Your Own Innie: 'Severance' Is Back and the Impact of David Lynch

Hey everyone.

Welcome back to Taking it Down.

Or come on in if it's your first visit to the Working Man's TV podcast.

We're going to talk about shows and then we'll do the best we can do to offer insight.

In fact, this week it's the return of the long awaited, much talked about second season of Severance on Apple tv.

Plus, if you're new to this podcast, it may help to know that we always begin by avoiding anything that would ruin the episode or show for you.

Because then we'll take a 30 second break or so before we get into spoilers.

Donovan and Adam are about to join me.

I'm Blaine.

Thanks for listening.

Check out a lot more on the alabamatake.com Alabama tape projection.

Well, that's.

That's them right there.

Welcome to Adam and Donovan.

Guys, I have bad news and good news, but I'll give you the bad news first.

I know how this works.

The bad news is I got the severance done, but instead of it separating my mind between work and home, they split it between podcasting and everything else.

So I have no memory of what I've watched.

But you want the good news?

The good news is that I'm not sure how that's going to be any different than any other podcast episode we've ever done.

So my wife is encouraging me to get marriage severance, which would be.

I think it's when you can't remember what a jackass you were outside the house.

I thought it might be you can't remember what an asshole you were the night before, which is.

I think I've had that done because I wake up, I'm like, what's up?

Oh, you're still mad?

I need other people to have that surgery done.

Yeah, exactly.

What's up?

We're going to talk about severance and its return soon.

But before we do, I think we'd be a little remiss not mentioning the passing of director and musician David lynch, who died Thursday.

The three of us are David lynch fans and admirers, even I would say so.

I wanted to ask what you're going to take away from his work now that it is sealed and done.

You ever read Catching the Big Fish Plane?

A little book he wrote about creativity?

I know, but I'm going to write.

I'm writing it down now.

I didn't know it existed.

It's about creativity and also transcendental meditation.

Hey, I love both.

I really do not mean.

But just they're just like little simple almost like thoughts.

I like Books like that.

One of the things that stuck with me.

I just love it.

It's like he's talking to you.

But one of the things that just stuck with me was he was talking about making Eraserhead.

And there's a scene where a character is either walking, coming towards her, away from the camera, through.

Yeah.

And just with one thing or the other, he's like.

You know, it was like five or six years before we finished that.

Like, the guy was just like.

I don't know.

Like, something in that is like.

Like, it's not like, look at how great this is what I did.

But he really made stuff that he believed in and he shared it with us.

And sometimes it seems.

He seems like, for a lot of people, one of those artists that just works on the lizard brain.

Yeah.

Like, you just see it and you're like, yeah, this is great.

Yeah.

And it was great.

But he was.

He should have been the most insufferable person in the world.

And there was not a whiff of pretension to him on top of that.

He's hilarious.

Very funny.

You know, I think Donovan, what you said in our group text about the way that if he's not already thought of like this, I think time will reveal the depth of his impact on American art.

But you said it's.

It's kind of like we're living through the day that Walt Whitman died or Melville or Emily Dickinson or something.

And I.

I hadn't thought about it in those terms, but that's absolutely the case, I think, because specifically, as an American artist, he just.

He played with national identity and things that are big questions, you know, but he did it all along.

Like, you're saying Donovan with, I don't know, such a soft human touch.

That's kind of.

I've seen.

I've seen friends who maybe don't spend as much time in film world or TV world as we do say that they feel like they're not smart enough for lynch or they're gonna have to, like, watch these YouTube explainers or whatever.

And I.

I mean, I think that you can get a lot out of that.

And I love reading about.

It's, you know, the mark of something great is that other people can think about it and expand upon it.

I think it's also just meant to be experienced.

And there's a.

Absolutely.

There's like a strong belief in human potential.

Not.

Not his own potential, but human potential behind everything that he did.

And it has such a kind a kindness and generosity and all these.

These things.

That may feel out of step with his public uninformed Persona of like he's this like weirdo kind of gross out surrealist or whatever.

No, I think this was such a kind man.

And like every time I would listen to a podcast with them or anything like that, it's, you know, he's talking about this meditation, this ability to go deep like that, to be creative is something innate in all of us.

I love that.

Adam, something that made me think of while you were talking was one of the things that I, until the Straight Story was not easily available to watch until I think 2020ish.

And when I saw that, I was like, okay, I've seen Twin Peaks, I've seen some movies, I know what's up.

And it was so interesting to see.

For me to see a G rated movie completely consistent with his style, with his concerns about what's woven in the fabric of America, with his concerns about how we treat and interact with each other.

So it really was like, oh, wow, none of it is window dressing.

It's all authentic.

This isn't.

