‘Severance’ Season 2, Episode 7 With ‘Lost’ Cocreator Damon Lindelof

Summary

The Prestige TV Podcast Summary: ‘Severance’ Season 2, Episode 7 With ‘Lost’ Cocreator Damon Lindelof

Release Date: February 28, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of The Prestige TV Podcast, hosted by Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney, the focus is squarely on the seventh episode of Season 2 of HBO’s Severance, titled “Chikai Bardo.” The episode features an exclusive interview with Damon Lindelof, co-creator of Lost and Watchmen, who shares his insights and theories about the show. This summary delves into the key discussions, insights, and conclusions presented during the podcast, enriched with notable quotes and organized into clear sections for easy navigation.

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1. Episode Overview: “Chikai Bardo”

Joanna Robinson opens the discussion by highlighting the extended runtime of this particular podcast episode, attributing it to the in-depth interview with Damon Lindelof. She mentions that the full conversation is available on The Ringer TV YouTube channel, offering listeners an opportunity to explore more extensive content.

Notable Quote:

Rob Mahoney: “I will note though, don't you say so, Joe. I don't know that that's going to happen today, but we're going to try.”

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2. Listener Engagement and Email Breakdown

Rob and Joanna emphasize the high volume of listener emails received following the airing of Episode 7. These emails cover a range of topics, including character analyses, thematic explorations, and connections to broader cultural and literary references.

Key Points:

• Gemma/Ms. Casey’s Character: Discussions around Gemma’s internal struggles, her potential death, and the transformation into Ms. Casey.
• Severance’s Themes: Exploration of race, identity, and corporate exploitation within the narrative.
• Listener Theories: Insights into how listeners interpret the show’s complex metaphors and plot devices.

Notable Quote:

Joanna Robinson: “There's perhaps a stale take or two in that interview that does not hold up post episode seven.”

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3. Deep Dive into “Chikai Bardo”

The hosts dissect the episode’s intricate plot elements, focusing on Gemma’s predicament in the Severance program. They analyze the concept of the Bardo—a transitional state between life and death—as it applies to Gemma’s experiences on the testing floor.

Key Topics:

• Bardo and Mythology: Reference to Tibetan Buddhism’s Bardo state and its alignment with Greek mythology, particularly Persephone’s abduction by Hades.
• Character Development: Examination of Mark and Gemma’s relationship arc, Gemma’s multiple personas, and her attempts to escape.
• Symbolism and Imagery: Analysis of plant imagery, room designs, and the use of colors to convey emotional and psychological states.

Notable Quotes:

Rob Mahoney: “The Bardo is very interesting in the context of this episode, I think, in a manner of speaking...As she's saying that, she's also describing the exercises she's doing as a sort of like, is this a duck or is this a rabbit? Perception test.”

Joanna Robinson: “This season has been getting much more into, like, scripture and, like. And it's like we've transcended, like, weird waffle parties, and we've gone right into, like, oh, Milchick is, like, not too far removed from Paul Bettany, like, whipping himself in the Da Vinci Code with his paperclips.”

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4. Filmmaking Techniques and Directorial Choices

Joanna and Rob commend Jessica Lee Gagne, the episode’s director, for her masterful use of cinematography. They discuss specific techniques such as the use of a Bolex camera for flashback sequences, creating a warm and nostalgic feel that contrasts with the clinical austerity of the Severance program.

Key Points:

• Visual Contrast: The vibrant, cluttered environments of Mark and Gemma’s past life versus the stark, soulless corporate settings.
• Camera Work: Implementation of handheld, cranked cameras to evoke a sense of realism and emotional depth.
• Lighting and Color: Strategic use of lighting to highlight emotional moments and underscore thematic elements.

Notable Quote:

Joanna Robinson: “The warmth and the sort of like, lively clutter of Gemma and Mark's house, not to mention their offices in comparison... is devastating. Like, it's a brilliant point of contrast.”

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5. References to Other Media and Cultural Parallels

The hosts draw parallels between Severance and other television series and films, highlighting influences and shared thematic elements.

Key Comparisons:

• Dollhouse: Discussion of Deejin Lockman’s portrayal of Gemma and her connection to the concept of identity manipulation.
• The Leftovers & Lost: Comparisons to Damon Lindelof’s own works, discussing how Severance navigates metaphysical questions and character-focused narratives.
• Mythological Influences: References to Persephone and Eurydice, enhancing the show’s mythological layers.

Notable Quote:

Rob Mahoney: “It's like, the Beatles and the Beach Boys, they were annoyed by, like, Sergeant Pepper... but then they were like, oh, my God, you can do that.”

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6. Music and Symbolism

Music plays a significant role in the episode, with recurring themes and specific songs enhancing the emotional and narrative depth.

Key Points:

• Recurring Song: Billie Holiday's "I'll Be Seeing You" used multiple times to signify grief and memory.
• Symbolic Composition: Analysis of how music underscores character emotions and plot developments.
• Listener Observations: Insights from listeners about the significance of specific musical choices.

Notable Quote:

Joanna Robinson: “There's a lyric specifically about... listing out all of these places in which you would see someone that you're missing.”

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7. Interview with Damon Lindelof

The highlight of the podcast is the insightful interview with Damon Lindelof. He delves into the philosophical underpinnings of Severance, particularly the concept of Bardo, and shares his theories on character motivations and the show's overarching narrative.

Key Discussions:

• The Bardo Concept: Lindelof explains Bardo as a liminal space where souls transition after death, drawing parallels to the show’s narrative structure.
• Character Soul and Identity: Debate over whether innies (severed selves) possess souls, with Lindelof advocating for a single soul per body.
• Cloning and Identity: Lindelof theorizes about the use of cloning technology within the show, suggesting that characters like Gemma may be clones, allowing for continual reincarnation or regeneration of their severed selves.

Notable Quotes:

Damon Lindelof: “I disagree fundamentally with whatever Lutheran pastor sold this line of bullshit to Fields and Burt that innies have souls. There's only one soul, baby.”

Damon Lindelof: “My hope is that what is driving the creative team behind Severance on every level... is the question that always drives me, which is their investment in the show is, are these people gonna be okay?”

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8. Theoretical Interpretations and Listener Theories

Joanna and Rob explore various theories proposed by listeners, integrating them with their own analyses.

Key Theories:

• Gemma’s Death and Cloning: The idea that Gemma has died and Ms. Casey is her clone, a theory supported by her interactions and the presence of multiple personas.
• Lumen’s Endgame: Speculations on Lumen’s ultimate goals, including societal control, erasure of personal trauma, and the perpetuation of corporate dominance.
• Character Relationships: Examination of Mark’s relationships with Gemma, Helly, and others, and how severance affects these dynamics.

Notable Quote:

Joanna Robinson: “I agree, though. I really did like Damon's clone theory, if you want to hear it...she is more alive than we've seen her thus far.”

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9. Concluding Insights and Final Thoughts

The hosts express their deep appreciation for the episode, describing it as one of the best they have covered. They highlight the emotional impact, intricate storytelling, and masterful execution that make this episode of Severance stand out.

Key Takeaways:

• Emotional Depth: The episode's ability to blend intellectual storytelling with profound emotional moments.
• Narrative Complexity: The intricate plot and rich character development elevate the show’s status in the sci-fi genre.
• Future Expectations: Anticipation for how the show will continue to unravel its mysteries and develop its characters.

Notable Quote:

Rob Mahoney: “This is the kind of story that can only be told with soft sci-fi... it's so good at making us ask a lot of these questions.”

Joanna Robinson: “This is definitely top five episode television we've ever covered. And, you know, probably top three at least.”

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Conclusion

This episode of The Prestige TV Podcast offers an in-depth and nuanced exploration of Severance Season 2, Episode 7, “Chikai Bardo.” Through thoughtful analysis, listener engagement, and expert insights from Damon Lindelof, Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney provide listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the episode's themes, character dynamics, and overarching narrative complexities. Whether you’re a longtime fan or new to the show, this summary encapsulates the essence of the podcast’s rich discussion, making it a valuable resource for anyone interested in the depths of Severance.

Transcript

[Joanna Robinson]

This episode of the Prestige TV podcast is brought to you by Coffee Mate. Coffee Mate has been searching the globe for flavors that pair perfectly with coffee. So when they heard that the new season of HBO's the White Lotus was set in Thailand, they were inspired to brew up two new flavors. Thai iced coffee and Pina Colada flavored creamers. They're available for a short time only, so for the love of coffee, go try them now.

[Rob Mahoney]

Look, it's not that confusing. I'm Rob Harvilla, host of the podcast 60 Songs that Explain the 90s. Except we did 120 songs and now we're back with the 2000s. I refuse to say aughts 2000 to 2009. The Strokes, Rihanna, JLo, Kanye.

[Damon Lindelof]

Sure.

[Rob Mahoney]

And now the show is called 60 Songs that Explain the 90s. Colon, the 2000s. Wow, that's too long a title for me to say anything else right now. Just Trust me. That's 60 songs that explain the 90s. Colon, the 2000s thousands. Preferably on Spotify.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love you.

[Rob Mahoney]

I said oh no. I love you too.

[Joanna Robinson]

And I'm sorry. Bye.

[Rob Mahoney]

See ya, foreign.

[Joanna Robinson]

Robinson.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm Rob Mahoney and we're here to.

[Joanna Robinson]

Talk to you about a doozy of an episode of Severance. We have a lot to get to. I would could do this for hours, literally. But we will, we will do try to do it in our usual allotted prestige time.

[Rob Mahoney]

I will note though, don't you say so, Joe. I. I don't know that that's going to happen today, but we're going to try.

[Joanna Robinson]

We're gonna do our best. You might note that the runtime is longer than usual on this episode. That's because we've got an interview with Damon Lindelof, who came into the studio this week to talk about his severance thoughts and theories and all the rest. This is an edited version of a longer conversation which is up on YouTube. So if you go to the Ringer TV YouTube channel, you can watch an hour of Damon Lindelof talking about severance. And if you listen to this podcast, you get about half of that. You get like severed essentially. So you know, that is what is going on on this pod today.

[Rob Mahoney]

And I'll say a lot of great theories, a lot of great bardo discussion from Damon on this pod and the exciting debut of Joanna Robinson, NBA podcaster, which is something that I hold near and dear to my heart. So thank you for joining our space.

[Joanna Robinson]

With a script written for me by one Mr. Rob Mahoney.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's a Team effort. Look, the best podcasts are two handers or three handers. You know, like, we're all working together in this.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's true. It's true. Okay, so listen elsewhere on the Prestige feed, you and I are covering White Lotus midweek. Bill, Mallory and I are covering White Lotus immediately after the episode drops on Sunday. So you can watch all of that on the Ringer TV YouTube channel as well. We are keeping our eyes on the pit. It's a tough hang sometimes, but we are watching it and we'll be checking back in with that. And then also, just to. We get this question all the time. Just to reiterate, Mallory and I are covering Yellowjackets over on House of R. So if you're looking for Yellowjackets episodes of Prestige, they don't exist this year. They're over on House of R. Because we have a lot going on in this feed right now. And one, one last thing I want to say about the Damon interview, and I'll say it again later. You know, Rob and I might reference it a little bit as we're talking about it, but it was recorded before either of us had seen episode seven. So there's perhaps a stale take or two in that interview that. That does not hold up post episode seven.

[Rob Mahoney]

But some big picture theory from one of the masters of the craft of these sorts of puzzle box shows on how to do it and what you should be looking for and kind of how these strands are pulled together, which. Holy hell, Joe. Lot of strands being pulled together this week. A lot of things happening this week on severance.

[Joanna Robinson]

Absolutely. Before we get to that, can we do a quick zoom through some emails we got? Where can folks find us, Rob?

[Rob Mahoney]

They can always find [e-mail] but in particular, yeah, you can find us@apple bobbingmail.com.

[Joanna Robinson]

We got, dare I say, more emails than ever this week. They just keep coming. And you guys were really quick on the emails this week. So we got a lot of post episode 7 emails. We record this the morning after the episode drops. And you guys were burning the midnight oil, watching the episode and emailing us thoughts about Russian literature, all kinds of stuff. So we will be getting to that. But in terms of stuff, that applies to last week. I hear all of you. You don't want me washing my chicken. I will continue to wash my chicken. Don't worry about it. Okay.

