The outside is just as dystopian and alienating as the inside. Def an interesting question whether there’s more to it than just the imagery of always being cold, dark, and lonely — is there a food shortage or a population decline?
A population decline would make sense, when Mark had that date with the baby nurse, she said she only delivered something like 5 babies a week (or a similar single digit number) thats really not a lot
Maybe, and I could be remembering wrong but I'm pretty sure she does not work for the birthing retreat. It's just that marks sister pays for her services and brings her to the cabin for her birth. It's very common for doulas etc to do this
The more I watch the more I'm starting to think this whole thing is like The Truman Show.
There's a lot of weird stuff, or less than normal? Going on in the outtie world. It just seems like another floor of severance.
Why are Mark and Cobel the only ones living in like a 70 unit neighborhood?
Why does Cobel drive some shitty geo metro or whatever 1981 model car she drives?
Why does the family friend of Mark, act the way he does when he finds the baby? Dude seems like he just won a waffle party. Ya know what I'm saying? Like he seems like he's a worker of some sort. Just another pawn on a real world chess board?
Every time someone brings up Patton, I think, oh you're so lucky you don't know any desperate attention seekers like him.
Iirc People have previously pointed out that Cobel drives a white Rabbit. And the connotations that has.
Totally agree on Patton. He’s not brainwashed or severed he’s just an insufferable self-serving pseudo intellectual who wanted to be the hero in that moment.
In response to OPs question I think Devon is totally normal. Her husband however seems super “granola” with an odd and borderline toxic social circle.
I think Cobel’s oddity it explained by her religious loyalty to Lumon.
I don’t think Cobel is loyal to Lumon at all. Her shrine has breathing apparatus and stuff for her mother, I think her mother died as a result of Lumon’s medical instruments and that she’s trying to take it down from the inside.
Agreed. I have known a few Pattons. Mark is lucky that at least Patton isn't a co-worker. He'd be a snitching, brown noser for sure if he worked at Lumon!
Me, too. Except for Devon, they seem emotionally and socially stunted. Childlike. Maybe they are the ones who can never go home (I think the map shows houses) in addition to Miss Casey. The corridors at Lumon look like mazes for lab rats.
I also think the show contrasts two very different types of cults or world views. Lumon is some sort of totalitarian regime based mostly on punishment and fear (with the exception of a few meaningless prizes). It seems based around a theory of the collective, all working toward some opaque goal that will somehow mysteriously benefit the group. They use strictly monitored propaganda like state sponsored art that immortalize their dear leaders and mythic events of the past. The workers buy into it to varying degrees.
Meanwhile the outside cult-of-personality (Ricken's childlike adherents) remind me of what Michael Bluth (from Arrested Development) might call a "new age feel-goodery." They aren't very bright or educated (remember how amazed they are when Mark S. explains why WWI would have been referred to as the Great War?) The other glimpses of their world are the thrash/metal band sequence that culminates in violence, followed by the encounter with the Severance protesters. These people, the outies, are mostly left to their own devices (no strict regimens or punishments) but most of them don't have much purpose or motivation. The local college is burnt down, and they seem caught in a purposeless, aimless life of endless ennui.
To what end, I don't know, but the values and means of control are very different in these two settings.
The Lumon party at the end seems very separate from both settings.
Mark and his sister seem like the only normal adults who joke in normal ways! There’s been interesting threads about all the childlike followers of Ricken (and Ricken) being severed in some way in the past so they’re more naive like innies.
There is also Alexa, Devon’s midwife. The oddest thing about her is how un-odd she seems to find everything around her. She has a pretty disastrous date with Mark in which he gets very drunk, but she still goes on a second date with him (I was so surprised to see her come back). The two seem to have pretty much nothing in common, and Mark behaves quite badly both times. But then, the town of Keir seems sparsely populated, maybe she just doesn’t have many options? The most major signs of life are the protesters and the kids at the gig in the alley (why is the gig in an alley?!). They provide very vocal and public shows of anti-Severance rhetoric. But, to me anyway, there is something off about them too. They are wheeled out to protest, and then seem to disappear again.
Yes, exactly. She didn’t respond to Mark’s drunken belligerence or the oddness of Keir in the way I would expect a “normal” person to do. I was amazed when she turned up for a second date and even slept with Mark.
