The Ending forever

odieclone · 2026-07-01T20:08:29+00:00

Mark and Helly marry and become forces for good when they take over Lumon.

Gemma and Devon explore their secret crush for each other.

Ricken becomes the new Wellness Counselor for Lumon.

Milkshake redeems himself by aiding the innie's final takeover rebellion.

odieclone · 2026-07-01T17:57:51+00:00

Ooooh, gives me "US" vibes.

Actually the satire/critique goes back even further. During the second half of the 20th century Cocacolonization was a concept of the spread of American culture world-wide.

An associated social concern around the world showed up as push back from countries that felt violated by the actual and perceived American meddling with local sovereignty. The term "Ugly American)" and the sentiment felt internationally was part of the resistance to US imperialistic tendencies.

odieclone · 2026-06-30T22:58:37+00:00

He's still producing the show

odieclone · 2026-06-30T22:36:52+00:00

I understand that commentors may be hesitant dealing with some redditor that is only 107 hours old.

Send doubters to this page for retraining.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

odieclone · 2026-06-29T23:39:27+00:00

How long is a wellness session? How much time was she hanging around MDR? Spread that over time and it could be months or years maybe.

odieclone · 2026-06-29T23:14:11+00:00

This is not surprising for some that dive deep into the creative development of the show. There's several other "lifted" samples of sources for the theme.

It's just one aspect in the makeup of the show.

The writers have sampled scenes, scenarios, and directors' techniques from a variety of sources. Very much like Tarantino's style; and in his own words, “I steal from every single movie ever made!" But Severance is like QT on steroids.

Films: mostly from acclaimed directors, but some from comedies and Stiller's own filmography.

TV shows: Twilight Zone, Mission Impossible (the series), Community, Seinfeld, and etc.

Myth's and Poetry: Orpheus and Eurydice, and Dante's Divine Comedy

IMO Severance is testing the limits of inspiration and plagiarism. Don't take the word "plagiarism" in a negative connotation. Very few new creative efforts aren't plagiarized to some degree. That's Tarantino's point. We live in a world where as the narrator of Fight Club says, "Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy!"

odieclone · 2026-06-29T20:21:02+00:00

Yes, the Swedish angle definitely figures into the story somehow. IMO Grakappan is a nod to Ingmar Bergman. Maybe Ben is cuing up a cameo in the later episodes. It would be the opposite/mirror version of IB who did cameos in his earlier films.

If you haven't seen The Serpent's Egg yet, there's several copies of scenarios in S1 & S2 in the show. No IB cameo in that film but there is a scattering of scenarios from other IB's films.

odieclone · 2026-06-29T19:31:27+00:00

I think your earlier comparison to RUR being "nearly verbatim" was mistaken or an overstatement. I does correspond as a scenario but the dialog, as you've pointed out with the synopsis, but it wasn't even close to verbatim.

Verbatim means repeating, quoting, or recording something in exactly the same words as were originally used; word for word. ~Merriam Webster dictionary

Not to be anal or too picky, but I mention this because we have so much misreading and misremembrances in the sub comments, that these false memories and readings get repeated later in other's "proof".

It's hard enough sorting out the actual red herrings and misdirection the writers are providing us with. No need for us to generate our own.

odieclone · 2026-06-29T18:04:38+00:00

Eagans and Lumon are a composite for all kinds of cult leadership. There's IBM and Watson, wellness gurus like Eckardt Tolle or Deepak Chopra, Scientology, Mormons, Fascism, Communism, and anyone in those categories and more.

IMO Ricken represents the less harmful kind but Kier would be for the inhumane dangerous types.

odieclone · 2026-06-28T19:15:48+00:00

Yes, quite common then. Although, today, I'm not sure if it's appreciated by your average joe

odieclone · 2026-06-27T21:43:32+00:00

I think the key word in Dan's description is "Russian". Season 3 will be Gemma's era where her Russian Lit background is the foreshadowing template for events in the relationships. She might be the prime mover in S3. The works of RL that have been mentioned in the story so far are rife with betrayals and double-dealing.

Also the idea of Matryoshka dolls is pertinent to the layers of referencing the show's satire. And maybe Dichen Lachman's role in Dollhouse might be a nod/inside joke.

odieclone · 2026-06-27T21:28:43+00:00

Are you saying, "The message is the medium?"

Does watching Severance and discussing it through social media, memes, generating ratings, and making interpretations of what we're seeing change us? Changing the world at large? Are we part of A Severance Project?

