Kirbyrun

When Cobel was done with Ms. Casey, she said, "Return her to the Testing Floor." Which makes me think Casey is some kind of prototype. Then again, that's me taking "Testing Floor" at face value. Given what the Break Room ended up being, it's possible that "Testing Floor" is a hellscape crucible where innies must fight for their own survival.

Helena's whole life is so...proscribed. Restrained. Constrained. And to see herself -- her BODY -- act so freely after being alive for, what, a month? Has to be a shock to the system. I was originally on Team Helly (i.e., I thought Helly was Helly, not Helena undercover), but after this episode, I'm not so sure any more.

Waiting for the Psych crew to show up...!

That's true! It also occurred to me that a severed employee might be considered one who isn't truly invested in his or her job. Like, "We want people who want to be here 100%, not dodging their jobs."

Because the innies have no use for money. There’s nowhere to spend it. The outies get to spend money, money earned by the innies. But the innies are only motivated by what they can experience while at work.

What blew my mind about that scene was that he wasn't bowled over at being outside! But I am hand-waving it away with "He's a man in love on a mission!"

An earlier version of the pilot (someone linked to it here in the Season 1 thread) discusses this a little bit. Basically, the innies are deliberately left with "general world knowledge" and programmed to understand how to use the Lumon computers. Which raises even MORE questions, honestly! But yes -- you just have to accept the premise of the show and run with it.

An interesting conundrum — what if Innie Dylan says, “I quit,” but Outie Dylan doesn’t respect that decision and goes back to work anyway? Whose decision would Lumon respect? Technically the employment contract is with the Outie, who gets paid, right? The innies only have Milchick’s word that they’re allowed to quit/die. Not sure I’d trust him!

Its metrical similarity to “overtime” ( as in “contingency”) makes me wonder if it was a joke/codename for the episode that leaked or was accidentally slotted into place.

The outies could have made them return because they're up to something. And the innies know that deciding not to return means they, in effect, die. So it might be worth it to stick around and hope that between their own skulduggery (trying to rescue Ms. Casey) and whatever the outies are up to that maybe they can somehow get out of Lumon AND survive. Or at least make their half-lives worth something, in the end.

I think it really is Helly and she is ashamed of her outie. She is too afraid to tell them who her outie is. This. The look on her face when she realized what Mark learned/lost…

I'd say it wasn't "just" this. The (rather cold and too-blunt dis-invite) was the straw that broke the camel's back. Louis was clinging to his new life and had it yanked away from him. He's gotta be wondering if he'll be able to keep his job, if his boss/friend will continue being his friend, etc. It's all entangled.

“Look, that teen has a man’s face” is the joke. It’s make-believe. We pretend he’s 17, despite his age in real life, just like we pretend Alice is subject to her father’s rules even though she’s 23 in real life. But whatever. I thought it was an amusing bit. You decided to look up the actor’s age. It’s not worth arguing about. Enjoy your day.

And the actor playing Alice is 23. Young adults playing teens is practically a Hollywood tradition. We go along with the joke. 🤷‍♂️

I mean... Dylan really DID have a full grown dude face.