Dev F

Yeah, there's been some dumb social media commentary about Tom Hanks's role being "racist" or something, but the real problem was that Hanks's bit was such an artless regurgitation of his classic original appearance as Doug. They took a funny wordless ad-lib from the original—Hanks backing up and putting his hands up in response to Kenan trying to shake his hand—and wrote it into the script as basically the only joke in his part of the sketch! Seems like a waste, especially at a time when there's lots more they could've riffed on re: the surprising similarities and persistent differences between folks like Doug and Darnell & co.

If I had to title this episode I might have called it "You, Me, and Fields," considering how much of it centered around an absent third party getting in the way of a relationship between the characters on screen, from Irv's death fracturing the MDR team to Helena spoiling the relationship between Mark and Helly, even to Milchick bridling at Drummond's criticisms of his kindness reforms by insisting that he instituted them "because I'm not Harmony Cobel."

"Reading the text" is a term of art in literary criticism. It means "interpreting." We're saying the same thing. Except for this: A reading/interpretation is not a "theory." It doesn't depend on the creators of a work exactly spelling out whether it's right or wrong. Finding meaning in, say, the works of Shakespeare doesn't come from looking up what Shakespeare said in interviews to confirm what his plays "really" meant. His plays mean what you're able to get out of them, despite the fact that Shakespeare didn't leave behind an answer key. The same thing is true of any text, whether it's a play or a novel or a TV show. Of course, the tricky thing about something like a TV show is that it's a work in progress, so the writers' own opinions are still relevant inasmuch as they might go on to write something later that contradicts a particular reading in the moment. So it pays to be cautious when it comes to unresolved questions like "Is Helly R. really herself or is she Helena Eagen?" since we can expect the show to eventually provide an answer one way or another. But if the question is "Did the writers intend for this episode to reflect the overarching themes of the series or did it just happen accidentally?" it seems silly to assume that the episode means nothing until and unless the writers spell out their thematic intentions—something most writers are reluctant to do, because it's kind of tacky to parse your own subtext. But clearly we disagree on this point, so I'm happy to leave it at that.

No, it's called reading the text. I would have no interest in a show that was so mind-numbingly literal that you couldn't assume the subtext meant anything unless they confirmed every implication in completely literal terms. I mean, I'm not making an outlandish claim about how Severance is secretly about the dangers of a fiat currency or something. I'm seeing a through line about how a powerful corporation mythologizes itself and offers disingenuous promises of rewards to manipulate its white-collar workers . . . in a series that's all about how a powerful corporation mythologizes itself and offers disingenuous promises of rewards to manipulate its white-collar workers. Identifying in this episode the sorts of thematic threads that have been woven throughout the entire series is the exact opposite of jumping to wacky, unjustified conclusions. It's much wackier, I'd argue, to insist that the writers just wanted to write a cool episode in the wilderness with no regard for its deeper meaning, only to accidentally plug into the series' most important recurring themes.

Irv and Helena were just talking until seconds before he grabbed her and started screaming for Milchick. He didn't start drowning her until Milchick was there to witness it. They could've been under pretty comprehensive surveillance and it wouldn't have changed anything. Though, for the record, what I'm imagining is happening is that a) the environment is more idiot-proofed than the innies are led to believe, such that they're not going to freeze to death or fall through the ice or whatever, but it's real enough that there's nothing to prevent a crazy unforeseen event like one innie trying to drown another in the pond (in the same way, as I mentioned, that it didn't think to protect against an innie in the office trying to cut her own fingers off or hang herself), and b) part of idiot-proofing the location probably entails some monitoring of each innie's location and maybe their vital signs, so even when they're on an unauthorized walkabout Lumon security is assured that they're not starving to death or in cardiac arrest or something.

