The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Severance’ Season Finale Recap

Episode Date: April 10, 2022

Joanna and Mal dive into the finale of the first season of Apple TV’s ‘Severance,’ sharing their instant reactions and deeper thoughts on the season as a whole.Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Malory Rubin Associate Producer: Jonathan Kermah Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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to hold down the lovers of the overtime contingency for an hour, maybe 40, 40 minutes. As she and I discuss the severance finale, I'm Joanna Robinson. Hello, Mallory. How are you doing? Oh, Joe, I am thrilled to be here with you today and talk about this exceptional. hour of TV, I will say I am not limber enough to pull off the overtime lever maneuver. I don't think I could do it. I don't think I can do it. The old Dylan move. What a move for our guy. Yeah, the promise of coffee coosies and paintball parties are knocking at the door. So we're going to keep this sharpish. But we had to come and talk about the severance finale. This has been an incredible season of television, the Apple TV Plus series Severance, created by Dan Erickson. sort of co-EPed by Ben Stiller, slowly building up an audience, I think. What are you hearing like sort of word of mouth? Does this feel like a bona fide hit, a slow growing movement?

What do you think, Mallory? Well, you have a much better feel than I do for the actual reach of any given streamer. But what I can say confidently based on the handful of people I talk to who are also people you talk to all the time, is that, yeah, Severance picked up momentum here in the final stretch. And I think what feels very reasonable and fair to say is that people who are not watching Severance are going to hear a lot of, like, extreme praise about the finale from people who have been watching at any. What I really hope is that there will be a compulsion to catch up. And that in season two, this will be an even larger shared experience.

One of my, like, great regrets of the past year of TV viewing is not... I watch Severance every week in my own home and loved it every week. But I wasn't talking about it with people every week. And I cannot wait to bring the weekly discussion and community and theorizing and just heart and emotion of watching this incredible show to the season two experience. I think a lot of people will be. will be joining for season 2. It's a perfect theory show and something that I also didn't experience that because I watched,

you know, as is sometimes my want, I watched all the screeners back at the beginning when Van and I talked about the first three episodes. And so then, yeah, this all sort of happened outside of my radar and then, but I didn't have the finale. And so I hop back in this last week for sort of the finale discussion. I ducked into the subreddit and the Severn Subreddit, this is the ideal place. for a show to be, because it hasn't exploded, exploded yet. This is like early Yellow Jackets season one when like the Reddit is super active.

It's a mystery box show, but it's not so clogged that you can't focus on anything. And so I think this is just going to be like a fun, a fun memory that people are going to have of season one because I really do think. Much like Ted Lassow, I think this is going to explode between seasons and season two is going to be a full-blown thing. Yes. Also, in addition to all of the chatter around Severance itself, feels like, you know, Apple TV having a little bit of a moment here coming off a best picture win. It's not just dead lasso anymore. I am enjoying personally a lot of Apple TV programming right now, you know, send you a lot of photos from We Crashed as I watch. Slow Horses. What a show. Number one, We Crash fan, Mallory Rubin. That's what I have to say about that. Yeah, Slow Horses, fantastic show, Pachinko, great show. There's a lot of great stuff. Apple did not pay us to say any of that, but it is true. It's a good time for that streamer.

So, you know, this is the kind of show that really probably could have benefited from us checking in diving deep every single week. There's enough mean on the bone there for that. Obviously, we didn't do that. So we're mostly going to talk about the we are, which is the finale. But there's plenty to say, plenty we will say in the future. If this does not take all of your severance boxes, I apologize. Maybe we'll go week to week in season two. But here we are.

Yeah. Come back in season two. We'll be there descending into the elevator for a weekly takes. We got a lot of questions about this. And I'm going to get to some of them. But the big one we got is sort of like, where does this rank in terms of a finale? Because it's a tight 40 minutes, right? it's a sort of propulsive adventure for, you know, three of our core four and then Dylan himself just like holding it down, right? Dylan has to hold those levers down for 40 minutes.

Ben Stiller has said that they treated this kind of like an episode of the show 24 where they were trying to give us a real-time episode. And because of that tension, because of that, how long can Dylan hold these levers slash is someone going to break in through the door and stop him? I think gave us that adrenaline to go with a bunch of various exciting reveals and stuff like that. So in terms of some of the bangor fineries who've seen you and I also always love to talk about a loss finale, etc. Where does this, where does this sit for you, Mallory? What a great question. Can I say two quick things before I answer it? Please.

One, 24, a great point of reference for a countdown clock viewing experience. I'll just say, in addition to 24, one of my favorite go-to is for, we're, we're, we're, We're watching this plot unfold against the clock. The iconic film, Draft Day. I never miss a chance to mention Draft Day, Joe, and I won't start. Okay, thank you for indulging me on that one. The other thing that I wanted to mention, because this is relevant for the answer, and I think for the podcast as a whole,

is that I have only seen this finale once. I, despite your most valiant and impressive efforts, did not have a screener. I watched this when it dropped last night. You and I are exiting a very long recording of another podcast. Check out our Moon Night episode two, deep dive over on the House of Our on Ring Reverse. And so I have not gotten the chance to watch this a second time. I cannot wait to watch the finale again.

