The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Severance’ Season 2, Episode 5: Is the Real Helly R. Back?

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Jo and Rob break down the theme of loneliness following the characters' return from the company ORTBO last week (7:56), the best fruit to carve out a head for a Lumon funeral (30:43), and Helena’s desire to return to the severed floor as herself and not Helly R. (52:10). Email us! [e-mail] Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Prestige TV Podcast’ and so much more! Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Kai Grady Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did you and Hilly are catch up? We did. Did you tell her that you fucked her outy at the Orpaw? You're in waiting of this company. Have a restful evening. Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna from The Void. That's Rob Mahoney from Home.

And Rob, where do you think your affection index is these days with our listeners? You can't ask me to self-evaluate. Look, I would... You know what? I was going to ask for those scores. I don't want those scores. Don't tell us, please, what our affection index scores are. No, absolutely not.

I would say based on the number of emails we got in response to you sharing your nightmare about your recurring nightmare about not being able to drop a class. Yes. We got so many people saying, yes, Rob speaks for the people. He is a man of the people. I would say you're in the 80s this week. That's what I think. I have never felt more seen in my entire life. So shout out to everyone who is also.

failing exams in their dreams or not knowing their exams in their dreams. I just feel very connected to the outside world in a way that as I am currently recording in my closet, I don't often. We're here to talk to you about Severance, Season 2, Episode 5, Trojans' horse. Just a wonderful rickinism. Exactly. Before we do that, we should mention, in case you haven't noticed, there's a lot of White Lotus content. coming in this feed. So on Sunday night, Bill and Mallory and I will be doing an instant sort of reaction vibe-y pod. And then a few days later, Rob and I are doing

what is known at the ringer as a pre-cap, but we don't really fully understand exactly what that means. But what it means is that we will be reading your emails, covering theories, diving deep into White Lotus. We'll have two White Lotus episodes per week and then our usual severance coverage. And then before all of a sudden done, we will be heading back to the pit. We must. That is what is happening in the Prestige feed. And if you are a yellow jackets fan and you're like, where is the yellow jackets coverage?

That's over in House of Our. Mallory and I are doing that in House of Our. So that is what is happening all around the various feeds. PrestiGV at Spotify.com is how you can reach us for any of the show. So if you've got White Lotus thoughts or feelings, we have not come up with a fun and quirky white lotus email yet. So press DCVie at Spotify.com, Pineapplebobbing at Gmail.com to let Rob know what his affection is. index score is, thank you so much. This week's episode, Trojan's Horse, was directed by Sam Donovan, written by Megan

Richie, and I've just got a few responses that I want to cover to last week's episode that we got from people. A lot of people wrote in about our question about the creepy doppelgangers that we saw out in the wilderness. And what a lot of people pointed out, we don't, since we usually watch on screeners, we don't get it previously on, and we don't get sort of the post-credit. in conversation thing that they do. In the previously on last week, they made sure to show the animatronics in the sort of like creepy

Keer museum that exists in Lumen. And so a lot of people said they thought maybe they were animatronics. That seems like a lot of effort to haul those animatronics out for the orpbo just for creepy vibes. Just for the hall of presidents out in the wilderness? It's unnecessary. How big do you think that Orpbo team was? Because we've got Milchick and Ms. Wong. but like Miss Wong's not dragging those animatronics out into the middle of the of the snow, right?

We've got a whole SWAT team. Nor is she pitching a tent. I just think there's a lot of like logistical legwork that has to be done. And shout out to the ahead team who really set all this stuff up, the mysterious and important Lumen employees who we never see. But they're doing the good work. I think to that end, we got a lot of emails before this week's episode asking us if we thought the orpo took place in some sort of holodeck, some sort of virtual space. I think this week's episode does the work to try to underline that that's not the case in the conversation that Mark

has with Devin about not just a sort of like permission slip aspect of you can take my any somewhere fun and mysterious and exciting, but also the comment about him being wet. Right. You know what I mean? It's just sort of like something physically happened to him that they had to explain to him. Yes. when he was awoken from it. I also assume, like, I wasn't quite sure what to read into Mark having a cough in this episode, if that's supposed to be because he got wet on the orpoh and it was cold and therefore now has a cold, or is it a side effect of the reintegration? But he's clearly feeling something.

He's got a little head cold. Yeah, I would say a dip in the icy waters might do that to you, perhaps. Also, those just terrible-looking post-op smoothies might do it to you. I don't know what's going on in there, but I don't want any part of it. Yeah, that goes to something I wanted to talk about next. But before we wrap up on last week's feedback, I want to say that a bunch of people or people wrote in about anagrams, which I love an anagram in a mystery box show. So Natalie T. wrote in to let us know that Dieter Egan, the mysterious masturbating twin,

if you rearrange Deereyter Egan, it says AI generated, which is exciting and new. It is. And then a lot of people pointed out that Ortebow is an anagram of robot, which is just, you know, something to think about. Which I think fueled some of the speculation about it being some sort of simulation, but it apparently is not. So, you know, you can get a red herring with these anagrams too. Oh, all the time. And last but not least, Chris B wrote in to draw a connecting line between Irving's Final Moments in the Woods and a really famous John Totoro scene in Miller's Crossing, an excellent film, an excellent early. to Toro performance.

So if you've never seen that movie, why not? Use severance as an excuse to watch Miller's Crossing. Sounds like a good idea to me. On that sort of gross post-op smoothie point that you made, I did want to do quick

opening credits imagery check-in because those slimy little vials are in the opening credits. I didn't even clock that. Where are they? They're like on a table and they get knocked over and they sort of like spill around

and stuff like that. On the Reddit, someone on the Reddit, called it Garminbozia, which is this Twin Peaks. Wait, have we talked about Twin Peaks? Are you? Peaksad, Rob? I've never seen it. Okay. In, I just need to explain. In Twin Peaks, there's this, like, mysterious substance. Justin Sales is on this call shaking my head at my inability to, like, explain what this is.

