Transcript of S1E2: Half Loop (with Zach Cherry)

This episode of the Severance podcast with Ben Stiller and Adam Scott is brought to you by Confluence by Atlassian, the connected workspace where teams can create, organize, and deliver work like never before. Set knowledge free with Confluence. I'm Ben Stiller.

I'm Adam Scott.

And this is the Severance podcast with Ben and Adam, where we break down every episode of Severance.

Today, we're recapping Season 1, Episode 2, entitled Half-Loop. And special treat, we're bringing on Zack Cherry, who plays Dylan George, to go through it scene by scene with us. Hi, Zack.

Hi. Wow, that was quick.

How do you like that intro? That was perfect.

Did you think you'd be sitting there for a while?

Yeah. I mean, that might be the quickest a podcast has ever started.

That's what we're doing. We're trying to break down some barriers here and break new ground.

I love it. Well, we're revolutionizing podcasting. You said it, not me, but that's what we're doing.

I wasn't aware, but yeah, this was history. We made history here.

Okay. Well, you've obviously done more podcasts a podcast, then I've never hosted a podcast. What would be a more traditional introduction?

Typically, the guest of a podcast sits there on their phone for about 30 to 35 minutes. That's true. While the hosts pretend they aren't there, It's true. They lay out the premise of the show. They often just get into stuff that has nothing to do with what anyone wants to listen to. Then eventually, they introduce the guests. I was planning on having some more phone time, but I can save that for later.

It's so true. I've been on so many podcasts where I'm sitting in the studio with the hosts just waiting for a while.

Yeah. Well, I'm just happy you're Zack, because I feel like you're a Ringer. You're funny, you're smart. You have a cool perspective on the show where you're of it, but hovering in some meta way outside of it. Am I creating that in my head?

Maybe, but I appreciate it.

I always feel like if you like something, I think it's good.

Yeah. I think Zack... If I'm gathering what you're saying, Ben, Zack is always hovering above us.

Yes. Zack, I want Zack's approbation. Absolutely.

I agree.

Do I have a little bit of phone time to look that word up?

It means approval. I should have just said approval.

Just consider this entire recording phone time.

Okay, good.

Zack, we're going to go through episode 2 of season 1 today.

Of Severance.

Yes. I know you're on a lot of shows. Okay? It's not fall out. It's That's not episode 2 of fucking Spider-Man.

Come on, dude.

Yeah, I'm ready to talk about it.

Before we jump into the episode, though, Zack, how did you come to Severance? How did you get cast?

My recollection is I sent in a tape first, then I got a callback. At the time, I remember I was working on the show The Last O. G, and my callback was on a day that I was shooting, but they let me leave leave in the middle of the day and then come back. So I left. I remember I was sitting in the waiting room and I saw Ben walk by. And how the podcast started, I thought I would have a few more minutes of alone prep time. And then Ben was just like, All right, you ready? And I was like, Yeah, I guess. Then I went in and read and we chatted a little bit. Then I, as all actors do, assumed nothing would ever come of it and sat in silence for a little bit, and then I showed up, I guess.

Yeah. What I do remember, Zack, is I said, Can you do a little improvising? Do you remember that? Then you did one take where you made up some stuff.

Yes, I do remember that, and I remember talking about that because you were asking me about that. That is how I like to work. Even if we don't end up using it, it helps me just, I don't know, figure out the edges the character and figure out what feels good and what doesn't feel good. I do like to play around with it when I have the chance.

It's funny because in the show, we don't really do a lot of improvising most of the time, but I tend to want you to improvise whenever you feel like it because I always feel like you do come up with great stuff.

It's hard to stop me. Even in context where I am not encouraged to do it, it tends to leak out. I actually remember once early on when we were shooting Adam, I remember you encouraging me because I think I said something quietly during a rehearsal, and you were like, You should say that. You should say that again. That helped me be like, Okay, I can try things here.

Cool. Because you're constantly saying hilarious stuff that should be in the show.

