anyone seen SEVERANCE yet?

Feel like Rickon must also have some kind of academic post or else is associated with some sort of Healing Institute.

I assume people with amnesia know all sorts of things except for the details of their own life, so maybe the severance process mimics that although I don’t know anything about any science of amnesia only familiar with it as a plot device.

something else that they can't really explain bc it would make less sense if they try to explain it: how known is it to the general public that Lumon is, in addition to being a huge corporation, a very creepy cult? is that stuff supposed to be secret, only used to control the severed? or is it part of the mainstream corporate culture as well?

Dunno, but that is a good point, especially given Patricia Arquette's considerable devotional shrine.

I figured that is supposed to explain the company loyalty among the dedicated employees that aren't severed.

I think the company definitely has cult-like roots if not an actual cult in practice

The work that the primary group we're observing seems odd, but what they're doing on computers seems to be associative logic puzzles. I keep wondering whether what's really going on (outside of the bizarre rituals) is refinement of the severance procedure.

The people working at most jobs at Lumon are:
- Raising goats (possible early test subjects for implants)
- Curating art (cataloguing creative endeavors, which could be some metric of mental acuity and creativity they want to quantify/qualify)
- Doing weird logic/categorizing puzzles on computers (measuring how the implanted human mind performs)

The cloning theory has some legs. I think overall, Lumon is trying to create a way to monetize and trade in modified humans that can do certain tasks with no objections or memory, and maybe refine humans (via technological innovations) in a way to do those things more effectively

The politician's (?) wife who didn't remember her pregnancy could be an application for the rich. Other than that... humanoid robot slave race, obviously

Wow, good analysis!

I like your theory of logic puzzles, although I originally thought the MDR tasks were a kind of disguised version of some other process à la "Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next?" in PKD's Time Out of Joint?, in case I haven't mentioned that already.

Man, somebody beat me to it and posted that on a metafilter over a month ago!

haven't read the last couple weeks' posts because i'm only up through e04 but i've had enough closeups of adam scott's face. i mean he's not ugly, but he's a haggard man with a bad haircut and enough already

i could look at john turturro's face all day tho

someone said Adam Scott in this looks like Tig Notaro & I cannot unsee it

Just realized the other day that Adam Scott looks a lot like a relative of mine, which has probably been adding something.

Maybe the chip/implant is also learning about the person it is in so as to further its efficacy when reimplanted in the clone

xp lol yes

-adam scott looks like a busted tom cruise to me?

-wonder if petey's address @ 'half loop' is a dig at apple ('infinite loop drive')

my theory on macrodata refining: thought maybe they're refining out the urges of innies to break out into the outies? i.e. what they're refining is scary maybe in the way unwanted memories or intrusive thoughts pop into your head.

like james upthread i see my theory has already been posted on mefi a month ago... guess it's too obvious!

this is giving me brazil vibes but i see that's been posted on mefi already too!

I think nothing is too obvious? It seems like a deep thoughts show where it could quickly pivot to a simple premise with esoteric trappings, or gesture toward a much more complex conspiracy with simple methods

I like 龜’s theory, sorry if it was scooped.

Yeah, me too. I don't know what metafilter is, so this is all exciting and new to me.

I don't think the jobs have any deeper meaning. I think it's all meant to be inscrutable.

I binged episodes 3-8 yesterday and it was quite the experience. It's interesting how the political angle gets very little airtime in the show but you can pause on all the news articles and read them if you want.

Feel like it would be a totally wasted opportunity if it turned it that what MDR does is really only just busy work.

I wouldn’t mind. Shows where everything has to mean something get tiring

Not saying everything ever has to mean something, just this particular case, because of the way it has been set up.

-I think the macrodata refinement is one facet of a study on the employees, who are doing meaningless work to which they have attached great importance. super cult like vibes permeate. i think the curation of the art is part of the cult's myth-building, and another way to give the workers a sense of importance. The goats, I think I agree that they are probably for chip testing?

