The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Severance’ Season 2 Finale Mailbag. Plus, an Interview With Series Creator Dan Erickson.

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

Jo and Rob are first joined by series creator Dan Erickson to talk about Helly’s decision to chase after Mark, Mr. Milchick’s complicated relationship with Lumon, his favorite theory, what a pineapple signifies in the world of ‘Severance,’ and much more (4:36). Later, they open up the mailbag to answer burning (listener) questions about the Season 2 finale (26:52). Email us! [e-mail] Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Prestige TV Podcast’ and so much more! Try Coffee mate Creamers Now: http://coffeemate.com Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Guest: Dan Erickson Producers: Kai Grady and Donnie Beacham Jr. Video Supervision: John Richter Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save. at Whole Foods Market. Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson. I'm Rob Mojone. And here we are. Rob, it's our last severance podcast.

Are you sure? The next time there's more severance. Yeah. I feel like we're going to get roped back in at some point. Our innings will be activated, or I guess maybe we're the innings. Either way, we will be back. You will be back in the void inevitably talking about severance. I feel like it's, we cannot stay out.

Wow. You're doomed me to a future of the void. I don't know what to say about that. Okay, listen. What are we here to do today? Rob, we are here to answer a lot of email questions that we have. Wrap up some things, some questions, some prevailing theories. You know, just tie a tidy little bow on this entire orpo experience that we have shared together here in Severn Season 2. A notoriously tidy finale. All questions answered. Everything resolved. No conflicted feelings for anybody. Clear as Crystal, I think, Rob, as they say. Also in this episode, and we're about to,

to get to it a second. Dan Erickson, creator of Severance, was kind enough to sit down and talk to us for a little while about some of our most pressing questions. Again, we asked questions, like sort of character-based questions, and he did a great job answering those questions, I thought, really enhanced our experience with the finale. So we're going to listen to that interview first. Usually we pop interviews at the end of an episode, but as I was telling Rob before he started recording, I already spent an entire episode saying, well, you hear what? Dan says about this one. So we're not going to make you wait.

Dan Erickson interview is going to kick off the episode and then we'll be back to answer definitively with 100% certainty. No doubts. All of your severance questions. We have all of the answers for you. Anything you want to say before our interview with Dan, Rob? Just that I very much appreciate the severance sickos

coming out in full force after this finale. It's been amazing all season, getting email. from people at pineapple bobbing at gmail.com, prestige TV at Spotify.com. But they were in rare form, Joe. People were excited to talk about the finale. They had many, many ideas about where things were going to go in season three.

They had a lot of thoughts about some of the visual reference cues that we asked for coming out of the last podcast, which I very much appreciate. They delivered on all fronts, I will say. Now it's Dan's turn to deliver and then our turn to deliver in the answering of all these questions.

We got, and I kept count, I don't know if you were keeping track. I'm scared to know. Over a thousand emails between Friday and now. Holy shit. And just about that visual reference question alone, we got 300 emails. So you guys are incredible. And we will talk about all those visual.

Like the visual reference emails were just coming fast and furious. And it was incredible. We did ask for it and we got it. but let's let's start with a conversation with Dan Erickson. Well, the finale gave us a lot to chew on, to say the least. But I was hoping to start with the two versions of Mark that finally have a chance to interact, well, more or less in person, I guess the closest they're going to get to in person. And I guess what we see at their relationship up front is pretty adversarial.

And I was wondering what you were trying to capture in this first exchange between the two marks and why it goes so differently for them relative to say the two Dillon's, who are ultimately able to be a little bit more cordial with each other. Yeah, well, I think that there's been this building sense over the course of really the whole series so far, that EniMark is becoming aware of the degree to which his whole existence is kind of being used. You know, he sort of is there to serve a purpose. The understanding has always kind of been that he himself is not a person. He's there to sort of as an appendage for his Audi.

And so I think that there is a little bit of an immediate sense of wonder upon actually getting to talk to this version of himself that he's always wondered about. But it sort of quickly is replaced by this distrust and this kind of this sense that, you know, what does this guy want from me? Yeah. And I think that that, it really comes to a head, of course, when Audi Mark makes the very, very dumb decision to mispronounce Helly's name. And I think, to me, that's a turning point where suddenly it becomes, okay, this Joker doesn't have my best interest in mind. Would you say it's something similar as going on for Helly inside of this episode? because I feel like previously in the season, we saw her very pro, let's rescue Gemma,

let's do this. You know, we have to do this. And I know that we've heard her talk about feeling like not considered to be a human by Helena. She dresses me like I'm a baby, all this sort of stuff like that. So in that moment, when she goes and runs to find Mark at the end of the episode,

what is her intent? What's on her mind there? You know, I'm not sure she, herself knows in that moment, like what, why she's going. I think that she knows that she wants to see Mark one more time. But I also think that it's different from the last moment they had had, where I think they were both kind of accepting that, you know, this is probably their last time together. You know, there probably is not a life to be had here the way that Mark said in season one. I think that they, they sort of make a kind of piece with that.

But then that, to me, that changes in the, in the moment where, you know, Dylan shows up and pushes the vending machine, and Helly is able to kind of rally this weird marching band a little bit. And I don't know if it's conscious for her, but to me it feels like that reawakens this sense of fight where it's like, you know what? maybe we don't have to write this off. Maybe there is something,

maybe there is more power here for us than we think. And in that power, maybe there's the promise of a life. And so I don't think she knows exactly what she wants when she goes there. And I don't know that either she or Mark understands what they're running toward when they run off, but they're running away from that door

because that door is non-existence. That door means they are giving up their lives in service of their Audi's lives, and they are not willing to do that anymore. Well, there has been so much longing between Hellie and Mark this season, who have been ships in the night, narratively speaking, on and off the severed floor. They're rarely kind of in the same places at the same time, it feels like. But you could say a lot of the same about the MDR team on the whole. And I'm curious for you, what did we learn and kind of what were you trying to express in pulling these characters apart, a core MDR team over the course of the season and having them all be in such different places fundamentally.

Yeah. Well, one of my favorite moments in season one is, which sort of happened organically almost by accident, it wasn't in the script, but it's after Dylan tackles Milchick after the music dance experience. And the other sort of pull him up and they sort of just make this formation behind him where it's the four of them all kind of holding him and supporting him. And it was sort of this just magical little moment that just happened. And I realized, like, this is the story about this unit of four people coming together

and learning who they are as a group. And in doing so, getting more of a sense of who they are as individuals. But then to me, it just felt like this season, the next stage of that exploration was what happens when you rip them apart. And that happens, you know, physically we get, we get Irving taken away. But also, you know, it's, it's, looming creates fissures in the relationships. You know, Mark and Helly are tested. Helly and Dylan are tested.

You know, Dylan and Irving are tested and ultimately they lose Irving. And I think that in a show that's all about identity and finding out who you are, you know, the, the relationships that you lose or that are tested are just as important as the ones that you find. And both of those things end up defining you as an individual. So it was just all kind of part of the development of each of them as characters. You mentioned losing Irving. We see Totoro on the train in the penultimate episode. And if this is the last we see of Irving B or Irving Baleif,

do you feel like you got to explore everything you wanted to with this character? I do. And I, you know, I can't speak to whether we will see him again or not. But I think that he is, you know, he's somebody who, from what little we did see of him on the outside, I think he's somebody who, who is very lonely and kind of had written himself off as not somebody who gets to have love in his life. And the fact that he was able to learn of this other version of himself that did have a really strong bond with somebody and really did get to experience that, you know, it's like I think

sometimes like, you know, some of us who are, who are single, sometimes we wonder, it's like, well, am I still even capable of loving somebody in that way, you know, like I did when I was younger? And in Irving's case, it takes literally this, you know, there's this version of himself that is almost like a child who experiences love. And so he, that, that, I think, awakens in him the possibility that he could have that too. So I think that he's going off to a hopeful place. I think he he's not with Bert. Bert is, you know, going to hopefully go back and eventually get to go back to Milwaukee with Fields for their trip. But Irving is going off with the understanding that maybe this part of himself that's capable

of love that he thought was gone is not necessarily gone. And there might be more adventures of that kind of head for him. Yeah, I mean, the world of severance can be a pretty cold place. And I would say ultimately, the stuff between Bert and Irving is maybe as warm as we get in terms of the outward affections displayed between characters.

Now, granted, some characters like Mark and Helly are able to explore their relationship in a different way this season. But as far as Bird and Irving, and kind of all of these unions that are coming together, whether it's Dylan and Gretchen, whether it's Mark and Hallie or Helena,

I'm left with this idea of in a show that is as cold and removed and sometimes corporate in the Lumen's sense of severance, do you see this as being a sentimental show? Like, is this a sentimental work to you in terms of its heart? Yes. Yeah, I think I'm a pretty sentimental person. And for me, you know, it's funny, there's a meta-narrative where working on this show is often very, very challenging.