I cannot wait to watch the whole season again. It is the kind of show that I love and that you love to go back and revisit and look for all of the clues that set up what we eventually unfolded. I say that all to say, I feel like this is the only. going to go up my list once I get to appreciate in full how well everything was set up along the way. Just having seen it once, not having gotten to go over everything with a fine-tooth comb and parse every freeze frame and clue, this is one of my favorite finalies of all time. I thought this was an unbelievable hour of TV. My heart was racing. My stomach was clenching. I was sweating. I was afraid. I was in tears multiple times. The pain. The

pace and the crispness and the craftsmanship of this finale and this season of TV, just sublime, the balancing act of simultaneously paying off a handful of season-long pursuits while also leaving so much unanswered and posing so many new questions to propel us into the future of this show. I leave this finale so eager to learn more about the characters in the world, so eager for everything that awaits us in the future, but also feeling because of how carefully handled and executed this was, like, really confident that they will nail this in the end, which is not the feeling that I'd often leave finale's with anymore. Just thought it was a masterclass. How about you? Here's a couple things. The two shows that I think this series has been most often

compared to, I mean, we could probably add Moonnight to list if we want to talk about, like, two identities, battling each other. But lost. and Westworld are two shows, big mystery box shows, big popular mystery box shows. And you and I, Brooke, no criticism of Lost,

were big Lost fans. But plenty of people hold Lost up as an example of how this kind of mystery boxing can go wrong. And I would certainly join people in saying Westworld is a fine example of how mystery boxing can go wrong.

And the way that that show went wrong is, I think, in season two, season one, they presented this great mystery that Reddit happened to figure out before the show itself showed its cards. And this seemed to have bothered the creators so much that they created subsequent seasons that are sort of impenetrable

in a way that doesn't make for as fun of a viewing experience. Meanwhile, lost for various reasons. which you and I have discussed in various platforms over the years, had to do a bunch of different zigs and zags. Ultimately, I think, a very emotionally fulfilling finale, but logistically, logically, maybe there are some gaps here or there. What is interesting about this show is that Darren Erickson, the creator, has been working on it for a very long time.

It was like a spec script idea that he submitted in 2016, and has been thinking about it and chewing it over ever since. He has the whole arc plotted out, but something that he and Ben Stiller have talked about in I've been reading on these post-mortem interviews is how they want, they have it all planned out. That is the assurance that they want to give people who are like, they don't know what they're doing.

They have all planned out. But they're really hopeful that they can stay flexible because you want to have a plan, but you want to be able to react to chemistry, you see, between actors, or things, particular things that audiences are responding especially to, or maybe like thematic or philosophical ideas that come up along the road. So yes, they have the whole loom in what they call it the alpha plan mapped out,

but there is that flexibility within it, which I think is really smart. Yeah, that sounds like the perfect way to approach a story like this, because one of the things that was so palpable in the finale, which was almost unbelievable. unbelievably tense. Like there was something painful and unpleasant, as joyful as it was about watching it because you're so worried, so worried for everyone the whole time. One of the things that was so palpable was just the command, the command of the world

that the people making this show have. There is a clear sense of direction. And I think more importantly, more importantly ultimately than direction in a plot sense, intention, the type of themes and ideas that they want to delve and navigate and explore, that they want the characters to explore, the questions about connection and sense of self and identity and progress and nature versus nurture that we're asking ourselves as we watch this and that the characters are asking themselves and parts of themselves in different respects across the story, but that there are so many different possibilities ahead,

different turns in one of those labyrinthian hallways that if you're just standing in the middle of it, any different pathway could look the same and you only know the right way to go if you're in it and if you're the one who made it. Right. So that like really excites me as a viewer. I guess I'll give as an example inside of the finale and I can't wait to talk about all of it. The heli twist, if it's okay to just mention this quickly, like I again, because I was not you know, on the, on the Reddit boards every week all season or even really just like theorizing actively, maybe like passively a little bit in my mind. Oh, I wonder what, I wonder what the data refinement is for. I wonder what is happening here and there, right? I wonder what

it means that Bert was retired, et cetera. I had, I had not gotten to the hellie is an Egan conclusion. And I have no doubt that legions of others have. I do not think it is in any way a diminishment of that plot point. If other people had figured it out, I think it's cool when there's the discussion around a show that leads people to, that people care enough about a show to try to crack the code

and solve the mysteries like that. I was gobsmatched, Joe. I was just like, this is a brilliant twist. Whether you had figured it out or not, it is just so satisfying and so many things that you then reflect back on the way that Kobel and Milchick

are talking about her, the things that we hear them say, the way that her Audi speaks to her, in the video that she records. Like, it was just perfect. I will say when you go back and rewatch the first couple episodes knowing that, especially like her desperate attempt to try to escape. Yes.

