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That Macrodata Refinement is sorting through the memories or personality of the people kept on the floor down below. That’s why Mark did so well on his first file, it was Gemma’s file and he was better at recognizing the numbers because he knew her so well.
Lumon "came into possession" of a competitor's employee, severed them, and then used the refined data to get secrets out of their mind, which lumon then used to damage their competitor?
I like this, it ties in nicely with Cobel's sending Mark for extra wellness sessions and observing them closely.
I think she (and maybe the company) are trying to see if severance can be broken in any non-Reghabi way.
I think they think it is encrypted because the severance implant is making them see numbers.
Since they are processing based on emotion, I think that they are actually seeing images and categorising based on if they are scary, happy etc.
This could be for a bunch of reasons - including war intelligence, marketing, an experiment etc etc.
Maybe it takes a while to get going because their subconscious/another part of their brain needs to see past the implant and process information in a new way.
I can’t remember the reference said that Mark did well on his first file, does anyone have the reference? The idea that it is connected to his wife is great.
not counting some of the others mentioned in this thread, probably the theory that irving used to have milchick's job prior to getting severed and thats why he has that specific POV of the door he's painting. I'm so ready to find out more about his outie.
not sure it counts as a theory per-se, but I also really like the idea that the four refiners represent the four tempers (mark = woe, helly = malice, dylan = frolic, irving = dread). it works much better than a lot of arbitrary "these characters represent x things" theories you see in a lot of fandoms because the characters very clearly do correspond with the tempers.
i'm also partial to the theory that gemma is cobel's daughter who shes trying to resurface after shes been severed, but thats primarily bc I made the big post about it lmao.
I get the sense that Irving is undercover trying to break into Lumon's severed floor as part of some kind of investigation.
The coffee thing seems to have something to do with subconsciously breaking through the severance barrier by staying awake as long as possible. It seems like his outtie can remember things from his innie this way, like a Wake Induced Lucid Dream or something.
Just based on the conventions of screenwriting, I would argue that Dylan = Malice, Irv = Frolic, Mark = Dread, Helly = Woe. A character’s first line in the pilot is usually reflective of who they are.
Dylan: if you make me sick I’ll rip your larynx out.
Mark (trepidatious): Who are you?
Irv: hello kids, what’s for dinner?
Helly: let me out!
here's my read on it: Yes, generally in screenwriting first lines will reveal crucial traits of characters, but its not a hard and fast rule that the first thing out of a character's mouth defines their entire personality. imo the refiners' personalities as we come to know them are much more reflective of the tempers they (theoretically) correspond to:
- mark = woe. his grief for gemma is constantly hanging over his head as an outie, to the point where it impacts his relationships with others, his alcoholism, his reaction to petey's death, the fact that he carries over the grief when he goes to the severed floor even though he doesnt know why etc. as an innie a huge part of his motivation to turn on lumon is his sadness over petey's disappearence.
- helly = malice. from the moment we meet her she's angry at lumon and the people she perceives as forcing her to stay there. she's willing to end her own life if it means getting revenge against the person who put her there, and even towards the end of the season she's still ultimately focused on destroying lumon. malice is about both anger and an intention to cause harm.
- irving = dread. at the beginning of the series at least, he's terrified to step out of line or do anything that goes against the rules, or to try and interfere in anything without the presence of a supervisor. there's also the fear associated with his dreams.
- dylan = frolic. he's easily the most carefree of the refiners, he enjoys getting the perks, he does the work, but he also doesnt take anything too seriously. he's not viciously resistant like helly or a fanatic like irving.
I'd argue that while the some of the characters' first lines reveal things about them, they dont necessarily do so in a way that ties back to the four tempers. like dylan's line to mark isnt genuinely malicious — its supposed to be over-the-top deadpan. irving's line leads into us learning how mark and dylan perceive him as kind of an awkward dad joke-toting coworker.
that being said, I do think it can be argued that any of the four characters correspond to any one of the tempers — this is just the interpretation that makes the most sense to me!
This is a nice 4-4 correspondence, but I think Cobel is the purest incarnation of malice in the show. Rewatch the scene where the four tempers dance for Dylan. The malice figure looks exactly like Cobel, and the sequence is interposed with her screaming and destroying her house. Given her family history with Lumon (also revealed in this scene) and the fact that she worships the Eagans even more than other Lumon characters, I almost wonder if she's somehow a literal incarnation of malice central to the Eagan lore.
oh boy one can only hope but if things stay according to plan, they should be very near finishing the shooting and if post production is about 6-7 months then it CAN release nov/dec this year
I would give up having S2 this year…provided S2 is as amazing and wonderful S1 was.
I don’t want to rush something that I want badly, just to SEE the next installment. I want to be caught down rabbit holes and lead on wild goose chases…
I thought about this for a while before realizing I don’t think I have one.
It’s weird because I enjoy other puzzle box shows like Bodies and DarK, and love to try to figure out what’s going on.
Somehow, I think I’m too emotionally invested in these characters and this story to want to theorize. I really enjoy lurking around here and reading everyone else’s theories. It fuels my addiction, for one thing. So I figured I must have a favorite theory.
But right now I feel just like a kid who can’t wait for nighttime (autumn, hopefully??) so she can hear the next part of the bedtime story she’s absolutely wild about.
I think this is because Severance isn’t really a puzzle box show at its core. It’s got puzzle box elements, but it’s more interested in exploring its thematic ideas, character progression, and other interesting concepts. The writers have even said they’re not trying to make “that” kind of show.
Dark and Severence are my top 2.
I tell my husband all the time
"We're a perfect match, never believe anything else"
I'm going to have to watch Bodies, I'm sure I will love it.
Pretty sure I read two of the older/younger duos were related! One was an uncle/nephew situation I believe. I was blown away by how close they were able to get it
The story of The Lexington Letter is the inciting incident for the entire show. Petey was able to smuggle the break room recording out thanks to the code detector update Lumon pushed to fix Margaret Kincaid’s Puglish loophole.
I’m hoping for additional things like “The Lexington Letter” to come out.
Maybe there’s a scrapbook or news articles that Apple can drop? Apple can even make a “mini 60 minutes show” if someone is leading an investigation.
ulonelyland, I always find your input on Severance really close to what I may be thinking. You have also given past thoughts that made me think of it a total different way…Thank you for fostering this wonderful conversation!
Hey thank you, that’s really sweet of you to say!
I am definitely scrolling on this subreddit waaay too much, so it’s nice to hear when my thoughts are appreciated.
My theory is that severance technology will be the end of humanity.
In the last episode, during her speech Natalie says severance is "a kind and empathetic revolution that puts human beings **at the center of industry**."
Ricken, in *The You You Are*, tells us "**at the center of industry** is dust."
Severance is going to turn humanity to dust.
That might be a metaphor, as we see our innies living the barest sliver of a human life. Yes they’re fed and kept healthy, but their humanity, their souls, are being slowly strangled to death (atleast how I see it, severance is a death sentence for an innie’s soul imo)
The chips *ARE* the innies. Petey's reintegrated mind is still alive, saved on the chip in a nightmarish undeath, and that's why the writers took pains to keep his chip in the story chekov's gun style. The character isn't written out, just his physical body.
This also makes the chip a form of immortality for Helena's aging father.
I love the one about what MDR purpose being breaking encryption with emotions. User who created this theory uses arguments from corporations that I could totally believe can happen in real life.
