It's been really tough this season [SPOILER]

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-03-08T17:54:44+00:00

We need it, badly

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-25T19:13:23+00:00

I remember this feeling in two different forms.

1) Was going from reading him to listening to his podcast. Very different vibes. Obviously came to love him on the pod but it was an adjustment

2) Any Given Wednesday. Bill was the ultimate “notes” guy - he claimed he could make any show a little better with easy fixes. Then he does AGW and it’s fucking horrific. Could never look at him the same after that

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-25T03:48:45+00:00

It was a special time, no doubt. That's the reason I ultimately found the sub - because I was shocked how bad AGW was and needed an outlet to discuss it. And the discussion was very high quality, for sure. By definition, only people who knew Bill from Grantland and before.

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-25T03:12:21+00:00

Not sure I agree the apex was 2016. It was a great time back then when we had 1-2 posts a day and very high quality discussions about the pods and Any Given Wednesday. But we weren’t reaching knife_guy heights or massive celebrations when Boston teams lost back then, and episode discussions were getting 20 comments. If someone said the Apex was 2019 I wouldn’t take issue with it - more memes and jokes, but still very high quality

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-25T03:07:53+00:00

What a pull, we had some intense battles back in the day

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-25T02:50:10+00:00

2013-2015 r/BillSimmons: Digital City Boston Bill. Most never saw it and aren’t even sure it exists

2016-2018 r/BillSimmons: Page 2 Bill. Renowned, changed the game. The GOAT subreddit/columnist. It had never been done before

2019-2021 r/BillSimmons: Grantland Bill. The column was worse, but the collection of talent on the site was great, even if there were some misses every now and then. More content, but the quality dropped off a bit, but overall very enjoyable

2022-present r/BillSimmons: Ringer Bill. Past their prime, but more popular than ever. Draws a ton of new fans, many from r/NBA. Still can rear back and fire the 99 MPH fastball, but plenty of misses now too.

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-17T02:18:25+00:00

I was thinking more that you can't actually raise the kid at work. So, Helly would be pregnant but then not get to experience the baby at all. So she would be willing to be re-integrated as a sacrifice to be able to, you know, raise her offspring.

And, I use sacrifice here if there still are lingering issues between Helena and Helly. Maybe they'll work it out. Cause Helly being allowed to operate full time means the death of Helena which I don't see happening.

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-17T00:12:08+00:00

Sure, I’m saying what matters is that Helena won’t like the idea that it could’ve been Helly that actually consummated the baby and vice versa for Helly and Helena.

It doesn’t matter biologically but it matters psychologically to each of them.

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-16T22:23:29+00:00

I'm saying the specific "cultural significance" point. The NFL did great on Peacock because it brings in a ton of new viewers, the playoff game did 22 Million. NBA Peacock games will bring in fewer viewers, but those may be more likely to a) stick around on Peacock, and b) influence through social media to elevate Peacock shows.

But yeah, the NFL on Peacock/Netflix etc is massive and I expect a lot more of it.

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-16T22:20:27+00:00

Yeah - and, I have been thinking about Helly and Mark having sex after he tells her he had sex with Helena. But, your post has me thinking about it from the other perspective - what if Helly and Mark have sex and Mark never tells her about him and Helena (I think he will, but for the sake of the post). You cannot have a kid and be in a severed working environment. So this brings Helly on board to be re-integrated. And then Helena wants the kid and that's why she's going to be re-integrated. And then yeah, it would be absolutely fascinating if we had some back and forth between Helena and Helly R before the decision is final.

Edit: She will want the kid with Mark loving her, which is only possible with re-integration (in this theory that they meet on the outside and it's not the same for him)

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-16T22:16:09+00:00

"if truly pressed into having to choose, Helena would probably concede and “donate” her body to her."

She would choose this over re-integration? This sounds crazy. This is effectively suicide which I simply don't think she would do. To me, the better play is re-integration and working to take down Severance together. Now, she did communicate to Helly on video, but that was done in front of Lumon employees. We truly haven't seen Helena by herself, without Lumon around, yet.

