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roomtone posted:Of course, they could just be pretentious middle class types trying to come up with something to make their dinner party interesting. It's this. It's a bunch of people who are materially and socially fulfilled but intellectually divorced from context. The same type of guy who puts 3 beds in his kid's room based on some vague psychiatric trend is likely to think he's doing warehouse workers a solid by installing a "mindfulness booth". They're insufferable by design and I think they fit inside some of the broader corporate satire that's going on.
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Feb 22, 2022 20:32
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There's no way that Rickon would have made that racecar bed and not some steampunk looking chariot bed.
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Feb 22, 2022 21:38
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ok was that dude's name Rickon or did game of thrones happen a lot longer ago than I remember
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Feb 22, 2022 22:18
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i think the subtitles said ricken. imdb has him listed as rickon and ricken for different episodes. but it definitely isn't rick. come on.
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Feb 22, 2022 22:22
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Welsper posted:It's this. I like that it's also this: Rob Filter posted:Their is an overarching theme of infantilization running through the show (what's for dinner kids? The weird childlike fantasy of the wellness centre facts. Protag yelling at severance protestor that they look like a child, etc.), and putting our protagonist in a literal children's bed so that his brother in law could literally tuck him into bed at night (lmao) furthered that theme. The scene also serves as a capstone of the previous scene showing how a broad cross section of rich American liberals fail to understand the exploitation of severed workers; either by blaming them for their own exploitation, or by fully standing behind their company literally coercing them into having experimental brain surgery. 
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Feb 23, 2022 06:14
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2nd episode was excellent, the Wellness Room was way, way, way more terrifying than the Break Room. "Your Outie enjoys films, and has a machine that can play them."
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Feb 23, 2022 10:40
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the wellness room is the most hosed up thing in the show so far
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Feb 23, 2022 14:33
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OK so that's what the break room is.
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Feb 25, 2022 08:03
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More childish behavior and infanilization themes in this episode with the sister's husband's behavior in the car with leaving the present for Mark. He was acting like a five year old. Also I don't really get what's the point of having severed workers if you feel the need to surveil them outside of work? Surely the company would be confident in it's own tech and not be wasting resources stationing a manager across the street from every severed worker. Maybe there's something specifically special about Mark? It can't be the Petey thing because Mrs. Selvig has apparently been around for awhile
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Feb 25, 2022 08:31
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I feel like this episode really got the right balance between inside and outside, the latter didn't feel like it was intruding on the more interesting story this week. I'm a little disappointed in the quickness of the reveal that Selvig isn't severed and is actively keeping an eye on Mark, and the brother-in-law remains a weirdly badly written caricature, but everything else was really good, especially the Helly stuff. A little tidbit I Ioved towards the end when Mark found Petey's map was the line "People might live here?" which is all kinds of creepy.
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Feb 25, 2022 10:01
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Mark's license plate. No state given, looks like a skull or a relief picture of Kier as the middle separator, and "Remedium Hominibus" at the bottom, "To cure man". Is this a Truman Show type thing? The whole world is a bubble created by Lumon? Edit: Well, the whole town is named Kier, per the police patches. tecnocrat fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Feb 25, 2022 |
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Feb 25, 2022 16:20
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Really loving this show. It's like if Office Space and Westworld were put into a blender. So much interesting philosophical stuff going on with identity, consent, morality of work. Interested to see where they take it to. The world they've created is both hilarious and frightening, I had a 6 month stint in the corporate environment before I couldn't take it any more and this show is definitely giving me major anxiety-inducing flashbacks.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:53
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ben stiller is absolutely killing it directing these, too -- i know he's now got a surprisingly long resume behind the camera but this feels like a whole nother level they're doing a really good job letting people be funny, the wild oscillation in tone makes it a lot more interesting than something like Devs that always felt sooooo serious
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Feb 25, 2022 17:11
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This show creeps me out in the most delightful way. I still don't understand what the gently caress is the break room. I guess loving with their implant similar to how the numbers are scary?
