Severance thoughts
5 September 2022
EP 1
sudden shift between mysterious/ominous "who are you?" and the "hi take a survey? :)"
she's immediately suspicious, trying to escape. "let me out, open the door." immediate assumption she's in trouble, panic. "what do i get at the end of the survey?" interested in how things benefit her, knowledge gathering
"first question: who are you?" "that's the first question?" "first name will do." => she interprets as a philosophical question, he only means the identifier
work has the stronger incentive to keep its employees happy? well i guess of course, otherwise the employees would want free time, and the whole thing would collapse. it's the most unbalanced life ever. it also bears the question, if company can treat its employees so well in the work partition, why can't it just do that in the regular partition? so they must be doing something that is in someway objectionable to the people in the regular partition.
looong white wall hallways
does he even know what hungover is? did they kill petey??? tf was up with the handshake thing? god this would be as if someone told you your work bestie had died. it's all the same thing
by the book and happy about it. but in a way that makes him seem absolutely insane. and he's def gonna notice that cut on his forehead. oh jesus fuck to be within twenty feet of endless forbidden knowledge, and to have to not look.
oh god rat in a maze rat in a maze, they're never gonna let her go!!!! did they all go through that? when she keeps coming back, is it all on the same day for him? and her outside life just keeps sending her back to try again and again? that's the like waiting period to get a job? so an element of time travel too?
interesting mix of futuristic/retro tech. WAIT has less time passed in the work partition? that makes sense right? because all time is relative!!! no wait lol that doesn't make any sense right? the time has to be 1-to-1
oh god he's doing it to forget her. and he's shortening the time to process it. so every feeling just gets dragged out
you have to trust that the other half of you is doing equally or better than you to not go wild. requires some kind of optimism or else it's self harm.
WAIT mrs selvig is the ceo (?) lady??? does she know what's in which?
EP 2
okay so milcheck is in communication with the work partition on both sides right. why were they so excited that helly was joining?
god i cannot imagine never sleeping wtf wtf
also. lumon. unit of light, right? ah no lumen is the unit of luminous flux.
the thing with the group photo. mark wants it out of sight, out of mind? does irving want to mourn petey a lil more? or is he just a stickler for rules?
quitting is like committing suicide oh my god. death is something that happens outside of here.
defensive and angry about having been severed. does he regret?
is irving not sleeping in the outside? it's not his fault if he can't ever sleep though right? what if his outside self is trying to get him fired, but doesn't know about the whole break room/punishment system? what was under his fingernails?
get a lil bit of sunlight and greenery in the wellness room. and nowhere else.
cleaning data. surveillance? warfare? like it's got to be some kind of atrocity right?
EP 3
it's temporary he says, as if he knows
okay so by mrs selvig's house interior, i don't think she has any idea what she does at lumen right. so. her at lumen is her without the grief of her husband passing, just as mark at lumen is without the grief of his wife passing. who are we without our grief?
"you carry the hurt down there with you. you just don't know what it is" and they're all tortured by grief they cannot possibly resolve, because they don't have the memories or context for it
mrs selvig so sneaky. okay nvm she probably does know.
also yes how do any of them know what art movements are?
"what i just did was to help you." "open or closed?" "both"
im telling you, morse code!! stain the underside of your fingernails like irving did! show up to work having not slept at all! don't eat breakfast, get a raisin stuck in your teeth! takes a while, but it's not letters!
optics and design—if they have to look at art, do they get to engage with deeper meanings?
who/what/where is the board? MDR?
"remembered man does not decay" yikes. woe frolic dread malice okay mr four humors sir. calls them his children, set up as a god figure. a replica of his house like a temple
why is irving so into it. without history, we are shapeless. so irving pours himself into the lumen mold. just the smiles, no eyes.
why is mark important? (is mark important?) like harmony/selvig spends all this time interacting with him, but acts like she hates him at work. what's the point?
EP 4
why is dylan so incredibly suspicious of o & d
oh mdr = macrodata refinement. interestingly, also, mdr = mort de rire
the only art and beauty irving gets to see is from o&d !! and he yearns for it as he yearns for love !!