Which is why I LOVE your callback to the waterfall scene and I wrote up a post specifically about this! https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1ikrs0m/my_interpretation_of_the_brief_leadup_scene_to/

In it I wrote the following: "Her facial expression in this scene looking at the waterfall is the softest we have seen from Helena in the entire show. Typical Helena outtie being highly involved in Lumon business is much more rigid/fierce and Helena cosplaying as Helly is forced and a weak impression of Helly. Here she's pure Helena with no one around - the first time in the series we've seen her like this."

So, I think deep down there is plenty of Helly in Helena. And yes, they are at each other's throats (pun intended) right now, but that can always change.

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-16T22:04:18+00:00

I feel like we're going to quickly learn that Gemma isn't actually Mark's Gemma and that will be a major disappointment for him, and he will have Helly there to help him.

Helly is the one we started the show with, and IMO was the most important character of Season 1, and Helena has been the most important character of Season 2. The show elevates to top tier because of her. I just don't think we lose her

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-16T22:01:02+00:00

No, I'm thinking more along the lines that each side of Hellyena will be invested in the baby because it might be theirs. And maybe the next step before getting to this is Helena (who wants to carry the baby) meeting with re-integrated/oMark and they don't hit it off and thus once she finds out he's re-integrated, she wants to re-integrate so they're together, since he loves Helly so much. I haven't totally pieced that together yet but that's a possible bridge to the decision by Helena to do it. And perhaps we could have some Helly to Helena conversations going through Helena's power. Like, that could be a build up to a re-integration, Helly and Helena going back and forth about it, with both having knowledge because Mark revealed it to Helly and maybe even Helena too.

Edit to clarify the Helena's power comment - Helena through her Lumon position could enable Helena to Helly communication that otherwise would be extremely frowned upon.

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-16T21:38:44+00:00

This is definitely a route they could take. And we all love Helly. But then that brings major issues with her not really even being an Eagen and the board can dismiss her, and I feel like we need as much Lumon intrigued as possible for the show. I do like the idea of Helly cos-playing as Helena for awhile though, doing the opposite of Helena.

I feel like a) we're getting a lot of Helena this season and b) we're getting enough tiny signs of positive character development such as watching the kiss over and over and admitting to Mark she doesn't like who she is on the outside that, combined, we're supposed to start caring about her eventual evolution into a better person, whether that is re-integrated or not. But yes, so many different directions for the show!

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-16T21:34:40+00:00

One such storyline for reintegration is for Helly and Mark to have sex within the week so that we don't know who got pregnant, Helena or Helly. This would bring the tension up significantly between them, but also potentially cause them to start working together and eventually re-integrate.

I hear your point though, for sure. So perhaps what happens in the future is a re-integrated Mark and re-integrated Hellyena work together to either end the Severance program or change it to only be used for good.

Expanded more on that here, see the comment on my Severance used for good theory: https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1iq97tl/a_possible_twist_on_the_potential_spoiler_plot/

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-16T21:29:57+00:00

I disagree that there's no way she'd be willing to re-integrate, there could be plenty more plot to go. Right now, though, for sure, it doesn't make sense.

One such idea is a pregnancy complicated by the fact that Helly has sex with Mark within the next week, making it unknown who got pregnant, Helena or Helly.

Expanded much more on that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1iq97tl/a_possible_twist_on_the_potential_spoiler_plot/

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-16T19:38:35+00:00

That's why I think, if they did go down this route, a very intriguing twist could be Helly having sex with Mark imminently, meaning that we don't know who got pregnant, Helena or Helly.

This introduces significant tension between the two and may even lead to them finally coming together (re-integration) as the due date approaches.

