Severance Season 2 Episode 4 Breakdown and Theories

Hi Michael! Please do more reviews and breakdowns of television shows that sufficiently interest you. Maybe go back and look at shows from the past? You always have an insightful and well-conveyed perspective. Many thanks, hope you have a good 2025.

The crazy theories I have had about potential plots for shows and the like are often more interesting than what actually becomes concretised.

I don't think Dieter Eagan National forest is a simulation. Mostly because it doesn't need to be. They might have just approached the outies with something like "As part of Lumon's new initiatives for the wellbeing of severed workers we have prepared an outdoor two day retreat for your innie and their coworkers. For privacy reasons we will drop you off some distance from other severed employees where you will await activation."

I love how many different thoughts and theories this show has created!

I agree with your no breath theory. My wife thought it was unrealistic that Irv didn't freeze to death overnight, and I said "maybe it wasn't actually cold at all".

I think helena is probably not as "evil" as first portrayed but she hasn't seemed particularly good either, one question I had was about her responses to the eagan stuff and with mark how much of that is "acting"

I've thought about the simulation thing a bit but I'm not sure I'm on board with that, Milkshake and Helena seemed legitimately scared that she was going to die unless it's one of those "if you die in the simulation you die in real life" things. There was also the whole thing with their doubles which was weird but yeah idk the scared of death thing makes me doubtful of the simulation theory

I was unaware of the montauk thing, though I am quite sure that has been one of the file names they've worked on in the show for whatever that's worth

my personal theory on Haung (sp) is that either she's A ( a partial clone of some sort of mark's wife, or B ( a birth of someone within lumon that's never had any exposure outside of the work site as it were

one thing I'm interested in seeing that you didn't really touch on is the aftermath of this incident with Milkshake and the rest of the crew since they're at least trying to put on a facade of "we care now" the helena incident is hard to play off in that vein

Oh yeah one other thing, when "getting it on" Mark see's Helena as Gemma at one point, I think that's part of the re-integration side-effect, so I'm thinking this is happening shortly after the surgery

People don't have cinematic breath that can easily be captured on camera if they have been outside in the cold for any decent amount of time. It shows up most blatantly in the short period when people go outside into the contrasting cold from being warm inside for a significant time. Technically speaking it's not something you can rely on capturing in-camera unless you orchestrate your production on taking your actor(s) in and out of the cold... it's completely unrealistic to do that for multiple takes even for one or two shots. The breath also needs to be backlit to a certain degree for you to see it clearly. I'm not saying that this isn't all intentional by the show runners, I'm just saying that it's not as clear-cut as you might think. It COULD be deliberate, but maybe because they stylistically hate the heavy breath look on camera.

I just came back from the south of Spain (+20 C) to frozen country and even when I got outside of the plane to the open air (-10 C) at night and I dont remember seeing myself or anyone else with noticeable "breath", for what it's worth. In the past week of similar temperatures around -14 C I never once noticed myself or anyone else with it, either, definitely not during the daytime.

Michael, just found your videos and I'm really enjoying them. You look nice in your suit!

It's Noah of the ark story that gets drunk and passes out naked. His son Ham sees him and points it out to his two brothers and is cursed to be a slave because of it. Really unfair! Why was their dad getting loaded and passing out naked?! 😆