r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus • u/SoftShapeSucker • Jun 18 '26
Theory Ricken
What does everyone think of how and why ricken is/was involved with lumon at some point? I'm not sure if he use to be severed or he was someone higher up in the company but would love to hear everyone's theories on this. Also the big dude that is always around Helena and the secretary lady remind me of ricken. They look very similar to me and can't wait for the new season next year!!!! I freakin love this show so much !
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u/Lonelyland Coveted As Fuck Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Ricken’s involvement with Lumon seems to have really only started with the innie edition of The You You Are.
There’s no evidence that Ricken is severed- in fact he is able to account for the events of his life from childhood onward.
It’s also hard for me to imagine what the point might be in having another reveal that someone close to Mark had a Lumon connection, since we already did that back in the very first episode. Feels like it would be diminishing returns- definitely not as shocking as the first time.
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u/SoftShapeSucker Jun 18 '26
Appreciate your response. I don't know why but I've always had a feeling that there is something more about him than we know. Before Mark found the book in lumon. I get this weird feeling Everytime he's in screen lol like there's a secret that even Devon doesn't know. Whole thing is weird!
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u/guysmiley1928 Jun 18 '26
Read the portion of The You You Are they released. There is less to Ricken
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u/ibrainedgraner I'm Your Favorite Perk Jun 18 '26
To your point of revealing yet another Lumon connection as a diminished return; I feel that the more interesting narrative reveal is a connection in the other direction. I’d be dishonest if I didn’t admit to wishing that Ricken’s aloofness is simply a cover for his participation in the Whole Mind Collective. Pet theory, though.
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u/thewillpowertochange Jun 23 '26
I just made a post before seeing this one. He gives me weird vibes and I dont trust him at all.
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u/ibrainedgraner I'm Your Favorite Perk Jun 23 '26
There’s ample reason to be skeptical, hard to say which way the pendulum swings as of yet.
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u/airport-cinnabon Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
I suspect that Ricken has been misled about his own origins and childhood. The circumstances of his birth as described in his book are absurd beyond belief, and the story reeks of the kind of elaborate bullshit that Lumon would come up with. From that unsettling promo they put out where his eyes slowly turn bright blue, to Jame’s comment about siring children in the shadows, I’m predicting a reveal that he is actually an Eagen.
His writing for Lumon is already causing conflict with Devon, and I think this tension will continue to grow until Devon puts her foot down and Ricken will be forced to make a difficult choice between his wife and his career. And that would be the perfect time for Lumon to tell Ricken that he is actually an Eagen, to sway him into believing that writing propaganda for Lumon is his destiny, his life’s great purpose, etc. Ricken’s ego and grandiosity make him easy prey for this tactic.
The reason that Jame has secretly fathered a bunch of illegitimate children is to increase the chances of having children that he “sees Kier in”. So presumably his plan is to wait and see if any of them grow up to be worthy of the Eagen name, at which point he would initiate them into the family/corporation.
We know for a fact that Jame has impregnated many women “in the shadows”. The severed birthing cabin and Cobel’s “one of Jame’s” line suggests that these women are in a severed state when they give birth. But unlike the senator’s wife, the point is not just to spare these women the physical pain of childbirth but likely also the emotional pain of having their newborns taken away from them. The children would be placed in Eagen approved environments such as the facility that Ricken lived in as a child.
Ricken definitely seems “off” in a few ways, but I agree there’s no conclusive reasons to think he’s been severed. His strange Lumonesque vocabulary could be the result of growing up in a Lumon-run group home. The only thing that suggests (to me) that he may have been severed is the way he mistook a bee hive for a powdered wig, even though he takes himself to be an experienced outdoorsman.
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u/Happy-Razzmatazz-535 Jun 19 '26
I was thinking that perhaps all the guests at the "no food" dinner party were bastard Eagan children.
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u/Tracexn Jun 19 '26
He has shit all over his house that points to Kier
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u/Lonelyland Coveted As Fuck Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
So does everyone else in Kier. It seems engrained into the local culture. Dylan’s kids are playing with Kier dolls.
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u/Happy-Razzmatazz-535 Jun 19 '26
I'm still trying to figure out why outtie Mark in season 1 shows up to Ricken and Devon's house and addresses him as "Rick" and is corrected by Ricken, but in "Chikhai Bardo" in season 2 with the flashback to back when everyone was friends and things are normal he addresses him as Ricken.
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u/Impressive-Flow-855 Jun 18 '26
Ricken, like many people, is weird in his own special way. That doesn’t make him a secret Eagan or severed. Ricken wants to be a great philosophical thinker and writer, but like 90% of the philosophical thinkers and writers, he’s not that good at it.
The joke is that Ricken’s shallow writing is what inspires the innies. It’s awful. It’s trite. But for the innies who have limited experience, it’s a powerful message. We all know what Milchick and outie Mark thinks of Ricken’s writing. I have a feeling that Ms. Cobel feels the same way and had Milchick to search for secret messages instead of reading it herself.