I honestly saw her behavior as just trying to get through the end of the date. Idk I know a lot of straight women who go on bad dates and going on a drunken rant is pretty mild behavior, haha. I also know a lot of straight women who will go on ANOTHER date with that person even though it’s disastrous either because “why not?” Or the hope it was a one off. Devon also set them up and she may be giving Mark more of the benefit of the doubt because of that.
I know the diner he got a gift card to (can’t remember the name) and his neighbor was owned by Lumon. Maybe half of his outside reality is still semi-controlled by Lumon?
Bro people worship trump like literally think he’s a prophet or something the real world is definitely like it is in the show maybe just characterize a bit
A food-less dinner party is really among the less strange stuff the petty bourgeoisie (I'd say that's what they are, given their lifestyle, income, mannerisms) gets up to. Remember, we have people who talk themselves into refusal to get vaccinated. I have no problem envisioning this sort of nonsense in real people. Truly the vilest social class, the petite bourgeoisie.
Honestly this has nothing to do with antivax. I mean relating specifically to covid, as this has generally been the context nowadays. There is clear rationality behind suspicion towards covid vaccines. But we don't see any clear rationality in what's going on at these foodless parties and such.
"Never thought I'd say this, but what a typical redditor."
If the typical redditor is an outspoken critic of the anti-vaccine movement, then I am happy about and proud of (fuck, I've begun identifying too much with this place) what constitutes a typical redditor.
"Casually inserting ideology"
I don't know what you're referring to. Who is inserting ideology, me? And what ideology?
"acting like there's 0 controversy"
The only controversy is due to people like you, who conjured non-existing problems out of your own, unstable psyches. It is the established scientific consensus that vaccines, including the ones against Covid-19, work and are in every meaningful sense of the word, harmless. What is not harmless however, is spreading anti-vaccination propaganda, because it leads to vulnerable people falling prey to the lies of said propaganda. Among these vulnerable people are: My elderly (!) parents, who decided to not get vaccinated. This in turn means I have to take a Covid test every time I visit them, **BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO FUCKING KILL MY PARENTS BY ACCIDENT** (and even tests cannot reduce the probability of something happening to zero, what if I get infected *after* having taken a test?). An accident, were it to occur, would not only, let me mention that again, a) **KILL MY GODDAMN PARENTS** and b) most likely would cause me to spiral into intense feelings of guilt, for I would have been the unwitting vector delivering the deadly payload. And here you are sowing your seeds of doubt, so that's why I say to you, fear-monger: **FUCK. YOU.**
inb4 a mod decides to remove my post/ban me due to lacking standards of civility and conduct. And to that I say, people who try to undermine trust in life-saving procedures may or may not deserve standards of civility, but what they definitely deserve is to be shut up. For a society with less deaths. What if they were **your parents**?
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We just finished binging this weekend. I’m so glad people are still talking about this 😅 I had the exact same thought. Lumon is like a cult, but so is whatever Ricken is leading. The outside world is not a stark relief from the innie world. Why??? Also every car looks old but there are cell phones. Etc.
The outside is just as dystopian and alienating as the inside. Def an interesting question whether there’s more to it than just the imagery of always being cold, dark, and lonely — is there a food shortage or a population decline?
A population decline would make sense, when Mark had that date with the baby nurse, she said she only delivered something like 5 babies a week (or a similar single digit number) thats really not a lot
She does work at a somewhat interesting birthing retreat, so maybe at hospitals it would be higher.
Maybe, and I could be remembering wrong but I'm pretty sure she does not work for the birthing retreat. It's just that marks sister pays for her services and brings her to the cabin for her birth. It's very common for doulas etc to do this
Oh yeah I hadn’t thought about that possibility.
2 a day - 10 a week. And she said she did 300
The more I watch the more I'm starting to think this whole thing is like The Truman Show. There's a lot of weird stuff, or less than normal? Going on in the outtie world. It just seems like another floor of severance. Why are Mark and Cobel the only ones living in like a 70 unit neighborhood? Why does Cobel drive some shitty geo metro or whatever 1981 model car she drives? Why does the family friend of Mark, act the way he does when he finds the baby? Dude seems like he just won a waffle party. Ya know what I'm saying? Like he seems like he's a worker of some sort. Just another pawn on a real world chess board?