You can't think of an in-story reason why Lumon would want the innies to initially feel alone and isolated, with no authority figures around to protect and guide them, to undergo a terrifying and mystifying journey, and to then be reunited with a smiling Mr. Milchick in spotless white furs welcoming them back into the loving arms of the company? The environment was carefully controlled. Obviously they didn't think one of the innies would threaten to murder his coworker, any more than they thought having a paper cutter on the Severed Floor would result in Helly threatening to cut her own fingers off. But I don't think the employees were in any real danger of dying from environmental factors; Lumon let them wander off and have sex and sleep out in the cold as part of the illusion of danger and freedom, but I don't think that, for instance, Irving was really at risk of freezing to death or they would've intervened. I don't find this particular gotcha at all compelling. Saying "We wanted to do X" does not in any way imply ". . . so therefore we chose to do it without any regard for story logic or relevance." And maybe I would feel differently if this episode seemed especially weak to me, but as I've mentioned, I don't see any of the lapses that some folks here are claiming. And it would be pretty silly for me to say, essentially, "Well, I thought the wilderness setting made narrative sense and had interesting thematic resonance, but the writers said they did it because it was cool, so I must be wrong about that." I'm an old-school death-of-the-author literary critic; the text is its own freestanding source of meaning, and creator commentary holds very little sway. I should also note that outside our little corner of the internet, this episode is one of the most highly regarded in the history of the show. On IMDb, it's currently the second-highest rated episode of the entire series, after the S1 finale. So I don't feel like I'm out on a limb in my defense of its quality.

As someone who quickly tired of Lost because of the random shit like the polar bear and smoke monster, I find these comparisons pretty baffling. It's not random at all for Lumon to send their restive MDR team on a carefully controlled outdoor adventure that seemingly rewards them with a few days of freedom while actually making the outside world seem dangerous and undesirable and reinforcing Kierian dogma with spooky morality plays. Lumon's intentions could hardly be more straightforward.

Sorry, it's been a while since I've seen the season 1 finale, so I forget exactly what it established about Irving's background. But there are pretty strong hints that Irv has military training; people have called attention to his use of military time—saying "eleven hundred" when the other characters would say "eleven o'clock"—and his comment that he brought Rickon's book to Mark instead of Milchick because "I thought it best not to break the chain of command." I'm also seeing that an earlier draft of the season 1 finale did confirm that Irv was in the navy, when Irv explores his outie's home . . . He opens the closet - we recognize some of his LUMON SUITS and then on the floor is a MILITARY TRUNK with a lock on it. Realizes he’s got his keys in his pocket... pulls them out and sees a small key that looks like it might fit... He tries it and the trunk opens. Inside he finds a folded up ARMY BLANKET. He pulls it out and a SMALL PHOTO flutters to the ground. Irving picks it up and looks at it: it’s a photo of IRVING as a YOUNG MAN with his FATHER, both in NAVY UNIFORMS... . . . but in the finished episode, it's just a old photo of his dad in uniform.

We already knew that from the Overtime Contingency, right? And it doesn't seem like a huge technological leap; we all have computers in our pockets that are capable of receiving communications and commands regardless of where we are. I suspect that most of the specific limitations on the technology have less to do with what's technically feasible and more to do with security considerations—making sure that severed employees are isolated from non-Lumon outies or any other elements of the outside world they're not supposed to know about before bringing their innies online. So it's not that it would be impossible to control the chips from nearby, it's that it would be a security risk for the technology to be accessed that freely. I suspect that Lumon had more control over the environment than the innies knew—that there were safeguards in place to make sure they didn't fall through the ice and drown or slide off the side of a cliff. It also may not be a coincidence that the employee they placed in the most apparent danger was Irving, whose outie is a military veteran and has presumably undergone survival training. So Lumon may have placed him in those situations knowing that he was instinctively equipped to handle them without hurting himself. ("Your outie is strong. [. . .] Your outie is splendid and can swim gracefully and well.") It's a combination of a reward and a hazing session. It's meant to make them feel honored, scared, thrilled, and morally chastised all at the same time. I think he's pissed because she's the boss's daughter. If an actual innie were to burst out laughing, it would be an innocent emotional reaction, but Helena knows that these lessons are designed to keep the innies in line, so she's wilfully pissing all over Milchick's efforts.