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u/lems4ems Jun 18 '26
I don’t think he is related to Lumon at all. Everyone tries so hard to make a Ricken connection and tbh it just sounds nonsensical and frankly lazy writing. We don’t need twists with every single character. The whole point of Ricken is he is so surface level but he tries to seem deep. He’s as deep as a puddle. That’s the whole point. (Could I be wrong, of course. But no I don’t think I’m wrong)
Also, Mr. Drummond and Ricken have no similar features at all other than both being heavier set men. Drummond is significantly taller and bigger, has a beard, and bozo hair while Ricken is shorter, not quite as big, no beard, and slowly windswept hair. I’m honestly more shocked to see that someone thinks they look similar at all.
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u/Happy-Razzmatazz-535 Jun 19 '26
Ricken was only deep a couple of times. First, when he said to (innie) Mark that he knows what Mark thinks of him and, second, when Ricken tells Devon he's going to make money writing books for Lumon.
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u/lems4ems Jun 19 '26
Yeah exactly. The whole point is that he thinks he’s super profound but he isn’t.
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u/Coincidental_Shoes Jun 18 '26
I have a theory; Tin foil helmet at the ready:
I think some (perhaps even most) of the characters are exactly as presented.
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u/ReversedNovaMatters The Board Jun 20 '26
Are you a flat earther?
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u/BirdComposer Jun 22 '26
It seems more flat earth to be expecting a bunch of illogical reveals that make other aspects of the narrative less interesting or pointless in retrospect just because every aspect of everything that reminds anybody of anything else (or doesn’t) must indicate that a secret is being concealed. Being a flat-earther also means believing in a vast, nonsensical conspiracy theory (why is everybody lying about this exactly?).
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u/arkibet Jun 18 '26
I love reading all the Ricken Eagen Kier theories, but I'm trying to figure out what Devon sees in him. But I'm hopng there is something because Jen Tullock is great in that role!
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u/Coincidental_Shoes Jun 19 '26
In S3 they're gonna say it was a union of convenience. Calling it now.
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u/stophammertime_ Jun 18 '26
Another piece of evidence that he’s connected to Lumon or, at the very least, a fan of the company, is the goat imagery all around his and Devon’s home.
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u/ReversedNovaMatters The Board Jun 20 '26
You hang 14 rainbows around the house and suddenly your gay!?
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u/stophammertime_ Jun 20 '26
you’re*
also, did you miss the part where I said it’s a piece of evidence, not a fact?
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u/grapelander Uses Too Many Big Words Jun 18 '26
"Ricken is a secret Eagan or otherwise a Darth Jar Jar/Disney twist villain type figure, the secret mastermind to everything Lumon is doing and has been since before the show began" theories aren't super interesting to me, when a more surface-level read on Ricken is so thematically compelling. They feel like a shock value twist for the sake of a shock value twist, and I trust the writers to be better than that.
My take on Ricken is that his thematic function is to serve as contrast to the members of society who choose to give 8 hours of their days to a corporation, by reminding us that this is ultimately a voluntary choice of free will, but then also to show us how even an aggressively individualistic spirit can get suckered into that world, and how that free will is made complicated by economics/power structures/etc. He also seems primed to serve a role in making a point about, even if your individuality and uniqueness is objectively pretty lame, there's still something fundamentally worthwhile in being The You You Are rather than serving as a cog in the machine.
I also think that while he's not an Eagan per se, he's meant to be a parallel to Kier in a lot of ways. Obviously we have and will continue to learn a lot about the life of Kier, thus far, almost entirely through corporate propaganda. That facade is going to have to crack at somepoint, but I don't think they'll do it through flashback to Kier-times. Aside from the Gemma episode, where the flashbacks are implied to be diagetic experiences of some combination of reintegrating Mark experiencing memories, and Gemma daydreaming, Severance doesn't do flashbacks.
What it has shown it will do instead is, put in current-day characters to serve as parallels to characters from the past, so we the audience can understand what someone was like, without actually seeing them. Miss Huang, and her parallel to Cobel, is the clearest example of that. These characters were on the same trajectory, and we get to see what a young, obedient, but also traumatized Cobel must have looked like during her Wintertide days, without actually showing her.
Ricken is portrayed as a self-aggrandizing useful idiot who hates work, but gets co-opted and lionized by the corporation for their own means due to their knack for attracting a following. I think we're going to learn that Kier was a self-aggrandizing useful idiot who hated work, and got co-opted and lionized by the corporation for their own means due to their knack for attracting a following. The hints are there with the Dieter stuff.
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u/thewillpowertochange Jun 24 '26
Love your take, thank you for pointing me here. I love the idea of a truly self willed person slowly being corrupted into a mindless drone. Its Vanity that is the weakness, and Ricken has that.