I remember thinking when you read that you were so uniquely right for the part because a lot of people did come in and read for it who were all really good, too. But you had this just office humor vibe thing that you were doing that felt very natural and real, but also you have a great sense of humor. And I think understanding that we're the spaces for the jokes sometimes, even if you're not doing something that's supposedly a comedy or funny all the time is really important. And then Adam, do you want to talk about you doing the part? Sure. Because for me, this was like such a clear idea when I read the script that you should be Mark. Basically, I had talked to you about it already, and then I told Apple, I was like, Hey, we got the guy. It's Adam Scott. And Apple wasn't exactly convinced that you were right for the part. And I said, Well, he's definitely right for the part. But in my mind, the weirdness of this show was that we were developing the show for a platform that didn't exist yet. And so all of it felt a little bit make believe.

It's like, okay, I guess this is a real thing we're doing. But then they started to pay for stuff. And we had offices, and we were building sets and stuff and casting it. And It was like, all right, we're going to really do this for this unknown platform that will exist at some point in the future. And there was a long process of talking about other ideas, but really basically was not going to do the show if you weren't going to do it. And I kept saying that to them, and they were like, okay, but maybe you think of this actor, maybe you think of that actor. And so then I would think about them, and then I say, yeah, I thought about them. I still think Adam's better. And finally, it came down to this moment where we really did have to have this talk with the Apple guys. And I said, look, this is how I feel. And they were like, well, we're just not sure. And then I was at a loss. And then I I read to them just without even talking to you, I said, well, what if the guy read for you?

And then I went to you and I was trepidacious about this because I was just thinking myself in this situation. If somebody said to me, Hey, I want you to do this part, and then told you the part was yours, and I said, Actually, could you read for the part? But I asked you, and you said, yes.

Yeah. So just to say right off the bat that Apple has been so great to all of us and to the show, and they've been terrific for me. And this has nothing to do with that. This is just the churn of show business and what happens.

Yeah. I mean, this is par for the course in doing what we do is that there's always casting decisions being made and people having points of view that are really valid a lot of the time. Sometimes, those differences of opinions, there's so many stories about I've people who auditioned for something or who was the first choice, who turned it down or the studio liked or didn't like. But I think it's interesting to talk about because you don't really hear these stories that often, but it's just the process of making something.

Yeah, and I never held anything against them either, because I understand all of that having been a part of this business for a long time. It didn't even faz me really that it was happening.

Yeah, and also I think Apple was the second they saw the reading, they were like, we totally get it. Right. And that I give them a lot of credit for, too, because it had been such a long process, and I think they really understood, Oh, yeah, this is what we didn't see.

I mean, again, we've never talked about this publicly before, but I understood why they were feeling this way, because the first time I read this script, my first instinct was, there's no way I'm going to end up actually doing this. This is too good. And if I was Apple, I would likely be wanting a giant star to play this role, right? So when you came back and said, Hey, what if you come and audition? Because I remember the email very well. And honestly, when I got the email, I was in my trailer, I was hosting a game show. I remember sitting there thinking, Am I in any position to say no thanks to the audition for probably the best pilot I've ever read? Right.

But that's underselling yourself because obviously you've established your work and you've done so much stuff. I just want to say as an actor, people do get to a certain place, rightfully so in your career, we go like, it's a thing called offer only, where when you're casting I think it says next to the name offer only, meaning the person won't audition. There are many actors who consider themselves offer only. By the way, I understand it because I was an awful auditioner. But when you get in that position where you don't have to audition, of course, you don't want I have to do it. For you to have the lack of an ego to be able to say, or just the awareness of understanding the situation, say like, Hey, I want to do this, is, I think, a very rare thing. To Apple's credit, we did the reading and I sent it to them, and to their credit, they were like, We totally get it, which I was very happy about that we were on the same page, and we got through that. But I have to say, that was one of the reasons that I think almost like a year went by of nothing really happening on the show is because we didn't have you in it.

I give you so much credit for putting yourself in that position and doing that. I feel like for us going forward from that point forward, we were connected in that way, too.

Totally. It was 100% worth it. I thought about it for five seconds. It was like, Yeah, of course. Here we are. Hey, Zack.

What do you think of that story?I hadn't heard any of that. What do you know about it?

Nobody knows that story. Or I had heard most of that. That is fascinating. It's always so interesting to hear about those what ifs and near misses. Then once you see the thing, you can't imagine anyone else doing it. You're like, Oh, of course it's Adam.