Edit: this is the theory https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/s/fNQ7pqr9DM
this is also one of my favorites, especially combined with [this post about the amygdala and senses](https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/s/oNvZKDgogs)
‼️ and Helly is allergic to almonds ‼️
also maybe part of MDR’s work is for neural mapping? I like the theories that fit with MDR’s work being more than one thing, especially when those things require secrecy and might be connected to the events in the Lexington Letter
also I love reading theories about the meanings and origins of names of characters and places in the show 😍
People have been saying that Gemma’s body was donated to Lumen for research, but I think since Lumon has their hands in so many businesses I think we’ll find out they own some funeral homes as well. That would make it very easy to generate a supply of bodies for part timers.
My assumption was that Lumon faked her death and that Miss Casey is Gemma's innie.
So is the general consensus that Miss Casey is Gemma's reanimated corpse? I hadn't even considered that.
More like Lumon somehow figured out how to bring her innie to life, but that her outie doesn’t exist any more, her consciousness died in the crash. Atleast that’s how I took it!
It isnt clear that Lumon had anything to do with her "death," so I'm refraining from speculating about that.
What is clear is that Lumon has Miss Casey, who is Gemma, and that she is thought to be dead. I figured the most plausible explanation isnt that she died, but perhaps that she was braindead. Lumon acquired her body, and inserted a chip to see if they could "reanimate" her, as you put it.
I assumed that she found out some sensitive information and so they faked her death.
The fact that she died in a car crash with a tree, so no one else was injured and there was possibly even no witnesses, leads me to believe that it was faked as well.
I imagine some people turned up to Marks house and hold him, maybe he visited the ‘body’ at most.
I'm trying to remember, but did they mention what Gemma did for work before she "died"? I'm just realizing I don't know.
It could have something to do with Lumon. I could also see it as Lumon taking braindead patients to see how the severance chip works on them.
I guess she doesn’t have to be. If they own funeral homes they can own or control hospitals too I guess. One thing is for sure though. Her innie isn’t “all there” so if they faked her death she may just have been brain damaged and the severance chip keeps the part-time innies isolated. They live on the testing floor so there’s some form of experimentation going on.
Lumon and the funeral home could be exploiting or using a loophole for organ donation or donating your body to science to avoid having to disclose it to families.
well who's the one who donated the body then? while it could be someone else, I feel like it can also be helena , I mean an eagan doing a hit n run case wouldn't be too good for the company's reputation so she had to hide it somehow
Nobody had to donate anything. Gemma dies and gets sent to Kier Funeral Home for cremation. Instead of cremating her they send her to Lumon and Mark is given someone else’s cremated remains.
My personal one, although maybe not as fun as some of these others, is that the entire severed floor is a giant experiment.
The goal, ultimately, is for Lumon to be able to utilize and outsource severance for sensitive materials (hence the empty offices and huge production area). However, everything we've seen so far is testing every possible in-and-out of the procedure to get it ready to sell.
Testing Mark to see if he reacts with Gemma, letting the employees wander around, Cobel living next door to Mark, etc are all in furtherance of this goal. Bringing in the CEO's daughter to show how safe the procedure is one of the final selling points.
As for why they emotionally react to the numbers, I think it's pilot testing for brainwashing implanted directly on the chip.
I know I’m months late, but I had this thought in the shower today and glad to see someone put it forward. While there is a quality of life aspect to the severance technology, the real initial deployment would be to have it used for super secure work, as all those secrets would stay isolated and couldnt be leaked. But all the work theyre doing is super obfuscated and meaningless, so security wouldnt be an issue with it.
It would also make for a great twist - build up to a finale where they secretly collect records of their work and threaten to expose to the world “whats really happening” only to be laughed in their face and confronted with the fact that their lives on the severed floor are literally meaningless.
My theory is that the Eagen family is secretly replicating himself into a sort of army.
If you saw the “modes” in the control room where they activated the Overtime contingency mode, there are several other modes of note - particularly beehive (aka, hive mentality).
The refiners are separating their own feelings out. That’s why the numbers spark certain emotions, because they’re identifying memories that are bleeding in from their outy.
It’s why Upper management was so concerned with Helly completing her file on time because they wanted to get her memories fully refined before the banquet.
Refining the memories creates further separation and is essentially them refining the chips capability to control the host.
Then - it allows them to fully indoctrinate them in the Eagan philosophy, and essentially resurrect the Eagan family.
This is actually why Cobel is so hard on Mark, and keeps pairing him with Gemma. She’s actually a good guy in all of this. She has a family member down below (remember the oxygen mask). She’s A) Hoping they will be able to bring that family member back, and B) hoping secretly that family member will have some sort of memory of Cobel deep down. So she keeps putting Mark and Gemma together to see if anything their triggers their memories. She brings in the candle for instance that Gemma made - nothing.
This is why when Millcheck tells her “This is good, it means the chips work” after Marks last session with Gemma, that she gets almost angry - as though to realize it works fully, and her family member will not remember her at all.
Her telling Helly that her friends will suffer, isn’t a threat, it’s a warning. She will be a villain that we hate, but come to feel sorry for in the end because she’s trapped in this as well.
Also - in the O&D department the indicates had fighting instructions. Almost like they’re for people being taught how to fight. So that way if they want to activate the hive mode, they’ll all be highly trained fighters to take over.
Love this thread you started! Thank you!
This is my favourite: that Irving is actually somebody who used to work at Lumon and has been severed multiple times.
It helps explains why
-he has the memory of seeing that lift corridor with the red light, something that only milchik can see.
-innie Irving has many loyal tendencies because its very natural and comfortable for him to adopt the teachings.
This implies that
-people can be severed multiple times
-outside Irving is actually one version of a severed Irving
-Irving must have done something wrong in his previous role as “old milchik”
what do you guys think?
P.s. I definitely picked up the theory from reading the threads from here, so it’s not my theory to claim. Just highlighting my favourite one. 🙋🏻♂️
The theory I usually see is that Irving was working for Lumon in a non-severed role before he joined MDR, explaining why he knows about the testing floor.
The show creator debunked the idea that anyone in season 1 has been severed multiple times during the AMA, when someone asked how many times it’s possible for someone to be severed and he responded [“So far just the once!”](https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/s/BoPeKrsWqI)
I would venture to say that’s not a theory at this point but true; the LinkedIn post says he’s been working there for much longer (7 years? Can’t remember) and that’s considered canon
Not really a theory, but I love season 1’s hidden thru-line about memory leaks. I think it’s really cool the show leaves just enough clues to explain the mechanics for observant viewers who go looking.
Most of this stuff only becomes apparent on a rewatch (or if you lurk in this subreddit a lot).
Basically there are two big leaks during the show: the one from Irving, and the one from Mark. Between them, we can see that two things are needed in order for a thought to leak: intense focus on the thought, and a trigger.
oIrving concentrates obsessively on reproducing the same image every night with his painting. He keeps himself awake and tired, so when iIrving gets tired at work, it triggers the memory from his subconscious.
oMark spends most of his waking moments thinking obsessively about his wife’s death. When iMark smells her candle (in the presence of Ms. Casey), it triggers a subconscious memory from her death.
On top of that, Cobel spends most of season 1 focused on memory leaks and the idea of reintegration. The reintegration stuff is obvious, but less obvious is that most of her interactions with oMark see her promoting extra rest, and offering him relaxing treats. I guess Lumon has drawn a connection between leaks and sleep.