But it's supernatural nature. Maybe you're consuming the soul of someone, I don't know, but it's called Garminbozian. It's essentially creamed corn. And, like, it does look a lot like what we're drinking here. At least blend it up. You know, the canned cream corn, the least ideal possible cream corn. And I say this is a southerner with deep affection for cream corn, but this is not the kind you want. And someone else on the Reddit called it the substance, which, hey, if you haven't seen the substance, why not use evidence as an excuse to watch both Miller's Crossing? What a double feature that would be, the substance of Miller's Crossing. Why not? This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh,

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Well, Borishead just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means pointing your whole day around it, presenting the Friars turkey breast only from Borershead. The backyard tradition now available behind the counter. Visit your local deli today. Discover the craftmanship behind every bite. Borashead committed to craft since 1905. And I wanted to sort of enter into our conversation of this episode today

with a clip from Jen Turlock who plays Devon. One of our listeners, Joseph T, you sent this in. It's an interview clip where she's talking about what she thinks the show is about. And I kind of wanted to take that concept and maybe check in with all of our characters inside of this episode through that concept. So, Donnie, will you play that clip? People have asked me what I think severance is about. I think, you know, the soundbite is it's about the work-life balance,

but I've always said I think it's about American loneliness and on we and what it means to be in so much pain that you have to cut off half of your consciousness. Yeah, so loneliness. Yeah, a little bit of that going around this week. Yeah, I would say, a lot. I would say given that we end it, and we talked about this a little over the last couple episodes about

how season one ends with this defiant act of fellowship between the core four and how immediately Lumen sort of scrambled the jets in order to figure out how to isolate them by luring Dylan with his own

sort of side plot treat by putting Helena in there instead of Haley. We're all sort of broken up, and now they've removed Irving entirely from the group. So let's run through it and I actually want to start with Milchick because this is a performance review episode from Milchick. He gets rebuffed by his, by Natalie's attempt.

Like his attempt to find common cause with Natalie is rebuffed. And then it seems pretty clear based on what happens inside of that performance review and the way that she was sort of talking about it before that, that Ms. Wong narked on him. I would say And so And in response to that In response to him feeling isolated He doesn't have an ally

Miss Wong He doesn't have an ally And Natalie He burned that ally ship The moment he refused To let her play the theramen Like I mean You gotta let her cook

This is her moment You think Do you think It wouldn't have gone That's poorly for him If he had just let her play The Theron Exactly yeah

Maybe she doesn't Understand the reason For the funeral And I want to talk some about some of these scenes, too, between Ms. Wong and Milchick, the performance review. Of course. I wouldn't say they hit me the best of any of the scenes in this show, and we can circle back to that in a second.

But ultimately, you got to give her her moment. This is her time to shine. She's going to get two recitals. One got interrupted, I would say unfairly. We didn't even get to see the marshmallows through, and now you're not even going to let her play. You're not even going to let her play like taps? What's going on? At a funeral?

Come on. That's the moment for a therapist. if you're ever going to use one. But I, the, like, the way that she narked on him, justified or not, similar, we presume, to the way that he narked on Cobell, you know, and so it's just sort of this, like, predatory circle of life inside of corporate culture. And also, you, I was thinking about this email we got from a listener a couple weeks ago about this idea of Ms. Wong being that, like, much younger co-worker in charge of you.

from like Mark W's point of view or something like that. And that is one thing. But also this idea of like someone younger, you know, Milchick was younger than Cobel. And now there's someone even comically younger than him, like coming up behind him nipping at his eels. So I just thought all of that was interesting. And the fact that it resulted in,

how did Milchick respond to that? Not by finding common cause with his fellow Illumann employees, but by bringing the hammer down on Mark Harder. Yep. You know, and so that is just sort of like the nature of this trap we find ourselves in sometimes in a corporate setting of just sort of like, or any setting where authority reigns down on you instead of just saying like, hey, we're all together under this authority. You just sort of wield what little power you are allowed on the people below you. A tale is old as time, unfortunately. And I think it's heartbreaking for Milchick because it's so clear he doesn't want to be Kobel and wants to try something different, whether for efficacy,

reasons or moral ones or however he sees the world. He wants to do something else. And even the slightest resistance to that initial rollout of the softer, friendly, or lumen now just leads the whole thing to be kaput. Like, there's just no shot anymore. And we're all tightening the leash. Tell me what didn't work for you in those milchick scenes that you want to talk about. So I would say overall for this episode, great for answering questions. We get a lot of like very direct answers to a lot of the things we've been talking about. You know, will we see Irving be again. What happened at the orpah? Was it a physical space? Like all those things are asked and answered in a way that I think is really good for clarity purposes and certainly for our

podcasting purposes as we're trying to unravel what's going on in severance week to week. There was also a little bit too, like too much of saying the quiet thing out loud and saying things very directly when previously they had been left up for a little bit of mystery, a little bit of interpretation. And I don't say that in sort of a plot mechanic way, but things like Milchick and Miss Wong having their exchanges, they're preparing the bereavement materials. And she tells him up front, like, you should not let them have a funeral because it lets them think that they're people. It's like, okay, that's a theme that we're talking about. But when it's coming out of the character's mouths directly, I don't, I'm not as receptive to it.

Like, I want it to be a subtler touch than that. And in particular, the exchange we get between Milchick and Natalie, in which all of the unsaid things are now just said was kind of disappointing, to be honest with you. I don't know that I was disappointed, but I agree with you that I much preferred the version where they said all of that, sort of with their eyes and her, like, rictus grin and all that sort of stuff. It's like when this happens, what it communicates to me is they didn't trust that. They didn't trust that as an audience and as a performance that would be conveyed effectively when I thought it spoke. It said everything we needed to know. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, I agree with you.

I want to watch that space. I think I just want to watch to see if we're progressing towards something, if we're progressing towards a moment for Natalie where she changes her mind about which side she decides to sit with. Dylan, Dylan is like these sort of the best, I think, way to exemplify the way in which they're all alone inside of this episode is the scene when all three of them go into Milchick's office and they're all demanding different information. And Dylan is single-minded. He doesn't give three dry fucks about anything else, right? He's like single-minded about what happened to Irving. Is he dead?

Then I demand a funeral, you know? And so he is like, he's not part, you know, he has been lord away from the, from the agenda of the group all season because of, you know, his relationship with his, his wife, if you prefer. It's complicated. It's complicated. There's love geometry. happening all over this show. But now he's isolated inside of this like, I have to make something up to Irving. I failed him and I have something to make up to him.