And there's a lot of hard work and pressure. And I am often saved by the relationships. by the warmth of the people around me, both on set and in the writer's room and people from my life and my family. And I, you know, that may be sentimental, but I think it's deeply true is that the, you know, the more challenging of a situation you're in,

the more important it is to have people who will try to touch your soul and nurture your human beings. and, you know, severance is about these four warm human hearts who find each other in the midst of this very corporate environment and reawaken the humanity in each other that has been taken from them. So I think it is a sentimental show, and I think maybe we, you know, that's something I feel good about. And we love a sentimental show. Absolutely.

It's a great answer for us. And I think in terms of that sort of reawakening that you were outlining with Irving that you were just talking about here, someone that we've been watched sort of watching struggle with their spot this season a lot has been Seth, Milchick, right? Sort of struggling with the microaggressions and inside of his workplace and stuff like that. We see him sort of, you know, fight back a bit in episode eight and episode nine. And then ultimately, though, when push comes to shove, he is sort of violently, ferociously defensive of the Lumen agenda at the end of the day inside of this episode. Was I, like, expecting too much of a rebellion from Seth

or hoping too much for him? Or, like, where are we on his journey inside of that? No, I don't think you were expecting too much. I think sometimes the closer we get to breaking out of a system, the more sort of vitriol we we have in defending it because, you know,

I, I, yeah, I think that he, the fact that he feels his own loyalty to the company waning or possibly cracking,

you know, that makes him that much more threatened by the rebellion because all of a sudden he sees something of himself in it and he's not ready to he's not ready to leave it yet i think that uh and and it's it's possible that that he that he won't be because i i think the sad truth is that uh you know we we talk a lot about cults in the in the writer's room and on set for this show and what exactly it means to be in a cult you know, there's the sense of the word that we normally think of that, you know, we see on, you know, in documentaries and stuff. But there's such a thing as, you know, sometimes companies do have cult-like tactics that they use.

And so do countries and so do religions. And I think that as you start to, for people who do evolve out of a system like that, I think it's a painful process. And they may become that much more of a, you know, they might become that much more of a zealot in those moments leading up to the moment when they are willing to break away. But some people never do, you know, it's hard to do. Yeah. Do you think Milchick, I mean, he's obviously graded again. against Drummond and Lumen more broadly in terms of the language he uses, the kind of softer

approach he's trying to take with the MDR team. But do you think he has a sense of who he is as a person outside of Lumen Middle Manager, or is he still finding that for himself? I think that he is somebody who really defines himself by his work. And there may be shades that we're not seeing in terms of what he does outside and his other interests and his other relationships. We've sort of intentionally kept that hidden. But I think that the reason for that is not just to keep it secret, but because I think

when Seth is at work, he is work Seth. In a way, you know, all of our characters are severed, even the unsevered ones. And I think that he is so committed to his job there that in a way, it's like we talked about going back and seeing his home. But I think for the version of set that we see, it doesn't matter what his home looks like. Because when he's at work, he is all the way at work, you know. I mean, he does have that really cool motorcycle, but that's, you know.

Great taste in leather, ultimately. A coolest motorcycle and the coolest jacket. Yes. 100%. Can you elaborate a little bit when you say even our unsevered characters are severed? Can you talk a little bit more about your thoughts about that? I mean in the way that we're all sort of severed at work, in the way that, you know, my, my original idea for the show came because I was sort of, you know, walking into work and

wishing I could skip ahead, but also knowing that there's a comfort to being at work. And, you know, at the time I was going through, you know, a breakup and was very, there was something weirdly comforting about stepping into a place where I didn't have to think about my own wants and desires or motivations. I was like, well, I have to enter this data now because that's my job. And I think people get addicted to that, you know. And so somebody like, you know, Cobell or somebody like Milchick, they're not, you know, they may not have had the procedure, but they've severed themselves in the way that so many people do. I mean, Cobel, it seems like at this point in the story,

maybe has reintegrated in a sense then, because the personal and the professional are bleeding into each other all the time. I think we have a sense of who that character is in a new way, having seen glimpses of her backstory, but she has a certain fascination with Mark that it feels like goes above and beyond, maybe just scientific or professional curiosity.

What do you think it is that Harmony sees in Mark? well uh it's a good question it's sort of a chicken and the egg question because i think that you know there is a professional interest in him he is uh you know he's he is working on this project that is of great professional importance um at the same time you know there there's not i i think there's still a question of like why choose to live next to him yeah um and I think that Mrs. Selvig really loves Mark and really cares about Mark, but the question is, is Mrs. Selvig real in any way? Or is she entirely a fabrication? Is she entirely a mask? But I think you could ask the same about Cobell. I think that Cobell may be a character that this

person had to create in order to fit in in a place like Lumen. And there's a question of who would she have been had she not been part of this machine and that was part of the thing we wanted to sort of explore in in episode eight where she goes home was reminding ourselves that this was a child once and she maybe felt like she had to create a version of herself and and that may be a version of herself that isn't working for her as much as it used to and so a lot of that to go back to your question sort of comes back to, yeah, how earnest is her affection for Mark? Is it, is it real? Is it warm? Is it obsessive? Is it manipulative? And I think we still don't know because we still don't know who that person is under that layer of masks. I'm sure you as a, you know, a now-a-season TV

creator preferred to enjoy each theory equally. But can you recall across this, season. Obviously, the theories, the connections, the literary references, the film connections, all the big ideas, philosophical ideas that has come out of this, like, absolutely frothing fandom that is around this show. I'm wondering if there was like a particular connection or insight or theory that you most enjoyed that felt most like validating to you like these people really get this show or that's not right at all, but I love the inventiveness. behind it? Well, I don't want to, I mean, I don't want to, I don't want to accidentally confirm or deny any

theory, you know, because they are all beautiful and valid. I will say this. And I've said this before, but there's a theory that because Rebecca in season one mentions that she has sores on the back of her. head from her bird. She's like, she's like, I have swords on the back of my head and you might see them. And people have taken that to mean that she is severed because that's where the, that's where the severance, you know, whole would be. Yeah.

I, and I, I will not confirm nor deny that she is severed. But what, what I will not stand for is the, the suggestion that her bird is not real. So you've heard it here. Rebecca has the bird. Yes. Bird is a freaking jerk. And it wants her dead. And it's smart enough to know that sometimes you have to attack from behind.

You know, that the element of surprise. So the bird wants to kill her. And that is true and that is canon. Now, is there also a severance hole back there? Maybe. but the bird is real and I will not stand for its erasure. Protect Rebecca's bird. I love that. My favorite character on the show.

Well, Dan, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for standing up for Rebecca's bird who, yeah, I feel like has taken some slander in a way that it just simply does not deserve. It's just, it makes my heart hurt. Just really quickly, Dan, what does a pineapple mean to you? To me, a pineapple is a weird thing to give somebody because it's both a gift and a chore. It's a delicious piece of fruit that if you can get to it is wonderful. But you have to find a way to cut through this weird, you know, spiky skin that clearly, you know, God intended to kill us.

So it's, it's a, I just thought that it was very fun that that was what Lumen would give people. It's like, here's something, something beautiful that you might have to hurt yourself in order to access. Love it. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigued, ask your doctor about Zepbound, terseptite, the first and only FD FDA approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity.

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Call 1-800-545-99 or visit Zepbound.lily.com. Wow. Wasn't that a great interview that we did many days ago, Rob? I thought so. I thought that was great. Now we know once and for all what the pineapples for, et cetera, et cetera. I really loved your question about, and as I've been teasing, your question about whether or not severance is a sentimental show, because that really got to the heart of the conversation that Chris and Andy have been having and some of our listeners have been expressing about, like,

is this a show that's all flash, no substance, or is there sort of an emotional heart churning at the center of this show? and I really liked Dan's answer. I thought it was a really good one. So thanks for asking that question. I think, too, there's different kinds of substance. I think you and I are aligned in this way, Joe, where if you give me the choice between

a mystery box show answering all of its mystery questions or paying off emotional arcs for its characters in a fulfilling way, I am always going to pick the latter over the mystery box answers. Those things are important to me, too, and we're going to get into a lot of them today. But for me, it's always character first, and it's always going to come down to

what ultimately was so satisfying about the season two finale, which was when you boil this show down, it is Mark and Helly and Gemma first and foremost and all of their various permutations and the way that twists up an audience is much more interesting to me

than what is going on with the goats. Do you want to start with one of the most popular theories that we got sort of immediately, I would say night of, we started getting emails about this very popular theory that has since I would say

be been definitively debunked. But this quite popular theory that at the end of the episode, it's not Mark S, Gemma, and Hellyer, it's Mark S, Gemma, and Helena Egan. Yes. And as far as I can tell, this was based off a look that people feel like Brit Lauer as this character gave to Gemma that was sort of like a triumphant, I Got Your Man, sort of glare. I saw it described online as a smirk, to which I would say, ladies and gentlemen, that's not what a smirk looks like. It did not read that way to me at all. A lot of people were

convinced that this was the case. And like honestly, who can blame them after sort of being duped at the beginning of the season? Some people were. So it's sort of like if you're on high alert for Helena versus Helly, who can blame you? But do you want to address what Brit Lauer herself said about this? Yeah, Brit Lauer said to her. in terms of her performance, that is Hellie R. And I think we have every reason to believe that to be true, not just because it makes more storytelling sense for that to be the case. Like, I understand technically,

someone could pop into the back room and flip on the Glasgow block, and all of a sudden it's Helena Egan on the floor. That's a thing that could theoretically happen in the world of the show. And as you said, we have been kind of primed by this season of severance to be looking for the differences in Helly and Helena's behavior. That's what the show has conditioned us to look for. That said, even if you flip that switch, even if that's Helena, it doesn't really make character sense. Like, so much of this season, like, that would be a twist for the sake of there being a twist.

