← The Prestige TV Podcast
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- [00:00]
Matt Bellany
If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast the Town on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name is Matt Bellany. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the what I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show the Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight, which streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat. Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who'll eat lunch in this town Again, follow the Town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:39]
Joanna Robinson
This episode is brought to you by Coffee Mate. I love a good crossover, especially when it's with a show you love. This time the crossover isn't with another character, but with Coffee Mate. Coffee Mate has collaborated with HBO's the White Lotus to bring us two tropically inspired limited time only flavors, Pina Colada and Thai iced coffee flavored creamers. And as a coffee fanatic, I can't wait to try them. All right, Thai iced coffee in my coffee. Pina colada in coffee. I am adventurous when it comes to new flavors, but this sounds truly different. I'm picturing something tropical and refreshing, like a beachside cocktail, but with a coffee twist. Definitely curious to see how it all comes together. Let's try it. Mmm. The Thai iced coffee is amazing. It tastes like like an authentic Thai iced coffee with that, you know, the condensed milk sweetness to it. I was very skeptical about the pina colada, but it's surprisingly delicious. The coconut and pineapple notes make it feel like a vacation in a cup. Perfect for sipping while watching the latest episode of HBO's original series the White Lotus Coffee Mates. The White Lotus flavors are only available for a limited time, so try them now and stream HBO's original series on on max.
- [01:55]
Rob Mahoney
This episode is brought to you by Marvel Television's Born Again. Charlie Cox returns as vigilante lawyer Matt Murdock and Vincent D'Onofrio as former mob boss Wilson Fisk. The darker side of Matt Murdock is revealed when he gains a new perspective on his role as the Daredevil and faces an internal struggle between justice and revenge. The devil's work is never done. Don't miss the two episode premiere of Daredevil Born Again on March 4th, only on Disney.
- [02:26]
Joanna Robinson
She's not helly, she's an Egan.
- [02:29]
Charlie Cox
Turn her back, Mr. Milchick.
- [02:32]
Joanna Robinson
Turn her back, God damn it.
- [02:34]
Charlie Cox
Stop doing. Yes, do it, Seth.
- [02:46]
Joanna Robinson
Hello, welcome back to the prestigious TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson.
- [02:49]
Charlie Cox
I'm Rob Mahoney.
- [02:51]
Joanna Robinson
Rob is still podcasting from the Void. If you're watching this on video live.
- [02:56]
Charlie Cox
From the severed floor. Jo.
- [02:57]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, Rob's an innie today. I'm an Audi, and we're going to switch places next week because I'm going out to LA and Rob's coming back here to the Bay Area. So we are. We're swapping places. Before we start to talk about today's banger episode of Severance, Season two, Episode four, I want to do some, like, quick programming reminders, bits here and there. If you missed it. Rob and I did a sort of brief, like, little video exclusive check in on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer news. Rob and I are huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans, and there's news of a reboot sequel, et cetera, that's coming down the pike. And we just spent, I don't know, 30 minutes or so talking about our innermost thoughts and fears about that. So that's on YouTube. If you want to go to the prestige, the rare TV feed on YouTube, you can watch Rob and the Void and me at home talking about that. Um, also on this feed. Stay tuned. We've got massive White Lotus coverage coming up. Uh, we're gonna be doing two prestige episodes per episode of White Lotus. So you'll get sort of the instant reaction, Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, Joanna Robinson Experience, and then you will get these sort of like, deep dive. Send us your emails, theories, and whatever. Rob Mahoney, Joanna Robinson Experience. So those are two different flavors that taste great together. And that is how we are covering White Lotus this season.
- [04:16]
Charlie Cox
Yeah.
- [04:17]
Joanna Robinson
How.
- [04:17]
Charlie Cox
How do you think we're gonna differentiate our. Other than clearly the deep dive, the theories, like, are we just gonna devote 20 to 30 minutes every week for Walton Goggins? Fits the innermost thoughts of whatever Carrie Coons character is doing at a given point in time. Many passion projects for us in this.
- [04:33]
Joanna Robinson
Particular season, I think Carrie Corner is a must. And I think perhaps we should consider recording all of our episodes while wearing the Walton Goggins goggles in order to get the full experience.
- [04:46]
Charlie Cox
I'm open to that.
- [04:47]
Joanna Robinson
Okay.
- [04:48]
Charlie Cox
Does it make for good video content? I guess we'll see.
- [04:50]
Joanna Robinson
Well, tune in to find out. We will be covering the pit a bit more. We're sporadically checking in on the pit here and there. A show we're both really enjoying And Yellowjackets was originally going to be on this feed, but now, given everything that we're doing with White Lotus, et cetera, Mallory Rubin and I will be covering that over on the House of our feed. So if you want Yellowjackets Season 3 coverage, buzz, buzz, baby. You will find it over on the House of R feed. So that's a lot of stuff. That is what we were doing here on the Prestige feed. But right now, it's season two, episode four, Woes Hollow Time. This episode's written by Anna O. Young Munch and directed by Ben Stiller. And it is. We're leaving Devin, Natalie Rickon and Harmony Cobell behind because Seth, Ms. Wong, Helena, Dylan, Mark, and especially Irving are out here for the ORT bow. There's copious luxury meets, and most important, Ramahoney. We go bobbing for some truth. Would you not say it's the best.
- [06:00]
Charlie Cox
Kind of bobbing you can do, in my experience.
- [06:02]
Joanna Robinson
Here we go. This is a wild episode. This is not at all what we were expecting that we had, like, some guesses about what this episode would be. So if you ever needed proof that Rob and I are not watching ahead, go listen to what we thought, episode four of this season.
- [06:15]
Charlie Cox
Listen to how wrong we were and are on a regular basis, deeply wrong.
- [06:20]
Joanna Robinson
But let's start opening image Turturro in furs as Irving in the middle of a frozen lake. Did you think, first of all, I want your, like, big picture thoughts on the episode, whether or not you liked it. And then also on this image, what did you think when you were, you, like, were in a dream. What did you think when you first saw the opening image of this episode?
- [06:46]
Charlie Cox
Love the episode. This is the good stuff. And I think it's kind of severance at its best in a lot of ways, which is odd to say because it's a setting that's totally unfamiliar to us, a structure that is very unfamiliar to us. We're diverging from the formula of what severance has been, but it can be as baffling as ever, as ominous as ever. And I think tonally struck exactly the chord that I love so much about this show. And some of that is, I think, from the disorientation that you're alluding to opening this way, as I'm saying, a completely unfamiliar setting. The last we saw was Mark being maybe reintegrated or maybe beginning to be reintegrated. Could this episode be a construction within Mark's mind? Could this be an actual physical space, which I think it ultimately plays out as being. But the fact that it opens in that manner, given the way we ended things in episode three, is just such a thrilling way to start. And I think the sort of cold, open format, no opening credits, if I'm remembering correctly from this episode, like, we don't get any divergences from this little. This little adventure we're on. This little Ortbow experience.
- [07:52]
Joanna Robinson
I had this moment where I was so certain we were right about what this episode was gonna be, that my brain kept trying to figure out a way that that could still be true, even though we opened very clearly in Irving's point of view. And I was like, that's probably not gonna happen inside of Mark's head. Oh, no, probably not.
- [08:10]
Charlie Cox
But maybe, you know, maybe it could be an out of body experience. Maybe it could be transportive. There is something about the furs and the cold that is very third level deep Inception, you know, that kind of reads in a way where it's like, oh, this is a dream state. There is something so ethereal about it. Turns out it's just severance being creepy, as usual. And I really enjoyed it.
- [08:31]
Joanna Robinson
I was at a party once, the year that Inception came out, and someone was talking to me, and he was like, I want to go down to, like, the snow fortress layer of your mind. And I was like, someone, we're done having this conversation now. I think I just wouldn't recommend Inception level pickup lines at a party in any year, honestly. Okay, so what I loved about this episode, and among many other things, this is very International Assassin. This is an episode of the Leftovers that you and I talked about on this very feed fairly recently. It is visually quite stunning. There's, you know, if you listen to the official severance podcast, they talked about how they filmed all of this sort of in and around the Catskills in New York, how they were on location for a lot of this. Even this opening sequence, which looks so strange, you feel like it's digitally created. Adam Scott was saying he was actually on a cliff and Turturro was actually on a frozen lake, and they were actually yelling at each other.
- [09:37]
Charlie Cox
Wow.
- [09:38]
Joanna Robinson
And that's stunning. You know, they've somehow found the world's largest waterfall and shot next to it. It's just, like, incredible stuff. You know, they actually, like, put a cubicle in the middle of a forest. Again, that looks digitally created, but they actually did it. And I think that gives the, you know, and there's, like, shots inside of this episode. They're dressed in these incredible furs. As you mentioned, and there's shots, especially with the four of them in frame together, that looks like an album cover. I started looking at photos of the Beatles. I was like, is there a Beatles album cover that looks like this? The closest, of course, we get is help. But no one is dressed in head to toe furs in that album cover. So I couldn't make the one to one comp. But like it was, it was definitely framed up as like, this is the band. And perhaps the last time we're going to see the band together. Because the question I want to ask you, and this is sort of skipping to the end of the episode, but I think it's worth opening with. Do you feel like this is the last time we see Irving be Irving's innie? What do you think?