So that's where Dylan sits. The whole dynamic across MDR with Irving's funeral is fascinating to me. Because on the one end, yes, you get Dylan given the eulogy, speaking from his heart, which, as Milchuk points out, not something that happens very often for Dylan in this. office, Heli is still so shaken up by her circumstances and everything that's happened, but clearly mournful in her way in losing Irving and losing someone she cared about. And even someone who attempted to kill a version of her, or at least like kind of smoke out the reality of who she was, hiding in her own skin. And then there's like everything that's going on with Mark

in this episode. And of all the things that he is showing and there's a lot. And I'm fascinated by it. And I love peeling it back. And there are layers within layers and with layers, uh, within layers of what's happening with both Mark and Mark S right now. Him being so cold and cavalier about Irving dying is the part that I'm trying to understand the most right now. Like I can get behind and find my way to some sort of motivation for most of the things that Mark is doing in this episode. But the way he's just like bolting out the door at first instance from the funeral, I don't, like, I don't know what to make of that just yet. Yeah. So Adam Scott talked about this a little bit on the official podcast.

he was talking, I actually kind of see it a reverse side of this. Okay. From his perspective, Mark is like done. He's so devastated by the betrayal that he's just like, let's just put our head down and do the work. Yeah. And forget rebellion, forget fellowship, forget any of this. I'm just here to do the work. The nihilism is coming through real strong by the end.

Right. So all of that makes sense to me as like a sort of trauma response to, you know, thinking your head. having sex with someone when you're having sex with someone else or all of that, all of that stuff. The insistence that he still have helly with him is actually the flip side of that that makes less sense to me. If he's just given up, if he's just in, you know, nihilism, let's just get the work done mode. You know, what what Drummond and Natalie say is that he will not do it without Hellyer, quote, so we have to give her to him, right? Yeah. And in a plot mechanic sense, actually a plot. I was like, how are they ever going to get Hellyar back in this plot?

Like, how is that ever going to happen? So they figured out a way through twists and turns of the plot to make it happen. And I'm glad for that because I love Helliard and I'm glad she's here. Yeah. But to your point, I think with the nihilistic state we find Mark in this episode and also what feels like to me an incursion of the Audi-Mark attitude, Yeah. Bullshit Gazette is such an Audimark thing to say to Milchick in the elevator. It's not, and so I don't, I think some, some viewers were confused.

They were like, is that actually Audi Mark in the elevator? I don't think it is. No, I don't think so. We're reintegrating. So things are sort of seeping through, you know? And so I think along with the memories, there's like this snarky attitude that Audi mark had that any mark never had. But it's like, we're all coming together. It's sort of how I was reading it inside of this, you know?

And coming, as we said, from a very fair place. Like his whole world has been shaken up. And I think what he tells Hellie in terms of having to confront the idea that everything they have been working for has been sabotaged. That, you know, they thought they were so smart with their cute little plans, but they are three little people, well, four, now three, within a giant machine. And everything that they've accomplished has been something they were allowed to accomplish. And that's a hard thing to reckon with for anybody. And where it, I think, leaves Mark is, you know, we have this conception. of Marcus. Okay, there's Mark As and Mark Scout.

There are these two guys, two versions of the same person. Yeah. Throughout this episode, I think we basically get four marks because you have classic sad boy Mark Audi, who is presenting to the world, his sister included, as a certain kind of thing. And then also going through this process of reintegration with Ragabi. That's a whole separate life now he's carving out even within his Audi life. And then inside, you have some version of company man, Mark S, still there. like diligently putting the numbers into the buckets.

Yeah. Who doesn't want to take the funeral too seriously and just wants to kind of move on because he doesn't know what else to do. And then you also have, I don't know, like nihilist Mark, comrade mark, whatever version is kind of like staring himself in the mirror trying to get his shit together. And by the end of the episode, all of these versions have kind of started to bleed together. I love that you, so I really did want to bring up, in terms of this isolation, loneliness theme that I am insisting we put on every single person.

Audi Mark lying to Devin about what he's doing when Devin was like, that was his community. Yes. Was his sister. And now he's lying to her about this. And sure, Ragabi's living in his basement, but they don't seem like they are the most chummiest of housemates. And so. Yeah, how are you feeling about the developing like roommate sitcom between Mark and

Raghavi? I don't know. He's just got to get that dryer fix. I got to say, if I moved into, if I moved to some to basement and I was promised a washer dryer, and there was no dryer? Perious. I rate. What are you going to do? Hang dry in a one-bedroom apartment?

Come on. In the winter? Absolutely not. Okay. So that's outy mark. And then any mark, inside of this, hell, like he insists on having helling there. Yes. This actually breaks my heart.

It's so human. He insists on having her there. He wants her there. He wants to know she's alive. He wants to see her. but he's not allowing himself closeness with her inside of this episode. And to your point, this is where I bring up Lost. In the scene in the bathroom when he's looking in the mirror,

this is a very late season lost thing. There's a whole season with a motif of characters looking in the mirror and having this moment of sort of like, where am I? What am I doing? I can't explain it very well without spoiling anything, but just no. So the fact that he's looking in the mirror, but then when she comes in to talk to him, it's a torturous camera angle to get her reflection.

So there's two hellies there as he's talking to her. And like, you know, obviously it's like, you know, obviously the fracture natures of these people. But like when he says to her in that in that bathroom counter, I don't really know you. You know? And she's like, yeah, you do. But like what an earth. Not just the portrayal of someone was there undercover, but she's upset that he couldn't tell the difference. And he's upset that he couldn't tell the difference.

Because he's like, I really thought I was falling for someone. I thought I knew someone and I couldn't even tell that it wasn't her. So how real is this connection that I thought I had with her in the first place? Do you know what I mean? Totally. I love from a big picture perspective that none of this is as simple as you flip Hellie R back on, the team is back together. Like everything is pulled so far apart already and so tense. Yeah.

