#severance 2x04

thinking about irving's dream sequence again. the first screen that we see is full of floating 1s, 4s, 5s, 7s. if we transpose that onto the alphabet, then we get A, D, E, G. and if we include 2-digit numbers, we also have 11, 14, 15, 17, and their corresponding letters: K, N, O, Q. seems like nothing until you think "hm what if it's actually 1s, 14s, 5s, and 7s." then it's A-N-E-G. or, in another arrangement: EAGAN. perhaps a bit of a stretch to assume but still fun.

then on the second screen, we see 1s, 3s, 5s, 7s, which could be A, C, E, G (meanings unknown) butttttt alongside we also see As, Es, Gs, Ns, once again spelling out EAGAN. (i also see what is either 0s or Os, can't decide which, ignoring for now lol)

of course this level of detail is just cool and the reason why i love this show. but also... if i'm not mistaken this is the first time we are seeing letters on their MDR screens. can we interpret this as the process by which irving's subconscious/dream self "decodes" the mass of numbers and learns that helly is an eagan? is this the kind of work that the innies are always doing? does this connect to whatever knowledge outie irving has about lumon from his investigations on the outside? would outie irving recognize helena from whatever he is up to out there? what does it all mean? ben stiller please tell me!!!!!!!!!

(also don't get me started on the numbers on Woe's computer. we see them for like half a second and i think i see 1,2,3,4, 5(and/or 6), 7. corresponding to A,B,C,D,E/F, G. and with 2-digit combos, we include 11-K, 12-L, 13-M, 14-N, 15/16-O/P, 17-Q, 21-U, 22-V, 23-W, 24-X, 25/26-Y/Z. of course, that's like half the alphabet but from those, we can make EAGAN, LUMON, DYLAN, GEMMA. this is probably nothing but still fun to look at.)

“Oh she had so much time why didn’t she come up with a better backstory?”

1. She actually DIDN’T have that much time. I swear it’s like y’all weren’t paying attention to episode 2 and actually think it’s been 5 months. Mark asks the board for his team back and they all show up the next working day. That’s like an evening to prepare, (it’s night when they have that meeting being like “the board will give him what he wants) maybe more if it happened to be a Friday and she had a weekend.

Even if she had been toying with the idea of going to the severed floor before then, it wouldn’t have become an ACTUAL plan until Mark called the board. Because it was all last minute I don’t think it’s improbable for Helena to be improvising more than people seem to think.

2. She’s rich and out of touch. Night gardener sounds like such a rich person lie to me, like even the fact that her first thought was gardener just feels rich.

3. She doesn’t think the innies are real people. The managers of the severed floor treat them like children. Why would she need to spend time making an elaborate lie for these lesser beings who are easy to fool?

4. She’s never interacted with innies in person before. (That we know of) Watching them on a camera is different from being in person. I don’t know what she expected but she may have not expected to be asked so many questions in the first place (what was on the shirt, what was on the tv etc.)

5. She’s kind of distracted by wanting to jump in to a romance with mark. Along with all these things, we also know she is jealous of her innie for what she has with mark, and wants to experience it. She has her own emotional objectives getting in the way of whatever other objectives she has.

6. She’s an Eagan. She’s used to people of lower status than her listening to what she says without question.

Ultimately Helena seemed unprepared because she didn’t think she needed to prepare THAT much and she didn’t have the time anyway.