Maybe no one's getting shot or whatever in this one, but it's all part of the same work and it's so good for listeners.

That movie is now streaming on Disney, I think.

Is it still on Disney?

It is very, very good.

When people have asked in the last few days, what's a good entry point?

I always say Mulholland really is a.

Is a strong one.

But I think Straight Story.

Straight Story is like, it has all of his.

Like, it almost watches like Terence Malik had an editing hand on a David lynch piece.

But it's only 90 minutes, you know.

Yeah.

All of the things happening under the surface and Straight Story, I mean, we could have a whole episode about that movie.

I can talk just like the sound and the, the camera work.

It almost feels like there's heart, but also terror.

I get it, David.

I get it.

David Lynch.

There's tremendous violence and dark and upsetting things on the corners of, of the whole story.

Well, it is streaming.

If we ever, if we ever have run out of topics, you know, that's certainly something we could do.

If you guys don't mind me further kind of quoting you on these ideas, you're saying.

I pulled up my phone because I thought y'all said it so well the other day yesterday that Adam noted that people tend to get defensive, or they can get defensive.

Yeah.

Because they think they're missing something about lynch and they may even turn their nose up at him.

But Adam further Explains that.

No, that's it.

That's let go.

And to that, I would say if somebody says, I didn't get it.

Did you watch it?

Yeah, I watched all of it.

Then you got it.

Yep.

Adam said that people will say I'm not smart enough for this.

But yesterday Adam said, that's assuming everything can be figured out.

And I love that notion.

I can't figure out everything.

And that's a good, comfortable position to have.

It's just the human situation, really.

And Donovan, you added that smarts won't get you there while the whole thing remains incredibly smart.

And I love that too, about Lynch.

I think he.

He pulls that off partially because, again, going back to the idea of.

Of human goodness and empathy and all of these things, like you're.

You're supposed to intuit a lot of the most important parts of these movies, shows, whatever.

I agree with that.

It's a feeling, you know?

Right.

It's not just an intellectual exercise.

How did it make you feel?

I love that he, with the return in the Internet age where we were so obsessed with picking stuff apart, made something that like, kind of can't be figured out.

Like, you can kind of see things.

But he deliberately made it so the pieces don't all connect.

And if you want to go the other direction and watch, you know, five or six YouTube videos about it, that's fun too, in a way.

Yeah, you can do that.

Like, please do.

Ultimately, you know, ultimately exists to be experienced more than anything else.

One thing that may not be quite true, and you guys correct me if you can, twin peaks in 1990 seem like the beginning of speculative TV culture that's now in every corner of the Internet.

Like back then you had to subscribe to underground magazines.

I wonder though, if there was a serialized TV show that garnered that much guesswork before that, that much.

That level when they were wondering who shot Junior.

Yeah, but that wasn't quite the same, but.

I'm kidding.

No, you're right.

No, I remember it too.

And it was a summer of long discussions between my parents and their friends.

I can recall that quite well.

But to this level, where there is some sort of other world, maybe there's a murder.

What is the dream stuff?

Who is Bob if he is the murderer?

And it's just a lot more.

The level got thicker.

The levels.

I mean, it's even joked about in the Simpsons multiple times.

Multiple times.

Yeah.

I worry.

Like most things in Netflix engine that is 2017 short film.

What did Jack do?

We'll get lost.

We need the screen.

I kind of like it.

I love that one.

It's interesting that you brought up that idea of weekly discussion and pulling things apart because I thought about that with our other topic today.

Not to like jump on your.

No, no, no, no, no.

I was about to segue into that.

But I, I mean, I thought about the history of shows that have enough weight and meat on the bone to where you can really spend time picking it apart week on week.

And how severance is, is definitely one of the stronger entries in that category in the last five, 10 years.

Yeah.

Just remember, guys, we're in non spoiler section.

So speaking of tv, it makes you think.

Yeah, exactly, Adam.

Here's one of the investigative opportunities for us all.

It's finally back.

Severance from Apple TV plus felt like it gained a lot of popularity after it finished airing its first season's episodes or right around the end of the first season.

And maybe that's because people like to wait until the entire season is available.

And I get that.

Wonderful.

Severance is complex, fascinating.

It's weekly.

I love that.

Y'all know it's created by Dan Erickson and directed mostly by Ben Stiller and another guy named Al McArdle.

He's an Irishman.

I so I probably butchered his first name.

It's sorry.

It stars Adam Scott as a worker in an odd office for a company named Lumen where he and his three colleagues have been severed.

That is a procedure where they affect your mind and you only know what happens at work.

And then once you go in the elevator and rise up the elevator, it turns back into you in the outside world.

Innies and Audis as they're known.

You know that even from like the first episode.

Again, we're not spoiling anything, so don't fear.