- [10:38]
Charlie Cox
I do think it probably is. And I don't know what that signals in terms of the overall structure of the timeline of the show. I think one of the things that's so thrilling about these last two episodes is Mark is getting reintegrated more quickly than we probably would have imagined if we were to sketch out how this season might go. And ultimately, if this is pulling the plug on Irving B. And certainly the Helena reveal being a part of that, we're burning through some of the big developments that we are anticipating in this season pretty quickly. And that, that's so exciting and so energizing in terms of what the rest of the season could be. Because I, I do think this is. I. I mean, basically I think there's two paths here, Joe. And, and correct me if you see a third one here, Irving B is gone from the severed floor, or Irving B is clean, slated memory wiped as an innie and basically factory reset. Do. Do you see a third path here as far as the innie version of Irving continuing on this show, A later.
- [11:34]
Joanna Robinson
Reintegrated version sure is, I think, the only other thing I can see. And we'll talk about Colleen Slate, we'll talk about the various contingencies. We got a little bit more information on that stuff inside of this episode. But I think the way it was, I guess I was just thinking more sort of in a storytelling sense, what does death mean on a show like Severance? Like this was shot very much like, you know, when Irving makes his stand, which we heard at the top of the episode, and I guess really belatedly spoilers for episode four of Severance. But like when Irving makes his stand knowing, like fully knowing that he is putting himself at risk for termination and Irving specifically being the character in season one who was most closely associating termination with death when Burt was retired and Irving lost his shit, because he's just like, you're just killing him, essentially. So putting himself on the line for heli, for Mark, for Dylan, knowing that he's putting his own sort of innie at risk and walking into the woods. Camera's on the back of his face. Then we get the front of his face. The second he gives Milchick before he goes, this sort of like sense of Pyrrhic victory. The score, everyone's reactions. I'm like, this is a big character death moment on a TV show. But of course we're gonna see John Turturro some more. And of course, there could be a twist in the plot where we turn Irving Bee back on for some reason or another or reintegration. So just sort of like taking the standard rules of television inside of this sci fi concept. It's like how we talk about in the Marvel Cinematic Universe right now. Everything's possible in the multiverse. Robert Downey Jr's coming back because everything's possible in the multiverse. Anything's possible in a show where you can turn people on and off with a switch, with a walkie talkie call.
- [13:28]
Charlie Cox
That's where severance gets to have its cake and eat it too. Because we do get the stakes of this maybe being a send off for Irving B. But as you said, we don't have to say goodbye to one of the beloved actors on the show and the best performances on this show. And if this is the last we see of Irving B. I will be very sad about that. I've grown to really love this character. And even within this episode, which is very much a detective Irving on the case kind of structure.
- [13:50]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [13:51]
Charlie Cox
He is allowed to be that and to be deeply skeptical of Helena, as he has been now for this entire season, but also still kind of credulous about the greater Kir myth. And I love that balance of somebody who, because of the construct of the world he engages in, still lives within the walls that Lumen has set out for him. But within those walls, he sees someone he knows pretty well acting bizarrely, and is really the only person to single and figure that out.
- [14:20]
Joanna Robinson
He's got some Night Gardener questions, as did we.
- [14:24]
Charlie Cox
What was the vest? What was he wearing? What was he doing?
- [14:26]
Joanna Robinson
What? Do you wear a reflective vest to garden tonight? Probably. You know, I will miss. I don't know. I guess. Yeah, we've. No, we have not heard Audi Irving speak Right.
- [14:41]
Charlie Cox
Just. Just paint. Just listen to Ace of Spades. Just slam night coffees.
- [14:45]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, yeah. Maybe he said hello to his dog, but I. I don't know if we have. I will say I will miss the weird mid Atlantic accent that John Turturro has affected for this role that, like, he and Patricia Arquette seem to agree that they were gonna do this, like, weird accent work for their role. I love it. And I will miss it if Audi Irving does not have that accent.
- [15:07]
Charlie Cox
Now that you mentioned, I think we do hear him speak very briefly when Milchick shows up to his house, pineapple in hand, to recruit him back. But we don't get a lot of dialogue and so it's a little tough to hear if the accent will continue.
- [15:18]
Joanna Robinson
I'm. I'm hoping and praying that it'll work. You mentioned we don't get an opening credits, but I did want to. I think we should do sort of a regular opening credits check in because as they mentioned, there will be like moments in the opening credits that once we watch the episodes, we'll go, aha. So I would say we see in the opening credits, ordinarily we see Mark out on an ice floe. Like that's part of the opening credits. And then also in the opening credits, there's the glitch between Halena and Ms. Kayce, which we get inside of this episode as well. So those are just two little. Two little opening credits moments that are reflected inside of this episode.
- [15:58]
Charlie Cox
What was, what was your read on that glitch within this episode? Not to jump ahead, but during Mark and clearly Helena's own Ortbow encounter, you know, their own little time away, little retreat within the retreat, we get this glitch flash. As severance is ought to do and loves to do. From Helena to Gemma. Do you read that as Mark's reintegration starting to click into effect? Is that the only way to read it or did you see something else in that moment?
- [16:29]
Joanna Robinson
Oh, I think there's plenty of ways you could read it, but that was what I was hoping it was because we had erroneously assumed that given what we saw at the end of the last episode, we would be from now on, fully reintegrated Mark. And that is incorrect. It seems like they're gonna slow roll this out. And so this is like, I think they needed to do something inside of this episode to give us like a flash of reintegration. Otherwise you're sort of like, hey, what did we do? Are we just forgetting what we did at the end of Last week's episode, you know, so that was sort of my take on it. I mentioned Leftovers. I am duty bound to also mention Lost really quickly.
- [17:10]
Charlie Cox
The show is baiting you into it at this point.
- [17:12]
Joanna Robinson
It's not my fault.
- [17:13]
Charlie Cox
No.
- [17:14]
Joanna Robinson
The video that they watch on top of the cliff of Milchick, talking about the Orpo and everything else is maybe the clearest Lost reference yet that we've gotten on this show. Because if you've never watched Lost, occasionally they stumble across these instructional videos from a figure who goes by different names. Pierre Chang, Marvin Kendall, Edgar Hallowacks, Mark Wickman. There's more. Anyway, it's always like this. It's like a weird sort of soundtrack score in the background and then glitched and edited through. So it's a direct loss reference. The way that this video is presented.
- [17:51]
Charlie Cox
Here with the weird soundtrack you're describing, is it a similar. I particularly love that it's not just the Cure anthem, but Kieranthem. Midi is effectively the effect we're going for here is a similar kind of chip tune effect.
- [18:04]
Joanna Robinson
Not quite, because what they find are. I think they were made in like the 70s, so they're like reel to reel, but they're. It's like a sim. It is a sort of a similar vibe, but yeah, great midi work. You're absolutely right. Also, I will say this is where I'm reaching, but I will say tent sex is a classic Lost staple Trek across the island. Classic Lost stable, etc. Etc. Let's talk about Hel and Hel inside of this episode, please. We Hel is finally back. Vindication for everyone who believed that this was Helena undercover as Hel from the start. There was a moment inside of this episode where I actually experienced my highest level of doubt about whether or not we were right before. We were obviously conclusively proved right.
- [18:56]
Charlie Cox
Yes.
- [18:56]
Joanna Robinson
But I will say that of all of her acting skills, of which Helena very spotty actress in her heli role throughout the season, but her sort of bewilderment when they first are in the wilderness here, she kind of sold that. I was like.
- [19:15]
Charlie Cox
She did.
- [19:16]
Joanna Robinson
Is this Hellen?
- [19:17]
Charlie Cox
I mean, I think she was bewildered, though.
- [19:19]
Joanna Robinson
Would Helena do this? But, you know, it was. It was helly all along.
- [19:27]
Charlie Cox
I think there's something kind of perfect there in the. Honestly, there is acting and there is not acting. And I think what's so fun about this episode is parsing the moments from Helena and trying to figure out what is Helena herself reacting to authentically and what is her trying to Play something as heli. And so, yeah, her being bewildered in the woods, I kind of believe in the same sense that when she shows up to present the snow seal to Irving and kind of like chuckles nervously. Very homeschool kid energy to me. You know, this is. This is a person who has not been outside a lot. And I particularly love the idea of putting her in this foreign setting. And it is to her as much as it is the enies. It seems like I don't think she spent a lot of time, you know, even glamping, as it were.
- [20:15]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, this is. This is halfway between regular camping and a glamp experience. They have heaters in the tent.
- [20:23]
Charlie Cox
Heaters in the tent, which is a fire hazard, we should say.
- [20:27]
Joanna Robinson
Absolutely. Never put a heater like that in the tent. Like, I don't care if you want to, like, cosplay, you know, LARP Severance in the forest. I'm here to tell you, do not put those heaters inside of your tent.
- [20:40]
Charlie Cox
If you are going to LARP Severance. Don't put the heater in the tent.
- [20:43]
Joanna Robinson
No.
- [20:43]
Charlie Cox
Don't waterboard anybody.
- [20:45]
Joanna Robinson
Don't eat the. The rotting seals shaped thing in the water.
- [20:49]
Charlie Cox
I don't know what's going on with the rotting animals, but yeah, I look, the. The space heater makes for a striking visual in a really beautifully evocative and I think, energizing episode in that way. Like, the visual language of Severance is so fun and so inviting, and it's part of what makes the show as mysterious as it is. And it's details like that that really give you the lighting that you need in the background that you need. Like, one thing we didn't get to talk about last week was as they're navigating the halls looking for the goat room again, you get this sort of effect where the lights are kind of turning on and off behind them as they're moving and progressing through the hall. I love what they do with lighting on this show. And usually that's very luminescent in the office, right? Like, that's very white overhead light.
- [21:32]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, yeah.
