Jump to content

Type keyword(s) to search
Multiple Screenshots In Posts

S02.E07: Chikhai Bardo

juno

By juno
in Severance

Recommended Posts

Orff99

Orff99

This show did a remarkable job of portraying pregnancy loss and infertility. There is clearly personal experience in the writer's room.

Two things jumped out at me.

First, the doctor talking about what Gemma is "siring". That is an odd description for a woman, and even more so an infertile person. Men sire, women birth. And she doesn't seem to be pregnant in there. Perhaps the "siring" is providing her eggs, for others to birth - like the women in the innie birthing center. I sure hope that they're not being inseminated by Mark... as collected by Helena the one time... and maybe the second time. I'm not 100% sure we're back to Helly.

Second, Selvig being a Lumon soldier and her position in the "outie" world being lactation consultant. Her advice was sound. So maybe she provides that service to the women giving birth to what Gemma has "sired" - and maybe those women aren't breastfeeding, or there are children not being born from women, which means they would need replacement milk, and the best options are either formula or....

goat's milk. Truly. The best natural alternative to human milk, for human babies, is goat milk. It's nurturing.

Mammalians nurturable.

Maybe the nurturable mammals are not the goats, but the babies born from Gemma's eggs (and maybe others). The goats are raised for their milk to nurture the human babies.

We heard "they're not ready yet". Not the goats - the babies.

  • Like 4
  • Mind Blown 2
  • Useful 2
seank941

seank941

13 hours ago, Affogato said:

I was always taught that you cannot sign away your rights, as much as people would try to make you think you can.  You can disclose after an NDA, you just lose the benefits detailed in the contract. You cannot sign a contract to make yourself a slave. 
 

Are the outies signing their innies into slavery? If everyone has an in ie for dental work I suppose they won’t want to think about it

I don't know how the Severance legal system works, I'm just assuming they have slightly different laws based on things like the OTC. Either way, there are legal ways to harm outie Gemma as well. Mark definitely should've been fired by now, and I'm assuming they get some housing benefits as Lumon employees.

 

3 hours ago, Affogato said:

Yah. The innies do not have autonomy and choice. Helly, in particular, makes it clear. Her outie dresses her like a baby. She cannot quit. ( her outie can’t either, but she doesn’t know that.) severing creates a separate person. What are your responsibilities to that person? If you choose to quit they die. 

To be clear, I absolutely believe that innies are separate people. However if you are the type of person that doesn't, who cares about them?

Seeing Gemma's experiences, it actually brings up some new questions about the innie personality. If you only use your innie to go to the dentist or a few unpleasant tasks, what are they actually like? The MDR team works 8 hours a day for almost the entire year, and they are still basically teenagers. How long would it take for a normal person's innie to even become a child?

I'm also curious how the chip would work in a normal person. I actually like going to the dentist, and sometimes you need to answer questions while you are in the chair. I also know people who enjoy filling out Christmas cards, and corresponding with relatives, even if they are thank you cards. Are there settings for the severance chips?

  • Like 1
Affogato

Affogato

50 minutes ago, seank941 said:

I don't know how the Severance legal system works, I'm just assuming they have slightly different laws based on things like the OTC. Either way, there are legal ways to harm outie Gemma as well. Mark definitely should've been fired by now, and I'm assuming they get some housing benefits as Lumon employees.

 

To be clear, I absolutely believe that innies are separate people. However if you are the type of person that doesn't, who cares about them?

Seeing Gemma's experiences, it actually brings up some new questions about the innie personality. If you only use your innie to go to the dentist or a few unpleasant tasks, what are they actually like? The MDR team works 8 hours a day for almost the entire year, and they are still basically teenagers. How long would it take for a normal person's innie to even become a child?

I'm also curious how the chip would work in a normal person. I actually like going to the dentist, and sometimes you need to answer questions while you are in the chair. I also know people who enjoy filling out Christmas cards, and corresponding with relatives, even if they are thank you cards. Are there settings for the severance chips?