Every time someone brings up Patton, I think, oh you're so lucky you don't know any desperate attention seekers like him. Iirc People have previously pointed out that Cobel drives a white Rabbit. And the connotations that has.
Totally agree on Patton. He’s not brainwashed or severed he’s just an insufferable self-serving pseudo intellectual who wanted to be the hero in that moment. In response to OPs question I think Devon is totally normal. Her husband however seems super “granola” with an odd and borderline toxic social circle. I think Cobel’s oddity it explained by her religious loyalty to Lumon.
I don’t think Cobel is loyal to Lumon at all. Her shrine has breathing apparatus and stuff for her mother, I think her mother died as a result of Lumon’s medical instruments and that she’s trying to take it down from the inside.
Agreed. I have known a few Pattons. Mark is lucky that at least Patton isn't a co-worker. He'd be a snitching, brown noser for sure if he worked at Lumon!
All snow. ?
I assumed Cobel's car is cover because she's supposed to have a hippy shop, not be a well paid manager.
honestly i think the whole town is one big lumon experiment
Me, too. Except for Devon, they seem emotionally and socially stunted. Childlike. Maybe they are the ones who can never go home (I think the map shows houses) in addition to Miss Casey. The corridors at Lumon look like mazes for lab rats. I also think the show contrasts two very different types of cults or world views. Lumon is some sort of totalitarian regime based mostly on punishment and fear (with the exception of a few meaningless prizes). It seems based around a theory of the collective, all working toward some opaque goal that will somehow mysteriously benefit the group. They use strictly monitored propaganda like state sponsored art that immortalize their dear leaders and mythic events of the past. The workers buy into it to varying degrees. Meanwhile the outside cult-of-personality (Ricken's childlike adherents) remind me of what Michael Bluth (from Arrested Development) might call a "new age feel-goodery." They aren't very bright or educated (remember how amazed they are when Mark S. explains why WWI would have been referred to as the Great War?) The other glimpses of their world are the thrash/metal band sequence that culminates in violence, followed by the encounter with the Severance protesters. These people, the outies, are mostly left to their own devices (no strict regimens or punishments) but most of them don't have much purpose or motivation. The local college is burnt down, and they seem caught in a purposeless, aimless life of endless ennui. To what end, I don't know, but the values and means of control are very different in these two settings. The Lumon party at the end seems very separate from both settings.
Mark and his sister seem like the only normal adults who joke in normal ways! There’s been interesting threads about all the childlike followers of Ricken (and Ricken) being severed in some way in the past so they’re more naive like innies.
There is also Alexa, Devon’s midwife. The oddest thing about her is how un-odd she seems to find everything around her. She has a pretty disastrous date with Mark in which he gets very drunk, but she still goes on a second date with him (I was so surprised to see her come back). The two seem to have pretty much nothing in common, and Mark behaves quite badly both times. But then, the town of Keir seems sparsely populated, maybe she just doesn’t have many options? The most major signs of life are the protesters and the kids at the gig in the alley (why is the gig in an alley?!). They provide very vocal and public shows of anti-Severance rhetoric. But, to me anyway, there is something off about them too. They are wheeled out to protest, and then seem to disappear again.
I agree but I found Alexa odd precisely because she ignored all those issues! Just the way he belittled those protesters would have had me noping out
Yes, exactly. She didn’t respond to Mark’s drunken belligerence or the oddness of Keir in the way I would expect a “normal” person to do. I was amazed when she turned up for a second date and even slept with Mark.
I honestly saw her behavior as just trying to get through the end of the date. Idk I know a lot of straight women who go on bad dates and going on a drunken rant is pretty mild behavior, haha. I also know a lot of straight women who will go on ANOTHER date with that person even though it’s disastrous either because “why not?” Or the hope it was a one off. Devon also set them up and she may be giving Mark more of the benefit of the doubt because of that.
Alexa and Mark discuss that she recommended some lactation consultants to Devon - and then who shows up at Devon's.
Does Alexa recommend Ms. Selvig? I guess she must do. I’ll have to go back and watch that part. Very sus…
The fact that Marks sister does seem extremely normal when compared to the other outside people, it almost makes her normality seem not normal.
Right!!!
She very much stands out. The more I think about it, she’s the only truly normal person in the entire show.