- [21:33]
Charlie Cox
Now we're getting kind of naturalistic settings for the first time. We're getting people in different spaces. We're getting Lumen employees going wild in their little glamping tents. Shout out to those kids.
- [21:44]
Joanna Robinson
What I wrote down. When. When Helena and Mark are having their. Their team building encounter and they're backlit by that heater. I wrote absolute hell imagery in my notes. And what we get, we get that and then we get the conversation they have afterwards, which I think is really useful for your question of when is Helena being sincere and when is she not? They're laying down, facing each other. Their faces are half lit by the red light. So you get that nice, like, severance, divided energy. It's very, like, Persona, sort of like half silhouette. And you're cutting back and forth between that and Irving in. In, like, freezing his ass off in the forest. And his face is half lit, but he's half lit blue by the moonlight. And so you've got that, like, classic severance, red, blue lighting motif. You've got the divided light on their faces. And I will just say that I think, like, Ben Stiller and his DP on this episode just went absolutely apeshit with the imagery in the best way, Hog Wild.
- [22:47]
Charlie Cox
And thematically, too, I think in terms of the structure of this show, there's something so telling about the fact that the truth isolates Irving and the lies bring people like Helen and Mark together.
- [22:57]
Joanna Robinson
That's so devastating to me. It's tough to. Your question about, so what happens here between Mark and Hela? I just want to. I just want to say this. If you can't get informed consent from someone, this is sexual assault. This is not. Like, Mark cannot give informed consent to this encounter.
- [23:19]
Charlie Cox
Body swapping, sexual politics is. It's dicey territory.
- [23:23]
Joanna Robinson
This is. This more than anything. And maybe this is a weird place to draw my line, but, like, I was sort of in on the idea of, like, a Helena redemption arc. This is really tough for me to watch her come back from inside of the same moment. We get this conversation where she's talking about the. Who she. She doesn't like who she was on the outside.
- [23:46]
Charlie Cox
Yeah.
- [23:46]
Joanna Robinson
The shame she feels, which, to your point, I think is genuine stuff from Helena. So, like, that is appealing to me emotionally, but what she does to Mark here is reprehensible, repugnant, like, devastating, you know? And so, like, when he is able to process that beyond what he learns, the stunning information that he learns at the end of the episode, the fallout for him of, like, what he's done here, and then the fallout, like, I don't know, are we going to get more Helena? Are we going to get more helly? Like, they turn helly on at the end of this episode. Is there a reason to keep her on? Like, are we gonna see how she feels about Mark having sex with Helena? Or, you know, what are. What are we gonna do with that? Is my question.
- [24:33]
Charlie Cox
I think we have to get that beat. We have to Have Helly being told what just happened and everything that someone has been doing in what is her body. Like we, I think we think about and talk about these things in a way because of the agency involved. As you know, someone like Mark Scout has signed up to sever himself and give over part of his consciousness into this any form. But like the innie form that is their body too and they're having to coexist within it with everything that their Audi version does. And in this case, like the Helena character has done some terrible things and has done some terrible things to your point about her arc for reasons that are very humanistically understandable.
- [25:12]
Joanna Robinson
Right.
- [25:12]
Charlie Cox
Like it's so fun watching her try to navigate this with Mark and what she says and doesn't say and how she's like trying to engage and connect with him because on the one hand she doesn't know Mark well enough to really be in love with him or to have feelings for him in the way that Helly did. Like Helly and Mark have been through a lot together.
- [25:31]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [25:32]
Charlie Cox
Helena saw it on tape, decided she wanted some of those smooches.
- [25:36]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [25:36]
Charlie Cox
And more and more jumped in and is so starved for not just physical contact it seems, but just deep emotional intimacy that she's inhabiting someone else's skin to try to attain it.
- [25:48]
Joanna Robinson
She's full of so much self self loathing and like exists in a world where people look at her. I don't like her that she is just desperate for someone to look at her the way that Mark looks at Helly. And so goo eyes. Yeah, she wants those goo goo eyes, baby. On that hell imagery. I did want to read. We got several emails from people last week not only disagreeing with how we felt about the goat room, that's its own thing. But, but a lot of people were like, hey, you missed this biblical illusion. So I think it's, it's worth talking about inside of the context of this hell imagery here because we were talking about, we talked about the Greek underworld a lot. But let's talk about Judeo Christian underworld inside of an episode where we're getting these incredible sermons sort of situations.
- [26:34]
Charlie Cox
Anyway, Kevin, let me tell you, even as a raised and lapsed Catholic, this will not be the last biblical illusion we miss. You know, it's a dense book. There's, there's a lot to parse.
- [26:43]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah. And as a, as a dyed in the wool atheist, I do my best. So Kevin D. Wrote in to say I was surprised he didn't touch on the biblical allusion to the Parable of the lost Sheep. Close enough. And Mark's positioning as a savior figure. He was trying to resurrect his wife and arguably performed an exorcism of a sort at the end. Not that any Mark is a demon, but two entities possessing one body, I think is analogous. Maybe now Mark's identity will be defined by a new contradiction. The way he is fully two people in one, as Christ is fully human and fully divine. Or how the Trinity is three persons in one entity. I think like you guys, I don't want Mark to be any Jesus, but it seems like they're pointing towards that. So we got a lot of emails about the parable of the lost sheep and how close, sort of some of what Mark was talking about in terms of like, what if it was your goat missing? Would you care? Is very close to Parable Jesus and the Parable of the Lost Sheep in the Bible. So Mark being positioned as Lumen Jesus, which, yes, we have explicitly said we weren't like, terribly excited about, but I think, you know, if that's something that they're doing is worth tracking and thinking about.
- [27:47]
Charlie Cox
Oh, yeah. And this is a show that has not just mythology but religion so clearly on its mind. Not. Not overtly, as there is a savior like figure. Unless Mark turns out to be that or some messiah. It's more about the mythology around these things, the way figures and stories propagate. Even the, you know, the recital and the reading that we get of this fourth appendix. Look, it is. It's creepy as hell. And I want to personally salute whoever is in charge of literally writing these texts because they are hitting the exact strand and the exact point that I would like them to hit. And I'm having so much fun with the text within the show, but they do have kind of an old world mythological bent that is very hard to strive for when you're purposely trying to strive for it.
- [28:33]
Joanna Robinson
Well, I think it's interesting that, like, in the Bible, again, I am an atheist, but in the Bible, but I was a child once, so I do know that there's the figure of Odin in the Bible. Odin sort of like famously sort of shunned and punished for spilling his seed on the ground and wasting his seed on the ground, which is sort of exactly what we're talking about when we talk about Dieter Egan inside of this episode. So great stuff, Severance, you demented show. I love you very much.
- [29:05]
Charlie Cox
Yes.
- [29:06]
Joanna Robinson
Also on that question, I'm so glad you brought up this idea of, like, bodily autonomy inside of the Innies and the outy world. Because I think it's good to think about that. In contrast to what, what Helena said earlier in the season when she's like, we owe them nothing.
- [29:22]
Charlie Cox
Yep.
- [29:23]
Joanna Robinson
Like, she's talking about the Audis, but really talking about the innies, like they don't really. We don't owe them anything. We don't. You know, she doesn't. She's trying to convince herself that they're not people that you know, so she could do whatever she wants with them. Our listener Rebecca C. Wrote in to reference another sort of dystopian near future sci fi story, Never Let Me Go, which is the Kazuo Ishiguro book, which has turned into a film.
- [29:49]
Charlie Cox
This is a great call.
- [29:51]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah. And she wrote, if you recall that book movie, it's about farming kids, innies, so they can live unfulfilling lives and ultimately be organ providers for their outies. And like the same as severance. You have to separate yourself from the idea of the cruelty you're doing to this innie so that you can benefit from what they provide. In Rob's case, the ability to never do the dishes. But that innie is a real person with real feelings who falls in love and feels pain, but is stuck doing their duty. You feel me? So this idea inside of the story of Never Let Me Go, an incredible book and a great movie. If you grow humans or clone humans or whatever to help you, are you honor bound to treat them as a human with their own thought and mind and soul? Or are you able to think of them as merely chattel? What do you do in something like this?
- [30:51]
Charlie Cox
And I think it's an especially fascinating question for someone like Helena under these circumstances when, as you say, she is on the record that these are not people, that they are not capable of making their own decisions. And yet she's also somebody who even though she may on like think of Mark S that way, also at least kind of wants to care about him or wants to feel a kind of connection with him. Like that paradox is really juicy. I think again, overall, all the positions that Helena is put in within this episode, and especially when you think back on them and reflect on them or go back for a second watch things like her cracking up at the campfire at kind of how ridiculous the appendix reads.
- [31:30]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [31:30]
Charlie Cox
Because she's the only person who has like actual real world context to be able to say this sounds insane.
- [31:36]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah. Yeah.
- [31:37]
Charlie Cox
And. And the fact that she might not even be familiar with some of these texts that are. That are read and presented to Laneys.
- [31:43]
Joanna Robinson
This is what we're teaching. This is our corporate ambulance.
- [31:47]
Charlie Cox
This is it.
- [31:49]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [31:49]
Charlie Cox
Jerking it in the forest and turning into a tree.
- [31:53]
Joanna Robinson
Do you think when Helena and Mark were having their encounter in the tent, do you think Dylan went down to the waterfall to drown out the sound of it so that they didn't have to listen to it?
- [32:04]
Charlie Cox
He did say it was very smart.
- [32:06]
Joanna Robinson
He thought. He thought it was a really good idea.
- [32:07]
Charlie Cox
It was very smart.
