John Turturro deserves awards for this episode, the hatred and venom he had when he said "Yes, do it, SETH!" is maybe a highlight of the series for me now
god yeah. I love Irving, he might be my favourite character. I love his growth from being the stickler from the beginning to being completely radicalised.
iIrv really has nothing to lose. And he probably found his underlying hardiness and willingness to do whatever it takes from his outie being in the service.
Milchick bullshits to them the entire time just because he can. A month from now Dylan is telling an O&D department worker all about their field trip. "Yep, we saw the sky, we saw fire. Milchick showed us the world's tallest waterfall and the world's biggest mountain. Did you know that before he came to Lumon he worked as the world's handomest bounty hunter and as the first astronaut lion tamer?"
“Helly was never cruel.” Irving the fucking detective holy shit. I never saw him trying to drown her coming. That man literally figured out she was an Eagan wtf.
I was worried his team was gonna shun him from the group for acting crazy and overstepping, or that Irving would start to doubt himself and apologize. Glad he stayed true to his beliefs. When he said that line to Helly about who would have the power to get their outtie onto the severed floor… CHILLS.
I love how it wasn't some cheap trick he used to trap her like "I haven't seen you so happy since you finished the Gunderson file" or something made up she would agree with.
Making it pure instinct based on emotion (one of the four tempers) and faith is so much more in line with the show. God the writing is so good
You know, I felt genuinely bad for them at that point. Like these people will never get to have a marshmallow (and especially not one roasted over an open fire) in their entire life, I know at least Dylan would’ve loved it.
The marshmallows in the fire was a great shot. As they burn, Kier's face turns into a skull, and then the caramelized bits look like maggots. It was chilling.
About 7-8 years ago, the beloved head of our PM Department at my agency was literally out of nowhere fired by our CEO to hire his childhood buddy into the job though he never worked at an Ad Agency before (he was a Stockbroker who just got a divorce).
The guy was pretty bad including “wanting to shake things up” without any warnings to the account/creative teams in brand teams shifted PM’s around with no transition or onboarding. Showed up hungover every day, never attended meetings, wouldn’t look at anything that was supposed to sign off on and constantly kept trying to throw people under the bus even though they had no connection to the issues he caused.
So about 6 months ago and he knew his time was nearly up, because our Client Services Director and Chief Creative Officer with 90% of our department” threatened to quit if he wasn’t fired…
He tried to throw this out of the blue PM Appreciation Pizza Lunch to improve bonding and morale… we’re all there eating in a conference room and then literally his CEO buddy called him into his office to let him know he had to fire him immediately….
He comes into the conference room and says “No Pizza for Traitors” and starts throwing the pizzas everywhere and cursing at everyone… Building Security had to drag him out.
The fallout also had our CEO within a month “leave to take another opportunity” because the Network was furious about the embarrassment of that situation. He’s never been a head of a place since.
And that guy, last time I checked on LinkedIn, he sells insurance in his hometown in Eastern Massachusetts.
Considering "hang in there" is the expression they've used on that poster that shows Dylan activating the overtime contingency, seems pretty clear to me that Irv wants him to do it again in order bring him back somehow.
If he hid something it was prob his drawing of the export hall. Last episode he said he and Dylan should go find it together but Dylan refused and irv never showed anyone except Felicia the drawing
Dylan seemed to be drifting away from the other innies so much but I wonder if this whole episode isn't going to get him right back to wanting to fuck shit up.
I suppose his outtie wife is a very strong draw but he's not likely to trust Milcheck any more now...
Yeah and he was physically separate from the rest of the team during this scene because Mark ran down to help Helly and at the end it was Mark, Irv and Helly huddled together and Dylan separated from them by a literal wall of water. Seems like he’s going to carry on his wife perk for a while longer.
Oh damn! I didn’t catch that!! That’s awesome (and thank GOD!). I really loved how Irv faced death but I really don’t want to believe he’s gone forever. And they would never have him just say that with zero meaning behind it—so I hope you’re right! I suppose he could just be saying “keep fighting!” since that’s almost a symbol of their rebellion. But I’d rather believe he can be brought back. Actually now that I think about it, those memories made pathways in his brain, severing the link to them wouldn’t destroy them, just make them unreachable without bringing the link back (right?). So he definitely should be capable of coming back (and Burt too!)