The show also stars John Turturro, Zach Cherry and Britt Lauer as Mark's three co workers.

Patricia Arquette is his boss as well as his odd neighbor.

We won't do spoilers here, but perhaps, maybe, let's see, let's kind of figure out where we're going to spoil maybe pretty much anything in the in the first seasons up for grabs right here for anyone listening because it is a spoiler filled show and I understand how that works for listeners.

If you haven't watched all the first season, you may want to catch up and then once the break ends, we will talk about this first episode of season two.

So I have concerns with the first episode back and I don't withhold the specific examples, but it's kind of a reflection on the show as a whole anyway.

It's just a question of can it handle the amount of mystery or questions that it wants to solve and pose it lean.

That's exactly the way I felt watching it.

I'm a little worried it leans into being a show for Reddit.

I've never been one for a piece of TV that requires going elsewhere for the full picture, though I've been a huge fan of art that gives me the full picture and I can go elsewhere and have some more fun with it that I do love.

So there's a difference in my mind, but nothing that's like mandatory.

I gotta go find this.

Anyway, my answer to those concerns is that it, it satisfies me enough with real human themes to avoid trappings of is it gonna answer this question?

Yeah, I agree with that.

And I think I even read an interview that they did with Erickson, did with Variety, I think where the interview straight up asked do you ever feel in danger of turning your show into Lost?

I'm glad you brought that.

And I think maybe they're natural.

You talked about how it picked up fans.

I think there's a lot of shows out there now with great premises that don't always deliver.

Yeah.

On down the Line and the way maybe word gets out, even if you're not spoiling it, that, hey, the weighty themes that they bring up are handled in a satisfactory way through season one.

Even things that are kind of tough to articulate, like why is this so compelling?

Feel really compelling when they're on the screen.

Some of that we'll get into with episode one of season two.

But it makes sense that it's picked up steam.

I do always wonder, is this show massive in the way that I think some bands are massive, yet they still play like club sized rooms?

You know what I mean?

Like, like who?

All of my, all of my friends watch this show.

Yeah.

But is that reflective of the population at large?

So.

But I think it's pretty popular.

I do think it's a really popular show.

I mean doing the viral marketing thing at Grand Central in New York a few days ago, I mean, Ben Stiller is a huge name.

All these things.

It's, it's a big show.

But I do think if you're on the outside looking in, do I want to get involved in this?

I think, yeah, I think it's worthwhile.

It's worth the energy.

Shout out to my buddy Hank.

He messaged me three or four weeks ago and said that Reddit is ablaze with this show, Severance.

Should I watch it?

And I said, oh, yeah, for sure, man.

It's good.

They've really.

They've broken it down to a the nth degree on there.

Feels like a good time to jump into only one first season.

As a whole, I'd say pretty good.

You're not gonna be mad watching it, you know, it's not like you got five seasons of research to do.

If you're interested, I will say that since Lost has been brought up, many writers, magazine writers have compared it to Lost.

I hate Lost to this.

To this day, I'll say it corrupted television to a degree.

Does Severance pose to me questions it can't answer or doesn't want to answer?

Well, that's yet to be seen.

But what separates it from Lost and other shows that came in that mold is that Severance's themes feel purposeful, whereas Lost and its themes were added in post production.

Oh, it's about religion.

When you know good and well that's tacked on because they had to have an answer of some kind.

I say post production, but near pro.

Post production, near the end.

That's a great point, Blaine, because I think that, like, Lost would have certainly been a different show, at least in our brains and minds, if it hadn't been changed and also marketed as, like, oh, there's going to be an answer.

You're going to find out the mystery, as, as opposed to, like, I don't know, a show that's, like, we don't really know what happens when we die or something like that.

And I think that, like, Severance's premise is good enough.

Pretty much all of us work that, like, there's, you know, it's.

It's like there is that other element of, like, oh, I see, like, a reflection of, like, a kind of funhouse world of my own here.

And I think that is not something that needs an answer.

It just is.

So it's already kind of, like, satisfying to see the setting and then if, you know, I hope that they leave us open to a little mystery and they don't get too Lost.

But I think just the premise on its own is satisfying in the same way that maybe with Lost, if it would have been like, okay, we just have a really good episode about them surviving in the jungle or whatever, as opposed to gotta answer a question, gotta answer a question, gotta answer a question.

Or pose a question is probably their.

Their fault.

Yeah, that's.

That's a good point.

The other thing that I think Severance did that was really clever.

Was run down all of the ways that we would have naturally reacted to that situation.

Yeah.

Like, they try to just walk out.

Right.

Like they.

They do all of the things.

It's almost like a Survivor kind of movie where they need to show you, no, you really are well and truly screwed.

You know, like, you're in a tightly controlled world.