And shows are not above that from time to time, but it being helly is what makes it an expression of a real and genuine relationship. And what ultimately, like, closes the circle or at least kind of starts rounding that corner on the kinds of conversations that Mark and Helly have been having all season. as they've kind of wrestled with the idea of who they are to each other, what they can be, what kind of life they can have on the severed floor to begin with, and ultimately we're wrecked in the finale at the thought of giving it up. And so if you have those character moments where they're so tortured by the idea of what they're losing, and then you swap in Helena on a little body swap hijinks, I think it would invalidate a lot of what makes that finale so powerful.

I think Dan's answer, because I did come out of the finale. My initial, after the first watch of the finale, was like, hell, he wouldn't do that. Not that's Helena, but just sort of like, this is a weird character choice for a character that I understood to be sort of like noble and self-sacrificing. And what Dan was saying, and I still feel like there's maybe like a scene or a moment kind of missing in this transition in the finale. But what Dan was talking about in terms of like her coming into her desire to fight for herself, her life, her power, what she wants. Yeah. Happens inside of this sort of like normal, like I keep calling this Norma Ray moment.

of just sort of like we got a fight for our right to run down the hallway with Mark. Yeah. And so I think that I think what the interpretation that I like that sort of bridges the gap between these two things is as we've been discussing all season, the more these in ease experience, the more heartbreak they experience, the more adverse conditions they experience, etc. or the death they experienced, this, that, and the other thing, the more they might be traveling towards their outies, because their outies are their, like, the inis are their pure self, and the outies are the pure self, hardened, calcified by the woes of life. And so the more that the innings get to experience,

not just moving numbers around on a monitor, but all the other things that they've experienced over the last two seasons, they are becoming more and more like their outy cells. And so if a bit of recognizably Helena behavior emerges out of Helly R, that makes a lot of sense to me inside at the end of this episode. Especially when what we understand about Helena is all the ways in which she has been tamped down and sort of repressed by her circumstances. And so the version of Helena that we know is one that is kind of gnarled up by her relationship with her dad and her public exposure and her place within this company and all the expectations that are put on her. it's all very weird. And so, yeah, there's always going to be a commonality of something that is intrinsically

Helena and Heli that's going to start poking through the surface. As you say, the more that they're exposed to on the severed floor. And that's the biggest difference between season one and season two is just the range of elements that they're exposed to and thus the emotions that come out of those things. And so to see a little bit of Helena in Helly is not a surprise at all. All right. Can I say one final thing on that note, Joe? would, all right, just shut, just shut me down.

Just kidding. Lock me out like Gemma on the other side of the door. I see how it is. I do wonder, too, with some of this theorizing, there is a, I'm not going to ascribe nefarious intent to anybody, but there is a certain segment of the severance fandom that is very one true pairing driven, right? The idea that we are cheering for Mark and Helly to end up together or Mark and Gemma to end up together. And I did wonder with this Helena theorizing how much that came out of a very sincere. want to see Mark and Gemma on the outside and the idea that the only way that could be obstructed

is through some sort of like foul play. I wanted to bring up in this moment. We got several emails on the, you know, because we've been talking about the mythological sense of Orpheus and Eritusielses and this idea that like, this moment where Mark turns back in the myth, Orpheus turns around,

looks at his ghost wife who's behind him and in that lack of faith moment, She is sent back to hell and all of that sort of stuff. So can we put a clean map of that onto this moment? No, but does Mark look back in this moment? Yes. And we got some emails that were saying this is actually the opposite of what Orpheus would do. But what I really liked, and I don't have the email in front of me right now,

but one of our listeners pointed out that in Plato's interpretation of Orpheus, Orpheus is kind of a coward in that in order to rescue his wife from hell, wife dies, goes to hell, Hades, afterlife. And in order to rescue her, he finds a sneaky backdoor into doing it, rather than dying himself and joining her there. No, I'm not saying, if your wife dies, you should die. But the idea is that he chose the easier path down to hell. It wasn't, I will die and join my wife forever. It was, I can find a trick away.

Yes. I'm not choosing death. but I am trying to get love and I'm not choosing death. In this moment, it's a different set of circumstances, obviously, but in this moment, Mark S, Mark's iny is like, I'm not choosing death. No. Like whatever that is, whatever Gemma and Mark is, even if it is somehow connected to my soul in some way,

I'm not choosing death. I'm going to go after this, on this wild run towards I don't know what. Exactly. in order in order to do that. I'm just going to, let's just knock this out of the way. A question I asked, which inspired hundreds of emails, was like what the final moment, you know, invoked for people. Yes.

That final image. And I mentioned sort of like a post, a movie poster that I was thinking of. And we got so many email responses. And then Ben Stiller himself on Twitter also. also talked about some of the references. What do you want to say about the responses we got,

Rob Mountie? One, I am, I'm shocked and impressed by the number of people who have immediate visual recall of the Adjustment Bureau movie poster. A movie that, to me, has just been lost to time.

I have to admit. But does have a certain striking running resemblance, although at a bit of a different angle and a slightly different tonality than maybe like the doomed essence of what makes this ending so powerful. Yeah.

You invoked a Butch and Sundance, which we loved. We got, the graduate came up a lot. For sure. And Ben Stiller talked about the graduate. And this is something that our colleague, Ben Lindberg, after we had recorded, Ben texted me. He's like, what do you think that final shot is a reference to? I think it's a graduate.

I was like, oh, Rob said, Bouch and Sundance, like, I'm not, you know, I'm not sure, like where we are anyway. But so Ben Siller has definitely said that the graduate, especially the graduate in the sense of where we don't know where we're going. We've done this thing impulsively. At the end of the graduate, if you've never seen it, you know, Dustin Hoffman and Catherine Ross, run out of the, run away from her wedding, run out of the church, run off into the sunset together. But then they get on a bus. It's like one of the best endings of a movie of all time.

Get on a bus. And then slowly you see on their face, they're like. Like, what the fuck have we done? What do we do now sort of moment? So that's something that's definitely in the mix there. Logan's run was the most overwhelmingly popular response we got. The poster, yes, but some people sent a still image from the movie that actually shows the hallway lit up red. Oh, okay.

The couple holding hands in the hallway lit up red a bit more, that was a bit more convincing to me than the movie poster was. But what Ben Stiller said was, I think a lot of images come to mind, but that graduate ending is one of the greatest endings in movies ever. Other images that come to mind were the invasion of the body snatchers. And a lot of people sent over the invasion of the body snatchers poster. That was a good one. Really good. 400 blows. Sabotage video by Spike Jones.

Fuck, yes. Rah Mahoney's pick of Bush Cassie and the Sundance Kid. Breakfast Club. Who doesn't love a good freeze frame. So that's the official answer from Ben Stiller. I saw, too, that Jessica Lee Gagne referenced another movie that many people emailed us about, which was she was citing in terms of, I think she was saying in her role for that shot, she was more kind of lighting and supervision than direct cinematography. But in terms of influence, it was a little bit more French New Wave as well, and a little bit specifically of Juile Jim, which is something that many people emailed us about. And a film, I'm going to have to get up on Joe. Honestly, one of the best parts about this process in terms of these visual cues was like, let me have seen 65%. of the movies that people were emailing us about.

And so it's like, yeah, I would love to go back to Vertico. I'd love to go back to the graduate. But also, like, I've never seen charade before. So let's get up on charade. Okay, so charade is the answer that is most correct to my question, which is that was the movie poster I was thinking of, which is Carrie Grant and Audrey Hepburn with the rings of red around them on the poster. That is the image that I was thinking of.

So it may not have been what Ben Stiller and Jessica Liga and Ye were thinking of, but it was what I was thinking of. So thank you to all the people who wrote it about charade. A tremendous film about paranoia and all this or stuff like that. And actually people pretending to be other people, et cetera. Jules and Jim, I'm excited for you to watch that. That is an erotic thruple if ever I saw one. Invention of the body centristress is kind of fun in that if we think of this as like the inies, you know, grabbing control. of the Audi body. Somebody's getting snatched. I don't know who and who from,

but it's happening. They snatch those bodies for themselves. So thank you all for your literally hundreds of emails about this. We did our best to read everything. Where do you want to go next? Rob Mahoney. Let's start big picture, Joe. I have a question for you before we start digging deep into the bag. As we are zooming out on this

season of Severance, what would you say we're like the standout episodes for you of this season? A lot of optimism coming out of this finale. I would say that is among my three favorite episodes of season. I would go Chiquaybardo, number one, with a bullet. Not a surprise to anyone who listened to our podcast about that episode. For me, Woz Hollow is the number two episode. I think what you get from Irving, the mystery, kind of being outside the box for the first time in any meaningful way

over the course of the show with such like an energizing feeling. And then I would go Cold Harmer number three in large part because of some of these emotional arcs we've been talking about and the Mark and Helly stuff in particular. I will go number one easily To Chiaybardo Number two easily Woz Hollow

Number three is tough for me Because I don't think it is cold hard I think it's Attila I think between the dinner party Which I loved And was like the last Irving scenario that satisfied me

And the the Mark and Helly, you know, romantic sexual encounter inside of the severed floor. And the way all of that was shot, Bud of Bricewitz as the director of that episode. I just, yeah, I really liked that episode a lot, I think. That's my number three. But three is like a crowded field. It really is. It is tough to pick the third.

