I believe enough time has passed — I can post about this. I woke up at 5.45am on Friday noting the finale’s run time so I could get to work … NOBODY TOUCH ME, I’M FRAGILE RIGHT NOW, lol
(btw, SPOILERS AHEAD if you have not caught up on Severance Season 2 / have seen the Season 2 finale)
I prefer to spell it as “Cold Harbour”, but anyway — am I actually writing a blog post … about Severance’s Season 2 Finale?
Fuck yes, I am — and I’m jumping straight to it :
THOUGHTS / FEELINGS / THEORIES :
1.) Was THAT Helly R., or Helena Eagan?
- Jame paying Helly R. a visit, and saying that he doesn’t see Kier in Helena, but in her (Helly)
- Her telling Mark S. “I’m her” could also mean that she probably embodied Helena — in the last few episodes, we start to notice some of Helena’s mannerisms on Helly
- The way she looked at the creepy motorised Kier statue feels to me like she was trying to sense a sort of … connection. There was a lot of self-reflecting, studying her facial expressions. Kind of like Mulan singing “Reflection”, lol.
- Helly was never cruel. I don’t know if her “allowing” Mark to leave Gemma wasn’t cruel. But she is a 2-year old Woman who is in the throes of almost losing her first love
- Need to study the way she looked at Gemma who was losing her marbles from the exit staircase
- As I am chronically online (and have been reading a lot of Twitter and Reddit posts, +) per my second watch of this episode, I can say that that is actually Helly R., with a lot of Eagan in her (… I don’t mean it like that but you know what I mean)
- Okay, noticed that she was barefoot at the end as she was running after Mark in the hallway. That IS Helly.
- Britt Lower confirms that that was Helly, which to me — makes things a lot more interesting (severed brain-wise)
2.) Gemma doesn’t know Mark is severed vs. knowing he is 😭
- If she didn’t, she stood there thinking her actual (outtie) husband chose another Woman over her, therefore confirming what Dr. Mauer told her about Mark moving on
- When she said “Mark, we gotta go home” whilst she was in the exit stairwell, not knowing she wasn’t speaking to outtie Mark 😭
- If she did know that THAT wasn’t Mark, then the frustration of screaming out his name, trying to get to the barrier between the severed floor and her severed husband … ??? WHAT PAIN.
- FUKKEN BREAKS MY HEART, MAN, I NEED FIVE BUSINESS DAYS TO RECOVER 😭
3.) GemMark reunion!!!!!
- His “my baby” (but this part was on mute) when they finally reunited at testing floor 😭 NOBODY SPEAK TO ME
- God, this part made me cry so hard. TEARS. TEARS, I tell you!
4.) What was the point of Cold Harbour?
- Recall S02E07 when Dr. Mauer said Gemma would be ‘birthing’ something new after CH / completing her mission (I’m paraphrasing, but that was the context)
- Cobel saying if Mark was done with the CH file, Gemma would be ‘dead’, but I believe she meant this in the sense that Gemma’s consciousness as “Gemma” would die, and she would emerge as a “new” person with no memory whatsoever. CH was supposed to test the ‘barriers’ of the chip, as this room would have had the maximum effect on her, pain levels over nine thousand
- Even with the goat guiding “Gemma” to Kier, I still think this was Gemma’s “consciousness” as Gemma, although I could be wrong.
- Dr. Mauer screaming “you’ll kill them all” as outtie Mark and outtie Gemma get in the lift — did he mean all of Gemma’s 25 innies, or the innies of the Severed floor — what???
5.) The lols in this ep
- Milkshake sprinting after handing the note to Dylan
- CHOREOGRAPHY AND MERRIMENT????? C’mon (not sarcasm, it was camp and I loved it)
- Not funny, but Milkshake’s moves … are everything (not sarcasm, I love him so much)
- “Uhh…wrong door” LOL
- Outtie Mark accidentally killing Drummond, lol I can’t
- Mark and the Nurse screaming ‘fuck you’ at each other
6.) ALL HAIL BRIENNE OF TARTH
- That’s it.
- But also, look at pure goat. I would save pure goat in a heartbeat.
- I LOVE YOU, EMILE.
7.) Other (S02E10) observations
- Realised this on my own during my second watch — look at the card Milkshake gave Mark. It’s got a waffle inside, right? A waffle with 25 Squares = 25 Rooms = 25 of Gemma’s innies 🤯
- That last frame was absolutely beautiful. It didn’t sink in initially, that this was somewhat inspired by the ending of The Graduate.