And I.

I think all of that has set it up for success in seasons two.

And they're already talking about three.

Yeah.

One of the things they said in that interview that I.

I thought was an interesting way of putting this if you're a showrunner, is the writer's room.

They use the phrase the writers room.

Had a lot of blue sky in season two.

And what they did during season two has made it to where season three should be easier to put together.

Meaning that they have created a world of rules for themselves.

Like the story is on tracks.

They kind of had to invent the tracks through season one and two.

Yeah.

And now it'll pick up steam as the season goes along.

Yeah.

The first season was fine on answering most of what it posed, other than the big things that they wanted to wait on for season two.

We'll see.

It does keep you guessing in a good way.

It's well acted.

The story's layered enough for my taste.

It develops a sense of mystery and dread.

Really?

Yeah.

And I was gonna say it's like.

It's eerie.

It is eerie.

You know, I love that.

It's like taking to the extreme, like the person you are is alienated from labor because you're literally two different things when you work for the company.

You are everything for the company, and you're.

You're kind of being held hostage by your own self.

Right.

Exactly.

And that is interesting enough to keep it going, I think.

Oh, yeah.

There's an element, too, of when you're watching the Innies, the in universe stuff that, you know, they're underground in this world without news, without weather, without, like, basic troubles every day.

And you could see how there's a bit of a escapist, like, oh, I can just go there and not deal with the world, make money, come up again and live my life like that in a way that feels almost like cocoon like, or womb like.

And they.

Even through season one, a lot of the logic that they use to keep them in line is pretty childlike.

Right.

Like, they kind of cheat them or treat them as naive children.

Obviously, season one ends.

They realize they have to maybe adjust that strategy.

But I don't know the setup is.

It's enough to make you.

That's kind of what I was getting at with things that almost feel trite when you say them out loud are given room to feel more profound on screen.

You know, like Donovan was saying, like, this is something we all deal with.

Is this a decision that you would make given the opportunity?

They do treat them childlike.

And you wonder how much of their mind is childlike because it's been severed from the outside world.

Isn't there a moment where in the first season where heli has come in as a newcomer and they ask her a bunch of questions, she only gets the one about Delaware.

Right?

Like, is Delaware a state or something?

Right.

There's a.

I got on YouTube just to watch some recaps and you have to.

Yeah, yeah, just the previously on did an okay job from Apple.

But yeah, it was still a lot.

But they just pointed out that, you know, they're trying to feel out how effective the the implant is because obviously you need to be able.

You need to remember that you learned how to speak a language, but you don't need to remember your childhood.

You know, like, how do you separate those two things?

It's a top tier exemplar of how science fiction can hold up a mirror to truths of our world.

And this one gets close enough to the real world that maybe it isn't even full blown science fiction.

Not sure what the genre here is.

Thriller even.

Call it science fiction.

I mean thriller for sure.

Yeah.

But a thrilling.

I think the premise is still science fiction, which is something we could fight about all day and it doesn't matter.

No, it doesn't matter.

Let's take a break.

What you'll do is you'll hear from some of our podcasting friends and on the other side, it's spoiler time.

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Well, let's try our damnedest to unpack some of severance if we remember the first season as a whole.

I think I do, though I really hat this is a funny statement to make.

I really had forgotten Big Chunks of the first season, like the whole Keir Egan plot idea, I totally had forgotten.

But what I did is I pulled up the last two episodes of the first season and kind of skimmed them.

Fast forward through them really quickly.

And then I watched, I think, like a 10 minute YouTube thing, and it solidified the.

The one thing that completely deleted from my brain.

I don't know how, I don't know why.

When I finished watching that first episode and it said directed by Ben Stiller, I was like, oh, yeah, that's.

I kind of remember that.

Like, just completely forgot.

Yeah, it is weird that he's involved.

Not weird, but just like, he's good.

He did a good job.

I thought.

He just.

He's very, very good.

He directed and maybe even wrote all of Escape from Dannemora on Showtime.

And I love.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

I forgot about that earlier.

I said, I lay my worries to rest with the show because I think it's intelligently examining themes, big ideas, and it's quite aware that that's what it's doing and wants to do.

But one of my favorites that it tries to unpack is that of identity and Persona.

It's not one of those themes.

You see a lot of TV looking at movies more so.

And I'm often brought back to the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which could be one of the first examples of code switching in pop culture.

And that's when Scout's blown away by Calpurnia speaking differently at church versus anywhere else.

And all that does.

I know that's code switching a little different there, but it does remind me that we have.

I've got a work Persona, a home Persona, friend and family, and so on and so on.

I mean, as many people as you can interact with is that's how many Personas you could possibly have.

Do we have podcast identities?