[Rob Mahoney]

I thought we won you over. But look, I support you living your truest life, even if it is one that's riddled with bacteria.

[Joanna Robinson]

I keep a really clean kitchen. Speaking of kitchens, a lot of people seem to think that third oven in Field's kitchen is a microwave drawer even. We got listener Shane, who is a commercial interior designer, sent us some photographic evidence that that is probably what that is. So that's. Does that make you more or less excited about the, the three door situation in the Field kitchen?

[Rob Mahoney]

A little less. I don't like a low microwave, like one that's built into an island or built into low cabinetry per se, but if it's say a miniature convection oven and not a microwave, then I'm back on board.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay. Speaking of the decor in the Field kitchen, we got several people writing in about the salt and pepper grinders to let us know that in fact that collection is quite costly.

[Rob Mahoney]

They are the cultured swine that we are. We did not realize the design significance of these mid century modern grinders.

[Joanna Robinson]

Famed salt and pepper grinders for. For Dansk Dansk. And I should say I actually own something by Dansk Dansk. I. Do you know what a butter warmer is?

[Rob Mahoney]

I. I don't think I do.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay. So neither did I until I bought this. Basically I had a. I lived in a place that did not have a microwave in a, in an island or otherwise.

[Rob Mahoney]

Okay.

[Joanna Robinson]

And I had like a bone broth habit and I wanted like a cup of hot bone broth in the morning and I didn't. It felt silly to use an entire pot. So I was looking for like a wee pot to put on the stove to warm up some bone broth. And a butter, butter warmer is essentially like a small enamel pot with like a little wooden handle. Mine is like a red enamel with a little wooden handle and it is the cutest fucking thing in the whole world. And even though I have a microwave now, I like refuse to part. I mean, I presume you warm butter to pour on popcorn. I don't know what you would do with a butter warmer otherwise. Just like if you want some melted butter and you don't want to put it in the microwave and it's got a little like spout on it. So it's like a perfect little. Like you could heat it up and then like it looks nice, you could pour it. Anyway, that's my butter warmer side brought.

[Rob Mahoney]

To you by Dansk Chat.

[Joanna Robinson]

You can find it on the Food52 website. That was not a free ad. Okay. And then on a much more sort of serious, dare I say serious. More serious than a butter warmer level, we got this great email from Zachariah about Mr. Milchick, which I think is really interesting to talk about in the context of this episode when we see him sort of barring the way for Gemma, when she is on the verge of escaping the testing floor. And what I wrote in my notes, when I saw that I wrote after watching Ms. Milchick go through the performance review and the self flagellation that was the paperclip exercise and the sort of self beratement in the mirror, all that sort of stuff I wrote down oppressed oppressor. Like what happens when instead of banding together against the person that you're. That is oppressing you, you sort of grab onto whatever little shreds of power you do have inside of the system.

[Rob Mahoney]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

But something that. That Zachariah wrote in sort of specifically about the language component of Mr. Milchick's review is he wrote my read. Someone like Mr. Milchick would have internalized the feeling that he would need to be better, twice as better, three times better as the cure white children to ever bask in his virtuous light. He honed his vocabulary to showcase his nimble wit and won't ever be put in a position where he's not polished enough, which is why he was knocked down a peg. This is the exact dynamic, I think, that informs his character. And I think the show is actually deeply about race and cast without hardly ever being explicit about it. This also applies to Dylan G. And Natalie at various times. And then he goes on to talk about the term uppity, which is like a racially specific term used to sort of put people in their place. But it is a term we heard earlier this season, Drummond use it. Drummond used it in reference to Devin. He was like, his sister is much more uppity than he is talking about Mark. But it is. It's in the water in terms of what's going on with Milchick and Lumen at this. At this time and in this larger conversation we've been having about, like the severed as people who are considered not human and all of that. So I really enjoyed that email from Zachariah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Well, especially, I mean, we already understand the broadest strokes of why Milchick reacts the way he does to being gifted. The paintings of Kir, the racially adjusted paintings. But if you are someone who has gone to such incredible lengths to make yourself corporate friendly, all of this code switching, he does all of this, like, flourishing language that he incorporates. And then when you try to do that, to be slapped on the hand for doing it, like he. It's Understandable why he would feel as if he l has been pulled out from him in that moment, because he's a guy who's doing all the right things in a corporate sense and checking all the boxes that they want him to check. And yet. And still ends up in this place.

[Joanna Robinson]

All right, this week's episode is Chikai Bardo. I am pronouncing it pretty close to how it's pronounced in the show, but if my Valley girl Chikai sounds like a little off, you can let me know. Directed by a cinematographer, Jessica Lee Gagne. This is her directorial debut, but she is this sort of main DP for the last season and a half of severance, and I feel like she really showed up and splashed out with the visual, like the flashback visuals and everything. We talk about some of the specifics there and then. Written by Dan Erickson, series creator, and Mark Friedman. I wanna start here, Rob. What do you, Rob, think happens in this episode? Because I think there is some, though not a lot of potential wiggle room in terms of interpreting what we see. What's your interpretation?

[Rob Mahoney]

I guess. Which part? Cause there's a lot to. There's a lot to dissect. And I think depending on how you take apart the various elements of this show, the texture of the decisions and the reveals can change pretty dramatically. So how big picture do you want to go here?

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, let's say do you believe everything we see on the testing floor is actually what is happening on the testing floor?

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

Me too. Do you think that everything we saw in flashback form was that Mark POV or was that Gemma pov or was that some sort of combination of three?

[Rob Mahoney]

I think it is a combination of the two.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay. Do you think that sort of collective unconscious combination of the two approach the flashback is. Does that sort of help us understand why Mark might be uniquely qualified to refine Gemma, if that is in fact. Exactly. We'll get into sort of the specifics of what we may think is happening with the refining process. But do you feel like that. That underlines that sort of connection, collective memory, collective emotional experience that they share?

[Rob Mahoney]

Without a doubt.

[Joanna Robinson]

Damon will explain it, as you mentioned, in a bit more detail. But how does all of this jive with your understanding of the concept of the Bardo?

[Rob Mahoney]

I thought you were gonna say my concept of death, which. That was gonna be a much bigger conversation, but it's also not. Not that it's early.

[Joanna Robinson]

Rob, I'm not gonna make you talk about. What is your concept of death?

[Rob Mahoney]

The Bardo is very interesting in the context of this episode, I think, in a manner of speaking, when we do get it referenced by name, Chikai Bardo, it is Gemma looking at these Lumen ideographic cards.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

And that's her interpretation of it. And as she's saying that, she's also describing the exercises she's doing as a sort of like, is this a duck or is this a rabbit? Perception test.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Rob Mahoney]

So the fact that she sees that card and sees a Bardo, sees a trial, sees a transition into a state of death, sees a manner of acceptance, I think that tells me more about anything else like she. Based on where she is at that point in the story and everything that she is going through, she is interpreting that card specifically as that sort of transition into death.

[Joanna Robinson]

She also mentions ego death. And do you want to talk about where we've seen that card before?

[Rob Mahoney]

Boy, do I.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, great. Thank you.

[Rob Mahoney]

So you may remember this card as the one that Dylan G pocketed at work in season one when the MDR team was visiting O and D. And Milchick has to jar him awake off the clock to find out the location of that card. And if you don't remember what it looks like, it's roughly a guy doing like a Warrior two yoga pose standing opposite another man, like, hand to his chest, effectively. And yeah, Gemma has interpreted this as some kind of ego death, as a person fighting within themselves or combating themselves. Very interesting to revisit that episode in retrospect, the one in which Dylan takes that card. Milchick's response, not unlike in this episode, very panicked. High stakes for a guy who took a card out of a department who doesn't have any idea what it is. And his quote from that episode is, Dylan, listen, you have no idea how sensitive this information is. If someone paid you to smuggle out that card. Dot, dot, dot. And then Dylan interrupts him. I think we're getting a sense of how important these kinds of cards might be.

[Joanna Robinson]

And Gemma just got in the mail, man.

[Rob Mahoney]

Just got it in the mail.

[Joanna Robinson]

All right, basically, we're taken. So this idea of the Bardo, which is this liminal space between life and death. And again, once again, Damon Lindelof will do a great job of explaining in more detail what that is. But we could interpret. We could apply that to Mark, who's on the verge of collapse. You know, throughout this episode, his. After hitting the floor pretty hard last week, like, there's a version of the story where he doesn't make it on the other side of this episode. And then also Gemma, who is post Death of a Kind, living out her afterlife. And this idea of the Bardo as a space where you will meet all the people you ever knew in your life, or versions of yourself, I guess, is sort of more applicable to what is going on here. I like to think of this as like a new circle of hell, the testing floor. We've been talking about Lumen, or, you know, the Severed floor, as an underworld, as a hell sort of space. And this is just like a. Another. Another trip to another circle in. In the Dante sense of hell. And our. Our listener Katie wrote in. This is her recap of what she feels like is happening on the testing floor.

[Rob Mahoney]

Okay.

[Joanna Robinson]

She also recommends we watch the oa, you know, especially if we are, like, fending for more Jason Isaacs in our life, she says. Is this Lumen's game? To sell severance to the masses? To cut out plane rides? Did you. Did you have a moment where you're like, plane rides? We talked about that on the seminar.

[Rob Mahoney]

We kind of talked about some of these things in a way that is disconcerting.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, that we were joking about it, and they're like, no, but seriously.

[Rob Mahoney]

But guess what? What if you did it and then sold it to people? Wouldn't that be valuable?

[Joanna Robinson]

To sell severance to the masses, to cut out plane rides, root canals, abusive family dynamics? Sexual trauma is Lumen's future. One where everyone has a chip in their head. And brothels are legal again, because who cares? The women won't remember what you do to them. No pain meds for surgeries or proced, because those are risky and expensive. Better to just do it while severed. Yeah. So once again, a spooky new layer to our what would you sever Game that we've been doing. And I. I mean, this is my interpret. There's a couple options here. I think that that seems to be the main one. Or because we. We saw in season one a woman who sort of severed herself out of her labor experience. Right. So that's an option. But also in terms of having a workforce that you sever and knowing that you can do the most horrendous, extreme things to them and they will not remember it at all, or you won't.

[Rob Mahoney]

Be liable for any of those things. Right. I think there's all of these corporate benefits to abusing your employees to an inch of their life and then them not remembering it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Tough. That's an understatement. Grim.

[Rob Mahoney]

Quite grim, Jo.

[Joanna Robinson]

Grim. And I think, you know, we've seen it a couple times, like When Mark in season one gets an explanation for why he has, like, a bump in his head when he's an outie, or most recently, after the orpo, has an explanation for why he was all wet, you know, sort of explained to him. But if the severance practice is sort of. If the walls are holding even firmer or even higher, sort of. What more could they do?

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

That an Audi wouldn't even know that they did.

[Rob Mahoney]

And that is one of the big questions raised by this episode. We see Gemma going through all of these very unique torture mechanisms effectively. Right. Ways to create negative emotion in her.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

We already know, as you just said, that severance is strong enough to withstand the physical, emotional, psychic pain of childbirth. We know that it is effective on that level to the point that a new mom would have zero memory of the labor she just experienced. And so what are we doing here? Like, the limits already seem quite high, But I would say the incredible distinction within this episode is we have gone so far beyond innies and outies at this point. Like, Gemma is going into each of these rooms with a distinct consciousness Persona. A distinct Persona where the version of her that is going to the dentist just left the dentist, and the version of her that's going on the plane just left the plane. And they are just living in a loop of that exact thing over and over and over. And so Gemma's consciousness, unlike, like, Mark or Dylan or Irving or anybody else.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Is fractured into who knows how many pieces.

[Joanna Robinson]

Exactly. Like, there are so many, we find out in one of her intake sessions with Dr. Ma, who we'll talk about in a second. But like, that she did six rooms in one day. Yes, but there are so many rooms down there. You know, place names that we've never seen on an MDR monitor on these. On these doors like that. Cold harbor, though, still remains a secret. Right. She has not been in the Cold harbor room. This is like a new room for her. And she saw the label on it, but she has not been inside it. Right. That she knows.

[Rob Mahoney]

Has not been inside. What do you think is in there, Joe? What do you. Is it a room of puppies? What do you think is happening?

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, for sure. Yeah. Rainbows, sunshine, lollipop, something like that.

