Severance on Apple TV. I really need to talk about it.

[EileenBrysonsTeabags]

Late to the party. I Loved loved LOVED this series so much. So weird and unsettling and mind bendy.

So many unanswered questions.

I think I will personally go and stalk Ben Stiller for an answer about what the numbers are about if we don’t get a season 2.

Did anyone else watch it?

are we discussing the ending yet?

i know most people think he made the right decision but i think by staying, he could lose them both, because Helena could decide not to go back inside ever again.

at the same time, i don’t understand if mark will go outside again either, but surely he can’t stay and live inside Lumon forever.

what do you guys think?

I did enjoy it but I suppose I was hoping for a bit more conclusion before the wait for season 3.

Nonetheless it was very good with loads of really excellent bits, especially the Mark/Mark conversation and the bloody bit with the goat and in the lift.

I can't see how Mark can win either way, his poor wife is just stranded in the stairwell and how can he continue in lumen now? Plus we know they can switch him off remotely too. I suppose Helly R is now the most important character - will they switch her off too?

I've sort of given up trying to understand it all tbh.

I mean why did they have Gemma in the first place? Did they kidnap her? Mark thought she'd died in a car accident.

However, I thought it was a great ending, agree Mark talking to Mark was brilliantly done.

My thoughts.

Gemma and Mark were academics. Both educated and intelligent. We know that they crossed paths with the nasty doctor at fertility clinic. Gemma then ‘dies in a car crash’ but in reality she was kidnapped by Lumon. But, did Mark not see her after she died? Surely he would have to identify her. Or was he advised against it.

Why did he start work at Lumon? Who encouraged him?
How would Lumon know about the cot?
Why Gemma? She is clearly the subject of an experiment but what and why her? Why would she die at the end of it?
Will innie Mark ever leave? Why would he when he knows that if he does he will almost certainly cease to exist as outie Mark has Gemma back.

Mark said he did identify her. Animatronic/wax model?
I assume Gemma would've died after Cold Harbor as she was part of the sacrifice which also involved the goat? Or her body remain but spirit becomes Keir?

Just finished it - woah what an episode. Brilliant TV. I was desperate for Mark to go outside with Gemma but then innie Mark is no more. When, when will we get season 3?

Still lots of questions to be answered. I hope they just do 1 more season as I don't want it being dragged out.

Milchick and the marching band is the best television I have ever seen. I found it difficult to jump from the surrealist black comedy to Hele R giving a rousing speech from the desktop. I wasn't sure if she was supposed to be read as farcical or not. I guess maybe that's the point - Lumon are toying with these created consciousnesses and treating them like their sense of self is a joke, a nonsense.
I'm actually relieved to read that other people wanted Mark to go into the stairwell with Gemma. I guess that's what we were meant to feel and the writers have it in hand. I so desperately wanted him to join her.

I loved the aesthetic of the final walk down the endless corporate corridoor hand in hand but emotionally, I don't know. I was going to say I wasn't engaged because I wasn't feeling "Yeah! You go do this thing!!" but, again, maybe that's the point. Are these innies real and can we experience fellow feeling with them, or not?

After Helly R had told Mark S at the desk something like "but I am her" (referencing Helena and what appeared to be a lack of future between them), encouraging him to finish the file and save Gemma, then helping to baracade Milchick in the toilets to further help Mark S rescue Gemma, it didn't seem to follow that she would see he had been successful and not tell him to go through the door to be with Gemma. Instead she seemed to call him back and take his hand.

Helly R seems very smart and non-selfish towards Mark S and everything up until that point seemed to be suggesting she'd tell him to go. It did make me wonder if Milchick had got the Glasgow block back in place to stop Helly from helping with the escape. Maybe I'm just seeing Glasgow block everywhere since that storyline though!

I was slightly disappointed there was no Irving or Burt...unless I missed something. I should watch again!

I have not read whole thread but one of the things I like is the commentary on office life. The awful 'thank you' events, the affairs, the way you are a different person in the office, the lack of obvious meaning in the jobs we do, the way we dress and the strong bonds we create with colleagues. I kept saying to my son - but Ben Stiller is not likely to have worked in an office so how did he know.

On the more surreal stuff I think that they might have been working on trying to develop a way to allow humans to forget trauma. I think the numbers might be about identifying emotions and then the exercises his wife endured were to test if they had managed to eradicate those feelings. So could they cure humans of unhelpful feelings or something. But I have no idea really

But assuming Gemma gets herself out of the stairwell and home, and lumen don’t decide to keep Mark S trapped inside forever (or kill him) then they will be together. The question is more what happens to the innies - they can’t run through corridors forever and could easily be ‘retired’.

The double life thing has somewhat been playing on my mind. I’ve wfh for about 30 years now, with most of my colleagues being in the US. I’m getting close to retirement and when I do - honestly for most of them I think I’ll probably pretty much cease to exist.
And then there are our double lives online…

The writer/creator of the story is Ben Erickson. On the podcast he talks about doing soul-destroying meaningless office jobs which inspired the idea. Ben Stiller is the one who read the script and then made it into the show.

Choreogrpahy and Merriment were so amazing! Such a bizarre, surreal, funny moment when the marching band arrive.

I have enjoyed the season, it’s been very stylish and watchable, but only by not thinking too much about it, because so many of the ‘explanations’ make no sense when you think about them. To use the most obvious example, how does Lumon make its profits? Keeping kidnapped women and masses of staff that are secretly working on a single experiment on that woman is pretty expensive. Most of the salaried innies float around doing very little productive work. I think it would have wrapped up nicely if they’d left it at the end of this season and hope it doesn’t lose it in Season 3 like the diminishing returns of many, many seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale.

@TheGirlOnTheLanding you have summed up perfectly how I feel about it!

I did enjoy it, there is plenty of food for thought throughout the whole thing, you don't need to make sense of all of it.

I think the idea was that Gemma became a perfect worker - willing to do anything she was told to do without question because all her emotions - fear, happiness, anger- had been broken away from her.

No ideas about the point of the goats or any thing else though! I was pleased that the woman refused to kill the goat and the lift scene was horrific but made me laugh as well as it was Lumon's fault Drummond died since Mark couldn't control his body in the lift

Oh @Goldenthigh now it makes even more sense. Thanks for that insight.

It really made me think of some of the meaningless jobs I have done but also the great friendships I have made. It's one of those shows that plays on the mind.

I agree that the best way to watch is just go with it. You're not meant to understand it all.

Going back to Dan Erikson - he worked for a door company (like the one Dylan went to for an interview)

It was such a good season finale and it could end there with Mark going off with Helly and all of us shouting at the TV 'nooooo!!!'
I was desperate for him go with Gemma, but that would've meant no season 3.
Highlights were def the Mark innie and outie conversations, Drummond's murder, the marching band and Millchick was fabulous especially as they all turned against him. He's such a good character, must've been such fun to play.
Definitely a few things not tied up - what happens now to Cobel, is there really a 'Board' or is it just Natalie, are those goats there just for sacrificial reasons, will Gemma now go back to her and Mark's house and will he come back to the house as his outie? Will we see Irving again (I hope so!).

I love Milchick! www.instagram.com/reel/DHfaQZhuawC/?igsh=MXg5N2Zpc3FqOWdrag==

I don’t understand why the innies want to fight to continue such a shit life. I’d rather be switched off!

I finally watched it. Never come between a woman and her goat should be everybody's take home message.
I hope we won't have to wait three years for season 3.