This. They are selling a life without suffering inclusive of death. But yeah still a number of ways they can take it
She tells Mark to ignore the cut on the back of her head because “her bird pecked her”. Your bird didn’t do shit Rebeck.
Tbh having part of severance being your feelings while dying doesn’t really hit for me. They don’t seem like the kind of people who give a shit about your feelings if you’re drowning. more inclined to think it’d be testing if traumatic experiences of one of your situational innies bleeds over into your outie.
It’s sci-fi so they can make any rules they want. One thing that doesn’t work for me with the drowning/death is how do they turn it on? We’ve always seen structure, either a physical barrier or remote override for the chips. I don’t want to be having a breath holding contest in the pool with my buddy Dylan G and having the chip take over thinking I’m drowning.
Some observations from the clinic waiting room. Always assumed the Lumon drop logo was water, is it a blood drop instead? Do we think there’s something to Gemma not having a middle name and that they don’t reveal her last name? She writes “Scout” on the paper if you watch her hand but again interesting they don’t show the name. Do we know her maiden name? She doesn’t say it when she meets Mark, don’t think anyone ever calls her Prof _____. (Her and Mark as early 30ish profs calling the college student “child” seemed off as well). Lumon is woke and gives “they” as a pronoun option. The form asks for their “Province” not their “state”, also asks for “country” and “postal code”. Then very bottom is cut off but has: This part is cut off (confidential voicemail message): Why would they need to coordinate a voicemail message? This show doesn’t put something weird like that half cut off for it not to be a clue. The quick cut shows is the clinic waiting room is the same as the room she lives in now. I’m sure just to show it’s a Lumon built facility, not the exact same room she lives in.
Why are we still stuck on trying to figure out where this is on our Earth? I think it is pretty clear this is not our world, but a similar copy with different geographies, technology, etc.
God fucking damnit. So Allentown was Xmas cards room and was Marks “Freshman Fluke”. Earlier flashback they joke about Gemma “hating to write thank you notes” (me too sister). She has the miscarriage. Then the heart breaking scene of Mark drunkenly taking the crib apart on Xmas eve, they wash dishes together in the dark and silence, then sit quietly on the couch Xmas morning in front of unwritten thank you notes. How many of those notes were for a present for a baby that’s not coming? That’s why Mark broke the record on that file, it was such a traumatic memory (I’m sure one he relives drinking quite often) that the “humors” were so strong they jumped out at him. Fuck. And can we take a second to dream of Mauer getting his head bashed in? He’s clearly a sex pest between eye fucking Gemma at the clinic before meeting her and his rapey ass Xmas song. Also his delivery of the “I love you” and the “I don’t think you heard me” is 100% the same delivery/tone milkshake uses to feign happiness with MDR. Also this dumb mother fucker. Picks out “Death of Ivan Ilyich” but 100% doesn’t understand the novels point. Opening scene Gemma’s paper is “themes of religious cover/salvation” and Mark hit her with the “woah, spoilers” because that’s what it’s actually about. Dumb fuck Mauer “let me guess, Ivan dies.” He’s just another inbred dumb ass Lumon lifer, just an actor.
All historical references are references to our real world history. All location references are real places in our world today. All songs/TV shows are real world references. The Great Lakes are in their paintings. Don’t see where the Planet X theory would come from. Understanding where they’re actually living helps us know Lumon’s influence. Is this just a company town like Hershey? If so, why a province? Keir was a part of the civil war and the company was founded at its conclusion. Were they a part of the south and had to flee to Canada? Do they have so much influence they’re their own sovereign territory within the US/Can? As their stop motion video implies, are they one of a number of Lumon countries spread throughout the world? When an entire show about mysteries purposely keeps a location mysterious, there’s something to it.
doubt it it’s just present day on earth in a timeline different than ours. Something has obviously happened that it’s not the USA as we know it and technology has either evolved differently or it’s kind of a Cuba situation with what they use vs everyone else
I am trying to say the same thing. The point though is that none of this is important to try to figure out or think there is some huge clue in trying to figure out the where or when of everything. They have changed it all with the likely intention of making it unimportant. I am willing to guarantee we never get clarity on the where or why any of these things are different than our world.