Yeah, right. Exactly. Well, that's the thing. And by the way, I've been in those situations where you get offered something and you know three people were offered it before you. I had that on Night at the Museum, I know. Then I met the director, Sean Levy, to talk about being a night at the Museum, and he did this, and he's a really good friend of mine. But he did this whole sales pitch to me about how we have to make this movie together. And then I found out after I said yes, that he had just come on the movie the day before.

Are you serious? That's amazing.

You have to just take yourself out of it in that way and just if you have an instinct about something, you just start from there and you don't let that other stuff get in your head if you want to do what you want to do.100.

Percent, of course. Okay, so I'm glad we told that story. Yeah, it was good.

Okay, let's take a quick break.

At Lumen, things are not always what they seem. Mark, Dylan, Haley, and Irving in MDR make a great team. But what else lies beyond the four white walls of their department? There seem to be more questions than answers as the secrets of Lumen are slowly revealed.

There's definitely a lot more going on than you see. It's a little bit creepy.

I agree. There are more Qs than As in this place.

Yeah, for sure.

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For the past three seasons of gone south, we've covered one story per season. We tried to figure out who killed Margaret Coon.

She told me, I'm going to kill you. I said, Well, do it, bitch.

Go ahead and do it. We delved into the violent world of the Dixie Mafia.

I'm an outlaw, and I was a thief, but I'm far from being the psychotic nutcase that I've been made out to be.

And we tracked a serial killer in Laredo, Texas. Just turn around, please.

Turn around.

Now, Gone South is back for a fourth season, but this time, we're doing things a little differently. So in Gone South Season 4, we'll be bringing you news stories every week with no end in sight. I'm Jed Lepinski. Welcome back to Gone South, an Odyssey Original podcast. Listen and follow now on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts for new episodes every week.

Half-loop, episode 2. We start where we get to dive into getting to know Heli's Audi just a little bit.

We're seeing Heli record this message to her INI, and we're starting on the outside and seeing her record this and then being walked by Milchick over to have the actual severance procedure done.

That's right. I remember when I saw the first cut of this, calling you and being like, Hey, I don't think people are going to buy this, the surgery. Oh, really? That was my biggest note was like, This is crazy. And you were like, No, we had the doctor there. This is how they do it. That is what brain surgery, more or less, is like, right? That's what it looks like. Yes.

So the surgeon who is implanting the chip is an actual brain surgeon, VJ, and he was our technical consultant. We would talk to him when we were working on the scripts about how the chip could actually work, the needle, the drill, all those things are real. And Dr. B. J is doing that. He's doing it as you would in the actual procedure. The nurse in the procedure was our COVID nurse who was in charge, Amanda, who's in charge of keeping everybody safe. Yeah, that sequence we wanted to show the gory details to really get the sense like this is a real surgery that is happening.

It's really striking seeing the drill go in and seeing the the skull matter rise up like it's wood or something.

When he's drilling, Milchick is standing there saying, Slight vibration now? Yeah. It's vibrating because he's drilling the back of your skull. Yeah.

And also before the surgery, Milchick takes a picture of her and says, I'm very excited to meet you, always just doing the creepiest thing possible.

Then we see Haley go unconscious conscious. Then when she becomes conscious again, we're outside of the door of the hallway, the exit hallway. That's right. And we're picking up in Haley's perspective on the outside of what we saw in episode one where Haley was trying to leave.

This was one of my favorite early moments of the show. I think also for a lot of people, like my friends who have watched it, it was this cool moment of The show doesn't hold your hand with some things. You just see something and then you start to go, Oh, okay, we're seeing the other side of what we already saw in the first episode. I remember when I read the scripts, I didn't quite clock how that would play out. But then when I finally saw it, it was a very cool thing to finally see. I don't know if you guys saw, I think a fan made an edit where you could watch. They cut the two things together so you could see it all play out. But I do love that moment in the first couple of episodes.

Yeah, we were thinking about that when we were doing it to try to keep them in sync as much as possible. Then the end of that little sequence is great because the elevator door opens and Milchick gives her the white flowers, which are the white flowers that Heli is holding when you almost hit her with the car in episode one.

That's right. I never put that together till just now. Oh, really?

Yeah.

Oh, that's interesting.

That's an experience I've had so many times working the show, by the way, is not putting something together, even a thing that I was part of and was there for. Then you're like, Oh, wow. They really, really, really thought about this.

Okay, so after we see... Oh, this is our first time jumping into the opening credits sequence.