Yeah, I'm the rowdy one.

Oh, chill.

Chill out now.

No, but just the idea of Personas, I just love that.

I often talk to people about that at.

At school, students.

I tell them, you know, you have a Persona, and that's part of your argument that you need to make.

I like it.

I think you're exactly right, Blaine, because it kind of like, it kind of starts to ask the question, who.

Who are you?

And, like, I think as far as the show has gone, at least there's sort of a.

Like, it's not completely outside of the realm of possibility that the answer will be like, there is no self.

There's the you at work.

There's the you at home, there's not necessarily like a consistent unified personality.

Or maybe there is a self and something.

What's his name as Buddha.

It's like Buddhist.

Okay.

Alan Watts, that kind of thing.

I mean, we're right back to David lynch and old Harry Dean having a conversation.

Man, I just was watching this episode because my pump was so primed, and I was like, how cool would it have been if they'd gotten David lynch in here for an episode or two?

See, I don't think that this show works with lynch, at least in the same way, because there are rules in severance, and I don't think that he observes those at all.

I just think like, not.

Not him directing, but him as like a character I could see.

Oh, he would have been great, right?

Yeah.

Not directing.

No.

The man could wear the hell out of a suit.

Exactly.

Like as like an executive or something.

Like, he would be so good.

His haircut's all ready for the kind of vintage look.

Yeah.

Would have been great.

Yeah, that would have been hilarious.

You want to talk about those sets, all those.

The implementation of colors in this show.

I love it.

Something about that red ball for the game of sharing just made me feel icky.

It made a sound the ball did when it hit their hands.

There was so, like, I thought about the way that they introduce tactile things in this world.

The sound of the keyboards, the sound of things switching on and off, the ball hitting their hands.

It felt like it had weight and substance.

They do such a good job with making it feel like laboratory setting with the like.

Like it's all a maze, right.

Like, like they're the rats in the maze.

Right.

Like it's all the maze.

And you know, if you've ever seen like these experiments they'll do for rats, right.

Like sometimes you'll have.

They'll see like, oh, are you.

You know, how do they react in this area?

How do they react in that area?

And it almost kind of feels like, like you get the green room to calm you down, you get the red.

And it all feels very sterile and clinical, but in a way that is like, kind of gross.

Almost like hospital cafeteria food.

Well, in the in universe way of explaining that away is that, you know, this.

We're into spoilers now.

Right.

For sure.

So it opens with them saying they're five months.

Marcus has been gone for five months.

Yeah.

So you could have, in that time, you tell Audi, Marcus, whatever's happening up there, when he finally comes back, that's plenty of time to do Reconstruction on things, to change the rooms up, to change the hallways, all of this.

So that first frantic scene of him running around and trying, like what?

Looking for his co workers.

Is he disoriented?

But to, to him, no time has passed at all.

He's looking for the wellness place to find Gemma.

Right.

And it's not there.

Right.

Which is just so genius because there's an explanation for it that's plausible, but also it's being experienced in this surreal kind of sci fi way.

I don't know.

That was so clever.

And the, the way that they stayed with the Enies this whole episode and experience days as they experienced them.

You know, I just have little questions like, what if.

What if your Audi drank too much the night before?

I think that all the time.

And I think it's even mentioned in the first season.

Right.

Like, oh, I must have drank too much last night because I'm tired today.

I love that.

Or like, what if they did a particularly hard leg workout and the guy is struggling to walk?

What?

How you're sharing physicality with someone that you don't know.

It's so interesting.

But that, that series of them zoning out and then coming to, you know, like, how do you even know when it's four minutes till five and you're like, all right, I'm gonna knock off.

Yeah.

To them you have to walk down this hallway that in their world they're gonna walk directly back down.

These are the things that start when you're watching and you're like, this feels so profound in what it's saying, but then you say it out loud and it's kind of like, it's interesting, but it's not as you almost have to experience it in show to get the full feeling.

There's some point they keep focusing on the clock and also looking at watches and stuff.

And I felt the same way, you know, where it's like you start to wonder like, what are you counting down to?

There's, you know, there's nothing.

Why do you care?

Yeah, I think it, I'm probably gonna misuse this, this word.

Something that the.

The in and out and just the in and out and just focusing solely on them really encouraged at least me as a viewer to kind of experience this in like a phenomenological way.

Right.

Where I'm like, really?

Like, what, what is it like to get behind these guys eyes and just kind of identify very closely with them?

And I think keeping it up on the ennis the whole episode also really helped with that.

You're kind of stuck in there too.

And one of the things this episode did was use more close ups, I think than it ever has.

We had.

Especially in this environment, we.

We have those close up.

You did what you're talking about.

And also just made the containment feel worse.

Because those close up also, they weren't just close ups of one person.