And also the way that like Kobela and Milichick are talking about her, like, this is the boss's daughter the whole time. Like, that's a really interesting lens to view at all. I think that twist is the perfect place to start with this conversation because, yeah, It was a really common theory that I saw, either that she was a member of the board or that she was an Egan, one of those. But because we hadn't seen hide or hair of her outside life, like this, that was like a common theory. But what I love about that is that in their interviews, Erickson and Stiller have just expressed joy and delight over the theorizing. And no sense of stress that some people on Reddit boards or whatever figured this out before they told it.

And even further, and again, I might be of like a few too many layers deep in the fandom of any discussion. But what I love to see is when you go on a Reddit board, a subreddit dedicated to a show, especially a mystery box theorizing show, and a theory pays off and the audience is still excited about it, that's really rare. Because when they called something and then it, like, if the Hellie Helena reveal were the best. big moment, final moment of this episode, I think audiences might have been a little like, well, yeah, that's what we expected. But it's how the episode opens. We open with that. And that's not how we close. And so then they were just excited. They're like, oh, we were right. And we're on the edge of our seats for the next 40 minutes to see what happens next, you know? Yeah. That's a great point. They had just such an incredible sense throughout the season,

certainly in the finale, but throughout the whole season of where to start and stop episodes. It's amazing. If this had been... been a binge show, and I'm glad that it wasn't. Right. I can assure you you would have been on the receiving end of one of my... Haven't moved in nine hours. Just watch this entire season of TV and one sitting text messages. Like, no doubt, because the cliffhangers were just so propulsive.

One, I think this is going to be a binge for a bunch of people, and that's going to be really interesting. Again, that's what happened with Ted Lassow where a lot of people binge season one, and then when season two came along, they didn't have a lot of patience for the week to week because They were used to getting it sort of in a drop. So what do you think Coach Beards iny is like? Mm. Mm-hmm.

A real company man, I think. It's sort of like Irving, Irv who's like a company man on the inside and then like a paint spattered. Okay, so let's talk about Irving. I love her. We talked about Halley for a second, but let's talk about Irving. John Chaturotow the line company man who sort of develops these feelings for his co-worker as played by Christopher Walkin. on the outside, his journey on the outside is not as action-packed as some of the others

because he mostly spends the episode trying to learn how to drive. But we learn a lot. He opens this chest that he has in his house. We get some military indications that both he and his father, I think, were in the military. And then we get this list. And we find out that Irves' Audi is not only like a dog owner

and a painter, like an artiste. but is working on something to do with severance, that he is investigating the severed workers. And it's a really fun contrast to have, like, the most loyal, by the book guy in the inside, be the guy who's sort of digging into what's going on on the outside. What did you think of that? I don't know if I am prepared to pick a favorite character

or an arc I'm most invested in. But if you made me, you know, before the finale, my husband Adam asked me this and I said Dylan but I think coming out of the finale I would say Irving I just I mean I cried a few times in the episode

one of them Joe was when he saw his dog and just like reached out to touch just touch this creature who his Audi has this entire life with I was just like so moved by that moment and then of course the drive

to Burt's and again I think a perfect and capital of what the show does so well, which is in mesh and entwine the plot, the theory, the mythology, building, the questions with the true heartbeat of the show, which is ultimately an assessment of human nature and emotion, what drives us to do the things we do. When he saw a pert, I just like was devastated, but also so happy at the same because I felt so happy for Bert that he had this full rich life because you or I don't know if you felt this way, but I left the retirement sequence, especially close to everything

that happened with Gemma descending into, I know that's not her, her any's name, excuse me, on her Casey, descending into these depths in which we know not what unfolds. That like, what does retirement mean? Are they killing Bert? like what any number of things would have been believable. I don't know if you were a Westworld person, but in Westworld they've got this place called Cold Storage. And that's all I could think of is that they just like sent Miss Casey to Cold Storage,

you know. Yes, exactly. And so I was like just really relieved that Burr was alive, that he was okay, that he had this, that he had a partner, that he had a life, that he seemed happy. He looked happy, but also was so sad that for both of them in a way because Bird and Irving had such a beautiful bond and connection inside of Lumen on the severed floor, and that Bert's Audi didn't know anything about that, didn't know that he had built this bond and found this love with this other person, and then for Irving to see this, to have been driven

there by that longing, and to run screaming, pounding on the door to try to reach him, and we don't know, we don't know what happens next. It was just, it was just agonizing. And as you said, I loved the subversion and inversion of our expectations that the guy inside of Lumen, who has been there the longest of our group, and is the stickler for the rule book and can quote every refrain might be the one on the outside

who was earliest to trying to take this all down and undo it. Maybe that's why he went in in the first place. Maybe he put himself inside to try to learn however long it would take what he needed to do to take this down. And then you think about the painting. like he's painting the elevator that Dr. Casey goes down, right? It's not the main elevator that they use because of the black surroundings, not the white. Do you think it's possible that, and again, I have no idea what the popular theories are.