The opening credits are done by a man named Oliver Lata, who lives in Berlin, and And on Instagram, he is called Extraweg. And I was driving to work one day when we were shooting, and somehow, I don't know how it came up, but I saw his feed, and it was this crazy, just trippy 3D animation of people's brains turning into things and globules going through portals. It's just so weird.

His Instagram is maybe the best Instagram account.

Yeah. And I just thought, oh, wow, this guy could really... We were trying to figure out what to do for the opening titles, and I thought maybe this guy might have an idea about it. And so I reached out to him. And he had never done any titles before. We basically communicated over the course of the next few months. I'd send him images from the set, different ideas of locations and ideas that wanted to be a part of the opening credits. But then he just went off and did his thing with it. We had the piece of music that Teddy Shapiro had written, and so he created these animatics, which were like rudimentary storyboards that then he started to fill out. It was just one of those things as we were watching it come together. I was like, this is just I could watch this over and over and over again.

It's so fun and was such a just incredible surprise the first time. Because I just went to a studio video and went in one of those things with just hundreds of cameras all around you and stood there for five minutes while they took my picture. That was all I had to do for it.

Right. They were capturing you for the 3D animation. Yeah. And And the cool thing about it, too, is that it's his... I mean, there's something on the show where the production design and the cinematography and the costumes and even the opening credits all feed in to the creative process process of making the show. And by that, I mean, ideas are coming from everywhere. And so even in season two, there are ideas that were in that opening credit sequence that he created that inform season two images. Too. And I think that's just part of making the show. Our prop designer, Kat Miller, who is just the most incredible prop person ever. She designed all of the consoles and all of the Lumen hardware and all those So it's all a very collaborative effort, and everything is always feeding everything else. Yeah, for sure.

And Oliver won an Emmy for his opening credits sequence, along with Teddy Shapiro for his music. So after that, we go back to the workstation, and Dylan is teaching Haley how they do their job and everything, but he starts showing off all the incentives he's earned from being so good at his job. Zack, how important are these incentives?

Yeah, that's That's a big thing for Dylan. I remember when I first started working on the show, I didn't ask a ton of extra questions about what we know about Dylan. Early on, this is it. You learn that he is the type of guy who is really obsessed with hitting his marks at work, basically. That informed a lot about him to me, especially because there are things that are not really things that we would consider valuable, but to him, they're the coolest things in the world.

Oh, my God.

He loves these things. I will admit, the caricatures actually are pretty cool. They look pretty awesome.

It's great that you weren't asking a lot of questions about Dylan's backstory, even as an actor, I think, at that point, because Dylan is just so in the world of the present. It's like he never really has even thought about... Except that you sometimes think about your Audi and what your Audi does.

Yeah, but it's more that he tells himself a story. He doesn't really care about what's true at first. He's just like, Oh, yeah, it's probably this. It's probably this. And yes, stays focused on the work, which is if you can say one thing about me when I'm at work, I stay focused on the work.

Bro, you are so focused. It's nuts.

Bonding, no.

Every day.

I always feel like when the phone comes out, I'm like, that's Zack just checking his lines.

I know he's just 100 %. Absolutely. I don't even have apps on my phone. I just have Adobe script.

When you first started working with John Tutturo, this was an odd couple to me that was funny because-Oh, totally. Zack, am I wrong to think that in terms of your experience before doing the show, you definitely work a lot and done a lot of stuff, but was it mainly in comedy? Was this a different world for you to be in?

Yeah, definitely. I came up doing improv and sketch comedy, and that's how I started working. This very much was a new thing for me. Honestly, I learned a lot from John over the course of making it. We did get along in a fun odd couple of way pretty immediately. I'm a huge fan of the show Monk. I don't know if you two have heard me talk about that. John is in, I think, two episodes of it. It took me a week to be comfortable enough to bring it up. But then I just started talking his ear off about and I was telling him about the show and about... They wrote books about his character after the show, and he was like, I didn't even know about that. I do think that kickstarted our little bond.