It was a two shot, I guess is what you call them.

It's where you would see the little bit of the other person they were talking to right there.

Which in Milchick's case felt like he is the one that's containing them well.

And you're also.

That's being used to pull back on season one's expansion of their universe.

You know, as they go to talk to other departments and they seem to have some autonomy to run the halls and find this different, you know.

And then they wake up, you know, and they see the outside world and all of a sudden this is as small as it's felt since episode one of season one.

You know, they only go.

They're in their office and they go to the break room.

And that's pretty much it.

There's some roaming the halls, but not a lot.

It builds a lot of tension that way.

And so did the camera work of him running in the hall.

It's like almost CGI kind of camera work.

No, I don't think it was.

I may be easily impressed, but I really like that beginning.

Yeah.

For me it set the tone very well for the rest of the episode.

Bit of silence to build some tension too.

Ms.

Hwang, she was just staring at Mark after telling him she's not his friend.

Yeah.

I really liked how long they stuck on Adam Scott's face there.

Me too.

There's.

And then he says three friends.

Yeah.

Yeah, she's good.

So good.

The young woman they have playing Ms.

Wong, I found her manager face to be like, it's so good.

They have like a kid doing this because it's like she's.

She's doing such a good like supervisor face.

But you know, you're 13 or however old you are.

That's what in that Variety interview they said they read a bunch of.

Of young people for that role.

But this particular young actress just had such a camera.

What he said like a corporate face or come something like that.

That was.

Yeah, just.

It's that kind of detached, like I'm smiling but I'm not really here kind of thing.

In reality, the actor is 18, looks younger.

Worked for me.

Helly kind of has a.

Some silence in that she doesn't tell what happens to her on the outside.

She doesn't reveal she's one of the Egans.

She chooses a lie.

Well, this is the question, right?

Yeah.

Like, is the.

It's either a bit on the nose or it's red herring material that, like, is that heli or has she been.

That's actually her Audi come in to try to tamp down the.

Yeah.

Revolution or whatever.

Yep.

But there's two reads, right.

Like she's either either that is the Annie that they've known and she's withholding that information out of shame.

Uh huh.

You know, or it's the Audi and she's.

They talked about what.

What survives your subconscious.

Like some of her at times, she could have a shorter fuse than the others if things didn't go her way.

Like, maybe that's a life of privilege coming out subconsciously.

These are YouTubers talking about season one.

Thought that was a pretty astute observation.

But does she say that there was a gardener there at night?

Because she would have lived in a very fancy house where there were gardeners working on the grounds.

I was wondering that too.

Like, is this just in the back of her head how it should be?

Right.

So either way, it's kind of incriminating about who she actually is.

Either she's a bad liar that came up with a.

A bad story at that moment, or it's seeping through her.

Her subconscious and it's very much like a.

It's a banana.

What could it cost?

Kind of.

Yeah.

I like the.

I'm curious to see where this one is going to go.

I hope it goes well with Helly.

Just because her, like, visceral hatred for herself, I thought was one of the best and most interesting parts of season one.

And it makes sense, you know, kind of what you just said, Adam, makes sense.

Right.

If she's someone who's not used to being told what to do, to be captured, you know, imprisoned essentially by her own self, must completely drive.

So I'm.

I'm curious.

Like, is it.

Is it shame?

Is it.

Does she not want to reveal it?

Is she.

What's going on?

I.

I think it's interesting and I hope they play with it.

Well.

She had one of the most haunting lines when she.

They videotape her out outside self telling her, annie, you are not a human being.

You don't get to make this decision.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're not whole and complete in the same way that I am.

Right.

Yeah.

You can also point to.

She has just A second or two long of trouble to turn on her computer and her.

Yep.

And her.

Any shouldn't have just reached and turned it on after the experience.

Yeah.

Did you guys catch that?

Lumen has brought in these three new micro data workers from.

They did so from shutting down offices because it seems like there's not enough people that.

That were interested in being severed.

They had to shut those offices down.

It's an interesting read.

Yeah.

And the.

They allude to how many more, you know, in that video that they show them, they allude to how many like 200 something spaces worldwide.

Right.

But does that imply that all of them have severed workers?

Or that in first replacement crew talks about like, you know, oh, we had animatronic.

What did they call that room where you go to see the house and the perpetuity room.

They know.

They must.

They're just standing still.

They must be like an older one or one of the guys had come from even an even poorer, older facility.

It's just an interesting.

They were just mops for that guy.

Yeah.

What?

His.

His perpetuity room was just mops.

What's going on here?

And his elevator was a rope.

How.

How can that be?

I don't get it.

And he also had a.

They had awarded him the same thing that they had given Mark, which is a picture of your face.