But Cold Harbor was definitely in my top five of the season, probably four. It's probably number four. But I think we're hitting on something, which is that, at least for us, there's kind of that top tier. And it's mostly Chikai Bardo and O's Hollow. And after that, there's a lot of, oh, I like these scenes. I like these elements. I like these plot threads.

And you can pick and choose what you like based on that. But I would be curious if anybody else has a definitive other one or two other than those. It seems like there's a lot of people who really, really love this finale. And we like it, for sure. And I like a lot of the payoffs within it. But to me, like, Chikai Bardo is a high watermark to hit, especially for a finale that has to wrap up so much. Chikardo is one of those episodes where, like,

You know, as I watch more and more, as the TV shows I watch stack up higher and higher and higher in my life of watching television, it is harder. Like, I can remember every, almost every single episode title name of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode like that because that's like I was fresh-brained when I watched that show. But I've seen so many shows since that like I can't tell you the name of every single episode. But Chicar Bardo, like the best episodes of Westworld, like the best episodes of whatever, I'm not going to forget that title. and it's going to come up as a reference when we talk about how do you do flashback episodes? How do you do, you know, how do you bring to the four a character who has been in the background?

You know, like there's a lot of things that accomplished at the highest level that has now entered my personal vocabulary when I talk about shows going forward, you know? I absolutely know. And we will be returning to that parlor game of making you recite Buffy episodes based on titles. And we're not going to stop at. you know, you're the Zepos and the gifts.

Like, we got to do some deep cuts. Yeah, I can do that. There's a lot of things I can't do, but that's a thing I can do, Rob. YouTube content coming soon. Putting Joanna under the interrogation lights and making her name Buffy episodes. I'm currently under them in the void. That's true. You act like I'm not constantly under them.

Okay. Back on topic. Let's talk about, we had a lot of people's questions about, obviously, Cold Harbor, no clear, clear answer of everything that's going on there. But we had a lot of people ask about a couple factors. One, if

Mark is refining data on Gemma, what the hay are the other refiners refining? I don't know. Me neither. I really don't know. And I'm not sure the show knows. Yeah, I'm not sure. I think

my, this is what's confusing is like as of Chiqui Bardo, I was kind of wondering, are some of these other rooms, rooms that other MDR employees have completed, right? Some of the more generalized anxieties, for example, being nervous on a plane having turbulence. That's something that anyone could infer about putting a like a stress test for a potential severance chip. Yeah. The things that were so specialized, like the writing of the thank you notes, that was straight out of Mark's head, straight out of Mark's memory. But it seems like he created all 25 of those rooms that Gemma was put through, that created all 25 of those inies.

At least that's my feeling based on the finale. 100%. The other question is, is there another trapped person, trapped woman down there? Would it be scientifically sound to have Mark as the person most emotionally connected to Gemma be the one working on her data while the other people are working on someone that they are like a stranger to? Like how much do you have to know the person in order to refine their data? as it turns out, you have to know them pretty well, apparently. And how much does Looming care about the scientific method? Like, do we need a control group for these things?

Or are these goat people just like, whatever, wing it. If it works, it works. I think I don't respect Mowers' scientific approach, but for some reason I maybe respect Harmony Cobell a bit more. This is kind of loopy at times, too. I'm going to be honest with you. Like, she is a woman in STEM. She's quite accomplished.

It's not not loopy. It's not not loopy, Rob. The candle move. But, like, I feel like she's, I feel like my sense, going back through those harmony scenes that we did when we, when we covered that episode, it felt very much like she was deeply dissatisfied with the work that Mao was doing. And she's like, you're doing it wrong. I got to do it my own sneaky way because you guys don't know what you're doing in terms of, like, reintegration is a thing. Like, have you tried sense, like, smell stimulation? I'm going to get this candle and put it in a room and see what I can see.

So that's one question. What are the other refiners refining? We don't know. Because it's not just, it's not just MDR, obviously, at this location. Oh, yeah, there's multiple branches. It's an international sensation. So what are we doing? What is anybody doing at Lumen?

It's a question that begs to be answered. But while we're talking about Harmony's place in this and kind of her scientific approach, Anne emailed us, why is it in Harmony's interest to help Mark rescue Gemma? We talked last week, Joe, about kind of these allies of convenience, right? This idea that Harmony wants something here and what is it that she's after. And Anne asked, you know, some people think that it's simply revenge for being fired, but this seems wrong to me. Her desire to thwart Cold Harbor is not recent.

She was whispering in Mark's ear urging him to quit way back in season one at the book party. It seems like she hasn't liked this Cold Harbor project or has had conflicted feelings about it since way before they fired her. I thought this was an interesting point. I also think if I were to pick any threads of the show in which maybe they didn't have the clearest idea of where things were going to go season to season. Harmony is the one that jumps out to me.

There's so much in her dialogue and her motivations and her behavior in season one that I don't know tracks perfectly. You know, we definitely learned a lot having seen where she came from, knowing that she created the severance chip. But Harmony is so all over the place in season one in a way that I don't think can be totally squared. And I believe based on interviews that Patricia Arquette has given and some of the behind the scenes folks have given, I think they hadn't fully found what they wanted Harmony to be initially. It's not, I know that they, I know that they have said and I believe because I have heard from people that they have an overarching plan for the show.

Yes. So I don't think they know where they want to land. Yeah, they know the endpoints. Right. The path they take to get there is, you know, something that should. television bend and curve. But it's nice when those bends and curves all connect. And sometimes they can feel a little forced inside of a thing. So what is Harmony's motivation? I thought the Dan's answer that he gave to your question about sort of like Harmony's feelings about Mark was interesting.

Definitely. Okay. So what are the other refiners refining? We talked about that. how can this is a common question we got how can a crib in a room Billy Holiday or no be more of a test to Gemma than Miss Casey sitting down with Mark for a session or sitting on the MDR floor all day and you know your mileage may vary if you think the stimulus of being in front of your husband

is more painful or more of a test than the stimulus of being reminded of the pains of infertility. I think that's a subjective question. Sojectivity doesn't have a lot of place in science necessarily, but like if they think

that the crib and everything that goes with it is the most painful circumstances that they can put together for her. I believe that that's something that they might believe to be true, you know?

Yeah. Well, also, they're not explicitly the ones putting it together for her. I think it makes sense that in a way, it's almost, like, the crib itself is almost more of a marked test than it is a Gemma test because we see him in conjunction

with the crib in Chiqui Bardo. He's the one who brings it home. He's the one who is disassembling it, right? Yes. And so this idea that he's creating a painful memory that might also be painful to Gemma, the one that's like a little bit outside of her lived experience,

to me works in this way because if you were to put Gemma in that scenario of taking apart the crib, she's not only thinking of the fertility struggles she went through overall and the miscarriage. She's also thinking about her relationship to Mark and the effect that it had on them collectively. So it's like it's the miscarriage. It's all of the things in fertility, but it's also there. It's a true tofer, a true torturous tofer, diabolical stuff, I have to say, straight from the brain of Mark Scout. One last thing I want to mention on the sort of Cold Harbor testing front,

We got a lot of versions of this email, but I really like this one that came from Matthew, the gist of which is that Mark S. passed Cold Harbor. In that he says, Mark demonstrated he was fully severed from his external trauma. His wife is screaming, yearning for him, and it didn't matter to him. His life is fully severed from the most significant trauma of his Audi. In choosing to stay, he's actually the one that passed Cold Harbor, showing the pain of the Audi is fully divorce from his life and experience. What do you think of that?