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Feb 26, 2022 04:27
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Hawkperson posted:This show creeps me out in the most delightful way. I still don't understand what the gently caress is the break room. I guess loving with their implant similar to how the numbers are scary? I think it is to literally break them. They have to read that paragraph over and over again until the machine thinks they mean it.
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Feb 26, 2022 04:36
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Yeah, the name isn't misleading, it's terrifyingly specific.
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Feb 26, 2022 04:38
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Cojawfee posted:I think it is to literally break them. They have to read that paragraph over and over again until the machine thinks they mean it. Helly just breaks so fast though, it doesn't seem like her. There's that knob whatsisface turns that seems to be loving her up. But like, I think you're both right, I think there's just more going on with it. I just can't imagine her relenting so quickly without some sort of brain fuckery going on
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Feb 26, 2022 05:15
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This show rules and the musical theme is one of the best ever. I had no idea Ben Stiller was such an amazing director either, god drat.
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Feb 26, 2022 05:22
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The scene where Petey was flashing back and forth in his conversation with Mark was very disorienting.
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Feb 26, 2022 05:32
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The severed floor could easily be an excellent Valt Tec fallout bunker.
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Feb 26, 2022 15:36
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I'm enjoying everything about the show so far -- general concept, performances, aesthetics. I have to admit I'm kinda glad others share the Devs-induced fear of the show going out like a wet fart. Thought I was the only one viscerally disappointed with how they ended it. My guess as to what they're doing in the basement: more or less what others have posted and what Petey was hinting at -- the "numbers" are an abstraction of some terrible thing that a regular "outie" personality couldn't see or handle. I'm guessing that the act of severing does more than split the memories, maybe applying some kind of cognitive filters to translate terrible things into numbers with a side of synesthesia. Now, are they actually killing people or doing something else like handling some hideous, PTDS-inducing content moderation... guess we'll find out if any of this is even remotely close.
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Feb 26, 2022 16:31
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Hawkperson posted:Helly just breaks so fast though, it doesn't seem like her. There's that knob whatsisface turns that seems to be loving her up. But like, I think you're both right, I think there's just more going on with it. I just can't imagine her relenting so quickly without some sort of brain fuckery going on I definitely think it's a combo of psychological torture, like, I think if you trapped someone and forced them to apologize and you monitor'd their signals until they repeat you could maybe start to believe it or get your signals to read what they need to eventually. In fact I think the main thing torture is good at is forcing the tortured to say whatever you want, especially if it's untrue and what they want to hear and you think it'll make em stop. But since they have this whole brainchip thing, there's no way it isn't factoring in. and jesus, going home after a day of torture and having no memory of it... but somewhere those neural connections are still forged in there (also where the scifi becomes soft).
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Feb 26, 2022 17:20
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Based on nothing but a hunch, I'm gonna posit that Cobel is actually Severed and is a permanent innie that is allowed outside and doesn't go through the checkpoints/elevator (i.e. she doesn't split, and can bring outside materials in). She's a catspaw for the Board and isn't that high-up. Why Cobel-as-Selvig filched the book is puzzling: Ricken surely is going to mention it to Mark and they're both going to be confused that he didn't get it. This doesn't seem like a show that would put that little vignette in without it having some later relevance. Why would Lumon even be bothered about Mark getting a gift of a ridiculous book? But anyway, Cobel's surveillance of Mark is surely a thing. Things I enjoyed... ...the dept name is MDR. Not a spoiler, more of a joke/misdirect: MURRRRDERRRR ...the unnecessary put-your-fingers-on-the-table bit in the break room. Oh poo poo, they're gonna break her fingers! Then you ask, duh, why would they, too obvious, and they don't even need to. Nope, it's worse. They break her will, her mind. ...the infantile inter-department sniping. I agree it's gonna be some Ender's Game abstracted atrocity, or it isn't. Which isn't a bad thing either way, this show is more about the how than the what.
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Feb 26, 2022 23:05
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Open Source Idiom posted:The severed floor could easily be an excellent Valt Tec fallout bunker. I more get Control vibes from it: terror and the surreal filtered through the petty blandness of bureaucracy (which as anyone who has experienced can tell you, is it's own kind of horror).
