I’m sorry but if you’re gonna tease “Discoveries are made” as the short description then you should reveal something a lot more substantial than “wow this ancillary character actually invented severance” which ultimately changes very little about our understanding of everything up to this point. It was good but did not deliver on what that type of vague foreshadowing suggests.
1. it’s a pretty damn big discovery, actually. It’s quite literally the first time anyone would appear to have leverage over Lumon. 2. We got pretty big insight into how long Lumon has been doing some sort of business and what some of their child-grooming/cult looks like beyond employees inside of Lumon. 3. They humanized an otherwise irredeemable character and provided depth/purpose to her story. 4. Oh, it was also a really remarkably acted and visually stunning episode of television that not a lot of series are capable of doing on an even semi-regular basis. Every single minute of this series is either answering some small question or introducing 12 new ones. This constant need to theorize and assess every moment, making every episode need to be massive, is the gift and the curse of the show. It makes the people watching more attached but also means no episode or answer is ever quite good enough.
yeah I've read/seen a bunch of stuff that suggests Spoiler: Temper Ricken represents Malice just as Drummond represents Frolic
I love the idea that Ms Huang is severed. She's not the full-on brainwashed kid that the Egans tried to create through their cult with Cobel but instead we get a clip montage of Huang at a regular middle/high school and for some reason she's severed and comes into Lumon as this no-nonsense middle manager in training.
I think she is severed but likely is never let out of Lumon like Gemma/Ms. Casey. They’ve kept Ms Casey there a long time it seems. Maybe Huang was born there as Mark/Gemma’s kid. They were checking Ms Casey every 6 weeks for a pregnancy, but not sure how Mark was involved at that point on the goat/baby procreation scheme. I think they want to find out how to make the innies the permanent psyche and kill off the outie. With Dylan it looks like they want the wife to fall in love with the innie. Then maybe the wife signs up to be severed, and then baby goat miracles happen…. Idk, but there’s more to Dylan’s wife visiting than making innie Dylan happy. Dylan and the rest of MDR seem to be there to support Mark as he looks to be closest to whatever they’re trying to accomplish.
with how desperately Devon wanted to get in touch with Cobel, I think she knows Cobel created the severance procedure.
I mean it seems like no one else at Lumon has any idea; The files were hidden in a trophy in her childhood home, and Devin had no idea who she was until after she stole the baby and innie mark asked why Ms Cobel was at the party. When would she have talked to her about it since then?
I don't think Devon is being completely honest with Mark, and I'm sure other people at Lumon know about Cobel's history there. if there's not more between them and Devon just thinks Cobel is a Lumon employee who almost stole her baby, why would Devon be calling her on repeat like she was while Mark was unconscious? maybe she doesn't know 100% Cobel created it, but she knows Cobel is an expert on the science of it at least.
I’ve heard some theories on time related severances instead of location. I think the weird “Get Out” style interactions between Milkshake and Nat is what people base it on, especially Natalie. People bring that up when talking about Ms Huang being severed as part of a potential internship. Not sure if I buy that though.
in my mind, I thought last week's episode made Ms. Huang's story pretty straightforward in that she's another "Lumen-Youth" similar to how Cobel was.
I feel like some people are driving themselves nuts trying to brainstorm whackier and whackier theories
One thing that lines up. Harmony invents Severance let’s say in her 20s. They spend a decade creating it. Arquette is 56 so that would have put the initial tests around 20 years ago like Fields told us.
I completely disagree here. The sister knows nothing except that Selvig/Cobel was a Lumon employee and not just Mark’s nice elderly neighbor. Her brother passed out from an experiment and Cobel is the only Lumon person she knows or could even think to call.
Hmm should I call this administrative lady who I met once and who wants my husband to write a propaganda book, or should I call the cleanup crew guy who showed up just to gather intel on what happened during the OTC, or should I call my brother’s (former) manager that I kinda had a connection with and obviously had an interest in my brother for some reason Y’all are overthinking things imo
I don't think so. that's just when she answers. Devon is calling her all through the episode and Cobel just doesn't pick up.
It’s been speculated that Mark’s innie is actually who woke up on the couch. I could see it where Devon calls Cobel when Mark wakes up and he’s like “what am I doing in this apartment?” I could also be completely wrong but Devon calling Cobel makes sense if that’s the situation.
Maybe. But that assumes there's been no progress in how Lumon essentially grooms these interns in like 40 years. When they started(we assume) with the Cobels of the world, they didn't have severance available to them. They had to do it through old-fashioned cult mentality brainwashing. I tend to think Ms Huang is a combo of the methods tbh
SIAP but goddamn the model of the baby crib Mark disassembled is called “Cold Harbor”. Probably doesn’t represent death imo…unless your severing through the healing process of a miscarriage
Kinda thinking that each of those rooms Gemma goes to contains a scenario that provokes an extreme emotion or reaction, and the random numbers that MDR sorts is almost like a pseudo EEG generated by those experiences. Once they finish a file or project or whatever, they're generating a profile or an algorithm of sorts on how the severance process can block that emotion. The woman doctor asked Emma how she felt each time she left the room and noted Emma's response.
“Oh my god, so good. My wife’s being held prisoner at Lumon and I just got brain surgery in my basement.”
season finale has got a lot to deliver upon hope it's the 77 minutes as said and not the 44 as stated on Atv
Got chills when it was Jame E and not Milchick behind Helly R while she was memorizing the path. Milchick standing up to Mr Drummond and delivering that final line was excellent. “To put that monosyllabically”… so good in that moment. Is he turning toward the good side? Him getting teary eyed while talking to Mark S was interesting, too. Still missing some of the pent up suspense of S1 prior to its finale, but hopefully this one delivers. I think it will.
Devour feculence was peak, but that episode felt like it ended at 44 minutes when it was written to go 77.
Whole episode just made me feel sad. I like Helena agrees the Egg bar is still covered as fuck. I liked Helena’s plate was a whipping boy aka the severeds. Was oDylan blending a bunch of cucumbers to take with him? The blender was never used, just weird. So was Burt actually severed? If he was does he have any innie memories now? He told Irv “We never used words like that” and I took that to mean when they talked on the severed floor. But the train conversation confused me even more. Dylan G breaks my heart, I just want him happy. Big props to Milkshake, the infuriating pretentiousness of Drummond telling the black guy he talks too smart. Devour Feculence was sweet but his monosyllabic bar was great. I also think we can put to bed the milkshake/Eustice are severed theories with both crying that episode. I always note when we have the distinctive backgrounds. In the forest Cobel/devin were blue (innie) and mark red (outtie). Would lend credence to Devin being up to something but I just think she’s a worries sister honestly. What if cold harbor doesn’t kill Gemma but fries her brain completely? What if all the goat watchers could be former testing floor people?
I'm not sure where he saw it but my brother said some media entity that reviews shows based on language, nudity and violence said that the finale was going to be pushing the limits beyond what any Severance episode has done so far.