#severance s2 e4

[agir1ukn0w]

no joke y'all---I just got back from a walk to get some ice cream in town, and I happened to glance in the window of a house that's near where I live (their curtains were wide open so I wasn't being a creep or anything), and LO AND BEHOLD this random person just happens to be watching the latest episode of severance...and it's this scene

and I was like

[sweet-bazzle-bean]

Mark to Helly S1E1: Who are you?

Mark to Helena S2E4: Who are you?

[jjcattt]

okay so in irving's dream sequence he finds a computer working on something labelled "Montauk", so I googled "montauk" and

psychological warfare??? time travel??? we're so back.

[okayidontcare]

The Issue of Consent and Severance Discourse as a Whole

Spoilers for S2E4

So, I never post on Tumblr (and barely on other platforms for that matter). I am a lurker, and, as such, I see a variety of different takes about different things on a daily basis. I am prone to hyperfixations in media as a whole and, right now, I am obsessed with Severance.

So, I watched the new episode as soon as it was out and as soon as I watched the Mark/Helena sex scene and the reveal that it was in fact Helena all along, I knew it would create a discourse that would be unbearable, not because of the discussion itself but by the way people engage with this show (more on that later),  and I feel the need to express my feelings and my view on the subject.

Was SA or Wasn’t?

It… I don’t know. No one does. That’s the point. 

The show wants us to ponder about the autonomy of the innies and the outies, it raises this question not only in relation to the narrative of the show but in a sort of philosophical conundrum. And I think the way to discuss this has to be done with two things in mind: (a) with respect for other opinions and interpretations and (b) that we will never get a clearcut answer.

We can’t affirm Helena is a rapist, we can’t affirm she isn’t. What we can do is debate about it. Engaging with it with logic, as in, thinking that there is a logical explanation for something that is emotional in nature is counter productive. Let me demonstrate:

If Helena and Helly are different people then it’s SA. Then innie Mark didn’t cheat on Gemma and Irving saying that to him was wrong.

But, if Helena and Helly are the same person, it isn’t SA. So Mark cheated on Gemma and Irving was justified in what he said.

Do any of these sentences feel true to the show? 

Frankly, I don’t think so, because it doesn’t feel true to the emotional truth of the show. Because it is weird that Mark slept with someone else, but it is because this version of him doesn’t really know Gemma. But he also has a connection with Ms. Casey, because of the outie life. He also has a connection with Helena, because he knows Helly, but it’s weird because Helena is different from Helly. It’s a bit hypocritical of Irving to imply that Mark and Helly’s relationship is wrong when he was ready to blow up Burt’s marriage in the season 1 finale, but he is also right to point out it’s off putting to see them flirting. It is all these things at the same time. 

Because, from my point of view, they are different people and the same person at the same time. And I don’t think any of us can wrap our minds around this concept, it’s like Schrödinger’s Cat but about human nature instead of quantum physics. That’s what makes it fun, because not even the characters know what to make of it, so we see the emotional fallout of Severance rather than the ethical/moral one. And, to me, that is more interesting.

So we should discuss it, but also know that we’ll never reach a conclusion, because that would be oversimplifying the show and I think it just makes our conversation around Severance shallow. It’s a detriment to the show and to us. 

Let’s hear each other out, give different opinions, have productive debates about the show and what is saying about identity and humanity, about how it reflects on us. Don’t say to someone that has a different opinion than you that they are “watching the show wrong”, that they are “media illiterate”, like your interpretation is the only right one. If you do that, I’m sorry, but I don’t think you are actually engaging with the text, I think you are using Severance as a way to feel smarter than other people.

Let’s not treat our fellow internet users as the outies treat the innies. It’s easy to dehumanize people that we only perceive by their words on a screen, but behind each MDR profile picture is a real person with their own perspective that may not always align with yours and that’s okay, they are worthy of the same amount of respect as everyone else.

So I’ll say, at last, you are free to disagree with me. You are free to say that there is a definitive answer, that it was SA or wasn’t SA, that the innies and outies are the same person or they aren’t. I actually want to hear your take, I just ask that, when you type it, be respectful and understand that I have the right to disagree with you just as you have the right to disagree with me.