That even leading into this, you can understand why Mark would be so shaken up and not sure what to trust or who to trust or like, do you even know? Helly on any level whatsoever if you were so easily deceived. Like it is a self-indictment of him as much as anything when he says, I don't really know you, right? Like that is a, that is a personal lapse on his part. And I love from Helena's perspective that, you know, or sorry, from Hellie's perspective, that Helena using Helly's body is not just a deceitful act to trick Mark and do, and worse to him, to, you know, deceive the rest of the MDR team to sort of infiltrate and sabotage whatever they had going on. But it's also like very harmful to Heli herself. It's a violation. The absolute violation of someone else using your body. And as you said,

the double whammy of the people in your life not being able to understand who you are underneath, which is I'm sure something that all of us would hope that the people in our lives could do. But realistically, who is anticipating body swap shenanigans? Maybe the people in the world of severance should be a little more open to the idea than we are. But it's a harder thing to pull out. Like is this person having a weird day or are they another consciousness in the body of the person I care about is it's a it's a heady question. Oh, are you the chilly evil corporate version of yourself or are you you today? Who's to say?

But Britt Lauer bringing the absolute most to both versions of Heli and Helena. And I think getting to spend time with Heli for the first time in a while, I mean, you see the physical transformation. You see the completely different vocal delivery, which I would say is like a higher register overall and also more tentative and a little bit more wavering even relative to Helena who God knows has her own share of anxieties to deal with and is to be fair isolated in her own way in this episode but just an awesome performance. Helen is next on my list her sitting opposite Drummond and Natalie and her asking you know is my dad okay with this? Yeah. Father approved it. What was your

read on not just that line but Drummond saying father, I encourage. did. Yeah, Father encouraged it. On the one hand, like, I think that could be sort of a mocking tone of her asking, did father approve this? Like, yes, your father did. Could be kind of a more general term of authority that people use for Jane Egan, calling him father, especially within the company.

I've also seen people throwing out, like, does this suggest that Drummond himself is part of the Egan family? We did get an email about that, like that, like that is he an Egan bastard or something like that? Yeah. Which is a very thronesy way to think about it. I think it was more him mocking her with my rate on it. But yeah, that is definitely a question people are asking. And the mocking, I think, facilitates that scene, which really hammers home the point that this is not what Helena herself wants to do.

Well, what I think is interesting to learn about the power dynamic is like we assume that he was like her muscle, her hench. And then it's like, no, he has authority above her. Yeah. You know, where is her power? of this company. In her name, I think, and that's about it. And she's being controlled and manipulated, not unlike the way that everyone on MDR is. But it doesn't seem like it gives her much.

No. Last but not least, to wrap everything up on this sort of lonely list, alone list. Devin alone. Mark is lying to her and her husband. I don't know if you notice sucks. More than usual, I would say. Yeah. It's interesting listening on the official podcast this week.

they had the actor played Ricken on, and they were talking a lot about Ricken, and they were talking about the Ricken Devon marriage, and they were very sort of, like, defensive against the critique of what, that people are asking, what the hell is Devin doing with Ricken. Right.

You don't know what goes on inside people's homes. You don't know, you only see a sliver of their lives. That's true. Yeah. Opposites attract all the time. I don't know. It was very weird to me. I was just sort of like, not weird.

I understand why they're defending it, but I was like, I, I've definitely seen couples where there are opposites and I've definitely seen people who are with someone who doesn't seem like worth their time, all that sort of stuff. We see that all the time. But I think that would tell us something about,

like what a Devin need that Rickon can provide? Yeah. That's interesting to me. You know, because their idea was like he awakens some sort of like creativity or bohemianness in her. And I'm like, no. But it's, you know, it's sort of, it's like when you think about,

I don't know, some of the relationships on succession. You know, there's just sort of like you see people together and you're like, why? But also I see how hurt and broken you are and how you're grasping for anything that will sort of fulfill that for you. But Devin, we don't know enough about Devin to know anything about that. No. And I think what would be necessary to sell a characterization like that is some little beat off to the side. And it doesn't, it's not a big plot point. But as you're saying, if his value or even just what. what she's reaching for is some sort of artistic side of herself or fulfillment in terms of her creativity.

Like, we just don't have any evidence to suggest that based on their interactions on screen. And I like Ricken scenes personally, but they are incredibly broad. It's the broadest characterization on the show by far. Yeah. But also, I thought the most interesting thing they said on the official podcast about him is that he is such an essential part of the storytelling because he is so important for us understanding what the outside. world is like. Obviously, he doesn't stand for everyone on the outside world, but we don't spend a lot of time outside of the, like, lumen coterie, right? And so we don't know what it's like for people on the outside, outside of, like, Rickens' weird no dinner parties and book readings and what is Rebecca like,

etc. So, all of that. And for it to come from a skeptic and like a faux intellectual who can so easily be pulled into this orbit with like a single check and and really just the assurance that what you do is important and who among us is not so susceptible to that. Who among us this week of all weeks, Joe, would have to ponder the idea of like, what if we could create change within inside, like within the machine? What if we could be the resistance that is actively changing things as we ourselves are co-opted and corrupted? It's just not relevant at all. But it never works out that way, does it wrong? Irving,

alone, except he's had this encounter with Bert now. He's also on a cruise experience. So, yeah, I don't know. We'll see. Who do you think he's calling? I feel like,

from the Roger Ebert economy of characters, it's got to be Cobell. Okay, Cobell is a theory. Rigabi is still on the table. Sure. degree. Yeah. And I think there's some merit to the idea that maybe he hasn't been reintegrated fully,

but at least is aware enough of the procedure to try to blend between his consciousnesses, to try to work some things. Like, ultimately, I don't think that Irving has been reintegrated, as I've seen theorized, because if he were, then he wouldn't need to try to pass messages from any to out of it. Like, it's clear that he's still pretty distinct. It's just he's trying to navigate the border. What we learn inside of the bereavement process is that he has, I think it's 12 quarters, right? And so he has been severed for three years, but he's been a Lumen employee for nine years.

So there's six years, and we've talked about this before, there's six years that Irving was there, that he wasn't severed. We know that he's got this trunk full of sort of information on other severed people. So, yeah, it seems like he severed himself voluntarily in order to try to infiltrate MDR, or that sort of stuff, experiment with the sleep deprivation thing. Because, yeah, he does know some things about the procedure and maybe how to try to get around it to try to get to that elevator down that hallway if he can. He's not trying to burn notes into his redness. You know, he's a little further along in the process. He knows a bit more.