And except his isn't in glass.

It's just carved of wood.

Yeah.

It's just like a rock.

It puts me on edge how their faces change in the elevator.

Like their expressions.

It's almost uncanny.

Valley or AI feeling.

It's not.

I don't think.

But it's probably just great acting, but makes you feel uneasy.

I wouldn't be surprised if they jazzed it up a little just with like some of the camera tricks they do.

I think.

Adam, I think you said this, but I really did like the choice to be.

They're in the elevator and you get half a second of Allie them.

And then I thought Adam Scott did a great job of this the first season.

And then the face changes and now you're the.

And I think that is unsettling.

It is.

Ms.

Huang's actor is actually 18.

Another, by the way, is that the voice of the new training video, Lumen is Listening, is voiced by Keanu Reeves.

Oh, I didn't know.

That's awesome.

I didn't pick it up.

I didn't pick up on that.

It wouldn't surprise me if there's some connection to Gemma and Ms.

Swing.

There's that room.

Remember when they're walking around and they see the.

The livestock being cloned or something's going on there, and they say they're not ready.

They showed that in the previously on.

Right.

Yes, they did.

Got to be a reason for that.

Do you not find it odd that the characters don't usually see themselves as having another side?

That they're.

It's almost like these characters are very strict about referencing the Audi and the Innie, as if it's a totally different person and not themselves.

Like Mark and Helly discussing his wife.

I think one of them, Mark says it, it's the same ish person, so I need to try to find her or I'm the same ish person.

It's weird that they don't consider that.

I mean, that's a very probably natural feeling.

But I do think it's kind of weird that they don't logically make the connection that.

No, that's me still.

Well, I think they were playing with that in the.

When they're in the.

The first meeting with Ms.

Wong, it's.

And they're staring at each other.

You know, there's that moment of like, I have four new friends and they just had that stare down.

And we talked about.

You're kind of wondering, like, if she is the clone, maybe or possibly even like his child or something like that.

Is there some, like, subconscious thing happening here that transcends the severance procedure?

But then, like, that conversation you're talking about Blaine, between him and Heli, has to be like the most layered conversation that's happened so far.

If you're reading into it, that Heli is somehow either the Audi or has been conditioned in some different way than everyone else.

And obviously they have just made out and been hilariously.

It's funny that this show can be comical when it's dealing with all these funny themes.

Like in the middle of that.

That video, when they show them kissing, is it Dylan that says the fuck?

Yeah.

No, this show can be funny.

All good dramas can be funny.

And there's still office politics going on.

Yeah.

And then they had another one that got me was Mark W's calling him Mr.

Milkshake Shake.

Yeah.

I also enjoyed.

Yeah.

Mark W.

Saying what you like to Miss Wong.

Why.

Why are you a child?

Yeah.

She's like, that's great.

Because of when I was born.

And we were all thinking it.

Why is this a kid?

Speaking of profundity, Irv's statement that the last time he was happy was when he was not trying to be happy.

Just floored me.

I almost had to reach and pause it and be like what?

Wait, let me think about this.

And then you add that he was referring to working and not trying to be happy.

I'm sure it might make it less thoughtful, but I don't know.

It struck me.

Milchick's really putting the mind games to them.

And I'll tell you this.

I don't believe a word he says.

I would not be surprised if Dylan doesn't even have a wife that he makes up this.

Gretchen.

I know he's got a kid.

Right?

Because we saw him in the closet or I think he was in the closet at his house when he came awake or whatever.

If people talked about them treating them like children in the first one, you're starting to see maybe more adult levels of manipulation.

Like.

Yeah.

It seems so on the nose to create a divisive element with this crew of four who's caused you problems.

To privilege one with information.

Set them apart and then send them back out.

That's just a little crack opening that can turn into something significant.

That's just good management.

Divide, divide and conquer.

Right there.

Exactly.

Can you.

Can you imagine if they had brought.

If this universe.

If this workplace ran on Shogun rules.

Go on.

They'd be, I don't know, they'd be, you know, they'd be convincing seppuku every other episode.

You know, who wouldn't have had an uprising if they'd been in charge.

Right?

Yeah.

But she.

Uh huh.

The adult manipulation of having the corporation swallow up the rebellion or say we're on your side.

That's always a way to kill dissent.

Oh for sure.

And it's such a genius thing to.

You know, it immediately made me think of like being in US History class as a kid and like you learn all of these things that are these celebrated figures all along that were enemies of the state when they were alive.

Like even thinking back to like something that's probably going to be challenged with civil rights.

Basic things like that.

These were all criminals at one point, you know.

And now they've been absorbed into a.

You know, made tidy and thus defanged of any possibility of disruption.

Yeah.

Take a look at which politicians celebrated Martin Luther King Jr.

