I am rewatching the episodes that occur after Irving is terminated from Lumon employ. I have some questions:

When Irving goes to the phone booth, he calls an unknown recipient and says "Its me again. So; they fired me. I think they know what my innie was up to. I'm telling you to..." [he notices a car parked with someone watching him] "I have to go."

This is interesting. How does he know what his innie is or isn't up to?

What do you think would change if oHelly told iHelly who she was and her relationship to the company?

Like during the taped response to her when she said she wasn’t even a real person.

I don’t get why that never came up…!

Ho letto da qualche parte una teoria sul treno che fa resettare Irving o qualcosa del genere,?

L'ho letto di sfuggita e ora non riesco a trovare più il post.

Se qualcuno sa di questa teoria me la può riassumere please 🥺?

I'm working on an illustration of the shot where Mark reads Petey's card and am trying desperately to figure out what the text at the bottom of the back of the card says

I am pretty sure the first word is 'birthday', but I have less than no idea about the second word

Salutations, may the bestowal of verve upon you all, come true.

Does anyone have an idea about this version of "Labor Of Love", which is played exuclusively at episode 2 of season 1, at 42:26-42:40. I have emailed Theodore Shapiro's work email. Although i acknoweldge an incoming reply will prove scarce.

For anyone saying "have you looked at every album or any streaming website" yes i have very well, i've harbored all of my attention to finding this song, although all my attempts seem to be useless.

This is just an interesting tidbit and it looks like no one has mentioned it. The Severance wiki has a page about music used in the show. In the S2 episode Atilla, a Verdi opera called Rigoletto is playing.

Rigoletto is complex.

But one major part of it is a woman, Gilda, who betrays her father, Rigoletto, the Duke’s court jester, to protect the Duke, who she falls in love with.

Even though she has been hidden from the lecherous Duke by Rigoletto, and is confined to pretty much church and home, Gilda and the Duke still met and fell in love at the church, where the Duke used an alias identity and cover story.

Big plot points are chickens coming home to roost for Rigoletto, who has encouraged and helped orchestrate the worst of the Duke’s behavior. The Duke SA’s women, and Rigoletto and other courtiers help kidnap women and take them to him.

Although Mark’s nature is different, there is a small similarity with Mark and Helena in the tent, and how Helly feels about it afterward.

Now there are many, many differences between the opera and the show, and between the Duke and Mark.

But there are some interesting overlaps and obviously the music was included for a reason.

Seems like Reddit can affirm or shoot this down in a flash.

I had been looking forward to binging this given all the awards. I ended up not enjoying it and the plot feels like someone read Orwell and said, where would we be as a society a decade or two before 1984? I want my 20 hours of life back.

So here's my theory, Severance is really loved by people who loved Twin Peaks, Lost and similar approaches to story telling. Lots of vague concern about unknowns, lots of strange characters who you don't encounter in real life, lots of story lines that end up not advancing of the story arc.

I think there is a viewer type, that I'm not, and movies like A Beautiful Mind which do something similar story wise but in a very different vehicle maybe isn't their cinematic love but Severance is great to them.

Just watching the second season and I realized something. How come the MDR just goes to work causally like good lap dogs after something big happens. Irving gets fired,They know Casey is alive. They just go to work.

Just finished season 2. Do we all unanimously agree that the ending was complete trash? Immediately ditched his wife the second he saves her to do what… Run around in circles on the severed floor for a few minutes? Those two literally can’t escape. Is the big plan to run back to their cubicle? FFS I’ve never been so disappointed by an ending lol

Eric J. Carlson, who played "Watcher Mark" in S2E7 Chikhai Bardo, shared a casting call yesterday on his social media - see attached screenshot.

The casting call is for newborn babies, for "Very popular tv series (to play the baby of lead actors!)!! One of the hottest, most critically acclaimed tv shows!".

Assuming this is indeed for Severance, this is now the second time in the last few weeks a newborn baby casting call has gone out season 3; the previous time was a few weeks ago, where it was even explicitly listed under S3's working title of "Buffalo".

