Severance

[Anonymous]

I am getting a little tired of the work it is taking to follow the plot.

It is like once a week we are given a few crumbs to decipher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hated this episode. Physical and psychological torture for an hour +, no relief or explanation. It felt claustrophobic which I guess was the point.

I felt like this had a lot of explanation, compared to where we've been until now.

I didn’t think so. It was pretty clear Gemma was held on a different floor. Now we know she somehow signed up for it but not why and we know the files are rooms/specific fears but still not how it helps Lumon. The idea of her stuck there is way worse than the severed floor.

No, we don't know that she signed up for it. We don't know how she got there.

She said she signed up as an experimenal test subject with Lumon after the miscarriage. But she may not have known exactly what she signed up for before they hacked her brain.

When did she say that? I missed it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This episode wasn't for me. I feel like we didn't need a whole episode dedicated to what basically amounted to one revelation that I'm not terribly sure changes the narrative much.

I think this changes the narrative a lot, or has the potential to. Cobel is going to align with MDR against Lumon, and unlike Reghabi, she has the knowledge to make re-integration successful. She also knows all the Lumon secrets.

I agree this episode didn't have a lot of action, but it was visually stunning and sets up a promising season finale.

Agreed. I find myself rooting for Harmony now. I think the ether, the town, her backstory, and her reconnecting with the phone call is potentially setting the stage for the finale.

[Anonymous]

I absolutely love the new season. So good!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am getting a little tired of the work it is taking to follow the plot.

It is like once a week we are given a few crumbs to decipher.

SAME. The way people talk to each other is so unnatural, and so obviously to keep the viewer guessing. Whole conversations with references to "it" and no one ever offers any context for what "it" is, and where people behave as if it's completely normal to be cagey about everyday chats. Whole side quests that go nowhere. Like WTF is with the goat room??

I liked this last episode because at least it was some concrete information. Maybe I hadn't paid enough attention earlier, but it connected some dots for me.

I don't mind the mystery time/ mystery place part. I am increasingly annoyed with the refusal to tell-- not even the whole story, I understand about mystery in narrative-- but enough of the story to understand the characters' motivations.

[Anonymous]

New episode.

I'm starting to feel like we're never going to know.

Jame Eagan? I have no idea what on earth he is about, but he's definitely creepy and threatening.

Mark? Seems doomed at this point.

I don't have much hope for this going anywhere good. Like, in four seasons we'll still be hoping Gemma and Mark will meet again or something?

[Anonymous]

This episode was everything. Wow!!!

Milchick came through in that scene! I’m pulling for his character redemption because that actor is crazy talented.

This show has some talent. Wow!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haven’t read a lot of the posts, but, agree that I feel puzzled by what decade it is meant to be set in as well as location. All desolate. Constant winter. Weird light at all times. What are we supposed to be taking away from all of that?

I've entertained the idea that the outies are all actually the first layer down in Severance world, a la The Matrix. So the real world is actually a construct, and not physical, which is why everything is slightly off, it's always winter, etc. But there are a lot of things that also contradict that idea.

I just get the impression that Mark is not a hapless victim of Lumon.

I'm quoting my own post here, but this episode solidified for me that the outie world is a closed world of some type. Lumon is a company town. It appears that Lumon owns an extremely vast amount of land and has different towns under its jurisdiction. I was fascinated by Bert telling Irving that he bought him a ticket for as far as he could go.

I think I'm pretty well off of the Matrix-like construct theory, but the part with the train, when it turned into the hallway that they can't escape/come back through, I don't know.

How did they all end up here? And some of them are at least second generation. Is this just an alternate world, but close enough to ours that we are only now catching on? Is it some M. Night Shamaylan The Village situation? Did they all volunteer? No one's outie talks about leaving, or even about going on vacation or a weekend away. I'm still thinking that the outies are actually all severed and are voluntarily in Lumon land.

[Anonymous]

In the last scene, in the cabin, I wondered if Harmony has an innie and that was her innie that we were seeing looking so evil.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the last scene, in the cabin, I wondered if Harmony has an innie and that was her innie that we were seeing looking so evil.

I interpreted that look as somber, not evil. She doesn't know the current status of Cold Harbor and needs Mark's innie to tell her. She told them outside that if CH is finished, Gemma could be dead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the last scene, in the cabin, I wondered if Harmony has an innie and that was her innie that we were seeing looking so evil.

This seems possible. But unlikely, because why would it be triggered at the cabin and not on the severed floor?

Also, I wonder if we're going to go down a dark tunnel of horrors and SA. I doubt it, but that's certainly possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the last scene, in the cabin, I wondered if Harmony has an innie and that was her innie that we were seeing looking so evil.

This comment made me think that Cobel in the cabin looked like Miss Huang, dressed for Wintertide / Myrtle Eagan School, in that skirt

But I don't think Cobel is severed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haven’t read a lot of the posts, but, agree that I feel puzzled by what decade it is meant to be set in as well as location. All desolate. Constant winter. Weird light at all times. What are we supposed to be taking away from all of that?

I've entertained the idea that the outies are all actually the first layer down in Severance world, a la The Matrix. So the real world is actually a construct, and not physical, which is why everything is slightly off, it's always winter, etc. But there are a lot of things that also contradict that idea.

I just get the impression that Mark is not a hapless victim of Lumon.

I'm quoting my own post here, but this episode solidified for me that the outie world is a closed world of some type. Lumon is a company town. It appears that Lumon owns an extremely vast amount of land and has different towns under its jurisdiction. I was fascinated by Bert telling Irving that he bought him a ticket for as far as he could go.

I think I'm pretty well off of the Matrix-like construct theory, but the part with the train, when it turned into the hallway that they can't escape/come back through, I don't know.

How did they all end up here? And some of them are at least second generation. Is this just an alternate world, but close enough to ours that we are only now catching on? Is it some M. Night Shamaylan The Village situation? Did they all volunteer? No one's outie talks about leaving, or even about going on vacation or a weekend away. I'm still thinking that the outies are actually all severed and are voluntarily in Lumon land.

The civic institutions of Keir, PE, like license plates and the city name, have Eagan imagery. The train was Adirondack Railroad, a real non-Eagan railroad.
So I think that's outside of Eagan control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haven’t read a lot of the posts, but, agree that I feel puzzled by what decade it is meant to be set in as well as location. All desolate. Constant winter. Weird light at all times. What are we supposed to be taking away from all of that?

I've entertained the idea that the outies are all actually the first layer down in Severance world, a la The Matrix. So the real world is actually a construct, and not physical, which is why everything is slightly off, it's always winter, etc. But there are a lot of things that also contradict that idea.

I just get the impression that Mark is not a hapless victim of Lumon.

One other thing in hung up on—has there been any indication of what knowledge or information the innies vs. outties retain? I couldn’t work out that the innies believed the waterfall they saw during their outdoor adventure thingy was the biggest one in the world. They seem to possess some sort of baseline knowledge of the world-mark knew what sex was, and when we were introduced to Hellie, we didn’t see her go through some of start up programming to inform her baseline intellect. I guess I feel like I can’t reconcile that bit. Did I fall asleep at some point and miss something?

Yeah -- I've been wondering about this too.

[Anonymous]

Great episode!