We saw Helly wake up. Panic. Fear. Anger. They would not be prepared for dental work. Detrimental in a plane crash. And it would be abusive even if never seen. So this has something to do with the balancing of the emotions, dread to frolic. The MDR team have fairly lmited experiences, too. 

  • Like 1
arc

arc

2 hours ago, Affogato said:

We saw Helly wake up. Panic. Fear. Anger. They would not be prepared for dental work.

The thank you cards experiment raises two issues. First, that innie isn’t a blank slate, because she would have to know personal details to write thank you cards. Secondly, Lumon must have just implanted a bunch of fake memories for that innie, because that’s a fake husband there and she’s writing cards for gifts she never actually received, and that’s well something beyond the mere memory editing they’ve shown so far.

If Lumon wants to commercialize severance for more than just the innie-outie 9-5 split that we’ve mostly seen (besides Gabby), they probably have plans to do something more advanced than the “outie is the original persona and innie is wiped clean of personal memories” scheme that rules on the severed floor.

  • Like 2
Starchild

Starchild

7 hours ago, aghst said:

Except the version of Gemma who attacked Dr. Mauer and tried to escape was Gemma, not Ms. Casey, who's the Innie.

But as soon as she ascended in the elevator trying to get out, she turned and was docile, obeying Milchick and turning back without being forced to go back.

Gemma knows she doesn't want to be there, has a life she wants to return to.

 

Oh yeah this hadn't occurred to me before.

When the outie descends in the elevator to the severed floor, they become the innie.

But when the innie descends even further down in the elevator to the testing floor, they become the outie again.

Interesting.

  • Like 2
FoundTime

FoundTime

On 2/28/2025 at 7:06 PM, AheadofStraight said:

We just rewatched and one random thing I noticed. When she was doing the thank you notes she was using her left hand and her handwriting was abysmal and she is clearly not left-handed. No idea if that means anything lol 

Oh, I hadn't thought of it that way. I just figured that by the time you got to thank-you note #150, your handwriting would be pretty ragged 😅

  • Like 4
seank941

seank941

I know this episode was about Gemma, but there have to other people down there too, right? The experiments are almost useless if you only have one test subject.  I guess they could test people one at a time, but they seem to be in a hurry.

This sort of brings up another question I was thinking of: are there any other companies with severance type of projects? I can't imagine other companies not trying to capitalize on such a profitable technology.

  • Like 5
Affogato

Affogato

(edited)
10 minutes ago, jacehan said:

I don't think it's clear that the Gemma was saw was her Outie. Considering we saw multiple personas in different rooms, couldn't it just be essentially Gemma S., her default innie, while switching to Ms. Casey on the severed floor is just another room persona?

It could be we are not seeing multiple personae. We are seeing severing of memories and negative feelings, but not a loss of what makes her an individual person.  The one in the hall is the same person. She has been told this is an experiment, but it goes on forever and she is tired of it. This contrasts with  Miss Casey, who is a severed person as we know them. 

Edited by Affogato
  • Like 2
Dev F

Dev F

(edited)
21 hours ago, Affogato said:

We saw Helly wake up. Panic. Fear. Anger. They would not be prepared for dental work. Detrimental in a plane crash. And it would be abusive even if never seen.

That makes me wonder if it's possible to fork the severed memories of a person with multiple innies. That is, could you give one innie a general orientation session so they at least understand what severance is and that they'll be doing some sort of work for their outie, and then copy those memories to a bunch of other innie identities instead of starting each one with a blank slate? That would add interesting new wrinkles to the question of severed identity.

Edited to add: It occurs to me that this potentially offers an explanation for questions like "How did Lumon get the MDR team into place in the middle of the wilderness for the ORTBO session?" Instead of making their outies walk into position and then activating them, or puppeting them around zombielike in some way we've never seen before, you could conceivably fork the innies into a separate memory track, have them walk into position, and then return to the original fork, so that from their perspective, they suddenly jumped into position without ever traveling there.