- [32:08]
Joanna Robinson
When she says. When she says stuff like. That was mean of me to say that to Irving. Well, let's go back and really say this really quickly. Helena's biggest mistake inside of this episode. She's talking about Burvin.
- [32:20]
Charlie Cox
Everybody's talking about. Everybody's talking about burving. Everybody's talking about. Talking about burbing.
- [32:26]
Joanna Robinson
That was her tell. That, that, that. That was like where she put her toe over the line.
- [32:30]
Charlie Cox
Yeah.
- [32:30]
Joanna Robinson
She brought up Bert and she says to Mark, that was a mean of me to say that to Irving. And I really feel like that's Helena being like, I don't want to be that person. Some. I don't know. I don't have this. There's like, like maybe covering, like there's a version. There's interpretation that she's just covering her action and part of heli. But I also just think, I. I can't. I can't believe this is the comp that's coming to mind. But in one of my favorite films, you've Got Mail. Don't. Don't email me pineapplebobbingmail.com about anything else. But not about you've Got Mail. But.
- [33:06]
Charlie Cox
Like, embodying someone else's body for an encounter. Not good. Hiding your identity within the context of the Internet.
- [33:13]
Joanna Robinson
Fine, Fine. But Tom Hanks encounters McBride and he, like, says something really snarky to her, and then he's just sort of like, God, I hate that there's that part of me that comes out like, I hate that about me. You know what I mean? And so it's like, if Helen is like, God, I can't help but be an asshole even when I'm given this, like, fresh start opportunity to be this lovable co worker, I. This, like, shitty part of me comes out anyway. You know, I just think that that's, again, very human inside of a really shitty, reprehensible series of moves that she pulls inside of.
- [33:50]
Charlie Cox
Oh, yeah. And we talked previously about, within the context of Dylan and Gretchen, the idea of meeting your significant other or someone who cares about you kind of like for the first time again and kind of the freshness of that experience. One thing we don't really know is what the broad cultural awareness is in the outside world of Helena Egan. Like, is this a figure who is on the front page of every newspaper and people know in a very public, like front, front facing, CEO type way, or is it sort of, oh, people might know her name, people might know that there's this broad, like powerful Egan family, but don't necessarily know what she looks like.
- [34:27]
Joanna Robinson
Right.
- [34:27]
Charlie Cox
And so at least within the context of the company and everything adjacent to it, everyone she meets would know who she is and how powerful her family is, if not exactly how powerful she is. And yeah, she gets a fresh start with these people, not only as Helena versus Heli, but as a not so famous person and like just an innocuous kind of encounter with a co worker versus oh, you are Helena Egan, right?
- [34:51]
Joanna Robinson
And yeah, very like Prince and the Pauper. Like, what's it like to sort of like walk amongst people and not be genuflected to or I prefer man in.
- [35:00]
Charlie Cox
The Iron Mask, but, you know, teach their own.
- [35:04]
Joanna Robinson
The doubling. We've already talked about sort of some of the imagery in here, but we get these like literal doppelganger figures which like you can. That's the goat room level aspect of this episode because, like, everything else exists pretty clearly inside of the other than the like of the weird rotting seal thing. Everything else exists inside of this premise that we've already understood, which is that you've got a chip inside your head that severs you and that's like sort of a part of the show that we are like, we're buying in on that technology. What are being asked to buy in when we get these weird freaky doubles in the woods? Are these hologram? Like, are we Kanye hologramming? Are we like, have we hired a woman who vaguely looks like Helena Egan to stand in the snow in a pencil skirt? You know, that seems like, is there room for that? Like, I don't know. So, like, what's your sense of what these figures are?
- [36:09]
Charlie Cox
Clearly we are being led down a road of expecting some sort of bodily cloning recreation of forms. Like, that is the overall firmament of the show. Like, it's out there, this idea. I, I at the point where I'm kind of wondering if that might be more of a head fake in certain ways. And this does end up being a little more smoke and mirrors. This does end up being something like a literal like hired stand in body double type situation. I love that it's there. I love that we don't know. I love that we never see those people too closely and we have to ask these questions. It. It is a little bit. Not to Night country, this thing. A little Travis Cole.
- [36:47]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, yeah.
- [36:48]
Charlie Cox
Just like mysterious figure pointing into the cold wilderness like that. That brought me back a little bit. But I actually really like this element and I like how unanswered it is. I like that we honestly may never know. This could be one of those details that we get to the end of severance. And it's one of those things that's still like, wait, what the fuck was up with those body doubles in the forest? There's. There's some room for ambiguity and there's room for mystery, even within a show that's like five mystery box levels deep already.
- [37:13]
Joanna Robinson
I'm so glad you invoked the mystery box. I have already invoked two Damian Lindelof shows. I will invoke no more of Damon Lindelof, probably. Oh, actually, no. We got a Washington email. Okay, I'm lying. We will come back to another Damon Lindelof. But Lindelof was so inspired by Twin Peaks in making his eerie sort of worlds. And so this is so Peaksy, These sort of like, grinning, dockable Gangers. We got a great email about sort of the Twin Peaks element inside of, like, Mark's hand twitch that I think I want to return to when we spend a little bit more time with reintegrated Mark. But inside of Twin Peaks, which gives us, especially Twin Peaks, the return, which gives us doppelgangers. And that duality of people, the evil side of people and the good side of people and all of that inside of that world. I think it's worth thinking about when we think about these creepy little doppelgangers. If you have other ideas about what these people invoke, these figures invoke in the woods. Pineapplebobbingmail.com I'm sure there's other things I'm.
- [38:24]
Charlie Cox
Missing, but clearly there's the twinning aspect of the story that they even mentioned within, like Dylan calls out directly, right? The. The whole idea of Kier having a twin brother, the innie outie sort of balance. Overall, I. So many parts of this episode, in particular, the ones that I love and I include this among them, are almost more mood pieces to me than they are clues. And like, my experience with Severus, I imagine everyone is a little different. On their balance is like 70% mood, 30% mystery. Like, the mystery matters to me and drives Me, but. And when done well, those things are almost inextricable as far as the mood and the place you're put in the story relative to trying to solve it. But both are important. Like form parts of that formula.
- [39:04]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, I don't think I'm trying to. I hear what you're saying and I think I can certainly fall into the like the finger trap of trying to solve a show. I definitely do that all the time. And there are ways in which you can just sort of let something wash over you for the mood and the vibe. And that is certainly in David Lynch's world and the Twin Peaks world. That is certainly what lynch wants. Lynch wants to push you into like a position of emotional uncertainty and just sort of like let you dangle and twist there. Like that's what he does not want you solving the show.
- [39:35]
Charlie Cox
And not to be guy who watched Mulholland Drive this week, but the visage of. Of the woe. The woe bride that we get is very woman behind the trash can in Mulholland or behind the dumpster in Mulholland Drive.
- [39:47]
Joanna Robinson
Can we take a two minute sidebar? You went with our guy Justin Sales as you did at Mulholland Drive. How was that, Rob?
- [39:52]
Charlie Cox
He took me on a little date. We went to go see Mulholland Drive in the theater. It was a religious experience for many different reasons also, you know, just a great thing to do while you're in Los Angeles. Just really learn about the hellscape that you're inhabiting. It's an important rite of passage, I think.
- [40:07]
Joanna Robinson
Which theater did you go to?
- [40:09]
Charlie Cox
We went to Vidiots in Eagle Rock.
- [40:10]
Joanna Robinson
Oh yes.
- [40:11]
Charlie Cox
Which is the place to see it. Had a wonderful time. Thank you to our guy, Justin Sims.
- [40:15]
Joanna Robinson
Okay, Justin's on this call. Thank you, Justin, for giving Rob the true LA experience. But yeah, that like I'm fine with just letting. I don't need to solve this. I don't need. I will say this, I don't need the sh. Like, I don't want to be in that space that some of the like sort of Bad Faith Lost fans were. Were at the end of the thing. They're like, you never explained the doppelgangers in the woods in season two, episode four. Like, I don't need an explanation for that. I just feel like it's dipping a toe in a new layer of surreality that we haven't. We've been experiencing like sci fi, but this is like surreality above this sort of premise of the world that we've been Given if that makes sense, I.
- [40:54]
Charlie Cox
Think this episode two invites it. Because we're in such a different physical space. Right. This is clearly an area of land that Lumen must have some control over and ability to dictate the conditions of. As far as who gets to be here, who doesn't. Bringing in these clones or doubles or whatnot, setting up the campsite and the cave and all that. Like, all of that is part of the larger office experience, but it's not an office floor in a literal office building. And so we are brought into a new physical space. And with that comes all sorts of questions, you know, like, how does severance work in a literal, physical, outside space that is not the office where they did not go through the elevator? How did they get here in the first place? How does Irving wake up on a frozen lake? Like, how does that work within the sci fi constructs that we know?
- [41:38]
Joanna Robinson
Do their Audis know that they're doing this?
- [41:40]
Charlie Cox
We're told that they do, but who knows?
- [41:43]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, like, are they going to wake up with some sort of wind burn, like, chap. Chapped lips and be like, was. Where was I? Somewhere quite cold? Okay, let's talk about Irving's dream. So again, to reiterate, this is real fog. They said they didn't use any digital fog in this. This is real fog that they captured in a burned out, you know, woodland area that they found in the Catskills while they were shooting something else. Their location scout found this area and was like, that looks like a nightmare. Let's go shoot there. So that's where they shot this. My favorite. There's a lot to talk about in this cubicle in the woods here.
- [42:21]
Charlie Cox
Yes.