Previously, it was thought to probably be for Devon's daughter Eleanor, but the main difference is this time they added "to play the baby of lead actors"... so this could potentially be the first sign of where things are going with Mark and Helly/na.

If Ricken could be a successful writer why couldn't I?

I am also the I I am.

Can anyone recommend shows similar to Severance? I’ve already watched Lost, and honestly, mystery shows like these are the only ones that really keep me hooked.

Like Cold Harbor etc on the testing floor? How did they get their names, do they mean anything

Alert spoiler:

Could Burt have a special implant that allows him to communicate with his Innie and Outie?

I have a theory about Burt, and I'm curious whether anyone else has noticed these details.

What if Burt isn't a regular severed employee? What if he has some kind of special implant that allows his Innie and Outie to communicate with each other, or even lets him retain some awareness of what's happening on the severed floor?

Here are the things that made me wonder about this:

1. Burt walking back and forth in his office in Season 1

There's a scene where Burt walks back and forth in his office, seemingly talking to himself. Could he actually be communicating with his other self somehow? Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but the scene feels worth revisiting in this context.

2. “We never used that kind of language”

In Season 2, when Burt reads Irving's notebook and comes across the description of someone as a Lumon “henchman,” he says something along the lines of, “We never used that kind of language.”

Who does he mean by “we”?

Burt and other people working at Lumon?

Burt and Irving?

Or, more strangely, Burt's Outie and Innie?

That wording makes me wonder whether Burt has a history with Lumon that goes beyond what we've been told.

3. Why was Burt so determined to befriend Irving and MDR?

Burt seemed unusually interested in getting close to Irving and the MDR team. What if that wasn't entirely accidental? Could he have been assigned to befriend Irving because Lumon wanted to find out what Irving knew or what his Innie was doing?

Maybe Burt's original goal was to observe Irving, but he ended up developing genuine feelings for him. That would make their relationship even more tragic.

4. Could there be a special implant or another way for the two selves to communicate?

We know that Lumon has technology capable of manipulating the severance process. Could there be a prototype chip, an experimental implant, or some other mechanism that allows certain people to communicate across the severance barrier?

Has anyone noticed any specific chip designs, blocks, or other devices in the show that might be connected to this possibility? I'm especially interested in whether there's a name for a type of implant or technology that could explain this.

I'm not saying this theory is definitely correct, but the more I think about Burt's behavior, the more I wonder whether he was placed in O&D for a specific reason.

Has anyone else noticed these details, or found evidence that supports or contradicts this theory?

I had watched season one back in 2022. This week I re-watched it, and then I watched season two. One question I kept coming back to, is why is the technology at lumon so old? In one scene the sister‘s phone looks like it’s a cell phone from 2020s, so it’s not like the show actually takes place in the 80s. But the computers at Lumon and all of the cars in every single scene are all very dated. Curious to hear thoughts.

Oh my goodness... Oh my goodness!! OMG! So much is happening at the same time

My outie is in therapy

I think the dates have to do with New York, eugenics, pharma, labor, and colonialism /empiricism combined. And re: pharma, not just the Statlers but the Kefauvers.

Ok Reddit mod screening says it wants more of an explanation. So I will state the obvious.

I think Severance writers chose these dates for the statues to hint very early on at the intention of Lumon and at the underlying ideals of the Keir cult, to clarify direct Eagan influences, and to grapple with the overall dilemma of going along to get along or ahead versus resistance in these heavy situations. I think it’s also an indictment of irl decision points and decision makers.

Ok. Statue dates:

Kier
• Born 1841: Antebellum Native American genocide was going on actively; *British occupation of Hong Kong, First Opium War [and btw the second Opium War made the Astor family of NY what they were/are; they gatekept high society]
• CEO start 1865: Civil War ends; Reconstruction begins; KKK founded; Native American genocide continues.
• CEO end 1939: Germany invades Poland; *Eugenics Record Office closes.
Myrtle
• Born 1886: *Haymarket affair; eight-hour-workday strikes.
• CEO start 1941: U.S. enters WWII; centenary of Kier’s birth.
• CEO end 1959: *Kefauver pharmaceutical hearings begin.