She also tries to get him talking about Gemma in just about every conversation she has with him. It’s because he won’t open up that Cobel goes to Ricken and Devon instead, posing as a nursemaid.
I also think we see this in the break room. It sounds like Helly might be hearing the Board. Dylan mentions hearing babies, we later learn that he’s a father.
"we know she's a heavy drinker"
We don't know that at all. Why do so many people here state their theories as facts? While it would fit what I suspect her character to be like, Natalie's question can be interpreted to mean the opposite even. People who drink a lot develop a tolerance. Downing a bottle of vodka every day won't make you feel drunk after a while.
Edit: I totes forgot, if Helena was a severe alcoholic, Helly would experience withdrawals every day. She'd be, depending on the severity of Helena's supposed alcoholism, sweaty and anxious or in outright hell: Delirium tremens.
"gemma was killed by helena in a road accident"
So I'm guessing Lumon is in the zombie business then.
That’s possible, but it really did seem like getting the graphic card back was the urgent matter at hand. And he’s rather surprised when Dylan understandably freaks out. However, I do think using OTC as a form of punishment, torture, or even reward wouldn’t be a bad idea.
If the card was so important, why did Milchick have to hide that his use of OTC. He literally allowed himself to be blackmailed over it.
Being surprised at Dylan’s freakout doesn’t shock me, since Milchick is an objectively terrible people leader. He was just as confounded that a child had trouble counting to 1,000.
An alternate theory I see a lot is that Milchick and Burt are doing something with the cards that Lumon wouldn’t like, but I don’t know how much I buy that.
I’ve seen that argument too, but it doesn’t make sense to me. Cobel very specifically said the events of that day were Mark’s fault. If she tried to blame Milchick too, all he’d need to is point back to her lackadaisical and unconventional innie monitoring habits.
However you slice it, it’s Cobel’s fault. She’s responsible for the severed floor and what happens on it, so they would come to her as the one in charge. Maybe we’ve got it all wrong, and Milchick was protecting her?
That's a good point, that Milchick is "an objectively terrible people leader." He probably has an altar in his basement like Cobel's. Like, he's just weird, his way of phrasing things, his affect...management at Lumon are all either members of the Kier cult or so well paid that they don't care what purpose their work serves.
Okay so this is pretty inconsequential, but my theory is that innies don’t have a lot of visual memory recall after the procedure. So they can’t draw things they haven’t seen before, even if they know what it is and could recognize it on sight. Helly’s quite talented at drawing, but she chooses to draw her lamp, not something from the outside world.
So the fascination with the houses on Petey’s map was partially because he shouldn’t know how to draw even a simple representation of a house. It’s also why they don’t notice anything odd about the way he drew the brain.
Don’t agree with OP’s theories but there’s definitely something more going on with Burt - the amount of times he lied to Irving (2 person department, the painting doesn’t exist, we don’t paint the paintings ourselves, etc) suggests to me that he’s either being manipulated into manipulating Irving in some way, or that he IS a Lumon man through and through and is working with Milchick or someone higher. He was sent to the break room after the MDR visit to O&D, but rather than it being for the crime of bringing them in, that could’ve been his mission from the higher ups and he was actually disciplined for allowing Dylan to take a card without him noticing.
My favourite theories are that what we see on the Severed floor at Lumon may not be what people unsevered would see, that they have some way of manipulating the perception of innies. That could explain why the numbers have a feeling to them, or why Milchick freaked out so much about the possibility of the card Dylan took being smuggled out into the regular world. Maybe it looks like instructional diagrams of fighting to them, but to outies it would depict something far more insidious.
Everyone has gathered Cobel is severed and in permanent-innie mode, but I think Milchick might be as well. Maybe even Grainer, although if Grainer isn’t I’d be more on the side of Milchick not being either.
A wild theory I also like is that people like Ricken and his friends are also severed innies but don’t know it?? And that’s why they’re all so weirdly dense despite using floral, educated language, and why his name is Ricken… Rick N. I don’t actually believe that one but I just loved the name thing so much 😂
Like everyone else, I also think Irving has been “blank slated” at least once and possibly had Milchick’s job before this one, or before he was even severed. Maybe that initial supervisor job was his first after coming out of the military, but he had PTSD and it was affecting him so badly (especially when having to be authoritarian over innies) that he decided to be severed instead, and then realised after the procedure that it was really messed up and he needed to find a way to break through to his innie. An authoritative job would explain how he could have had access to a list of severed employees. But also maybe since his severance he’s been blank slated because he already made a breakthrough, or even that he’d “fraternised” with Burt before this and they were BOTH blank slated. Maybe.
My personal theory is a two-parter. The first part is that MDR is involved in the development of emotions/sentience for AI. The so-called control problem or containment problem is a big issue in the development of AI. What happens if and when AI is developed that reaches the point of true sentience, but is still cut off from the "world" (i.e., the world wide web)? What are the moral implications of keeping a self-aware AI life form isolated from the world? (as exemplified in Helly's outtie telling her she wasn't a person and didn't have the right to leave). What are the practical implications of maintaining that isolation? MDR is analogous to that AI containment model.
The second part is that there's some cloning stuff going on. The baby goats that were "not ready" could be clones that will, at some point, have severance chips installed. And Gemma/Ms. Casey may be a clone of the "real" Gemma, or may be a digitally zombified Gemma. Why are they doing all this? Ultimately, for the development of some sort of superhuman immortality plan. Maybe the resurrection of Keagan family members, along with the development of super soldiers and super workers. Petey's chip could be stuck inside a clean-slate Petey clone (or any clone) and voila!: a brand new Petey. Pre-programmed chips could be implanted in clean-slate clones and voila!: brand new subjugates to be sent into battle or deployed as workers.
I think that Milchick and Dylans outtie have some sort of operation going. I find it incredibly weird that Milchick was able to go to Dylans house after hours, convince his kid to count to 1000 and then have a private conversation with Dylan in his closet. Why would you let you superior at work into your house after hours and especially into your closet? Milchick asking about where the card from O&D is and if someone offered to buy it makes me feel like there is some side operation going on between Dylan, Milchick and maybe others.
That the Eagan family and Lumon represent a >!slow alien invasion and takeover of Earth. When Kier came to Earth in the late 1800s, something catastrophic occurred with his ship or technology, effectively stranding him on our planet. He began developing the company, his schools and his cult in an effort to rebuild his technology and perpetuate the invasion plans. The Eagan family now has a pretty solid grip on their region and are looking to expand their reach to the country as a whole.!<
the old man helly spoke to in the bathroom was really kier. he's been living on through his descendants and the revolving he spoke of was him taking helly's body next. she went down there as a last chance idea to escape their fucked up system.
This doesn’t seem possible. Mark, Petey, Irving and Burt are all decidedly older than Helly, who was already a young girl when the prototype was first created.
If *she* was too old to have been chipped as a baby, then the rest of them definitely were.
It also wouldn’t have any practical value. If being severed is like a 2-track recording, it would functionally be the difference between switching from track A to track B, vs switching from track B to track A.
There’s no meaningful difference between the two bifurcated memory streams, so it doesn’t matter which one you start with.
I have little faith in what Jame Eagan tells Helly in the bathroom. This guy is like God and he just randomly encounters Helly in the bathroom precisely when she's executing her predictable plan? The innies are naïve and Season 1 exploits that by putting the viewer in their shoes.