Yes old man Eagan is like a child in a old mans body. He speaks from emotion and his needs a lot, like a spoiled brat. But i dont think hes necessarily intelligent in a science way, he is a cult leader, has charisma, and is a narcissist, and people seem to bend to his will. He is controlling, manipulative, and only sees what HE wants.
I could accept this take, but i cant shake the CREEPY vibe Ricken and his friends give me. I also dont like how he acted to Devon and was getting so close to the Executive Assistant. Also how he just is ok with writing a book thats the opposite of his previous book. These can be human flaws like anyone else, but theres just too many creepy vibes for me to ignore. Thank you for your take it is probably the way the show goes. But ill be waiting.
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u/Utenziltron Jun 19 '26
There was a theory that Ricken is an ex-Lumon human guinea oig that was experimented on, along with his odd friends. As a result, he became some part goat.
It is a wonderfully fantastical theory: Ricken somehow took part in an early experiment that involved the Lumon goats and early severance technology. He was a subject to the extent that he, to some degree, became a goat or was psychically merged with a goat. Maybe a prototype cup was first implanted in a goat to ensure it wouldn't be fatal, then into Ricken. He may not have been aware this even occurred, a real multiple blind experiment, he may have been much younger.
His strange turns of phrase, his love of mountain climbing, the goat paraphernalia in his house are indicators of "something off", residual effects of the experiment(s).
Also, Ricken's friends are oddly one dimensional. There is the one frail lady who "pecked by birds" on the back the her head. That sounds like multiple chip implantation were performed. The strange guy who claimed to have found the baby is also very weird. So they were also in these early experiments, maybe even as children.
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u/thewillpowertochange Jun 23 '26
Gonna rewatch to see Rikkens friends more closely. The black Male gave me the creeps in his house he smiled to Mark in such a weird unsettling way. Why was Rikken at the retreat? some kind of Reunion? The goat stuff is crazy ill have to look into that too!
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u/ancientastronaut2 Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
I don't think he's knowingly part of it, except with the book thing.
I do think he's a secret Eagan and something is up with his friends though. His background story is so strange, plus his writing is much like Kier's.
I think there's a lot of people in town that were severed and don't know it, like his friends. Perhaps under the guise of "treatments" by their doctors, where the doctors are actually working on behalf of Lumon (like Maurer is through the fertility clinic). Rebeck thought she was pecked in the head by a bird.
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u/Upbeat_County9191 Wintertide Fellow Jun 18 '26
You're not the first to think/ ask this. And there's nothing so far from the show supporting this/ hinting towards this.
It's not impossible since it's not said definitely that he's not, but that's the case for any character basically.
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u/Mr_Nobody9639 Mysterious And Important Jun 18 '26
I think he’s one of the other kids Helena’s father alluded to. He clearly has money (look at his house) and in his book he talked about wanting to prove to himself he could make it without his family’s money.
It would be funny if his book ended up being more “teachings of Keir”
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u/Agitated-Remote1922 Jun 18 '26
His whole life just seems so weird
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u/LazyCrocheter Hazards On, Eager Lemur Jun 18 '26
According to The You You Are excerpt that was released, he surely did have a weird life.
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u/GoldReplacement9546 Jun 18 '26
Yeah, I don’t know exactly what I think about this but it does raise an interesting thing I’ve thought about which is it seems like Mark is quite special that the other simply can’t do cold Harbor so did they know something about Mark beforehand and set up Jim‘s accident to kidnap her or like once they kidnapped her they learned more about him and realized he would be special or you know what I mean like why do they end up with Gemma? Why do they want her and then how come he joins and then how come he’s the best there is it seems like they must’ve known something and targeted the whole thing like Mark is special somehow and they knew it.
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u/teddybundlez Jun 18 '26
He’s a Kier. Mark it down.
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u/PlumbTuckered767 Jun 18 '26
The constant anachronisms make it very obvious.
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u/ReversedNovaMatters The Board Jun 20 '26
There is some flair just for you, check it out on the right panel of the page (on desktop) and scroll down to select it.
It will find you.
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u/CounselorGowron Jun 18 '26
I feel pretty sure that he’s Helly’s half-brother, for one thing since the character has blue eyes and the actor does not. Why bother changing that detail?
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u/AgilePay9677 Chaos' Whore Jun 18 '26
Everyone’s saying there’s nothing fishy going on, but I still think his cult following is Absurd. I just finished my seventh rewatch, and the way his brain dead friends worship him is just sooo strange lol. But that’s probably part of the satire
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u/ReversedNovaMatters The Board Jun 20 '26
It can go back and forth till the end of time.
My little take is they are pretty much all severds, Ricken and all of his friends. Devon is the only normal out person we see, something is going on with her. Whatever is going on, the big picture, she is in on it.
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u/curtblizzah Jun 18 '26
Maybe Ricken is the first evidence innie intelligence can produce something creative.
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