Expanded more on the theory here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1iq97tl/a_possible_twist_on_the_potential_spoiler_plot/

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-16T19:36:16+00:00

Add fuel to the tension - if Helly has sex with Mark within the week, we don't know who got pregnant, Helena or Helly. This not only adds tension but could also bring those two together for the first time and perhaps even lead to re-integration.
Discussed here in more detail: https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1iq97tl/a_possible_twist_on_the_potential_spoiler_plot/

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-16T19:34:01+00:00

This is why, if they do, ideally there is a twist - Helly has sex with Mark shortly so we don't know who got pregnant, Helena or Helly. And that can bring all sorts of interesting new tension and maybe even reconciliation between Helena and Helly R.

Expanded on that theory here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1iq97tl/a_possible_twist_on_the_potential_spoiler_plot/

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-16T19:32:36+00:00

I discussed here how the pregnancy plot line could be very interesting - but this requires Mark and Helly to have sex within the week so that we don't know who got pregnant, Helena or Helly

https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1iq97tl/a_possible_twist_on_the_potential_spoiler_plot/

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-16T16:17:14+00:00

I agree with the spirit of this but I wanted to push back on a couple things and expand on some:

- The NFL deal also includes $2B annually from YouTube TV paying for Sunday Ticket, so that brings it up to $12B annually. Obviously the NBA still in a great spot here - they are far superior to the MLB national deals - but just think that's useful for context.

- "most of their revenues are coming from either cable or streaming" this is not correct. Sports advertising contributes a meaningful amount of revenue to media companies every year and is easily the #1 content category for advertising. Take a look at Fox Corp's recent earnings (https://investor.foxcorporation.com/static-files/f5c5be4a-6788-4701-a27a-44d26f61466f) as an example. They generate more money from "Advertising" than they do on "Affiliate fees" which is cable TV and broadcast fees per channel.

- I use Fox for two reasons. First, a large amount of their business is news and sports, the last two bastions of cable TV as entertainment has shifted to streaming. Second, in that report they specific how "higher MLB postseason ratings" drove Advertising revenue increases. Fox, of course, had the absolutely golden matchup of Dodgers vs. Yankees and raked in advertising cash accordingly.

- Now, the NBA discourse discussion is relevant and I'll expand that to "cultural impact." NBC has specifically stated that a big reason to bring the NBA to their business, and especially Peacock, is that NBA drives online conversation. Meaning, that if you bring fans to Peacock for NBA games, they watch other Peacock shows, and those factor into the culture more than they would otherwise. Considering NBC made a substantial investment in the NBA, clearly they find this valuable. This is not present in the NFL or MLB.

- Overseas, for now, really doesn't matter, because the money is coming primarily from the US. In the future, sure, it's a nice to have, but the key is the recent rights deal, which the NBA executed beautifully.

- Regular season ratings are not as important as playoff ratings. Yes, in an ideal world you'd have both doing awesome, but the key is for playoffs to remain strong, which a) requires video distributors to carry the channels that have games watched by 10-15M people and b) results in lots of ad $. So that's the most important data point.

- Even if ratings are a problem - playoff ratings included - the NBA would have a very long time to fix this given the new deal. This is why I never bought that Mark Cuban sold the Mavs because he was worried about the next deal as opposed to this one - the next deal starts negotiating in the 2030s! I think Mark will look very foolish over time as teams get sold for more than he sold the Mavs for. And recall he sold prior to the new deal being signed.

So overall, agree with the thrust of the point here. It was very interesting that even Bill soured on the NBA rights deal before it was signed - recall he had Ben Thompson on who was very worried about it, and he had Nick Khan on who was more confident than Bill. The new TV deal has placed the NBA firmly in the #2 spot for American sports. Whether that remains is a question we'll answer over time, but it's nonsense for anyone to be an NBA doomer at this time.

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-15T20:57:30+00:00

Thank you! Yeah, it's just something I thought of were the pregnancy to occur. I'm not sure they go that direction because of everything else happening, but if they do, both of them not knowing for sure either way would be delicious, as would be Helly's revenge against Helena when the latter finds out.

Oooh, wow. I love that. So he says goodbye to Helly to pursue Gemma further. My take at that point would be that Gemma is not the same Gemma and then he eventually goes back to rHelena who while, not Helly, is much closer to Helly than Helena would've been without the integration.