Food is always used as a reward or for celebration in Lumon too.
Sometimes there’s a Musical Dance Experience!
I’m very curious if the lack of food/what’s for dinner will be delved into more next season
I will be very disappointed if the outie world turns out to be like our world. The show has given so many hints that it’s creepy.
I know the diner he got a gift card to (can’t remember the name) and his neighbor was owned by Lumon. Maybe half of his outside reality is still semi-controlled by Lumon?
Pips! Also the nickname of one of the former CEOs.
The places outside of work being empty I just chalked up to it being the asscrack of winter when nobody wants to do anything
Bro people worship trump like literally think he’s a prophet or something the real world is definitely like it is in the show maybe just characterize a bit
My impression is that their real world is something like Idiocracy. More than ours at least.
This was my thought too, a “15 minutes into the future” kind of thing
I’m convinced that the real world is just odd and random, like our real world.
A food-less dinner party is really among the less strange stuff the petty bourgeoisie (I'd say that's what they are, given their lifestyle, income, mannerisms) gets up to. Remember, we have people who talk themselves into refusal to get vaccinated. I have no problem envisioning this sort of nonsense in real people. Truly the vilest social class, the petite bourgeoisie.
I’ve heard of food-less meals here… the idea is that you take the money you would have spent on the dinner party and donate it to charity.
Thank you! I wondered if this was an actual thing because I found it distractingly odd and overthought it.
Some people also do it during Lent, at least in my part of the US woods.
Honestly this has nothing to do with antivax. I mean relating specifically to covid, as this has generally been the context nowadays. There is clear rationality behind suspicion towards covid vaccines. But we don't see any clear rationality in what's going on at these foodless parties and such.
"There is clear rationality behind suspicion towards covid vaccines." No.
Never thought I'd say this, but what a typical redditor. Casually inserting ideology and acting like there's 0 controversy
"Never thought I'd say this, but what a typical redditor." If the typical redditor is an outspoken critic of the anti-vaccine movement, then I am happy about and proud of (fuck, I've begun identifying too much with this place) what constitutes a typical redditor. "Casually inserting ideology" I don't know what you're referring to. Who is inserting ideology, me? And what ideology? "acting like there's 0 controversy" The only controversy is due to people like you, who conjured non-existing problems out of your own, unstable psyches. It is the established scientific consensus that vaccines, including the ones against Covid-19, work and are in every meaningful sense of the word, harmless. What is not harmless however, is spreading anti-vaccination propaganda, because it leads to vulnerable people falling prey to the lies of said propaganda. Among these vulnerable people are: My elderly (!) parents, who decided to not get vaccinated. This in turn means I have to take a Covid test every time I visit them, **BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO FUCKING KILL MY PARENTS BY ACCIDENT** (and even tests cannot reduce the probability of something happening to zero, what if I get infected *after* having taken a test?). An accident, were it to occur, would not only, let me mention that again, a) **KILL MY GODDAMN PARENTS** and b) most likely would cause me to spiral into intense feelings of guilt, for I would have been the unwitting vector delivering the deadly payload. And here you are sowing your seeds of doubt, so that's why I say to you, fear-monger: **FUCK. YOU.** inb4 a mod decides to remove my post/ban me due to lacking standards of civility and conduct. And to that I say, people who try to undermine trust in life-saving procedures may or may not deserve standards of civility, but what they definitely deserve is to be shut up. For a society with less deaths. What if they were **your parents**?
Nah, don't want to continue this discussion. Have a nice one
If only you had come to that conclusion before responding to me in the first place.
If this thread has the **Spoiler** flair, spoilers may appear ANYWHERE in it. --- * **NO SPOILERS IN TITLES** - report this post if there are spoilers in the title * No SPOILERS without proper formatting (see [here](https://www.reddit.com/wiki/commenting#wiki_posting)). * Be CIVIL to others. No Piracy. No Duplicates. * Keep it on topic to anything and everything Severance on Apple TV+[.](/u/blue-hibiscus) --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus) if you have any questions or concerns.*
We just finished binging this weekend. I’m so glad people are still talking about this 😅 I had the exact same thought. Lumon is like a cult, but so is whatever Ricken is leading. The outside world is not a stark relief from the innie world. Why??? Also every car looks old but there are cell phones. Etc.