Maybe this is one of them that, like, could he be looking for someone who he thinks might be inside? I think that's definitely possible. Something that Dan Erickson said in an interview, he says, the hallway is an unanswered question. The paintings of the elevator. I love that idea. I love how, you know, early in the season, Irving finds, like, black paint under his finger nails. We see the goop that comes down. The question of, like, what that goop was.

But, like, to me, it's the black paint that he is, like, obsessively working with. I think that's, again, that's just, like, a beautiful unraveling of a mystery. But I love that idea that he is searching for someone potentially in cold storage, potentially his partner or something like that. I don't know. But I love that theory. I have not seen it as a common theory. I think that's a great one.

That brings us, like, let's talk about the idea of, like, the love triangle, right? Because, like, essentially, Irving's in kind of a love triangle, quadrangle, with, like, his iny, his outy, Bert and Bert's husband. And it's all very complicated. There's a similar one going on with Gemma slash Miss Casey and Hallie and Mark's Inney. and Audi, and it's one of those ones where we have just no idea what to root for. What is the outcome we want here? We do not know, and we've seen a million love triangles in a million shows, and this is one that, like, there's no winning.

There's no outcome where I feel completely delighted by. Something that Stiller and Erickson have talked about is this idea of Marx on a journey to understanding his whole self. A really beautiful thing that Adam Scott said, I think, in a GQ, interview at the beginning of the season was he was talking about, you know, this idea of severance, when he loses his wife, deeply sinister, that she's still alive. But when he loses his wife and he's got this deep pain and the whole, the easy read on this is he severed himself so he doesn't have to deal with the pain. But what Ams got to said to GQ is he said, Marcus decided that he's not going to

move on from this grief. He just doesn't want to feel it at all, he doesn't want to feel it all day. He's going to leave for 10 hours a day or so or whatever. So he doesn't have to deal with it. It's almost like the grief is all he is left of his wife. So he doesn't want to let go of it. He wants to wallow in it as long as he can. What is grief but not love persevering Valerie? You know, so this idea that like when he comes in and he sees his sister in the finale and he's like, I've made a big decision.

I'm going to move on. Like Audi Mark is on the precipice of processing his, finally processing his, for his wife, finally moving on from severance. And then he's going to find out that she's alive, right? Because any mark comes running into the party and says, like, she's alive and he's holding the photo. Yeah. So even if he, like, loses consciousness right there, the photo is there.

Right. We know what he was talking about. And he has hoped. He shared that information, right? And he had the conversation previously with his sister about the overtime contingency in who he was, right? So she's ready to mobilize, I would think, in season two. Exactly.

But yeah, that process of like the ideal, when you talk about inis and outies, what silly little names are called them, when you talk about them, with the exception of Helly, where I am like probably fine if Helena Egan dies and helly lives, these inies and outies, I don't want to choose between one or the other. And obviously, like, reintegration is something that they've talked about in the season. But, like, that's a really interesting conundered to set up. How do you feel about that? Boy.

So great question. Complex question. It's been a while since we spent time with Petey, right? And really thought about in a literal in front of our face, we're seeing what reintegration looks like capacity, how that might come into play our other characters. I think that each of the characters pose is a different answer, but ultimately it's

like I don't, I guess probably this is different for each of you or two. I don't really think of them as opposed forces or like one over the other because I think the path is toward that unification in the end, hopefully.

And on the road to that eventual point, there are so many moments where we get to consider in this really thought-provoking fashion, what makes us who we are, right? And some, of course, there are moments watching the season. And, like, you mentioned Irving's driving where you just, like, think about the actual rules of the universe and what the inies know and how, right?

And, like, what part of their essence, but also their knowledge, like, the paint and And Black Goo example that you raised is a great one because the visual there is so, like, is so piercing because it is literally the outside life seeping into the inside life. And it really reinforces the idea that they can't, they can't be separate forever. Like, that's not what it means to be a person, right? And so, you know, when, and again, I haven't rewatch this. So please correct me if I'm getting any of these details wrong, but when Kobol and Milchuk are talking about our observable. observing Dr. Casey and Mark, Gemma and Mark, and talking about how they do not seem to recognize each other at all. But then we think right away about, and Milford says, okay, well, this is like a good

