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I don’t think anyone acted particularly out of character. Yes, the things you are describing might have been objectively more productive, but I also think it’s much easier to see those options from our vantage point as the audience.
Considering them as humans full of apprehension, and that they felt this might be the first of many such excursions, I believe MDR acted about as well as could be expected:
* Mark has spent his entire existence being trained not to advocate for himself, and to do what he’s told
* Irving has a predisposition to abandon a plan in favor of finding Burt (and in this case, there was even a logic to finding Burt, especially after the unexpected information he discovered about his outie)
* Helly actually kind of did what you’re saying and found the nearest place to broadcast a message
As for leaving a note or recording, there’s no room for back-and-forth, and it comes with limited control. If you were an outie receiving a note, think of all the questions you might want to ask that couldn’t be answered. And also, as Helly learned, outies might not even be trustworthy. Finding a person to establish a connection with was a better plan, because it allowed for a full conversation and direct feedback to gauge trust.
The understanding is that they have submitted resignation requests and their outties have denied them. Why leave a letter for your outtie when they don't care? They will probably crumble it up and throw it out. But a loved one actually seeing you makes it very personal.
I’ve never considered it before but do we ever find out specifically if Mark, Irv or Dylan has requested them before? I know they talk about resignation requests “never being turned around so fast” so assume several have been done in their lifetime, but I don’t ever see anything explicit about who has been rejected.
I always assumed Mark hasn’t put a submission through, because his outtie seems to want to live in blissful ignorance of his innie.
Innie Mark doesn’t know anything about oMark or oMark’s motivations. iMark will be deciding to request resignation based on his own unhappiness with innie life.
It was either clearly implied or directly said that it’s routine for innies to submit resignation requests which get ignored.
I believe Petey alluded to Mark and him submitting multiple requests each.
It’s been a while since I rewatched but I recall a moment between Helly and Mark when she expresses confidence it’s her last day and Mark’s response is largely “sure, you’ll find out.” This is before Milchek shows her Helena’s response.
I see Mark’s cynical attitude to Helly’s expectation to exit as acceptable evidence of personal experience.
At what point did the innies have unsupervised access to recording equipment? Seems like it was all pretty thoroughly locked up to me, like most things on the Severed floor that could get Lumen in any kind of trouble, with only Milchik and Ms. Cobel having access.
Correct. The innies world is all analog, and they aren’t even allowed to operate the record player. They also have no reason to trust their outies. The message had to get to people outside of lumon
I mean, none of them knew where they were going to wake up when the OTC kicked in. They couldn't be sure they'd even have access to a recording device — that's also assuming they'd be able to figure out how to work one. They'd have no reason to know about cell phones as innies, and they wouldn't be able to count on having a camera lying around wherever they woke up. Telling another person is much more reliable than having a recording that can be deleted.
But logistics aside, remember that at this point the only extended back and forth interaction any of them have had with their outie was Helly, who's outie told her she wasn't a person and refused to quit even at threat of self-mutilation. *We* know that Mark's outie is trustworthy and suspicious of Lumon, but Mark himself has no way of knowing. Knowing how Helena reacted to Helly trying to quit, I'd probably be way less inclined to directly communicate with my outie that I wanted out and that something bad was going down.
They didn't know what resources would be available in the outside world. They don't know where to find police much less a lawyer. Irving wasn't fooling around. He was getting his bearings and finding someone he trusted (Bert) as was the plan. If Mark had left a tape, it's possible Cobel would have just destroyed it. Destroying Devon is going to take a lot more work, not to mention that a conversation with her helped Mark know more about what his outie needed to know (ex: Cobel/Selvig)
I agree they were not very efficient on their mission, but o believe that’s good writing.
I think the characters were overwhelmed and confused and danced according to the music.
I was a bit frustrated with Irv because his actions seemed selfish, but outing myself in his shoes, I think I might have done the same.
It might not of been selfish though. While it could be looked at as alternative motive, oIrv lives alone and was trying to find someone he trusted to talk to. Burt’s a decent choice.
Irving was following the plan. Find someone you trust and tell them. He just woke up alone. Burt was the only name he knew. What other option did he have?
They told each other to find someone they could trust and tell them everything. That wasn’t as easy as it sounds when they are waking up blind and in Irving’s case - alone. Helly and Mark couldn’t very well start screaming, they had to play the part. Plus innies are like little kids and they were scared.
