"Severance" Thread ; "But I'm her, Mark. I'm her."

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aGDevil2k said:
Reading online it feels split... Slight majority hated the episode and how it was really only 5 minutes of anything that mattered and then a slight minority loved it for the cinematography

I want the story. I don't care about pointless scenes of her driving around Newfoundland
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I just checked, and there are merely 2 minutes, 19 seconds of her drive to Lumon's origin factory and town. This suggests distance and setting and is filled with visual metaphors (ocean paintings were behind her desk before she was fired). You may be having an overreaction to not getting what you wanted, or to want what was in this episode (all of us want to get back to Mark, but if there is going to be some sort of attack on Lumon, Harmony Cobel is essential to that, and we have been needing more on her for a long series time now).

It was not "5 minutes of anything that mattered." I am not seeing much of any "hate" on things like reddit discussions. This episode over the remaining 37 minutes gives us: Where "cold harbor" is, that it is; Cobel's harsh childhood of service to the cult; her extreme precociousness and high intelligence, and creative inventiveness; her mother's doubts about Lumon as being good, transmitted and cultivated by Harmony; that she founded ideas that are now what Lumon is all about (to whatever degree, however perversely, immortality); that she was commanded to accept not getting credit for all this, kept it a secret, and now we have context on why she said to Helena that Lumon should fear her (huge information, as big as any single thing this season; that Sissy helped to enforce Harmony's childhood fanatacism and accepting not getting credit; that Sissy may be responsible for Harmony's mother's death; that Lumon once made money off addiction--which is massive relevance to our world and evils of pharmaceutical corporate power our world suffers from); that she wants information, badly, from Mark Scott/Mark S.

There is a lot more than this as well, and I think because you did not get the episode you wanted most of this may have not been apparent to you. Far from any kind of filler episode, this one exploded with information about Lumon's background and Cobel's massive role and her extant power to possibly attack them, now with Mark Scott/Mark S as a weapon.
 
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I loved the episode for its beauty and wider view of the destruction wrought by Lumon — Salt’s Neck looked like some catastrophe struck the village down mid-stride one day. Everyone left is old or elderly. Like Children of Men took place in a coastal whaling village.

The cinematography and props and sets were tremendous. The drive up the coast reminded me of the tracking shot in The Shining and the trip around the bay to Sissy’s house reminded me of The Birds. The interior of Sissy’s house and Sissy herself (the isolated and abusive religious fanatic) reminded me of De Palma’s Carrie — which was itself an homage to many Hitchcock films, but here to the stunted rooms of Carrie and Norman Bates, and the dead mom’s deathbed maintained, all fixed in time.

Anyway, Cobel being the inventor of the Severance process makes a lot of her behavior in prior episodes make more sense. It appears she may have developed it to overcome her grief at her mother’s death (and if Sissy can be believed, it was suicide while young Harmony was away in the Lumon school).

Now we see that Ms Huang is not an aberration. Lumon has a history of child labor and Harmony, like Huang, was a Wintertide Fellow as a child.

Salt’s Neck was an Lumon ether factory powered at least in part by child labor. The legend is that Kier met his wife while he labored in an ether factory. Now the ether is being used by remaining residents to get high (as it was when the factory was operating — Harmony claimed not to have gotten high on ether fumes since she was eight).

Has Lumon always been about detaching people from their consciousness but did it first with pharmaceuticals and now with tech?

BTW, I only recently discovered that the Lumon office building is a real office building in NJ that used to be the home of Bell Labs. It is the location where Bell Labs discovered the background microwave radiation noise of the universe (considered evidence of the Big Bang and expanding universe and winning the Nobel Prize for physics). Apparently the nickname of the building in its Bell Labs days used to be the “Black Box”.

Here is the Nobel Prize medal:

IMG_5432.png

Here is Kier on the the Lumon wall:


IMG_5433.jpeg
 
Here is Kier in the ether factory (The Courtship of Kier and Imogene, which was apparently replayed between Harmony and her friend as children workers in the Salts Neck ether factory):


IMG_5434.jpeg

Physicists used to refer to ether as a stand-in for whatever they assumed filled the empty space of the universe — from Wikipedia for a quick hit:

“Luminiferous aether or ether … (luminiferous meaning 'light-bearing') was the postulated medium for the propagation of light. It was invoked to explain the ability of the apparently wave-based light to propagate through empty space (a vacuum), something that waves should not be able to do. The assumption of a spatial plenum (space completely filled with matter) of luminiferous aether, rather than a spatial vacuum, provided the theoretical medium that was required by wave theories of light. …”

An 1887 experiment undermined belief in luminiferous aether, and later Einstein’s theory of relativity mostly dispensed with the assumptions about aether filling the universe and he postulated that light itself is a particle with wave-like nature (the beginning of quantum mechanics). But Einstein sort of redefined ether as the physical qualities of the universe (as curved space time) rather than dispensing with the concept.