- [42:21]
Joanna Robinson
My very favorite thing. And these might be digital. They didn't talk about whether or not they were, but the moths around the glowing computer screen. I just thought that was incredible detail. Whoever came up with that where was like, we should put moths on the screens in the woods. I was like, you get the marshmallow experience, it might be canceled for other people.
- [42:44]
Charlie Cox
Oh, my God.
- [42:45]
Joanna Robinson
But you who thought of moths, you get that.
- [42:49]
Charlie Cox
Even more reprehensible in retrospect, that it is Helena who costs these three innies their one chance to taste roasted marshmallow.
- [42:57]
Joanna Robinson
Unforgivable marshmallows over team players, Rob. They don't. They don't just hand them out.
- [43:02]
Charlie Cox
But some of the team were team players. It wasn't their fault. Dylan should get a marshmallow.
- [43:07]
Joanna Robinson
Here's my question. So these are marshmallows with Kerrigan's visage sort of stamped on them.
- [43:13]
Charlie Cox
And I. I thought as it melted, his visage kind of gets a little Scully in the flames a little bit. I don't know if that's deliberate or just me projecting, but that's what it looked like to me.
- [43:22]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, it was bubbling up. Rob Mahoney, foodie that you are.
- [43:27]
Charlie Cox
Yes.
- [43:28]
Joanna Robinson
Whose visage would you most want stamped on a. On a Marshall?
- [43:33]
Charlie Cox
Honestly, you could do much worse than a John Turturro, than a Chris Walken. You know, like, I would. I would welcome the cast members. Look, if they. If they want to make and market severance marshmallows with the cast members faces on it, I would support it.
- [43:46]
Joanna Robinson
I am 1000% certain those exist and are going out in an award season swag bag. I promise you that they're quite conscious.
- [43:54]
Charlie Cox
Of these things, for sure.
- [43:55]
Joanna Robinson
The Apple box that they. The swag box that they sent out for season one. I didn't. I. I don't get much TV swag anymore. And I like that about me because it just, like, adds up and it's just a lot of stuff.
- [44:08]
Charlie Cox
Yeah. Not to be ungrateful, but it's a lot of stuff.
- [44:10]
Joanna Robinson
It's a lot of stuff. But the lumen box they sent out in, among other things in there, they did have, like, lumen snack boxes from the, like, vending machine that were, like, in the thing. So I'm confident that whoever is doing Apple TV swag saw those marshmallows in this episode, was like, thank you for doing my job for me. Done and done. Thanks so much. Okay, the dream. Okay, so here's a couple things. We do get a birthing appearance.
- [44:36]
Charlie Cox
Yep.
- [44:37]
Joanna Robinson
We get the Whoa, bride appearance. And then the jump scare, the absolute jump scare that, like, got me. And. And then we get the refining image on the computer, and we get the letters E, A, G, E A, E A G, A N form Helena's face on the computer. And so something that I think is really interesting to point out, worth pointing out, we've had Irving sort of snooze a bit on the inside, and that's when we got the black paint sort of gooing over his cubicle in season one. But the innies don't sleep. This is the first time they've ever.
- [45:25]
Charlie Cox
Gotten to experience it.
- [45:26]
Joanna Robinson
Do innies dream of electric sheep? Like, do they dream, like, when we.
- [45:30]
Charlie Cox
Already know they do?
- [45:31]
Joanna Robinson
They do. And so what truths are hiding inside of an innie dream? We don't get to see what Mark was dreaming about. We get to See Adam Scott's tremendous smash into the pillow sleeping face. But we don't get to see, like, what truths he might have found inside of his dream. But Irving gets the answer to his suspicions inside of this. Who would have been powerful enough to send their Audi onto the separate floor? And he gets the letters Egan shaping Helena's face on the monitor for him.
- [46:03]
Charlie Cox
And this was something that people had emailed in already since this episode came out about how specifically did Irving know that Helena was an Egan? And this is the clearest answer we get within the episode. He does articulate exactly what you said. Who would be powerful enough, who would have the authority to do this?
- [46:19]
Joanna Robinson
Right.
- [46:19]
Charlie Cox
I think maybe there's a little bit of a jump there between, oh, this is a high powered Lumen employee to this is an Egan specifically, and it needs this sort of dream assist to ultimately get there because otherwise how would Irving know? The one reason I'm pretty like a little bit more willing to play ball with it is we have seen historically, Irving is maybe the character who has the most porous boundary between Innie and Outie in terms of the black goo, in terms like he's been actively trying in his outside life to infiltrate the mind of his Innie and pass information. And is it possible that even if it is subconsciously granted, this is one of the only times we've seen Irving fall asleep and that might be when he's most susceptible to receiving the information that his Audi is trying to send him. Could his Audi be trying to tell him specifically that this is Helena Egan that's on your floor or look out for this person, she is an Egan? I think that's very much within play.
- [47:12]
Joanna Robinson
Absolutely. And I think also to your point about sort of the permeability between the Innie and Outy and Irving, which might mean that, like, we will miss any Irving less because maybe he's much closer to Audi Irving than we sort of like originally were given to believe? Yeah, I, I think when we first met Audi Irving, we were like, this guy's cool in a way that any Irving is like distinctly not cool, but like, who's to say? But what we know is that Audi Irving is on an intensive investigative, investigative like, project. He's got, you know, phone numbers and addresses and maps and all this sort of stuff. And so, you know, all he needs is the yarn wall and then he's, he's set. And so this idea of Detective Irving, like, this is a part of his Audi character as well, is that he is like a guy trying to get to the bottom of something.
- [48:06]
Charlie Cox
Yeah. He has the mind for it clearly. And he's able to. He puts putting things together in a way that none of the other innies are. He's noticing these clues and. Yeah. Does he get a little bit of an ethereal dream assist? Possibly. And Severance's first kind of foray into horror, as we've said, which is exciting. Like this is a very different tonality for the show. That has been surreal, that has been unsettling. But crossing the line once we start seeing, you know, ghastly figures in the dream flesh, that's, that's a different level. And I think one thing too to note is the seat in which Woe is sitting is typically Heli's seat, kind of diagonal from where Irving sits within the cubicle. I don't how he's putting all this stuff together. Who's to say? But the brain works in mysterious ways.
- [48:48]
Joanna Robinson
And Burt's and Dylan spot, is that right?
- [48:50]
Charlie Cox
I believe so.
- [48:51]
Joanna Robinson
Okay. Interesting file that he's working on is Montauk, which to me a non east coaster immediately invokes. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, of course. Meet me in Montauk. We already talked about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as a possible comp for some of these things, but I can't find the email so it must have mean someone sent it to me on either like Twitter or bluesky. But also worth noting, the USS Montauk was an ironclad warship during the American Civil War. Just as we track our Civil War references.
- [49:31]
Rob Mahoney
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- [50:03]
Joanna Robinson
Now let's break it down. My favorite barbecue sauce, American cheese, crispy bacon, pickles, onions and a sesame seed bun, of course. And don't forget the fries and a drink sounds.
- [50:15]
Charlie Cox
I participate in restaurants for a limited time.
- [50:17]
Joanna Robinson
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- [50:48]
Charlie Cox
Question for you Joe, about, you know, one way to read this is Irving's subconscious feeding him information about Helena being an Egan. One way to read it is our guy who's just a working 9 to 5 stiff having a stress dream about his job in which the numbers are swirling, the letters are swirling, he's panicking, the moths are being drawn to the screen. Have you ever had a podcast related stress dream?
- [51:12]
Joanna Robinson
No, but I had a brief stint like the. As far as I know, the only time in my life I ever was sleepwalking was the first time I had like a real job. I was a arts and crafts counselor at a summer camp. And that was like. It wasn't like a sleepaway camp, it was like a day camp, but it was like a 9 to 5. It was like I was a teenager. It was my first like nine to five summer job and I would walk into my sister's room and start talking about like what the like craft project was like I have to get all these lanyards sorted. I have to like get the beads or whatever. And I was like sleeping and talking about my job. So that's like. I've definitely had other stress dreams about work, but that is like the most extreme example was me sleepwalk anxiety, sleepwalking over my arts and crafts counselor summer like summer camp job. But I can start a lanyard very quickly to this day, if you ever.
- [52:03]
Charlie Cox
Need, I believe it.
- [52:04]
Joanna Robinson
If you want to tie, dye something, I'm your person. How about rub? You ever had a podcast nightmare?
- [52:08]
Charlie Cox
Not a podcast nightmare, though I do regularly still have school related nightmares. Specifically a college era nightmare in which I think I have dropped a class but find out shortly before the final that I have not. Oh no, that is, that is my recurring nightmare that I'm just, I'm just living through on a daily basis. And so if anyone out there wants to tell me what that says about me, please do. But I'm delighted about your arts and crafts nightmare, Joe. And to this day, part of your job is just yarning up a wall, you know, just drawing lines from conspiracy to conspiracy, innie to outie. We're putting it all together out here.
- [52:41]
Joanna Robinson
Thanks, Rob. Thanks Rob. If you have, if you're a Neurologist. And you're listening to this as we've seen.
- [52:47]
Charlie Cox
Yeah.
- [52:48]
Joanna Robinson
We've got a lot of emails from brain science people. If you want to diagnose Rob's stress dreams about his fix us, please. Yeah, fix us@applebombingmail.com Rob. My hope for dream you, nightmare you is that it's at least a pass fail class. You know?
- [53:06]
Charlie Cox
You know it's not.
- [53:06]
Joanna Robinson
I know it's not.
- [53:07]
Charlie Cox
It can't be or else it wouldn't be a nightmare.