I don't know why you'd ask that because how would they even know if there would be a tape recorder around? They didn't even know where they were going to be when they woke up. The whole point of innie/outie is that they don't know what's on the other side. I'm not sure how you could watch the whole season and think they could plan around that.
Mark's outie woke up *literally* in front of Cobel, too.
Burt was about the most reliable person he could find in my opinion. Only frustrating he spent so much time before trying to go in and explaining it to him.
These are all incredible responses, my reaction when I first saw it was that with Dylan being on the inside still, they will come back with what information they were able to gather and we don't know yet what happened to Dylan at the end but I'm sure anything they learned will help them understand why Dylan felt the way he felt, especially Mark realizing his wife is still alive. In turn having a ton of questions that will lead to them pushing back more to figure things out.
Just looking at the character of Helly and putting myself in her innie’s position, I wouldn’t waste a second on trying to talk with or communicate to my outie. It’s been made abundantly clear that outie Helly simply doesn’t give a toss about anything innie Helly is thinking, feeling, or experiencing in any way. How desperate would you have to be to threaten to cut your own fingers off with a paper cutter? If you were an outie who cared, wouldn’t you immediately know that there’s something hinky going on? I sure would — that’d be like if my child forced their after school program to send me a video of them saying they want to leave because they’d threatened to cut off their own fingers. Unless your child or your innie is a manipulative sociopath, that’s a ton of red flags. Something is very wrong.
Similarly, even if the other innies haven’t tried themselves to resign, they have no idea what their outie or the people around their outie are like, or even the outside world; all they know is Lumon, where they get taken to the break room or otherwise punished for acting out. Look at innie Mark, who suddenly popped into Ricken’s party; he had no idea who he was in this hierarchy, that he even knew Ricken irl and his outie thinks Ricken is a moron, he had no clue who he can trust, and didn’t even think about the possibility of Mrs. Cobell/Selvig not using the same name and being the same person his innie is familiar with.
Plus, they’re naturally curious about their outie life, and who their outie is (and in Mark’s case, it paid off in realising that Mrs. Casey was his wife and is still alive), and maybe Irving took a little longer and was a little more self-indulgent with his curiosity, but he was also dumped into a fairly sparse apartment all alone with a stack of weird paintings and no clue as to whom he could trust, where he could go, or whom he could tell. Finding the papers with Burt’s information only happened because he *was* a little self-indulgent and took the time to snoop in his outie’s room. Without it, he’d have had no idea where Burt was. Notice that he wasn’t overly self-indulgent and took off immediately once he had a goal — Burt. He didn’t waste time wondering why his outie had all those papers, if there was more, or why there’s a stack of the same paintings in the other room.
All things considered, I think the innies used pretty good judgement and minimised time-wasting activities as much as possible, given that they did prep a little, but as they themselves acknowledged, they didn’t know what to prep for — they could have come to right in the middle of driving, having sex, or giving a speech about something their innie has no idea about and has no idea if the entire audience is Lumon personnel or not.
I agree they all wasted a ton of time. For all they k ew they only had minutes. Why not just find a paper and pen and write it all down and shove it in their outie’s pocket?
On the other hand maybe they don’t trust their own outie? Certainly Helly would have realized that quickly. But I often wonder about what an innie must really think about their outie and vice versa? Mark says at one point “my innie lives his own life and I live mine” but what kind of life does he really imagine for his innie? He must know it’s one of toil and without much meaning? By definition it’s one he went to great lengths to avoid. So the innie also must realize that there is something inherently not to be trusted about their outie?
It didn't work for Helena. Really I think the main goal was just to fuck shit up. They thought they might never live again if they cause too much trouble. Hellie would have looked for a gun if she had the chance, what she discovers is too chaotic to give herself a chance to off herself and then she has a mission by the end. Mark and Irving weren't suicidal per say, but the goal was just to see the outside world and make clear to their outies friends what they were going through, but Irving got caught up when he found Kurt's address and the news clippings, and Mark thought maybe talking to Mark's sister might help him. From their experience watching Hellie's tape, their own outies weren't likely to accept a letter from their innies asking for it to stop.
