Severance • Page 68

A question I did have was whether the experiment/test was fully successful, despite the mutiny and interruption that occurred. Like, did they need a ‘clean’ Cold Harbor test to fully prove their technology works? Jame acted like Mark showing up fucked up the entire test/experiment, before Jame could expect it’d actually be a successful rescue, but I wonder if the technology IS fully proven but Mark just fucked up an important piece of documentation they needed to get government funding/approval or whatever. They were gonna kill Gemma so it wasn’t that they need her physical body. There’s just some confusion for me on what we were supposed to glean from that sequence as it pertains to Cold Harbor being a temporarily stalled success or completely ruined, etc.

 

Man, this season really dragged. When the marching band scene had gone on for a few minutes I just had to laugh because it was the pinnacle of what I've been feeling this whole season. I still had FUN watching this and I love this show, but it feels like we wasted so much time on unnecessary things.

Also, about the ending scene: I'm surprised to see so many here taking iMark's side. I absolutely could NOT. I almost stood up and screamed "wtf?! nooo!!" at the tv, haha.

I was not satisfied by this season. Need a third one soon!

 

That really is the only thing I bumped up against. I definitely understand why Innie Mark chooses to stay, but everything she says and does is to help him leave. So for her to show up like that felt more like it was something the show needed to happen, not necessarily something her character would have done.

Otherwise I thought this season was great. Dylan's story was by far the most interesting to me, and the note from his Outtie really stuck the landing.

 

Cobel already told Mark in the cabin they’re going to discard him once he’s done. I totally get his choice but for Helly to do it doesn’t fit with her character. She knows Jame isn’t gonna let her just live down there for as long as she wants. She’s the future (current?) CEO of the company, they're gonna send some goons down there to drag her ass back up the elevator real quick

 

I don’t see where

 

there was some interview where it was written down, but Britt confirmed it herself on today's episode of The Severance Podcast

 

Just read the Wikipedia summaries if you don’t want to “waste time”

 

Helly's arc works for me for the season as a whole. She started out the season having just discovered who she really is outside of Lumon, immediately had her body and identity usurped by her outtie to trick the only people she cares about, has to fight to regain her little Lumon family's trust, has her sexual awakening with Mark, realizes through the growing discovery of her autonomy that she can utilize her outtie's authority, and is told by Helena's own father - after all the turmoil Helena put her through this season - that she has more potential than her counterpart.

So right up to the moment that Mark is about to complete Cold Harbor and he tells her he wants to live a life with her, she is still willing to sacrifice their love in the belief that she is a mere extension of Helena by responding "But I'm her." It isn't until that moment when she rallies the troops and stands up for herself, for Dylan, for Mark, and for all of the innies, that she fully realizes that everything she is saying about them is also true of herself. Last season Helena made it clear to Helly that she believes Helly is nothing. Helena and the Egans view the severed as objects, but Helly knows now she has an identity all her own and that, contrary to Helena's belief, Helly has potential. She's got "the fire." It's the moment she fully self actualizes and changes her mind about what she told Mark because now she knows, "I'm not her." Lumon can tear her world apart going forward, but they can't take this moment away from her and in the moment that's all that matters. They give them half a life and expect them not to fight for it, and they're fools for it. The equator be damned.

 

Fucking shit fuck

 

Round 2 of wild reactions. Let’s go.

 

Best Choreography for Scripted Programming Creative Arts Emmy. Give it to this episode.

 

That was my very first thought and it was a hysterical image

 

I’m surprised a bit to see the mixed reactions. I thought the finale was pretty incredible and raised the stakes in (almost) entirely earned ways.

For essentially two seasons the show has centered the innies in the action but never really questioned the idea that the outties are the real person. This episode (and really season as a whole in hindsight) went full throttle into the idea of consciousness and literally being a person and it made perfect sense to me. The innie “lives” were treated as borderline trivial until each of them had something to live for. Irving loses Bert and feels it’s pointless, Dylan with Schmidt’s first girlfriend, Mark and Helly with each other. The cabin scene perfectly asked the question of why innie Mark should die so so someone else can love someone he’s for all intents and purposes never met.

Thinking about the end logically, I can see the argument that innie Mark might have a better chance of surviving if he leaves with Gemma and hopes oMark keeps his word. But Helly’s right there, she’s fucked if he leaves, and there was more than a little selfishness in oMark’s videos. It’s crazy for him to stay, but not in a way that feels crazy for the character to choose. I don’t read it as they think they’re going to live there forever, I read it as they can’t leave each other and are going to fight for their lives from there.

This season was like 90% awesome for me but I’ll agree w a few qualms:
-ortbo right after the reintegration was paced weird
-Cobel ep was pretty good in the abstract but probably would have been better as the B or C plot of another episode
-Devon and Cobel felt sloppy as characters in general
-there’s lots of silly shit happening on the severed floor for vibes, but the marching band was the first time something felt logistically silly

 

One reason why I’m team binge

 

first half of the season was an A/A-, second half was like a C+, overall like a B/B- for me

 

Yeah the second half of the season dragged a bit but that was a 10/10 finale

 

I don’t agree with all of this but it’s a good critique/analysis

 

I would have this almost exactly reversed haha - felt like everything finally started coming together in the final four episodes.

 

Idk if anyone has acknowledged this but I like how the conversation between outie/innie Mark and Devon’s comment afterward indicate to us that they don’t understand reintegration any more than the audience does. It is possible that the concept itself is entirely bullshit. I think many of us likely have logistical questions about how that’s all supposed to work and it’s nice that they’re not trying to force a ludicrous answer on us

 

they mentioned this on the podcast so it isn’t my own theory but i’d presume reintegration is how we get some oMark next season but yeah i expected/hoped for more answers on what it was by season’s end

 

that episode was fantastic. season was super entertaining overall. A- or A for me

 

Finally caught up after a crazy week, was able to watch the last two episodes last night.

Was the goat purely sacrificial? More so in the spirit of weird religious cult and not transferring outie gemma conscience to the goat right.