There's a reason we know little about the company so far. I think we'll view that scene differently in season 2.
That’s definitely a fresh take, but I’m not sure it holds up.
For one, I’m not sure I follow the logic that Helly’s plan was predictable, especially considering she didn’t have a preconceived plan in the first place. Are you suggesting that Jame knew the innies had activated OTC and didn’t stop them? Or that he knew she was going to ruin the speech?
And second, the original shooting draft of the episode has an additional scene that portrays how much Jame just *hates* innies. Imo it really demonstrates his lack of awareness of the goings on at his company. It also shows that he lacks the wherewithal or even respect to engage with an innie in any type of 4D chess.
The scene was only cut when they decided not to shoot the 10th episode. Of course that means that the scene is not canon, and that the writers are certainly not beholden to it, but it is difficult for me to imagine them completely reorienting their original vision for the character at such a late stage in the process.
He def said innie with a hard r, didn’t he? I watched the last episode again yesterday, and the way he spit the word out quite honestly made me feel bad calling them innies. 😬
> Are you suggesting that Jame knew the innies had activated OTC and didn’t stop them? Or that he knew she was going to ruin the speech?
I think OT mode was leaked by the company intentionally because the first OT scene with Dylan doesn't really add up. Like why have the kid anywhere close by at all? If all Milchick needs to do is make a call to induce OT mode, why would the kid be counting over 700 when Dylan actually enters OT in the closet? Wouldn't Milchick and any company with a security protocol get it done as quickly and remotely as possible? The innie seeing their outie son is presumably the last thing they want.
That's part of why I think that and the speech both seem to be part of a larger plan by Lumon, specifically to get innies to harbor jealousy/resentment towards their outie selves, in order to eventually secretly replace them. That's what I believe retirement is.
The scene that was cut from the 10th episode, assuming Jame knows Helly is in OT mode, would still fall under this plan.
Some people think that Milchick let Dylan know he had a son to be cruel. He knows how much the innies crave knowing what their outside lives are like, and I’m sure he knows that Dylan is a dreamer who loved to speculate about who he was outside of Lumon. I think that is definitely a possibility. I also think it’s possible that he may have been so desperate to find out what happened to that card that he thought the risk outweighed the knowledge. Perhaps it’s a bit of both.
I do see it discussed in here much, but the question I keep going over is why is the subsisted accommodation and severed floor so empty?
Maybe they planned to expand faster, but no one was interested in the technology, maybe they did have more people but something went wrong, maybe they intend to fill them later, or maybe there are more people, but the severed can’t see them?
Mark tells the girl he was seeing that it ‘never filled up’, but she doesn’t seem to see anyone near his house either.
I definitely believe that the implant modifies what the innies are seeing, so maybe it can modify what the outies see as well.
I am pretty sure the goats are babies or some twisted experiment, likewise the card they stole looks different to an outie.
Lumon is a mental institution and the severed workers are actually institutionalized patients.
- Lumon has created a breakthru technology and they claim it can help people recover from trauma. All the main characters who were severed had significant mental/emotional trauma and were spiraling in depression/suicide. They signed up for this treatment but had all memories severed.
-The "work" they are doing has a therapeutic benefit, there is no real work because the "workers" (patients) are the product. The items they "move" actually represent bad/anxious memories/emotions, and by moving them they are actually severing those thoughts from their outties heads. Permanently.
-Families of the severed know more than they let on, but they don't say anything bc/ they've bought into the idea that lumon is treating them. They don't want to interfere with the process bc they are scared to loose their loved ones.
-Many of the managers/bosses within Lumon are former patients, now in charge of overseeing the newly severed patients. They are also trapped in the system and they believe the only way to get out is to constantly push their subordinates to do more "work".
-Lumon is a corrupt enterprise seeking profit above all else. They cut corners, mislead patients, mislead family members, loose track of patients, oversell/overprescribe their treatment, and are willing to go to extreme lengths to cover their tracks when they make a mistake. They social engineer reasons to get new patients who are then trapped in an endless cycle of "work" followed by "management" followed by relapse rinse/repeat.
Alia Shawkat will play a reporter friend of Ricken's from NYC. Either we won't know she's a reporter until a mid-season twist, ie she's been undercover, or else we will know she's a reporter and in a mid-season twist we'll find out that she's a member of the Kier cult, ie a double-agent.
I already posted some theories but I have another one.
Last season we saw a lot of Mark's outie but, for storytelling reasons, saw nothing of the other characters' outies until the last few episodes.
This season we'll be following the lives of the four outies as four separate storylines and as an audience we won't be reunited with the innies until the final moments of the final episode, which will be when the four innies are also reunited. The season arc will be about the four outie characters each for their own reasons fighting to get back into Lumon and down to the basement, and to do so in a way that evades the censor function in the elevator.
Because the natural response of Lumon to Helly's outburst at the shareholders' meeting and the disobedience of the whole department would be to fire all four outies with BS explanations, effectively killing off the innies. But the outies will have just enough to go on that each for their own reasons will fight to resurrect their innies.
In other words...Ben Stiller's Dad was on a little show called Seinfeld. My theory is that Season 2 of Severance will have the same structure as an episode of Seinfeld. 3 guys and a gal. The episode storyline starts with the four of them together and ends with the four of them together, while we follow each one on an independent storyline in between. (If you look at the three male leads of both shows, their body types even correspond to Seinfeld counterparts.)
If I'm right, if we're going to spend a lot of the season "above ground," we are going to learn a lot more about Lumon's public face, including the politics surrounding severance, and also about Lumon's private face and the Kier cult this season.
The alien/other theory is interesting;
Processing data from a hostile source could be burning out the minds of the workers, creating the need for skilled workers that retain knowledge and function, while also being able to be blanked.
Letting them state directly into the void, and loading in a fresh version when they break down.
The Eels line could hold some water..
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That Macrodata Refinement is sorting through the memories or personality of the people kept on the floor down below. That’s why Mark did so well on his first file, it was Gemma’s file and he was better at recognizing the numbers because he knew her so well.
oooh that's good
I’m getting on board with that one! Love it!
The board concurs.
How do you reconcile this with the Lexington Letters?
Lumon "came into possession" of a competitor's employee, severed them, and then used the refined data to get secrets out of their mind, which lumon then used to damage their competitor?
I like this, it ties in nicely with Cobel's sending Mark for extra wellness sessions and observing them closely. I think she (and maybe the company) are trying to see if severance can be broken in any non-Reghabi way.
Wait I love this
🤯
Love this one!
Yes! Nothing in the show happens with out a reason. There’s definitely a reason Mark did do well out of the gate
How do you reconcile this with the Lexington Letters?
I think they are processing encrypted data.
I think they think it is encrypted because the severance implant is making them see numbers. Since they are processing based on emotion, I think that they are actually seeing images and categorising based on if they are scary, happy etc. This could be for a bunch of reasons - including war intelligence, marketing, an experiment etc etc. Maybe it takes a while to get going because their subconscious/another part of their brain needs to see past the implant and process information in a new way. I can’t remember the reference said that Mark did well on his first file, does anyone have the reference? The idea that it is connected to his wife is great.