[Rob Mahoney]

Well, real talk on that front. I think it's not hard, given the structure of the show, to draw a line between what is happening in these rooms and, say, the four tempers that we've been put right before us so often in severance. And if that is the case, we're getting all negative emotions in this episode. We're getting the Christmas card. Thank you writing. We're getting the plane turbulence. We're getting the two hour dental exam. We're not getting anything that looks a lot like Frolic, I'll say that. And so I'm not ruling out the possibility that whatever's happening in Cold harbor could be a positive emotion.

[Joanna Robinson]

How optimistic for you.

[Rob Mahoney]

I am not feeling good about it. I'm just saying this is a thing that is possible. But if the end game of this sort of severance is shielding out negative feelings, there would be no need to sever out positive feelings. So it's probably still absolute shit, whatever is happening in there. But the absence of Frolic is noted.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, we'll always have it tattooed on Drummond's hand if we need it.

[Rob Mahoney]

Certainly will.

[Joanna Robinson]

Um, okay, so we mentioned that Gemma has a number of not only Personas, but also she has wigs and costume changes and something that you texted to me, Rob. Rob is very assiduous about not talking about the episode. He does not burn pod. We don't pre chat about the episode.

[Rob Mahoney]

Only talk. Only talk for money, Joe.

[Joanna Robinson]

But what you did text me is you said, we're gonna need to talk about Dollhouse.

[Rob Mahoney]

We have to.

[Joanna Robinson]

And also our listener Mike coincidentally wrote into us about Dollhouse just last week. So shout out, Mike. Deechen Lachman, who plays Gemma, aka Ms. Casey. You and I both, I think, were introduced to her on the TV show Dollhouse, which. Which ran from 2009 to 2010 for two seasons. Do you want to tell the people at home who maybe did not catch this quickly canceled Jem what Dollhouse is about?

[Rob Mahoney]

I would love to. Even Gem might be strong. I would say it's overall quite an uneven show.

[Joanna Robinson]

Patchy. Patchy.

[Rob Mahoney]

Quite patchy. Joss Whedon series that is about. Not unlike severance, the creation of a technology. Except in this case, it's a technology in which you can program a person. And clients will hire the company that owns this technology to program these people, these dolls, into whatever they want them to be, whatever Persona they want them to have. And so, yeah, decent Lockman spins that whole series going episode to episode in wildly different Personas, doing wildly different things. Spoiler alert. Many of the clients just want to have sex with these people with very specific kinks or very specific personalities or appearances. And so there's something certainly in my brain about watching Dietchen Lachman put on wigs, put on outfits, put on heels, go to room after room after room and be subjected to torture that Certainly feels a lot like Dollhouse to me.

[Joanna Robinson]

The, the main doll on that show is Eliza Dushku of Buffy Vampire Slayer fame. And like you and I both agree that she's not the, the greatest part of that show, but decent. Lockman and Enver Joque, who played two of the other dolls are like phenomenal.

[Rob Mahoney]

Uncanny at exactly this thing. Their ability to transmute into exactly what they need to be for all year.

[Joanna Robinson]

Characterization, whatever it is. And so that's. That was like a pure pleasure of watching Dollhouse. I have been waiting for deejin Lockman to have like another opportunity to really show what she can do. And she popped up here and there, but I don't think she's been. And even in season one of Severance was not, you know, she's great, but not given a lot to work with. And then this is just a deejin Lockman showcase this episode, and she's phenomenal in it. And one other thing I want to say about Dollhouse is that ostensibly in that show, everyone who is a doll has volunteered, has signed up for five years of this in exchange for a good deal of money or to make something bad in their life go away or whatever it is. Except for our main character who, you know, there are questions about whether she's there consensually. And you know, I would say a similar case for, for Gemma here, where my interpretation of what we see in this episode is that Lumen has been lurking in Gemma and Mark's life since they're very meet cute. They're at a blood drive run by Lumen when they're having fertility issues. They go to a fertility clinic run by Lumen where Dr. Maurer, who we spend a good deal of time with in this episode, is at that clinic. We see her have a miscarriage. We see that take a toll on their relationship. And it feels to me, by the way, the nature of her goodbye to him that night, that she has voluntarily signed herself up for this.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

But that she is being kept now. Like, it feels like to me that Dr. Maurer is unlikely to let her go. He's lying to her about what's happening on the inside. Outside she is asked to leave, she's being told she can't leave. So however, you know, however she was directed into this path, you know, there are some theories already out there that like Lumen might have caused her miscarriages in order to push her in this direction. Like, it's certainly within the wheelhouse of the nefarious shit that they do. But whatever pushed her in here. There was a choice that was seemingly hers, but now she's trapped in a scenario that she doesn't have the ability to say. I would like to stop now.

[Rob Mahoney]

That would be my read on it. I think it's fair, if not entirely founded by the subtext of the show, to think that maybe she was straight up taken. Right. That she did go not to execute a charade, but to go play charades. Like she was honestly going to her friend's house. And based on Maurer's appearance earlier, as you said, at the fertility clinic, like there is a scouting recruitment effort happening. The mailers, there's something happening here that is, I'm sure, subconscious. Right. That is them trying to influence her in some ways to do what it is they want. We don't exactly know yet, other than to be here and be a guinea pig. And so this is the sort of big, like A or B to me about this episode is did. Was Gemma taken by Lumen or did she choose to leave and got more than she bargained for? I think it's much more likely to be that outcome.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think it's the latter, mostly because, again, of that rewatching, that scene where she says goodbye to Mark.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

And she's like, I could stay. And he's like, no, go. You know, it just seems very much like a. She knows she's leaving for something, though I don't believe this episode gives no indication that she thought it meant forever or even for years. You know, I would say a couple.

[Rob Mahoney]

Of data points on that front. We do hear in some of the dialogue between Drummond and Maurer that Gemma has tried to break Maurer's fingers before. Like she has tried to escape her captivity before. So she did not sign up to be a guinea pig indefinitely.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Rob Mahoney]

Also, I don't know if we want to get into Russian literature corner this early.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, I do.

[Rob Mahoney]

But we simply must. And if we're going to talk about the death of Ivan Ilyich, a story about how maybe being dead isn't always just being dead, but living in a way that is untrue to yourself and unfulfilling in a way that makes you dead before you actually die, it's name checked several times in this episode, specifically with Gemma, who is teaching Russian literature. And I don't know how to read that final exchange with Mark and the slow deterioration of their relationship other than a woman who is dying, even if she is not actually dead.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know, we've. We've cited eternal sunshine and the spotless mind several times. But I was so reminded of it in this flashback sequence. Watching them go from, like, the giddiness of, you know, the meet cute and first love and the idyllic early days of their relationship and their marriage into, you know, it's with the added harrowing infertility story that is part of their story. But, you know, you think about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. You think about them getting to the point in the relationship where they're, like, at a Chinese restaurant and they can't even talk. You know, we are the dining dead. Like, they can't even talk to each other.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know, and so, yeah, there are ways in which Gemma is. Again, infertility is a very touchy subject. So I don't want to, like, make presumptions for anyone. But inside of this character, inside of this episode, I would say there's certainly something going on there. Like, Haley, our listener Hayley wrote in for. For Tolstoy Corner, and she said. She sort of summed it up this way. She said tolstoy decided that death, if you lived a true authentic life, isn't something to be feared. But if you do fear it, it's because you lived artificially or focused on the wrong things. And that can lead us to try to hide from ourselves and death and shut down. And Ivan, at the end of the story, quote, dies, but because he learned that death isn't something to be feared, he doesn't die at all. Lots of the fear of death and hiding from it can be traced into Mark, and lots of the artificial, authentic stuff can be traced into Heli and Helena. But what I thought was interesting was the idea that death, the ending of oneself, only happens when authenticity is lost completely. So, like, when we think about Gemma, is Gemma alive? She's alive is like the big line at the end of season one and.

[Rob Mahoney]

Rugabi gets one in this episode. We're at our, like, fourth different she is alive variation at this point.

[Joanna Robinson]

And like, certainly in the spirit of her breaking fingers and trying to escape and saying Mark's name a few times, there are ways in which Gemma is still alive. But there are also indications that, like, when she's getting her sort of vitals read by this nurse played by the great Sandra Bernhardt. Great casting. We'll talk about Robbie Benson as Dr. Bauer in a second. But, like, when she's getting her vitals read, one of the questions she asks is like, did you do your reading today? And she's like, yeah, 50 pages. But I was just like, and 50 pages isn't nothing. But for an academic, I think of all the like in terms of showing us their life in the span of just a few minutes of an episode of television. The really clever effect of the stacking up the books and the papers and stacking down, which is a huge part of that montage. These are two academics who fall in love talking about their respective fields. And you really get the sense of what is lost with these brains when they're neutered and severed into docile complicity. And so the. The compliance is what I meant, not complicity. So, like. So Gemma's saying, Yeah, I read 50 pages. Like, yes, but like, is she. That's labeled for someone like her, how much is he? Is she still Gemma at this point? You know, I don't know.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's hard to say. I think one of the interesting images to reference on that is the thank you cards, which by the time we see her writing one is so illegible.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Rob Mahoney]

Like, not. Not. Does not look like understandable writing in any sense. And is that granted, because she has now written hundreds of thank you cards and her hand is cramped beyond, like any kind of recognition in the thing she is writing. Or is there something going on with Gemma more existentially, more spiritually? Is there something going on with the sub severed brain that she's now working with, where she is losing some of her fine motor skills, where she's. She's losing control of some of the. Even the verbal elements that as an academic would come so easily to her.

[Joanna Robinson]

One of our listeners, Todd, pointed out, and I missed this, that Gemma's a lefty. And that Todd was like, there's a particular form of torture of making a lefty write with a fountain pen, because the smear factor is just off the charts. And so she's writing and he's like, the nib is all like upside down and backwards. And, yeah, the writing looks nearly gibberish. Um, which, you're right, might be a reflection of declining mind, or it might be a reflection of making her write as many thank you letters as she wrote. I thought that was like sort of a it's always fucking Christmas. But I thought it was like a really diabolical. Alongside the dentistry, writing endless thank you notes sounds like absolute torture to me.

[Rob Mahoney]

But. But overall, I think as far as the how alive is Gemma question, yeah, taking the Tolstoy elements and taking the chikai bardo specifically, really the idea of a bardo, right, this not just transition stage, but one that involves the acceptance of death. I See that as a pretty clear indication of where Gemma is throughout this episode. And we cover a lot of time. We cover the nature of her entire relationship with Mark basically front to back. I'm sure there's plenty of things missing, and we may get those gaps filled in over the course of future episodes. But this is someone who is coming to terms, or has already come to terms in a way, with the death of, if not who she is, then certainly her relationship and certainly the person she was with Mark.

[Joanna Robinson]

And I think what's interesting to me is I agree with all of that. I think all of that is true. And yet she is more alive than we've seen her so far. Yeah, we believe this is actually physically Gemma. I am sort of out on Ms. Casey as a clone theory. Like, this is physically her body.

[Rob Mahoney]

Also, this is. This is a little extra textual. So if you don't like, kind of cast interviews, maybe skip ahead a little bit. Basically, everyone making this show has been incredibly emphatic to the point of insulting their clones. This is not a clone situation. So maybe that's them all covering up for the thing that they know to be true. But at this point, I think it's much less likely.

[Joanna Robinson]

I agree, though. I really did like Damon's clone theory, if you want to hear it. I cut it out of the episode just because of that. Like, but you can see it on the. On the YouTube interview. It's pretty solid, except maybe not actually true. But anyway, the. She's more alive than we've seen her thus far. And so, you know, and this is something I had talked to Damon on the full interview that you can watch, like, previous to watching this episode. So mere days ago, I was like, I think it matters that Ms. Casey, like, that the. Gemma's dead and she should stay dead, and et cetera, et cetera. And now I'm in conflict. And now our love quadrangle polygon has gotten so complicated because at the end of this episode, you're like, Mark and Gemma have to be united. Like, he wakes up with tears in his eyes thinking about her. She's, like, feebly saying his name, you know, in tears, on her way back down to the testing floor. Like, of course they have to be put down, put back together. Except we still care so much about heli. Like, you know, it's. This is exactly where they want us. Which is deeply conflicted about what the outcome we're most rooting for is.

