The sub after this weeks episode
Wednesday, 12 Mar 2025
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It’s one episode Michael, how long could it be, 37 minutes?
What I really appreciated about the episode is it grounded the show a bit. The last couple of episodes have made it seem like Lumon is this massive, all-powerful, unstoppable organization, and made me think how they fuck does anyone have a chance. But learning Cobel’s story, how Lumon is just like any big dumb corporation, and she invented the severance chip take it back to the intimacy of season one.
Newfoundland is so beautiful. I knew immediately it was home. I told my partner “oh look babe, it’s Newfoundland!” when seeing the shots of the water and rocky seascapes. When they confirmed it was filmed on Fogo Island I was so proud and a little homesick 🥹
Did people not like it? After the absolute insanity of the last two episodes, I was expecting something more sedate, and we got that. I think we learned a lot and it was another interesting face of the severance universe to explore.
I got hyped up by people saying “It’s only 37 minutes so they will be laser focused on the plot points”
30% of the episode was Cobel driving simulator 2025, but I still enjoyed it overall.
I liked it, but it took 10 mins for her to go up to this guy we’ve never seen before and say ‘can you drive to another person we’ve never seen before’. I think it would’ve worked better as a running b plot through the other episodes. Plus I kinda didn’t care that much about Harmony before compared to the others.
This was not an enjoyable episode for me. I get what they were going for and how they were advancing things but man, that was a glaciers pace until the end where you get the big twist.
I do not like Cobel and how deliberate her pacing is. It just is not for me, and that is okay. I feel like everything with her just drags the story to a screeching halt. Having an entire episode dedicated to her story and whatever is going on with her was not for me either.
The story was shot beautifully as always, the images were damn near paintings but I could not enjoy this episode and was thankful it was short.
It showed what lumon is like outside of the building and corporate area and how it actually sucks the world around it dry for it’s own resources and gain. I think some people didn’t like the secrets that were revealed in the episode as it removes a good amount of the more wilder theories out there (Aliens) and brings it into more of a focus of lumon being just your run of the mill Cult with severance Technology.
I liked it and have been clamoring for more Cobel, but I think Sweet Vitriol and Chikhai Bardo should’ve been released in the opposite order. After last week so much silence and and so many foreboding shots feels anticlimactic rather than stoic.
I just miss MDR and Milchick hanging out tbh they’re the heart of the story
I think people miss MDR. The interpersonal digs, the will-they-wont-theys. They’ve moved on with the story at the expense of what pulled for season 1.
This episode would have been great in the binge-release model where the whole show comes out at once. It fleshes out the world and has a couple neat character moments.
As soon as Mark decided to reintegrate, I knew the next few episodes would be wild diversions into unrelated matters. The core of the show is the discrepancy between what the innies and outies know, and as soon as you take that away, you deflate a lot of the tension. The show has to delay it as much as possible. Probably until the finale or the final two episodes.
If there are subsequent seasons, I predict that a fairly substantial timeskip will have taken place. Season 3 will be in a world where Lumon severance tech is everywhere, and the mystery of the show will no longer be about severed employees of a Lumon office.
I just wish instead of Cobel driving for half the episode, we got real flashbacks of her youth. Something that shows Cobel and how she was incoctrinated and became who she was. Instead we’re left to imagine her life in this cold dark town and how she used to be–but there’s a lot of questions still. How did someone from that specific area and background turn out to be so smart in a STEM field? Where is this school they sent her off to where she was unable to come see her dying mother?
We did get some needed answers and a good reveal about Cobel creating the chip, but as far as digging deeper into her background and motivations, I would have liked more.
This episode felt like it was missing a B plot or something. It felt more like a bridge to serve plot exposition than something compelling.
The urge to hit fast forward was so strong in some parts of this episode. There’s only so much of Cobel in a car I can take!
I think many of us are quite tired of all the indirect storytelling about reintegration.
I want to see Mark plan how to get Gemma out and think about how he feels about Helly when her outie Helena + her company has been manipulating him. I want to see Mark get in the elevator, hear the ring, and it doesn’t affect him and he shares a ton of info with Dylan and Helly. That would be so satisfying after all this time.
I thought it was a decent enough episode, I just criticise it’s placement.
Last week was largely a backstory/fill in the blanks episode, and now this week is a backstory/fill in the blanks episode.
They probably shouldn’t have done two in a row. It also didn’t help that the last one was a notably better character backstory episode as well.
why did they setup the mothers room as if it was going to be some big reveal then it was just the room with a bed in it?
also the guy who runs the coffee place was so poorly written and bland. I dont even understand his character or the dialog between him an cobel at the coffee shop. seemed like they were trying to do something with the dialog of paying customers only your buying but just came off as dumb to me.
I feel like unserstud exactly what they were trying to portray with the hollowed out town parellel to what we see in places like apalachia and ohio with just the establishing shots so 37 minutes of it was pointless
I think the problem (such as it is) is that there is a big emotional payoff to an arc we were never quite involved with until this episode.
Last week’s Gemma episode was awesome and revelatory because her character and her fate had been built up over the course of the entire series, and we’ve been deeply invested in the question of exactly what happened to her.
From Cobel’s perspective, and from what she’s been through to get here, “Sweet Vitriol” is similarly big. But we haven’t been a fly on the wall for ANY part of that, except for some vague implication that she is carrying a torch for a dead family member (with the whole breathing tube business). We can’t be as enthralled about her journey for answers, because we are just hearing about all these things for the first time, we have no connection to any of it.
So, it feels like it takes a long walk to get to the admittedly major reveal at the end of the episode. I wish we’d gone in knowing a little more though, so we could appreciate what this all means to Cobel a little bit better.
It’s a Severance episode, therefore I am happy. I do not need woe.
I think in years to come when the show is done and people can watch it in full all at once it will be looked upon better.
It was most certainly very well shot and performed etc etc but it was a bit anemic. It could have easily been a B plot in an episode with multiple focuses.
this episode reminds me of when you get super hyped on a new restraunt heard the food is amazing from everyone its viral 5 stars on yelp and you go to eat there and its underwheliming. some people can admit it wasnt the best thing they ever ate but some people will insist it was because they dont want to admit the anticpation they had for the meal led to disapointment so better to just say it was everything they wanted
people are so ready for cobel to be some type of girl boss there readily handwaving away she is prob the most evil character on the show based on her actual actions
Devon suggesting she should call Harmony felt really out of the blue. I get that she thought her brother was dying and was desperate but calling Harmony didn’t seem like something Devon would do, especially given everything Harmony has done to her and Mark.
And then lo and behold we discover that Harmony invented severance. Well, it’s a good thing Devon called!
The whole ep felt like a thirty minute setup for the last two minutes so they could blast some Cult and have Harmony break bad. Redemption arc! Cobel-lovers rejoice!
Also, it sucks that Lumon screwed over this town, turned them into junkies, and used child labour. But did anyone think Lumon was a good company before this anyway?
Any episode after last week was going to have less of an impact. I don’t think you can expect every episode to be mind blowing, but we learnt a HUGE piece of information and hopefully that’s gonna inform the next two episodes and make the pay off even better