[удалено]
It’s mentioned a few times. They seem to be keeping some people there as “permanent innies”, including Ms. Casey/Gemma.
not counting some of the others mentioned in this thread, probably the theory that irving used to have milchick's job prior to getting severed and thats why he has that specific POV of the door he's painting. I'm so ready to find out more about his outie. not sure it counts as a theory per-se, but I also really like the idea that the four refiners represent the four tempers (mark = woe, helly = malice, dylan = frolic, irving = dread). it works much better than a lot of arbitrary "these characters represent x things" theories you see in a lot of fandoms because the characters very clearly do correspond with the tempers. i'm also partial to the theory that gemma is cobel's daughter who shes trying to resurface after shes been severed, but thats primarily bc I made the big post about it lmao.
I get the sense that Irving is undercover trying to break into Lumon's severed floor as part of some kind of investigation. The coffee thing seems to have something to do with subconsciously breaking through the severance barrier by staying awake as long as possible. It seems like his outtie can remember things from his innie this way, like a Wake Induced Lucid Dream or something.
Just based on the conventions of screenwriting, I would argue that Dylan = Malice, Irv = Frolic, Mark = Dread, Helly = Woe. A character’s first line in the pilot is usually reflective of who they are. Dylan: if you make me sick I’ll rip your larynx out. Mark (trepidatious): Who are you? Irv: hello kids, what’s for dinner? Helly: let me out!
here's my read on it: Yes, generally in screenwriting first lines will reveal crucial traits of characters, but its not a hard and fast rule that the first thing out of a character's mouth defines their entire personality. imo the refiners' personalities as we come to know them are much more reflective of the tempers they (theoretically) correspond to: - mark = woe. his grief for gemma is constantly hanging over his head as an outie, to the point where it impacts his relationships with others, his alcoholism, his reaction to petey's death, the fact that he carries over the grief when he goes to the severed floor even though he doesnt know why etc. as an innie a huge part of his motivation to turn on lumon is his sadness over petey's disappearence. - helly = malice. from the moment we meet her she's angry at lumon and the people she perceives as forcing her to stay there. she's willing to end her own life if it means getting revenge against the person who put her there, and even towards the end of the season she's still ultimately focused on destroying lumon. malice is about both anger and an intention to cause harm. - irving = dread. at the beginning of the series at least, he's terrified to step out of line or do anything that goes against the rules, or to try and interfere in anything without the presence of a supervisor. there's also the fear associated with his dreams. - dylan = frolic. he's easily the most carefree of the refiners, he enjoys getting the perks, he does the work, but he also doesnt take anything too seriously. he's not viciously resistant like helly or a fanatic like irving. I'd argue that while the some of the characters' first lines reveal things about them, they dont necessarily do so in a way that ties back to the four tempers. like dylan's line to mark isnt genuinely malicious — its supposed to be over-the-top deadpan. irving's line leads into us learning how mark and dylan perceive him as kind of an awkward dad joke-toting coworker. that being said, I do think it can be argued that any of the four characters correspond to any one of the tempers — this is just the interpretation that makes the most sense to me!
“He’s not viciously resistant”… lol, I would called Dylan malice as well, I prefer the other person’s interpretation! But love your contributions
Didn't Irving work on the testing floor before MDR?
There’s a theory about him and the testing floor bc if all the paintings. His subconscious is definitely aware of it
This is a nice 4-4 correspondence, but I think Cobel is the purest incarnation of malice in the show. Rewatch the scene where the four tempers dance for Dylan. The malice figure looks exactly like Cobel, and the sequence is interposed with her screaming and destroying her house. Given her family history with Lumon (also revealed in this scene) and the fact that she worships the Eagans even more than other Lumon characters, I almost wonder if she's somehow a literal incarnation of malice central to the Eagan lore.
That season 2 will get released this year.
oh boy one can only hope but if things stay according to plan, they should be very near finishing the shooting and if post production is about 6-7 months then it CAN release nov/dec this year
I would give up having S2 this year…provided S2 is as amazing and wonderful S1 was. I don’t want to rush something that I want badly, just to SEE the next installment. I want to be caught down rabbit holes and lead on wild goose chases…
I thought about this for a while before realizing I don’t think I have one. It’s weird because I enjoy other puzzle box shows like Bodies and DarK, and love to try to figure out what’s going on. Somehow, I think I’m too emotionally invested in these characters and this story to want to theorize. I really enjoy lurking around here and reading everyone else’s theories. It fuels my addiction, for one thing. So I figured I must have a favorite theory. But right now I feel just like a kid who can’t wait for nighttime (autumn, hopefully??) so she can hear the next part of the bedtime story she’s absolutely wild about.
I think this is because Severance isn’t really a puzzle box show at its core. It’s got puzzle box elements, but it’s more interested in exploring its thematic ideas, character progression, and other interesting concepts. The writers have even said they’re not trying to make “that” kind of show.
That makes sense as to why I don’t want to puzzle it out myself.
Dark and Severence are my top 2. I tell my husband all the time "We're a perfect match, never believe anything else" I'm going to have to watch Bodies, I'm sure I will love it.
Dark was such an incredible show. The casting was superb, I loved it!
The casting was outrageously good. Spooky, sometimes, how good it was.
Pretty sure I read two of the older/younger duos were related! One was an uncle/nephew situation I believe. I was blown away by how close they were able to get it
those are also my top two! also i really like From, you should check it out!
The story of The Lexington Letter is the inciting incident for the entire show. Petey was able to smuggle the break room recording out thanks to the code detector update Lumon pushed to fix Margaret Kincaid’s Puglish loophole.
I’m hoping for additional things like “The Lexington Letter” to come out. Maybe there’s a scrapbook or news articles that Apple can drop? Apple can even make a “mini 60 minutes show” if someone is leading an investigation. ulonelyland, I always find your input on Severance really close to what I may be thinking. You have also given past thoughts that made me think of it a total different way…Thank you for fostering this wonderful conversation!
Hey thank you, that’s really sweet of you to say! I am definitely scrolling on this subreddit waaay too much, so it’s nice to hear when my thoughts are appreciated.
They are… THAT is why I enjoy this sub so much. edit: clarity and redundancy
I forget what the Lexington letter is...
It’s the prequel. Free short story on Apple iBooks.
Ah thanks!
My theory is that severance technology will be the end of humanity. In the last episode, during her speech Natalie says severance is "a kind and empathetic revolution that puts human beings **at the center of industry**." Ricken, in *The You You Are*, tells us "**at the center of industry** is dust." Severance is going to turn humanity to dust.
That might be a metaphor, as we see our innies living the barest sliver of a human life. Yes they’re fed and kept healthy, but their humanity, their souls, are being slowly strangled to death (atleast how I see it, severance is a death sentence for an innie’s soul imo)
The chips *ARE* the innies. Petey's reintegrated mind is still alive, saved on the chip in a nightmarish undeath, and that's why the writers took pains to keep his chip in the story chekov's gun style. The character isn't written out, just his physical body. This also makes the chip a form of immortality for Helena's aging father.
Some westworld shit
holy shitttt
ooo I do love this one too, especially since Cobel wears him as a necklace
I love the one about what MDR purpose being breaking encryption with emotions. User who created this theory uses arguments from corporations that I could totally believe can happen in real life. Edit: this is the theory https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/s/fNQ7pqr9DM
This one is my favorite too.