I think it's a great point. I think overall, all the dynamics between the various marks and Gemma's that we see in this finale is such a great construction to have of all of their various reveals, all of their moments of recognition and not recognition. And I want to talk about some of that

from Gemma's point of view as well as we go through these questions. Of course, yeah. But yeah, the fact that Mark is ultimately tested in this way and chooses something that he knows to be true and I say that in literal and emotional terms only on the severed floor. He's choosing his severed existence over this existence that he's been told about but doesn't

fully understand. And I guess technically has glimpsed through the overtime contingency. But that's a world that's totally foreign to him. And the idea that you can put a person in this situation, tell them all of these facts about their outside life in a way that should stoke some kind of memory, some kind of recollection, give them all the smells you're talking about, Joe, that they could possibly want to evoke those memories. And yet they're still going to pick the person and the life that they found on the

severed floor. That's a really powerful bit of technology, I got to say. What do you want to say about Gemma's point of view? I want to segue into another email we got from Caitlin, who talked about a bit of a personal story. Specifically, this is from Caitlin's email. Six years ago, my father was hospitalized for a very serious injury, and as part of his treatment, he had a reaction to a drug that caused him to hallucinate for 24 hours. I say with him all day while he spoke absolute nonsense, completely out of character for my usually stoic dad. He hardly recognized me, and I barely recognized him either. He was just some confused, scared old man. I often

think of it as one of the hardest days of my life. But the next day, the drugs had worn off, and I could tell the second I walked in the room. I really cannot describe why or how I could tell so quickly, but it was an immediate relief. I think there's something completely ineffable about the way we know the people we love. I know Mark would have understood the Gemma and the Cold Harbor room was in any, but I think it's fair to think he couldn't have been sure that the hallway Gemma would have been his. Just layers of severance down there, but he saw her immediately. Not to throw shade at Helly, but it's something Mark missed in her earlier in the season, a newer romance and a weaker bond, I suppose, Caitlin says, which I thought this was such a beautiful email and such an interesting

thought to kind of project onto severance, this idea of how we know the people we know. And specifically, I want to kind of apply it to our interpretation of this scene in the finale, where by the logic of the story, Gemma does not know that Marcus severed at all. She has been on the testing floor. She doesn't know what his process of grief has been like. She doesn't know that he lost his job at the university, that he went so hard on the alcohol, that he's had such a hard time. She doesn't know anything about his life since she disappeared, presumably,

other than what Dr. Maurer has told her true or not. And so when she sees a man who she should recognize as her husband, picking this other woman who she may or may not know is Helena Egan. Like that should be her mark by the logic of the story, or at least what we understand Gemma to know. And I think what's filling in the gaps of that scene, and Dishan Lachman has talked about this, is that to her, not unlike Britt Lauer's clarification,

she sees that as she can immediately tell that this is not exactly her mark, that this is a different version of that person making a different choice. And the pain that she's going through and feeling and expressing is not the pain of my husband is betraying me, but of so desperately trying to coax and break through to the severed version of him and get him through the door. I saw her talk about this on the,

they did a Paley Fest panel on Friday, last Friday, and she spoke about that on the red carpet, this idea that she knows right away that this is a severed mark because her mark would not do this. Also, like, she has at least the seconds of information of, like, the switch that happens in the elevator when she has to be, you know, like, who's pulling whomst when and where. But I also thought that was really interesting because we got a lot of emails from people

saying, oh, my God, think of it from Gemma's point of view. She must now think what Dr. Maurer said was true that Mark has moved on, that he does have a family with someone else, all this sort of stuff like that. And at least what this performer is saying, and sometimes a performer interpretation is not at the end of the day what the writer thinks. But, you know, from her interpretation, she knows that that's not her mark. And I also found that really powerful. And I really loved that email from Caitlin.

So thanks so much for reading it out. And, you know, all of our listeners all season and across all of our shows, I feel really lucky about the stories that they share with us. Completely. About what they get out of this stuff. And that's the thing about something like Severn's, and I will say, bigger picture, sci-fi, fantasy in general. when, you know, more articulate people than me have said this before, but when you engage in a story that works on a big, loud, weird genre level, it's almost the further it gets away from our real lived experience, the closer it actually can feel to your specific experience because, you know, no one has ever experienced severance.

Right. So then it becomes what can you. put on top of this story of severance that makes it feel personal to you. And I think that's why despite, you know, some people feeling they don't feel emotionally connected to this story, a lot of people feel tremendously emotionally connected to this story. And Caitlin's email is a great example of that. Well, and the number of people who have emailed us, Joe, over the course this season, about their fertility journeys. And specifically, you know, as we were trying to negotiate, is this something that Gemma would have unwittingly or wittingly signed up for, right? Would she

have in the effort to get pregnant, in the effort of not having any alternatives for something she so desperately wanted, would she have turned to Lumen in some way and disappeared at the end of Chiquai Bardo and kind of let herself down here? I think a lot of the emails we got from people about their own journeys helped kind of illuminate specifically for me this idea of how worn down you get through that process, how desperate and how much you reach that sort of point of bargaining that we've been talking about of like, I would do anything for this to work. And including like would you be willing to give up some other aspects of your life? Would like, would you be willing to give it up thinking you might be able to get it back,

but you would have this thing you've so desperately wanted. I think those are such interesting ideas. And as you said, you can kind of, you can tap into them in a human sense in any drama, but you can tap into them in this very different, like, I think severance at its, at its most limiting can be a little clinical for some people. But when you have elements of this kind of emotion injected into it, like how can, how can Gemma's journey feel clinical at the end of the day? I just, I don't understand that read on the show

because I think the emotion is like coming up through the seams. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul Predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant, 18 plus, Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools.

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Accept it. Schedule pickup. And we'll come to you with a check in hand. Your car, your time. timeline, your terms. Visit Carvana.com to sell your car today. Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. I want to talk about this concept that a couple of our listeners hit on in their emails about the childlike nature of the iny versus the Audi. So one email that you pulled from Kelly, who is a YA book editor, said, in the books I work on about teen relationships, all written by adults,

we're constantly putting ourselves back in the headspace of a teen in their first real relationship. It's so easy to be dismissive of those relationships now, but when you're in it, it's all consuming. Audi Mark's condescending suggestion that Mark S, quote, like someone, and any Mark's immediate declaration that he loves her feels so true to this. Adults don't understand our relationships. Screw him. That's part of what makes our love so big. The adults slash outies are jaded and don't remember what this feels like. and I really

I really love that email and I also love this email we got from Devin about Dylan and how Dylan helps sort of illuminate this the Dylan's conversation we didn't spend a ton of time

talking about the Dillans though we brought up with Dan certainly but Devin said what I think is so beautiful about the interaction between the iny and Audi versions of Dylan

is that Audi Dylan as the quote adult in this situation decides to sit down and work some stuff out with his iny I think Audi Dillin actually displays

the most humanity for his iny because he has a conversation with him and then gives him the choice. As far as Audi Dylan is concerned, his iny could read this note and still want to resign, in which case, Audi Dylan would still be out of a job. And we saw earlier this season how hard it was for him to find any other work. Still, he puts the ball in his innie's court, the one example of an Audi giving an any full and undivided control over a choice that affects both of their lives. And I love that observation from Devin.

And the one thing that I want to add to that is like, is Dylan of all of the. of the outies that we've seen Irving aside because they doesn't, but like versus Helena versus Mark Scout, Dylan's a dad. And not only a dad, but like a dad we constantly see engaging with his kids. And there's ways in which Gretchen is frustrated by that because it kind of feels like in some of these scenes,

she's just got another kid at home. Right. But like Dylan's Audi is a guy who's just like regularly interacting with children and understanding what it is to parent and compassionately. parent, it seems like. And so, you know, Mark Scout as someone who was like no experience and no ability to think about his iny in that way. We also got an email from a listener that you and I both did not particularly love that was talking about how actually we got a couple emails from people talking about how like inis are not people and they don't deserve any rights. And I just,

I don't understand. It's a take, Joe. It's certainly a take. I don't understand which show you're watching or why. you're watching it. Like, that's not what the story is about. It's not about, I don't know, I'm shocked and appalled, honestly, by those days. I think, look, Severance raises a lot of interesting ideas about identity

and personhood and kind of where those lines end between the different versions of yourself. I cannot find any read of this show that would corroborate the idea that people like Dylan or Hellyer for example do not have a legitimate right to exist. And we got many emails that suggested this to be the case.

I was stunned. What else do you want to say on this sort of any and outy relationship front or adults versus more childlike versions or any of that? I think a lot of the stuff specifically with Mark is what's fueling some of the kind of shipping-based reaction to the finale that we've seen, where both Marks, in effect,

are making really emotional decisions. Even Mark's scout is so weighed down by his grief and so desperate to get Gemma back that we talked about all the way, ways in which he maybe doesn't make the best plea to Mark as far as like cooperating with the plan, why maybe he should have approached things a different way. But

he's in a very tough situation himself. Mark, as on the floor, I love this conceptualization of it as like a teenage sort of romance and the intensity of that comes with that. Like this is something that John Green has talked about a lot in terms of like the way he constructs his books and kind of like why the emotions are as overwhelming

as they are. And of course they would be. Like it absolutely makes sense that they would be. And this is why even if you really want Mark and Gemma end up together at the end of the day and have a life together outside the severed floor. The emotional decision that Mark S makes choosing the only life and the only love he's ever known, what could be more relatable than that? I can't believe we got here. Rob Mahoney invoking a fiction author talking about fictions? I've invoked other fiction authors in the past, but it's mostly been like fuck Charles

Dickens and not here's this thing John Green said. So we all contain multitudes, Joe. Listen, and at the end of the day, that's what you believe. Fuck Charles Dickens, John Green, a master of his craft, and who would disagree with you? One of those guys gets it, you know? All right. Let's briefly talk about sort of the conflicting Tuturo reports. I've been trying to put together all the information that I can, including some behind-the-scenes information that I got from some people about sort of what's going on with John Totoro slash Irving on this show. Chiturow himself.

I think many people who have worked. with John Totoro over the years have been trying to figure out what's been going on with John Totoro. Like, he's a mercurial kind of guy, it feels like. Is he? Because, like, what I will say is that I've never heard a bad thing about... I don't mean a bad thing. No.