- [53:09]
Joanna Robinson
I know it's not. Okay, Anything else you want to say about a gaunt bride half the height of a natural human? Whoa. Woe is hollow. This idea of the like physical representation of one of, of the four tempers. What do you, what do you think?
- [53:25]
Charlie Cox
I. I never envisioned that we would ever get to see a temper on this show. It just doesn't feel like it would be of the world. And yet we got here in a way that feels super organic. And then, you know, these characters have literally just been shown like picture book versions of what woe would look like. And so it's very easy to kind of see how that would infiltrate the brain into dream form. I don't suspect we'll see the others, but I'm just delighted that we're here and I'm delighted that we've edged into even darker territory within the world of severance. And dream states are tricky territory with shows. You don't want to over index on them, you don't want to lean on them too heavily. Little bits and pieces as seasoning I think can go a long way. This one I loved. If we're doing this every episode, I'm probably going to feel pretty differently. But for one of the more grounded characters in the show to have this sort of out of body experience during the first time where he's basically allowed to sleep, felt very poignant to me.
- [54:19]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, yeah. I think if we see the tempers in the dream space again. A dream space is a place where I'm never like, I never need an explanation or a logic about that. This is a dream, so that's fine. All right, let's talk about the confrontation slash the Glasgow block. Glasgow does relate to the Civil War. Once again, we can find a connection, but I don't know. I'm disinclined again to overly. I opened this floodgate and I'm so sorry and please do keep sending us emails about this, but someone on Reddit posted from the sort of stop motion animation macrodut propaganda video that we saw at the beginning of the season. There's the shot of Helly's sort of cartoon figure bobbing for pineapples shot from underneath the water. The way that Helena is shot in this episode. With who? Irving, like, standing over in the background in the background of this animated, like, it's up through the water. It's a pineapple. Our fave. Her face underwater and then Irving behind her. And I'm just sort of like, great job, severance. You're the best.
- [55:29]
Charlie Cox
Maybe the pineapple really is truth, ultimately. I'm trying to think of what the stand in is ultimately like, symbolically. If we're going to really chase that thread down, I don't know, we'll find out.
- [55:39]
Joanna Robinson
I have a question. If, like, Dole or some other big pineapple, like, like, has incepted me in some way, not, not to the snow fortress level of my mind, but, like, I've been eating snow fortress.
- [55:50]
Charlie Cox
Don't ever let Dole into the snow fortress level of your mind. I don't care how good they say dole whip is.
- [55:55]
Joanna Robinson
I don't like a dole whip. But I. I've been eating so much pineapple since we started talking about pineapple on this show, I've just been sort of like, insatiable for it.
- [56:05]
Charlie Cox
You're that impressionable?
- [56:07]
Joanna Robinson
Well, that's what I'm saying. I'm like, do you think big pineapple was like, we want to put pineapples in this show and we're going to get, you know, dummies like Joanna Robinson are going to be like, pineapple. That sounds refreshing.
- [56:16]
Charlie Cox
I was like, see, you say this, and I think there is a portion of our listenership that will go, fruit lobbies don't operate that way, and I'm here to tell you they do. Please look into the marketing and production of, like, different apple varieties. It is a vicious, cutthroat, consumeristic, like, very peak, late stage capitalist world as far as, like, how you make fucking cosmic crisp a thing. It's an insidious space.
- [56:41]
Joanna Robinson
You only need to watch the highly problematic yet undeniably entertaining Trading, Trading places from the 1980s to know that the orange market is not to be trifled with.
- [56:51]
Charlie Cox
Not at all.
- [56:52]
Joanna Robinson
Here's the thing, Rob Mahoney, that I love about you podcasting in the Void. This is like, I don't know, if you do this on. You've got this great, like, pointing at the camera thing that I'm trying to speak to the people, okay? Our listener Tyler M. Wrote in, and we've gotten a couple emails about this across the season to go. Going back to that, seen that the screen that we see when Dylan is initiating the otc, the system functions had a number of other options. Tyler sent us an entire list of it. Beehive, branch transfer, clean slate, Elephant, freeze frame, Glasgow, Goldfish, Lullaby, Open house, overtime. So now we've filled in, we know what overtime is and now we know what Glasgow is. Do you have any thoughts or feelings about any of the rest of these? I mean, branch transfer just maybe seems like branch transfer and we saw that from Mark's other team. But like Beehive, Clean Slate feels fairly self explanatory. Elephant restore all memories. I kind of like that. That was Tyler's guess for that. An elephant never forgets. Goldfish, extremely short memory span. Amnesia. Something like that. Anyway. What do you think?
- [58:23]
Charlie Cox
Beehive is definitely the most evocative to me.
- [58:26]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [58:27]
Charlie Cox
And I'm trying to put together what that could apply to in terms of maybe recalling people in some way. I don't know. Like I, I love how ambiguous these are too. I love that they, they invite this sort of speculation and yet I can't quite put my finger on it in any meaningful way other than, as we said, clean slate makes sense. You know, like, you don't need to get too cute with all of them. But I like that the programmers at Lumen, you know, they got to stretch out a little bit, they got to have fun. They got to be like, okay, yeah, Glasgow it.
- [58:55]
Joanna Robinson
Elephant. Let's do it. Okay. I love this confrontation. We, we heard a clip at the beginning. I do think that Turturro's reading of when he says Seth.
- [59:10]
Charlie Cox
Yeah, chills.
- [59:13]
Joanna Robinson
Every time that I've like re. Watched that or clipped it or anything like that. Just like he's just snarling and he's just like acid and, and the, and the switch that he makes. We didn't mention this earlier, but Brit Lauer in the scene in the tent when Helena shows up with a little snow seal for Irving, the first kind.
- [59:34]
Charlie Cox
Of double down moment for her.
- [59:36]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah. And she's like, I made you this snow seal, blah, blah. And he's talking to her and then she goes like Irving, like very cold. And then sort of tries to warm back, like defrost herself a little bit. So that is great stuff. But the switch we get from Irving's stand here of like, you know, shoving her face in the ice cold water, demanding this happen, and then tenderly cradling her when she's heli again. Guess what? Rob, this is a great television show and that was a great TV moment. Yeah.
- [60:15]
Charlie Cox
And to put this all inside an episode in which we're propagating the myth of Kir's twin and this idea of like abiding the sins of your brother and therefore contributing to their demise. And here's Irving knowing full well that if he even attempts to out Helena for what she is, that he's basically going to be turned off, that his existence will blink out. And being self sacrificial in that way for the, in pursuit of the truth, for the sake of this kind of little group and little posse that he's found at work, I get it's an honestly really beautiful thing. And you're right, the performance of it. And the self righteous, like, not the, the righteous anger, the skepticism, the acid, the, the like. The delivery from Turturro is so sharp at every single turn. Whether he's investigating, whether he's giving his big proclamations at the end, whether he's revealing everything that he's found. I love this performance. I love this show. I'm. I'm so, I'm just so thrilled that they've allowed Irving to be this, that they allowed Dylan to be this. That this isn't just a, a Mark and Helly show or a Mark Stout centric show.
- [61:21]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah.
- [61:21]
Charlie Cox
It's a really fully act, like fully actualized ensemble performance.
- [61:27]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah. And I mean, this is a very Dylan. But, but let's we get this Dylan moment, right? Dylan says, I'm sorry I didn't like, listen to you. I didn't believe you. I didn't help you. And Irving says, hang in there. Which we can only assume is an allusion to. There's a poster in the break room of Dylan, you know, operating the two switches on the OTC that says Hang in there. And so do you think he's like, is, did he, did he hide something for Dylan in behind the Hang in there poster? That's a popular theory I've seen floating around. What do you think?
- [62:11]
Charlie Cox
I would enjoy that. I also think we're just naturally set up for Dylan, who has been tempted at this point by the family visitation room, by the idea of even further perks than he was ever entitled before to, to pick up Irving's quest for the elevator. Right. He's. He was the person who was first told that information. I think there's all the reason in the world to expect that he is now gonna be on the hunt for it. Having seen what happened to Irving now knowing Helena's Betrayal within the team. He's gonna be looking for his own answers and his encouragement to maybe look behind that poster or pick up on some other clue that Irving is trying to pass to him. They have an interesting connection and one that's been fraught at various times. One in which they are naturally at odds given their personality types, but became sort of unlikely friends and at least allies in this one way.
- [62:58]
Joanna Robinson
Rewatching again, if we never see Irving be any. Any Irving again. If this is a true character death, I think on rewatch, that moment at the beginning of the season when he and Dylan, like, share that embrace. Or the moment where we see him in O and D, like, talking about Bert reminiscing and getting another hug. Like, these are. In retrospect, it's funny because, like, in the, you know, at the end of the episode, you know, Severance is doing that classic HBO inside the episode. Sort of like little moments, interviews at the end of the episode. And Adam Scott was like, you guys are going to go back and watch the last few episodes and be, oh, my God, it was Ellen all along. And it's like, oh, no, we knew that already.
- [63:46]
Charlie Cox
But the character beats. You're right. I think ring differently.
- [63:49]
Joanna Robinson
But. But for Irving.
- [63:50]
Charlie Cox
Yes.
- [63:51]
Joanna Robinson
As a. As these. These episodes leading up to this, as a goodbye for that character, this emotional sort of send off for this character that's going to hit differently again. If we never see me, I don't know if we will or not.
- [64:04]
Charlie Cox
But the structure of this show too, I think, asks you as a viewer to interrogate what you want. Do you want to see full reintegration for all of these characters we've come to know and love in various respects? Do you want to see the INI versions who are much more familiar with overall, find some way to continue their existence? It's such a tricky territory where having one existence kind of snuffs out the other. And also reintegration may be dangerous and not even possible for everybody. And being put in our position, like, both ethically in terms of storytelling, like, what do you want? Is such a huge question to have to ponder.
