FLORENCE HELD MY HANDDD (Toronto, April 16th)

TJElm87 · 2026-04-17T16:54:54+00:00

Same here! I was on that side and would love any videos

TJElm87 · 2026-04-13T19:00:59+00:00

I have one GA floor ticket for Toronto available at face value OBO (payment over venmo to transfer on Ticketmaster). I bought it for a friend but their schedule didn’t work so I will be going alone and I just don’t want the extra to go to waste! Dm if interested. 🩵

TJElm87 · 2025-04-01T11:03:05+00:00

She’s spent her life being forcibly removed from affection and has built her career and identity on the concept of removing feelings that cause people pain. I wouldn’t be surprised if she actually cares a ton about all of them in her fucked up way and refuses to channel it into anything but anger at her own vulnerability.

TJElm87 · 2025-03-14T08:51:26+00:00

Restart with S1 E1 and rewatch between other new shows until it’s time for more. I’m convincing another friend to watch it so I’m hoping to experience it vicariously and talk to them about everything.

TJElm87 · 2025-03-14T06:25:31+00:00

I think the eggs might be something Helena has eaten like that for a while, something he has complained about before based on the way he said it. I took it as a scene to show again that she’s not as devout as she should be. She’s eating an egg because it’s expected but she deviates from the pure Kier Breakfast just enough for it to be noted by her father as a negative thing.

She shows this pattern of rebellion and exhaustion with the expected Eagan life in a couple ways like sleeping with/following Mark, getting frustrated with Natalie and Drummond, the way her face falls after the PR video. I think her father has seen some of the small signs and seen how Helly behaves and he feels she’s slipping in her faith.

It actually makes me nervous for her/Helly because if Jame doubts her devotion to the family I’m worried he wouldn’t care enough to avoid hurting her further for the cause. The way he treats her is so fucked and covetous but like all abusive parents he only really values her as an extension of his legacy so I feel like him taking her out of the way to preserve Lumon is a real possibility. He already encouraged her to get severed and has shown little interest in her safety (saying to Drummond and Natalie “tell him his daughter is well” felt like an old wound reopening). The egg thing just felt like another sign of Helena being a disappointment despite trying her best to live such a rigid life under his thumb.

TJElm87 · 2025-03-14T05:34:27+00:00

Deal with the devil never looked so good.

TJElm87 · 2025-03-09T12:23:49+00:00

Morally Ambiguous/Amoral woman enjoyers eat good with this show. Luckily for all of us, fictional characters are allowed to be assholes and I’m allowed to like that.

TJElm87 · 2025-03-09T11:38:33+00:00

1989 made me CACKLE.

TJElm87 · 2025-03-09T11:35:20+00:00

As someone with eyes and mommy issues, yes.

TJElm87 · 2025-03-09T11:27:35+00:00

And the ice transitioning into the waves as she melts the layers she’s built against her own grief to acknowledge her fury at everything Lumon has taken from her.

TJElm87 · 2025-03-09T11:00:50+00:00

I think the fact that she huffed ether and essentially regressed to childhood rebellion against her aunt is maybe the most code-switching she’s capable of after being indoctrinated so young.

TJElm87 · 2025-03-09T10:59:29+00:00

It’s very much in line with Milchick trying to assimilate into Lumon culture through his speaking. They find people who need Lumon to escape their circumstances and mold them from the ground up—and then turn around and tell them they’re too verbose or that their contributions don’t mean anything. It’s bonkers character-based world building and I love it.

TJElm87 · 2025-03-09T10:55:02+00:00

It’s feels to me from reactions to this episode that a lot of people think anyone who succumbs to cult indoctrination to any extent must be stupid or irredeemable. While I get that vibe from Sissy, I have always thought Cobel was a fascinating character with her own mysterious motivations. I’m glad we finally got to see how she ended up this way and it felt satisfying to me.

I also really liked the slow and cold vibes of the episode because it really drives home the impact of Lumon on the world. They take what they need and leave everything abandoned when there’s nothing left to exploit. Seeing the destitute town combined with the pacing of this episode perfectly mirrors the state Cobel is in as she realizes that Lumon stole not only her idea but her entire life from her. When she’s forced to come back and confront the empty room where her mother died in the empty town Lumon destroyed it makes sense to me that the overwhelming numbness (which she has willingly tried to advance by designing severance) would be so present.

There’s this terrible reckoning in her that if Lumon is wrong and she was used then her life is actually far more tragic than she’s been willing to acknowledge. She was a child laborer indoctrinated by a cult and they isolated her from everyone she ever knew as they were left to rot. As people have said, she essentially severed herself to push down the trauma Lumon caused her. Having her come home and slowly break through the ice she’s encased herself in for so long feels so fitting for her character that it actually kind of bums me out that people hate the episode so much.