I just mean, like, he's doing his thing. He's doing his thing, and it may not always 100% align with this other thing that we are trying to accomplish. Right. So here's the deal. Tuturo gave an interview to my pal Josh Wiggler at T. at THR about how he, there's more that he would like to do with Irving, that there's more of Irving's story to tell, all this sort of stuff. We've made it very clear based on the phone conversations they show this season that we would be, feel not only bereft because we love John Totoro and we love Irving, but like we would feel like this is a real thread.

You know, years later, people love to enumerate the many questions that lost didn't answer. Sure. And I'll tell you if Severance ends. without anything. Who was Irving talking to on the phone is going to be on that list of if Irving doesn't come back. When Dan was talking to us,

it sounded to me like he felt like they were done with Irving's story. Potentially, yeah. What I've heard from some sources is that Totoro is not going to be on the show anymore, that Irving is not going to be in season three. How do we square that with what Taturro said in Tchr?

I think we have to go back to sort of my initial response, which is that this seemed like an open-ended place to put a character. Yes. Where it's sort of like if the actor is not getting along very well with the production, and again, I want to say very clearly, Tataro has like no history of not getting along with people. He's not considered a difficult performer.

That's not when we're intimating at all. But, you know, if they're like, hey man, we can bring you back or not, it's kind of up to you how much you want to be here. That's kind of where they left it. Could Irving come swooping in later and do something? Yes, but kind of only if Titoro, Tataro being kind of out on severance to a certain degree was kind of clear from the moment he did not show up to Grand Central Station, which we flagged at the beginning of the year. So I don't know.

It's a bit messy. I've heard some conflicting results reports. Tarturo seems to want to do more. whether or not Severance has more to do with him remains unclear, you know? We certainly hope it does. I love Irving. I love many of, like, so many of the components that he brings to the show. And what is always interesting is when an Irving-shaped character disappears after a couple

seasons, do they try to replace the presence with some other kind of version of that character, right? Is there a replacement on the MDR floors? There's someone from another department who they bump into who kind of becomes a part of this sort of core click. It's a very tempting enterprise. And I'm curious to see how Severance handles that sort of thing going forward. Bob Balaban, what are you doing?

What are you up to? He's right there on the phone in Grand Rapids, ready to jump. You give this guy some corporate housing. He will be there. Yeah, he'll break his lease once again for you, for your needs. Okay. The meaning of I'm Her, we got a bunch of emails about this, and this is like a really interesting proposition.

In this scene, one of the scenes that we really enjoyed, which is the sort of very intimately lit cubicle scene between most. Mark S and Helley are when he's finishing Cold Harbor. By the way, sidebar, Adam Scott has said that he based sort of looked for inspiration for the sort of the not furiously making out yet sort of feeling like you're furiously making out energy from the telephone scene in It's a wonderful life. And I sent this to one of my best friends, who I used to work with at Vanity Fair. We rewatch independently on different coasts. It's a wonderful life every year at Christmas. And every year, we talk about how we think that telephone scene is one of the, like, sexiest scenes that has ever existed.

Basically, if you've never seen, it's a wonderful life, what are you doing with yourself? Or if you don't rewatch it religiously every year. That's me. I'm in that camp. Yeah. You have Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart with their ridiculously high differences, sort of crouched over sharing a sort of like handheld old-timey telephone. And they are within like breathing distance. And they're like theoretically talking on the phone,

but really they're just sort of like looking at each other and like kind of panting, honestly. And they're just sort of like, it's the moment that they decide to like screw all of their life plans and be together. But the scene goes on and on and it's just them like carrying on a different conversation, but like just looking at each other and making this decision in their heads. And so top tier reference from Adam Scott for invoking that for this scene. But in terms of Helly saying, I'm her, what is your interpretation of what she, you know,

we talked about this a bit in our previous episode, but based on the various reactions we got from our listeners, or interviews you've seen with cast and crew, what's your interpretation of what that line means? Given where Helly R is at that point in time and what they're talking about, I take it a little bit more literally than I think some other people do. I take it as her trying to nudge Mark

that, look, we're fucked. Like, this is cosmically messed up and I am never going to be able to get out of here, but you might be able to, right? Like, you might be able to go reintegrate, but I am Helena Egan at the end of the day. And that she changes, her mind about that.

Yes. Via exposure to marching band. Doesn't necessarily change your mind to it. I think what's so great about this finale and specifically the final scene is that severance can have its cake and eat it too a little bit. They got Gemma out the door.

Mission accomplished. It wasn't exactly in the fine print that Mark also needed to go out the door. And so it's like they can have their runaway moment and their ability to extend this love and this relationship for as long as they can get away with it on the severed floor. But they also did the thing

that they set out to do. And the thing that I think many people looking at the show see as being an objective right, like saving this woman from captivity and torture is an objective good. But once you do that, there's a little bit of wiggle room as far as like, what do we want within the context and the construct of this show? There are three, as I see it, interpretations of the line I'm her. There's the one you just enumerated, which is sort of like, I'm Helena Egan, so we, there's no future for me.

There's no reintegration for me. There's no honeymoon ending for me. right, okay. I'm her in the sort of SAT prompt way, which is like Mark Scout is to Gemma as Mark S is to Helly, right? Sure, yeah. That's a thing that exists. Like, think, you know, when it comes to your certainty of whether or not to rescue her, just put yourself in his shoes, I'm her. I'm the Gemma of the situation. Okay. And then the last but not least, and this is the one I kind of favor. I kind of favor all of them, honestly. But like the last one is kind of ties back to what I was saying about the hell the inner inner Helena sort of emerging. It was just sort of like, I'm hers and like, I've got some Helena inside of me and I will, I can wreck some shit if I need to.

So all that's in the mix, you know. I don't know if this is a fourth interpretation or a sub-bullet point off that third interpretation, but we talked about your credentials as an aspiring ball-knower last week, Joe. In this context, not uncommon for basketball. I got so many messages. from like genuine real life friends and family who were like, why was Rob giving you such a hard time about this?

And I was like, no, I mean, it's not like that, honestly. Rob is a delightful person who would never genuinely mock me. Of course not. But anyway, go ahead. You are an NBA podcaster. It's on record. You're on video asking NBA questions of Damon Lindeloff. Like, that's out there in the world.

But as far as like not uncommon for an NBA player in a moment of triumph, to announce I'm him. Is this an I'm her in like an I am that bitch kind of way? You need to acknowledge my command and my supremacy of this moment and the impact that I have not only on you but on the entirety of this floor.

She is her, capital H. Her. I'm her the Oscar-winning music artist. I am her the underrated Walking Phoenix sci-fi film. I mean, if that's underrated,

we failed as a society. We have bigger problems. I think people should rate that movie higher. Okay. What about all the emails we got? We have one here from Evan, but we got a number of emails about this. Why didn't Audi Mark

in the conversation with Anymark ever say, hey, remember your friend Petey? I know him and I talk to him and he reintegrated. Don't worry about what happened next. Yeah, this is the thing. It's fine.

Don't bring up subjects in which you have to overtly lie about the answer. because the follow-up is, oh, what happened to Pidi? How's he doing? Why isn't he here? And it's, oh, that dude is absolutely dead. That dude's super dead for reasons that have to do with the reintegration process. And we have no empirical proof that it actually works.

And later someone drilled a hole in his head to remove the very chip. All of that happened. So, yeah, perhaps that's a reason to not invoke Pedy. But I do think there's a way in which PEDE could have been invoked in a way that might have satisfied audiences, but not completely scrambling. Mark over in his recruitment here. Also, will we ever hear reference of PD ever again on this show?

I honestly don't know. Like, he may just be one of these threads and, like, little facts of season one that kind of fall, like, melt into the sauce, so to speak. Pedy's daughter, I still want more for her and from her. Okay. From her band? Speaking of bands.

Or was she seeing the band, or was she in the band? I think she's in the band, isn't she? Okay. I hope so. I hope she, whatever she puts her mind to, I hope she's having a great life. Let's talk about a marching band. Let's talk about the Goon Squad or lack thereof, et cetera. Let's talk about staffing at Lumen HQ. Where do you want to start with this?

I want to start with the goons because we got a great email from Rachel. Proposing that the reason why Lumen might be as understaffed as it is relative to our expectations for keeping all of these inies in check was that it is a Panopticon style structure in which the point is the surveillance and the intimidation. and the idea that you are watched at all times, right? These, like, Lumen is listening, Lumen is watching kind of concept and the way that we internalizing that fear

keep ourselves in line as a result. And I got to say, I think this is right on the money, Joe. That's part. I think that's part of it. I love a PENopticon invocation. Jeremy Bentham, who came up with that concept, if you're listening at home, that's a lost reference. But, like, I also think this,

idea because everyone who's on the severed floor is severed. This is a question people had. The people in O&D are severed. We know that because of Burt. The marching band, I guess, is severed. We're going to have to talk about that. I would assume so, but I don't know. The logistics of that are wild. It's a quagmire, to say the least. Our listener accused of very minor, minor detailed question, but I find it mind-boggling is the marching band severed? If not, is there a larger elevator so that it's not one in, one out? If severed, how long have they been practicing this? Are they held to the same arrival standards as an MDR, 10 to 50 minute intervals of arrival time?