- [64:41]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah. And I mean, we entertained this before and my earlier sort of idea was like, I want everyone reintegrated because I don't want to, like, snuff anyone out.
- [64:51]
Charlie Cox
Yeah. But Helena and Helly at this point, that is my switcherous reintegration.
- [64:56]
Joanna Robinson
That's my switch in this episode. I'm like, Helena, you're done. For me. I want that to that body to belong to Helly. That would be my. My end of the day preference. I like to root for difficult women, but this was a. This was a just gonna. I. We can't come back from this.
- [65:12]
Charlie Cox
She's making herself quite difficult, it turns out.
- [65:14]
Joanna Robinson
Okay. It will be as if you, Irving B. Never even existed, nor drew a single breath on this earth. Devastating. And then we get the shot at the end. One thing. My one tiniest nit to pick. Tiny quibble. And I'm not mad about it. It's just a funny staging thing. Milchick and Mark and Dylan are at the top of the waterfall, and he's down there sort of like plunging her head into the water. At the very least, Mark is running down there a bit faster than he is. He just stands there and he's like, oh, my God, stop. And I'm like, get a fucking move on. Mark, what are you doing?
- [65:50]
Charlie Cox
You know, but you also can't make it, you know, if he decides to plunge her head in the water, you're not making it in time.
- [65:55]
Joanna Robinson
It's not that tall of a waterfall.
- [65:58]
Charlie Cox
It's the tallest in the world.
- [66:00]
Joanna Robinson
Short. It's a short little jaunt downhill to get to this woman you just had sex with in a tent. Okay. Something that they said in the official podcast, which I thought was interesting, is like they had. They contemplated several different endings for this episode. They didn't know if they wanted to sort of like, black bag. You know, people swoop in and sort of black bag Irving and, like, drag him off or how dramatic they want to be. And what they decided to go with is they do, you know, the reverse zoom dolly pullout that they've been doing for the inside the elevator severance moment without the ding, obviously.
- [66:39]
Charlie Cox
But I did love, by the way, the ding that we get when heli is turned back on while being plunged underwater. Just wonderful little ways to execute this stuff.
- [66:49]
Joanna Robinson
But Stiller was saying that they wanted it to read more like, this is just Irving himself realizing that it's the end of something or accepting the end of something, rather than the physical process happening then and there. This is a mental sort of emotional severing from what's happening there. Yeah, yeah.
- [67:11]
Charlie Cox
I mean, there's ways in which the style can sort of literalize, and then there's the ways in which it just speaks to the moment. And I. I think you've zeroed in on that really nicely, Joe, in the sense that everything about the structure of this episode and in retrospect, the last few points to this being a long walk for Irving to Here to this moment, to this decision, to putting himself out there in this way for the sake of unveiling the truth. And I hope that those stakes stick. I'm not saying I don't ever want to see Irving be again, but this is a meaningful sacrifice.
- [67:42]
Joanna Robinson
I agree. I was watching this and I was like, they can't just. If they just undo this, then rewatching this episode will not feel like thinking about a show like Lost, which has these very sentimental sacrificial death moments for certain characters. That's not a spoiler. That's just the premise of Lost. People die on this island. Thinking about all the times I've cried over the death of characters on that show or something like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which we just talked about. These shows that really get you with these big emotional deaths. And I. I wasn't, like, weeping for Irving this episode, but I was genuinely torn up about this ending. And then while at the other time there was a voice inside my head was like, but you're watching a show where they could just flip him back on if they want to. So, like, I don't know how seriously I'm supposed to take something like that. You know what I mean?
- [68:32]
Charlie Cox
To our earlier discussion, I think that's where Severance gets to still have Turturro on the show and still gets to have Irving as a presence on the show. And if anything, now is such an interesting variable to have in the outside world. Right. And what his level of involvement is going to be with the other characters who we'd never seen Mark, Scout and the Audi Irving interact before. Right now, maybe they have more reason to be in contact as people who are trying to put the pieces together, or with Devin or with Harmony. We don't know how any of these people are going to bump into each other. And I suspect the deeper we go into this show, the more and more important the outside part of the story is going to be. And so I'm glad to have Irving potentially in the driver's seat of some of that.
- [69:12]
Joanna Robinson
No, I mean, I am beyond thrilled that we're gonna. That we get to have more Turturro on the show. I would never want to say goodbye. I never want to say goodbye to John Turo and Severance. Okay, quick sort of a few emails to get to maybe some odds and ends and then we'll wrap up here. Our listener, Kevin K. When. When wondering, you know, you. We're wondering about, like, inside of the Civil War theory, there's this question of, like, are we in In a. In a world where the south won the Civil War. And that's the fallout that we're seeing. Our listener Kevin Kay, pointed out that during Mark's initial mind melling, quote, protocol survey, he is asked to name a dam. And Mark says, hoover. Right. So he's like, the Hoover Dam exists. So Herbert Hoover exists as 31st President of the United States. Yeah, possibly. Et cetera, et cetera.
- [70:04]
Charlie Cox
Also, for the record, I could not name another dam. I don't. I don't. I don't know if that's an indictment of me, but I would also reach for Hoover.
- [70:11]
Joanna Robinson
The Oroville Dam. There's a dam in Oroville, California.
- [70:14]
Charlie Cox
You could convince me of anything. Name any fake dam, and I will buy it.
- [70:18]
Joanna Robinson
Okay, this is what he says. He says, quote, I have noticed television writers play with points of divergence as a way for viewers to theorize about these world in little offs. HBO Watchmen adaptation shows a shared world through Nixon's first term until Robert Redford becomes president. Redford's impact on the culture and counterculture is part of the show's backbone of messaging, and it gave space to revisit other historical blind spots, like Tulsa, 1921. He also mentions counterpoint, the J.K. simmons sci fi show. And that has, like, a very specific, I think, 1980s sort of counter, you know, like, divergence as well.
- [70:49]
Charlie Cox
So man in the High Castle is like such a clear touch point here, too.
- [70:54]
Joanna Robinson
Absolutely. And so is that something they need to drill down on? No, I don't need to know when history diverged so that Egan, a corporation took over. They don't need to do that. But it is a fun thing that, like, some of these shows play with or whatever, and that this is a.
- [71:08]
Charlie Cox
Show that consistently rewards you for that level of investment, of parsing the background of scenes, of reading every bit of text that a character has in their hands or has behind them. Like, it's. This is the thing overall, with Severance, that makes me so thrilled to be covering the show week to week with you in this way, Joe, is there's such a clear level of care put into the construction of it. Going back to it, you know, as you say, like the pro, like the propaganda video, having this visual echo of Helena being plunged underwater. When things like that happen, it's like, oh, it's a nice little closed loop and it's a cool detail, but it's also just indicative that these people know what they're doing and that they have a certain range of foresight to know, okay, here's where we want to go. Here's what this is going to mean. Here's how these reveals are going to twist up the audience. This is what's going to change the emotional stakes of the show. I think it just speaks to having a very steady hand at the wheel of severance.
- [72:00]
Joanna Robinson
Great point. I also just like podcasting with Rob in general.
- [72:03]
Charlie Cox
It's a delight.
- [72:05]
Joanna Robinson
It's better when it's a great show.
- [72:06]
Charlie Cox
This is the thing.
- [72:07]
Joanna Robinson
But even if it's disclaimer, I'm happy to be here. Okay, book club corner. Really quickly, we're getting emails from people suggesting sort of extra reading material, which, again, takes me right back to my lost days. And I have purchased two books based on recommendations from people, and I've read one, and I still need to get to the other.
- [72:29]
Charlie Cox
But in fairness, it doesn't take much of a nudge to get you to buy a book.
- [72:34]
Joanna Robinson
Okay, Rob, I'm just like.
- [72:36]
Charlie Cox
That's not a character flaw. I'm just saying, you know, you've been gently pushed in the direction of some extracurricular reading.
- [72:42]
Joanna Robinson
Just because you don't read fiction does not mean. But are you gonna read the, like, neuroscience text that they. I think. I think that should be your job.
- [72:49]
Charlie Cox
Because I'm certainly not gonna do that. I guess we'll all have our homework.
- [72:51]
Joanna Robinson
Okay. Luke recommended this, a play, because we were talking about the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. And Luke recommended this play called Eurydice by Sarah Rule. And I bought it and I read it. And, I mean, it's very thin, it's easy to read, but it's really, really good. It's from Eurydice's point of view. And the reason that he recommended it, and I really see this is because, like, in this play, it's a lot about memory and lot. Like when you go down to the underworld and you lose your memory, and what is the blessing in that and what is the curse in that, and what are you trying to hold on to? That doesn't exist anymore. And so the story from which is often told from Orpheus's point of view, the story from Eurydice's point of view, this question of memory and identity and what makes you you. I can really see how they might be sort of playing with that inside of Gemma's story.
- [73:50]
Charlie Cox
Yeah, I would say, in particular, we talk about this show so much as a show about consciousness, but it really is a show about memory. And I think the more that the innie and outie versions of this character are meant to reckon with the things that the other version of them have now done. Like, those are memories you might wish you could wipe out in an eternal sunshine kind of way. Like those that engagement with that sort of idea I think is right here for severance to play with basically anytime it wants to.