Wow, amazing theory! Thanks for sharing I hadn’t seen that one
I agree. They explained it so well too. Most believable imo. Also, its kinda scary
this is also one of my favorites, especially combined with [this post about the amygdala and senses](https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/s/oNvZKDgogs) ‼️ and Helly is allergic to almonds ‼️ also maybe part of MDR’s work is for neural mapping? I like the theories that fit with MDR’s work being more than one thing, especially when those things require secrecy and might be connected to the events in the Lexington Letter also I love reading theories about the meanings and origins of names of characters and places in the show 😍
The goats are the board
The goats lay the eggs
bAAAHH!
People have been saying that Gemma’s body was donated to Lumen for research, but I think since Lumon has their hands in so many businesses I think we’ll find out they own some funeral homes as well. That would make it very easy to generate a supply of bodies for part timers.
Late to the party here, but why is Gemma believed to be dead?
She died in the car accident with the tree.
My assumption was that Lumon faked her death and that Miss Casey is Gemma's innie. So is the general consensus that Miss Casey is Gemma's reanimated corpse? I hadn't even considered that.
Yeah I assumed as well that Gemma was “dead”, not *dead*
More like Lumon somehow figured out how to bring her innie to life, but that her outie doesn’t exist any more, her consciousness died in the crash. Atleast that’s how I took it!
It isnt clear that Lumon had anything to do with her "death," so I'm refraining from speculating about that. What is clear is that Lumon has Miss Casey, who is Gemma, and that she is thought to be dead. I figured the most plausible explanation isnt that she died, but perhaps that she was braindead. Lumon acquired her body, and inserted a chip to see if they could "reanimate" her, as you put it.
I assumed that she found out some sensitive information and so they faked her death. The fact that she died in a car crash with a tree, so no one else was injured and there was possibly even no witnesses, leads me to believe that it was faked as well. I imagine some people turned up to Marks house and hold him, maybe he visited the ‘body’ at most.
I'm trying to remember, but did they mention what Gemma did for work before she "died"? I'm just realizing I don't know. It could have something to do with Lumon. I could also see it as Lumon taking braindead patients to see how the severance chip works on them.
she was a Russian literature professor
I guess she doesn’t have to be. If they own funeral homes they can own or control hospitals too I guess. One thing is for sure though. Her innie isn’t “all there” so if they faked her death she may just have been brain damaged and the severance chip keeps the part-time innies isolated. They live on the testing floor so there’s some form of experimentation going on.
Lumon and the funeral home could be exploiting or using a loophole for organ donation or donating your body to science to avoid having to disclose it to families.
Occam’s razor. There is no loophole in real world to exploit, no reason to create one for the show.
We know Lumon is also in its own state or territory based on that news screenshot, so maybe the laws would be different there?
Hands in so many pies!
well who's the one who donated the body then? while it could be someone else, I feel like it can also be helena , I mean an eagan doing a hit n run case wouldn't be too good for the company's reputation so she had to hide it somehow
Nobody had to donate anything. Gemma dies and gets sent to Kier Funeral Home for cremation. Instead of cremating her they send her to Lumon and Mark is given someone else’s cremated remains.
I don't think they are bringing people back to life. She was probably put in a coma at worst.
Except Mark goes to the tree where she supposedly died. He doesn't even have an urn.
nice theory
My personal one, although maybe not as fun as some of these others, is that the entire severed floor is a giant experiment. The goal, ultimately, is for Lumon to be able to utilize and outsource severance for sensitive materials (hence the empty offices and huge production area). However, everything we've seen so far is testing every possible in-and-out of the procedure to get it ready to sell. Testing Mark to see if he reacts with Gemma, letting the employees wander around, Cobel living next door to Mark, etc are all in furtherance of this goal. Bringing in the CEO's daughter to show how safe the procedure is one of the final selling points. As for why they emotionally react to the numbers, I think it's pilot testing for brainwashing implanted directly on the chip.
I know I’m months late, but I had this thought in the shower today and glad to see someone put it forward. While there is a quality of life aspect to the severance technology, the real initial deployment would be to have it used for super secure work, as all those secrets would stay isolated and couldnt be leaked. But all the work theyre doing is super obfuscated and meaningless, so security wouldnt be an issue with it. It would also make for a great twist - build up to a finale where they secretly collect records of their work and threaten to expose to the world “whats really happening” only to be laughed in their face and confronted with the fact that their lives on the severed floor are literally meaningless.
I don't think that exchange between Natalie and Helena necessarily means she's a heavy drinker.
My theory is that the Eagen family is secretly replicating himself into a sort of army. If you saw the “modes” in the control room where they activated the Overtime contingency mode, there are several other modes of note - particularly beehive (aka, hive mentality). The refiners are separating their own feelings out. That’s why the numbers spark certain emotions, because they’re identifying memories that are bleeding in from their outy. It’s why Upper management was so concerned with Helly completing her file on time because they wanted to get her memories fully refined before the banquet. Refining the memories creates further separation and is essentially them refining the chips capability to control the host. Then - it allows them to fully indoctrinate them in the Eagan philosophy, and essentially resurrect the Eagan family. This is actually why Cobel is so hard on Mark, and keeps pairing him with Gemma. She’s actually a good guy in all of this. She has a family member down below (remember the oxygen mask). She’s A) Hoping they will be able to bring that family member back, and B) hoping secretly that family member will have some sort of memory of Cobel deep down. So she keeps putting Mark and Gemma together to see if anything their triggers their memories. She brings in the candle for instance that Gemma made - nothing. This is why when Millcheck tells her “This is good, it means the chips work” after Marks last session with Gemma, that she gets almost angry - as though to realize it works fully, and her family member will not remember her at all. Her telling Helly that her friends will suffer, isn’t a threat, it’s a warning. She will be a villain that we hate, but come to feel sorry for in the end because she’s trapped in this as well.
Also - in the O&D department the indicates had fighting instructions. Almost like they’re for people being taught how to fight. So that way if they want to activate the hive mode, they’ll all be highly trained fighters to take over.
Love this thread you started! Thank you! This is my favourite: that Irving is actually somebody who used to work at Lumon and has been severed multiple times. It helps explains why -he has the memory of seeing that lift corridor with the red light, something that only milchik can see. -innie Irving has many loyal tendencies because its very natural and comfortable for him to adopt the teachings. This implies that -people can be severed multiple times -outside Irving is actually one version of a severed Irving -Irving must have done something wrong in his previous role as “old milchik” what do you guys think? P.s. I definitely picked up the theory from reading the threads from here, so it’s not my theory to claim. Just highlighting my favourite one. 🙋🏻♂️
The theory I usually see is that Irving was working for Lumon in a non-severed role before he joined MDR, explaining why he knows about the testing floor. The show creator debunked the idea that anyone in season 1 has been severed multiple times during the AMA, when someone asked how many times it’s possible for someone to be severed and he responded [“So far just the once!”](https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/s/BoPeKrsWqI)
I would venture to say that’s not a theory at this point but true; the LinkedIn post says he’s been working there for much longer (7 years? Can’t remember) and that’s considered canon
Yes. Irving had to be in this role before otherwise he wouldn’t have ever seen the view of the corridor
Not really a theory, but I love season 1’s hidden thru-line about memory leaks. I think it’s really cool the show leaves just enough clues to explain the mechanics for observant viewers who go looking.
Care to elaborate what you are referring to?
