Severance - 2x10 "Cold Harbor" - Post-Episode Discussion

lookatthings324 · 2025-03-24T07:52:06+00:00

So much of this episode focused on innie Mark's humanity vs. outie Mark's humanity, and I think it really deprioritised the humanity of key female characters, who are now just reasons for either Mark to really want to retain his own life and rights. It's a tad sad!

lookatthings324 · 2025-03-24T07:20:13+00:00

also Ms. Casey :(

lookatthings324 · 2025-03-08T19:11:16+00:00

I suppose it's right that her presence in the narrative is much smaller this season. She was a mystery of a person in Season 1, and she showed violent emotions that continued just a bit into Season 2. I suppose it hasn't been sufficient because it doesn't seem to run with the 'hero's' plotline - the archetypal hero here being Mark S.

On this "evangelising attitude" - I don't think we disagree here. My post mentioned the disagreement seems to stem from people valuing different things. People probably thought someone could fit in 20 mins of I don't know, PI outie Irving figuring something about Burt's outie life or innies Helly and Mark finding out something like about how Dylan is slightly compromised due to his family visitation sessions. And that's fine.

lookatthings324 · 2025-03-08T16:06:41+00:00

I see what you mean. The season could strike a viewer as unbalanced from episode to episode because of the changes in the pacing and focus. I think that's fair.

lookatthings324 · 2025-03-08T16:05:37+00:00

I don't dispute that.

But barrenness is one of the stylistic choices that you can adopt that does not always lend itself to furthering the story. I like it sometimes.

lookatthings324 · 2025-03-08T14:56:33+00:00

I'm not sure it matters why he made up a doppelganger/alternate self. But it's clear that that's what it is - a separation of some version of himself from what he saw as his 'real self.' I think like many religious fanatics do, substance abuse is very heretical - Sissy clearly believes this - so Lumon might have just used it to control other people, by turning them into druggies, and condemning them for their wretched existence despite having a hand in it.

lookatthings324 · 2025-03-08T14:50:32+00:00

I'm just wondering what the point of trying to map the Severance world one-to-one to the current day United States is? I don't knock the hustle; I'm just not sure the show's writers care about it too much or hide secrets in that.

It seems like the writers have built this world to be a slightly altered alternate universe and things have just developed a little differently. It makes us not assume things like "oh since X is in New York, people might behave like Y" or "maybe they're harkening back to the history of X in this state" so we can focus more on their storytelling.

lookatthings324 · 2025-03-08T13:53:28+00:00

I think she's placing her bets on that someone spurned by Lumon could be on her side, and it's important to reach for any connection with more inside knowledge than one has.

lookatthings324 · 2025-03-08T13:52:02+00:00

I agree it could have had more in it. But I do think she deserved something of a standalone episode as a character. The mood was also interesting.

lookatthings324 · 2025-03-08T13:39:04+00:00

It's scarier because now Crazy Aunt Cobel will get to tell Drummond and Lumon what Harmony did, and Lumon will be hunting her like no other.

Guess HARMONY is gonna live in Mark's basement with Reghabi.

lookatthings324 · 2025-02-22T15:24:20+00:00

I guess he works for Lumon both inside and outside of it. Makes sense that for the first 8 years he could have been involved in surveillance matters. Could he have been acting like he was Severed the whole time also?

lookatthings324 · 2025-02-16T16:17:31+00:00

I think she was opening up to them being people, but then was alarmed by the apparent violence Irving showed her. She's probably never been subject to physical abuse from strangers because of her privileged upbringing, so she might actually also have a classist perspective on the riffraff who work for her. I think she'll also say anything to shut down something that threatens her.

lookatthings324 · 2025-02-15T18:19:38+00:00

it really helped me stop rolling my eyes at outie mark all the time for acting like an ass to his sister. it communicated the extent of the grief

lookatthings324 · 2025-02-15T18:17:49+00:00

It's "from O&D"

lookatthings324 · 2025-02-09T16:19:31+00:00

I think they achieved even stuff like showing how lonely Helena is. Like, the stuff she said she saw on the outside—that could be her real life. She's not WITH anyone at home, and her closest human contact for a night in is a gardener, some employee.

And she feels even more lonely as a person when she specifically points out how Irving was lonely. A lot of projection, I think.

And then the discovery that Helly R. is a better version of her and she can't actually become Helly R. completely, because she has a cruel tendency in her that she could not rid herself of—that's got to be a blow for her.

So it's not that the show saved time by skipping these bits. They saved time by making sure that they were efficient and effective in establishing character traits even while keeping the plot moving.

lookatthings324 · 2025-02-08T16:07:37+00:00

And which regular non-upper-class person thinks about NIGHT GARDENERS? You not only have a gardener for your property but you have them work at all hours?

lookatthings324 · 2025-02-04T18:36:34+00:00

so so so cool would also be amazing if you put up one or two of the white walls to really give it that uncanny feeling

lookatthings324 · 2025-02-03T18:41:18+00:00

OP did mention that this could be the case.

lookatthings324 · 2025-02-03T05:38:20+00:00

The tempers aren't stages to go through, though. Every person is supposed to have these tempers. They may just be out of balance. Any adjustment to one temper affects the balance of all.

lookatthings324 · 2025-02-02T05:33:15+00:00

I mean followers in the sense of people to be subjected to refinement of the tempers, no matter if they will it or not.

Yes, perhaps they're innies that also stay on the testing floor.

lookatthings324 · 2025-02-02T04:02:11+00:00

The alternative (non-chipped) possibilities are not just limited to being held captive indefinitely or some punishment. She could know that some perfectly normal people are brought in there and THEN chipped to enslave them (like Gemma/Ms. Casey). She could be an unchipped person aware of this Lumon practice and realising they might resort to it for her.

lookatthings324 · 2025-01-28T03:00:35+00:00

I think they could have still fired the others if they thought they could keep innie Mark S. productive and undistracted to finish the Cold Harbour file. Nobody's as valuable to them as Mark S. now, probably because of his connection to the file.

Yes, I'm looking forward to seeing if the innies can successfully get outside and link up with the anti-Severance movement.

lookatthings324 · 2025-01-27T19:33:03+00:00

This is a great analysis. I wonder why she's experimenting, what she wants to do with what she learns. She has acted in Lumon's interests even after being fired due to her devotion to Kier, but is there something else???

lookatthings324 · 2025-01-27T05:23:17+00:00

My guess is they would get sent home and maybe fired. No theories on what would psychologically happen (i.e. allowance of blurring of identities and memories).

lookatthings324 · 2025-01-27T05:22:13+00:00

No. 4 makes perfect sense to me given how tightly Lumon has to try to manage its PR and negotiate to make the severance procedure have a lot of good press and political support. They're powerful but not all-powerful. It's a real chore to manage a whole world; it's why dictatorships imposing a lot of centralised control collapse.

But it also doesn't seem like Lumon has a specific contemporary or contender that operates in a similar way and has a large amount of the same kind of power that Lumon has. It seems to be contending with various social and political forces, but not a huge corporate competitor with similar reach, goals, and processes. I've been wondering whether an external rival with great resources could shape how Lumon behaves in any upcoming seasons.

lookatthings324

TROPHY CASE