-the break room feels to me like a Sc13nt0logY-allusion, to e-meters and repeating things until you have cleared the "blockage." the feeling of coercion and surveillance also give me this very unpleasant vibe.

-part of the severance procedure remind me of the protagonist of PKD's "A Scanner Darkly" whose mind undergoes a similar division.

-i think parts of this are intended as a brutal satire of workplace culture, particularly the meaningless incentives and office-sponsored funtime.

-the implications of the severing can get really dark really quickly; my mind immediately thought about evil people using the procedure to force people (women mostly) into sex slavery. but the idea that they can turn you on and off whenever is also pretty wild, suggesting that they could "kill" either half of you whenever they wanted.

i'd be happy to be wrong about what the macrodata refinement is for xpost.

My other theory, which is mine: always thought Helly was a big shot, probably some kind of Lumon insider and this last episode only seemed to confirm this.

And of course a cursory google search seems to find a youtube video with a similar theory which I didn't want to click on.

So… Helly R is an Eagan right? Cobel mentioned an Eagan family gala in the previous episode and it definitely looked like Helly’s outie was at some kind of formal event there. Explains why the board was pissed that Cobel didn’t tell them about her suicide attempt.

Also Cobel is keeping a hospital wristband with the name Charlotte Cobel on it among the things in her shrine. A dead relative she’s hoping Lumon can revive?

This stuff making me feel like I’m watching LOST all over again.

Yes and yes. Keep wondering what happens on the testing floor. I decided to call it a reboot although now I am may lengthen it to remake/remodel

I was saying to my wife yesterday, “I hope this doesn’t end up like Lost.”

I was saying to my wife yesterday, “I hope this doesn’t end up like Lost.”

i keep wanting to push dylan’s glasses back up

really bothered me that the security guy's card wasn't deactivated

that's fair

there are a lot of things that don't bear too much inspection tbh

I tried not to let that card thing bother me and succeeded, mostly, but yeah. Plot devices gotta come from somewhere though.

You may have a similar experience if you watch this other show during the SEVERANCE downtime: COUNTERPART: Alternate History w/ Creepy Cold War Vibe

Now thinking that if they actually had come up with some kind of cockamamie explanation for why it wasn’t deactivated it would have only made things worse. Trying to think of some myself now and the results are not pretty.

Unless that key card was already off the grid, as somebody I know just suggested.

I quite like the idea that the organization is so weird that only one person would immediately think to deactivate that security card, and that person is no longer there.

Fair enough.

trying to think of the last show i’ve enjoyed on every level as much as this, maybe better call saul

the motorhead needle drop was so fucking fantastic, just goddamn delightful

i am cutting carbs & all i could think was what a ~stressful~way to have to eat your waffles

i love every scene w adam scott & the sister, the way they care abt each other & make sarcastic jokes to each other is so good & v real

turturro is still my fave but the guy who plays milchick is great too - doesn't look like he's done a ton of stuff before this.

Nice article on him here

The one plot hole that bugs me slightly is that they have surveillance everywhere except, it seems, in the MDR office? They sometimes go in the storage cupboard to plot but not always.

Hope we get some answers this week but second season so maybe not

That was nice to read thanks, although weird that they spelled Lumon *Lumun*.

To be honest, unlike some other 'mysterious' shows, I don't mind too much if they just keep spinning their wheels forever and never figure out anything satisfyingly concrete. It's thematically appropriate.

Good point.

officially renewed for s2 https://www.apple.com/tv-pr/news/2022/04/apple-tv-announces-season-two-renewal-for-global-hit-series-severance/

the tuturro outie scenes were great. i totally get why a guy like him would want to completely dissociate from the mindless day job that pays for his artistic fulfillment.

Have any of you read THE LEXINGTON LETTER yet?

Some of you should be able to read here: https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=1613220757

HI DERE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsMD8taQ1qA
#onethread