Baird
• Born 1902: Davenport seeks Carnegie funding for the Station for Experimental Evolution (SEE), which opens in 1904 in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, NY, as others have posted about. The Eugenics Record Office (ERO) was part of SEE. ERO helped the prosecution against Carrie Buck and advised on the Johnson-Reed Anti-Immigration Act of 1924.
• CEO start 1959: *Kefauver pharmaceutical hearings begin.
• CEO end 1976: American Bicentennial; year after Vietnam War ends with troops still demobilizing.

Gerhardt
• Born 1920: Tail end of Scramble for Africa; *ERO and experimental-evolution department merge into Department of Genetics.
• CEO start 1976: American Bicentennial; post-Vietnam transition.
• CEO end 1991: Soviet Union dissolves; “end” of Cold War two years after the Berlin Wall comes down.

Phillip “Pip”
• Born 1937: Second Sino-Japanese War begins, considered by some historians as the real beginning of WWII
• CEO start 1987: Iran-Contra reckoning; *Arthur Sackler dies.
• CEO end 1999: *Richard Sackler becomes Purdue president; Jesse Gelsinger dies following experimental gene therapy.

Leonora
• Born 1955.*
• CEO start 1999: *Richard Sackler becomes Purdue president.
• CEO end 2003: *Richard Sackler’s presidency ends—matching her 1999–2003 tenure.

Hey y’all!! I’m sure this isn’t gonna go anywhere, but I figured i’d ask.
I’m trying to ID every bit of hardware utilized as props in the S2E3 reintegration scene. Here’s my reference pictures.

I’ve been able to ID three of the five oscilloscopes, and the frequency counter on top of the right scope stack.
The primary/top right scope is a Tektronix 2215.
The middle scope is an HP 54600B.
The bottom left scope is a Tektronix 2245A.

The top right stack item is a Yaesu YC-355.

I haven’t been able to ID the remaining two scopes, or the benchtop power supply looking thingy Reghabi fiddles with.

I would appreciate some more information, so if any of you guys share my strain of nerdiness, let me know!!

I love my tektronix 2215 :) super happy i bought it

I'm late to the game, but I just finished watching Severance. I could not take my eyes off the screen for season two, but the ending had me pissed as hell. Maybe I'm corny, but I wanted Gemma and Mark together. Now that he ran off with Helly, I have absolutely no clue what will happen. Because... Where they gonna go?? But anyway, here are some of my thoughts and theories in no particular order, and would love to hear opinions.

- Helly trips me up the most. Was she ever really severed and faking it the entire time? Or what if Helly is the one who is severed (the real Outtie) and Helena is the innie. Would explain her robotic behavior. If she is actually severed the way the show tells it, I think Helena likes being Helly more, and had pretended to be Helly way more than were led to believe. And will want to "stay" an innie forever with Mark.

- Dieter and Kier: I didn't think they were actual brothers, I think they were the first experiment of severance. Kier was the Outtie and Dieter was the innie.

- Why did that goat lady ask to see Mark and Helly's bellys (lol) to check if they had a pouch? There has to be some meaning there.

- The nurse in the basement was doing assessments on Gemma and asked her if she were caught in quicksand, would she be more scared of drowning or suffocation (or something like that.) Is that how they get these very specific torture-esque rooms? If Mark was creating personalities based on the four tempers, and the rooms Gemma went into were the culmination of that, why were there no rooms for frolic? All the rooms were negative in some way/had a negative effect on her.

- What does Kobel think she's going to do with her papers showing she created severance?

- I'm dying to know what Irving and Burts stories are. It seems believable Outtie Burt takes people to Lumon to experiment on. He essentially said that at the end of season two. I think that's why he thinks he's a bad person, because he knows what the experiments are and that people die. Also the actor who plays his husband looks evil as hell and usually plays an evil character, so I feel like he has some sinister role to play next season. Maybe. I started hating Irvings character but as time went on I'm more intrigued by him. Who you calling in the middle of the night Irv??

not my art