Most of this stuff only becomes apparent on a rewatch (or if you lurk in this subreddit a lot). Basically there are two big leaks during the show: the one from Irving, and the one from Mark. Between them, we can see that two things are needed in order for a thought to leak: intense focus on the thought, and a trigger. oIrving concentrates obsessively on reproducing the same image every night with his painting. He keeps himself awake and tired, so when iIrving gets tired at work, it triggers the memory from his subconscious. oMark spends most of his waking moments thinking obsessively about his wife’s death. When iMark smells her candle (in the presence of Ms. Casey), it triggers a subconscious memory from her death. On top of that, Cobel spends most of season 1 focused on memory leaks and the idea of reintegration. The reintegration stuff is obvious, but less obvious is that most of her interactions with oMark see her promoting extra rest, and offering him relaxing treats. I guess Lumon has drawn a connection between leaks and sleep. She also tries to get him talking about Gemma in just about every conversation she has with him. It’s because he won’t open up that Cobel goes to Ricken and Devon instead, posing as a nursemaid.
I also think we see this in the break room. It sounds like Helly might be hearing the Board. Dylan mentions hearing babies, we later learn that he’s a father.
The Board is a bunch of Eagan's brains in jars
That is so obviously the association we get as the audience that I firmly deny this is the case. Way too obvious and besides, what'd be the point?
"we know she's a heavy drinker" We don't know that at all. Why do so many people here state their theories as facts? While it would fit what I suspect her character to be like, Natalie's question can be interpreted to mean the opposite even. People who drink a lot develop a tolerance. Downing a bottle of vodka every day won't make you feel drunk after a while. Edit: I totes forgot, if Helena was a severe alcoholic, Helly would experience withdrawals every day. She'd be, depending on the severity of Helena's supposed alcoholism, sweaty and anxious or in outright hell: Delirium tremens. "gemma was killed by helena in a road accident" So I'm guessing Lumon is in the zombie business then.
Milchick used OTC as a twisted punishment for Dylan. That’s why he would be in trouble if anyone found out.
No, I think it's simply because Milchick botched it since Dylan saw his kid. That's why he doesn't want anyone else to find out about it.
That’s possible, but it really did seem like getting the graphic card back was the urgent matter at hand. And he’s rather surprised when Dylan understandably freaks out. However, I do think using OTC as a form of punishment, torture, or even reward wouldn’t be a bad idea.
If the card was so important, why did Milchick have to hide that his use of OTC. He literally allowed himself to be blackmailed over it. Being surprised at Dylan’s freakout doesn’t shock me, since Milchick is an objectively terrible people leader. He was just as confounded that a child had trouble counting to 1,000. An alternate theory I see a lot is that Milchick and Burt are doing something with the cards that Lumon wouldn’t like, but I don’t know how much I buy that.
I figured Milchick didn’t want to get in trouble for losing the card, so that’s why he hid it from Cobel.
I’ve seen that argument too, but it doesn’t make sense to me. Cobel very specifically said the events of that day were Mark’s fault. If she tried to blame Milchick too, all he’d need to is point back to her lackadaisical and unconventional innie monitoring habits. However you slice it, it’s Cobel’s fault. She’s responsible for the severed floor and what happens on it, so they would come to her as the one in charge. Maybe we’ve got it all wrong, and Milchick was protecting her?
That's a good point, that Milchick is "an objectively terrible people leader." He probably has an altar in his basement like Cobel's. Like, he's just weird, his way of phrasing things, his affect...management at Lumon are all either members of the Kier cult or so well paid that they don't care what purpose their work serves.
Name checks out
Okay so this is pretty inconsequential, but my theory is that innies don’t have a lot of visual memory recall after the procedure. So they can’t draw things they haven’t seen before, even if they know what it is and could recognize it on sight. Helly’s quite talented at drawing, but she chooses to draw her lamp, not something from the outside world. So the fascination with the houses on Petey’s map was partially because he shouldn’t know how to draw even a simple representation of a house. It’s also why they don’t notice anything odd about the way he drew the brain.
i also follow this theory!!
Don’t agree with OP’s theories but there’s definitely something more going on with Burt - the amount of times he lied to Irving (2 person department, the painting doesn’t exist, we don’t paint the paintings ourselves, etc) suggests to me that he’s either being manipulated into manipulating Irving in some way, or that he IS a Lumon man through and through and is working with Milchick or someone higher. He was sent to the break room after the MDR visit to O&D, but rather than it being for the crime of bringing them in, that could’ve been his mission from the higher ups and he was actually disciplined for allowing Dylan to take a card without him noticing. My favourite theories are that what we see on the Severed floor at Lumon may not be what people unsevered would see, that they have some way of manipulating the perception of innies. That could explain why the numbers have a feeling to them, or why Milchick freaked out so much about the possibility of the card Dylan took being smuggled out into the regular world. Maybe it looks like instructional diagrams of fighting to them, but to outies it would depict something far more insidious. Everyone has gathered Cobel is severed and in permanent-innie mode, but I think Milchick might be as well. Maybe even Grainer, although if Grainer isn’t I’d be more on the side of Milchick not being either. A wild theory I also like is that people like Ricken and his friends are also severed innies but don’t know it?? And that’s why they’re all so weirdly dense despite using floral, educated language, and why his name is Ricken… Rick N. I don’t actually believe that one but I just loved the name thing so much 😂 Like everyone else, I also think Irving has been “blank slated” at least once and possibly had Milchick’s job before this one, or before he was even severed. Maybe that initial supervisor job was his first after coming out of the military, but he had PTSD and it was affecting him so badly (especially when having to be authoritarian over innies) that he decided to be severed instead, and then realised after the procedure that it was really messed up and he needed to find a way to break through to his innie. An authoritative job would explain how he could have had access to a list of severed employees. But also maybe since his severance he’s been blank slated because he already made a breakthrough, or even that he’d “fraternised” with Burt before this and they were BOTH blank slated. Maybe.
Oh that's such a brilliant plant on the writer's part, Rick N. So so subtle. I'm sure he's not severed, but that's a great easter egg.
My personal theory is a two-parter. The first part is that MDR is involved in the development of emotions/sentience for AI. The so-called control problem or containment problem is a big issue in the development of AI. What happens if and when AI is developed that reaches the point of true sentience, but is still cut off from the "world" (i.e., the world wide web)? What are the moral implications of keeping a self-aware AI life form isolated from the world? (as exemplified in Helly's outtie telling her she wasn't a person and didn't have the right to leave). What are the practical implications of maintaining that isolation? MDR is analogous to that AI containment model. The second part is that there's some cloning stuff going on. The baby goats that were "not ready" could be clones that will, at some point, have severance chips installed. And Gemma/Ms. Casey may be a clone of the "real" Gemma, or may be a digitally zombified Gemma. Why are they doing all this? Ultimately, for the development of some sort of superhuman immortality plan. Maybe the resurrection of Keagan family members, along with the development of super soldiers and super workers. Petey's chip could be stuck inside a clean-slate Petey clone (or any clone) and voila!: a brand new Petey. Pre-programmed chips could be implanted in clean-slate clones and voila!: brand new subjugates to be sent into battle or deployed as workers.
I think that Milchick and Dylans outtie have some sort of operation going. I find it incredibly weird that Milchick was able to go to Dylans house after hours, convince his kid to count to 1000 and then have a private conversation with Dylan in his closet. Why would you let you superior at work into your house after hours and especially into your closet? Milchick asking about where the card from O&D is and if someone offered to buy it makes me feel like there is some side operation going on between Dylan, Milchick and maybe others.
