TV: Severance - Apple TV

We can't tag so I quoted old posts from you two hoping for your predictions for the season finale
Seems to me as though Irving's story is loosely tied off for now but obviously left open for a Season 3 return. Interesting dynamics between his and Burt's outties. Hopefully more is revealed about Burt before the end of the season. He's clearly some type of "enforcer" level employee. Would really like to see a follow-up on what Irving was up to with all of that information and the paintings. We've had some interesting theories here. It seems that he is closer to bridging the gap of Severance than Cobel was.

Dylan's heartbreak was brutal for me and he seems pretty poised to go full scorched earth. Masterful performance by Zach Cherry in this entire episode. The exploration of the "innie vs. intermediary vs. outtie" relationship is crazy. Imagine having a love triangle with yourself and your own wife. Or the inverse of having a love triangle with your husband and your husband 2.0. The development of his character has been phenomenal.

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Severance is such an easily meme-able show, but this one might be my favorite.

As for Mr. Milchick, I found it very interesting to see him being broken down and slowly disillusioned by his lot in Lumon, seeing him get a punishment. "Devour Feculence" is one of the greatest lines in TV history for my money lol. One of my theories had been that he's eventually going to help them from the inside and he's already starting to do this by covering for Mark when he called off. I was rooting for him a lot when he was having the discussion about how outtie Mark is not his concern or responsibility.

I thought that Ms. Huang's character was interesting as well and I wonder if we'll learn more about this Fellowship, as well as see her in some other capacity with Lumon in the future. She seems to have been a bit of a fan and cast favorite.

I am still just rather unsure about where I think that the whole Cold Harbor thing is going... I just really don't know what's happening with all that. It will be interesting to see if they can somehow end up freeing Gemma where they'll go from here, as she's been the McGuffin so far. I found the scene in the cabin to be a bit strange. I'm not sure why, but I had assumed that Cabin was specially "programmed" for the individuals who are there for birthing, but I guess not. It's hard for me to really make heads or tails of the position in the main story right now. I've seen a few theories, but I think I'd rather just wait and find out myself rather than diving into them too much.
 
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I often get annoyed with these kind of mystery wrapped in an enigma follow the breadcrumbs type shows but Severance's concept is too well put together and unique to get bored with. I also often get annoyed with the overuse of stylish symmetry but Severance is shot too well to not be visually captivating. Newfoundland makes a beautiful backdrop for the corporate core this show is pulling off.

Just finished eps 8 and 9 last night. Feels like there's a lot they have to tie together in the finale so not surprised it's getting over an hour. Also feels like we're going to be left hanging on some things again. The motivations for a lot of these characters I think there's got to be another level to. Helena is the one I'm most interested in, she's almost died twice for Lumon, she's got to have something more tangible to keep going back in than because the board said so.

Kind of hope Cold Harbour is something totally mundane. Like they cleaned last quarter's bullshit sales numbers for the shareholders meeting or something equally meaningless. That would actually make me so happy.
but I also have a more fun crackpot theory anyway :
Cold Harbour is the baby Mark S. has pumped into Helly/Helena and the plan is that they are going to have Gemma carry it as a surrogate. A little creepy Eagan heir, perfectly grown and shaped in a Lumon lab. Maybe sever the child into 3 different parts too just because they can. We keep seeing these birth themes in the show, hell they just awakened innie Mark in a birthing cabin. Cobel was posing as a midwife and there was an apparent baby stealing in S1. Every time they enter and exit that elevator is like they're effectively being birthed anew. Mark and Gemma were trying to get pregnant before the crash.

Or something like that anyway. Feels like there's a whole lot more Lumon/Eagan iceberg to uncover for season 3 and they have to raise the stakes even more than suddenly not dead wife/reintegration/Dylan G & Irving's love interests. Something bigger with more implications and more sinister.
 
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I have a fourth theory. That kinda could bleed in my others since it's mostly a prediction for how they might raise the stakes.

I think Mark's reintegration is going to kick in properly in the finale. For all the blue balls around that plot line I have to imagine that they postponed it taking root to have things blow up for the finale. Mark will probably be presented with the choice between a life with Helly R and saving Gemma in the context of being both versions of himself. I think Helly being snuck up on by James Eagan will come with a reveal that he can save one of the two women, but not both. Like if Mark doesn't complete Cold Harbor, they get rid of Helly R forever. And completing Cold Harbor means killing Gemma. Maybe I'm way off base but the whole reason I even thought of this was seeing pathetic Tumblr addicted HellyMark shippers who were tweeting about how they can't wait for this conflict to come to life so Gemma can die, outie Mark can lose, and innie Mark and Helly can be together. It's the worst thing I've seen from this show's fanbase, but it got me thinking that the premise is probably accurate in some way or another. One of this show's central premises is the idea of what makes us who we are. Innie and Outie Mark share traits but they're different people with different motivations and experiences. It makes more sense for the finale to involve a clash between these two than a rebels vs. the Empire kind of struggle to overcome the odds to get Gemma out. I'm not totally sure how it will manifest fully, or end, but I think that's the big thing we're going to see. Either reintegration or something like it. A clash between Mark's selves.