For me, with John, I had to wait a couple of weeks to get comfortable. I wanted to talk to him about all the Spike Lee movies he's been in. Then once that barrier was broken, I just never shut up about it. I remember just getting used to the Like you were saying, Zack, getting used to the pedigree of this show we were doing. I remember when I got the job, Ben and I were talking on the phone, and you had said generously, Hey, if you have any ideas for actors and stuff for the other roles? And And for Irv, I was like, Hey, I had an idea. I saw someone did a guest spot on Billions. I thought they were really great. What do you think? And I remember you being like, Oh, yeah. No, that's great. I was maybe Are you thinking John Turturo. I was like, Okay, yeah. Maybe we go with do that. Go ahead. Yes, John Tutturo. That's probably a good idea. You got to ask. Just like, Oh, shit. This is what we're doing? Oh, my God. Okay.

I felt like that when Rachel Tenor, our casting director, said John Tutturo to me because it was her idea. And I was like, okay, John Tutturo is the exact same thing as me. And she's like, come on, we got to ask him.

Wow. And then you went and had Italian food with Well, that's a whole other story about how...

And then John's idea that he said, what about for Bert? He said, what about Chris Walkin? I was like, okay.

Yeah.

Oh my God. It's like one thing leads to another.

Those We're going to meet in this episode, by the way. Yeah. Okay, so here is also when Mark is teaching Haley about the numbers and how to do... So Haley is learning how to refine numbers from Mark while juggling Dylan weird interjections and Irv getting caught up in the fact that Mark took the photos away and he can't let go of this. And so there's these three different things juggling around at the same time, right? In this scene?

Two favorite moments of mine in that scene are you getting under the hood of Hely's MDR, you're fixing something in the beginning. You're literally under a car fixing a transmission, which when I was watching it again, I was like, this is It's just like, what is he doing?

What is he doing?

He's making sure the whatever is plugged in the right way.

And I was under there literally doing nothing.

Yeah, but what I love about it is just it's such an image that it just feels like, okay, I get what's going on there. And then the other part of it that I love, actually, this is another theme of what? Favorite scenes that I love.

Every scene is Ben's favorite scene.

No, but you sitting on the desk when you get up, you decide to sit on the desk as office guy to tell her about what's going down and how it works. And there's just something about your posture and the way you sit there that just feels to me so specific to this world and to Mark.

It's condescending substitute teacher energy. Let's take a quick break, and when we come back, we're going to discuss all the debauchery that goes down at a wild and crazy Lumen Melon party. Before the Melon party actually starts, we have an icebreaker activity to help Heli get a little more ingratiated with the group. And it's us sitting in a circle and rolling this red ball back and forth. Whoever gets the ball has to state something about themselves. I remember shooting this scene. It was pretty early on, and watching When I went back, I was like, this is so weird because we never got to see people without masks on at this point. This is November, December of 2020. And I would be in this apartment by myself because I I was out in New York by myself, go down to my car in the morning, be in a van, sealed off by plastic to the driver, get to set, take a COVID test, and go up to the room where we were not allowed to be in a room with anyone else with their masks off, sit in your dressing room, then be called down to set with a mask and a plastic thing in front of your face.

We would rehearse. And the only time we actually got to take everything off and be with people was when the camera was rolling. So this scene It was right in the middle of all that. I feel like it's present in that scene in some way. Yeah.

All that stuff really did add to this quality of surrealness for all of us that made you feel like you were at Lumen. It was a very strange time. I remember that scene as well for the same reason. Yeah.

I mean, and that lasted the entire shoot. Yeah. I mean, we started shooting November of '20, and we went all the way to, I guess it was April or May, maybe. And it never led up in terms of what the protocols were for that and the testing and so many things that everybody was dealing with in their lives. But for us as a cast and crew, there were people who basically you never saw the bottom of their face in the crew. At the end, when we had our wrap party, finally, in May or June, where there was that first break before everything came back again and masks were off. Yes. And I remember seeing people in the crew that I worked with for nine months and not realizing they looked like that because I assume they looked different behind their masks. Totally.

And how weird mouths were. Yes. Forgot that there's this chasm at the bottom of faces. Okay, so we're doing this get to know you game, and then Mark mentions that he broke protocol.

Yeah, it's like the evolution of where he's starting to feel some things and starting to maybe take a chance and question authority for a second here.

Yeah, I think the little he knows about Heli, I think that pushes him to let this piece of information get out there just to see what happens. Then the melon party actually starts. And Zack, why does Dylan love the melon party so much?