[Rob Mahoney]

So deeply conflicted about those outcomes and also deeply conflicted about as we're going through what is happening in the mechanics of this show? And.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Rob Mahoney]

Like, like, I, again, I would argue that Gemma is dead in a lot of senses. That she is not the person that she was. That she is going through a kind of spiritual and existential transition, if not a physical death in the way that Mark understands it. And Severance is so good at having it both ways. It's so good at making us ask a lot of these questions. And we kind of jump straight into the mysteries of this week's episode and the substantial answers of this week's episode. I don't want to zoom past the fact that not only is this the best episode of Severance, Joe, I think it is the best episode of any show that you and I have covered together. I just think this is masterful, astonishing, staggering work. I really like hall of Fame stuff in its own category, but it's definitely top five.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's definitely top five. I'm not sure I'm willing to, like, unsee Crimson sky yet. But, like, because we did cover Shogun together. But, like, it is definitely top five episode television we've ever covered. And, you know, probably top three at least.

[Rob Mahoney]

I think it's just. It's perfect in the way that is. This is the kind of story that can only be told with soft sci fi. There are these incredibly human elements in there. There are these wonderful sci fi constructions, including maybe most heartbreakingly, the fact that Gemma does stage this huge escape, finally gets her jailbreak moment and turns into Ms. Kayce as soon as she gets out of the elevator, which is just an incredibly gutting turn of events, and then is returned to the floor without ever even seeing what's on the other side or knowing what happened. Like, she.

[Joanna Robinson]

But there's a part of her inside. This is why I'm like, I can't fully ascribe to your Gemma is dead theory, because there is a part of her that is alive, even inside of Ms. Casey. That's like. But I. And especially when we flash to the season one scene where she had been monitoring the MDR team and she was like, I really liked being here today. Deeshin Lockman, on the official podcast that dropped this morning, was talking about how when we see Ms. Casey or when we see Gemma in all of these rooms, it's just her and fucking Dr. Maurer and nurse Cecily, and that's like, that's all of her interactions. So there's something inside of Ms. Casey, even though she doesn't actually know it, that is so happy to be around other people. You know, there's just something inside of her that is still alive and kicking and is Gemma, despite all of the tinkering that they're doing with her brain.

[Rob Mahoney]

You know, I completely agree with that. Yeah. I don't want to overstate the death thing so much as I think that that's the experience Gemma was going through in the outside world as her. As her relationship was falling apart, as she was dealing with her, like, the infertility. And then she gets to this hellscape and these torture rooms. And our experience with this episode, I mean, we get answers to some of the biggest questions that Severance has been posing, including what, is Gemma alive, period? I guess that's a question, Mark. Where is she? What has her existence been like? What was Mark and Gemma's life like before we met them, or at least met Mark over the course of the show? It's answering all those questions while raising the emotional stakes in such a huge way, and it's doing it in this really electric fashion that makes you reconsider basically everything we've seen in the show. Like, I have been going back and just thinking about so many different scenes and so many different characters and so many different interactions, knowing what we know now. And it just. It feels like even though the show is exciting, even though we were thrilled to cover it every week, like it has new life now. After watching this episode, I.

[Joanna Robinson]

And I told you I was daunted to do this podcast episode with you because I was like, it's too big. Like, how do we talk about everything? Let's talk about this. You mentioned that this is like, this is one of the best episodes of television we've ever covered, if not the best part of that is sort of like just filmmaking technique.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

So let's talk about what Jessica Lee Gagne does here, which.

[Rob Mahoney]

Standing fucking ovation. Genuinely, like, incredible, incredible work, especially for granted. A longtime director of photography, cinematographer, but first time directing credit on this show.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes. One thing that they mentioned on the official pot, basically, she at a certain point conscripted Ben Stiller to be like her second unit dp, and she gave him a Bolex camera, which, if people don't know what a Bolex camera is, it's 16 millimeter, like one of those things you have to, like, crank sort of handheld camera. It's been used recently in films like Sean Baker's the Florida Project, Ann Biller's the Love Witch, a gorgeous film. Paul Schrader's First Reformed, David Lowery's A Ghost Story. So basically, like Directors who really just want to flex something cool and weird, they'll go for the Bolex camera. So that's something that she decided to use for these to give us these sort of, like, warm, golden flashbacks. From a production design standpoint, I think the warmth and the sort of like, lively clutter of Gemma and Mark's house, not to mention their offices in comparison, like, pile with books and books and books and plants and plants and plants, compared to the soulless corporate housing that we have watched Mark exist in for the last season and a half is devastating. Like, it's a. It's a brilliant point of contrast.

[Rob Mahoney]

You know, this is where the two inner Robs are at battle, because there is the inner Rob that loves monochromatic design.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, no.

[Rob Mahoney]

And I'm looking at that bookshelf, I'm like, there's something aesthetically pleasing about the order of this, but also soul crushing about the lack of life in it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

And I think you're really onto something with that again, especially for someone who, like, their home is so bookish. It is so, like, riddled with plant life and sunlight and, like, the steepling is off the charts. Like, there's just so much happening in those flashbacks from a filmmaking perspective and a set deck perspective. I am preconditioned to love a kaleidoscopic, bittersweet view of a relationship. Yeah, rise and fall. Like, that's just going to hit me. That's going to work for me basically every time.

[Joanna Robinson]

You're a Blue Valentine kind of guy.

[Rob Mahoney]

I don't know that anyone wants to identify as being a Blue Valentine kind of guy, but perhaps I am. I think it's just executed at such a high level here to the point of transcending whatever you think about these sorts of montages. Joe, we have official Dead Dog wife territory here, which is something that usually you and I roll our eyes at, but here it is executed to such a beautiful and wonderful effect. I simply cannot.

[Joanna Robinson]

I didn't. It wasn't until the episode that it was over that I was like, wait, that was a. Oh, that was a. Usually as soon as the Dead Dog wife montage starts, I'm like, ah, here we go. But there was just something, like, so special about the meet cute. The, like, the interaction in the office. The ant farm. Do you think the ant farm was a West Wing reference? Do you remember that? In West Wing?

[Rob Mahoney]

Where's the ant farm?

[Joanna Robinson]

In West Wing, there is no ant farm. But in West Wing, Timothy Busfield's character plays Janet. Yeah, Goldfish.

[Rob Mahoney]

I would Love to think that that's the case.

[Joanna Robinson]

He brings her a goldfish in a bowl and she's like, I like goldfish crackers.

[Rob Mahoney]

Just a classic misunderstanding.

[Joanna Robinson]

A great moment in TV dating on.

[Rob Mahoney]

The litigation of whether this is an official dead dog wife montage or not. Can it be if Gemma's not dead?

[Joanna Robinson]

Great question. I want to zero in on the. On the plant imagery, please. We get. We've noted that it is like the land of always winter in and around Kier, from what we've watched for a season and a half of this show watching. And we've got a Persephone name drop earlier in the season between Devin and Mark. And we talked about that at the time. But watching Gemma, like poison ivy plant goddess, you know, surrounded by her. Her house plants or out in the garden with the various flowers that are blooming like it is springtime.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

When. So this is the story of the myth of Persephone is Persephone was stolen away by Hades, dragged down into the underworld, and her mom, Demeter, goddess of the harvest, had to negotiate basically shared custody with this asshole who stole her daughter. And when Persephone is above ground, it is summer and springtime. And when she is below ground, it is winter and fall. So the fact that it has been land of always winter, because Gemma/Miss Casey is below ground. But in our hazy flashbacks, it was springtime, there were plants everywhere. Everything was in bloom when she was around. So I gotta say, Joe, at this.

[Rob Mahoney]

Point, my Persephone and my Eurydices are getting crossed. Like there's so much hell imagery going on and so many different roles that Gemma is playing within this show to various characters and these kind of like mythological archetypal constructs. My head is spinning on that note.

[Joanna Robinson]

We did get a note from our listener, Mikhail, mentioning that. So Dr. Maurer, again, I do promise we'll talk about Robbie Benson, the great Robbie Benson, which is absolutely must thrilled to see and I think it's phenomenal in this episode. Maurer means wall in German, is what she pointed out. And in the musical Hadestown, which is the story of Orpheus and Eurydice and Persephone and Hades all intermingled together. Hades has this. Hades is depicted as this like evil lord of industry. The underworld is this sort of like smokestack filled gears turning hellscape of constant working. And he has this whole song about why we build the wall. And basically he is like duped all of the residents of the underworld into believing that they have to build this wall to keep People out and build the wall because work is what gives us meaning. And if that isn't Lumen, I don't. I don't know what is. You know?

[Rob Mahoney]

Wait, are you. Are you telling me capitalism is like a hellscape or a prison?

[Joanna Robinson]

Bad question Mark.

[Rob Mahoney]

I don't know, Joe. That seems far fetched.

[Joanna Robinson]

On the meet cute front, what do you make our listener, Molly wrote in asking saying that she thought it was really odd. I mean, I loved the way it was done.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

But the fact that when Mark meets Gemma at the blood drive, he says, who are you? And he says it in this, like, really sweet sort of like incredulity of like, you are so hot and so smart.

[Rob Mahoney]

Where did you come from?

[Joanna Robinson]

Cool. Who are you? Right.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

So that's all in there. But she was. She made this really interesting connection between that me cute and Mark s meeting Helly R on the table and how that intake is very much like, who are you? Right. Who are you? Is like an odd way. It's not like, what's your name? Nice to meet you. I'm Mark. Anything like that. Who are you? Is not usually how one interacts, but I liked that idea as like a connection between the two. If you want to call the heli sprawled on a table, losing her mind to meet cute in a way. Yeah, in a way.

[Rob Mahoney]

Not a lot of heli in this episode, obviously.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right. One thing I want to.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, one thing I want to flag on pregnancy. Watch. Not our favorite subject. I don't know how Helly or Helena will be pregnant three days after having sex with both marks. I don't know how any of this works. I don't know if that's where we're going to go. I was struck a little bit by Gemma's miscarriage. And she is in the shower, sat on the floor, holding her legs in almost exactly the same position and fashion. We saw Helly last week in the hall when she's removed her shoes and is kind of going through a crisis and is, look. Severance loves a mirror. Severance loves recursion. Severance loves playing Gemma and heli opposite each other, visually speaking. I don't know what to make of any of that, but I think we got to throw it out there.

[Joanna Robinson]

I didn't even consider that. My mind went immediately to Vesper Lind in a Bond movie.

[Rob Mahoney]

No Daniel Craig around to suck her fingers.

[Joanna Robinson]

But, you know, but wow, upsetting. Thank you for raising that. I'm sorry. It's okay. But on that front, like, talking about Ellie, something that like, actually, a couple of our listeners pointed out that I thought was interesting was this idea that, you know, if. Sort of building on something that Damon was talking about in our conversation about this idea of, like, if you're attracted as innies, you're going to be attracted as outies. We get this with, like, our. Our guys, Burvin. We get this with Helena and Mark and Helly and Mark. You know that there are sparks of flying no matter what the combination is, because there is something in you that is attracted to something in them. Does it mean anything? And again, we got a couple emails about this. Does it mean anything that Mark had no real spark with Ms. Kayce?

[Rob Mahoney]

Maybe. I think it certainly could speak to the state of their relationship by the end. Where I want to say this. Like, we get this incredible, not just montage sequence, but the scene spliced throughout the entire episode of them, stage by stage, from these two professors falling in love at the blood drive to their amazing, adorable house and this life that they're building together to. To this, like, two prospective parents who are struggling with the process of that and trying to figure out how to be there for each other and then as people who are just deeply, deeply in pain and drifting apart, so. So clearly like right out from under each other's grasp. And I think one of the things that I love about this episode is we get a very new understanding of Mark and who he was at the time when he was with Gemma.

[Joanna Robinson]

And something we should say is there was a line or a line or two about this in season one, I think, when he was dating that other woman and, like, often drunk. Oh, you have it. Okay.

[Rob Mahoney]

No, I actually want to talk about that other woman. I have some revised thoughts, but let's get to that as we talk about the music later in this episode.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, great point. Oh, creepy. Gotcha. Okay, I know what you're going for. Anyway, I believe there. There were lines in season one both about having trouble conceiving.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

And Mark saying. Implying that he was not always the best husband to Gemma. That was all seeded in season one. Can we talk about Robbie Benson again?