[hellioneagan]

weirdest baptism I've ever seen

[sweet-bazzle-bean]

The camera panning back to the waterfall like

the "tallest waterfall in the world" thing is by far the funniest lie told by lumon im genuinely not sure it can be topped

[xek-xek]

The severance EP dropped early and it was completely insane

[agir1ukn0w]

yeah media literacy is fun n all but sometimes you just gotta bask in the glory of mark s and hel(ena)ly r having hot sex in a glamping tent in the middle of the woods

[bbygrlmarkscout]

The littlest guy to ever fella

[sweet-bazzle-bean]

We process so much while we sleep, and the fact that all Irving B needed was one long sleep with his own innie thoughts and innie memories and innie questions to put the pieces together is making my brain twirl.

[lizziestudieshistory]

Sooo... With the fate of Rhaenys and my beloved Eve Best not being around going forward, does this mean I'm now only watching House of the Dragon for Aegon? Honestly, this is a bigger plot twist than anything the writers have managed to come up with so far...

[jjcattt]

ok i was wrong about helly. sorgy guys

[emptyjunior]

Severance S2/e4 shadow selves in the forest... Anyone else reminded of a Fetch

[sillyunicorn]

other people have said smart things about wilhelm and sara being protagonists of an A plot and B plot respectively, and it's made me notice several little things they both do or both have happen to them...

Moving in, getting hazed (S1 E1, S2 E1)

An unwanted kiss (S1 E3, S1 E4)

Lighting something on fire (both S2, E1) (both with the Forest Ridge logo, that's fun)

Looking at someone else's phone (both S2, E2)

[stargirrlinterlude]

*severance s2 e4 spoilers*

Lumon really said "y'all want freedom? here you go" and threw their asses into the wilderness

[osteoptimist]

Severance S2 spoilers up to episode 2:

After watching S2E1 I was REALLY worried that the show might be nosediving. When Helly R didn't tell the gang that she was an Eagan, my fear was that the writers were so desperate to get the show back to the status quo and create conflict within MDR that they were going to have Helly go from "I'm going to burn your company to the ground" to lying to the team out of fear they'd reject her and she'd lose her developing relationship with Mark S.

I've seen plenty of shows do this, and it's one of my biggest pet peeves in television writing. Characters lying for silly reasons just so the show has more drama.

BUT! After reading some discussions online, rewatching the episode, and now seeing E2, I'm confident that's not the case and the writers are still doing an awesome job.

In E1, there were a few pieces of evidence in Helly R's behavior that indicated she might actually be Helena, her outie. Her interactions with the team and especially Mark were a little awkward, but it's hard to be sure.

The most compelling piece of evidence was the shot at the end of the episode where they're all sitting back at their desks and she has to feel around for a second to find the switch to turn on her computer. That was a very deliberate shot, easy to miss but super obvious in hindsight, imo. To me, that very clearly indicates that this isn't Helly, who has known almost nothing except this office.

One of the most interesting, though, and one I haven't seen a lot of people talk about, was when Irv was in the bathroom. The group was talking and suddenly she looks up at the ceiling and asks "what happened to that security camera?"

THAT is a big hint to me, and fits with what we've seen of Helena in E2. My guess is in E3 (or maybe E4), we'll learn that Helena refuses to let her innie Helly take over, and comes to a compromise with the company that she'll go down in disguise as Helly, with the chip disabled so she doesn't switch going down the elevator.

That will require her to watch pretty much every moment of Helly's time on the severed floor, so she doesn't make any obvious mistakes.

Ergo, she probably spent a lot of time watching footage from that one (now missing) camera to see the team interacting. Then, when she's down on the severed floor and feeling uncertain, she looks to that camera and notices it's missing.

There's a lot else to unpack about Helena that we saw in S2, especially her watching Helly and Mark kiss at the elevator, but other people have talked about that.

I'm just glad the writers are still cooking, it was on me for not paying close enough attention in my first watch of E1.

I AM still a little worried about Dylan going along with Milkshake and not telling the team about the family visitation room, I'm not sure that follows from what we saw at the end of S1. We know that Dylan has been very concerned about rewards and perks, but I think that's mostly because he didn't have anything else to focus on, and once he met his son that completely changed. Maybe Lumon is making the right move combining those two motivations, I'm just not 100% sure he would buy the "don't tell your coworkers cause they're all single and might get jealous" part.