Severance Finale
Spoilery Question
So was that Helly, or was that Helena?
No “ding” when she came down the elevator, and there’s no way that Helly doesn’t send Mark off to be with Gemma. She also said “but I am her”, which is ambivalent at best.
The sheer volume and degree of nerdery around here is damn inspiring.
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Holy shit was that ever a wild ass ride.
Out of everything amazing from that episode, I think my absolute favorite part was:
Not really a spoiler, but don't want to ruin the enjoyment of anyone that hasn't seen it yet.
Love,
Mr. Milchick
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This Was Great Too
Milchick running away after giving Dylan his outie’s response. Cracked me up.
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Non-spoiler:
What the French-fried fuck was that??
I think I’m severed but it doesn’t turn off when I get off work…?
I don’t know what the hell this is but it’s worth it for the Walken. Carl Jamilkowski (@carljamilkowski) on Threads
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My BluRay set of the Netflix Daredevil arrived today. As it had crossed the equator at least once on its journey I figured that, like akvavit, it was ready for consumption.
Damn the opening episode is amazing. I’d forgotten. I am now questioning whether the Disney show is good, or if I am merely enjoying the return of (some of) the characters.
Charlie Cox is incredible; especially for a bloke out of Sarf Lahndan.
I watched him in the first season of Kin on the plane back from Spain several years ago. I’m certainly no judge of the authenticity of a brogue, but I thought his was pretty fucking good.
Also, Kin is great. It’s a dramas about a dysfunctional family of Irish gangsters in Dublin. Great performances all around and the plot keeps you interested all the way through.
I finally got around to watching the finale last night. I have no idea what was happening. I mean, I understand the most obvious parts, but that’s about 5% of the show.
Questions:
Summary
- To quote somebody else, “What the ever-loving fuck?”
- What exactly did the Cold Harbor file enable? Gemma was already severed, right? Or did it make it possible to sever someone without requiring surgery?
- Who the fuck are these people? How did they amass such wealth that they could do this?
- What was the entire Miss Kwan absurdity about? Head fake?
- The band members are severed, too?
- A goat? I realize that we’ve met the goats and their goatherders before, but I still don’t get it.
- Gemma’s dismantling the crib was probably a metaphor for something, but what? Dismantling her life? Her identity?
- I’d really like to know if it’s Helly or Helena that Mark ran off with.
As a Mark whose last name begins with S, I’m a bit traumatized.
And I’ll miss Mr. Milchik.
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Here’s my take which is heavily informed by YouTubers who really study this shit.
Spoilers Galore
-
To quote somebody else, “What the ever-loving fuck?”
Yep -
What exactly did the Cold Harbor file enable? Gemma was already severed, right? Or did it make it possible to sever someone without requiring surgery?
I’m assuming that Gemma was severed when she was kidnapped and her death faked. Cold Harbor was the final test of the procedure to see if it could hold back even the most traumatic of memories. She was able to dismantle a crib without it triggering the trauma of her miscarriage, but it seems it could not entirely sever her connection to Mark, who she chose to follow even as an innie who had no knowledge or memory of him. -
Who the fuck are these people? How did they amass such wealth that they could do this?
Maybe their parents owned an emerald mine worked by slaves. -
What was the entire Miss Kwan absurdity about? Head fake?
No clue about this one. I presume this will come back around in S3 like the goats from S1 did in S2. -
The band members are severed, too?
Yes, everyone on the severed floor who is not management is severed. The reason to retain an entire severed school marching band is even more head-scratching than the goats though. -
A goat? I realize that we’ve met the goats and their goatherders before, but I still don’t get it.
Goats are buried with those who are killed after serving their purpose, as Gemma was to be. Like a scapegoat to absorb their sins or some such reason within their fucked up cult. -
Gemma’s dismantling the crib was probably a metaphor for something, but what? Dismantling her life? Her identity?
It was to test the ability of the severance procedure to hold back even the most painful of memories. The various scenarios they put her through are experiments to see if they can compartmentalize multiple unpleasant things in the same person so that they can sell the procedure to the public. Don’t like going to the dentist? You don’t have to as there is now an innie who does that for you. Don’t like writing “Thank You” cards? There’s an innie for that too. Of course, as we know, this creates a separate person who only goes to the dentist or who only writes “Thank You” notes and has no other existence. So, for them, it’s 24/7/365 horribleness. -
I’d really like to know if it’s Helly or Helena that Mark ran off with
The more I think about it, the more I think it has to be Helena. She said “but I am her” to Mark, and Helly would never had said that. Just the episode prior, Helly was incandescent with rage that Helena had usurped her body to doink Mark, so she is very clear that she and Helena are two distinctly different people. I think Mark knows it’s Helena too, which is why he went with her; because running with Helly puts them both in mega trouble, but running with Helena means there’s potential for a future. Mark was unable to differentiate between Helly and Helena until Irv outed (pun intended) Helena so, to him, it doesn’t matter.
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Without speculating, and upon reflection, I realized the most painful part of that last scene:
Spoiler
Gemma has no way of knowing Mark severed. She’s pounding on that door thinking Mark Scout has left her, not Mark S.
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OMG, yes.
Oof. Wow.
More on Gemma
I presume that each one of the tests were custom-designed for her, because she had undergone therapy prior to being abducted, so Lumon already knew what were unpleasant tasks and/or potential trauma triggers for her. Everything around Mark and Gemma - starting with their meet-cute at a blood donation center - was a Lumon-owned thing.
Also, as I mentioned at the time, the Gemma episode showed briefly the creepy-as-fuck Lumon doctor at the fertility clinic visited by her and Mark. He gave Gemma a double-take. Given how fucked up this show is, I will not be surprised if we learn that he picked her at that moment to be a subject for their experiments and that her miscarriage was caused deliberately by Lumon to create the trauma on which they could then run experiments.
Spoiler
Miss Huang was a Wintertide Fellow, the same internship/brainwashing/child labor program that Harmony Cobel was in. There may be a greater purpose to her being on the show, but for now it was foreshadowing of what we later learn about Cobel, and shows how Lumon starts fucking with people at an early age.
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I had totally missed that, thanks.
Back to Daredevil, two episodes dropped this week. E5 is a “bottle” episode - still enjoyable but it seems a little early in the reboot to have need of a standalone filler episode which seems to exist only to hype Ms Marvel, which they do in the most repetitive, ham-fisted and jarring way possible. E6 is titled “Excessive Force” and, by Disney standards lives up to its name. Once again they lean heavily on the “two sides of the same coin” thing with Murdock and Fisk. Muse does fucked up shit, but seems to be only a threat to idiots.
At the same time, I have started rewatching the Netflix series and it is amazing just how good it is without billions of Disney bucks behind it. After watching the reboot episode called “Excessive Force” I watched a regular old episode from S1 in which Fisk decapitates someone with a car door because he interrupted a date with Vanessa. Violence aside, I’d forgotten just how transfixing the whole Fisk-Vanessa dynamic was in the original show.
The Disney reboot is still decent, but I can’t help feeling that all the talk of it being totally reworked because of fan outcry is just window dressing. They gave us cameos by Foggy and Karen alongside a “one shot” fight scene in a new E1, and since then we’re getting the mostly Devil-free and bone-crunch-free concept that ticked off the fanbase originally.