I think it's all just, he's just focused on what is. That's a nice little treat. Here we go. This rules melon is good. It's tasty. I think it breaks up the day. I think he just really is not that concerned about anything other than what's right in front of him.

Very carefully selecting his pieces of melon.

Yes, which became a little bit of a theme. He's very particular about what treats he selects.

That's right. Then it's time for a group photo. We all get over there and take a couple of photos, and then Haley decides it's time for her to go. She's like, I'm just going to quit. This is total bullshit. Previously in the Red Ball game, Milchick had told her about the code detectors in the elevators. You can't have numbers or letters transferred across severed barriers. She thinks it's bullshit. She gets in the elevator. Immediately, the code detector goes off, alarm bells go off, and Mr. Grainer is introduced, comes in. Michael Kumpstee as Mr. Grainer comes in. Michael is excellent and so scary.

I mean, he has an incredible face. He does. And he knows how to use it, and he's just a really good actor who just knows how to do very little and be really affecting.

And such a gentle, sweet person.

It's so nice. Yeah.

So Grainer pulls Haley out of the elevator and seems ready to punish her. Mark steps in front of her and says, This is my fault. And Grainer is like, Fine. Come with me. And they walk off together. And we do not know what's going on here. And then we see Mr. Grainer bring Mark to the break room, but we don't go any further than that. So we have no idea what goes on in the break room at this point. And then we cut to Mark on a date in the Audi world with his sister's midwife or doula, Alexa. They talk about his job at Lumen.

Yeah. Nicki James is playing Alexa.

Yeah. Nicki is so great. She's a big Broadway star.

Very big Broadway star. I actually had worked with her. She did a small part in Escape at Danamara also. That's right. Yeah. The total not-intuitness that you have in the date. What's, I think, maddening about Adi Mark is also that he's just really really just going through the motions. I think as an audience, I thought about it when we were making it, how are we going to connect with Adi Mark? I didn't ever want us to have to try to make him sympathetic because it felt to me like you're just in a really dark place. It was important not to try to make him someone that we necessarily had to sympathize with. The scene, I thought, was pretty like you get that in the scene. Yeah, for sure. He's being a little bit rude. Yeah.

Then when they go outside and come across the whole mind collective passing out flyers, Mark goes up to them and confronts them. He's just an asshole.

He's drunk. He gets drunk. At the drinking was, I think, also an important part of what's going on with him in the first season.

Hey, man, you want to benefit off forced labor. Hey, man, forced labor.

That's up to you. Forced labor? Fucking, really? Yeah. Forced labor. Really. Okay, so people can just I'm self-imprison. Are you captive right now? No, seriously, because your past self chose to walk you down here to be an infantilizing prick to people.

Severant to subjugation, asshole.

Oh, that's nice language for... Where are you? 12? Are you 12 years old? Are you even in high school yet?

I will just say I do love hearing you both talk about these other scenes because it's such a different world. I didn't even interact with Audi World for so much of the season that I love hearing about all this stuff because I was in that little low ceiling basement.

Were you reading these parts of the script?

I was. I was reading everything, but I What I always say about this show, more than any other, the experience of reading it and even being there shooting it, there's such a gap to when you finally see it. It really comes alive when you see it in a way other things I've worked on, it felt more similar to the experience of making it. Even though I was reading it, once I finally saw this stuff and then now learn more about it, I am always a little like, Oh, whoa, there's so much more there than I even picked up on.

Yeah, it's interesting because it's like the amalgam of all the different things that are going on in the show, too. Yeah.

Okay, so this date does not go well, obviously. He yells at the whole mind collective kids, and Alexa is clearly embarrassed. Cut to Mark at home after blowing it on the date, and Mrs. Selvig comes over and knocks on the door, visiting Mark super late at night. With cookies. With chamomile cookies. Tells a weird story about her late husband who promised to build a house in the afterlife for them.

Then she says, I have the blueprints in my bag.

That she has with her. First of all, we're trying to figure out who Mrs..

Selvig Selvig is in relation to Cobell at this point. Patricia is so funny. I know she had this idea in her head of wearing that scarf. Patricia and I are the same age-ish, and we come from the same generation. I know the show in her head, she mentioned Bewitcht, that there's something like, it's like, witchy about Selvig. Also, there was a neighbor in Bewitchd. I think it was Mrs. Kravitz, who used to come over and was always snooping. Anyway, That was something she was influenced by. That is so funny. And then she had the Valerie Harper from Rota. And anybody of a certain age will know that that look is what she was going for. And then she was just like, again, it's like we're trying to figure out what Selvig is wanting to learn here, what she's really all up to.