That must take forever. I'll hang up and listen. That's what? Like a 30-piece band? They've got ranks. They have a whole formation of people that they've got to get up and down those elevators. Yeah.

So if everyone's severed, is the idea that severance makes you so docile that this shouldn't be a problem. That's something I can swallow in season one, but after the events at the end of season one, the fact that they haven't hired a few goons. It kind of feels like in terms of managing the severance floor, it's almost like the rule of the Sith in Star Wars. There must always be two, a master and apprentice,

but like no more, right? Well, they had three. They had Ms. Wong in there. I was thinking Miss Wong and Milchick, I guess Drummond is like... Drummond, yeah. He's kind of bouncing between floors, to be fair. But I don't know. And I understand that the work is mysterious and important and you want to make sure that, like, as few people know about it as possible. But I still... think if it were up to me, I would have hired a goon or two. Well, I think the other part of this that we have to acknowledge is just straight up hubris on the part of Lumen. They're like, oh, we can keep these people control. They're not actually

going to fight back. And then, you know, some emailers also raise the idea of staffing issues of just like severance itself we have seen is quite unpopular in the outside world. There's a lot of resistance to the idea. I would still believe that there would be people desperate enough for steady work, especially in here doesn't seem like the most well-to-do place in the world. Like, somebody must need a job. So I would think they could still staff it if they really needed to, but let's throw it out there.

Also on the marching band front, I just want to shout out Georgia's email because Georgia says, does Keir have a large enough population of coordinated brass enthusiasts? Yes. And that's just an incredible phrase. To form a choreography and merriment department, or do these inis learn how

to duggy and play trombone on the severed floor? And if so, would their atties be able to play trombone on the outside. Georgia, incredible question. My thought is this has to be a severed skill that they are learning on the severed floor, but also where are you doing band practice down there in a way that no one's ever going to hear one of these trombones? Like no one's ever going to hear the drumline? That stuff is going straight through a soundproof wall. I don't know. I mean, I feel like if any place,

because we saw the ghosts, we haven't been hearing the like bleeding of the goats. Like I feel like, looming. I think drumline and goats are at slightly different decibel levels. I could be wrong.

But I have questions. My other question was, do the people on the separate floor know what a marching band is? Like, do Dylan and Helly know what a marching band is? And even if they do,

when the marching band comes in, isn't this the first time they've ever heard live music before? And if so, why are they not reacting like breathless aristocrats listening to Mozart play a sonata in a parlor somewhere.

Isn't this a powerful emotional moment for them? They've got a lot in their mind. I mean, perhaps that is the excuse we can give to Mark that he lingered so long before he took off for the testing floors. He was like, what is this feeling? I'm feeling. You know, it's day whatever, 45 of Rob and Joanna asking the questions of what do this ever people actually know

or don't know in terms of like, what does wind feel like? versus whatever else. So it remains slightly unclear to me. On the, on the choreography of merriment front, we got some emails about Milchick. First of all, Tramel Tillman, there's this image floating around from his yearbook

about how he was in Martin Ben when he was in high school. Charming. Absolutely. Everything about that man is charming. Every interview, every appearance. Like, Tramilman cannot help but kill it. But also the way in which this band invokes the culture of the HBCU,

the historically black colleges universities, and how that might even more feed into whatever it is that they, your mileage may vary. We have heard from people on both sides of this. But like, you know, their effort to engage with his racial identity as part of his storyline this season. Yeah. And his frustrations as a character in that moment. where, like, Milchick is not severed. He's out there putting in the work, learning these routines. He clearly takes a lot of professional pride

in his ability to perform under these circumstances. And so I thought this was a great point in terms of the HBCU connection in particular and, like, as an expression of blackness for that character. Just something we did not talk about coming out of the finale pod. So I'm really glad we have the opportunity to circle back on. I think it's a great call. And also, like, it is clear whether in the initial dancing sequence in season one,

in this performance in season two, like Milchik does care about this stuff. Like he is dead sprinting down the hall to get in costume, to hit his marks, to do the whole drum major thing. It's an important part of his life. And so the idea that he is being thwarted

by his own employees who just refused to acknowledge the specificity and the precision of his marching brilliance. Like, I can connect with that idea 100%. I also want to bring up, as we're talking about sort of racial identity, I wanted to bring up this really interesting email

we got from Kat about sort of social class inside of this story, which is not something we've talked about, but is something that is so key to understanding any kind of like worker rebellion, which is what we're witnessing here. And something that Kat pointed out that hadn't occurred to me, I think is so smart, is that Mark and Gemma were professors. They were intellectuals. They were part of an upper echelon of society. And the way in which that positions Mark, leaving Jama aside, positions Mark as someone who comes from privilege and has some privileged attitudes that some of the other characters might not. So, Cat wrote, Scout is similarly to Helena, a privileged man who had largely in his life escaped the druggery of the working class. It's very

interesting that he started as a professor and is brought, quote, down to the factory, as it were, whereas the other characters we see are very much raised to it. He's not only allied, allied to Helly are, but to Helena. In terms of class solidarity, I think the show does something very interesting in showing their chemistry on both sides. Lumen, like real-world corporates, is not interested in its workers to the extent that they must source the subjects of their most important project from outside the company. I think the writing with Dylan, I agree less successfully, Milchick, and Ms. Wong, communicates the economy of that life successfully. Dylan and Milchick are both black men who are forced to fight for a life that is designed to destroy their

spirit, their identity. Milchik's greatest humiliation in the series is being called by his first name, a humanizing representation of the individual. He's been groomed to abandon. Dylan in his purest form is strong, assertive, proactive, and poor Miss Wong has denied her final performance and sent off to not quite Siberia without her comfort toy. We see the extent to which trying to survive on the outside has stripped him of their positive qualities. The same is true with Milchick's use of language. There's such a richness to the portrayal of an extremely educational, black man being mocked for that education, the goalposts are always moving. So I really love inside of the racial identity questions, which we've been talking about all the season, with Natalie,

with Milchick, with Dylan to a certain degree, with Ms. Wong, with Gemma, as Kat invokes later in this email, and how that interacts with social class, the social class element, thinking of Mark as like a professor who has you know moved from his like well-appointed home into this soulless corporate housing

and has sort of accorded according to the other intellectuals like the people that we met via Ricken sort of you know doomed himself to drudgery or whatever the case may be that's not how I think about

office work necessarily but like that is something that is definitely part of Mark's decision here to abandon one life for another, which I think is interesting. And I think it's ultimately maybe one of the reasons why when we're talking about the differences

in the way Mark thinks about Ine's versus Dylan, that Dylan is more sympathetic, right? Like his station is maybe not so different from his ines in a lot of different ways. He's been looked over. He's been taken advantage of. He's been going in and out of job interviews for who knows how long.

And ultimately has to take this job because he needs money and he needs stable work. And so he is subjecting himself to this in a totally different way than Mark is who kind of just wants like a psychic break from the grief and the pain that he's dealing with, which is a totally different consideration set. Totally. Versus someone like Harmony who like came from the factories has been raised up, up to this management position. All right. What else do you want to talk

about, Rob? I want to circle back to one more kind of consistency, continuity, like a logistical question about the way that the testing floor work that I saw a lot of people asking questions about, which is specifically the idea that when Mark enters the Cold Harbor room, his in-e is not triggered in the way that Gemma's is. And we don't get a lot of concrete examples as to why, but I think this question kind of hits it something

that is specific to Gemma that I think is worth answering, which is, as much as we think of Mark as Lumen Jesus, I think Gemma is such a specific and powerful figure for Lumen that those rooms are kind of attuned to a different frequency.

This is just my read on it than the regular severed floor is, that there is something about her kind of 25 ines subconsciousness that requires a different level of hardware. Like, that's a specialized chip that she has in her head that maybe is different from Marx. Yeah, I think that's really interesting. I mean, that makes sense to me.

Not everything necessarily makes sense after in terms of, like, the elevator. Basically, his chip, the only thing about his chip that is true is that it works on the severed floor. And that's how his chip is programmed. and that Gemma's fancier, more advanced chip works differently. That all makes sense to me.

Someone did bring up to me that Mark S's experience is that he goes down the elevator holding the bolt gun to Drummond and comes up making out with his therapist, which I thought was just an incredible turn of events for that character. He's been going through a lot.

I also like the observation a lot of people have made that like the question of who killed Drummond is like nobody. The blood is all over both of them yet their hands are clean. Severance, the concept of severance, killed Drummond? It's true. We also got this email from Terry that I really liked about,

in terms of relating to the Goon Squad and lack thereof. Terry says in this last episode, really struck me how much Lumen invests in religion to its own detriment. Of the departments we know about, only MDR's work is fully committed to the, quote, science of severance. Well, optics and design is a mix,

managing objects used in severance testing, but also things like cure-focused paintings. I used to think the investment in religion was to help make the inies into better workers. For instance, the perpetuity wing was supposed to give them a sense of purpose. But now we see that the goat and band departments are completely useless from that perspective. Most of the people hired in the underground floors contribute to ceremonies that occur after the quote, mysterious and important work is done. Couldn't one of those departments have been used to beef up security instead? So I think that's

interesting. The fact that the whole goat setup, and we didn't talk about this explicitly, in terms of the conversation around Emil, the baby goat. Yes. And the idea that he... May he grow to be strong and have even more verve than we saw in the finale. Sturdy-legged. That he is going to be killed so that he can be buried with a woman of great importance. Yeah.

