# Severance Season 2 \[OPEN SPOILERS\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted, apple\ **Created:** [January 14, 2025, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952 "2025-01-14T09:50:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2025, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/81 "2025-02-08T00:15:36Z")
They were never outside. Petey’s map has a “training area” on it. I suppose it’s a huge room, controlled for weather, the “largest waterfall”, 😃 . And Milchick and Miss Huan were around for emergencies. Appendix IV was CLEARLY written by Ricken. It was the same drivel-driven style in his book. Since the “Kidnapping Nanny” is the next chapter… It wasn’t a shock about Helly/Helena. She was way more casual in a sense about work sine she came back. We never saw her shift in the elevator this season, and she was speaking in the same tone as she did with Cobel in Ep 2. BTW: at 42:50, pause it. The screen in Irv’s dream had all letters of only E-A-G-A-N, just before the numbers on the screen composed of numeric values of the letters: a=1, e=5, etc. So his dream confirmed his suspicions, but I think he’s learned a lot more as an outie we don’t know yet. He was investigating members of Lumon while fired. And oBurt was looking for oIrv, so maybe those two figured out something. I think I figured out their job: coding the tempers. There’s four tempers, four MDR employees. Why they’re doing it I have no clue. :D. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2025, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/82 "2025-02-08T00:18:27Z")
> [@Locrian](#): > > Appendix IV was CLEARLY written by Ricken. It was the same drivel-driven style in his book. Since the “Kidnapping Nanny” is the next chapter… Whoa! I totally missed that. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2025, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/83 "2025-02-08T00:22:14Z")
Remember Natalie coming to his home and gushing about his book’s popularity in MDR? She wanted a new version with different “verbiage”. He wrote about Kier and Deitmer mixed with life-advice. Like, don’t jerk off in the forest near your brother. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2025, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/84 "2025-02-08T02:14:43Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > But the spooky twins produced? So they are really going the clones route? Or hired actors? Animatronics? According to [Vulture.com](https://www.vulture.com/article/severance-season-2-episode-4-woes-hollow-explained.html), Ben Stiller confirmed that the doubles were played by other actors wearing masks. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2025, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/85 "2025-02-08T04:42:48Z")
The whole episode seemed like a VR simulation until Helena revealed her true identity. Since she obviously feared for her life, I wonder if they’ll do a “If the mind dies, the body dies” sort of thing a la “The Matrix.” That would make the Keanu tie in all the more appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2025, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/86 "2025-02-08T05:37:07Z")
I think doing an “it was all a dream” twist would be supremely shitty. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2025, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/87 "2025-02-08T10:37:17Z")
> [@Locrian](#): > > I think I figured out their job: coding the tempers. There’s four tempers, four MDR employees. Why they’re doing it I have no clue. They’re also binning the numbers into four bins labeled W, F, D and M. (Woe, Frolic, Dread and Malice.) ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2025, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/88 "2025-02-08T14:11:52Z")
They’ll need to (or should) come up with something to explain why Irving didn’t freeze to death. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2025, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/89 "2025-02-09T02:40:03Z")
I think the Helly R / Helena storyline was bad writing. What’s the major clue that Irving uses to unravel her cover story? That she her explanation about what happened to her outside was weak and suspicious, particularly that she talked about a night gardener. If the person who appeared to be Helly R was indeed who she appeared to be (the innie), her behavior makes sense from the audience perspective. She doesn’t want to admit to her innie friends that she found out she was an Eagan, and that her outie was essentially their enemy, because she’d probably be rejected or regarded with suspicion by her friends. So she only has moments to make up a cover story (since she has no conscious time between being turned off and coming back in the elevator) and so she comes up with a weak one, including a very suspicious component about a night gardener that Helly R was too naive to realize was suspicious. Makes perfect sense for the story and it makes sense to the audience. However, if Helly R is actually Helena, the outie, then her slipshod story of what she encountered on the outside doesn’t make sense. Helena had plenty of time to come up with a plausible explanation for what she saw on the outside. She wouldn’t have to come up with it on the spot like Helly R would. And she would be far more knowledgeable about the world and not give an explanation involving something like night gardeners. There’s really no way to justify such a weak story if it’s Helena, not Helly R. It’s bad writing when a character has to do something that doesn’t make sense so that the audience is mislead so that the story can be more ambiguous/mysterious and eventually have a twist. ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2025, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/90 "2025-02-09T05:12:43Z")