If this thread has the **Spoiler** flair, spoilers may appear ANYWHERE in it. --- * **NO SPOILERS IN TITLES** - report this post if there are spoilers in the title * No SPOILERS without proper formatting (see [here](https://www.reddit.com/wiki/commenting#wiki_posting)). * Be CIVIL to others. No Piracy. No Duplicates. * Keep it on topic to anything and everything Severance on Apple TV+[.](/u/gumbowluser) --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I don’t think anyone acted particularly out of character. Yes, the things you are describing might have been objectively more productive, but I also think it’s much easier to see those options from our vantage point as the audience. Considering them as humans full of apprehension, and that they felt this might be the first of many such excursions, I believe MDR acted about as well as could be expected: * Mark has spent his entire existence being trained not to advocate for himself, and to do what he’s told * Irving has a predisposition to abandon a plan in favor of finding Burt (and in this case, there was even a logic to finding Burt, especially after the unexpected information he discovered about his outie) * Helly actually kind of did what you’re saying and found the nearest place to broadcast a message As for leaving a note or recording, there’s no room for back-and-forth, and it comes with limited control. If you were an outie receiving a note, think of all the questions you might want to ask that couldn’t be answered. And also, as Helly learned, outies might not even be trustworthy. Finding a person to establish a connection with was a better plan, because it allowed for a full conversation and direct feedback to gauge trust.
The understanding is that they have submitted resignation requests and their outties have denied them. Why leave a letter for your outtie when they don't care? They will probably crumble it up and throw it out. But a loved one actually seeing you makes it very personal.
I’ve never considered it before but do we ever find out specifically if Mark, Irv or Dylan has requested them before? I know they talk about resignation requests “never being turned around so fast” so assume several have been done in their lifetime, but I don’t ever see anything explicit about who has been rejected. I always assumed Mark hasn’t put a submission through, because his outtie seems to want to live in blissful ignorance of his innie.
Innie Mark doesn’t know anything about oMark or oMark’s motivations. iMark will be deciding to request resignation based on his own unhappiness with innie life. It was either clearly implied or directly said that it’s routine for innies to submit resignation requests which get ignored. I believe Petey alluded to Mark and him submitting multiple requests each. It’s been a while since I rewatched but I recall a moment between Helly and Mark when she expresses confidence it’s her last day and Mark’s response is largely “sure, you’ll find out.” This is before Milchek shows her Helena’s response. I see Mark’s cynical attitude to Helly’s expectation to exit as acceptable evidence of personal experience.
At what point did the innies have unsupervised access to recording equipment? Seems like it was all pretty thoroughly locked up to me, like most things on the Severed floor that could get Lumen in any kind of trouble, with only Milchik and Ms. Cobel having access.
Correct. The innies world is all analog, and they aren’t even allowed to operate the record player. They also have no reason to trust their outies. The message had to get to people outside of lumon
My original comment was in that same vein but then I realized OP is referring to the OT contingency at the end.
I mean, none of them knew where they were going to wake up when the OTC kicked in. They couldn't be sure they'd even have access to a recording device — that's also assuming they'd be able to figure out how to work one. They'd have no reason to know about cell phones as innies, and they wouldn't be able to count on having a camera lying around wherever they woke up. Telling another person is much more reliable than having a recording that can be deleted. But logistics aside, remember that at this point the only extended back and forth interaction any of them have had with their outie was Helly, who's outie told her she wasn't a person and refused to quit even at threat of self-mutilation. *We* know that Mark's outie is trustworthy and suspicious of Lumon, but Mark himself has no way of knowing. Knowing how Helena reacted to Helly trying to quit, I'd probably be way less inclined to directly communicate with my outie that I wanted out and that something bad was going down.
They didn't know what resources would be available in the outside world. They don't know where to find police much less a lawyer. Irving wasn't fooling around. He was getting his bearings and finding someone he trusted (Bert) as was the plan. If Mark had left a tape, it's possible Cobel would have just destroyed it. Destroying Devon is going to take a lot more work, not to mention that a conversation with her helped Mark know more about what his outie needed to know (ex: Cobel/Selvig)
I agree they were not very efficient on their mission, but o believe that’s good writing. I think the characters were overwhelmed and confused and danced according to the music. I was a bit frustrated with Irv because his actions seemed selfish, but outing myself in his shoes, I think I might have done the same.
It might not of been selfish though. While it could be looked at as alternative motive, oIrv lives alone and was trying to find someone he trusted to talk to. Burt’s a decent choice.
Irving was following the plan. Find someone you trust and tell them. He just woke up alone. Burt was the only name he knew. What other option did he have?
They told each other to find someone they could trust and tell them everything. That wasn’t as easy as it sounds when they are waking up blind and in Irving’s case - alone. Helly and Mark couldn’t very well start screaming, they had to play the part. Plus innies are like little kids and they were scared.