I think it's a cherished woman is Drummond's language. Entombed with a cherished woman. Entombed with a cherished woman. what's your read on that line? I love an ambiguous line. The obvious answer is Jemma. Yep. But could it be

a helly of something? I mean, a helly thing doesn't make sense to me because like, I understand that Jamie Egan's like, I see the fire in you and it wasn't there and my daughter Helena, but like wouldn't he then just like

keep Helly around rather than kill Helena, which is what some people thought. Yes. The implied move was there. I don't think that he would want to kill Helena, but I could see him like, but effectively kill her by keeping Helly around sort of thing.

And if the ultimate goal of Cold Harbor and Gemma's chip is to create a severance ship that's so powerful, it can basically wipe identity or completely subsume an identity, is there a way that it could play a role in Heli becoming the default setting for Helena Egan versus Helena? Now that James is so kind of infatuated with the idea of her and the fire and the cure that he sees in her, think that could be part of the play here, but in that case,

entombed with the cherished woman would be purely a symbolic idea. That's like a ghost goat taking this consciousness into the afterlife. And I don't know if we're quoting quite that far down the rabbit hole, but it's on the table. I do think it's worth questioning whether it has to be Gemma or whether there are some other interpretations here. He died doing what he loved most, entombed with a cherished woman. Okay.

I have a reading list that was somebody literally asked me to put this together. I didn't make anyone write this email. Somebody wrote it. So any excuse I'll take. Anything you want to mention before we get to that? And then I think we should probably put this beloved TV show to bed. One last thing to kind of circle back to Terry's email about the ideology versus kind of like purely capitalist corporate interests of Lumen. I think this is one of the richest ideas within Lumen proper itself.

You know, putting all the ideal, like putting all the conceptual stuff aside as far as what severance means. and identity and all the questions we've been wrestling through all season, all the show. There are a lot of very big organizations that have to invest in ideology in order to further their actual agenda. It's a very potent way to get very fervent support. And I think for a company like Lumen

to get a very willing and pliable workforce, to get people who believe in your mission wholeheartedly, even though they may not understand fully what that mission is. And so things like the goats, to me, are either a remnant of that version, of Lumen that now these two threads have become so intertwined. They're basically inextricable. And also there does seem to be quite a level of investment on the Egan part of that as far as

like, even if the Egan's themselves don't believe in the mysticism around Lumen and its operations, they're at least fluent in it enough to parrot those things to the people who work for Lumen and to the people of Kier, of Salt's Neck, like the people who are ostensibly in their orbit in order to curry favor, to, again, to bring more people into the factory, into the severed floor. Like, this is a weaponized kind of ideology as much as anything. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's really smart. And I think as we look around our current, let's say, American society and the way in which

these tech innovators are revered in some spheres, I think it's a great cautionary tale. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Okay. Reading list. There's a nonfiction on here just for you, Rob Mahoney. Wow.

look at that. But mostly fiction. Someone asked sort of like, if Severance is done and I'm still Joneson for that severance vibe, or I want to continue to engage in these ideas, what are some books I can read? So I'll just go through some books that I've mentioned so far the season and other ideas as well. Well, Joe, before you get into the actual books, can I ask you a process question about this prompt? Where's your starting point? Are you thinking tone? Are you thinking genre? Are you thinking philosophical concepts? Like, where are you entering into this

list? I started with books we specifically talked about this season and then sort of extrapolated from there and I came back to the list like three or four different times and I was adding things that I think try to answer all of those prompts. So something like Lincoln and the Bardo which we talked about earlier this season

as a good example of the concept of the Bardo by George Saunders or Escape from Spiderhead which is George Saunders story that a lot of our listeners invoked as similar in some way. Never Let Me Go by Kazu Ashiguro. Never let me go as a story of people, people, if you prefer to think of that way or not, who are basically like invented and grown and farmed in order to be organ donors to, quote, real people.

And so do those people who are grown and farmed, are they allowed to have wants and needs and desires in a life of their own. Are they allowed to fall in love? Are they allowed to all this stuff? Also, we should say for the nonfiction readers out there, the team Rob among us. Yeah. Also very watchable in film form in a movie I quite like.

Yeah, great movie. A lot of these are movies, actually. Eurytucey by Sarah Rule, the play that I talked about, Quick Read, great story about the underworld, about forgetting, all that sort of stuff. Story of Your Life and Others by Ted Cheng. Ted is one of the great sci-fi writers of our time,

and stories of your life and others includes the story that a rival is based on, a film that Ramahoney is... Fucking rips. Fucking rips. Front to back, emotional sci-fi storytelling,

let's go. This is what we're here for, Joe. This is why we play. Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pinchin of all the postmodernist novels about sort of like creepy

secret societies and following clues down rabbit holes that have to do with like, I don't know, the mysterious iconography of our world. Crying of Lot 49

is one that I think about all the time. That is a classic post-mire book. Pyronezy by Susanna Clark, which the animation studio, Laika, is turning into a movie. I don't know how they're going to do it. But Susanna Clark, who wrote Jonathan Strange and Miss Norrell, Pyreneesie is a very disorientingly weird book that I

had a great time with. It came out a couple of years ago. And in terms of being lost in a maze somewhere, in terms of like minotars and all kinds of stuff and remembering yourself, memory and remembering yourself. Pyrenees of fucking bull's eye. I also don't question what Lika is capable of. As far as bringing a weird, ephemeral story to life, this is kind of the zone.

The Southern Reach trilogy, which is now actually a quadrology by Jeff Van der Meer. The first book, Annihilation, was turned into a film that Robb? Joanna Robinson. Annihilation Podwin. When are we doing it? How can we talk about this movie? Fucking rules so hard.

It's unbelievable. But the second book, Authority is sort of even more engaging in the ideas of this world. The Circle by Dave Eggers. This is a book that Eggers wrote that's, you know, Dave Eggers is a barrier.

Barry a boy. Dave Eggers. So the Circle is about a shadowy tech corporation and blah, blah, loosely, very transparently based on like Facebook and Google. And then to round it out with nonfiction, Sarah Wyn Williams just put out a book called Careless People, Colon, A Cautionary Tale of Power, Green, and Lost Idealism about her time at Facebook.

And it is a book that Facebook is trying to suppress and they don't, I mean, what a great marketing tool. The book, Facebook doesn't want you to read. But they have tried to sue her. And she signed a non, what is it, non-disparagement clause, I think. So she's not allowed to promote her own book. Interesting. So we're doing it. Careless people

colon-accharacterious. We're out here on the front lines. Of power, great and lost idealism. I actually heard Joe this podcast, the prestige TV podcast, this is the pod that Lumen doesn't want you to hear.

We're the only people speaking truth to power. So please hang with us as we continue to talk about severance and otherwise. All right. Well, Severance, we did it.

Thank you for your literally thousands and thousands of emails that you've written to us about severance over the course of the season. You guys all make it just such a much richer experience for us in terms of bringing your various perspectives and areas of expertise into the conversation. We love talking about television with you all. Thanks to everyone

who's helped us this season, be it, Kai Grady, John Richter, Justin Sales, Donnie beat him if he perhaps filled in, CT if he filled in, all of the people who have helped me hang out in the void with you, Rob Mahoney, comfortably at home. It takes a fully story. It takes a fully stocked floor of goons to get you into the void, Joe. It's true. Whoever puts new LaCroix in the fridge here at the office. Completely. All of the people doing the great work.

I hope we are back talking about Severance sooner than later. But I have one final question for you along those lines, which is a notoriously long layover between seasons one and two, Joe. If you're throwing a dart at the board right now, what is the premiere date for Severance season three?

Well, no, they're going to want it for Emmys. So, um, what would you say is emmy season like how can we construct that and reverse engineer from eligibility it's like what has become increasingly true is that they want to clog it in and around

early spring so you know this is a January premiere this is so smart severance is so smart this season because they had January all to themselves and even as the field has gotten more and more crowded like they got that toehold in

and are just sort of you know the pit is here, people care. White Lotus is here and people care. Daredevil is here. Yellow Jackets is here, blah, blah, but like, severance is like we were here. We planted our flag. So why, you know, why not? And they were a December to January show in season one. So like, why not own your January beat? And I would say 2027. January, January, 2027 is what I see. What do you think? That feels, 2027 feels realistic. Q1, 2027. January into February, March, if you prefer. but like I think that's what we're looking at. That's a long wait for a show like this

that we love talking about so much, but sometimes you have to wait for good things. All right. Well, thanks for sticking with us for this supersized episode of the Prestiast TV podcast. We'll be back with White Lotus coverage, of course, with paint coverage, of course, and whatever else comes our way. We'll see you soon.

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