Edited by Dev F
  • Like 1
  • Useful 1
ombre

ombre

30 minutes ago, Dev F said:

That makes me wonder if it's possible to fork the severed memories of a person with multiple innies. That is, could you give one innie a general orientation session so they at least understand what severance is and that they'll be doing some sort of work for their outie, and then copy those memories to a bunch of other innie identities instead of starting each one with a blank slate? That would add interesting new wrinkles to the question of severed identity.

Edited to add: It occurs to me that this potentially offers an explanation for questions like "How did Lumon get the MDR team into place in the middle of the wilderness for the ORTBO session?" Instead of making their outies walk into position and then activating them, or puppeting them around zombielike in some way we've never seen before, you could conceivably fork the innies into a separate memory track, have them walk into position, and then return to the original fork, so that from their perspective, they suddenly jumped into position without ever traveling there.

That is what I have been assuming. 

  • Like 1
jacehan

jacehan

2 hours ago, arc said:

But she wants to see Mark again. Most likely it is the real Gemma down there.

I mean, Mark S. also wants to find Gemma. She could easily have been told a (false) story about Mark as motivation to keep her compliant. Because I don't know that what we've seen of Outie Gemma would be. (I suppose we haven't seen that much, but still.)

  • Like 1
Affogato

Affogato

(edited)
1 hour ago, Dev F said:

That makes me wonder if it's possible to fork the severed memories of a person with multiple innies. That is, could you give one innie a general orientation session so they at least understand what severance is and that they'll be doing some sort of work for their outie, and then copy those memories to a bunch of other innie identities instead of starting each one with a blank slate? That would add interesting new wrinkles to the question of severed identity.

Edited to add: It occurs to me that this potentially offers an explanation for questions like "How did Lumon get the MDR team into place in the middle of the wilderness for the ORTBO session?" Instead of making their outies walk into position and then activating them, or puppeting them around zombielike in some way we've never seen before, you could conceivably fork the innies into a separate memory track, have them walk into position, and then return to the original fork, so that from their perspective, they suddenly jumped into position without ever traveling there.

The pregnant woman with the coffee machine seemed to be her outie, like Gemma, but had certain differences. She wanted to name the child one way, but her husband wanted another. This was very much like the Gemma goes in a room episode. Gemma was herself but when she left she didn’t remember what happened in the rooms  that seems to be a room protocol.  

we’ll see. It is probably a ‘protocol’ that allows them to reset chipped people say an hour, or sleepwalk  

I wonder if the older innies have been reset. Remember the Coup? And the MDR unpleasantness? 
 


 


 

Edited by Affogato
  • Like 2
Dev F

Dev F

3 hours ago, ombre said:

That is what I have been assuming. 

It definitely seem possible given the way the technology has been shown to work, now that we know that the chips support multiple innies. I did realize a potential hiccup, though, which is that there are instances when it seems like Lumon would've probably used the forking technology if it's a standard option.

For instance, after the OTC debacle, it seems like it would've been prudent to fork Mark's innie before bringing him back online, in case their gambit to get him back to work failed—which is exactly what happened when he sabotaged the new MDR team. Then Lumon could've returned to the fork point and brought Mark and his old team back as if they were all returning from the OTC together, with Mark retaining no memory of Lumon surrendering to his pressure campaign.

It's a fun idea, but on further reflection it might open too much of a can of worms.

  • Like 1
seank941

seank941

I hope the show doesn't decide to have multiple innies for every character. I want to like that idea, but I worry it would take away from the characters as we know them. I understand the idea of separating humans into the four tempers of Kier, but if that's something the show wanted to sell me on, I would've needed to see it already. 

Something I really like about this show is that Lumon isn't omnipotent. I like that the one variable they never account for is humanity in the innies. I can't even get on board with the idea that love is stronger than severance, because they made such a point of Mark S. and Ms. Casey not recognizing each other. 

