Their work is mysterious and important.
masterspace@lemmy.ca 6 days ago
We can tell. Severance completely jumped the shark in the last episode.
Oh what, Lumon has 4 employees dedicated to macro data refinement, the most important project in the company’s history, but they have
Tap for spoiler
160 employees dedicated to matching band, who come in to the severed floor every day to practice their matching band routine with Mr Millchek?
You could really tell the last episode was almost entirely cheap fan service filler. I honestly avoided severance and then finally watched it because everyone raved, and it actually convinced me that it knew what it was doing, right up until that lar episode when it showed that it was just another mystery box paying down tracks in front of it as it goes.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 6 days ago
FooBarrington@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Nowhere is it stated that C&M come into work every day, they might only come in for special occasions, or they could have other jobs in-between. Also, did you count 160 people, or are you guessing? It looked like way fewer to me, though still a rather large number.
I honestly don’t get the “mystery box” criticism. The biggest mysteries have already been explained.
masterspace@lemmy.ca 6 days ago
Nowhere is it stated that C&M come into work every day, they might only come in for special occasions, or they could have other jobs in-between.
They’re putting temps through brain surgery?
Also, did you count 160 people, or are you guessing? It looked like way fewer to me, though still a rather large number.
I was being dramatic to express my point
I honestly don’t get the “mystery box” criticism. The biggest mysteries have already been explained.
So then what is the purpose of MDRs work?
LilB0kChoy@midwest.social 6 days ago
I thought the purpose of MDR was
Tap for spoiler
to perfect the severing so that anybody (who can afford it, I’d guess) can have their “innie” go through all the negative/bad experience stuff and you don’t have to suffer through it. Imagine how much a company could make selling you the ability to dissociate and compartmentalize all the things you don’t like or that you have a negative response to. Don’t like the dentist, send your innie. Don’t like flying, have your innie to the flying bit, then for you it’s like you stepped on and then right back off the plane. The possibilities are endless.
ApollosArrow@lemmy.world 6 days ago
I mean yeah, I thought all the rooms Gemma was in, plus the pregnancy gave all of that away. The company would be one of the richest in the world.
masterspace@lemmy.ca 6 days ago
But then there was never any mystery. The secret reveal is the core premise of the show.
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 6 days ago
Lumon is an analog for any medical giant. Considering the top 30 medical companies in real life all gross over 10 billion a year, it’s not inconceivable they’d have the money to pay musicians, who could also be used for marketing, entertainment, internal videos, hold music, etc…
masterspace@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
Why is the goat department 6 people and MDR 4 then?
FooBarrington@lemmy.world 6 days ago
They’re putting temps through brain surgery?
If they’re doing other jobs on the severed floor in-between C&M performances, they’re not temps.
I was being dramatic to express my point
Ah, given that you stated it was 4x the size of all the other departments we’ve seen combined, I assumed you were serious.
spoiler
> So then what is the purpose of MDRs work? We know that MDR is creating new personalities for the Severance chips of other people, and we know that there’s a huge milestone with either putting many different personalities onto a single chip, or with a personality confronting the deepest trauma of a person. That’s absolutely no mystery box. You may not like the answer to be so simple (as you’ve stated elsewhere), but that doesn’t mean it’s a mystery box.
Ptsf@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I feel you’re completely missing the artistry of the cinematography in pursuit of some realistic/based “grounded” plot. It’s a show. It’s going to jump some sharks. Crowds enjoy jumping over sharks. I’m sure they had a great idea of the destination they wanted to arrive at, but they’re taking the scenic route (because it’s a show) instead of the direct path and I honestly wouldn’t love it the same had they not.
masterspace@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
I feel like you’re making excuses for bad writing.
shoo@lemmy.world 4 days ago
It’s an interesting premise and the first season was a fun watch. But once you start getting deeper into the mystery box, important threads get hollow.
S2 spoiler
Lots of threads are just dead ending at “it’s a quirky cult”. When the evil shadowy organization aren’t taking rational steps toward a concrete goal you can’t make any reasonable deductions. For example, the entire elaborate goat department serves no purpose beyond sacrifice? Sounds like the real purpose was the writers wanting some unsettling discovery and didn’t know how to fit it in.
And disbelief gets more stretched when you think about the daily operation of the departments.
S1 spoiler
MDR is a critical department but you can’t afford more than 1 security officer on the floor? You have all these security cameras but nobody watching them? The security chief is murdered and you just don’t replace him and continue with your normal operations? You don’t even have night guards to watch the severance control panels? You demonstrably have the tech to hire any number of goons and sever them. Maybe instead of faulty security doors just have like 2 guys guarding important hallways.