thing. We see this longing and yearning from Patricia Arquette that connects to like this shrine she has in her home and the clues that we've seen there about what her motivation might be, what she might be working toward, longing towards. Is there a person she's trying to reconnect with or bring back in some way. Also, there's just like the larger question of what all of this is for and what they're doing there, right? But then you think about that with a moment like the hallway passing. And one of the very few things that I was able to do right before we hopped on Zoom was our pal Allen Sepp in Wall's Rolling Stone interview with Ben Stiller. And like, it was so interesting to see Stiller site that specific moment where Dr. Casey and Mark passed each other in the

hallway and that like you felt it in that moment as noise. I had not, like, to be clear, had not occurred to me that she was Gemma or that Gemma was alive when Mark, piece together the picture he had torn up, I was like, holy shit, right? But you sensed something. And that's, that's enough. Sensing something, this element, this aspect of your life, a connection to someone else, a thing you love, a person you love, a thing you believe in, an ideal you hold, is embedded in who you are. But then, and I'll pose this to you, then you look at Helly, because of your comment about you, you know, Ellie, we're good, right? She's like the most interesting to me in some ways, because the deeply, deeply diametrically opposed nature of her in E&A, right?

Her Audi is we learned sent herself in the family mission, right? The Egan heir to convince the rest of the world, not only is Severin's something we should stop fighting to repeal or roll back, hey, this is so great I'd do it myself, right? Good enough for an Egan, good enough for you. Here are all these photos to show you how happy I am. Yeah. And the fact that her iny was so miserable that Helly was driven to attempt to kill herself at one point midway through the season. What parts of Helly are innate and ingrained, right?

The nature. And what parts of Helly and the Iny and Audi lives are the nurture are the products of who is around her and who she spent? her time with and what she has learned from them. If she weren't raised in the Egan pressure cooker, would she be... Then would she be here any? The cool babe, hellie that we've met. Yeah, that's a good question. I think when you're talking about, like, what is the agenda here?

I sense... There's so many theories running around, but I sense two distinct agendas here, right? So it seems to me like the alpha agenda, what Lumen is. And this is based on... on Helena's dad. It's Jamie, right? Dude, where does this ring for you on one of the creepiest performances we've ever seen? Incredible work from Michael Sibri here.

But he says to Helena, because she has, like, proved her loyalty in doing this, he says, you will be with me at my revolving. The actual fuck. Okay, but based on... Incredibly creepy. If there are parallels between this and Westworld, I'm not accusing Dan Erickson of anything because obviously he was working on this, I think, before Westworld even premiered. So, but what is true is that I think eternally the rich and powerful,

what is the only thing they cannot conquer with their riches and powers? Time. It's time and death, right? So that pursuit of immortality is something we see again and again in these stories, the rich and powerful. And so a big storyline in Westworld is about the reason or a reason why these sort of like robotic beings exist is this idea of like, can I put myself in a chip essentially and put myself in a synthetic body and live forever? That's a pursuit of Peter Mullen's character in Westworld. We see the like powder familias, the head of the company, this is what he wants.

So it feels to me like there is something to do with immortality or you're putting yourself or your personality or what makes you you, which is the question that a lot of Westworld has to do with. What makes you you you and how can you maybe download that and move that on forever? A theory that I really love, this question of like what is Mark's department doing with putting the numbers in the folder? And I really love this theory that it's not about them putting the numbers in the folder. It's that someone somewhere is triggering their chips at the time that the numbers do something to try to get them to experience an emotion and how they react is the test.

Their reaction is the test. And this goes back to many of the stations on Lost are not about the actual experiment, but about how humans will react to that experience. Will you sit there forever and put numbers in a folder if you're not told? If you get a finger trap. Yeah. Will you enter a code into a computer and press a button? Right. On Lost without being told exactly what that button does, you know?

What do you think about that? Oh, I love it. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I wish we had like five more hours to talk about this because I have so many follow-up thoughts and questions. Do you, oh, man, I love that emotional receipts. response theory with the data refinement. And presumably, if we play out the string there,

each department presents its version of that, right? Some human response that is being observed in order to, to your first point about the pursuit of immortality, fully replicate life and what it means to be alive. But then it's like, well, wait, if the chip... is severing your inside and outside life, then what are they, so they build the any is like the foundation and they want to maybe then manufacture everything else around it. Like they're building the house again inside of Lumen out of the component parts. Interesting. Okay, it makes me think

of course, and I think was it was it in the first severance pot that you and Van talked about San Junipero? That Van brought up San Juniper. Of course makes me think of San Junipero, but which is, I'm with Van on this one. Like I think one of my, probably one of my three favorite hours of TV ever. I mean, I love, love, love, love that episode of Black Mirror. And that is, in many ways, especially in the context of Black Mirror, like a very hopeful story and a story about finding love and connection, right, even in the digital dystopia. But even that episode asks some very deep and intense questions about, you know, who we are and what it means to give up a certain thing or pursue a certain thing forever,

if the people who made that forever for you forever aren't there with you anymore, right? And it's interesting to think about a version of that inside of Lumen where everything seems so sinister, maybe other than the baby goats, you know, like everything, even the idea of like a waffle party that you know is there only to leverage you and dupe you into... I can't wait to hear what you're about to say.

