Does anyone else want to read the ‘Lumon new hire handbook’? What do you need to do to reach their various goals?
My burning question is what separates the severed from the unsevered employees? What determines who is ‘trusted’ and who isn’t? And clearly the technology goes beyond just the separation of severance if Marks’ outie thinks that Gemma is dead. Is Ms. Casey severed?
ETA: Does anyone know how many episodes are supposed to be in the season?
9, I think.
I just started watching this week and I’m all caught up. This is the creepiest, most unsettling show I’ve seen in a long time–and I’m loving every minute of it. The people who say it’s too slow probably didn’t like the first couple episodes of WandaVision either (I loved those as well).
I was disappointed that I have to wait two more weeks to get the whole story–I thought the whole thing had already dropped.
Nine.
I’m of the opposite mind. I’m taking the Willy Wonka approach: “The suspense is terrible…I hope it’ll last.”
MDR office supply requisition: “Send more baseball bats.”
I have the feeling that the season is going to end on a hell of a cliffhanger.
I thought 7 was the best episode yet. The baseball bat, Burt’s outtie speech, the photo reveal…
And the MDE might have been the best 5 minutes ever.
How about that Ben Stiller is the director? I always hated him as an actor. Almost as obnoxious as Jim Carrey.
I had the same thought when it became obvious they were purposely hiding her face. But in retrospect, I realized it couldn’t have been Helly - their outties saw each other in the parking lot in an early episode without recognition.
Yeah, I didn’t even think of that.
I rewatched ep 7 and caught a few foreshadowing instances I missed the first time.
When Mrs. Cobel is chatting with Devon about Mark, she comments how hard it was when she lost her husband and would see him everywhere. She then asks Devon in a pointed way, “does Mark ever think he sees his wife?”
And as Mark is taping the photo back together, his voiceover is describing her: she always sneezed twice, she liked other people’s dogs, etc. He then says “I loved all these things about my wife equally,” mimicking the scene where Ms. Casey tells Irv about his outtie.
Wow, tense episode. And wodda cliffhanger.
Speculation on the code names
Beehive — act as mindless drones? hive mind?
Branch Transfer — change location for triggering severance
Clean Slate — wipe severed memories
Elephant — remember everything?
Freeze Frame — freeze in place?
Glasgow — ???
Goldfish — make forget things after short time
Lullaby — make sleep
Open House — ???
Overtime — (already known)
Also, a waffle party is fucking weird. This show is fuking weird.
At least there were actual waffles. So there’s that.
I’ve been reading the recaps on Vulture, which have been a help for pointing out things that I may have missed. One thing I didn’t put together was that Outie Irving’s paintings are of the hallway to the “testing floor” that Gemma / Ms. Casey went through. The strong implication is that Irving probably has gone through it himself at some point.
Helly finally showed feelings for Mark, which I think we all kind of expected. It’ll be interesting to see where that goes, since the very brief glimpses that we got of Outie Helly this week seemed to strongly imply that she is somehow related to the Eagans and is attending the big bash they are holding at Lumon HQ when the Overtime Contingency gets enacted by Dylan.
Can’t wait for next week.
Break room, isn’t it?
Great TV. I’ll add some random thoughts…
Dylan might not make it. Being asked a lot “are you sure you don’t want to go…are you super duper sure” and a very sentimental gift he picked and getting an awesome/weird waffle party. Nice guy doing unselfish things. I’ve seen this setup too many times.
Mark will awake at his brother-in-law’s book party. Innie Mark can recognize brother-in-law from the picture on the book they have and read at work. He’ll be able to quote passages. That’ll be the person he “trusts” to confide in.
Helly, as mentioned above, definitely appears to be awoken in the belly of the beast. We just saw champagne, but we know there is a Lumon party. Maybe the “board” will be there.
Irv has black paint (and dreams of black gushing paint in the office often while sleeping) when drawing the break room. Also, lots of coffee and heavy metal to stay awake = falls asleep at work. Maybe there’s something to sleep deprivation to bring out memories?
Great show. It’s in that really sweet initial “Lost” part where everything was a very interesting mystery and I was all in.
Reddit pointed me to the Lumon LinkedIn page. There is also a supposed leaked Lumon document on Apple Books, but the LinkedIn page says that it is not supported by Lumon.
Wow. That was some good shit. I can’t wait for next week when Mark ‘wakes up’ in the middle of his hug with Harmony. Or with Helly at that party.
Where does Milchick fit into the overall Lumon hierarchy? I had thought that Harmony was his boss but now I wonder if they are/ were at the same level.
Anyone else think Irving looked lot like that painting of the founder?
Very much.
I am thinking eternal life/ reincarnation is a factor. Are they trying to bring back Kier?
No, SwissMan was right - it’s the testing floor. It’s different than the break room, and we haven’t seen it. Ms. Cover told Milichik to take Ms. Casey there after Mark’s session. It’s a floor below.