILERS below if you haven't watched yet***




Why didn't they go straight to a news station!

They waited so long...poor Dylan hanging on.

I know! The guy kept letting himself get brushed off by his sister. Better yet, tell everyone in the room. Or when they told Helly "two more minutes", no go get on the stage now.

Right!! Ugh why didn't he say it's urgent - and like you said best thing just to announce to everybody there. Tell everyone straight away!

They did not know how limited their time was. We were well aware because we could see what was happening at Lumen.