S holiday right yesterday.

When it comes to milchick, it's so impressive what Tramel Tillman can do in making you scared shitless.

And then quite at ease just within the same millisecond.

And in the scene with Dylan and the blueprint for the visitation room, it's simultaneous.

It's like, God damn, this is scary.

But that, you know, of course, that would be nice for any to get to know.

Oh, okay.

I do have a family, and I get to see them once a week or whatever they're planning on doing.

I do get the sense that he, at this point, is not completely motivated by cruelty.

He's not a sadist, like he says.

I'm here to replace the sadist.

Essentially.

Like, he.

He does seem just like he believes in the company and what they're trying to do and doesn't want to be cruel, but also believes in the company more than he believes in not being cruel.

Huh.

Could be the case with him.

Milkshake.

Milkshake.

Well, there's all this, like, weird pseudo religious kind of stuff about the company.

Right.

That, like, you.

Yes.

It's not just like, you can be a company man.

You can be a true believer.

Yeah.

And I'm not trying to be cruel, but it.

But it makes me think of some sort of weird hybrid of Mormonism and Scientology.

Yeah.

Scientology.

At least for sure.

Well, I am being cruel to Scientology.

I'm not trying to be too cruel to the.

To the Mormons of our.

Of our society.

Well, it's got to be something, too, that the.

The company was founded in 1865.

Right.

Yeah.

I think that's maybe what strikes me as Brigham Young kind of thing.

Yeah.

I mean, this might be really general and humorous, but just thoughts on having.

Oh, gosh, Ally.

What's her name?

Actress who plays maybe on Arrested Development.

She's part of the crew, or at least was temporarily.

Were y'all excited to see that?

She's probably gonna be a part of the show.

I saw it when she walked was on screen for the first time.

All I could think was, bumpy road ahead.

I saw some people online saying what a great bait and switch to.

You know, because they were in a lot of promotional material being involved, and it's almost like a season two of House of Cards thing.

We're like, well, this main actress is gone now.

They have to come back.

Right.

Like, people.

Yeah.

Can be hidden in the severed world and then be found again.

Oh, for sure.

And the Mark W.

Actor is known kind of as a character actor.

You would think he probably returns.

And then the award of having your face carved in that wood for the Italian actor, that's still in the time for it.

Yeah.

But, yeah, Dylan didn't have time for it.

He just swept it into his drawer, which is.

Which is what we'll do.

We'll sweep everything Into a drawer until what, Friday?

Watch Severance once more.

And can I say one?

One thing that we didn't touch on that I thought was really moving was Dylan talking to Irving, begging him not to go out.

This episode that was such a central part of it was you would have to essentially kill yourself on behalf of the Audi.

Like if you leave, you no longer exist.

But would it feel like that would.

I mean, to me.

I see, that's.

That's an argument.

It's not.

It's not a decision of suicide.

It's like a decision of non existence, which.

Yes.

Different.

They would believe it serves the greater good of their own psyche.

Framing it only in from any's perspective this episode and having them confront that decision for the first time.

And for one of them to be like, I need you're my friend and I don't want to lose you.

Like, that's not just like a.

I've really enjoyed working with you and I don't want you to leave.

It's a I'll never see you again.

Yes.

Kind of thing.

Yes.

That was so heavy.

Yeah.

So well done.

I suppose it's me not being as enveloped in the logic of the show, but I often will think, but you're not gonna die.

You'll actually free in yourself.

You'll be your Audi, you know.

But they don't know that.

Yeah.

I think it's doing a great.

Asking a really good question that is kind of like a feel like it is a philosophical question.

Right.

Like if I.

It can go into a matter transporter and my body is instantly disassembled and reassembled on Mars, am I the same person?

Right.

I have continuity of consciousness.

But did the personality survive?

Same thing for these guys, Right?

Like, what is their personality?

If it's deleted, would it go.

Would it be how much of your memories?

Well, I mean, that's the question, Right?

Interesting.

Yeah.

That's why the show is good, is that it tackles these kinds of things.

It gets you to question, but at the same time provides good characters, good direction, great cinematography, good sets.

Yeah, it's.

It's worth our time for sure.

We'll probably return to it next week.

I don't see why not.

I don't know what the other topic will be or if we'll have one, but anyway, you can hear us on Tuesday morning.

Most of the time things got hectic.

I accidentally did not get the episode out until Tuesday afternoon recently.

But Tuesdays count on us.

Okay.

And if you want to reach out to us by all means do.

We'd love it.

Find us on thealabamatake.

Com.

You can email thealabamatake@gmail.com if you have ideas, questions, thoughts, suggestions for Adam and Donovan.

I'm Blaine, and we'll be back into the world of severance next week.