I am a little curious why none of Gemma's innies ever tried to fight back. Helly might be extreme, but every member of MDR showed at least a small rebellious side. 

 

  • Like 2
Affogato

Affogato

6 hours ago, Dev F said:

It definitely seem possible given the way the technology has been shown to work, now that we know that the chips support multiple innies. I did realize a potential hiccup, though, which is that there are instances when it seems like Lumon would've probably used the forking technology if it's a standard option.

For instance, after the OTC debacle, it seems like it would've been prudent to fork Mark's innie before bringing him back online, in case their gambit to get him back to work failed—which is exactly what happened when he sabotaged the new MDR team. Then Lumon could've returned to the fork point and brought Mark and his old team back as if they were all returning from the OTC together, with Mark retaining no memory of Lumon surrendering to his pressure campaign.

It's a fun idea, but on further reflection it might open too much of a can of worms.

I think that they have tried things before that didn’t work and may have caused the incidents we saw depicted in the first season in pictures of bloody fights. Also I think that Lumon is almost there and doesn’t want to fail this time. There may be an outside competitor, or it may have something to do with bringing back Kier. 

3 hours ago, seank941 said:

I hope the show doesn't decide to have multiple innies for every character. I want to like that idea, but I worry it would take away from the characters as we know them. I understand the idea of separating humans into the four tempers of Kier, but if that's something the show wanted to sell me on, I would've needed to see it already. 

Something I really like about this show is that Lumon isn't omnipotent. I like that the one variable they never account for is humanity in the innies. I can't even get on board with the idea that love is stronger than severance, because they made such a point of Mark S. and Ms. Casey not recognizing each other. 

I am a little curious why none of Gemma's innies ever tried to fight back. Helly might be extreme, but every member of MDR showed at least a small rebellious side. 

 

Miss casey wasn’t alive much, the time she was with the MDR team was the longest time she was awake. She was mostly alone e, probably cobel and mitchick were her team. 
 

we saw her clock the doctor and try to escape. She probably had done that before.  

  • Like 1
  • Useful 1
Ottis

Ottis

(edited)
On 2/28/2025 at 1:39 AM, Dev F said:

This episode finally crystallized for me how that applies just as much to the show's romantic relationships (something I've seen folks characterize recently as a soapy distraction from the show's real story).

Guilty. And I could have done without the meet cute and the miscarriage and all the rest of the soap opera in this ep. Because it taught me nothing, and part of its point seem to be the trop that the longer a couple is married, and especially if they want children and can't have them, the more they start to come apart. yeah, yeah, we get it.

On 2/28/2025 at 1:39 AM, Dev F said:

And how perfect is it to finally learn that Lumon's mysterious and important work is apparently not about resurrecting dead Eagans or something similarly plotty, but about severing humanity from every unpleasant form of emotional labor, from going to the dentist to airplane turbulence to writing thank-you notes?

Hope it's more than that, because that was apparent early in the first season when we saw that innies did work while outties enjoyed life (though their lives don't seem like much fun to me, and the weather is always gloomy). Expanding that concept to include the dentist is honestly a letdown. Speaking as someone who has had multiple crowns, I get that people don't like the dentist but this massive project is overkill if that's the goal.

On 3/1/2025 at 12:02 AM, Starchild said:

When Devin is arguing with the doctor about what's going on with Mark, the doctor says he's reintegrating. Devin says, "no he isn't, we're not doing that again."

Again? Has he tried to reintegrate before and doesn't remember?

Did anyone else hear this? Or did I just mishear? Or did Mark tell her about Petey and that's what she means?

The show does offer a heavy sense of constant experimentation with many failures and incremental progress. In some ways it's like the Battlestar Galactica theme of "all of this has happened before, and will happen again." I think a lot of what we are seeing are various characters trying to break the cycle.

On 3/1/2025 at 12:13 PM, overtherainbow said:

This was the most unsettling episode of the show so far. They crossed the line from getting vulnerable people to undergo the procedure to kidnapping and imprisoning and experimenting on someone. 