Additionally I think the shots of Irving's dream in the spooky area were shot close by, a some years ago there was a small fire that seems to have burnt these trees and let small bushes take over giving it a spooky appearance. My pic is by Sam's point, near a turn to lake Maratanza.
My husband’s thoughts on Irving’s character and why he’s not messing around: Irving is a veteran who clearly isn’t too proud of being one. This means he wanted structure and to follow orders, but then found out that the organization he was following (the US government) wasn’t as good as he thought it was, so he abandoned it. This character trait has shown up in Innie Irving as well as soon as he found out Lumon wasn’t what he thought it was.
The close up of them looked like robots and ORTBO is an anagram for robot and I felt so smart when I realised that at the time but then the robots never appeared again and maybe I’m just thinking a bit too much
Does anyone remember the mannequins from the Hall of Eagan or whatever it was called in Season 1?
Then in season 2 one of the temporary new MDR workers said that somewhere else in the world there was an animatronic version of those same mannequins somewhere?
The "twins" looked off enough to be simple animatronics. It looked like they were wearing wigs, and they all made the same simple motion, which looked like a stepper motor lifting their arm to point mechanically.
EDIT: Go rewatch the motion the "twins" make. They're 100% meant to appear artificial.
Seriously, it was a conscious decision to use some kinda weird as fuck CG when it would have been WAY easier to just have the actors themselves play the twins.
SO WHY DID THEY USE THE WEIRD, FUCKED UP LOOKIN HOMONCULI
That acting is just incredible. Britt is acting as a character acting as another character and then breaks only the second character before regaining character.
When iIrving is questioning her in the tent, there's a flash of rage on her face
When she's laying in bed with Mark, there's a flash of... I don't even know what, but it's clearly not Helly and it's even more disorienting because it's shot sideways
When iIrving lays it all out and the mask fully slips.. Chilling
E: Gah! Totally unrelated side note but when iIrving surprises Helena at the end of the episode, his face is wedged in between the frame of two trees that form a triangle pointing downward.. Pretty similar to the red arrow above the elevator to the exports hall, and right before iIrving gets wiped.
My take on that was - Irv saw Burt in his dream - I figure things haven’t changed since the first episode of the season and ceasing to exist isn’t something he feared.
(Updated my wording to make it more specific but kept general message the same)
I loved this part with Irving knowing that Helly would NEVER be that cruel. This was a gigantic slip up by Helena, but there were many mini-slip ups along the way this season.
I was surprised people didn’t think Helena was acting strange ever since she got back to the severed floor, but glad the showrunners really pushed to show how different Helly vs Helena truly are.
I feel like the point was "behold, the most impressive thing on the planet. We aren't keeping anything from you, so you should not be longing for anything more impressive than the ORTBO."
Right? Lol. In the after credits, he says that it’s technically true, because it’s true TO THEM. They’ve never seen a waterfall before, so it’s the tallest waterfall in the world to them.
In S01E02, when the anti-severance protestors are yelling about Lumon during Mark and Alexa’s date, one of the protestors says “Lumon even wants to sever kids—“ before they’re cut off.
I think Ms. Huang really is just a kid that they severed.
The Way he pieced ALL that shit together and clocked that she was and Egan! I love that we didn't have to wait until the end of the season to find that out
I am SO glad that they had Irving spell this out for the audience. One of the biggest tells that it wasn't Helly in the previous three episodes was that she kept doing things that were out-of-character, but only if you really took the time to think about what she was like in season 1. I'm really glad that they're explicitly pointing this out to the audience now, and relieved that all of those little character inconsistencies in earlier episodes were in fact intentional and not poor writing/acting.
Reminded me of The Expanse. People live their whole lives on Mars in domes, or on spaceships, and the first time they go outside on Earth they have panic attacks because the sky is HUGE and WRONG and there's nothing but sky between them and space.