Is she obsessed with Mark himself, or is she just surveilling him? Like, what is going on? The next day, Mark decides, I'm going to take the day off and go down this potential rabbit hole and go see this Pee Dee guy.

Yeah, which is interesting because like, Audi Mark and Innie Mark are both being prompted to step outside of their comfort zone in different ways. That's right.

By these new figures in their lives. Yeah. This is also a fun opportunity to see MDR. With Mark gone, it seems that Dylan is stepping up into a quasi leadership role.

Yeah, I think he takes the chance to be the big Also, he spends a lot of this early part of the show not quite trying to undermine Mark, but pushing him on his leadership. Oh, totally. Now that he's out, it's like, Okay, well, let's see what I Okay. Yeah.

Also Dylan in MDR tells Haley that he believes their job has to do with cleaning the sea floor.

Zack, do you remember that was the audition scene?

Yes, I do. That one was really burned into my brain by the time got around to it. I do think that is such a big part of Dylan's character, his stories he tells himself about what the outside world is like. That's huge part of what he does down there.

Like these fables he's created, like his persona, and talking about his Audi and what he must be like. It's very important to Dylan.

He's big into self-mythologizing and just telling a story about the outside world that makes him inside feel important, I think.

Yeah, for sure. Later, Irving is admiring an oil painting at the Wellness Center waiting room, and Bert enters, played by Christopher Walkin. Heard of him? The head of optics and design I mean, this is what the term meet cute was invented for. I mean, this is just lovely in every way.

It is. And Dan wrote this beautiful scene of them appreciating the art. It introduces the idea of the art that hangs on the walls in this weird sterile office environment that becomes a very important element in the story, too.

I will just say one of the best parts of the job was sitting there when we weren't shooting and just watching them get a kick out of each other. They were laughing all day, telling insane stories about... Because between them, they've worked with everyone and on everything. That was like such a fun part of the job was just sitting there and watching them giggle, basically. They really do have such a special dynamic.

Yeah. Ms. Casey interrupts the Irving Bert flirtation and calls Irving in for his wellness session. We can listen to a clip here.

Your Audi likes films and owns a machine that can play them. Your Audi is splendid and can swim gracefully and well. I'm sorry. Please try to enjoy each fact equally and not show preference for any over the others. That's 10 points off of 90 points remaining. Points? Please don't speak. Great. That's so, again, Dan Erickson, ideas and dialog. Yes. It's just so interesting and fascinating. Then you start to think, oh, wow, if someone being told these little snippets about their outside life, which, as you were saying, Zack, Dylan doesn't know anything, and they just can imagine things. So it's almost a reward or a treat for them to be told some reality about or supposed reality about their outside life. We do lay some actual facts in there that down the line we learn about.

Yeah. Your Audi likes the sound of radar. That's that I particularly like. Dechen Lockman is playing Ms. Casey, who is absolutely incredible. Yeah.

I remember her self-tape audition that she sent in was just fantastic. I remember thinking, this person seems like they're just from another planet or something. Yeah.

On the outside world, Mark goes to the address that Petty gave him. He finds an abandoned greenhouse. Petty is there waiting for him. That was another thing to decide on the day, like when we were doing the scene. Mark still needs to be skeptical of this guy. He drove all the way out here, but it's still outlandish the shit this guy's saying. But then he plays that tape, and Mark is pretty much in at that point.

Yeah. I think also there could be an argument that whatever permeates the severance barrier, whether it's friendship, love, affection, the things that would make people friends, maybe somehow How there's an instinctual thing that you trust them enough to want to take them to your house. Yeah.

Love is one of those things that's continually approached by the show of, is this something that can be affected by your brain and barriers of any kind? Right.

What is that? What is the essence of that? But then you guys end up going back to your basement, right? Yeah. He sleeps in the basement there. Yep.

And Haleigh finally figures out refining in the sense that she does get scared by some of the numbers. She says they were scary, the numbers were scary. And Brit's fantastic, of course, in the scene.