Yea, that was one reason I kept thinking it could still be Helly. But I also think it was lots of smaller clues that built up that made Irv believe. The night gardener was just the first. It’s also just a super weird dynamic. What’s normal? I mean, it’s an alt universe, and it would be like having an Uber-Wealthy cultist try to authentically tell an Everyman apartment life story to someone who has never experienced the outside world. I’m not really sure what normal is there for the storyteller or the listeners. On another note, For the last episode, Irv was definitely on an elevator (that we only hear) to open the scene in the middle of the ice. Not sure what to make of that. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2025, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/91 "2025-02-09T06:17:35Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > What’s the major clue that Irving uses to unravel her cover story? That she her explanation about what happened to her outside was weak and suspicious, particularly that she talked about a night gardener. Well, no. That’s what causes him to be suspicious and press for more, but what really unravels her story is that she doesn’t act like Helly. She’s cruel. Anyway, of all the criticisms for people to levy at this episode, “it’s weird” seems pretty questionable to me. Of course it’s weird. Everything about Lumen has been weird from the beginning. I dare say that’s part of the social commentary. It’s some real Peter Thiel/Curtis Yarvin/Elon Musk/Jordan Peterson shit. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2025, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/92 "2025-02-09T07:41:08Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > It’s bad writing when a character has to do something that doesn’t make sense so that the audience is mislead so that the story can be more ambiguous/mysterious and eventually have a twist. Keep in mind, the big reveal (such as it was) came in only the 4th episode. One way it’s justified (and isn’t necessarily bad writing) is if everything they’ve done so far is part of a larger plan. With 6 episodes left, I’m guessing it is. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2025, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/93 "2025-02-09T08:09:35Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > Why was there so little care given to their safety? > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Is Lumen so reckless that they would risk MDR to crack their skulls open? Even on the severed floor, Lumen isn’t big on supervision. Cobel spies on them a bit, but that’s about it. Or at least that’s the way it supposed to seem. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2025, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/94 "2025-02-09T08:32:44Z")
Here’s hoping the baby Kier in the opening credits isn’t a reference to an M+H=K situation. Also, Irv telling Dylan “It’s okay. It’s all okay. Just remember, hang in there,” and Dylan’s WTF? look has to mean something. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2025, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/95 "2025-02-09T14:30:18Z")
> [@zbuzz](#): > > Also, Irv telling Dylan “It’s okay. It’s all okay. Just remember, hang in there,” and Dylan’s WTF? look has to mean something. He quoted one of the posters from the break room, which shows Dylan holding the switches in the control room open. > [@Severance Season 2 \[OPEN SPOILERS\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/10): > > The posters from the break room: [[image] ](https://i.imgur.com/UVsXjRG.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2025, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/96 "2025-02-09T15:00:09Z")
Speaking of the control room, here’s the list of protocals that we saw there in season one and my speculations on them from the other thread > 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) In 2x04 Milkshake ordered someone to “remove the Glasgow block” on Helena, so apparently that’s to allow outies in a severed area. And notice that another of the break room posters is a beehive, so that’s got to mean something. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2025, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/97 "2025-02-09T15:16:21Z")
I think the night gardener screw up is just due to arrogance on Helena’s part. She thinks of these innies as naive children who will swallow any bullshit she throws at them. The one thing we definitely know about Lumen and the Eagans is that they are not nearly as smart as they think they are. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2025, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/98 "2025-02-09T15:28:52Z")
Okay, the protocols have “meaningful” names. I was digging around for something in the history of the city of Glasgow that would relate, but the answer turns out to be this: > **[Glasgow Coma Scale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_Coma_Scale)** > > The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) is a clinical scale used to reliably measure a person's level of consciousness after a brain injury. > The GCS assesses a person based on their ability to perform eye movements, speak, and move their body. These three behaviours make up the three elements of the scale: eye, verbal, and motor. A person's GCS score can range from 3 (completely unresponsive) to 15 (responsive). This score is used to guide immediate medical care after a brain injury (such as a car accid... ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2025, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/99 "2025-02-09T15:32:44Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > The one thing we definitely know about Lumen and the Eagans is that they are not nearly as smart as they think they are. Yes! Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2025, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952/100 "2025-02-09T15:34:15Z")
That’s an impressive Easter egg. When I started watching this show, nobody told me there would be homework. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severance-season-2-open-spoilers/1012952.md?page=6)