Also I think Milchick will drop all loyalty to Lumon and fully help Mark. Maybe a bold prediction but I think his phone call with the outie broke him.

I'm too f***ing addicted to this show. I think about it multiple times a day every day.
 
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I think the thing I am hoping for most is that Ricken isn't deep involved in Lumen or anything like that. I just hope that Ricken is Ricken for the sake of being Ricken.
 
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I'm all caught up on the show now, having re-watched season 1 last week (man, there was a quite a bit I forgot in 3 years) and then crushed through the season 2 episodes finishing episode 9 last night. I don't really have the patience to follow a show waiting a week between episodes so now I really only have to wait 1 day until this season's finale.

I am thrilled at how well they were able to match the quality of season 1 (maybe even surpassed?), as I was worried they wouldn't be able to after hearing about all the problems/delays* the show had between seasons, and the common trend in TV lately for writers rooms to only have 1 good season of ideas and then fail to live up to it when they're asked to make more.

Every episode has been pretty great. Woe's Hollow and Chikhai Bardo stand out as the two highlights for me so far. Even the Cobel episode (Sweet Vitriol) I liked a lot with it's setting and how much it explained about Cobel's backstory and the Kier/Lumon history. I find binging the show helps appreciate those episodes more, IMO.

Not a lot for me to complain about with this season. One big thing I haven't liked is how they brought Cobel back into the story, with the implausibility of Devon believing it to be a good idea to call her and help with Mark's reintegration. Seems very weird they didn't find a better way to bring Cobel back than have Devon act stupidly out of character, when they've handled so many other things more naturally.

* I think I remember reading that they did a complete script re-write for season 2 before they started started filming, which contributed to the 3 year delay. I'm wondering how the original script may have looked:

Did they originally plan to keep the ruse of it being Helena instead of Helly down on the severed floor after the OTC for possibly a lot longer? I do really appreciate how they didn't dick the audience around all season with something like that. Even though they certainly could have written it to be more ambiguous than they ultimately did, it would have always seemed like a very possible theory and not a surprise.

I also wonder if the writers struggled with the timeline/story arc of Mark's re-integration. Even with how the actual story has gone, it hasn't felt as natural/smooth as I'd have expected, or liked. I think it made sense for him to want to do it right away in episode 3, but since then they've slow-rolled the re-integration process a bit too much.

Still one more episode to go, and it seems to be the one where we finally find out what and how important Cold Harbor is. I do think that is an important thing that we need to find out in the finale, but given that it seems to have been central to the entire Severance story at its conception I feel pretty confident that they're gonna nail the landing.

In any case, I still think they've done a phenomenal job with this season, the writing/directing/filmography and the acting has put this show squarely as the best on TV for me currently, and if they keep it up in future season(s) I would have this show among the all-time greats.
 
Past year or so, wife and I would mention wanting to watch but not wanting to add like our 8th pay streaming service so we never added apple tv even though we really want to watch Severance

Last week .. found out we were paying for it anyway in like a sub subscription on Prime


so yay?
 
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Past year or so, wife and I would mention wanting to watch but not wanting to add like our 8th pay streaming service so we never added apple tv even though we really want to watch Severance

Last week .. found out we were paying for it anyway in like a sub subscription on Prime


so yay?

Honestly If I could only pick 1 streaming site to have, Apple TV would be it. Easily the best selection of quality shows to watch and if you're someone who re-watches good shows I'd also say a lot of the good Apple stuff has quality rewatch value as well.


Severance is the best of the best, it's probably the best series released since Breaking Bad... But beyond Severance you've got Ted Lasso, Shrinking, Slow Horses, Black Bird, Silo... I personally haven't gotten into Silo or Slow Horses fully yet but they both have great reviews and pretty large audiences.
 
Honestly If I could only pick 1 streaming site to have, Apple TV would be it. Easily the best selection of quality shows to watch and if you're someone who re-watches good shows I'd also say a lot of the good Apple stuff has quality rewatch value as well.


Severance is the best of the best, it's probably the best series released since Breaking Bad... But beyond Severance you've got Ted Lasso, Shrinking, Slow Horses, Black Bird, Silo... I personally haven't gotten into Silo or Slow Horses fully yet but they both have great reviews and pretty large audiences.
Slow Horses is my favorite. Probably my favorite show since LOST. Gary Oldman is amazing. Silo is also excellent. Personally I like both better than Severance, although I do like Severance a lot. Agree that Apple TV is great, I cancelled my HBO subscription in favor of Apple.
 
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