[Rob Mahoney]

We simply must. One of the most immediately contemptible characters in terms of just speed, from introduction to hatred that I can remember seeing on tv.

[Joanna Robinson]

Robbie Benson is best known to me as the voice of the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. But I remember when. When he was sort of announced or when they, you know, I don't know, I was watching like, the Wonderful World of Disney or something as a kid, and it's like Robbie Benson's the voice of the Beast. I remember my mom being like, oh my God, it's Robbie Ben. Because he was like a heartthrob in the 70s, so. 70s heartthrob, voice of the beast. From Beauty and the Beast to, you know, creep dentist doctor with a wig fetish.

[Rob Mahoney]

Is he a dentist?

[Joanna Robinson]

Creep doctor with a dentist side habit.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm gonna. I'm gonna claim victory on those not being dental tools because they are torture devices. He is not a dentist. He's not a dentist. He's just a guy stabbing her teeth.

[Joanna Robinson]

He is using dental tools as a torture device. And what did I. What did I say when we talked about it the first time I mentioned Marathon man and dentists as torturers. You're right. You're right.

[Rob Mahoney]

It was right there the whole time.

[Joanna Robinson]

There's a torture dentist. An alias. Like, this is. This is a well worn trope. A friend of mine was texting me very excitedly last night while I was like trying to put together notes for Fighter for podcast. So I do apologize to him, but he was like, really delighted by the meta casting of the voice of the Beast playing this guy who's like keeping this woman, a bookish woman captured in his lair and who sort of believes that they have a romantic connection beyond his purview as her doctor.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's certainly really creepy. And when he sort of parrots back the I love you catch as she's trying to leave the Christmas card room just.

[Joanna Robinson]

Was their house bugged then?

[Rob Mahoney]

Surely, yes, it seems like it might be. Or there they are able to in some way view or listen to or reconstruct some of Mark's memories based on his MDR work. I don't know exactly what's happening there. What is clear is he seems to be relishing playing house with her and the power that he wields over her.

[Joanna Robinson]

So disgusting.

[Rob Mahoney]

In a really, like. Honestly, my whole body just recoils watching his scenes, which is an incredible performance and I think is sold in part by the demeanor, is in part sold by, like, Robbie Benson's just like piercing eyes in his presentation in this episode. It's just a perfect affect for a creepy doctor you want to hate. And the absolute rage that swelled up inside me when he is telling her the lie about Mark moving on in the outside world.

[Joanna Robinson]

Has a daughter.

[Rob Mahoney]

I would like to think that I have seen enough TV and movies to not be so moved by something like that, but I felt so angry.

[Joanna Robinson]

You were like, break, break his fingers again, Gemma.

[Rob Mahoney]

Legit.

[Joanna Robinson]

Straight up on the like it was their house bugged front. The I love you, I love you two, stolen from their last goodbye in that nightmare Christmas room scenario is one thing we should say.

[Rob Mahoney]

I don't think we've noted yet. That was the Allentown room, which was the file that Mark completed in record time just prior to season one.

[Joanna Robinson]

Great shout. Here's the other question on the bugging front. This is where we're gonna do. We're gonna do Music Corner. We've got three. Three entries to Music Corner this week.

[Rob Mahoney]

Surprising amount of music commentary happening.

[Joanna Robinson]

Alexa wrote in to say, I've noticed that we've heard the song I'll Be Seeing youg by Billie Holiday three times now throughout the series. The first is when Mark is on the date with a doula.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yep.

[Joanna Robinson]

Second is when Mark reassembles the pieces of the torn picture of Gemma. Now we hear it again in a much more prominent way in episode seven, playing in both the flashback scenes of Mark and Gemma being cute and in love. And their to their current horrific state of being trapped in Lumen, where the Doctor abruptly cuts off the stereo. What do you want to say about that? You. You mentioned that you wanted to talk about the. The dual date. Like art, do you feel like she's a Lumen plant? Like, what do you. What do you think?

[Rob Mahoney]

I think the breadcrumbs are there in a different way than I noticed before. At the time that character is presented so empathetically and as one of the few people who seems like an actual human living in Kir, you're. You want to believe that Mark is just so damaged he can't have a functional relationship with a normal person. But revisiting it, and especially through this lens, right. You have that is diegetic music that's being pumped into the restaurant for their date as this woman is being very understanding, asking Mark to talk about his dead ex wife on basically their first date.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

And she's connected to the birthing retreat and maybe even connected to how Ms. Cobell gets hooked up with Devin in the first place for the lactation consultancy. The fraudulent lactation consultancy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Rob Mahoney]

An epidemic in this country, Huge problem. It certainly feels like it. And I would say even more so in conjunction with another email we got Joe from Adeline, who pointed out that the music that's playing in the Chinese restaurant when Helen and Mark meet in the outside world is the same music that's being played during the Egg Bar social in season one within the severed Floor. And so, like, well observed, all around such a good.

[Joanna Robinson]

Such a sharp observation.

[Rob Mahoney]

There's these big pointing arrows to the idea that Lumen is running so much more of the outside world than we even may have understood, based on the long grasp of a company this big.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

And now it really feels like that date and that whole conversation and everything that he's. Most of the people that he's been involved with outside are in some way prompting him to remember Gemma. Think about Gemma like they are trying to keep the memory of her alive subconsciously in his head, whether he wants to move on or not.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, and how much is that? How much of that is Lumen at large? And how much of that could be Harmony herself? Because Harmony sort of off. Off assignment.

[Rob Mahoney]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

Was pushing this with Mark, like stealing that scented candle and putting it in the. In the room with Ms. Casey.

[Rob Mahoney]

You know, a girl can't have a hobby.

[Joanna Robinson]

I mean, you would think that baking disgusting chamomile cookies would be enough to occupy you, but there you go.

[Rob Mahoney]

I advocate for other hobbies other than that, even if it involves a little light B and E. Okay.

[Joanna Robinson]

The third and final music. Okay, so a peek behind the curtain. These episodes drop on Thursday nights. We do have screeners so we can watch them advance. But we like to record Friday mornings so that we can get emails from you guys and read the Reddit theories and all that sort of stuff like that. Listen to the official podcast. But it's like, kind of a tight turnaround in terms of, like, early morning Friday prep. So I was up quite early this morning reading emails, and so it was just not the time of day for my experience that I had with this one email we got. But it's not our emailer's fault. So Yael wrote in about the music that's playing during the sort of idyllic flashback montage. Yes, it's a French song, Carousel. And he's. He says it's a Jacques Brell song and it is used in this musical. There's a movie musical and a stage musical called Jacques Brell is Alive and well and Living in Paris. So in the 1975 film adaptation of it, the song Carousel in the. In Severance, it's in French. In the film, it's in English, and a woman is singing it. And Yael wrote it. Honestly, kind of gives me strong waffle party vibes. It's dark, it's surreal. The characters discover that they. That there are really terrifying marionette versions of themselves. There's a dead puppet master, Kir, and so much more. So I watched this video early this morning, and it gave me, like, full body tremors. It is so upsetting. And I think it's so interesting to, you know, both. Both inside the context of this episode and in that video that I watched. It's on YouTube. You can watch it. Carousel. Ellie Stone. Jacques Brell is alive and well in Paris. The song just gets faster and faster. And so, you know, Yael was putting out, like, part of it is like the in and out of the various rooms that Gemma is doing. Part of it is sort of like this whirly exhilaration of, you know, early romance between a couple. But there is a deeply sinister quality to this song and. Which makes it a really interesting. I would just say, like, also, just.

[Rob Mahoney]

From a word cloud perspective, Carousel's jumping out at me. Cause it also appears in this Billie Holiday version of I'll be missing you. Like, it's. There's a. There's a lyric specifically about. Sorry, I'll be seeing you. Yeah, yeah. About, like, all. It's like, listing out all of these places in which you would see someone that you're missing. Right in the cafe in the park across the way, the children's carousel. And with that song, too, I think it plays just so beautifully as, you know, Mark going through his version of grief and how he would see Gemma or how he would experience the loss of Gemma in his life. And also Gemma, whether she knows it or not, and I suspect not reliving these horrible torture scenarios, but also in Allentown, specifically, something that is so specific to her, right? This idea that she hates writing these thank you notes. And so she is living a hell in his memory based on what he knows that she hates to do. And I. How twisted that idea is for, you know, a big company like Lumen to wield that against somebody.

[Joanna Robinson]

Somehow the creepiest part of Dr. Mauer's whole thing, actually, I don't know. I'm not sure I'm ready to call it this.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's like, it's a long list.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's the wigs and the costumes. Like, it's so gross. The plane crash one was actually, like, kind of the weirdest one for me. Like, even though, like, the Christmas one is and the dentist one are also, like, very sinister, it was the way he was, like, having so much fun with this, like, plane crash scenario that just, like, really fucking and doesn't have to do it.

[Rob Mahoney]

She's not going to remember anything about the way you look. And in fact, I would argue for scientific purposes, might be more constructive if you didn't look different, you know, control one of the variables here.

[Joanna Robinson]

Our listener Dan, asked, do you think there's a reason why we. We cut away before we see Gemma's last name?

[Rob Mahoney]

I don't think so. I think it is canonically understood that her name is Gemma Scout.

[Joanna Robinson]

But, yeah, they're at the clinic, so she would. She would probably be Scout at that point. Like. But we don't know what her last name was before they got married.

[Rob Mahoney]

No, I don't. But if. I think if it was something of macro note, like, if she was Gemma Egan, I don't think so. He would have already had a lot of reactions to her being an Egan, because he knows Helena Egan.

[Joanna Robinson]

He sure does know Helena Egan. What did you think of the sequence we got with Devon and Rickon and the foursome of them together?

[Rob Mahoney]

I thought that this was one of my favorite parts about the overall flashback construction is how different all four of them are and how different Devon, like Mark, is laughing at Rickon's jokes. Like, that's how far we have come from the people that they used to be.

[Joanna Robinson]

I adored that sequence, the genial nature of Mark saying, yeah, Rickon, what's wrong with you? Like, it's just like the bitterness isn't there, that impatience isn't there. And this. You know, I had mentioned that I had listened to the official podcast and the actor who played Rickon was on, and he was like, we don't know what Devin and Rickon's relationship was like before. You know, basically he said that knowing that this scene was coming where we would see what the foursome were like together. We have heard Devin say we were all very close together, that this is grief for her too. The near silent communication of the news that Gemma is pregnant. So that connection between Devon and Gemma, like, it was just really, I think.

[Rob Mahoney]

Just striking that we, yeah, we never hear the word pregnant in this episode. We never hear the word miscarriage, we never hear the words fertility clinic. And yet it's all very clear what is happening, because the filmmaking is that strong. Like, you absolutely do not need to do that. And it's a testament to what Severance holds back in its execution. Obviously, from a question and answer standpoint, it holds back quite a lot. But there are all of these little openings where, because you're not explicating, you let emotion and you let character fill that moment.

[Joanna Robinson]

Do you have time in your life and space in your heart for a little bit more mythology?

[Rob Mahoney]

Always, Joe, what are we doing here if not that?

[Joanna Robinson]

Always. Okay, Damon Mentioned this concept. It's also a Greek concept. The river of Leith being this, like, river of Forgetting in the underworld. There's. I didn't know this. So fun to learn. I knew about the River Styx. I kind of knew about the River Acheron. I knew about the river of Leaf. There's like five infernal rivers. And I just want to say that the phrase infernal river is the life, but the river of Forgetting, in Plato's Republic, it's like the souls of the departed were made to drink the leaf before their reincarnation. That they are meant to forget their previous life before they move on to this other life. So is. Is Cold harbor is the final step, like a full wipe of who Gemma ever was? We know the Clean Slate Protocol exists inside of Lumen's network. To go back to that Eurydice play that I was encouraged to read by our listeners that has a whole plot about drinking from the river of Forgetting and what it means to die and forget or die and be forgotten and all of that sort of stuff. So this idea of, like, Gemma, to go back to this idea of them, like, slowly somewhat scrambling her brain, is part of this sort of, like, river forgetting underworld, you know, losing touch of who she actually is or ever was, which is devastating.

