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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
. And Milchick and Miss Huan were around for emergencies.