Let me ask you this, Joe, while we're on the Irving beat, the watermelon visage of Irving is horrifying. It did give me like Night King vibes for some reason, but obviously juicier. Like there's something about the way he's carved into that fruit that reads as the Night King to me. A real juicy Night King situation. That's the last thing you want your Night King to be. But do you yourself have a fruit of choice that, you know, when you do pass on from this mortal coil, how would you like to be carved and into what fruit? Rob, thank you so much for asking me.

I think I'm going to stick. I'm not going to be like wildly predictable and I got to stick. with a pineapple. I think it has to be a pineapple. It's a great one. I think it would make a great canvas for carving in terms of like the shadows and texture you could get using the, you know, the outer skin and the inner flesh. All of this sounds terrible. Rob, Roba, what kind of fruit would you like your visage carved upon? Do you think if you put like... When we hear at Spotify core memorialize you? Do you think if you put like a hair straightener to the strands, to the, to the, to the greener at the top of the pineapple, could you get it to curve down as hair? Is that a thing that is within

the power of the pineapple to do? Well, I don't think it's a hair straightener. I think what you have to do is you have to sever the stem, take the individual sort of things off and then like reattach them in a hair like setting. Sounds wonderful. I think it would turn up beautifully. I think you're on the right track where it's got to be something hardy, clearly something big enough to make a head out of. And I want to reclaim a fruit that I feel like just gets a lot of flack for no reason, and that's my beloved honeydew. So shout out to the honeydew,

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The Ruck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot, which is the tune that the dentist question mark is whistling at the opening of this episode. I want to take you on a journey that I went through with this particular tune. I heard the whistling. I was like, I know that fucking song. But I was, I can't remember when I was watching the screeners with captions or not or I can't remember. But I was just sort of like, how am I going to figure out what this is? Yeah.

I was like, I know it. I can't Shazam this. There's no lyrics for me to Google, but I know this tune. God damn it. And then I was watching it again with a friend of mine, and she was like, is that the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald? And I was like, what? What a poll. And then we were watching the second time with the captions on.

And it says in the caption continues to whistle the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. And I was like, oh, the answer was there all along. I really thought I was going to have to do some major detective work on this. the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot. Yeah. There is something to the Gordon Lightfoot element. There's a lot of things around the edges of severance

that are like vaguely Canadian happening and I don't know what to make of that other than the fact that they shoot some of the show in New York and it might be as simple as that for geographic purposes sometimes. But I'm just going to say I am flagging that it's a Canadian artist. A sad shipwreck. And there's a line in this part that he's whistling. about Lake Superior quote

never gives up her dead. Yeah. We got a couple emails about this. This one from Mikhail S says could Mark's quest of the underworld for Gemma slash Miss Casey be as doomed as Orpius? Is Lume in the Lake Superior here to determine to maintain its grip on the dead?

It has swallowed for everyone, for anyone to ever really get them back. A depressing thought, much like the song, but it does seem like a pointed musical choice. I mean, obviously, it could not be a more pointed musical choice. choice than picking this. Weird podcast moment on the official pod, and I think this is the last official pod reference I have to make today.

Adam Scott, before they sort of got into it, he always says we're going to dive into this episode. He loves a deep dive. He loves that. Who does it? I don't know if it's like, you know, a nod to Jason and Mal or whatever, but he loves the phrase a deep dive. But he really emphasized it this week.

in a really odd way to my ears. Can you recreate what he did? The quote is, he's like, we're gonna dive into the episode. We're going deep. I don't know. It was just like, honestly, I should have clipped it for you to listen to.

It was the internet, because he says something similar, some other podcasts. Okay. Now that I explained to you, it really does sound like I'm grasping it at straws, but. Or it sounds like he really is a big binge head.

You know, it's one of the two. I just, felt like maybe he was like coding something about there's a lot of water-based imagery inside of Lumen. Anyway, what do you think? I love that this is the straw that you grasped at. But this is why you're you. This is why you're the best, Joe.

No stone unturned. No intonation uninterrogated. I don't know that I'm the best, but Lumen Dentist, what do you make of a Lumen dentist going down the elevator with some tools? I mean, no fucking clue. Dentist seems like a generous interpretation of what's going on there, but some kind of surgeon, it seems. Was that not, were those not dental tools?

I think they were tools to fiddle with something. Is it something in a brain? Is it something in a mouth? Is it something in the human body? Otherwise, we're going to have to consult the doctors on the pit for that. To me, I think the takeaway for me was less who is this guy and what is his medical profession, although I am interested in that. And more O and D clearly.

has a wide array of fabricating responsibilities beyond the goofy paintings and the pictograms. And we've only begun to scratch the surface of everything that that department is responsible for. Was it like hand sanitizer? Like large bottles of hand sanitizer? Like green gel of some kind. Some kind of sanitizing gel. But yeah, there's a lot going on there and a lot going on there that is quite mysterious as well. The tools didn't read to me as like your classic truels.

of torture device. Oh, no. I thought like, they were like brain chip tools to me. That's what it looked like to me. Oh, what do you know about brain chip tools? You know,

I have a lot of experience. I do a lot of like backdoor in-home surgery, you know, just like kidney removals and whatnot. And I will say, that looks like a classics set of brain chip tools. Okay. Pieplepobbing at Gmail.com,

if you are Noah Wiley's Dr. Robbie and you have other ideas of what those tools might do. Please. What he was wearing. wearing something that was slightly giving dentists to me the sort of like white short-sleeved uniform-esque situation. Yeah. Also, dentists, because of Marathon Man, why don't make it a triple feature?

Miller's crossing the substance in Marathon Man. Because of a marathon man. Dentists and torture always sort of like go hand in hand for me. I was detecting some dentist trauma in you making this very quick association. I mean, my dentist told me I have great dental hygiene. So I like it in the dentist. You may not be, I'm still skeptical of your brain chip meddling expertise, but we do know that you have NBA expertise.