Anyway, no idea if any of that inspired the writers of Severance but the Company being named Lumon and in the former Bell Labs building seems like it has to be inspiring some details, including the wave lengths of severed minds.
 

Step Into the Real-Life Lumon Industries, the Breakout Star of ‘Severance’​

Bell Works, the setting of the hit serial for Apple TV+, is now a tourist attraction, drawing fans to the architectural wonder.

www.nytimes.com

From Bell Labs to Lumon Industries: The Building That Brings ‘Severance’ to Life

Bell Works, the setting of the hit serial for Apple TV+, is now a tourist attraction, drawing fans to the architectural wonder.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

——
Weird timing that this article was published today …
 
an0maly said:
I just checked, and there are merely 2 minutes, 19 seconds of her drive to Lumon's origin factory and town. This suggests distance and setting and is filled with visual metaphors (ocean paintings were behind her desk before she was fired). You may be having an overreaction to not getting what you wanted, or to want what was in this episode (all of us want to get back to Mark, but if there is going to be some sort of attack on Lumon, Harmony Cobel is essential to that, and we have been needing more on her for a long series time now).

It was not "5 minutes of anything that mattered." I am not seeing much of any "hate" on things like reddit discussions. This episode over the remaining 37 minutes gives us: Where "cold harbor" is, that it is; Cobel's harsh childhood of service to the cult; her extreme precociousness and high intelligence, and creative inventiveness; her mother's doubts about Lumon as being good, transmitted and cultivated by Harmony; that she founded ideas that are now what Lumon is all about (to whatever degree, however perversely, immortality); that she was commanded to accept not getting credit for all this, kept it a secret, and now we have context on why she said to Helena that Lumon should fear her (huge information, as big as any single thing this season; that Sissy helped to enforce Harmony's childhood fanatacism and accepting not getting credit; that Sissy may be responsible for Harmony's mother's death; that Lumon once made money off addiction--which is massive relevance to our world and evils of pharmaceutical corporate power our world suffers from); that she wants information, badly, from Mark Scott/Mark S.

There is a lot more than this as well, and I think because you did not get the episode you wanted most of this may have not been apparent to you. Far from any kind of filler episode, this one exploded with information about Lumon's background and Cobel's massive role and her extant power to possibly attack them, now with Mark Scott/Mark S as a weapon.
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That was a super post. 😂

Like me, other people didn't like this one because it was just so slow. I personally don't watch shows for beauty. I don't have the patience

And I was reading BlueSky not Reddit
 
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Great post, nyc. I have noticed the "Previously on Severance" bit they run before the episode gives bits of insights from ALL shows. Watch this one with care. Yes to The Shining reference of the car on the road being followed. This show has many references to Kubrick films. Found this fan made thing:

 
The lowest rated episode on IMDb by far at 6.7. Previous low this season was 8.2 and the lowest last season was 7.7.

But obviously for the believers there was still a lot to enjoy.
 
aGDevil2k said:
That was a super post. 😂

Many people didn't like this one because it was just so slow

Why write so much to come after someone for disliking an episode? It's like you took it personally.

And I was reading BlueSky not Reddit
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I had nearly the same thought while reading the post, and I wasn’t the target, ie “what’s your deal?”

Some folks like to get geeky with Absalom! Absalom!; some folks would rather read Candide. No yuck on either yum is necessary, and saying “that one didn’t grab me” isn’t cause for personal criticism.
 
Healing said:
I had nearly the same thought while reading the post, and I wasn’t the target, ie “what’s your deal?”

Some folks like to get geeky with Absalom! Absalom!; some folks would rather read Candide. No yuck on either yum is necessary, and saying “that one didn’t grab me” isn’t cause for personal criticism.
Click to expand...
Abasalom! Absalom! fan here.