FooBarrington@lemmy.world 4 days ago
spoiler
> MDR is a critical department but you can’t afford more than 1 security officer on the floor? You have all these security cameras but nobody watching them? I feel this is explained well by the hubris of Lumon - they literally think that innies aren’t people, so why go further than necessary to keep them in line? And this seemingly worked as intended, until two pieces of contraband - Graeners security card and the “idolatrous text” of The You You Are - were brought onto the floor. > You demonstrably have the tech to hire any number of goons and sever them. Maybe instead of faulty security doors just have like 2 guys guarding important hallways.
shoo@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Tap for spoiler
Faulty is the wrong word, but in the sense that they didn’t really work to keep them locked in. There was no backup plan, nobody noticed when they just walked out. Speaking of Graeners security card: they know he’s dead and that his card is gone but they don’t revoke the card access or change the locks??? I’m pretty sure Mark tested it as well, do they not have access logs or did nobody noticed that a dead guy was opening doors? It’s true that the show implicitly leans into the hubris angle, but for me that just makes them feel like bumbling idiots instead of a dangerous cult. It was clear MDR was starting to act up and ask questions but they never appropriately elevated their response or security. Milchik got fucking bit and they mostly just shrugged it off… Not that bumbling corporate incompetence isn’t also entertaining, it just feels at odds with the dark, meticulous tones they try to set with management/the board.
FooBarrington@lemmy.world 3 days ago
spoiler
> Faulty is the wrong word, but in the sense that they didn’t really work to keep them locked in. There was no backup plan, nobody noticed when they just walked out. Fair, though this is part of the same hubris angle. > Speaking of Graeners security card: they know he’s dead and that his card is gone but they don’t revoke the card access or change the locks??? I’m pretty sure Mark tested it as well, do they not have access logs or did nobody noticed that a dead guy was opening doors? They specifically said in the show that Graeners card doesn’t leave logs. Lumon had no reason to suspect that an outie would have the card and smuggle it in - it’s normal that these kinds of credentials updates take a couple of days in bigger companies (especially when the employee died, and Lumon probably didn’t immediately have access to his body to check if he still has the card). > It’s true that the show implicitly leans into the hubris angle, but for me that just makes them feel like bumbling idiots instead of a dangerous cult. It was clear MDR was starting to act up and ask questions but they never appropriately elevated their response or security. Milchik got fucking bit and they mostly just shrugged it off… Milchick had to shrug it off because he didn’t want his superiors to find out about the OTC that started it all. They did install the security doors when MDR started acting up, and they had no reason to assume they’d have workarounds for the doors. > Not that bumbling corporate incompetence isn’t also entertaining, it just feels at odds with the dark, meticulous tones they try to set with management/the board. I think this is something they’ll go further into during the next season - the chains the innies saw around them were always more theoretical than practical. Lumon adds more security measures as necessary, but they are inherently reactive (e.g. with the code detectors & the Lexington letter). The innies can break these chains by banding together and overwhelming Lumon, which is what they’re doing at the end of season 2. By the way, regarding the bumbling idiot angle - they literally fired the person that invented the Severance chip and who found a flaw in the system they developed (reintegration), partially because they want to keep the mythos alive that the CEO developed the revolutionary procedure. That feels very realistic in todays’ age.
JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Given what Lumon has done with Gemma, isn’t it plausible that the marching band is an amalgamation of severed staffers from all the other unknown number of departments?
KazuyaDarklight@lemmy.world 6 days ago
I don’t entirely disagree but at the same time, some projects just don’t scale well. There is a clear implication too, IMO, that the interaction of Mark and Gemma in specific, is particularly key by the end of the project.
masterspace@lemmy.ca 6 days ago
The Mark Gemma thing raises even more questions. If Mark and Gemma’s relationship is key to whatever this is working, then why aren’t the other MDR employees loved ones involved?
And conversely if loved ones aren’t key to the project, then why can’t it scale to more people?
KazuyaDarklight@lemmy.world 6 days ago
I take it as the other MDR employees and their work being valid but foundational or middle work, while Cold Harbor was a specific the capstone.
You do want to minimize your kidnappings if you want to stay under the radar. A radar that one might assume is extra aggressive since this is not a normal company by any stretch.
Lumen a corporate cult. I mean they have a department dedicated to raising sheep for literal sacrifice in a religious ceremony to guide souls to the company founder.
That angle alone, with the mural and, it would be so easy to argue that they saw this final step as vital but too “holy” and act to sully with redundancies.
masterspace@lemmy.ca 6 days ago
Really feels like that department could’ve used a few dozen of those marching band employees.
ApollosArrow@lemmy.world 6 days ago
The show isn’t over, so we don’t really know the full extent of how MDR works. All we have to go on is the information at hand. Gemma was in an accident, which may have primed her brain to be a perfect receiver for whatever treatment/torture they’ve been doing.