I just cannot wait. Okay, we're recording this on Friday afternoon. Friday morning you and I recorded a two-hour podcast about Moon Night, in which we talked about one of your favorite comfort foods, lentil soup. Great. Yes. My number one favorite food is waffles. This predates Leslie Knope's fascination with them.

Like, this has been my lifelong comfort food. Run me through the routine. Like, what do you put on a waffle? Do you mix it up? Do you have one go-to approach? I have a recipe that comes from, like, my mom's 1950s Betty Crocker cookbook that I've memorized. And I make the waffles from scratch every time. It's an easy recipe.

And once you know it, you know it, right? And I'm a, like, sure, I can hang. There's no sugar in it. I like a savory waffle. Like, you know, some like butter on and stuff like that. I'm not like a whipped cream and strawberry person, though I can hang with that. It's not Belgian. It's just like a classic waffle.

But there's something so pleasurable about the little square indentations on a waffle. I don't know. This is one of my number one favorite things in the world. world that severance has tried to ruin. No. Speaking of pleasurable. You know? The absolutely obscenely creepy.

That was quite a sequence. Like waffle party doesn't mean the same thing anymore. That's terrible. But yeah, when is a waffle party not a waffle party when four dancers come out and do a little routine? I mean, so like the whole thing about the waffle party in case people haven't parsed it out completely. There's this painting in Lumen of Kira Egan using a cat of nine tails to whip three women and a goat. And they're the four tempers and the cat of nine tails represents the nine core valleys of Lumen.

And so in theory, the Waffle Party, this is a question that our producer Steve asked us when we sort of asked for severance questions is like what happens at the end of a waffle party. seems like to me you're supposed to put on the Kier Egan mask and whip the dancers with the cat of nine tails that is on the bed next to him labeled with the core values of I mean what Lumen what's happening what's going on Lumen we have some notes we have some questions HR my god to get involved but um when talking about the parallel agendas here there's Lumen's agenda and what's interesting is despite the fact that Selvig slash cobal is play by Patricia Arquette, seems like a true believer, a zealid, a devoted employee. It also feels to me like her agenda is slightly at odds with the Lumen Agenda. The Lumen Agenda is to prove we can maybe suppress all emotion with the chip. It seems to be part of their thing. Like, we're trying to ensure that severance means no emotional responses to memories,

something. She, when she, she's obviously working off books in her like, selvig guys, her incredible crunchy granola thing. But when she goes into Mark's house and she steals the candle and then she puts it in Miss Casey's office and Ms. Casey then lights the candle during the break room interaction and were, uh, Cabell is really interested to know, will this trigger something for Mark? Because I think what she really wants, having, something to do with her shrine and the hospital bracelet, I think, or the respiratory device that we see label with the name Charlotte, that I think, based on the dates, people think this is her mother, not a child, but like her mother.

That was one of my questions. I know. I thought it was a child, too, but based on the dates, maybe her mother, that she needs to know that love can transcend severance, something like that. I don't know. It's messy. It's messy in these early season one stages of theorizing. But what do you think? With it, I love it. I think that that feels right. And like there is some personal connection that is driving her work. Also, that would mesh with, you know, when she is ousted, she is so deeply resentful that when Mark, you know, hugs are, when they have their embrace and he's the, oh, this was life change. She's like, do it. Go. You know, she wants him to turn on them because she is driven in that moment by presumably the pure rage that her personal pursuit has been thwarted. Even just the divide throughout the season between her and Natalie and the board, like there's a fissure, a fissure that felt ever present.

My only, this is my first tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny. It's a tiny raindrop. Johnny, Johnny, Cloud moment of the episode is. And this is occurring to me in real time. And this is not really a reasonable thing to say because we don't know if this is true for anyone right now other than Mark and Gemma. But because we asked, like, is it possible maybe that Irving has descended into the bowels of Lumen

and severed himself in pursuit of someone he lost? Is it possible that Kobel has this, is pursuing a newfound, connection or a return to this lost mother or some other person in her life. Like, is that too many characters in the main cast if all of that stuff is true who are hunting for that? Or, and you know what, in real time, I'm working my way back, Joe, because that would ultimately, I think we still have enough other circumstances and we have so much to learn about the motivation. Like, we don't know

why Dylan put himself in, for example, right? But if there is some deeply personal, connection or relationship for many or even every character eventually. That would actually be amazing if that proved to be the through line, that that was what they were driving for, that eternal, that eternal something. I mean, you don't want the answer of something to be love because that is like a little too pat, but there's this, speaking of loss, I love you, Malar here. Speaking of loss, there's this great thing that, Damilindaloff would say, and I think he either came up with himself or got it from JJ Abrams,