You are doing the thing that I have done before that I won't allow myself to do again, overthinking every little thing. None of this is going to matter.
sorry, I disagree with this as well. It’s pretty important to the show to see why Lumon has the pull and why Kier exists
Are we talking about the same thing? Nothing I am saying here prevents those questions from being answered. You think the geography (exact location of where they are) is important or why some technologies may appear different to what we have and that this will be answered for us? That feels like trying to figure out why alternate spider-verse's are the way they are.
I think it’s important to learn why Lumon has the power they do. A rung or two down I’d say is learning why Kier or whatever the state they live in exists. Of absolutely zero importance is where on the map they are. We know it’s the USA. Whether it’s NJ/Pennsylvania or the Midwest or in what we know as Canada I agree doesn’t matter at all
Yes, so I am not sure where you got that I was saying anything different from what I was saying. I was arguing that those trying to figure out where things are are spinning their wheels. Things like State versus Provence are likely not going to matter. Why the screens look like old terminals and yet they have modern cellphones and old cars is likely not going to matter.
This is a good way to put it. The “where” itself doesn’t matter. The “why” it’s where it is, that’s the point. Also, my guess is the UP. No one knows what it is or why it’s even there. You know for a fact that the US Gov would give that away to Bezos in a heartbeat.
personally, I think the old cars and stuff is just to give it a creepy/not normal feeling. BUT, if there’s an actual reason I would want to know
guys its a waking hellscape populated by the absolute worst humanity has to offer and is so terrible that people openly welcome surgical brain implants just to forget for a little while that they're stuck there. It's clearly present day Ohio.
I always took it as a play on a small town with one giant corporation dominating the city like Fayetteville and wal mart
would make sense considering Dylan G's comment about the local basketball coach always underachieving and doing less with more
She seems amazing. Can’t wait to see what she does after this show because she’s not allowed to leave. Sever her ass. I don’t know enough about music/chord theory for majority of this. His breakdown of alternating pleasant/distressing chords to fuck with our heads before each episode starts is cool though.
Something floating around in my head. Maybe Cold Harbor isn’t Gemma drowning but Mark losing Gemma? So the trauma is losing a loved one. Also pretty clear on rewatch Gemma went to Lumon willingly that night. She didn’t know what she was really signing up for though.
Ok, last one, saw this on Reddit. I’ll spoil it because it might be a pretty big twist. Involves the ID numbers on a couple of the files Spoiler Gist is when Mark worked on the Dranesville file the number next to % completed was Gemma’s chip number. Now on Cold Harbor the number next to % completed is Helly R’s employee ID number. https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/s/4wvZAV0RSg
Oh I like the idea of a different mark innie going to cold harbor and then mark s from mdr refining his own emotions or something
Would be wild if we found out some days they are actually different innies that we just haven’t seen yet.
Yeah we have no explicit confirmation that they are the same MDR team we see every single day. Good call out. Spoiler we’re going to drive ourselves insane trying to figure this show out and I’m cool with it.
Could be a legit spoiler below. Reddit link. Seems like a detail that was very hard to spot, but could be a big plot point/spoiler that I haven’t yet seen brought up. Spoiler https://www.reddit.com/r/severence/s/31kollx4cz
I'm sure I'll end up wrong but it seems they are testing the idea of just severing yourself from normal shitty parts of life and the final one is death.
My theory: Spoiler This is what Lumon advertises. But they are trying to get the innies to be the permanent psyche in my opinion. Then they are introducing the innie to the outtie wife/husband who gets super attracted to them. Then they try to make that person’s innie the permanent psyche too. And they want babies out of it for some reason. I think Ms. Huang is Casey and Mark’s child. That’s as far as I’ve gotten. At first I thought they were trying to give the outtie partners the innie psyche of their loved ones but that’s too shallow I think.
My death take is that Lumon is doing is likely far more cruel, illegal, and immoral than medically assisted suicide. You as a person essentially die the moment you sever for that last time anyway. Death sever seems likely in the context of the story, I just can’t personally square the reasoning in my own head.
still think they are working on transferring consciousnesses to other bodies, so certain Eagans live forever
If they zap Helena into Gemma we riot. Although I don’t know what the purpose of that would be besides saying we can actually do it.
Ever since the Gemma clone theory got shot down I'm just avoiding theories on the internet and riding the train until we get to the station.