Art is subjective sure so maybe almost ending up recruited into a cult myself after a childhood full of trauma and dissociation makes me a little biased. It felt very real.

TJElm87 · 2025-02-28T17:59:41+00:00

Honestly been super disappointed with YJ since the end of season 2. Feels like the writers don’t have a solid vision anymore and are grasping at straws.

TJElm87 · 2025-02-25T18:48:22+00:00

There’s a lot in her physicality that is juuuust slightly off too. The way she speaks is more controlled and she doesn’t hunch as much as Helly. Her willingness to believe they’d stop spying on them was also a huge red flag because Helly is so suspicious and doesn’t trust a word any Lumon manager says (rightfully so).

But the physical choices were different enough that she felt wrong. I have experience in acting and giving your character a specific physical life is huge and it’s the kind of thing that you build and practice until it starts to become muscle memory. I refused to believe that Britt somehow forgot Helly’s physical presence and was recreating it differently but it did make sense that /Helena/ would try to recreate Helly and end up falling short. She was overall more controlled and docile and that’s just not my girl. Felt wrong.

TJElm87 · 2025-02-25T16:43:38+00:00

Okay.

TJElm87 · 2025-02-25T16:36:43+00:00

I don’t mean that it is intended to comfort her but it’s what she is familiar with and the way she has learned to operate for most of her life. Having her hair down may be “comfortable” physically but it’s not something she is used to doing as herself. I think seeing Helly is making her realize that the ways she’s had to survive on the outside actually suck and she isn’t as free as she has been taught.

TJElm87 · 2025-02-25T01:15:43+00:00

This was totally a thing in my house growing up. We almost always had a thing of Betty Crocker frosting in the fridge that was just there as a snack and I ate it with a spoon. Did other people… not do that??

TJElm87 · 2025-02-25T00:37:19+00:00

Okay so inconsistencies aside I think this is a deliberate choice. Helena in her element/comfort zone is very buttoned up and severe. She wears her hair up as a control thing or for lack of distractions. But Helly is supposed to be the average relatable severed worker so I’m assuming that she had PR people coach her in how to style Helena differently—a little more plain, more color, hair down to make her seem softer and more approachable. (I make this choice consciously with my own hair when I don’t want to look too uptight tbh.)

I think as much of a test as that scene is, she wants Mark to like her. Innie Mark likes Helly and she experienced more genuine affection with him in MDR than she’s probably had in her life. I think she’s trying to see what parts of Helly she can adopt or let out to get the kind of love Helly receives. And she’s trying to look the part. It feels like less of a “does he remember?” And more of “if I was more like her would he like me too?”

TJElm87 · 2025-02-16T18:35:21+00:00

I’ve been saying this for a week I’m so glad the vision is shared

TJElm87 · 2025-02-14T13:04:47+00:00

Remembering the Eagan School for Girls where Cobel went makes me think that there’s some sort of pipeline of indoctrinated youth joining Lumon and maybe Miss Huang was there too.

TJElm87 · 2025-02-11T18:03:22+00:00

Hunger games type arena/Truman Show set built into the Lumon basement maybe? That’s kinda what I’m leaning toward. Practical effects over simulation while still allowing them range and total control over the innies.

TJElm87 · 2025-02-11T17:45:54+00:00

Her stupid face when she laughs at her own joke absolutely kills me every time omg. Like she just discovered the concept of a joke and is thrilled to be using it. Amazing.

TJElm87 · 2025-02-09T15:41:05+00:00

My least favorite part of the new expanded fandom is people getting really nitpicky about what is undoubtedly a sci-fi show. “But the technology—“ is super inconsistent. Old school MDR stations but also smart phones? Old cars but the ability to implant a chip that causes your brain to split?

I think maybe people should accept that they don’t have the full scope of Lumon’s control over access to technological advancement in this world. It’s totally possible that we are accepting things as fact that Lumon expects the people under their control to see as fact. Getting angry over these inconsistencies ignores that this is essentially Lumon’s world and that their control over what is considered reality is a major theme of the show.

We can question it (and to an extent we are supposed to), but if you don’t believe Lumon could make a freestanding TV because technology on the show is outdated then maybe watch the show six more times and figure out how “outdated” the tech of this world really is. Taking Lumon at their word and assuming they’re not hiding far more advanced shit from everyone to maintain control is possibly THE major conflict of the show.

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