but this idea that when you go back to Law season one, there's this mysterious hatch, and the big mystery of season one is like, what is in the hatch? And it's season two, you find out that it is a Scotsman named Desmond Hume. And so Damon Lindelof is fond of saying that the best answer to a mystery is a person, that that's the great if you're doing a mystery box show the greatest answer to a mystery is a person and so this idea of like why is irv doing this for a person why is cobel doing this for a person mark it's a little bit more complicated in that but at the end of the day it's like jemma casey is you know jemma slash miss casey is at the center of that and what that all evokes there i've seen

so many great beautiful reddit theories about like a three musketeer analog or like oh oh wizard of Oz analog which I really love I'll just like shout out the Wizard of Oz one really quickly when they they said Mark is the scarecrow Irving is the tin man Dylan is the Cowardly Lion, Helly is Dorothy there's a great sort of like comparison shot of the

of the core for in both those the movie and the TV show like that's a beautiful thing but I think about my mythology idol mine thinks about like Orpheus and Eurydian like if you like Orpheus going down into the

underworld to get his dead wife and bring her back. And like, I just, I think that's such a cool concept to put at the center of this, that shot of Miss Casey going down that narrow, narrow hallway to where, to hell, you know, that's what it feels like. I love that. That makes me think a little bit of Amber Spyglass and his Dark Materials, a series that we both love. And in a few different respects, right? Like someone you might have a deeply life-altering meaningful connection with who just eluded you, right? You don't have the subtle knife and you just can't get right there to that other realm, but even something like maybe the relationship between a being and their demon, for example, on and on we could go. So that's really interesting. I like that a lot. I am curious to

ask you in terms of what is the motivation. And I love the idea that it's different for different parties, right, both on an individual and on like a corporate or mass scale. But when you think of something like the birthing cottage plot, the politician, do you think there will be an aspect of this where whatever the Egan cult pursuit, immortality or otherwise, ends up being? And however, the individual bonds and relationships of our core characters end up preventing or disrupting that, that there will also be these threads of the stories that center on the power brokers trying to commodify and warp this in society. Like, in some cases, here's how you can keep your, your, your, with the pregnancy.

I mean, I'm curious what you think about that in particular, but like, hey, some rich and rich people could say, okay, well, I can just use this in a way where I never have to experience the unpleasant parts of life, right, in any number of other scenarios. I'm so glad you brought this up, because this is a question I had for you. What would you, Mallory Rubin, most want to get severed for? God. What a question. I don't know. I'd have to give that some thought. It's a great question.

We were debating last night whether we would ever get severed. And I said to Adam, I would never do it no matter what, because I would never want a single moment to go by where I couldn't remember Halo, my cat. And I meant to. I think that I feel like I can't. I think you listen to my conversation. with Van more recently than I had my conversation with Van, but I feel like we said maybe for a flight we would.

Like, we don't want to go to the airport and get on a flight. So we would get severed for that. But I would also get severed for doing my taxes. Like, could my Annie do the taxes? I don't know, because then your Annie would learn too much about you. What are the moral implications of this? They would also learn to, like, grow to resent the fact that they were only awoken every April 14th at 9 p.m. with just a few hours to do my taxes.

Wow, I'm really insulated into how you're spending next week. Speaking of Lumen, it's Lumen! The tax deadline is Lumen in front of me. Anything else we want to talk about? Oh, something that I, a really beautiful quote from Patricia Arquette about the Dillon storyline, you know, Dylan doesn't get to do any sort of outy business in this episode, but she said this thing where it's like, of course, once you see your children, finger trap is just a finger trap, right?

This idea that Dylan is the character most motivated by egg parties, waffle parties, finger traps, whatever, but cannot be lured by coffee coosies and paintball parties now that now that you don't know as he has kids out there somewhere. And again, I think this idea of emotional ties that bind, again, that's a Lindeloff classic to tie all of that into like a mystery box show. But like to give, to have Dylan with like a father, children bond, to have potentially Colbitt Selvig Cabel with like a mother-daughter bond to have a husband-wife bond, like these different emotional bonds that we have that tie us together that make us human that make the work we do

worthwhile, et cetera, you and Halo, you know? The purest love there is. I iconic duos. Yeah, I love that. And it's the kind of awakening that is happening. collectively for our group of inies, but is so deeply personal and specific to each of them. And they will come back in season two

with the knowledge that they have gained. It's interesting because Dylan had, you know, he got it first, and now he knows the least about his life of any of them. And of course, with everything that happened with Milchick and Dylan, and which I,

you know, you and Van talked a lot about how wonderful every, you know, member of the cast is in your first pod. Travel Hillman was, genuinely revelatory in this role. Like unbelievable. What happens next for the characters?

Dylan, who is there in that moment of peril, everybody when they return and bring this knowledge, you can't in any way walk back what you've seen when you're these people and they don't want to. That's why they did this in the first place. Also, this is the overtime contingency. What about all those other things that Dylan scrolled by to get there? Like, what else might be possible for them to explore or pursue?