[Rob Mahoney]

I think that's definitely there. I also think there's the read where the severed floor itself is the river forgetting. Where she is going into the space where as soon as she gets there, she forgets who she is and becomes Ms. Casey.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

And the only way she's going to find her way out is presumably with someone like Mark's help. I. We're told in this episode, Drummond kind of chides Maurer about the idea that when she does go into Cold harbor, you're going to have to say goodbye to Gemma. Right. So we know something dramatic is going to happen in there. I'm guessing again, it's not the puppy room, but I do.

[Joanna Robinson]

And Maurer's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem. I know.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah. He's totally cool with it. I'm sure it's not going to be an issue.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

But, yeah, to get out of here, she is gonna probably gonna have to pass through the severed floor as Ms. Kayce in some fashion. It doesn't seem like there's any other way out. And so in doing so, that feels very Eurydice to me. That feels very. This idea of, like, you have to be led out of this place and until the moment where you cross this threshold, you're like a shade version of your actual self until you can finally get clearance on the top side.

[Joanna Robinson]

World. Wow, that's so good. I love it. On the one hand, I love every single syllable you just uttered. On the other hand, I really loved that it was like Gemma nearly saving herself.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

There's so many people who, like, ended this episode. We got emails or on the Internet who are like, oh, my God, Mark has to save her. And it's like, yeah, I mean, obviously she has to be saved, But I was like, but I like it even better if she can save herself. I think that is even cooler.

[Rob Mahoney]

I thought this episode was kind of Gemma's version of the season one Racing the Clock finale, where all the members of the MDR team have these critical missions about their own individual selves and are trying to solve them as fast as possible. And she gets this absolute race to the elevator in a way that I think also mirrors. This season opens with Mark racing around these white, bright hallways looking for Ms. Casey. And it ends with Gemma racing around these dark, terrifying hallways, trying to get to the elevator to get out.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think that. And also, I mean, we should say the construction of the testing floor, which on the official podcast, they talked about at length that they wanted it to be of a piece with lumen. So it's still, like, all white and bright, but, like, very distinct in terms of, like, we're not doing straight hallways. We've got these weird, triangular jutting shapes. And then the lighting. And this was, you know, this was the director's of this episode's idea to do the floor lighting. She was like, the first thing I envisioned in this floor, knowing that Gemma was going to do this run through it, was lighting up the floor from underneath, so that as she goes, she's lighting up. We've seen the overhead lighting, but this is, like, underneath lighting, and it was visually quite stunning. And here's. Here's a quote from the inside the episode that airs after the episode that I just. I think is important. And this comes from Dan Erickson. He says what's going on on the severed floor somehow contributes to what's going on down below, but we still don't know why.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

So I know that the Redditors are going to be poring over every single, like, freeze frame. But we should point out that we've got the. The. The four people who aren't quite the doppelgangers, but still doubles of our. Of our MDR team. They're credited in. They're billed in the credits as. As, like, Mark Watcher Irving Watcher. So, like, their job is to watch our team, as our team refine something.

[Rob Mahoney]

You know, I see them as refiner, refiners. You know, they're, they're here just overseeing it all. Just really trying to get these guys to be their best possible selves.

[Joanna Robinson]

They're, they're, they're, they're paying attention to things on a granular level. And we love that for them.

[Rob Mahoney]

One takeaway from that, like, in addition to the doppelgangery element, which is just goofy and creepy and wonderful. Yeah. I feel like we learned that maybe the severed floor itself is not as surveilled as we might have thought. Because as they are trying to figure out why Mark's progress on Cold harbor has stalled, Drummond's explanation is, oh, that nosebleed really put us back. And not, oh, the fact that Mark and Halle are refining each other's data really put us back this week. You know, like they don't know everything that's going on, but they do know that mark went to Ms. Wong for a nosebleed.

[Joanna Robinson]

Beautifully put. I believe them that there aren't video cameras on the floor anymore. It seems that way because they thought they had a spy, but that's all gone to shit. Back to Book Corner. Back to Academic Corner. We actually got a couple emails from listeners about the literary works of George Saunders. Now I know that you don't like a piece of fiction, only Russian novellas.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm sorry, George.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, on that note, so George Saunders wrote a book called Lincoln in the Bardo, which is about Lincoln mourning at his son's crypts and Lincoln sort of slipping into a Bardo space. So that's something that was on their mind. And Ben Stiller owns the rights to one of George Saunders earlier stories, Civil War Land and Bad Decline, which is about a fucked up workplace. Even more fodder for the Civil War theories Becky writes. But though the one that a lot of people have been writing in about is this story called Escape from Spiderhead, which was turned into a really bad Chris Hemsworth film Spiderhead. But this is Becky's description of Spiderhead. Quote, shadowy pharmacore with corp. With quote, employees, test subjects inside who did not really have the full knowledge, knowing consent, of what they were signing up for. Experiments involving love and sadness and human relationships performed on these employees who grow reluctant to participate as they become more aware of what's going on. Even some elements of any versus Audi and the dangled reward of limited communication with the outside world. And spoiler alert, a subject embracing suicide rather than continuing with the exception experiments. So what Becky wrote is I like to think of Severance as what we might have gotten if George Saunders had been asked to write a TV show. And the one thing I will add to that, I think George Saunders is a great. If you're like, hey, I want to read more stuff that's like, reminds me of Severance, I think George Saunders is a great pick. And a book that I read that actually I read because Damon Lindelof recommended reading it like several years ago is a book called A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, in which four Russians give masterclass on writing, reading and life. And this is based on George Saunders, a class he teaches at Syracuse University, about Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gogol and Turgenev. So it's about analyzing their work and how it gets to the root of how we tell stories. It's a really, really good book, but basically everything I know about Tolstoy I learned from that book. So I just think it's really funny that Saunders came back around this week in a couple different ways. And all of that is, I, I, I just am really grateful for our emails from our listeners. I think they're, they've been, they've been.

[Rob Mahoney]

So good for Severance in particular.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is really great stuff.

[Rob Mahoney]

And what do Ringerverse recommends from you, Joe? Just, just smuggling a whole ass segment into this podcast that, that the book.

[Joanna Robinson]

About the Russian masters was really fucking incredible. I read it with a, like, I have notes in the margin which I haven't done since like college. Okay. Last but not least is a theory.

[Rob Mahoney]

Okay.

[Joanna Robinson]

And I would love your thoughts on it. Danielle writes, what do you think of the possibility of Irving being a prior test subject like Gemma currently is, and somehow it involved Bert? Severance has been around for 12 years at least, and Gemma has only been there for two years. Thoughts?

[Rob Mahoney]

Seems entirely possible. And we have yet to see so many of the functions of the Severance chip, including the blank slate, which just kind of looms over all of this. It feels like Irving could be the kind of guy whose innie has been blank slated several times, even, even maybe with his knowledge. It may have even been the kind of thing where they informed him of what was happening and that maybe contributed to him wanting to investigate the company, but he's been around for so long.

[Joanna Robinson]

If we get to experience a montage of John Turturro in several different wigs and several different accents and several different.

[Rob Mahoney]

Costumes, could we even be so lucky?

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, yeah. I mean, all right, we loved this episode. Anything else you want to say about it before we go to the Damon conversation?

[Rob Mahoney]

Only I've. I guess big picture, small picture.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Let's start small on the most granular possible level.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Rob Mahoney]

During some of these. Very flashy, very athletic, as our friend Amanda Dobbins would say. Bits of filmmaking in this episode.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Camera moving down the dark hallways. Kind of like almost stop motiony effect. I'm wondering if this is coming from that kind of hand cranked camera situation. We get a lot of random, like one frame insert shots of bits and pieces of Mark and Gemma lore. I did my best to scrub and to see what these shots are.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is what I say, Mahoney. All right.

[Rob Mahoney]

We see a split second of Mark's hands from season one as he's sculpting the tree that Gemma crashed into very quickly. One of our earliest reminders in the show of the kind of like, fragments of memory that might be seeping through for someone like Mark. We see Mark standing outside near some woods at night, which he does in season one when he revisits the place where he thinks Gemma has died. And also kind of the bend in the road, we see a flash of that as well. You see a man. You can't see his face just reaching out and putting. It looks like his hand on someone else's chest or someone else's shoulder. Not unlike the other Lumen ideographic cards that we've seen. It's not quite one to one, but maybe reminiscent.

[Joanna Robinson]

Interesting.

[Rob Mahoney]

Uh, you get just kind of like a general icy road. You get the headlights through the woods at night. You get the snowy road from a first person perspective as if someone were driving down it. You get a sort of soft table lamp, a red flower, which look, if that's not Belle and Beast coded, I don't know what is. And just some associated shots of Gemma along the way. A lot of it seems like things we've already seen and things they've already shot, but I'm curious if any of those will take on newfound significance as we go.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love that. Thank you so much for doing that work. That is. Yeah, it's very. It's very like Crash. Not the terrible best picture winner, but, you know, let's invoke what happened here without showing you specifically. Like this is how Lumen planted a body or anything like that. You know, what's your big picture?

[Rob Mahoney]

I think I just want to underscore again that this episode turned me into a complete mess, was really emotional in a way that I wasn't expecting and that honestly, I was kind of wondering if Severance would be capable of. This is a process in a show I find very intellectually stimulating. Right. You and I banding about these theories. I love the sci fi concepts. I love the execution and the filmmaking. I wouldn't say this is a show I felt like a really strong emotional pull to. And in one episode, all of a sudden, like, my whole emotional relationship to this show has been turned upside down. And overall, seeing the arc and the painful, incremental way that Mark and Gemma came together and came apart, it just really had an effect on me. And I can't salute this episode enough.

[Joanna Robinson]

It doesn't personally bother me when Chris and Andy don't like a show that I like. Like, I think that's fine. We're all, like, allowed to like different things. I don't need them to like Severance in order for me to like Severance. But I am curious if this episode moves the needle for them in any direction in terms of how they've been receiving this season. Cause I think that has been part of their critique is like, this feels like clever without being emotional in the way that they might want it to be. And I feel like I've felt the Irving stuff in episode four. I feel like I've had emotional moments. This is a leveling up, for sure. I completely agree.

[Rob Mahoney]

This is the kind of thing to segue into our interview that the Leftovers had in spades, especially by the end. But starting with season two in particular, and that I was just like, wanting Severance to hit that other gear. And Joe, we are here.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, let's go now to our conversation with Leftovers co creator Lost co creator Watchmen co creator Damon Lindelof.

[Damon Lindelof]

The thing that I love about severance, and I'll start many sentences with, one of the things that I love about severance is the idea of like, the body sharing aspect of it is that Heliar is saying Helena used my body to do this thing. But Helena's position is that it's her body. Is that Helly R is like, was threatening to injure my body or like, was gonna cut off my. And so this kind of idea of like, who possesses the body. The answer is both of them because I, you know, this isn't a theory of severance, but it is definitely my position, which is I disagree fundamentally with whatever Lutheran pastor sold this line of bullshit to Fields and Burt that innies have souls. There's only one soul, baby. Like, that's the way that it works. And Regarding Henry, like, just because you've lost your memory doesn't mean that you're off the hook for all the bad things that you did.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm so grateful to raising my favorite Harrison Ford film. Thank you so much.

[Damon Lindelof]

Written by J.J. abrams at age 23.

[Joanna Robinson]

Correct.

[Damon Lindelof]

But. But basically, like, the idea that it would be viable if you murdered someone to erase your memory, and that would be justifiable, like method of punishment. It would erase the deed. I'd be like, that may work for you, but let's have a chat with the victims. And so I'm. I'm. I'm a one soul per body kind of guy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Damon Lindelof]

And. And as all these kind of triangles and quadrangles where it's like, I really hope something special happens when Mark Scout has sex with Helena Egan on the outside. Cause that completes the quad.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Damon Lindelof]

Everybody else is now hooked up.

[Joanna Robinson]

Except for those sparks are flying at the Chinese restaurant.

[Damon Lindelof]

It seems to be on at Zoo Fair. They have just or fu. Because the zoo is out.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Okay, so we should clarify that you have not seen episode seven as we're recording this.

[Damon Lindelof]

That's right.

[Joanna Robinson]

We've seen episode six, as have I.

[Damon Lindelof]

That's the last one that has dropped at the time of the conversation.

[Joanna Robinson]

At the time we're having this conversation. So you have not. I have not watched episode seven. You have not watched episode seven. We're recording this clean Chikai Bardo is what that episode seven is called.

