Severance (Spoilers)

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by Russic

My worry with these types of shows is they shine like early Lost. The mystique is part of the fun, and the truth is usually a bit of a letdown. It's hard to stick the landings on weird, messed up shows like this.

Love the guess about death/consciousness that getbak posted. That makes more sense than anything else I've seen.

This is what i think separates Severance from Lost and even the recent "From".

Lost, to me, was the mystery. Each episode i was tuning in to see what would happen from an answers/mystery perspective.

Severance, to me, is different. The ride is so worth it. The end result could be a let down, but the story and how it is told is great (so far).

As long as the show doesnt get stale and start to rely too much on the mystery to keep viewers engaged, then it will be fine.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by MegaErtz

I don't want to spoil the show for anyone, but the reddit group dedicated to this show has figured out most of the answers.

Pretty obvious that it was outtie Helena in Season 2 Episode 1, pretending to be innie Helly. Irving forces himself to stay up all night with loud music and coffee so that his innie will fall asleep and his subconscious will filter through. Notice how Lumon have a very strict no sleeping policy, and Selvig is always trying to get Mark to eat and drink things that will make him sleep? Dylan's wife is obviously in a wheelchair, which is why we haven't seen her yet, and his innie always talks about his muscles. He gets them from lifting her in and out of bed.

The whole Cold Harbor thing is pretty obvious as well. The numbers correlate to the five Kier values, which is why the heavyset dude has "frolic" tattooed on his hand. Gemma was a burn victim, which means they froze her body and showed outtie Mark S another body for identification. Notice how Miss Hoang was a crossing guard? They want young people who died in accidents so they can bring their consciousness back to life by recreating their personalities through DNA - which is where the MDT come into play. The ultimate goal is to bring Kier back to life.

The goats back this clone theory up. If you'll remember in the first season, the state senator's wife has been severed so that she won't have to go through the pain of childbirth. That's why she smells funny and chews oddly, and has scars on her head - from where the goat horns have been removed.

Pay special attention to how they put things in the drawers before they go down the elevator, or back to their cars at the end of the day. I strongly suspect Irving is using his watch to communicate messages between his innie and outtie.

Some of these are pretty well-known or generally considered to be the top theory; but some of these aren't "obvious"

The outtie helly theory is pretty obvious and i think many people questioned it episode 1. I think the sleeping thing was too.

Dylan's ask at the interview for benefits was a tell for why he needs the job, so there is a suggestion that someone is sick/incapacitated/restricted, but not clear yet - maybe its one of his kids etc.

The goats from season 1 was actually just a fun thing the showrunners put in the episode (they claimed) as they thought the reveal was funny and random. I guess they are putting it in this season and tying it in

[Torture]

Originally Posted by MegaErtz

I don't want to spoil the show for anyone, but the reddit group dedicated to this show has figured out most of the answers.
etc etc

I think most of these are correct, and even with reddit having 'figured it out', the show is still a wild ride. Whether you are going deep on the mystery with a bajillion rewatches and reddit theories or just watching casually once a week, that's part of why it is so good.

A couple you said that I don't follow...

The goats back this clone theory up. If you'll remember in the first season, the state senator's wife has been severed so that she won't have to go through the pain of childbirth. That's why she smells funny and chews oddly, and has scars on her head - from where the goat horns have been removed.

Huh? Are you saying the severed senator's wife was a cloned...goat?
She was pretty clearly severed so that her innie gets to do childbirth while her outie never has to experience that pain. Don't think it's any more complicated than that and don't see how the goats fit in to that? If there was a reference to the senator's wife being stinky, chewing funny, orhaving head scars I don't recall that....

The whole Cold Harbor thing is pretty obvious as well. The numbers correlate to the five Kier values, which is why the heavyset dude has "frolic" tattooed on his hand. Gemma was a burn victim, which means they froze her body and showed outtie Mark S another body for identification. Notice how Miss Hoang was a crossing guard? They want young people who died in accidents so they can bring their consciousness back to life by recreating their personalities through DNA - which is where the MDT come into play. The ultimate goal is to bring Kier back to life.

Agreed on ultimate goal. Mark S is obviously the only important MDR team member because of his relationship to Gemma. He also did a refining in record time when he first started and got a cool perk for it. And it makes sense that he would refine whatever it is w/ Gemma in record time given his relationship.
....But not sure what Miss Hoang being a child and former crossing guard has to do with that?

[MegaErtz]

Originally Posted by Torture

I think most of these are correct, and even with reddit having 'figured it out', the show is still a wild ride.

A couple you said that I don't follow...


Huh? Are you saying the severed senator's wife was a cloned...goat?
She was pretty clearly severed so that her innie gets to do childbirth while her outie never has to experience that pain. Don't think it's any more complicated than that and don't see how the goats fit in to that? If there was a reference to the senator's wife being stinky, chewing funny, orhaving head scars I don't recall that....


