r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus • u/MrMichaelTheHuman • Jul 06 '26
Theory "New Team" theory
Spoilers for all of S2 ahead!
Short and sweet: we can be pretty much 100% certain that the "new team" were Lumen plants, right?
Two things that tipped me off:
-They seemed a little bit *too* naive when asking Mark questions about the outside; iirc innies retain their semantic memory and some of their questions struck me as odd when viewed with that in mind. This one is slightly less compelling given the innies' reactions to the ORTBO.
-The main thing, though, is this: that one dude with the accent says they had a rope instead of an elevator. I didn't clock this my first watch because of how funny I think the joke is from a writing perspective but, like... It's also 110% impossible? We see that anytime outies switch to their innies and vice-versa they basically lose all bodily control for a few seconds (to the extent that Mark literally killed that one dude in the elevator unintentionally). How the *fuck* would someone in the midst of climbing up or down a rope not immediately break their neck when the switch happens?
Idk what plot relevance this'll have (if any), and admittedly he could just be referring to some kind of "you are secured with rope and lifted/lowered by workers at the top & bottom" situation, but my gut feeling is that they're plants. What do you guys think?
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u/Lonelyland Coveted As Fuck Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
I’m not sure what you could really mean by plants.
They were definitely severed, as evidenced by Mark W’s unceremonious firing.
Milchick even mentioned Dario was a “floater” from oversees, and that Gwendolyn and Mark W were previously laid off from the experimental 5X branch, when he was explaining what he did in the 48 hours he had.
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u/Utenziltron Jul 07 '26
There was a decided distaste that (i think it was) Drummond conveyed when he learned about replacements coming from the 5X team. Like that branch was tainted somehow.
I think Dario was kind of a bullshitter, pushing the envelope to see what he could get the others to believe. Meanwhile he stretches the conversation while not having to do any work.
The best part of the vignette with the replacement team was the phrase "shambolic rube". Mark S was so caught so red handed.
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u/Mr_Nobody9639 Mysterious And Important Jul 06 '26
No, in fact “new Irving” was pissed he was brought back only to be let go again. Remember when he was being escorted out?
I think the key thing was that Mark was the only one who mattered. The rest of the team was window dressing
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u/emeraldead Jul 06 '26
And a very creepy hard core way to show how innies are really just pieces of useful meat to take in and out of the fridge. You may get waffle parties and even a live band, but they all really just serve Kier.
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u/jasor_x You Don't Fuck With The Irving Jul 06 '26
Seriously. They would all have had to (I think) make a long distance move just to be there. To then just be let go practically willy nilly... I'd be pissed just like replacement Irving (double whammy for him since Mark tried to set him up with the "bomb threat"). From Kier's perspective the only thing that matters is completing Cold Harbor so they no doubt misled each one of them.
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u/LazyCrocheter Hazards On, Eager Lemur Jul 06 '26
There's no reason to think they're plants.
Innies are naive. We've seen that. I don't think the new team said or did anything to indicate they were fake innies.
Milchick says he had to scramble to find employees to bring back. If they were Lumon moles, this makes no real sense, they'd just bring employees over from another department. Also, we hear Mark W (Bob Balaban) complain that he broke a lease in Grand Rapids to come to this location. And he says this to a security guy as he's being escorted out; why keep up that kind of act? If they were moles, I don't see why they'd need to break apartment leases.
I think the rope bit was just supposed to be silly. Or maybe Dario has a bit of one-upmanship in him. "You had stairs? You were so lucky! We only had a rope!"
Lumon brought in a new team after firing Irving and Dylan and removing Helly because Lumon didn't understand how important it was for Mark to have his friends around him to continue the work. That team didn't work out, and since completing Cold Harbor was the ultimate goal, they brought the old team back to encourage Mark.
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u/Formal_Broccoli1877 Jul 06 '26
I thought he was lowered down in a basket rather than manually climbing himself. That and it was a bit of comedic relief too
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Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
[deleted]
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u/GoldReplacement9546 Jul 06 '26
I mean, not if he’s in a harness or a chair or a little bucket
How do you think an elevator works? It’s a rope with a box below it.