Oh, okay. So we have a question for you from our listener, Rami. He says, Ben Stiller famously a diehard basketball fan. There's absolutely no way the, quote, no malice palace sign is not a reference to malice at the palace where the NBA players, quote, fought back and were then severely punished. Can you explain this reference to me and also our listener? Yeah, look, I think the reason malice palace works in both cases is because it rhymes. But the malice at the palace in NBA terms for the uninitiated was an event in 2004 at a game

between the Pistons and the Pacers. Ron Artec, a somewhat volatile player for the Pacers, was laying on the score's table as the refs were like adjudicating some bullshit that had happened on the court. And a fan threw a cup, a beverage of some kind. I think it was a beer. And it hit him on the table. The fans grew restless, he threw it, it hit him. Ron Artesse, now, actually, I was going to say now Meta World Peace,

but he's gone through 50 different name changes since then my all due respect to Meta, jumped up off the table, stormed into the stands, started punching this guy. Teammates started coming in after him, also just punching and grabbing random fans and all out like melee happened on the court. Oh my God. Germaine O'Neill, another player for the Pacers, wound up so far. It looked like he might end a man's life, but mercifully slipped on the court and pulled back just slightly enough that no serious contact was made, at least not enough to end that guy's life. Long story short, lots of players got suspended.

It was like a black eye on the NBA for a very long time. The commissioner of the league threw the book at these players, understandably so, for jumping into the stands and beating on paying customers. But also, no one really came out of it looking great. You know, it's not a good situation for literally anyone involved. Don't throw beverages or food items at professional athletes. If you're a professional athlete, maybe don't punch people who throw things at you. All right. So on the one hand, just fun because it rhymes.

Yep. But also maybe just sort of an encapsulation of a failed uprising and ill-advised uprising. Uprising seems strong and generous for what happened at the mouse of the palace. Look, I have time to explore that particular event from all angles, but I do not think it was an uprising. Okay, great. Let's talk about birving. Everybody's talking about it. Everybody's talking about burving.

So we've already talked about the funeral. We've already talked about the phone call. Let's talk about just in case folks did not do a complete rewatch of season one. I had a lot of people ask me this. They're like, who do you think is going to be playing fields? The good news is who's Bert's husband. We've been invited to dinner. We've been asked to bring an expensive bottle of red wine.

You know, we're going to meet Fields. We already know who's playing Fields, and we're so lucky. It's John Noble, who a lot of people know from Fringe, or a lot of people know from Lord of the Rings. He plays Denethor, the steward of Gondor. So is he... Is he going to mash a cherry tomato? in one of these scenes.

Are we serving cherry tomatoes at dinner? How could you not do it? I don't know. If they have the restraint to avoid that. But yeah, cherry tomatoes could be on the menu. I'm really excited for this. I'm thrilled. We're going to go, I assume we're going into the Bert Fields home for dinner.

Oh, yeah. Hopefully serenated by Pippin, you know. Or is that Mary? God, I always get married and Pippin confused. No, it's Pippin. It's Pippin. It's Pippin. If you were told to bring an expensive bottle of red wine to a dinner, Rob.

Yes. How expensive is that bottle of wine? Depends on who asks you. Okay. What if I ask you? I say, Rob, come to dinner, bring an expensive bottle of red wine. See, you would never do that. I would.

This is the catch. I feel like if someone tells you to bring an expensive bottle of wine, it's either, one, a joke, or two, the thing you need to take very, very, very seriously. Yeah. So in this case, it reads more as a bit of a bit of a wink. And so I think you can get away with just like a nice enough bottle. Oh, God. I thought he was like really serious.

You thought he was deathly serious about this? Yeah, I did. I did. So what would you- No, Christopher Walken says everything with a little twinkle. Yes. Under these circumstances, look, also, mysteries need to be unraveled.

You're trying to at least get something from this person, whether it's personal, whether it's business. Like, I think we're all trying to figure that out for Burvover. but everybody's talking about it. So why not splurge a little bit? Yeah. And relative to a Lumen salary, I think he could spring for a $40 bottle of wine.

Okay. 40 to $50 bottle of wine. I was going to say 50. I think that's well within range. I would buy a more expensive bottle of wine if someone didn't ask me and I wanted to impress them. Sure. But if they ask me and I'm like,

no matter who asks me, I'm a little pissed that they felt like they needed to articulate that. So I'm definitely capping it at 50. 50 is as high as I'm going on. If someone asks you to bring an expensive bottle of wine, bring like fucking barefoot or whatever. You know, like they deserve it at that point. Exactly. All right.

We talked about you talked about the Dylan's eulogy, but I do want to like point out one line that caught my eye. Dylan used the phrase, suck my own fuck. Yeah. Okay. And I would like to play a clip for you now, please. I already know what it is. You can go suck a fuck. Oh, please tell me, Elizabeth.

How exactly does one suck a fuck? How does one suck a fuck? I literally said this into my living room as soon as it came out of balance. Like, how can you, if you are as millennial coded as, at least I am, you classify yourself as millennial, Joe. How can you not reach for this place immediately? Here's the deal, Rob. That's not true of every millennial, and I just want to say this. Yesterday I had the privilege of recording with Bill Simmons, Malay Rumen, and Bill was like,

Joanne and Rob, our most unlikely podcasting duo on the network? Wow. And I was like, why? And his explanation was only complimentary to you about how he thought you were, when they hired you, he thought you were just a basketball guy and he didn't know you had this sort of like pop culture side to you. But I was just like, like, there are references that you and like, not that we're alone the world and having Donnie Darko references, but I was just like, I knew immediately that you

would know that that is a Donnie Darko reference. It simply has to be. It has to be. And also the funny thing about Bill saying that is he's the person who paired us together in the first place. And so he saw some weird alchemy somewhere that suggested that we should do this together. That's why he's the podfather. Okay. Here's a wild theory that's running around burning up Reddit. Ragabi, Basement Dweller that she is, is wearing these earrings that the camera

sort of focuses on a bit. Okay. And they are the exact, I think, exact same earrings that Helena Egan wore when we met her at the end of season one at the sort of gala situation. And so the question is, are they some sort of like lumen issued

you know, something, be it like a, here's your goal? watch here. I was about to say. Here's your like earrings or are they a device of some kind? So there is, you know, when I, when I watched this episode a second time with a friend of mine, her theory, which had never really occurred to me, she thinks the whole Ragabi thing is still Lumen. That Raghabi is like false flag in it. Right. Pretending this whole, you know, reintegration thing, but she's still actually working for Lumen. I'm not all in on that. Yeah. But to your point, I love to just entertain every idea. And the matching earrings is very odd to me.