Agreed on ultimate goal. Mark S is obviously the only important MDR team member because of his relationship to Gemma. He also did a refining in record time when he first started and got a cool perk for it. And it makes sense that he would refine whatever it is w/ Gemma in record time given his relationship.
....But not sure what Miss Hoang being a child and former crossing guard has to do with that?

Remember when Mark's sister runs into the senator's wife? She complains to mark about the smell, and the chewing. There's a shot where we see her hair parted and the scars underneath. Is she a clone or just severed? We don't know yet.

The theory is that Lumon take the DNA of recently deceased people and then recreate their consciousness in a new body. They want young, healthy people who died in accidents as their test subjects, not old people who died riddled with disease and the effects of old age. Hence Gemma an Ms. Hoang. The crossing guard thing is a hint that she was run over by a vehicle.

[Torture]

Ms Hoang isn't severed though.
I remember the sister meeting the senator's wife - do not remember anything about smell, chewing or scars. Shrug.

[MegaErtz]

Originally Posted by Torture

Ms Hoang isn't severed though.

Neither is Gemma/Ms. Casey. They're on the Testing Floor. Notice the elevator down to it and the similarity with Irving's paintings?

[Finger Cookin]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

i think that would be a very disappointing twist

Adam Scott and Patricia Arquette agree with you.

"This sounds like what Lumon would be doing in a super boring version of Severance," he said. Meanwhile Arquette cleared it up in no uncertain terms: "You are very far off and wrong."

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by MegaErtz

Neither is Gemma/Ms. Casey. They're on the Testing Floor. Notice the elevator down to it and the similarity with Irving's paintings?

Gemma is severed, she only has awareness of the wellness sessions she does with Mark and others. We also see Milchick telling Cobel about how successful the chips are because Mark and Gemma don't remember each other. That heavily implies that it's the real Gemma, not a clone

[Torture]

Originally Posted by MegaErtz

Neither is Gemma/Ms. Casey. They're on the Testing Floor. Notice the elevator down to it and the similarity with Irving's paintings?

Agreed that Ms Casey is on the testing floor and that's what Irving is painting (and staying up late to do so, which explains why innie Irving was falling asleep at work and dreaming about black goo). Not sure how that confirms that Gemma is a clone or that Ms Huang is the same. Gemma could be 'severed' with her outtie being well, dead. Either of them could be clones (I tend to lean to 'no', though) or could be something else. We don't really have much evidence about Huang at all yet, and there are lots of different theories about Gemma.

I still don't think the theory has legs about the senator's wife being a goat clone. Can't find a reddit post talking about it or her smelling/chewing funny/having a head scar that would be goat horns. I think she was simply severed for childbirth (maybe childcare as well). Not convinced she is a goat clone unless you can find me some evidence to support that theory.

Whatever Lumon is up to trying to bring Kier back doesn't necessarily have to require cloning. Gemma being around doesn't require that she's a clone. She could be. Or they could have just done some funky brain stuff to bring her back to some form of life on the severed floor. Whatever it is, it seems they're still working on it with Cold Harbor.

Anyways, you're saying the show is solved and yet, here we are debating theories.

[DoubleF]

One thing that keeps bugging me about many of the fan theories is how there's such a lack of red herrings at times. Like IIRC there's a variety of fan theories that quickly get tossed aside solely because it's dislike and not because it's not logically possible.

There's a ton of stuff in the show that is totally innocuous that seems like it could suddenly become a key part of the series at any given point. There were segments that it seemed like there was a lot of unnecessary air time and focus that afterwards, the point becomes much clearer/much more important. We see this occur with several characters, but only a handful of them the reveal has been apparent.

There's also facets of the series that focuses on the idea that it's a key facet of the story, only for it to rapidly be rendered forgettable. I somehow believe it's intentional and I can't imagine it's purely by accident. Petey is one of those facets. It was deemed so key for a while and then unimportant to the point that most viewers probably forgot about him. There's information that hints that prior to us the viewer entering the understanding on Lumon/Severed/Unsevered, things were different. How MDR operated prior to the viewer being introduced seemed to be very different with Petey vs Helly.

Time is also intentionally ambiguous. Assuming original severed technology started sometime in the 1950s-1980s, some of the ways the uprising has been immortalized or converted into propaganda form makes sense. But unsevered, it implies that most is that severance technology is cutting edge, even though things seem so analog. That's bizarre to me. Is severance technology less than a decade old? Or is it 50+ years old? I keep wondering about that. I don't recall reading too much that stuck out regarding that. I think some viewers and fans actually think it's just a neat and clever stylistic thing to keep the viewer from getting confused about the severed/unsevered "world". This could be true, but I do wonder if it's more than just that.

The show has IMO done a great job of shrouding, revealing then re-shrouding certain things.

[Torture]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

There's also facets of the series that focuses on the idea that it's a key facet of the story, only for it to rapidly be rendered forgettable. I somehow believe it's intentional and I can't imagine it's purely by accident. Petey is one of those facets. It was deemed so key for a while and then unimportant to the point that most viewers probably forgot about him. There's information that hints that prior to us the viewer entering the understanding on Lumon/Severed/Unsevered, things were different. How MDR operated prior to the viewer being introduced seemed to be very different with Petey vs Helly.