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Feb 27, 2022 00:42
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The fingers were for the biometric scans
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Feb 27, 2022 04:36
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Caros posted:This reminds me a lot of one of the best pieces of speculative horror fiction I ever read. The videogame SOMA has a scenario like this as a minor plot point. I'd heavily recommend looking up a Let's Play even if you're not usually into games (or even just play it yourself: they introduced a mode that just makes all the enemies non-hostile to enjoy the story).
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Feb 27, 2022 10:38
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Hawkperson posted:Helly just breaks so fast though, it doesn't seem like her. There's that knob whatsisface turns that seems to be loving her up. But like, I think you're both right, I think there's just more going on with it. I just can't imagine her relenting so quickly without some sort of brain fuckery going on Maybe I read it wrong but I didn't get the sense she broke easily. Didn't it end with Milchick saying "Again."? I assume they just cut away to when Helly was done with it, which might have taken a long time.
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Feb 27, 2022 10:54
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There's still one car in the parking lot when Marc leaves at the end of the day, which I assumed was Helly's. I've no idea how they'd explain her sliced up arm. Speaking of, I assume she could keep cutting and cutting until the first Helly decides to quit her job, so Lumon probably has a way to deal with that kind of thing. She wouldn't even need to write something, she could do damage to herself with the lanyard (or the cord itself) in the elevator on the ride up.
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Feb 27, 2022 11:04
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AceOfFlames posted:The videogame SOMA has a scenario like this as a minor plot point. I'd heavily recommend looking up a Let's Play even if you're not usually into games (or even just play it yourself: they introduced a mode that just makes all the enemies non-hostile to enjoy the story). SOMA is a really good game with a great story.
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Feb 27, 2022 11:46
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Thirding Soma being amazing and worth a play, and also agreeing that self harm seems like the most obvious way to get out of the severed floor. No one is going to keep coming to work if every time they wake up in the elevator at the end of the day they have brand new injuries. I suspect the show will address that at some point.
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Feb 28, 2022 07:24
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Amazed they've had no murders.
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Feb 28, 2022 08:57
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Also, can I just say how much the title sequence slaps? Easily my favorite intro of the past few years along with Succession and Peacemaker. I also love how the theme music fits so well as both theme music and a leitmotif during the eps themselves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmS3m0OG-Ug
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Feb 28, 2022 08:59
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Intro is by extraweg
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Feb 28, 2022 09:18
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SpaceAceJase posted:Intro is by extraweg Dang, I didn't see any other videos on this channel so I assumed it was just a reupload. That's awesome.
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Feb 28, 2022 09:44
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mossyfisk posted:Amazed they've had no murders. Helly’s reaction seems an outlier, the other three severed people we have seen generally seem to be happy doing the work.
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Feb 28, 2022 10:34
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I imagine they demonise the departments in order to alienate employees from each other, so management can pit teams against each other. You can see how Helly is slowly being indoctrinated into the workforce, but her sarcastic sense of humour is fighting off the sheer stupidity of all the dumb myths and propaganda the place has created for itself. The whole conversation about killing Mark to convince other teams that they're as crazy as an intimidation tactic -- because everyone is crazy down here. The oldest people there are fully indoctrinated into the system, doddering around in a slightly senile company loving stupor. It's loving terrifying. I can see this running for years on this concept -- a second season seeing the gearing up office expansion, as more severed employees start turning up and situation starts to factionalise more aggressively, the lower level turning into a small fantasy microcosm of insanity. Maybe someone discovers the brother-in-law's self-help book and accidentally forms a cult of identity around the guy's insipid loving personality. There are probably people who never want to quit, who want to live a permanent life in this weird underworld cult society. This show could go completely banana if it wanted to, and be loving amazing. Oh, and I'm gonna call it -- the direction loves to bring attention to things cut in half (you know, severed). Fish tank with two fish, frame cutting things in half or doubling images with symmetry. Paintings are cut in half, television screens bisected by a line so two people can talk to each other, mirrored carpark, two layered candle, the works. But sometimes there's three, like in Mrs. Selvig's office, which has a triptych. Or when she comes over she talks about how one of his three lights isn't working, only two are. So, my dumb logic, is that there are three layers to this. Maybe that's the "code detector" layer of the elevator, where people check you all over for writing. Maybe they hide this customs body cavity checking layer by controlling the clocks down on the Severed floor, which is why everyone has to swap watches on the way in. Maybe there is no board, and it's just middle managers faking it all the way down. Who knows, maybe this is all dumb. But it's fun to think about, and I'm really enjoying being in this headspace.