Surely there is something in madness, even the demoniac, which Satan flees, aghast at his own handiwork, and which God looks on in pity.
 
nycfan said:

Step Into the Real-Life Lumon Industries, the Breakout Star of ‘Severance’​

Bell Works, the setting of the hit serial for Apple TV+, is now a tourist attraction, drawing fans to the architectural wonder.

www.nytimes.com

From Bell Labs to Lumon Industries: The Building That Brings ‘Severance’ to Life

Bell Works, the setting of the hit serial for Apple TV+, is now a tourist attraction, drawing fans to the architectural wonder.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

——
Weird timing that this article was published today …
Click to expand...
Oh my gosh. I believe I had meetings there one time in the late ‘90s.
 
Ok good episode with some moments for sure...
1. So Irving is gone...for good? Seems like it on the surface. Lumon was clearly going to try to kill him.
2. Dylan resigned? I thought the outie had to approve. But given his outie said he should just quit, maybe we assume it happened? Because he handed in his key card and didnt have it on the elevator.
3. Miss Huang is sent away.
4. Milchick gives the best TV line in recent history, perhaps. And then maybe has some internal conflict about Mark?
5. And the last scene with Cobel and the fire was creepy AF. There's something about Devon that is either sinister or naive. A bit way too obsessed with a sister in law.
6. Cobel says once Cold Harbor is done, Gemma is dead. Is she physically dead or do they just torture and kill that persona and only the Miss Casey is left?
7. Also - they flooded Mark's chip. I thought the intent there was to basically fry it, no? So how is he still able to switch to his innie??? And why isn't he reintegrated?
8. Did Jame come up from the testing floor???? Ewwwww dude is Elon Musk with his impregnation stuff
 
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gizmodo.com

Severance's New Episode Has Its Origins in The Twilight Zone

Apple TV+'s show borrows an episode title—'The After Hours'—and some Easter eggs from a 1960 episode of the classic series.
gizmodo.com gizmodo.com

Cobel: “She’s one of Jame’s. No one’s to know… Miss Marsha White, ninth floor.”​
​
Guard: “Specialties Department.”​
​
Cobel: “I’m looking for a gold thimble.”​

… Anyone who stopped by another dimension on the way to Kier will recognize the lines almost verbatim from The Twilight Zone‘s “After Hours.”
 
So now I wonder if Gemma goes into cold Harbor and remains Gemma in there

And that room basically sees if they can kill that part of her brain or personality and the rest stay alive?
 
aGDevil2k said:
I'm shocked more people aren't chatting on this episode
Click to expand...
I have thoughts but have had time to type them up — traveling to Phoenix tomorrow so should have some down time then to do some Severance navel-gazing. :)
 
I watched this Thursday night and was too overwhelmed to respond to it. I deliberately waited a couple of days to watch a second time, and I now think it's not only the best episode of the series, but one of the best I have ever seen from any series. It has elevated this show to the kind of writing we got with the best of things like Succession, and there is no higher level than that. When Milchick used words to verbally slap up and down Drummond (finally, finally!) the writing and artistry and acting of that scene was pure genius. I wanted to scream YES. I just knew that Milchick's earlier "Grow" was self-admonition to assert that he is a human being and not like a severed "animal." The when he is on the frightening phone call with Mark Scott, and the latter says "Work is just work, right?" Milchick, emotionally struck like a bell, then turns towards the photo he has chosen for his office wall of an iceberg. That motif meaning is always: there is far more below the surface. Milchick gets the courage to allow Mark Scott to proceed with whatever plan he is about. Cobel knows Milichick knows this is about what is up, and says "if he smells chicanery..." Well he does, a burning smell, and Milichick is not interfering now. He is not telling Drummond where to hunt him down.

All the scenes with Dylan (s) plural and his wife were agonizing, and both Dylans are aligned now against Lumon.

Helena only eats the whites of eggs, with surgical care, in the most antiseptic and bizarre meal since the ending of 2001.

Now our heads must explode with that scene where father finds Helly with the map memorization task. Where is that going?

Cold Harbor success with the file kills Gemma. What does that mean?

I wonder if pursuit of Irv is ahead in some way, even though Burt's act of humanity suggests Irv is free. Irv does not feel free when he leaves, so maybe he dangerously tries to get back to Burt. Irv could tell Helly was not Helly; can he tell that innie Burt was not really severed? I have no idea on that one.

The writing in the scene with Cobel, Mark Scott and his sister was also incredibly brilliant. Now we end with Mark S arriving (!!!) at the birthing center, and his last words in this new world was "She's alive!"
 
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