Maybe? I think Gemma had to have consented at some point, otherwise we should be seeing Lumon kidnapping people left and right. The experimentation feels like Gemma is "working off" an obligation or contract of some sort. Maybe Lumon preys on people in despair, and entraps them? 

Edited by Ottis
  • Like 3
seank941

seank941

9 hours ago, Ottis said:

Maybe? I think Gemma had to have consented at some point, otherwise we should be seeing Lumon kidnapping people left and right. The experimentation feels like Gemma is "working off" an obligation or contract of some sort. Maybe Lumon preys on people in despair, and entraps them? 

I have to agree with this. If Lumon was kidnapping people then why go to so much trouble with Gemma? It would be much easier to kidnap single, unattached people. I'm guessing she was promised a child of some sort when she was finished, and now she's regretting her decision. Mark said they decided not to adopt, and in hindsight, maybe that's what she would rather have done.

  • Like 2
tennisgurl

tennisgurl

Poor Dichen Lachman, she can just never leave the Dollhouse. 

I think its possible that Gemma signed up for some kind of Lumen based contract to help her have a baby, but she presumably didn't know about faking her own death or being stuck writing Christmas thank you cards on a loop forever. 

I swear, I about leapt through my TV to throttle that stupid doctor in his stupid sweater when he told Gemma that Mark had remarried and has a daughter, what an utter ***********. Mark and Gemma have been in the same damn building the whole time, missing each other! The drama! 

  • Like 8
Milburn Stone

Milburn Stone

Only got to this episode last night and now there are too many posts to read all of them, but I have read some of them and been genuinely enlightened by them. So thank you. (You know who you are.)

Here's what I got from my own viewing last night, which is pretty simple. They need to make the rescue of Gemma really meaningful when it happens, something the audience will cheer for, and in order to do that, they're making her Testing Floor existence as close to hell on earth as anyone has yet devised or even imagined. I felt like I was living that hell as I watched. Kudos, show! (Not being sarcastic.)

  • Like 3
Milburn Stone

Milburn Stone

BTW, don't know if anyone in this thread or others has given voice to the following epiphany (it's entirely possible someone has), but when they showed a closeup of Helly R.'s heels, Mrs. Stone became sure that the present tense of this show is the 1990s. Kind of fits with other stuff, like the computers, and "Mrs. Selvig"'s car. (If more about the present of the show is revealed in future episodes, don't spoil me.)

Affogato

Affogato

(edited)
4 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

BTW, don't know if anyone in this thread or others has given voice to the following epiphany (it's entirely possible someone has), but when they showed a closeup of Helly R.'s heels, Mrs. Stone became sure that the present tense of this show is the 1990s. Kind of fits with other stuff, like the computers, and "Mrs. Selvig"'s car. (If more about the present of the show is revealed in future episodes, don't spoil me.)

I feel they are designing it so you can’t put a finger on the year, so it won’t look dated 20 years.  But yes, “looks like a pump, feels like a sneaker”.  On one of the podcasts the actress says they really worked to find shoes she can run in. 

Edited by Affogato
  • Like 2
SoMuchTV

SoMuchTV

4 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

BTW, don't know if anyone in this thread or others has given voice to the following epiphany (it's entirely possible someone has), but when they showed a closeup of Helly R.'s heels, Mrs. Stone became sure that the present tense of this show is the 1990s. Kind of fits with other stuff, like the computers, and "Mrs. Selvig"'s car. (If more about the present of the show is revealed in future episodes, don't spoil me.)

 

37 minutes ago, Affogato said:

I feel they are designing it so you can’t put a finger on the year, so it won’t look dated 20 years.  But yes, “looks like a pump, feels like a sneaker”.  On one of the podcasts the actress says they really worked to find shoes she can run in. 

The thing is, though, in multiple episodes, the “outside” characters use some version of a smartphone. Maybe not the very latest, but definitely not 90s. 