Yeah. And she's interrupting the argument between you and Irving about... Because you're talking about that Bert, you call him a fuck.

Yes. Dylan has bought into the... We don't know if it's real, but this propaganda/mythology of his department is dangerous.

Then we see you also at the vending machine trying to choose what you want to eat at some point, too, which I think is like we have a little runner. Dylan can't choose the melon ball. He can't choose which shriveled raisins or which snack he wants to get.

Which I think in some ways connects to why he likes these rewards. He likes to be given a thing, but choices It may be too much sometimes.

Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah.

That's like overload almost.

Yeah.

It's like the rat in the cage that doesn't want to leave his environment.

Yeah. Back at the basement, Petey ignores a phone call on his cell phone and then starts having reintegration sickness, and his nose begins bleeding, and suddenly there are two of him in the bathroom, and that's a crazy sequence.

Yeah. He starts hallucinating and starts seeing himself in the shower. We start to see his realities are intermingling and his office reality and his Audi reality. We wanted to play around with different ways of doing that, which we continue on in the next episode in terms of the language of that. And then that's it. That's the end of the episode. We don't know what's happened as Petey goes still in the bathtub on the floor.

That's That's right. Zack, you now have more phone time.

I can't wait. I can't wait to get back on my phone.

Thank you for doing this, Zack. Thank you for hanging out for so long. Yeah, it was fun.

Yeah, it's good to see you, man.

Next up is episode 3 in perpetuity. Stream all episodes of season 1 on Apple TV Plus right now. Season 2, again, premieres January 17th, 2025.

I have to say episode 3 is one of my favorite episodes.

Is it? Yeah. Wow. Huge surprise from Ben Stiller. Late breaking news.

I'm a huge fan of 1-9.

No way. The Severance podcast with Ben Stiller and Adam Scott is a presentation of Odyssey, Pineapple Street Studios, Red Hour Productions, and Great Scott Productions.

If you like the show, be sure to rate and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts, the Odyssey app, or your other podcast platform of choice. Our executive producers are Barry Finkl Henry Malowski, Jenna Weis-Burman, and Leah Reece Dennis. The show is produced by Zandra Ellen and Naomi Scott. This episode was mixed and mastered by Chris Baisal. We have additional engineering from Javi Cruises and Davie Sumner.

Show clips are courtesy of Fifth Season. Music by Theodore Shapiro. Special thanks to the team at Odyssey, Maura Curran, Eric Dunnily, Michael Lavey, Melissa Wester, Matt Casey, Kate Rose, Kurt Courtney, and Hilary Shuff.

And the team at Red Hour, John Lesher, Carolina Pesecov, Jean Pablo Antonetti, Martin Valderuten, Ashwin Ramesh, Maria Noto, John Baker, and Oliver Agger.

And at Great Scott, Kevin Cotter, Josh Martin, and Christie Smith at Rise Management.

We also had additional production help from Gabrielle Lewis, Ben Goldberg, Stephen Key, Kristen Torres, Emmanuel Hapsis, Maria Alexa Kavanaugh, and Melissa Slawter.I'm.

Adam Scott.I'm.

Ben Stiller.

And we will see you next time.

Hey, Adam. Yeah. Is your experience at work a bit dysfunctional lately? I don't know.

I think it's-Okay, I'll take that as a yes.

Your team could undergo a highly controversial surgical procedure that would mercifully sever any and all memories of that work experience from your home drives. Or you could try Confluence by Atlassian.

Oh, my God. Well, if it's a choice between those two things, I think I would 100% choose Confluence by Atlassian.

Confluence is the connected workspace where teams can collaborate and create like never before, where teams have easy access to the relevant pages and resources their projects call for while discovering important contexts they didn't even know they needed. A space where AI streamlines the things that normally eat up their time, letting teams generate, organize, and deliver faster. In fact, with Confluence, teams can see a 5.2% average boost in productivity in one year.

That would equal out, if we're playing with, let's just say 100%, 5.2 of those percentage points, that's the improvement.

I mean, I'm not great at math, but that sounds very close.

Well, I'm doing the math in my head right now as we speak, and I think that's great.

Why not keep your team unsevered? In Confluence, the connected workspace where teams can do it all? Set knowledge free with Confluence. Learn more at atlassian. Com/confluence. That's atlassian. Com/confluencie.