Severance REACTION - 1x9
Added 2023-02-04 22:56:30 +0000 UTC
Comments
Okay, i finally finished this. Great show, i'm invested. Ben Stiller did an A+ job.
Zachary Letner
2023-02-20 21:53:19 +0000 UTCThis was a lot. And it was all awesome.
Jimmy Macram
2023-02-06 08:51:45 +0000 UTCFor me, the season ended very strong. I personally enjoyed everything with innies, but thought they spent a little too much time with the outties. Last few episodes were great though, and this finale is one of the better season (not series) finales in the past few years, probably with the Succession ones and that Hannibal s2 finale.
Just When I Thought I Was Out...
2023-02-05 06:35:36 +0000 UTCSome notes / trivia / theories: You asked whether Burt’s partner was played by John Noble (Walter Bishop from Fringe). He wasn’t. He was played by somebody called Arthur Brooks. However, it HAS been announced that John Noble will be joining the cast in Season 2. It had never occurred to me before, but now that you mention it, he could well be playing a recast of that character. Also joining the show will be Gwendoline Christie (Brienne from GOT). In this episode, we learn that Irving’s dog is named Radar. In episode 2, during Irving’s wellness session, Ms. Casey tells him that his outie “loves the sound of radar.” If you rewatch the season, you’ll notice that there are loads of scenes where Milchick has a camera and he covertly snaps pics of Helly, to use in the gala installation. I have a theory that he specifically initiated the Music Dance Experience when he did because he needed more pictures of Helly being happy - if you’ll recall, they mention that they had not yet reached the quota where the MDE usually happens. As you saw, Irving has a secret box full of anti-Lumon newspaper clippings, and data about Lumon employees. He seems to be an anti-Lumon activist who took the job to take them down from the inside, which is ironic because of how dogmatically pro-Lumon his innie turned out to be. They mention several times throughout the season that Irving often comes into work tired, and has a problem with staying awake. I think that his outie is deliberately going in sleep-deprived so that he can send messages to him through dreams. We’ve seen that his outie keeps painting the elevator to the testing floor, possibly to burn it into his subconscious and/or to create muscle memory of painting it. We’ve also seen that Irving has recurring nightmares of black goo which looks a lot like the paint. I’m guessing that in Season 2, Irving’s outie will finally get the message through to his innie, leading him to the testing floor where we know they’re keeping Ms. Casey. There’s a bunch of dialogue throughout the season which leads me to believe that what the Severance chip is doing is NOT actually bifurcating the memory within the brain, but rather shutting off the brain entirely and giving motor control to an artificial consciousness stored within the chip. Consider: - In episode 4, when Cobel presents Petey’s chip to Graner, she says “that’s Petey” rather than something like “that’s Peter Kilmer’s chip”. - The Eagans, who made the chips, seem to view innies as less than human in some profound way - Helena tells Helly “I am a person. You are not.” - At the gala, Jame Eagan refers to severed people as “Kier’s children”. - It seems a little odd that the innies seem to know English, concepts like cubist art, expressions like “hands in pies”, but at the same time the company is 100% convinced that it is impossible for outside recollections to slip through. I realize this is science fiction, but it does seem a little implausible that a device could tell which memories were which with that much accuracy. If the innies have NO access to internal memory, however, and come with a pre-programmed context for the world, that makes a little more sense. Connected to all of this is the question of what’s going on with Gemma. As you remarked, Cobel seems to be trying to trigger her and Mark to remember each other on the inside - organizing sessions between them, planting the candle, etc. She also seemed to be obsessed with the idea that Petey had successfully managed to get un-severed, so clearly she wants to bypass severance. It’s been established that Gemma never leaves the facility, and the outside world thinks she’s dead. My theory is that she IS (brain)dead - that she was in a coma, and Lumon faked her death and implanted her with a new consciousness (the chip). If this is true, and Cobel manages to trigger memories of her outie, then she’ll have designed a way to reverse brain-death. This may be connected to the “Charlotte Cobel” breathing tubes she has in her shrine, which she cried over when she was fired. I think that she has a loved one who she wants to bring back to life through reverse-severance. One last theory: a possible explanation for why Milchick is so weird (and dedicated) might be that he is a former innie who was rewarded for exemplary compliance by being allowed to go full-time (effectively murdering his outie). This would be an excellent way to ensure loyalty from your security personnel - only the most devout ever achieve the position, and because they have the chip in their brain, the company also has an instant OFF switch in case they ever do decide to rebel. All-in-all, a fantastic season finale. I’m so excited for Season 2, but sadly, we almost certainly won’t get it until 2024. Luckily, there’s plenty to mull over and theorize about in the meantime.
TouchTheGarlic
2023-02-05 03:04:22 +0000 UTCIIRC the creators have said that 2x1 will pick up at the precise moment that 1x9 left off.
TouchTheGarlic
2023-02-04 23:47:54 +0000 UTCI wonder if the second season will start where we left off, with the outies "waking up", or if we get a timeskip (the innie/outie situation is perfect for that), or perhaps flashback to another viewpoint (Gemma, for example)
MrEvers
2023-02-04 23:47:05 +0000 UTC