- [74:16]
Joanna Robinson
One of the really cool visuals of this play, this. This is like a very stylized play. And I was looking at sort of videos of tons of iterations and performances of it. But one of the main visuals that most of the performances follow is when. When Eurydice arrives in the underworld, she does so in an elevator where it's raining. She shows up and there's like a dang of an elevator. It opens and it's raining and she's got this umbrella inside of a elevator. So, you know, the elevator ding, the memory, all of that sort of stuff. It makes sense that this might be sort of in the water of severance. The other recommendation we got that I have, that I have purchased, but I have not gotten to, and I'm fine to wait on this because it has to deal with Cobell. So I think maybe we'll delve into this when she reenters the scene. But our listener Brett recommended William Volman's National Book Award winning novel, Europe Central, which. That is a tome, that is. That is a thick boy. But there he's recommending this. There's like a 50 page short story inside of that book called Clean Hands, which is a story of a. Of a man called Kurt Gerstein who basically infiltrated the Nazi organization. And in very small, if you want to put it that way, sort of like functionary ways operated to save lives inside of the Holocaust. So just sort of by recommending like Clean Hands is. I haven't read this short story yet, but sort of. Brett summarized it, but this idea of like operating inside of an evil organization, executing evil orders inside of that evil organization, but trying to make small changes to do what you can to mitigate the loss. A bit like Schindler's List, but it's sort of like even.
- [76:09]
Charlie Cox
Sort of sounds like maybe even more compromised than that.
- [76:12]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, more compromised than that. So is that something that we could think about when we think about harmony? If we think of her as someone who maybe has infiltrated Lumen to exact revenge, but can we reconcile that with the shit we see her do in season one? Can we think of her as someone who is on the side of the angels to a certain degree, but is like playing the games of the devils in order to get There sort of idea.
- [76:36]
Charlie Cox
So we are due for a harmony episode. Maybe not. Maybe not the entire episode, but one in which she is significantly involved in the action. We've seen her drive. We've seen her drive back. We've seen her not go into buildings. She is absent this week, as you mentioned. I feel like five or six. We're gonna get a lot of harmony.
- [76:52]
Joanna Robinson
I hope so. Also, I don't need to read the emails, but we have gotten several emails from people saying that we're wrong about the chamomile cookies. Rob, are you willing to try a chamomile cookie recipe to see if the listeners are right?
- [77:05]
Charlie Cox
I'm willing to try baking anything.
- [77:07]
Joanna Robinson
Yeah, I know.
- [77:08]
Charlie Cox
So, yeah, if someone wants to send us a chamomile cookie recipe that they earnestly believe in, we will try it.
- [77:13]
Joanna Robinson
Okay. Last but not least, our what would you sever section has. Has reemerged here. We talked about dishes last week. We talked about a number of other things. We got several emails about the same concept this week. First, before we get there, I will say Rachel Hrogen to say she was shocked and appalled to hear me talking about severing anything other than doing my taxes because she's heard me over many years of listening to your podcast talk about how much I hate filling out a form. And that's true. So probably I would sever taxes if I could. But Alan L. Grant, H. Amy S. All wrote in to say, like, going to the gym. And not because they don't want to go to the gym.
- [77:56]
Charlie Cox
This was the part that threw me for a loop. Like the exact reasoning is, which was.
- [78:00]
Joanna Robinson
The same across the board, I think, for all three of them. Which is like, imagine getting to go work out whether you're swimming or lifting weights or whatever it is without the burden of the rest of your life sort of hanging over you. I don't know if I've talked about this on this podcast, but something I've been doing in 2025 because, like, for. For a while started back in 2024, I started doing this like, sort of get jacked weightlifting thing, which is great, but it's really come to bear in 2025 because what I do is I read the news and I get mad and then I go lift heavy things to the gym. That's sort of been my process of coping with things. But what if I could do that without the sort of like burning, roiling anger at the state of the world? Like, would that be an even more enjoyable experience? What do you think, Rob?
- [78:46]
Charlie Cox
It Might. But I think you're hitting on something that's so important, which is the release of those activities. On the one hand, you don't want something weighing you down while you go to the gym, but on the other hand, and when you do hit like a runner's high and it gives you that pacifying feeling where you do forget everything that's happening. Like the innie version of you wouldn't have that moment of relief. They would just feel, you know, the endorphins of exercise, but they wouldn't feel the relief from not having to think about the outside world.
- [79:13]
Joanna Robinson
This also presumes that your like chosen form of exercise is a solitary activity. Whereas like Rob, you love a, you love a game of pickup basketball, right? Absolutely. Yeah. And you want, you wouldn't want to sever yourself from that.
- [79:24]
Charlie Cox
That's like I would never give it up to the point that at some I'm just going to run my knees and Achilles into the ground. There is this famous thing where eventually you get old enough and you either have to actively stop yourself from playing basket pick up basketball or you will have to be carried off the court. At some point I'm going to die.
- [79:41]
Joanna Robinson
Out there on your shield.
- [79:43]
Charlie Cox
That's just the life that I've chosen for myself. So yeah, I'm not giving my any, any, any minutes of my gym time in that particular way.
- [79:50]
Joanna Robinson
Rob's coming home on his shield from the basketball court. And that I think is our Season 2 episode for severance check in. Is there anything that we didn' that you want to make sure we reference?
- [80:01]
Charlie Cox
One thing that's very important to me in terms of the overall mood setting of this episode. When we get our fireside recital of Appendix 4, we also get Ms. Huang playing a mean theremin.
- [80:12]
Joanna Robinson
Theremin. Thank you.
- [80:15]
Charlie Cox
This would be a great invitation for me personally, Joe, seeing it on screen to finally learn and understand how a theremin works. Yeah, I don't.
- [80:25]
Joanna Robinson
Okay.
- [80:25]
Charlie Cox
If there, there's a reason I am not a physics podcaster. It seems very complex as instruments go.
- [80:31]
Joanna Robinson
Pineapple bobbingmail.com I want to let you know that on the official podcast they had Teddy Shapiro, who is the composer for Severance was on this episode. He did not understand how a thereabout works. He composed this piece.
- [80:44]
Charlie Cox
Truly baffling instrument.
- [80:46]
Joanna Robinson
And he's like, I don't know, you block a wave and that's how it makes a tone. Anyway, what they were saying is that the actress who plays Miss Wong Song learned how to. So she's actually playing she shall made this thing. Yeah, she did.
- [80:57]
Charlie Cox
She just disappeared and learned how to play all the songs of Bob Dylan.
- [81:00]
Joanna Robinson
On the tempo full timbo. Absolutely all the way. Yeah.
- [81:04]
Charlie Cox
Well I also learned that apparently so I've always known as a theremin. I learned that they're also called an etherphone, which is just bang up job. Bang up job by the instrument naming authority.
- [81:14]
Joanna Robinson
Wow. Okay. Well, this is amazing. Anything else you want to talk about?
- [81:19]
Charlie Cox
I would the only person I want to give a special shout out to because I don't think we touched upon him much in this episode, aside from his waterfall superlatives. Great Milchick episode, the fit great Tramel Tillman episode, you know, as his readings of things that are clearly ridiculous and line deliveries of things that probably would be silly coming out of the mouth of many, many other performers with him always do have that edge of danger of authority of just like this is not someone you want to get on the wrong side of. And yet he obviously has the very like corporatized plastic smile thing that he can go to whenever he wants to. So great, great Trammel Tillman performance.
- [81:55]
Joanna Robinson
Just incredible outfit. I loved his outfit. And also I think it begs the question, I think this is something we need to keep asking ourselves. Is like, is Seth. Yes, Seth, do it. Is Seth a true believer? Cause like is his offense that he takes over them snickering which results in the mushroom, the marshmallows getting thrown in the fire. Is his offense like a personal religious one? Or is it just sort of like I'm playing by the corporate rules here.
- [82:27]
Charlie Cox
You know, Seemed rude either way.
- [82:29]
Joanna Robinson
Great.
- [82:30]
Charlie Cox
No need to throw those marshmallows into the fire.
- [82:32]
Joanna Robinson
If you, like us, are quietly yearning to learn more about anything, you can send us an email. Pineapplebombingmail.com prestige tvpodify.com Again, we are getting so many emails. They're all great. Thank you so much for sending them. They're really, really good and varied. And I will continue to buy books and pineapples thanks to this show.
- [82:54]
Charlie Cox
One that I a genre of email that I have enjoyed that I would enjoy more of. If people want to call these specific examples an emailer, I don't have their name at the tip of my tongue. I apologize. Pointed out one of the very specific visual callbacks in the show, which was Harmony Cobell's rear view or rear lights, tail lights on her car as she's leaving the parking lot in episode three. This very black background, these, you know, these red lights at the end of effectively what is a long lane, or in this case a hall, is basically exactly like the mysterious elevator. Yeah, I'm loving all that stuff. So if you see anything that strikes you visually in the show, I would love to hear about it.
- [83:29]
Joanna Robinson
I liked that more, with no offense to anyone, than the like, Dylan's wife is dressed like Pam from the Office. And like, I don't know what that gives me that Dylan's wife is dressed like Pam for the Office. Great shout. Good observation. It just doesn't do anything for me thematically.
- [83:44]
Charlie Cox
We're not going to mention the Office on this show. That's not what we're doing here.
- [83:47]
Joanna Robinson
Okay. And that has been separate season 2 episode 4 Rob hates the office pineapplebobbingmail.com if you want to talk Rob out of that. Thanks to our office mates, John Richter for helping Rob navigate the void here. Justin Sales for helping us navigate the void. That is the scheduling around all these press CGV shows coming up and as always on the burbing drop and everything else. Kai Grady, thank you so much. We will see you soon. Bye.