“I knew outside had no actual ceiling” ...I'm not so sure about that...before we see Irving, when the screen is still black...the first thing we here is the elevator bell...makes me believe that they are not outside but in a simulation on a floor in Lumon
Yeah that was my first thought. The TV working up on a mountain with no power, the random clones appearing to help guide them, Milchick and Huang appearing and disappearing out of nowhere. That seems like it would have had to been some simulation.
Though the “water” appeared to be real, so who knows. Maybe some augmented reality thing and they’re really in some park near Lumon.
I have to wonder wtf Lumon is doing? Throwing 3 “unstable” employees into the wild, 2 of which are canned, with an Eagan?
Of course something would go wrong, I can’t imagine Helena Eagan getting waterboarded was part of the plan. So what are they doing? Trying to frighten or brainwash them?
I feel like this all loops back to getting Mark to complete Cold Harbor
I noticed her face but didn't notice the EAGAN. Also there was some kind of an eye made by the letters as well. That innie sleep made him figure it out even more. Great job 😁
Although we don’t know a ton about the science of dreaming, it seems pretty obvious that dreams are a crucial way that our consciousness organizes and arrives at meaning.
Orving has been sleep-depriving himself on purpose. Remember the black paint from Series 1 when he was dozing off at work? and the coffee and motorhead.
I’ve been thinking for weeeeks that she kept dropping her voice to this lower register that made me go…noooo that’s Helena for sure! First time she does it is in the first episode this season with mark! Ahhhh!
Her admitting she lied because she was ashamed is what had me believing she was innie Helly. Maybe outtie Helly is ashamed too. Either way they were committed to planting her as a mole. She was in after sleeping with Mark, but they didn’t plan for Irving
he's played such a goody 2-shoes rule follower this whole show, it's nice to see the badass come out that we see him play in other stuff. but he's also played the goody 2-shoes really well too, which really shows how dynamic he can be
I’m so bummed that this might be the end of Innie Irving (and also innie mark based on last episode) but also I’m excited at the possibility of seeing how these actors will play reintegrated versions of these characters. I’m assuming Mark might be able to convince Irv to reintegrate as well.
As we saw in this episode, I think Reintegration is going to be a long process with Mark getting flashes while both an Innie and his Outie, and it will take the rest of the season for him to fully reintegrate. Innie Mark doesn't even know it's happening.
He passed doing the Penguin TV show so he could do Severance season 2 because he thought it was more interesting.... I'm saying he made the right call.
As a theremin player myself, I can say this was awesome but also points to this being some kind of weird simulation because WHERE is the power source to the theremin.
That felt both like she was tempting him with infidelity and guilt tripping him for contemplating cheating on his wife simultaneously. Helena is diabolical.
I don’t get where you’re necessarily seeing that Helena was purposefully trying to start conflict. I think she reacted emotionally and said something cruel to Irving, but I didn’t see that as a calculated attempt at getting anyone on her side, just a moment where you “cross the line”- say something heated because the heat is on you. Things that seem like “normal” reactions to her (laughing at a story that’s an allegory about not jerking off or whatever, calling it out for being stupid), aren’t what’s expected of severed workers, which I don’t think SHE gets. I truly don’t think she’s as “master manipulator” everyone thinks. She’s just trying to awkwardly “be herself” as Helly. People are making the same mistake the characters on the show are by treating the ‘innies’ and ‘outies’ and two separate individuals and characters when they’re not.
I found the line at the lake, "Hey, Kid," very interesting. As if he wanted to gauge her reaction as one final test before calling her out. As if he knew exactly what he would have to do moments later and wanted to be absolutely certain.
When he first approached Helena in the woods, that “Hey kid” was for Helly. With her back turned to him, he took the one moment where he could pretend it was Helly before drowning her outie. Ok I’m gonna go cry now.
So R Helly went from being tackled while giving a speech to immediately being drowned in a freezing cold river by Irv. Imagine how confused she must be.
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u/UltraDangerLord Feb 07 '25
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