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Feb 28, 2022 10:54
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Right now I think it's a whole town Truman show type thing, becuase of what we've seen of the outside world. Mark's sister seems normal, but everyone else seems wrong, and normal can be faked anyway. Maybe the whole mind collective is probably encouraged/run by Lumen itself as a discredited opposition. They probably aren't going to reveal the 'plan' of Lumen/Eagan anytime soon because it's the goose that lays the golden eggs, but I am curious if the writers at least have an idea as to why Lumen sets up their severed workers like this. There's no reason that they have to live in such terrible and abusive conditions, really - and in the long run, it is counter-productive because you're gonna get worker revolts like with Helly. At some point, these basement floors are going to resemble that skin mask scenario Helly and Mark were joking about, and it probably already did in the 'coup' that happened before. The workers both have too much freedom in there and not enough to keep things in a self-contained loop. Putting them in these volatile groups doesn't seem very smart either. There are places for the system to fall apart everywhere. But maybe the whole thing isn't a normal business at all. The work they are doing is strange. Maybe it's all an experiment and it's supposed to fall apart at some point. mossyfisk posted:Amazed they've had no murders. They probably have.
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Feb 28, 2022 15:37
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roomtone posted:Right now I think it's a whole town Truman show type thing, becuase of what we've seen of the outside world. Mark's sister seems normal, but everyone else seems wrong, and normal can be faked anyway. Maybe the whole mind collective is probably encouraged/run by Lumen itself as a discredited opposition. Which brings me into another thing I noticed about the visual design: everything looks quite retro. The computers in the office being monochromatic is one thing (might be because of the secret nature of the data or just a classic satire of the office culture which most Hollywood screenwriters still associate with either the 50s or 80s) but even outside as well: the Lumon building looks very brutalist, all the cars shown look like they are from the 80s or 90s at best and Mark's appliances also look fairly old. Only modern thing I can see is Mark's iPhone (because Apple). Combined with the cultish worship of Kier Egan and his talk about "virtues" and "humors" I do wonder if there is a bit of a The Village/Wayward Pines thing going on. Or maybe the show is just going for an Archer style deliberately anachronistic time period for stylistic purposes. I would definitely respect that if it turns out to be the case. AceOfFlames fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Feb 28, 2022 |
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Feb 28, 2022 15:44
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Stuff like this:Open Source Idiom posted:I imagine they demonise the departments in order to alienate employees from each other, so management can pit teams against each other. roomtone posted:Maybe it's all an experiment and it's supposed to fall apart at some point. AceOfFlames posted:Which brings me into another thing I noticed about the visual design: everything looks quite retro. plus the whole "nobody knows what it's like outside" thing reminded me somewhat of the Silo books. Which I just looked up to see what happened to the movie rights and guess what -- Apple is adapting it as a series.
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Feb 28, 2022 15:58
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I love that they're fully exploring the crazy implications of what this scenario would bring to the world. A nice touch was the news report mentioning a severed worker who got pregnant at work. That's a whole can of worms right there. Plus, they're definitely setting up something (romantic?) between John Turturro and Christopher Walken's characters. I would imagine that if you're closeted as an "outie," you can become your true self as an "innie" because you don't have any memories of having to hide who you are. The other possibility for those two characters is that they actually are together in the real world and don't know it inside.
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Feb 28, 2022 17:45
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