So what do you think about that? Could I take this crazy theory one level deeper? Please, always. Down to the Snow Fortress level? No one ever needs to go to the Snow Fortress level of anything anymore after last week. What if they are, in fact, not her own earrings? Well, I guess my question is I did not clock these earrings. Depending on when they appear in the episode,

could they in fact be earrings that she dug out of Gemma's stuff and is wearing to spark the reaction in Mark that she says she's trying to do by kind of like using some of her physical things. Oh, a real co-bell stealing the candle move from last season. Exactly. And in doing so, suggest something about maybe what Gemma was really up to. Interesting.

We're on Earring Watch. Something I did not know that I was going to say here in 2020. It's also been huge on, I just sort of watching Paradise. Are you watching Paradise, Joe? No, we got a lot of emails from people wanting us to cover Paradise. And Chris, I was asking Sierra, I was like, Sierra, do I have to watch Paradise? And he was like, Chris is basically like, it would amuse me if you watch Paradise. I had flagged it because I love Sterling Kay.

Yeah, of course. And so I had flagged it when we were looking at stuff to cover. And I'm glad in retrospect that we did not, because it does not stand up to that level of scrutiny. But it is very fun and very goofy and very surprising at times. Also very heavy in earring-related subplots. So earrings having a huge moment, apparently, in mystery box shows. Okay, on yellow jackets as well. Interesting.

Interesting. Okay. We got a bunch of emails about inspirations for Kier Egan of various sort of, like, figures in our American industry culture that I thought it was worth talking about. Brady wrote into talk about W.K. Kellogg. We actually got several emails about the founder of, of Kellogg over the years

over the weeks of this podcast. Everything I know about WK Kellogg, I learn from the film The Road to Wellville starring Anthony Hopkins as the aforementioned

WK Kellogg. One of the more perturbing films I've ever seen in my life because it's about sort of early wellness culture in America when we knew nothing and we're doing absolutely banana stuff

in the name of wellness. We still are, but... I was about to say. We haven't really come that long away, really. Wait, wait till you see White Lotus Season 3. But this is what Brady wrote. He was like, W.K. Kellogg, of course, invented cornflakes to curb sexual desire, ran his own sanitarium where patients would dance on the rooftops and lead a... and led a hugely successful campaign to normalize circumcision in the U.S. Talk about severance.

Michigan is home to Henry Ford as well, another influence on the fictional cure, no doubt. Indeed, when the painting of cure overlooking lakes on a cliffside is shown the land below resembles a mitten. I know the show is set in a made-up state, but where this setting pulls its real-life influence seems intentional. So we've got Henry Ford. Yep. W.K. Kellogg. Yeah. And then Fiona wrote in to talk about Joseph Smith and Mormonism.

Of course. I mean, that one is also right there. The main point that she was making, the one that really hit for me is the idea of, teeming tempers in a cave in the woods. Yeah. This lore that we learn. And Joseph Smith and the idea of Joseph Smith finding golden plates in the woods and using these special peepstone glasses in order to read it and stuff like that. And the way that the Joseph Smith mythology changed to sort of suit the needs of the Mormon

church, as does this like pure Egan story. Organized religions would never do such a thing. They would never subtly alter their text. over time through convenient, like lapses in translation perhaps or anything related to modernization to make them more palatable. They would never do such a thing. And you're right. And you're right. And you know that as well as I think you know brain chip devices when you see one. Okay. I've just said a couple of other sort of pineapple and Greek mythology-based things to get to, but I want to ask like what other scenes do you want to talk about or character stuff do you want to

talk about in this episode. I would like to take us back to Milchick's first debrief with the MDR team, as he is explaining, as we mentioned, the answers to their very specific and individual questions. But also, I think, putting such a nice and soft spin on this idea of Helena Egan infiltrating Heli's body to be a part of the team. And in the most benevolent way possible, which we know is always Swedish. Yes. The Glock Schopen. Yeah. Which is just a marvelous introduction. by the way. How do you actually pronounce it? Do we know? Oh, I'm not Swedish and I'm not going to try, but I do know that everyone who is Swedish said, what when they heard that pronunciation of it? I will say Dylan's ear, though, very tuned. Because he brings it back pretty quickly to throw it back in Milchick's face. And I would say a similar enough pronunciation for being caught off guard with some random Swedish at like 8.30 in the morning. So shout out to Dylan. delivery of that of everything. He's wonderful.

Is wonderful. But yeah, that was like, what I really loved about that is because I think the joke you made in the first episode this season about Helena posing as hellie was undercover boss, which was like hilarious. It's literally canon, Joe. I love that this is like

classy Swedish undercover boss. The Grugschupin, which again, if you're Swedish, pineapple bobbing and gmail.com. I know that's not how you pronounce it. And I would say true to undercover boss, Helena wants no part of going back amongst the people ever again. Like she is hit it and quit it.

She's out of there. She got what she needed. Does not have any interest in returning to the severed floor. And basically has to be dragged into doing it. No. I mean, actually, that's not true. I think she's eager to go down herself. Oh, but not as hell.

Yes, yes. That is. She's like, I'll just do it again. I'll just go down by myself. I'll pretend again. Yes. Maybe I have sex with Mark again. That would be nice.

Can you imagine? If she did the double deception and Mark fell for it. Like there's no coming back from that, Mark. If you fell for that. It's over. It's already pretty bleak. Yeah, I think she would love to go back down and hang out. She loved doing that.

And so when she's like, they're animals. Like that's not how she actually feels. She was like, what she really feels is I felt alive for the first time in my cold, cold existence. You know? It is very true. And I do appreciate as we are getting all these answers, as we were getting all these revelations within this episode, and there are many, including introducing the idea of Helly back to the MDR team, we still do have just like the bomb in the back pocket of the fact that Heli does not know that Helada and Mark had sex on the orbow. And for Milchick to throw it in Mark's face so clearly and so maliciously as he so often does, like the man knows how to wear turtleneck and he knows how to deliver like a very frightening line of dialogue. And he knows how to stand way too close.

Incredibly, that's not an elevator for two people. And frankly, the question of can I come in, the answer is a hard no. You're going to have to wait for the next one. I'll meet you on the outside. Yeah, for sure. Come on out. Yeah. Are you ready for more pineapple lore? It just goes deeper.