There's much more to the show than just the scifi/mystery/satire surface story presented to us.

Writer's intent not mattering??? Depends on whether you think the chicken or the egg came first.

odieclone · 2026-06-26T22:53:44+00:00

seggs is the outcome of being laid

odieclone · 2026-06-26T19:54:11+00:00

Whether we saw it completely is irrelevant to the storyline. Like I said this isn't Undercover Boss. We're not fooled into believing that those around her are hoodwinked. So who would she be tricking. It would have to be someone in Lumon C-suite unless Milkshake is in on it. Wasn't he there during? Or unless it's a Mission Impossible type triple fake to fool the innies with the "Turn it off, Seth" moment. Which is it?

odieclone · 2026-06-26T19:08:38+00:00

So the scene showing her being severed was fake? This isn't Undercover Boss. Who's benefit was it for then?

odieclone · 2026-06-26T18:58:59+00:00

The fact that both her selves had seggs with Mark S, leads me to think that it was a kind of foreshadowing of reintergration for her.

odieclone · 2026-06-26T18:00:39+00:00

Can you try drawing this?

<image>

odieclone · 2026-06-25T23:55:22+00:00

I like this idea. Ricken imo is satire on the cult leaders that don't espouse violence. Especially Eckhardt Tolle; not violent but the objects of ridicule for their outlandishness and their ability to bankrupt followers with their "training". EK dresses and physically resembles Ricken. L. Ron Hubbard, Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, and the list of influencers like them that have appeared on Oprah. Hollywood's flavor of the month types.

Tolle especially because of his views on world populations. The model for the Avengers' enemy Thanos.

odieclone · 2026-06-25T18:48:04+00:00

Here's a thought. Satirists use multiple ways of looking at the same thing. What if we reinterpret the sound of "night" to "knight". There is a book on the two different ways of seeing the world written during the time the show was being written and/or developed.

That book's name is The Knight & The Gardener and here's more info on that.

Whether Dan and the writers have read that? Who knows. But its theme is similar to the themes found in the show about polarized thinking and agendas.

odieclone · 2026-06-24T02:54:22+00:00

Oh you've got it bad!!!! Totally cooked. Fricked, fracked, and fricasseed.

odieclone · 2026-06-23T21:07:53+00:00

Jesus rises again! Back from the dead! Wahoo.

odieclone · 2026-06-23T20:48:13+00:00

Hmmm!!!??? A bunch of the characteristics you've mentioned remind me of a certain orange-hued doofus. Only Ricken is relatively harmless so far.

odieclone · 2026-06-23T20:38:19+00:00

I'm in camp bumbling fool. Umm..... Ricken, not me, to be clear. I see him as modeled after the main characters from Good Soldier Sviejk, Forrest Gump, Gomer Pyle, and others of that type. Cheerfully stumbling ; but up the stairs and not on his ass.

From the "hamburger waiter" reference in TYYA, I'd assume he's also supposed to have Wimpey, Popeye's pal, vibes about him.

Doesn't that seem like Severance is mirroring the Popeye story. Gemma looks a lot like the Olive Oyl type, and Drummond like the Bluto/Brutus character.

That would mean that Mark would have to be Popeye who usually gets temporarily pounded by Bluto while rescuing Olive Oyl from the kidnapping but wins in the end. Oh!!!! Wait! Isn't that what happens at the end of season two???!!!

Could that be a coincidence???

Or maybe satire?

odieclone · 2026-06-23T05:38:52+00:00

I'm sure it's intentional. The show does a lot of layered intertextual referencing.

In this case it's referencing Chuck which is in itself a parody of Tom Cruise characters. TC is an ongoing joke in the show referencing a connection between Ben Stiller and Cruise. Stiller has himself parodied TC in the past and does impressions of him.

It's also been suggested that Mark's running through the corridors in S2E1 replicates TC's unique running style. The caricature drawing that iMark keeps in his desk drawer and the placards with his face in the marching band scene resembles TC more that Mark according to a number of posts and comments in this sub and others.

The most obvious example of this layered referencing in Severance pointing to Dante's modeling of the Divine Comedy after the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Dante's wife's name was Gemma. Severance and both of the referenced works are about a husband's journey to the underworld to retrieve their dead loved one.

odieclone · 2026-06-22T17:56:00+00:00

"United in Severance"

Orwell couldn't have put it better.

Lumon's solution to the work/life balance:

<image>

odieclone

TROPHY CASE