"I AM A PERSON. YOU ARE NOT"
chinese finger traps—the more you struggle, the worse it gets
who serves wine at a funeral?? is that a thing??
this is an astonishingly appropriate home video for a funeral
"I need you to run a special wellness session for Mark S" "what's the problem?" => wellness sessions are responses to problems. a perversion of wellness
okay so that painting burt is hanging up, that figure looks like a flipped wanderer above the sea of fog by caspar david friedrich right? that feels thematic. are the other paintings also references?
an acrostic poem—typically the work of schoolchildren. but for these people, who have no interaction with art/culture, ricken's book which to us would seem cringe, is like a miracle
EP 5
what's the point of leaving early or staying late when that's literally just a ritual get up from your desk for a fun lil one minute walk. never ending shift !!!
baby's first philosophy text
he dreams of sticky tar. what is it?? is it symbolic? something his outie encounters?
and in some sense they are children. they have no life experience. but milcheck doesn't seem to think the book is much of anything.
i feel like mark would resign if he knew his innie tried to commit suicide, right? so what makes helly different?
also the whole last name initial thing is so subtle, just that little reminder that it's just an identifier, but that you cannot know your own last name
do they know what animals are???
cannot get a read on ms casey. another puppet?
EP 6
!! so harmony worships at kier's altar. she's def not severed then right bc she's at home?
screaming @ irving & burt i love them
baby's first union
how do u rebel against god
to find out that dylan has a kid!!! compared to how he is at work!! who is he without a family !
also. does outie mark think that innie mark is happy or just not unhappy? if innie mark starts a relationship with helly, he'll want to stay? but then if outie mark has his relationship with alexa, would he not want his innie to be with helly?
EP 7
"you brought him into this world without his permission" aren't we all. but for innie mark there is no possibility of escape. he's not free. not to be whatever about it but honestly there is something comforting about death sometimes. it will all end at some point. and that's okay. but for mark/the innies—they do not have control over that, over any of that. they cannot choose to die, lumon stopped helly when she tried. they cannot choose to live—if they get fired, that's effectively a death sentence.
where's that quote i read that one time. something about, "it's the last thing no one can take away from you—how you choose to die." like are you going to face death? with fear? acceptance? with regrets? will you rage rage against the dying of the light? will you go gentle? you get to pick. but not the innies. they cannot choose to live, they cannot choose to die. severance strips them of their personhood?
could things look differently in the outside partition? if the innie looks at the thing and sees a card, could the outie see something completely different? like the card does not seem so dangerous that milcheck should be That Freaked that dylan might have snuck it out.
milcheck is running out of options. only perks.
oh my god like a whipping boy!!!! sever the person to experience all awful things and nothing else!! wtf!!!
NOOOO :(
im PRAYING that bert & irv are married on the outside
when the MOST dedicated irving says "let's burn it" !!!
mark listing things about his wife echos ms casey's fact list about irving. "please try to enjoy each fact equally" vs "i loved all these things about her equally". there's something here about like. acceptance. to love/enjoy/accept each part and hold them in your heart, equally. for irving listening to these facts, almost impossible to enjoy them equally, because he doesn't have the context for any of it. he's trying to reconcile them all together, because it's all new information. for mark, so simple. he knows gemma, knows every part, and loves her for it. he does not love her because of X or in spite of Y.
WAIT OH MY FUCKING GOD HIS WIFE WAS MS CASEY WHAT WHAT WHAT
also. what does mark think happened to gemma?
EP 8
!! this is why he's so sleepy, he makes paintings all night. impasto painting w a KNIFE ! (i mean cmon, i feel like this is a niche trope but painting with a knife is so aesthetic in a lovely way. something something beauty born despite violence. but i suppose practically too it's a way cooler shot to have someone waving a palette knife around than someone carefully mixing paint and medium and doing like tiny careful brushstrokes)
can they sabotage their work? is there anyone who can check it? like if they all just said fuck it let's push random buttons. would harmony know?
WTF GAMIFICATION what stage of capitalism is this
being fired is the same as being told they're gonna fucking kill you!! "i'm 120 hours old" !!!
where do milcheck's pictures go? like he's always taking them. what's the point?
dylan offering to stay behind is so much nicer than what i would have expected from early episodes dylan. that's growth bb
"let's find out what's for dinner" i'm screaming
baby's first kiss
WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING. THIS IS THE WAFFLE PARTY???
charlotte cobal = harmony's daughter?? is that what i was supposed to get from that?