[Damon Lindelof]

Oh, the one that's coming up.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Do you want to explain to people who don't know what a bardo is? Because I learned it from you.

[Damon Lindelof]

I will.

[Joanna Robinson]

I learned it from watching you through.

[Damon Lindelof]

The lens of a western white fellow in his early 50s trying to explain the grand space of Tibetan and Buddhist philosophy.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think it's the fourth. The fourth bardo is the chikaya bardo.

[Damon Lindelof]

Oh, okay. So that's. That just goes to show you how much I know about Bardo's, but I read the Tibetan Book of the Dead when I was, like, in college.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Damon Lindelof]

And then, like, the thing that stuck with me through the haze of pot smoke was this idea of the bardo. And it aligns with other sort of like, afterlife constructs. Like kind of. Most notably in Egyptian mythology, there's this thing called the river Leith, L E T H e where when you drink from it, you forget your entire life. And then that allows you to kind of like, for your soul to kind of transcend and move on to whether you're gonna be reincarnated or move into Some sort of higher state of light.

[Joanna Robinson]

And being like in the Robert Downey.

[Damon Lindelof]

Jr. Film, chances are exactly like that film. And not like the film where Nicole Kidman hooks up with a 9 year old in the. In a tub.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right? Exactly.

[Damon Lindelof]

Birth.

[Joanna Robinson]

Different.

[Damon Lindelof]

Pretty interesting movie. Jonathan Glazer. That's a cool movie. It is weird and very uncomfortable.

[Joanna Robinson]

Is it as good as Chances Are with Robert Downey Jr. And Cybill Shepard?

[Damon Lindelof]

It's the exact same plot as Chances Are, which is why I'm referring to it. But is not a romantic comedy less.

[Joanna Robinson]

Age appropriate, even less age appropriate?

[Damon Lindelof]

Yeah, for sure. The general idea of the Bardo is that when you die, you enter into this space that is called the Bardo. And in that space you aren't aware that you're dead. You're just sort of like. It's a little bit like being in a dream, right? You don't know that you're dreaming unless you're lucid dreaming. And in this space, the Bardo, you're interacting with all the people that you've known in your life, who you've met, maybe even some strangers. People who died before you died and then people who died long after that you died because it's a timeless place. Like, there's no, you know, there's a similar sort of like, approach to this movie presence that Soderbergh just did. It's a ghost story, but it mixes in a small degree of time travel in the sense of, like, you can enter into an afterlife where people who are still alive are also there because they will eventually die. And the afterlife is timeless. The objective of the Bardo is for you to identify that you are dead, for you to remember that you died, but no one is allowed to tell you. So it's kind of like an elaborate prank show. It's like jury duty with James Marcy. Yeah, we're all Ronald in the Bardo now. Some people are still kind of just wandering around the Bardo forever. They never move on to the next day. They never. They never do the things that they and part. And my understanding always was that in order to gain this sort of like, sense of illumination that you are in fact dead, you kind of have to own your shit. You have to have to say, these are the things that were holding me back as a person. These are the people that I hurt that I have to kind of like, atone for. And like, if there's no sense of like knowing thyself. And this is like, we're kind of like getting into the leftovers, you know, I've been playing around with that mythology and international assassin we talked about, like the river leave. And if you drink the water, you forget. Like, these are. I only have one idea, Joe. I just keep applying it not only to the stuff that I do, but everybody else's shows. But it's like this sort of idea of forgetting and remembering, and once you remember, then you take ownership and then you move on. That is Spoiler alert. Like what? The final season, not the final episode, guys. The final season of Lost. That was the intention, was that this thing that we were calling the Flash Sideways is a bardo.

[Joanna Robinson]

Is a bardo. If people haven't seen Lost, and I hear from people all the time that they're just starting Lost for the first time.

[Damon Lindelof]

Oh, yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like daily. And it's amazing and it makes me really happy.

[Damon Lindelof]

Me too.

[Joanna Robinson]

If people have not watched Lost, the film Jacob's Ladder is another sort of good example of that, you know, of. Of this.

[Damon Lindelof]

That's like incident in Owls Creek.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. This like it was all a dream or it was all happening while the person was dying sort of idea in that short story.

[Damon Lindelof]

But to clarify, they were not dead the whole time. I'm lost. If you.

[Joanna Robinson]

Even if I say it into a.

[Damon Lindelof]

Camera, this is a spoiler alert that it's okay to know.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Damon Lindelof]

If you've heard they were dead the whole time.

[Joanna Robinson]

They weren't.

[Damon Lindelof]

They weren't.

[Joanna Robinson]

Correct. Do you want to talk about Bert?

[Damon Lindelof]

Well, yeah, let's talk about Bert. As you mean, is he evil?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Damon Lindelof]

Or are we just. Are we just.

[Joanna Robinson]

Are we just looking into. Christopher Walken always plays someone kind of twisty. I mean, he's definitely a bad guy, right. Our guy Burt.

[Damon Lindelof]

Well, here's the question. It feels if your fundamental approach to severance is that their innies are the closest thing to the they. They are. That is to say, that's the purest you. It's unaffected by the nature versus nurture argument. Right. So it's basically like if you're a nurture believer, you basically, like you're burdened by all the fucked up shit that your parents did to you, like where you were raised, any traumas that you visited upon others or were visited upon you. But then when you sever, all of that stuff goes away. They erase your memory. You know how to drive a car, but you've never driven a car. You know how to have sex, but you've never had sex. And so like your wife, clean. And so it's pure you.

[Joanna Robinson]

You become the Dylan that your Wife met at the beginning of your relationship.

[Damon Lindelof]

That's right. And that Dylan is hot like Merritt Weaver is like, give me some of that.

[Joanna Robinson]

Give me some of that Dylan.

[Damon Lindelof]

And so Bert is any Burt. That's my belief.

[Joanna Robinson]

I agree.

[Damon Lindelof]

And so if he is evil, if Audi. Burt is. Well, we know, at the very least, he is a liar. You know, I'll also say I've come to believe Joe in the course of my life. There's a direct proportion between people who know a lot about wine and evil. That's just. It's a hot take.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Damon Lindelof]

I stand by it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Piping hot. All right.

[Damon Lindelof]

It doesn't mean there are people who appreciate wine who are not evil. But if you know a lot about.

[Joanna Robinson]

Wine, do you know your grapes? If you know your varietals?

[Damon Lindelof]

Yeah. If you know your wine shit. And particularly if you have a cellar, there's no one more evil on this planet than sommeliers. So I think, like, Bert has the hots for Irving.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Damon Lindelof]

And in a real sort of, like, sweet way. And also, he's up to no good.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, here's the thoughts. It's like, I love everything you said about the. You. You are. Your innie is your purest self. Not sort of beaten down by life or corrupted by things that have happened. I like this idea that if you're in love with or attracted to someone in one state, chemistry is chemistry.

[Damon Lindelof]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

In another state. And I love this idea that. And this is something that one of our listeners posited with last week's episode. This idea that Mark S. As we see him, experience more in his life, the loss of Irving, the betrayal of Helena, stuff like that, is getting closer to.

[Damon Lindelof]

He's, like, getting traumatized now.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's getting closer to Mark. Like the sardonic version of Mark that we know on the outside. Adam Scott is so good at playing both of those things, and he's moving one character closer to the other as we're doing active reintegration at the same time, which I think is really interesting.

[Damon Lindelof]

Absolutely.

[Joanna Robinson]

What's your big codified theory of severance that you want to lay on me?

[Damon Lindelof]

My hope is that what is driving the creative team behind severance on every level, music to craft to actors, to writers, is the question that always drives me, which is their investment in the show is, are these people gonna be okay?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Damon Lindelof]

You know, they like all the stuff that I try to write about and am attracted to. It's the idea of coping. Mech. Using genre for coping mechanisms and severance is the ultimate coping Mechanism. It's the title of the show. So that everybody that we, as we learn, why did they get severed? Understandably and intuitively, it's some kind of a coping mechanism for Mark. It's very obvious grief, but there's more nuance in someone like Dylan or Irving, you know, in terms of, like, why. Why would you do this radical. This radical thing? It's not just so you can skip the boring part of your day. We've all seen that Adam Sandler movie where he fast forwards through the boring parts. And it does. It never pans out.

[Joanna Robinson]

It doesn't work out.

[Damon Lindelof]

So that's what they care about. So you and I talking about theories, like, it doesn't mean that what Lumen is actually up to doesn't matter or that they don't care about it. I'm just saying, like, I want a level set. That all that I want from severance is to tell me, are these characters going to be okay? What do they need to do to be okay? And along the way, sure, tell me what the fuck the goats are about, et cetera, et cetera, what Lumen is really up to. But all the nefarious, like. So the.

[Rob Mahoney]

So.

[Damon Lindelof]

So my theory is not a unified theory of, like. This is everything that I think is going on. And I have come to understand, you know, both by listening to you and Rob and going down the rabbit hole on, like, think pieces that I'm reading from people that I love and respect, that a number of the ideas that I'm about to advance are not unique, but that is to say, it dovetails with them. But I do have one thing to say that I have not read or heard.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Damon Lindelof]

I do think that the play here is to bring Keir back to life.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right?

[Damon Lindelof]

It's a. It's a. It's a resurrection play or I can't remember what the exact word that revolve. But what is. Is that the word that Heli. Dad. Helly R's dad used? I hope you. I hope you're there at my revolution.

[Joanna Robinson]

My revolving.

[Damon Lindelof]

Okay, so it's like that it has very. Like, Logan's runny, but it's like. But this sort of idea of like. And it's not just because there's a baby cure at the end of the New. And it's like, this is a straight up kind of spirituality play. This season has been getting much more into, like, scripture and, like. And it's like we've transcended, like, weird waffle parties, and we've gone right into, like, oh, Milchick is, like, not too far removed from Paul Bettany, like, whipping himself in the Da Vinci Code with his paperclips. We're using, you know, this is, like, Catholicism in the office, like, you know, writ large, and I am so there for it, and I fucking love every bit of it. So, yes, at the end of this all, is there cloning technology happening? 1,000%. Like, clones growing new bodies. My belief is that Gemma, Mark's wife, did, in fact, die.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right?

[Damon Lindelof]

He identified her body. The outside world did whatever testing they needed to do. I don't think Lumen was so nefarious as to, like, go grave rob a corpse and, like, and then, like, Dr. All of the things. But I do think that they grew a new body for her, and that's the person that we know as Mrs. Casey. It's why she even has a different name. Like, you could just call her Gemma.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Damon Lindelof]

Mark still wouldn't know, right? Like, if he doesn't recognize her, he doesn't recognize her. So they are making clones. They are growing new bodies, and they're. And ultimately, like, the severance play is we will put a chip in your head. That chip will basically absorb the you you are, and then that chip can be transferred into a new version of you when you begin to age. And we are all living in the perpetuity world, and you can just revolve.

[Joanna Robinson]

You can revolve forever.

[Damon Lindelof]

Revolve. Revolve.

[Joanna Robinson]

Revolve.

[Damon Lindelof]

That's the game. In season one, Bert makes. He's heard this rumor in Optics and Design, they've all heard this rumor about mdr that they have pouches.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Damon Lindelof]

And it becomes this kind of like, very silly joke that has, like, a punchline, and they're all sort of, like, chuckling about it. And I thought it was hilarious at the time, but now. And we come into season two, and we enter into the goat room with Gwendolyn Christie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Damon Lindelof]

And with Gwendolyn Christie. The amazing Gwendolyn Christie. And she asks them to show her belly button. And how do. What are the physical definitions? What are the descriptors that we use to describe what a belly button looks like?

[Joanna Robinson]

Innies or outies?

[Damon Lindelof]

Bro, clones don't have belly buttons, okay? Because they're not. They're not carried in utero. They don't have an umbilical.

[Joanna Robinson]

They don't have a cord to snip.

[Damon Lindelof]

So the only way.

[Joanna Robinson]

So it's smooth.

[Damon Lindelof]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like a Ken doll.

[Damon Lindelof]

They're using this story of pouches as, like, cover to do belly Checks.

[Joanna Robinson]

And we've belly checked.

[Damon Lindelof]

And I'm telling you, someone is fucking mark and helly are clean. We had full navel.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, we got belly checks, but we have not seen Irving's navel.

[Damon Lindelof]

We haven't. And I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say, if I haven't seen your navel, you might be a clone.