100% to your whole post. And on the timing piece - what year even is the show filmed in? They've all got old looking cars and computers but smartphones (and severance technology) exist.

I would be very surprised if the re-integration storyline doesn't come back.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Torture

100% to your whole post. And on the timing piece - what year even is the show filmed in? They've all got old looking cars and computers but smartphones (and severance technology) exist.

I would be very surprised if the re-integration storyline doesn't come back.

I think there's a shot somewhere of a driver license that shows the years 1978 and 2020. The assumption is that 1978 is birth year and 2020 is either the issued year or expiration year.

The difference between a few days and a few years is so confusing at times. I've been meaning to double check to see how many days supposedly pass in each episode and see if anyone else thought whether there might be significance. I think some viewers said it was around 3 weeks to around 30 days as certain new day segments are unknown if it's a single day or several days. We're intentionally told that S1 vs S2 is approximately 5 months, but S2 throws us into an unfamiliar severed world that. 5 months vs 1 day from the last time the character was severed mean different things at different points in time depending on the POV. However, I don't think I've seen theories truly wonder if this timing is meaningful in many manner, just that the passage of time exists. We know time down to the hour was pretty important in the Petey part of the story, but then soon after, every day just sorta blends into the next. We know that this is a motif in corporate life and that paralleling these themes has helped to craft such an amazing universe. But again, unsure if this was intentional or just clever stuff to make the universe seem more relatable.

Old car and diner wise, for a while I just assumed that the HQ was located in a small town and those employed around town weren't very wealthy (old cars, small/slightly older houses, older decor vs modern decor etc. Kinda like a town that relies on mining or something. I kinda assumed it was hinting that Lumon is underpaying staff to the point they can't afford nice stuff, but later on it was brought to my attention that this assumption was probably incorrect via a simple question of "why do specific characters live this way, when it's implied they don't have to"?

I also assume it's not a plot hole that the story revolves around the idea that there must be a severe issue with severing yourself. Otherwise, why would re-integration be a thing? Why is there so much concern regarding ignorance in a severed/unsevered state.

Whatever it ultimately is, the cast and directors have been doing a fantastic job in crafting this story and universe.

[Finger Cookin]

Watching S1, and while training Helly in macrodata refinement, Irv and Dylan mention that about only one in five files are completed before they expire. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also, can we talk about with all the weird and wild #### going at Lumon, Ricken and his contemporaries seem like the most insane people in the show?

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

Watching S1, and while training Helly in macrodata refinement, Irv and Dylan mention that about only one in five files are completed before they expire. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also, can we talk about with all the weird and wild #### going at Lumon, Ricken and his contemporaries seem like the most insane people in the show?

Ricken and his friends are hilarious.

They are so idiotic, but wholesome, but ultra woke lol.

"please don't blame the baby for tonight"

amazing

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Cappy

Ricken and his friends are hilarious.

They are so idiotic, but wholesome, but ultra woke lol.

"please don't blame the baby for tonight"

amazing

Others have pointed out that if you rewatch season 1 and pay attention to references to food and babies, that it's a bit of a surreal experience.

Ricken's level of weird is referenced several times in the first season. But even then, if you pay attention to the different spaces and behaviours of certain individuals, you'd find that there are many other facets that are so weird, that Ricken's behaviour doesn't seem as weird.

TBH, Ricken somehow keeps reminding me of Zach Galifianakis level of pure randomness. Like, I have an idea it'll get weird, but even then, I'm constantly blindsided by what actually happens. However, I feel like I can more accurately assume a Ricken scene is weird vs many other scenes surprising me with the weird.

If you keep tabs on certain locations in the severed universe, then compare them to normal life, there's varied levels of weird for very innocuous locations and things.

Lumon office/parking lot (unsevered perspective)
Mark's home
Selivig's home
Ricken's home
Diner
etc.

That's not even considering the viewer's acceptance that the severed floors/rooms/departments for Lumon are varied levels of weird.

[Finger Cookin]

Originally Posted by Cappy

"please don't blame the baby for tonight"
amazing

"It was me! I found her!! I FOUND YOUR CHILD!"

[woob]

I love the cinematography of the show. I often get lost in just admiring how a scene is setup and shot and forget to pay attention to the dialogue. It's amazing.

[Fuzz]

EDIT: oh, page two...

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by woob

I love the cinematography of the show. I often get lost in just admiring how a scene is setup and shot and forget to pay attention to the dialogue. It's amazing.

The shot from outside showing Helena walking through the Lumon building, and then Milchick returning on his bike were fantastic. Just give this show all the awards already

[woob]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

The shot from outside showing Helena walking through the Lumon building, and then Milchick returning on his bike were fantastic. Just give this show all the awards already

That was one of the scenes in my mind when I wrote that reply haha. So good.