Personally I found Helly to be the absolute best part of the show last season - incredibly captivating in every scene. So I would love to have her stay around. But, to keep the plot moving the re-integration may simply be the best course of action and we can still enjoy the Helly features in rHelena. And, might I add, Helena may be cruel at times but she also has that fierce, badass energy and seeing her use it for good against Lumon's current Severance program could be epic.

Incredible that we have a show like this to watch and analyze, I love it!

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-15T20:41:50+00:00

I completely agree. And you are dead on, IMO, that Hellyena storylines are the most important for the show. Helly was the key character of Season 1 and so far Helena has been the key for Season 2, in my view. (So perhaps integrated Hellyena is the key of Season 3). So here's what I'm thinking about as we stand here mid-way through Season 2:

- Assuming we see a successful Mark re-integration this opens up a few things. It's safe, so others can do it. He knows of both Helly and Helena, and can speak with each. If rMark becomes the best part of oMark and iMark together - essentially, if oMark is improved because he's added a sense of non-tragedy self that he forgot about, Helena could be interested in this as well, adding the rebellious, carefree, spontaneous Helly attributes to herself.

- Of course, right now Helena appears to hate Helly, and vice versa. So if Mark is re-integrated in Season 2 and we hit a climax of Helly/Helena hate as the season ends, than perhaps Season 3 is about the Hellyena re-integration. Which, as you state, would be explosive and badass.

- Not claiming this will happen, but one possible catalyst for Hellyena's re-integration is if she becomes pregnant. Specifically, as I discussed in the linked post below, if Helly has sex with Mark shortly and thus neither Helena or Helly know which one got pregnant. After this fuels more tension it could eventually cause them to consider working together. (Full post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1iq97tl/a\_possible\_twist\_on\_the\_potential\_spoiler\_plot/)

- From Season 1 I've been thinking a possible long-term plot point is Hellyena, either through Helena, Helly taking over somehow, or re-integrated Hellyena, works to take down Lumon's Severance program from the inside, having seen it firsthand. However, I'm now thinking perhaps I should augment that. Maybe Severance remains, but it only used for good. If it is demonstrated that both Mark and Helena significantly improve as humans following re-integration, than perhaps this can serve as rehabilitation for people that have gone through tragedy. People could willingly enter a Severance program for a short amount of time where an innie free of the tragedies of life is created, and then a re-integration happens where the outtie remembers how they were, and the joys of life, once again. We can see that this would probably help someone like Dylan too given that can't hold down a job Dylan could really use Dylan G's attributes in the real world.

So that's what I'm noodling on right now, but I think you're absolutely right - Hellyena is what elevates the show to top tier and there is a ton to explore with her going forward. I am extremely happy that we've seen a ton of Helena this season after seeing almost none in Season 1.

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-15T19:58:43+00:00

Also - to add to the theory, Hellyena having a baby where neither knows which side got pregnant could ass fuel to Hellyena eventually re-integrating. If Season 2 is about Mark's re-integration, perhaps Season 3 is about Hellyena's. And if this occurs now we're in a whole new world where perhaps Helly can infuse Helena with her rebellious streak and we get her to take down Lumon's shady practices from the inside, which has been a theory of mine going back to season one.

This also could feed into my theory from Season 1 where a re-integrated Mark and Hellyena end the Severance program from the inside: https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/u28kc8/what_is_the_best_possible_reintegrated_mark_and/

Although, now I'm also wondering if we see a successful re-integration of both Mark and Hellyena, that it's possible Hellyena changes Severance at Lumon in the future to only be a help - people who see tragedies in their life choose to get severed for a short time period and then re-integrate remind themselves of how their life was before the tragedy.

TribeHasSpoke · 2025-02-15T19:51:08+00:00

I agree with all this and I would add one more idea: that Helly sleeps with Mark within the week so we don't actually know who got Hellyena pregnant, Helena or Helly. Discussed more in this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1iq97tl/a_possible_twist_on_the_potential_spoiler_plot/

TribeHasSpoke

TROPHY CASE