- It’s been said that they normally use ‘red lighting’ only when there’s a bit of real love during the scene, and they kept pointing out MarkHelly scenes at the end, but it was very visible during Gemma and Mark’s meeting at the testing floor, and for all three of them during the hallway scene to the exit stairwell. ALL REAL LOVE.
8.) Loose Ends
- Would be interesting to see what happens if Reintegration ‘completes’ during iMark’s stake out at the severed floor
- WHO WAS IRVING TALKING TO (phone booth)?
- If Mark completed 25 files thus making 25 Gemma innies, what were Helly, Irving, and Dylan working on?
- Insane that iMark have gotten both Helly and Helena … how does that play?
The thing about Severance is that it makes you think a lot about one’s autonomy. Helly R. not wanting to hear about iMark’s sexperience with Helena, she wanted her own. The way Helly expressed her disproval and feelings of betrayal for her outtie ‘taking over’ her time at the severed floor.
I was all over the place during the oMark and iMark’s interaction (BTW, using a camcorder for that scene? FLASHBACKS!), to the point that I had to question myself, morals and beliefs — why was I getting upset at iMark for standing up to oMark? Initially, I thought, “You owe him your existence!”, when he in fact, did not ask to exist. How should he not have a say with how he decides to live his life, the only one he knows?
Also, worth mentioning that oMark kind of blew it with iMark from the moment he recorded his first message. The assumption, the direct way he didn’t show any interest or consideration. The way he told iMark that he was created as a ‘Prisoner and an Escape‘ — granted, they were both grasping at straws — but let’s look at the difference of how Dylan acknowledged his innie as an actual person.
A lot of people join the discourse on how “love transcends severance” for Mark and Gemma. The thing is, we forget that iMark and oMark both have that in their core : Mark, in his very center, will fight for love. Love DOES transcend severance. Not towards a specific person, but the very definition of how a person loves — THAT. THAT IS WHAT TRANSCENDS SEVERANCE. A person could be ‘split into two’, but love … observing all the innies : Dylan with his Wife. Irving with Burt. And in one outtie’s case, Helena with Mark.
Honestly, what in the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind multiverse …
The four tempers are so interesting to me. I read an article that stated this :
“Following the first season’s conclusion, many fans subscribed to the notion that Mark (Adam Scott), Danny (Zach Cherry), Helly (Britt Lower), and Irving (John Turturro) serve as multidimensional representations of the four temperaments: Frolic, Woe, Dread, and Malice. Noted by their behavior, fans have associated the nervous and traumatized Irving with dread, the grieving Mark with woe, the frustrated Helly with malice, and the free-spirited, optimistic Danny with frolic. As the series progresses, these associations give way to more complex interpretations as their personalities and approach to uncovering the secrets of Lumon start to shift.”
– Mohammed Ndao, via MovieWeb
So good. Makes so much sense!
Another one of the things I’ll be looking into is The Twilight Zone‘s “The After Hours” episode, which S02E09 is titled after (+ also notably, a lot of this episode’s themes were inspired by). That being said, I also need to properly re-watch The Graduate.
The needle drop during the last scene is “Windmills of your Mind”, with lyrics like :
“… Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of it’s own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half-forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream…”
Everything Severance does is intentional. EVERYTHING. From interior, to lighting choice, to placements, EVERYTHING IS INTENTIONAL. THERE IS SO MUCH TO DIGEST. I AM ONCE AGAIN, THE CHARLIE MEME FROM IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY.
I was always such a MarkHelly girlie. S02E07 definitely changed that for me, but I find myself going around in circles thinking about iMark (innie Mark — thanks Reddit) and what Helly R. means to him and it just … hurts. EVERYTHING HURTS.
If it helps, listening to the podcast could be soothing (I love doing this post-viewing per episode) — they’re up on Spotify! They also debunk stuff, and my favourite this season was probably episode 7’s (HOW CAN ANYONE NOT LOVE EPISODE 7, IT WAS THE EPISODE OF EPISODES).
TWEETS, REDDIT, TUMBLR posts, etc.
Anyway — this was a good way for me to discuss my feelings about the finale. You can tell … I have many.
Interesting to me that this episode aired during Aries season — and with the themes of self-realisation (self-worth, putting one’s foot down, etc.), they say astrology isn’t real?
Ah, welp — ’til Season 3 …
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