  • Like 4
  • Useful 1
SoMuchTV

SoMuchTV

On 3/12/2025 at 9:26 PM, Affogato said:

That was my point exactly. Stuff is drawn recognizably from different periods. 

But, if you’re trying to pin down a time period, technology that exists in the 20-teens-plus would rule out it being set in the 90s. I could go with some kind of time warp thing affecting the innies, but that doesn’t explain the lack of more recent cars in the outie world. 

  • Like 1
Affogato

Affogato

7 hours ago, SoMuchTV said:

But, if you’re trying to pin down a time period, technology that exists in the 20-teens-plus would rule out it being set in the 90s. I could go with some kind of time warp thing affecting the innies, but that doesn’t explain the lack of more recent cars in the outie world. 

It isn’t set in the 90s. That isn’t the point. The point is not that.  You are not supposed to ‘pin down a time period’. Of all the mysteries here, that one isn’t a mystery. 
 

 

  • Like 2
ombre

ombre

When I try to reconcile these things, it speaks to me of a very different globalism. Those big old boats of cars scream 1980's American builds to me. And since cars are a particularly global commodity, every time I get to wondering about this topic I circle back to the question of whether the US is a pariah country to the rest of the world. Excelling in things that Lumon pushes, far behind in things Lumon doesn't care about. 

My thinking is probably heavily influenced by Ben winters's book, underground airline (I *think* that's the title) that creates a version of the US in which Lincoln was assassinated en route to Washington and slavery was just never quite abolished in the US. Most states did eventually, but those that dug in really dug in, so the whole country was tarred with that brush and therefore - in the 21st century - was aligned with the countries that are now keenest on civil rights abuses. Really good book. Came out just when Colson whitehead's underground railroad did, and they were similar and whitehead's book is far more monumental, but I still find myself thinking a *lot* about the modern order that winters describes. 

  • Like 3
Affogato

Affogato

1 hour ago, ombre said:

When I try to reconcile these things, it speaks to me of a very different globalism. Those big old boats of cars scream 1980's American builds to me. And since cars are a particularly global commodity, every time I get to wondering about this topic I circle back to the question of whether the US is a pariah country to the rest of the world. Excelling in things that Lumon pushes, far behind in things Lumon doesn't care about. 

My thinking is probably heavily influenced by Ben winters's book, underground airline (I *think* that's the title) that creates a version of the US in which Lincoln was assassinated en route to Washington and slavery was just never quite abolished in the US. Most states did eventually, but those that dug in really dug in, so the whole country was tarred with that brush and therefore - in the 21st century - was aligned with the countries that are now keenest on civil rights abuses. Really good book. Came out just when Colson whitehead's underground railroad did, and they were similar and whitehead's book is far more monumental, but I still find myself thinking a *lot* about the modern order that winters describes. 

Yes, it is an AU. I haven’t read the book you mention. Interesting idea. 

Affogato

Affogato

I have heard enough people talk about how shows look dated. The ‘80s had particularly distinctive styles, but people are still talking about the fashions in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, too. And flipphones take them out of the story completely. Or, Kier forbid, a gigantic satellite handset. Can barely watch!! The original Battlestar Galactica had telephone headsets and levi jean jackets. so if I was making a show like Severance the first thing I would do is try to design the show to avoid looking dated, and one way is to design your own terminals, which they did, and use old cars, and have people dress in ways that weren’t fashionable at any one time. Just mix it up.  It is a plus if the world looks fantastic, add that it is always winter, and it is its own world, with its own look and its own color scheme. 

I don’t think the old cars mean anything specifically, except that this is a place that used to be more successful when there were manufacturing and mining jobs.  Kier is in the ‘Gas Belt’ and it is rusty, and people drive their cars until the wheels fall out. Dylan wanting to buy a new car would be an appalling idea to Gretchen. I’m guessing the severed people have a house because of the job and that they are paid a good wage by the standards of the area, but I doubt they are well paid.

 

  • Like 1

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...