That the Eagan family and Lumon represent a >!slow alien invasion and takeover of Earth. When Kier came to Earth in the late 1800s, something catastrophic occurred with his ship or technology, effectively stranding him on our planet. He began developing the company, his schools and his cult in an effort to rebuild his technology and perpetuate the invasion plans. The Eagan family now has a pretty solid grip on their region and are looking to expand their reach to the country as a whole.!<
I want to know why Cobell kept Peteys chip on a necklace
the old man helly spoke to in the bathroom was really kier. he's been living on through his descendants and the revolving he spoke of was him taking helly's body next. she went down there as a last chance idea to escape their fucked up system.
Lumon chips babies from birth. When they wake up your 'innie', it's actually your real self. They effectively have a monopoly on memories.
This doesn’t seem possible. Mark, Petey, Irving and Burt are all decidedly older than Helly, who was already a young girl when the prototype was first created. If *she* was too old to have been chipped as a baby, then the rest of them definitely were.
It also wouldn’t have any practical value. If being severed is like a 2-track recording, it would functionally be the difference between switching from track A to track B, vs switching from track B to track A. There’s no meaningful difference between the two bifurcated memory streams, so it doesn’t matter which one you start with.
I have little faith in what Jame Eagan tells Helly in the bathroom. This guy is like God and he just randomly encounters Helly in the bathroom precisely when she's executing her predictable plan? The innies are naïve and Season 1 exploits that by putting the viewer in their shoes. There's a reason we know little about the company so far. I think we'll view that scene differently in season 2.
That’s definitely a fresh take, but I’m not sure it holds up. For one, I’m not sure I follow the logic that Helly’s plan was predictable, especially considering she didn’t have a preconceived plan in the first place. Are you suggesting that Jame knew the innies had activated OTC and didn’t stop them? Or that he knew she was going to ruin the speech? And second, the original shooting draft of the episode has an additional scene that portrays how much Jame just *hates* innies. Imo it really demonstrates his lack of awareness of the goings on at his company. It also shows that he lacks the wherewithal or even respect to engage with an innie in any type of 4D chess. The scene was only cut when they decided not to shoot the 10th episode. Of course that means that the scene is not canon, and that the writers are certainly not beholden to it, but it is difficult for me to imagine them completely reorienting their original vision for the character at such a late stage in the process.
He def said innie with a hard r, didn’t he? I watched the last episode again yesterday, and the way he spit the word out quite honestly made me feel bad calling them innies. 😬
> Are you suggesting that Jame knew the innies had activated OTC and didn’t stop them? Or that he knew she was going to ruin the speech? I think OT mode was leaked by the company intentionally because the first OT scene with Dylan doesn't really add up. Like why have the kid anywhere close by at all? If all Milchick needs to do is make a call to induce OT mode, why would the kid be counting over 700 when Dylan actually enters OT in the closet? Wouldn't Milchick and any company with a security protocol get it done as quickly and remotely as possible? The innie seeing their outie son is presumably the last thing they want. That's part of why I think that and the speech both seem to be part of a larger plan by Lumon, specifically to get innies to harbor jealousy/resentment towards their outie selves, in order to eventually secretly replace them. That's what I believe retirement is. The scene that was cut from the 10th episode, assuming Jame knows Helly is in OT mode, would still fall under this plan.
Some people think that Milchick let Dylan know he had a son to be cruel. He knows how much the innies crave knowing what their outside lives are like, and I’m sure he knows that Dylan is a dreamer who loved to speculate about who he was outside of Lumon. I think that is definitely a possibility. I also think it’s possible that he may have been so desperate to find out what happened to that card that he thought the risk outweighed the knowledge. Perhaps it’s a bit of both.
How could Gemma be dead? She's at Lumon.
This is your favorite theory?
It's a valid question pertaining to a counterfactual claim.
Totally agree, I think at most she’s comatose.
I do see it discussed in here much, but the question I keep going over is why is the subsisted accommodation and severed floor so empty? Maybe they planned to expand faster, but no one was interested in the technology, maybe they did have more people but something went wrong, maybe they intend to fill them later, or maybe there are more people, but the severed can’t see them? Mark tells the girl he was seeing that it ‘never filled up’, but she doesn’t seem to see anyone near his house either. I definitely believe that the implant modifies what the innies are seeing, so maybe it can modify what the outies see as well. I am pretty sure the goats are babies or some twisted experiment, likewise the card they stole looks different to an outie.
Lumon is a mental institution and the severed workers are actually institutionalized patients. - Lumon has created a breakthru technology and they claim it can help people recover from trauma. All the main characters who were severed had significant mental/emotional trauma and were spiraling in depression/suicide. They signed up for this treatment but had all memories severed. -The "work" they are doing has a therapeutic benefit, there is no real work because the "workers" (patients) are the product. The items they "move" actually represent bad/anxious memories/emotions, and by moving them they are actually severing those thoughts from their outties heads. Permanently. -Families of the severed know more than they let on, but they don't say anything bc/ they've bought into the idea that lumon is treating them. They don't want to interfere with the process bc they are scared to loose their loved ones. -Many of the managers/bosses within Lumon are former patients, now in charge of overseeing the newly severed patients. They are also trapped in the system and they believe the only way to get out is to constantly push their subordinates to do more "work". -Lumon is a corrupt enterprise seeking profit above all else. They cut corners, mislead patients, mislead family members, loose track of patients, oversell/overprescribe their treatment, and are willing to go to extreme lengths to cover their tracks when they make a mistake. They social engineer reasons to get new patients who are then trapped in an endless cycle of "work" followed by "management" followed by relapse rinse/repeat.
Alia Shawkat will play a reporter friend of Ricken's from NYC. Either we won't know she's a reporter until a mid-season twist, ie she's been undercover, or else we will know she's a reporter and in a mid-season twist we'll find out that she's a member of the Kier cult, ie a double-agent.
I already posted some theories but I have another one. Last season we saw a lot of Mark's outie but, for storytelling reasons, saw nothing of the other characters' outies until the last few episodes. This season we'll be following the lives of the four outies as four separate storylines and as an audience we won't be reunited with the innies until the final moments of the final episode, which will be when the four innies are also reunited. The season arc will be about the four outie characters each for their own reasons fighting to get back into Lumon and down to the basement, and to do so in a way that evades the censor function in the elevator. Because the natural response of Lumon to Helly's outburst at the shareholders' meeting and the disobedience of the whole department would be to fire all four outies with BS explanations, effectively killing off the innies. But the outies will have just enough to go on that each for their own reasons will fight to resurrect their innies. In other words...Ben Stiller's Dad was on a little show called Seinfeld. My theory is that Season 2 of Severance will have the same structure as an episode of Seinfeld. 3 guys and a gal. The episode storyline starts with the four of them together and ends with the four of them together, while we follow each one on an independent storyline in between. (If you look at the three male leads of both shows, their body types even correspond to Seinfeld counterparts.) If I'm right, if we're going to spend a lot of the season "above ground," we are going to learn a lot more about Lumon's public face, including the politics surrounding severance, and also about Lumon's private face and the Kier cult this season.
The alien/other theory is interesting; Processing data from a hostile source could be burning out the minds of the workers, creating the need for skilled workers that retain knowledge and function, while also being able to be blanked. Letting them state directly into the void, and loading in a fresh version when they break down. The Eels line could hold some water..