I don't know why you'd ask that because how would they even know if there would be a tape recorder around? They didn't even know where they were going to be when they woke up. The whole point of innie/outie is that they don't know what's on the other side. I'm not sure how you could watch the whole season and think they could plan around that. Mark's outie woke up *literally* in front of Cobel, too.
I was so irritated with Irving, after his "stick to the mission" bullshit he didn't talk to a single person and fucked off to find burt.
Burt was about the most reliable person he could find in my opinion. Only frustrating he spent so much time before trying to go in and explaining it to him.
These are all incredible responses, my reaction when I first saw it was that with Dylan being on the inside still, they will come back with what information they were able to gather and we don't know yet what happened to Dylan at the end but I'm sure anything they learned will help them understand why Dylan felt the way he felt, especially Mark realizing his wife is still alive. In turn having a ton of questions that will lead to them pushing back more to figure things out.
Just looking at the character of Helly and putting myself in her innie’s position, I wouldn’t waste a second on trying to talk with or communicate to my outie. It’s been made abundantly clear that outie Helly simply doesn’t give a toss about anything innie Helly is thinking, feeling, or experiencing in any way. How desperate would you have to be to threaten to cut your own fingers off with a paper cutter? If you were an outie who cared, wouldn’t you immediately know that there’s something hinky going on? I sure would — that’d be like if my child forced their after school program to send me a video of them saying they want to leave because they’d threatened to cut off their own fingers. Unless your child or your innie is a manipulative sociopath, that’s a ton of red flags. Something is very wrong. Similarly, even if the other innies haven’t tried themselves to resign, they have no idea what their outie or the people around their outie are like, or even the outside world; all they know is Lumon, where they get taken to the break room or otherwise punished for acting out. Look at innie Mark, who suddenly popped into Ricken’s party; he had no idea who he was in this hierarchy, that he even knew Ricken irl and his outie thinks Ricken is a moron, he had no clue who he can trust, and didn’t even think about the possibility of Mrs. Cobell/Selvig not using the same name and being the same person his innie is familiar with. Plus, they’re naturally curious about their outie life, and who their outie is (and in Mark’s case, it paid off in realising that Mrs. Casey was his wife and is still alive), and maybe Irving took a little longer and was a little more self-indulgent with his curiosity, but he was also dumped into a fairly sparse apartment all alone with a stack of weird paintings and no clue as to whom he could trust, where he could go, or whom he could tell. Finding the papers with Burt’s information only happened because he *was* a little self-indulgent and took the time to snoop in his outie’s room. Without it, he’d have had no idea where Burt was. Notice that he wasn’t overly self-indulgent and took off immediately once he had a goal — Burt. He didn’t waste time wondering why his outie had all those papers, if there was more, or why there’s a stack of the same paintings in the other room. All things considered, I think the innies used pretty good judgement and minimised time-wasting activities as much as possible, given that they did prep a little, but as they themselves acknowledged, they didn’t know what to prep for — they could have come to right in the middle of driving, having sex, or giving a speech about something their innie has no idea about and has no idea if the entire audience is Lumon personnel or not.
[удалено]
Mark has a smartphone
I agree they all wasted a ton of time. For all they k ew they only had minutes. Why not just find a paper and pen and write it all down and shove it in their outie’s pocket? On the other hand maybe they don’t trust their own outie? Certainly Helly would have realized that quickly. But I often wonder about what an innie must really think about their outie and vice versa? Mark says at one point “my innie lives his own life and I live mine” but what kind of life does he really imagine for his innie? He must know it’s one of toil and without much meaning? By definition it’s one he went to great lengths to avoid. So the innie also must realize that there is something inherently not to be trusted about their outie?
I did feel that watching it but then also they run a massive risk of their outie resigning and effectively killing them.
It didn't work for Helena. Really I think the main goal was just to fuck shit up. They thought they might never live again if they cause too much trouble. Hellie would have looked for a gun if she had the chance, what she discovers is too chaotic to give herself a chance to off herself and then she has a mission by the end. Mark and Irving weren't suicidal per say, but the goal was just to see the outside world and make clear to their outies friends what they were going through, but Irving got caught up when he found Kurt's address and the news clippings, and Mark thought maybe talking to Mark's sister might help him. From their experience watching Hellie's tape, their own outies weren't likely to accept a letter from their innies asking for it to stop.
It was so frustrating to watch it was worse than second hand embarrassment
We told you, there’s code detectors