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Apple has released an excerpt of Ricken’s “The You You Are” in both ebook and audiobook form.

Petey’s reintegration didn’t involve removing his implant. Cobel later extracted the chip from his corpse. And then someone ran tests on it; Milchick reported to Cobel that the chip showed signs of reintegration.

Patricia Arquette talks about why Harmony fled right when she was about to get what she wanted. (well, 50-50 chance, let's say.) Tillman gets into the gift Lumon gave Milchick for his promotion, and how Dan Erickson and Ben Stiller approached him with the idea for this storyline.

There was a brief discussion of this in the s1 thread. I brought up the location and @xaxatsaid the show nails the vibe of pre-Silicon Valley tech, back when tech was more based in the northeast. So not necessarily Soviet austerity as 1960s-era Big (American) Tech. IBM, Digital Equipment Corp, that sort of thing. I really think that's Helena. If Helly wanted a kiss there, she would have just kissed Mark. Helena's unsure of herself, so she was hoping Mark would make a move. Also, the specific circumstances of their walk down the hallway -- Helly holding the "Missing:" sketch -- mean it's harder to tell, but she doesn't seem to walk like Helly did in s1. Helena and Helly are both very confident, but Helena on the outside walks in a quietly confident way; Helly has a swagger, almost stomping her way down the hallways. It's most noticeable in how her arms swing as she walks. Probably the most implausible thing about this whole show is how Devon is so awesome but she's married to Ricken who kinda sucks.

There was that time when Natalie was dressing down Cobel and the latter asked if the board was even there, and someone replied “yes” on the speaker.

just doing a scattered partial rewatch. The pilot episode has Irv greet the Macrodats (minus Petey, and before Helly joins) with "Hi kids. What's for dinner", which annoys the other two, and they question the premise of the joke entirely: It's all connected!!!

I love how insightful this blog was:

No, cause pre-heartbreak Irv had no grudge against Lumon and certainly would never try to smuggle information out. I don’t think he even knows where the Exports hallway/down elevator is or what it was before he saw the paintings in full on the outside. It remains a mystery how outie Irv knows about it, though it seems that severance isn’t as total as Lumon would like to believe. He was able to somewhat influence innie Irv by subjecting their shared body to sleep deprivation and a sort of induced obsession with the hallway. My new half-serious theory about the board is that they are corporeal/alive, because they saw Hamilton and that’s how they got the idea to give their Black employees the paintings of Black Kier Eagan. Edit: one other thought: is Gretchen's night job at Lumon? Does she already know Milchick? Because given how Milchick talked to the Hales and Scout in ep 2 -- consistently calling Mark "Mr Scout" -- suggests regular outsiders would never call Milchick "Seth".

The "re-canonicalized" race-swapped pictures of Kier were certainly something. I wonder if Natalie is so far gone she couldn't tell that Milchick's reaction was not gratitude. Because she kinda looks like she might have just a tiny hint of "can you believe these white people?" but it is so suppressed that Milchick certainly doesn't feel comfortable expressing his true feelings. Mammalians Nurturable is so much creepier than O&D ever was. Holy shit. Are these people regular outie/innies? Do their outies wonder why they go home smelling like grass and goats? And what about the guy who dresses up as a goat down there? Presumably he wears normal work clothes down and up his elevator, but still. WHOA, the outie family visitation wasn't a lie???? And Gretchen wasn't even a fake wife??? Wow. Helena getting chauffeured makes total sense EXCEPT it's a big contrast to poor outie Helly from the pilot trudging to her car in the outer edge of the parking lot. Again, very obvious the "Helly's outie is an Eagan" idea came up relatively late in season one and they didn't patch everything up seamlessly. Anyways, that parking lot showdown with Cobel and Helena was amazing. Helena is stone cold. Hahaha, it's amazing Lumon even thought about retinal afterimages. I'm glad Reghabi made it out of s1 alive but I'm real scared she won't make it out of s2. Just for narrative, it would be unsatisfying if Drummond goes out like Graner did, after all. Wait, is she pouring a salt circle??? Is reintegration literally techno-witchcraft? ... oh, it's magnetic fillings? Wow, our boy is reintegrated!!!!! I really appreciate the show moving the plot along and instead of stalling. Is there any significance to doing the credits in black-on-white for the first time?

Outie Dylan on why he likes pocket doors: "Well, you're, y'know, doing your door thing and then when you're not needed, you can just --" Saliba: "just tuck yourself away." Dylan truly believes in a severed lifestyle.

re the question of whether it's Helly or Helena down on the severed floor in s2: this Reddit post (2 min video) is fascinating, hinging entirely on the different tones heard in the elevator (and sometimes away from the elevator). (Edit: sorry, I forgot, this video has some spoilers for ep 2) One little thing: in the extreme close up on Dylan during his "don't go" speech, Zach Cherry twitches his eyebrow a little bit. It's amazing; I don't think I could do that on command for a thousand bucks.

This video (6:34 long) at https://topekastar.com/ was originally a teaser for the show before season 1. Shot from the POV of a nameless innie on the severed floor.

Helena was probably right to say the Eagans don't fear anyone. They have at least one senator (state senator?) in their pocket. The license plates of the state have an Eagan saying on them. Even Devon thought contacting national reporters would be more productive than contacting the police. Also, in that free ebook released back in s1, there was a whistleblower and she was killed ASAP. The discussion in that ebook between the reporter and editor also said a different newspaper tried to run a story about Lumon and got sued into oblivion. The Eagans do seem pretty untouchable.

Well, my longstanding objection also includes: why put Helly in the Break Room? She's severed, she doesn't know anything about anything! Tell her the Break Room is a time-out room or something. If they ever needed Helly for live PR purposes, it'd be great if she could say the experience was awesome, and she wouldn't even be lying, she just wouldn't know that her severed experience was different from every real severed employee. I think that was Rebeck who said that? The Ricken cultist so off-putting even Ricken finds her a little off-putting?

Maybe to show this isn’t merely a company town but a company state? Except everyone has full-screen smartphones. Mark has one, Milchick has one, and so on. Those and the severance procedure itself do seem to be the only technological anomalies in the world of the show. (Well, the MDR computers are custom made for the show to look vintage but have built in anachronisms.)