Wonderful. There was no way to finish off everything in one episode. So, what will the cliffhanger at the end of the season be?
That card was just a picture, not a language.
(I’m just spitballing here. Maybe the detectors are super advanced, maybe they’re made up, maybe they’re real but Milchick isn’t sure of their capabilities.)
https://25yearslatersite.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/severance-6-cards-700x284.jpg
Just watched the finale, and it’s a hell of a cliffhanger. I was tense the entire episode and it just never let up. Absolutely fantastic television.
I’ll save the commentary until more people have seen it.
“She’s alive!”
Putin better not blow up the world before Season 2 comes out. That will REALLY piss me off.
Is there another ep after the one with Dylan in the control room and the innies at home ?
Someone just texted me that there’s a new ep but that one seems like a pretty perfect cliffhanger to end the season on.
The innies wake up on the outside at the beginning of the season finale episode. Episode 9, I think.
That was an incredibly tense episode from beginning to end.
They were acting like they had all the time in the world, though. I thought that they would assume that they might have only minutes and start immediately shouting it out to everone in earshot like the end of Soylent Green, instead of sounding like a sad old hamburger waiter prattling on about sauces.
I was yelling at the TV, “Find some paper! Write it down quick!” It made sense that Helly would be hesitant to start talking immediately when she realized where/who she was, but the other two don’t have that excuse. That said, Mark’s unfailing politeness and Irv’s “fuck the plan, where’s Burt” were both in keeping with their characters.
Some random thoughts and observations:
- The opening, showing the three innies waking up at the same time in a split screen, was perfect. It tied all the lines together so the rest of the episode felt like one tension-filled story instead of three individual tracks. The repeated cuts to Dylan straining to keep the switches toggled helped center it all as well.
- How does Irv have a list of the severed employees? Why does he have a map with Burt’s address highlighted (and it looked like there were a few others marked)? Maybe a former Lumon big-wig, or a spy? And John Turturro does an amazing job portraying someone who innately knows how to drive but never has.
- When Mark found baby Eleanor, the other guy grabbed her and ran out, shouting something like “I’m the one who found her!” It seemed odd that he was trying to take credit. Maybe it’s nothing, but this isn’t the kind of show to have a throw-away line like that without a reason.
- After the reveal that Helly is an Eagan, I’m surprised that her innie was sent to the break room previously. You’d think the staff would be hesitant to torture the owner’s daughter. And I guess outtie Helly knows about the suicide attempt? Her father says something about being worried when he heard “what she tried to do to you in there.” That seems like the kind of thing you’d want to keep secret from the outtie.
- More ammunition for the theory that Lumon has something to do with immortality or reincarnation: Helly’s dad tells her she will be there with him at his “revolving.”
- Are the four refiners representative of the four tempers? Mark is woe, Dylan is frolic, Helly is malice, and Irv is dread?
- This will be an interesting dilemma for outtie Mark. Once Devon gives him the scoop, he’ll know that he can’t go back to Lumon. But he’ll also have to go back, because innie Mark is the only one who can find and help Gemma.
- I assume the “Testing Floor” is where a severed mind is reset (Clean Slate protocol?), thus Ms. Casey’s comment last episode that she has only been alive for 107 hours. This would be the logical consequence for the refiners after their rebellion, so it will be interesting to see if/how they avoid that.
I think he’s just another outie like Petey and Mark who is doing his own research into Lumon. You can tell by his paintings that he is obsessed.
Ricken has a literal cult following made up of rather low-self esteem, low-intelligence people who likely fantasize about such a hero moment in their lives.
I’m not sure the staff would need to be told or would necessarily recognize the boss’s daughter. I got the sense that the banquet was her big introduction to the mucky-mucks. I suspect they had to tell her about the suicide attempt when she woke up in a hospital bed with ligature marks around her neck. She was previously aware of her innie’s attempt to chop her fingers off.
The testing floor is a big mystery to me. It’s a lot more nefarious than what happens to the innies since it involves either abduction or body snatching of some sort. I believe the 107 hours refers to the time Ms. Casey was awake as a wellness councilor; she would only be needed an hour at a time, a few days a week or month.
Do we know exactly what happens in the break room? I mean, I get that it’s the room where they “break” you but are they just putting awful images in one’s mind or is their physical punishment or what? Sorry if it’s obvious but I don’t recall it being shown.
We have seen the break room. It is where you have to repeat “2+2=5” and “There are five lights” until you believe it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/2d1rjm/chain_of_command_and_its_superficial/
Hellina Handbasket repeats the Break Room mantra in the bathroom after she talks to her father but before she talks to the crowd.
Also, we now know the purpose of Severance is specifically for the cult to flourish.
Repeating the mantra is all that we’ve explicitly seen, but it is suggested that there is sometimes more. Mark’s knuckles were bloodied after he returned from a session.
A sad thought on the reason for that scene: because this guy took credit for finding Eleanor, no one will know that Mark knew she was found. So their interpretation will be that “she’s alive” refers to Eleanor, not Gemma.
It is still like the underwear gnomes. What is step 2?
I think a big thing was the reference to ‘Keir’s Children’. The innies all have infantile versions of their outie names…
I think that Keir’s Children will be an army of some sort. Severed people who are awakened by the Over Time Contingency. They will be mind wiped or somehow reprogrammed with some of the other severance features and they will know how to slay their enemies because of those pictograph cards that can get through the scanners.
That was a great episode to finish a great season. As others have said, the tension was fantastic. The timing of the end of Dylan flipping the switches was perfect.
I am already wondering if Milchick is going to stab Dylan with that knife? And I’m guessing that there is going to be an ‘all hands’ staff meeting the next day at work and it is going to be awkward.
I hope they aren’t going to do a memory wipe on them.
Ah, yes, thanks. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, though I figured it was some Lumon mantra.
I feel like there are probably quite a few things I’ve missed along the way due to dark lighting and not great sound (could be my tv or my aging ears). I’m thinking it’s time for me to turn on the subtitle feature.
“Forgive me for the harm I have caused this world. None may atone for my actions but me and only in me shall their stain live on. I am thankful to have been caught, my fall cut short by those with wizened hands. All I can be is sorry, and that is all I am.”
(She didn’t say the third sentence in the bathroom.)
I still don’t understand why Mark underwent severance from being upset about his wife dying. Outie Mark still has to deal with his misery 16 hours a day. Innie Mark gets to forget 8 hrs/day. How does Outie Mark see that as a benefit? As far as Outie Mark is concerned, he still has to deal with the pain throughout Outie Mark’s entire conscious existence.
Maybe the decision was emotional but not rational?