Wait, when did that happen? During the get-to-know-you game, Mark has a memory flash of seeing Gemma's photo during the OTC, and at the end of the episode there's a flash cut from Mark doing data refinement on his computer to a different computer screen showing his efforts somehow updating readouts related to Ms. Casey, but there's no indication that Mark himself is having the kind of memory bleed-through we see in this episode. I think we were obviously meant to wonder whether it was a dream or illusion to begin with, but by the end it was pretty clearly something that was happening in the real world. Why would Milchick need to expose Helly to save her life if she weren't actually drowning? I assume they just tell their outties where to go and then activate the innies when they're all in position. That would explain why they're all split up at the beginning, because Lumon would want to make sure the outties weren't in contact with one another. All of the above seems to be reading more weirdness and ambiguity into the series than I think it's actually giving us. I find it pretty straightforward compared to most mystery box shows, and to me none of it really feels like nonsense they're just throwing at the wall.

The premise doesn't posit the existence of a separate organ of consciousness, just separate sets of memories that presumably inform the same fundamental consciousness. In a basic Cartesian sense it's the same "self," in the same way that a person with amnesia doesn't become a different person because they don't remember their former life. The same person/mind/soul/whatever that was remembering is now not-remembering.

That seems distinctly possible, but it makes me wonder where Ovaltine was originally supposed to be mentioned in the episode, because presumably they didn't name the episode that apropos of nothing. Maybe Ovaltine was originally supposed to be one of the new snacks the Lumon Building promised in the Claymation film? It would make sense to name the episode after one of the meaningless perks Lumon added to pacify its rebelling workers. I'm guessing they could just change a setting on the chip so it doesn't activate when she goes down the elevator. Though I'm not sure I think Helly is actually Helena, just because it seems like they're making that possibility so obvious that it feels like a potential red herring. And I can see why Helly herself wouldn't want to admit to her coworkers that she's a member of the family that's keeping them enslaved. One thing it suggests is that Milchick is lying when he says five months have passed, because even the most incompetent or contemptuous IT department would've fixed a message like that if a manager were complaining about it constantly for nearly half a year. It also shows how Ms. Cobel's presence continues to haunt the office even without her presence. Though with the one cut toward the end of the episode from Miss Huang to the "Hello, Ms. Cobel" message, I wondered if Miss Huang in particular is going to serve as the connection to Cobel—either because she seems to be a true Kier believer like Cobel was, because she's in cahoots with Cobel somehow, or because she actually is Cobel. With that latter possibility, I've seen some people speculate that maybe Lumon transferred Cobel's consciousness into the body of a young Asian girl, but that seems beyond their abilities as they've been presented up to this point. But an alternate possibility that seems more plausible to me is that there's some sort of function on the severance chip that Lumon can activate to cause the innies to perceive of potentially alarming individuals as someone nonthreatening. So maybe Cobel has been rehired but demoted and is now working under Milchick on the Severed Floor, but because the chips are now masking her presence, Mark and company look right at her and their brains tell them they're seeing a young Asian girl.

I assume Milchick was lying and Irv's outtie still did want to return. Of all of them, Irv's outtie has the least reason to change his mind because of what their innies did. It might actually be a promising development, if he thinks his innie rebelled against Lumen to track down another employee in the outside world, since that's part of what he himself is apparently trying to do, and he wouldn't know that it's because his innie is in love.

Interesting thought! It would fit with where I suspect next season might be going thematically, which is that just like this season began with a literal funeral and ended with a figurative one, season 4 will begin with Tiff's wedding and end with some figurative grand union.

Just watched the second episode, and two things particularly amused me: In the segment about the Terryology Institute, there's a bit where the dad reads some goofy long random decimal off the invoice the institute sent him, and I immediately recognized it, because one day in high school I got bored in math class and memorized the square root of 8. I guess I guess Terrence Howard must've done some weird math thing that involved taking the square root of 8? (Though one of the digits got messed up at some point, because the square root of 8 is 2.82842712474619, whereas the number the guy reads is 2.82842712374619.) As the child of a librarian, I thought it was funny that the producer tried to get the interviewee in the Leonardo DiCaprio Computer Center segment to say she considered Leo a librarian too and she tried to be amenable, but then couldn't resist saying "or certainly a library staff member," because librarians are very sensitive about letting anyone call themselves a librarian if they don't have a master's degree in library science.