Again, there are so many questions. And I think it's rare to watch a show. We love a theory show, Joe. We love a mystery box. We love a puzzle. It's rare to watch a show with this many questions where I'm like pretty willing to be patient for the answers, actually, because it's just been such a pleasurable and compelling and really like illuminating

and curiosity-sparking journey. So sign me up to head back into the elevator every time. I can't wait for more. We're almost ready to wrap up. There's just a couple more things I want to say. I do want to read this quote from Ben Stiller, which I think is incredibly assuring in terms of that mystery box question. He says, if too many questions are answers, then you don't have a chance to really speculate and live in the world as much. So we're trying to figure out how to live in that world and figure out that balance.

But the answers are there. It's just we want to try to meet it out, M-E-T-E, meet it out in a way that feels fun and satisfying. And I think that's just like, you know, whether or not they succeed in every single season. They've definitely succeeded in this season. They definitely have a plan. I think it's like a, I can't remember if it's a three season plan or a five season plan, but like they've got a plan. They're doing 10 episodes for season two. They know that they want that extra episode in season two for whatever they, however they want to break it.

Something like they said, Dan Erickson said in an interview that he always had this moment, this plot of this episode was always part of the story you wanted to tell. But it wasn't a season finale when he started. started telling it. And so working with Ben Stiller and working with various other writers, you know, Dan Erickson's a really talented writer. Ben Stiller has a bit more experience when it comes to like how to break a story out. And so working together, being willing to move the story the way and the rhythm that you want it to move. The other thing I want to shout out is that Ben Stiller as a director, you know, and this is something that he has, he has been refining and refining and refining his skills over the years. I think this is some of his best

work. He did, you know, I think, what, six episodes of this nine-episode season. But in the finale, something that he said is that they, they made the camera very stiff and regimented throughout the whole season, the eight episodes, both inside and outside, very stiff camera movements, a little bit of movement for the dance party, but other than that very stiff. And then in this finale, the camera is just constantly moving. We're shifting perspectives. Often we're a POV camera. Like, whirling around and seeing Irv in the mirror or, you know, Mark in the mirror, Helly in the mirror, whatever, we are in their heads. Just to keep that chaos going and that adrenaline going of that, can Dylan hold the levers

down for a 40-minute question, which I think stylistically is so smart. And then also that flutter transition from character to character, like Irv and how, like you move from Hallie to Irv and her eyelids sort of fluttered, the camera fluttered. and suddenly we're with one of the other characters. So again, that's just sort of these cool stylistic tricks that they use, along with good storytelling, plotting, and good emotional work to make this finale feel as powerful as it did. That's really illuminating.

The Flutter, I think, could have been in a less well-done hour of TV, like overbearing or annoying or just unpleasant to watch. But it was so effective because it really reinforced almost like in a multiversal quality. the blending and the melding, the connections between these characters, the shared journey. And I love that point about the movement of the camera. You know,

the characters have, they've exited the period of ignorance of bliss, right? And they're in the moment of awakening, but it's an uneasy awakening. And how long is that road to eventual clarity and apotheosis? Whether it's three or five or however many seasons it is, I don't know, but I will be there.

Waffles in front of me. ready for more. Egg party on the horizon. I do love a deviled egg. Do you like deviled eggs? I love a deviled egg. Like they're making a joke about how the egg party is like coveted, but I'm like, that looks like it slaps.

Honestly, I would go to an egg party. It is coveted here on the prestige TV podcast. It seems great. All right. Well, it is time for Rebecca to get the bird. Oh, my God. Terrifying. Back in the cage.

I'm here for you for everything in your life, Joe. No. Whatever you need. If we could go without talking about the head source from your birds, that would be great. I don't have any birds personally. I don't fully understand bird ownership, but if you have a bird, please don't let it peck the back of your head. That's all I ask. Okay.

Well, I'll be out reading my copy of Rickens. You are. We could have done an entire podcast just on Ricken in his book. I mean, we could have gone on and on and on. So much we didn't get to, but this was a delight. I was genuinely touched when Ricken was like so defensive around Mark.

He's like, I know how you see me. You know, and then he realized that Mark was being genuine in his praise. I was like genuinely touched by that. It was really sweet. All right. So we will be back talking about some other shows here in the Pressage TV podcast feed. You and I, Mallory. you can hear us also talking, of course, about Moon Night, etc.

Over on the Ring Reverse feed, we got a bunch of great shows here on the Prestige TV podcast feed. Great Atlanta coverage going on. You might want to check out. Jody and I covered the end of the dropout with a great interview with executive producer Liz Hannah. There's so much good TV going on. So we'll be here for you. Hopefully not keeping our producer late on a Friday like we are doing for John Kermas. So thank you to John for his production work on this episode.

Mallory, I'll see you at the Walfa Party.