[Joanna Robinson]

You might be a clone.

[Damon Lindelof]

We're in Battlestar territory.

[Joanna Robinson]

I was gonna. Yeah, I was gonna say, this is Battlestar Galactica territory.

[Damon Lindelof]

This is my thinking.

[Joanna Robinson]

COD people stuff. Okay.

[Damon Lindelof]

You and I are pot people right now.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's true. Okay. I love this. Okay, the belly button thing.

[Damon Lindelof]

There it is.

[Joanna Robinson]

Is that what you want to call it?

[Damon Lindelof]

It's. Yeah, we call it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, the belly button theory.

[Damon Lindelof]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Damon Lindelof]

The belly button theory. I'm trying to do some kind of play on. Let's call it. We're navel gazing.

[Joanna Robinson]

We're navel gazing. There it is. Punching it up, as always. Love it.

[Damon Lindelof]

Yeah. Hashtag navel gaze. If there's a unified field question around Severance, it's what does Lumen do?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Damon Lindelof]

What is Lumen up to?

[Joanna Robinson]

What's their end game?

[Damon Lindelof]

And the unified theory of Lost is, what is the island? And I always, like, struggled with that as, like, I don't even know how. Like, do I have to explain that? And over time, became to believe that we had to explain it. And in hindsight go. Our efforts to explain the answer to that question all failed. And maybe we should have just dealt with the frustration of, like, once you're. Once you're talking about corks and, you know, like, I always felt, like, not entirely confident and saying in answering that question, but I also understood why the audience is like, hey, buddy, we're 75 episodes into this shit. You better fudgeing. Tell us what the island is.

[Joanna Robinson]

But then you get to the leftovers, and you're like, let the mystery be.

[Damon Lindelof]

Yeah, but openly, like.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like openly declaring, we're not going to. We're not going to explain this to you.

[Damon Lindelof]

And I would say, like, Conservatively, for every 25 people who watched Lost, one person watch the Leftovers. That's probably being generous. But it's sort of like people, if you're selling them a puzzle and you go like, hey, all the pieces might not be in here. You go, what? No, I want. It's like, I want. It's a 1000 piece puzzle. I want to know that they're all in here. It's like, maybe they are. But wouldn't it be exciting if they weren't? No. It wouldn't be exciting. You fucker.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love both the ending of Lawson Leftovers, as you know, um, I think I have a slight preference just in. In general, in terms of puzzle boxes or theory craft or all that sort of stuff, for there to be a question that I, the audience member, have to answer for myself in terms of what I believe. Do you know what I mean? Which is, like, what the Leftovers gives us is like, a question that. That we can decide, choose your adventure of what the ending of this is. And. And you might feel differently the next time you watch it through.

[Damon Lindelof]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know, and so then you are an active participant in the crafting of the story. And I think that is, like, among other things, the genius of the Leftovers. And so for something like Severance, I get really worried and protective of theorycraft shows. I get really worried and protective of shows that have huge, booming Reddit threads going, because I am worried that nobody's going to be satisfied with what the ending is. And so that's why I almost prefer, to a certain degree, that we never quite exactly know, you know, but that will piss off, you know, its own subset of people.

[Damon Lindelof]

Right? And. And I. And I think. I think to some degree, like, for those kinds of shows, you know, puzzle box shows or mystery box shows, whatever it is you want to call them, you can't really hold those alongside, like, the Breaking Bads and Better Call Sauls and Sopranos, because those shows didn't. They had to end. And the endings were based around what's going to happen to these characters, like, how good is the final episode? But they weren't based around, like, the Encyclopedia Brown skipped to the back of the book, like, not just why did Bugs Meanie do it? But, like, why are we alive? You know, like, why do we exist in the world? And I think Severance is playing with much more interesting metaphysical questions that it has no interest at all in answering. Like, what is the self? It's much more interesting. Interested in kind of, like, exploring. But this is why I kind of go, like, the endgame of Severance just has to be like, is Mark gonna be okay? Is Helly gonna be okay? Like, now I'm sort of like, I have no investment whatsoever in Mark and Gemma's marriage because you haven't shown me the episode of them being together. But if you showed me that episode, I'd start to feel quite torn about who I wanted him to be with.

[Joanna Robinson]

When you get explicit, seemingly explicit references to Lost on this show, like, when people Are like, hey, those are the numbers. What does that do to you as a severance fan?

[Damon Lindelof]

Like, but they're not the numbers.

[Joanna Robinson]

There are the numbers on their lockers.

[Damon Lindelof]

Oh, really?

[Joanna Robinson]

The MDR team in the scene when they are all going into their lockers and going down the elevator one by one, it. Each person had a loss number on their locker.

[Damon Lindelof]

And what's in this season, in the. In the first couple episodes. This is new. This is a new data point.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is new information for you.

[Damon Lindelof]

That's very exciting. And I. And I look at that as like, you know, I know that Dan is. Is a fan of Lost, and Dan.

[Joanna Robinson]

Ericson, who runs the show.

[Damon Lindelof]

Yeah, right. And so I look at that as, like, it's just a nod towards, like, the homage of, like, hey, I just want everybody to know I watched this show.

[Joanna Robinson]

I also watched Lost.

[Damon Lindelof]

Right. And it's like. And there are, you know, there have always been, you know, design elements and the aesthetic or like. Or just the Milchick video, you know, where you're basically like, okay, like, I'll just say I'm always delighted by it. Like, because, again, Lost did all the same. It's there. There's such a difference between a ripoff and a riff off. And these all feel like riff offs and like, just to, you know. And all the stuff that we were doing on Lost, it's like, you know, nosebleeds in the constant are like, from Firestarter, you know, and Stephen King borrowed that from, you know, I mean, like. Yeah, yeah. And so.

[Joanna Robinson]

And now you didn't invent the nosebleed as, like, a ticking clock on something.

[Damon Lindelof]

No, not remotely. And I would just say, like, almost any idea that we had on Lost, I'm sure you'd be able to find some version of it in something that one of us had read or experience in movies, television, literature, you know, in our life. And, like. But, you know, you're throwing all of that stuff in the blender and the. And our job is, like, to make the smoothie delicious. And Severance is doing something entirely new.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Damon Lindelof]

So it's like, all it does is it excites me to riff on Severance on the next thing that I do.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Damon Lindelof]

So it's like. Because that's the thing. It's like the Beatles and the Beach Boys, they were annoyed by, like, Sergeant Pepper Magic Mystery Tour, Pet Sounds, but that. But then they were like, oh, my God, you. You can do that.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Damon Lindelof]

And so, like, that idea that I'm alive right now in a time and space where, like, we're riffing on each other's stuff. And the fact that some of the stuff that I have done is in a. Is being riffed on in a show that I love. It's not just me loving myself, but it is this sort of idea of, like, oh, this is in continuity now with, like, sort of a straight line of all the stuff I love. And it's because I'm not a musician, I'll never be able to go on stage and jam with the musicians who followed me. But it's like, you know, I'm now Paul Simon on that stage. Sabrina Carpenter is, like. Is way behind me, but I identify with him, and I'm cool enough to go, that's Sabrina Carpenter. Right. But my son still has to go, like. Right. Like, I'm not. I don't. I'm not.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, she was good, right? She's a great. Yeah, yeah.

[Damon Lindelof]

Big fan.

[Joanna Robinson]

The locker numbers are 4, 16, and 23.

[Damon Lindelof]

Okay. So that's. Yeah. That's not a coincidence.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's not a coincidence. Sometimes we're reaching for the lost references, and sometimes they are just there. So this last question might come from either Rob or me. Who's to say we, as a collective. Rob and Joanna would like your take on the Luca trade on the record. And specifically, in your professional opinion, as someone who has wrestled with the infinite mystery of the universe, how could this have possibly happened?

[Damon Lindelof]

So here's what's really exciting. I'm gonna walk out of the studio right now because we're talking on Tuesday.

[Joanna Robinson]

Correct.

[Damon Lindelof]

And even though people will be listening to this later in the week, I am going to crypto.com and I am going to watch the Mavericks play the Los Angeles Lakers.

[Joanna Robinson]

Correct.

[Damon Lindelof]

In basically their first Face off since the trade. And we. And so I don't know what's going to happen. It's a mystery box, I think. Like, what? No, the. The. What no one is expecting to happen is that the Mavericks completely and totally blow out the Lakers and that Luka has a horrible game because he's just, like, in his own head. And then that will basically start the. Oh, we had it all wrong about. About what this trade was. Or it goes the other way. I just hope, like, it's a fabulous and fantastic game.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Damon Lindelof]

I would say I'm still wrapping my brain around the fact that Luka is a Laker, because I really disliked him a lot as a Laker fan and a Clipper fan. Like, and the Mavericks have knocked teams that I liked out of the playoffs. With intensity. And also, like, Luka just complained so much. If there's one thing I hate in the NBA, it's just working the refs. And second to flopping. And like, Luka may be and is one of the best players in the league.

[Joanna Robinson]

You said that so grudgingly. And is.

[Damon Lindelof]

But. But he is the worst when it comes to, like, whining. And I. For someone as talented, you shouldn't whine so much. And so I'm still.

[Joanna Robinson]

But you do have a conspiracy theory about this trade, however the. However the game goes tonight, don't you? Weren't you saying outside.

[Damon Lindelof]

My conspiracy theory is there's something that we don't know about Luca and I don't.

[Joanna Robinson]

Does he have a belly button?

[Damon Lindelof]

Oh, great question.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Damon Lindelof]

I think that the Lakers don't know it either.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Damon Lindelof]

I think very few people know it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Damon Lindelof]

And we're about to. We're going to find out what it is, and when we find out, we're gonna go, oh, the Mavericks got the better end of this deal.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Damon Lindelof]

But maybe this is just all my Luca bias, sort of like not embracing it. Like, I just. When something is too good to be true, it usually is.

[Joanna Robinson]

You should check for a belly button.

[Damon Lindelof]

Just. You know what? I've got good seats.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Damon Lindelof]

And I will shout to Luca repeatedly, show me your belly.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, good.

[Damon Lindelof]

Until they throw me out.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, I hope that happens.

[Damon Lindelof]

They have to tuck. They have to tuck. It's a violation.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's a violation. They don't tuck.

[Damon Lindelof]

To be untucked.

[Joanna Robinson]

To be untucked.

[Damon Lindelof]

Okay, so I could. I could inadvertently. Yeah. And it's during a timeout.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Damon Lindelof]

But, yeah, he might get teed up.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, so if Luka flashes his belly button to the camera at the Laker game tonight, everyone will know why. It will be Damon Lindelof's work. Thank you so much, Jim Lindelof, for coming on the podcast. Appreciate it.

[Damon Lindelof]

What a way to end. Thanks for having me. I can't wait to meet you, Rob.

[Joanna Robinson]

And you'll be back for a four hour podcast in the house of R. Yes.

[Damon Lindelof]

Oh, absolutely. I feel like I just did it in the waiting room.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. With Mallory.

[Damon Lindelof]

All right. I was not let down by having them. It was one of those weird things where I was like, oh, I've listened to you for 300 hours and this is the first time that I'm meeting you in the flesh. Yeah, she's great.

[Joanna Robinson]

She is the best. I do. All right, thanks. Bye. Wow, what a good chat that was. That's my best impression of Adam Scott at the end of all the interviews on the Severance podcast. Damon's the best. Thanks so much to Damon. Lindelof are coming in and having a chat with us again. You can see that full interview where we talk about some things that did not quite pan out in episode seven, but it's still fun to talk about anyway, of course, on the Ringer TV YouTube channel.

[Rob Mahoney]

I was extremely jealous to miss this chat, I gotta say. I mean, it's heartbreaking story.

[Joanna Robinson]

We both wanted you here and let's do it again when you're down here and we're all in the same place. Maybe the next show.

[Rob Mahoney]

The next time a show breaks our brains open with its mystery box elements, you know, we'll circle back.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, sounds perfect. Thank you to Justin Sayles for his tireless work on this very vibrant and busy feed. Similarly to John Richter, who has been working his tail off on the video side of everything. And to our guy, Kai Grady, always, who is just the best and. And did incredible work turning that demon interview around and all sorts of stuff. So we will see you for White Lotus next week and for Severance again and again and again. And here we are on the carousel of content. See you soon.

[Rob Mahoney]

By.