I thought you would never ask. Okay, great. Okay, so what do we have so far? We have, it's for like polyamory, group sex, right? Is something we learned about pineapple? Apparently so. Margita said something from the Smithsonian Library and Archives about, titled The Prickly Meetings of the Pineapple.

Very good. During the 18th century, the pineapple was established as a symbol of hospitality, with its prickly, tufted shape incorporated in gateposts, door entryways, and finials, and in silverware, and ceramics. The motif continues prevalent in Christmas decorations in Williamsburg today, but with pride of place on the lavish dining tables, of the enslavers of North America,

the pineapple continues its association with slavery. George Washington, who first encountered the pineapple at the plantations of Barbados, had them imported from the West Indies a port in the triangular trade of enslaved Africans.

So, luxury, Christmas, slavery. I mean, that's the severance mood board, as far as I can tell. That's the trifecta, baby. That's the trifecta right there. And there's also, I would say,

the sort of vague gesture away from office life towards something exotic and tropical. Every illusion we get to Irving's Audi going on a cruise, to the music that's playing after the funeral, to the existence of these fruits and the way that they are sort of held over people's heads

as something to covet and want. It is very longing out of your cubicle for the vacation that you can never have. And this is the closest that they can get to it and it is very, very sad, Joe. Do you think they think the outside is just like sort of this tropical paradise when in fact it's the bleak midwinter

always outside of Lumen. They would be so disappointed to find out what the real world is actually like, including the Midwest winter, which is no joke. I also love that you know, when Mark talks about the fact that he got all wet, that they told him that they had a ropes course,

it seems like, on their, on their orpo. Which like, it plays better than a near drowning. It does. It's not outside the realm of what they set up, There were tents, marshmallows. I could see Day 2 being a ropes course. But I guess they didn't mention. Also, we hauled animatronic versions of you out into the wilderness to point you towards a cave.

The other thing about the animatronics that people did point out was that the animatronic, and we say this theoretically, we assume it's an animatronic at this point. Hellie has a bit of like an askew head situation, like evocative of when she tried to hang herself. So if that is true, look, fucked up work by O&D or whoever came up with the animatronics. Like, that's just nasty business and uncalled for.

But also, if I think it speaks to not everyone knowing and maybe where the circle of trust is as far as Helena's infiltration. Like clearly Milchick knew, some people in the control room knew, but this felt like drummond, obviously. This felt like a pretty tight circle of people who understood that that was Helena on the severed floor.

Real haunting of hill house vibe with a broken neck lady but I think also I like that as sort of like an illusion because yeah she's awkwardly sort of like bent over in a way that the other ones aren't yeah um but I don't know that like that necessarily means that O and D who of course made it because they as we found out this week make literally everything everything I don't know that we're meant to then and for that they know everything that happened um last but not least Tim wrote in about on the Greek mythology front, Tim wrote in about the sort of maze-like quality of the hallways, reminding him of the story of like the Minotaur in Greek mythology, this idea of a monster

at the center of a maze. I think what was so effective about that running sequence at the beginning of this season, as sort of annoyed as Adam Scott seems to have been to have filmed it over the course of several months. Can you blame him? It really did establish for us. Like every time we're down there, it now feels. more claustrophobic than it ever did before for me, just knowing how sort of Warren-like

it is down there. I mean, we walked with them through there before. We knew that there were, like, a lot of twists and turns and blank white hallways, but something about the length of that running sequence just really, you know, sets the world for us when we're down there in the in the underground. And a great bit of filmmaking, too, because if you've seen any of the visual effects, like pre-vis shots of this show, it's a pretty limited space of hallway that they're actually working with and yet they make it feel infinite. And I think one of the benefits of having these sorts of drab office interiors is you can do wonders to stretch them out, to elongate them, to push them like a little bit past the

point of absurdity. And I am always so interested by like the office satire elements of this show. And ultimately how they are tying into the themes and they're tying into this loneliness, like how they are feeling making characters feel more isolated. And maybe never more pointedly than when someone's walking down a long ass white bleak. hallway with not a person in sight, not a door in sight, no clear way to understand even where they're going. We love a long white hallway, especially on an Apple property.

Certainly. And just to recap, Rob Mahoney loves an office, satire hates the office. Correct. That has been. Also, I will say the bit about Milchick not properly applying his paper clips to his reports, a little too office space for me. A little TPS report for you? A little TPS report.

I thought we're getting maybe a little too cute with that part of it. Anything else you want to say about this episode? Just to return to one of our recurring bits as listeners have been emailing us about what they would sever from their own lives, Joyce emailed us to say that she would sever a great candidate that many people ended up echoing, commuting. Yes. Very relatable, very understandable. And she noted that at least for any would get to listen to some ringer pods as they are commuting from place to place, which I'm certainly thankful of.

But I'm also starting to detect a bit of a theme, Joe, between the commuting, the exercise, people flying, people doing their chores. These are all things that people are wanting to sever out of their lives, and they're also time that they spend with us. So I'm starting to wonder, are we severance? I'm starting to take it personally. Are we so easily severable from your lives, dear listeners?

But also, are we, you know, the little bit of sugar that's making the corporate life go down more smoothly? like our, is that our role in the universe? How do you feel about that? Does I feel like your face has been imprinted on a marshmallow? I wish. I wish I was at that level of authority where I would be. But no, I am but the marshmallow.

I am but the one being imprinted on and fed to the masses to make them get through their little orpbo experience. All right. Well, this has been another marshmallow episode from us, your lures to get through your corporate day. Thanks so much to Donnie Beachham for his work on this episode. Thanks to Justin Sales for his work on the feed. Thanks to John Richter for helping me find my way into the void.

Will I am? No, I'll be in the void, I think, for the rest of the season. Because I'm down here for the, so just get used to it. Yeah, get comfortable. And we'll see you next time. Bye. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably bright creatures. What if a Pacific octopus held the key to a mystery that could heal your heart? Well, that's Tova's reality. An elderly widow working at an aquarium.

Tova forms an unlikely friendship with their crumudgeonly, Marcellus, whose remarkable intelligence leads her to a life-changing discovery. Remarkably bright creatures is now playing. Only on Netflix.