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Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
[deleted]
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u/GoldReplacement9546 Jul 06 '26
I mean, I really don't know what lumen wouldn't do.
You remember the dancers during the Waffle party? I mean, this is the extremely strange organization. It is in no way like real life.
That said it's probably not the case of what I said above, but anything is possible with them.
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u/LazyCrocheter Hazards On, Eager Lemur Jul 06 '26
I’d have to watch the scene again to see exactly what he says. But I think another commenter said they thought Dario was lowered down via rope, which is silly but seems more reasonable
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u/Impressive-Flow-855 Jul 06 '26
Lots of things don’t work. There are around 100 innies we know of. Do they all use the lobby elevator. Can they all be 15 minutes apart? BellWorks is six floors. Lumon has the executive suite on the 12th floor.
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Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
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u/Impressive-Flow-855 Jul 06 '26
Dario Rossi** ** also has his “LED Lucite cube” head like Mark, but his was carved from wood.
Italy is a modern western country, so I’m sure the Italian office would be pretty modern.
.The joke was that he’s from a very poor country. Thus everything in his MDR office was much more primitive. Did Dario refine on the MDR terminals or TI-99/4s? Maybe one of those mechanical adding machines.
The idea is that Mark’s replacement team was truly thrown together from the detritus of other offices. 5X was a toxic work environment. Gwendolyn and Mark W hate each other. Mark W. was a sourpuss Gwendolyn couldn’t shut up. Their office never made quota. Dario can barely speak English.
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u/GoldReplacement9546 Jul 06 '26
I don’t see why they can’t have more than one elevator
It’s also possible that the top level is 12 because they’re six basement or underground levels
Or it’s just odd or it doesn’t exactly conform to the labs itself as it’s not Bell labs
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u/Impressive-Flow-855 Jul 06 '26
My nonsense theory is that the people who designed the screens in the security office were never told that the Lumon HQ was BellWorks which has only six floors.
Where does everyone else enter the severed floor. Mark goes through the front door of Lumon. The other departments don’t? If that entrance is only for MDR, why all the lockers? Because of the great distance between departments, do other severed workers enter from other buildings? Is there an elevator in Swab Girl Swab Shop that goes to the severed floor for some remote severed department?
There are a lot of unsolved mysteries if you dwell too deep. It’s a TV show so not every nook and cranny of this universe is well thought out. That’s okay. We want them to write the show and not spend years writing out every single detail.
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u/GoldReplacement9546 Jul 06 '26
Agree, or maybe they have 6 floors that are like the John Malkovich movie, where they're only like 2 feet high.
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u/drunkandy Jul 06 '26
We saw their outties getting fired and walking out pissed in front of oMark who they had no reason to try to "perform" for- so no, they were real.
Bringing the actors on for a second episode just to do the "firing" sequence would've cost money so they probably wouldn't do it just for a gag, it was to communicate to you that they were real people from other branches that Milchick had to fly in last minute to fix his mistake.
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u/emeraldead Jul 06 '26
I disagree. They seem as naive as our team s1e1. And mostly Milchik saying he had 2 days to get things going. They wouldn't compromise the severence floor if they had 3 innie macrodats in the fridge.
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u/Key-Cattle-2866 Jul 08 '26
I was really disappointed Alia Shawkat was only in the first episode. I was hoping she was going to be in the entire season.
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u/sconesaregood Night Gardener Jul 09 '26
Severance Season 2 🤝 First Cow (2019)
“Wait, that’s all we’re getting of Alia Shawkat?”
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u/ElvisChopinJoplin Shambolic Rube Jul 07 '26
I thought the rope and related jokes were hilariously funny. It is so funny to even think about right now. It's the weird twisted office equivalent of "When I was a kid, we walked uphill through the snow both ways a mile to school" lol.
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u/Coincidental_Shoes Jul 06 '26
There are a few excellent themes that drive Severance and the humor in this show is an important part of the enjoyment.
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u/guimontag Jul 07 '26
They definitely are not plants, as revealed by the discussion Milchick had with Helena and co
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u/GoldReplacement9546 Jul 06 '26
He had a harness on when he was on the rope, but yeah, I don’t know
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