Transcript of S2E3: Who Is Alive? (with Gwendoline Christie)

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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. Hey, I'm Ben Stiller. I'm Adam Scott. This is the Severance podcast with Ben and Adam, where we break down every episode of Severance.

Today, we're diving into the third episode of Season 2, Who is Alive? Written by Waning You and directed by Ben Stiller.

We got a great episode for you today. First, we're going to be joined by the incredible actress, just incredible person, Gwendoline Christie.

Oh, my who plays a mysterious new Lumen employee who has something to do with goats.

The goats are back. The goats are back. The goats. The goats. She's connected to the goats. I'm excited.

Then after that, Ben and I will talk about a few of our other favorite scenes from the episode. Plus, Zack is back, of course, to predict what's going on in the next episode.

Okay, so we're going to be talking about anything and everything from episode three. If you're just listening to this podcast cast, and it just automatically went into the next podcast and you haven't watched episode three, please watch episode three first and then come back to us.

You know what? If someone is behaving like that and just listening to podcast episodes willy-nilly and then just watching whatever they want. That's dangerous behavior.

I know, but maybe they were listening to the episode 2, 202 podcast, and they fell asleep. Stop defending that. Which can happen sometimes with our podcast. Then all of a sudden, wake up, and it's like they're hearing spoilers for episode 3.

That's right. In that case, it's our fault.

Yeah, and in that case, they probably won't hear this warning because they're asleep still. Right. Wake up. Okay. Time to wake up. Wake up.

This is very exciting because I don't know about you, but before we were lucky enough to have Gwendoline come on our show, she was one of my very favorite actors. Her turn as Brienne of Tarth on Game of Thrones is seminal and one of the great television characters ever.

Amazing. I, like many Game of Thrones fans, and we can talk to her a little bit about it, but you put these characters in their own world and to see her as a living, breathing human being in the modern world who's super cool. I know. First of all, welcome.

Hi, Gwendolen, Chris.

May I speak?

Yes, you're here.

Thank you. I've been waiting for permission to speak.

Or should we just keep talking about you for 20 minutes?

I feel so relaxed while you do it. It's so great while you just talk about me. It's not at all uncomfortable or strange.

No, not at all. No. Well, we like talking about you because we're fans. You and I met a few years ago because I was a fan of the show and you were in New York, and some representative or somebody said, Hey, would you guys to get together.

But it's weirder still. We were at the Emmies, and I took a photograph of my boyfriend and I, and then I looked at it because we don't often do selfies, and looked at it and I said, It's Ben Stiller up there in the corner. He's looking directly at the camera. And then I said, Oh, my God, what if he thinks I'm trying to take a picture of him? He'll think I'm so weird. This is awful. And then I felt a tap on the shoulder, and it was you and you were incredibly nice to me about Game of Thrones. I said, Oh, God, I think it's okay. I don't know. I was really terribly overwhelmed already and then even more overwhelmed. Then because I was obsessed with Escape at Danamora, I then said to a representative, Please, is there any way I can meet Ben Stiller? Then we met as if by some miracle after the whole weird incident at the Emmies. You I decided to magnanimously overlook that and agree to meet me in person. I really wanted to work with you. You mentioned this show, Severance, and it sounded amazing. You said, There's no part for you.

I was like, Great, why am I here? Yeah. Thanks for the coffee. I'm so thrilled to- It worked out. But was thrilled. But this is weird as well. When the show came out, I was really excited about it and I watched it. My mind was genuinely blown from the first time I watched that opening scene and seeing Haley on the table and every single element of its strangeness and the suspense and the relationship between the characters and the dysfunction and the clinical environment To me, it was... John Lecarré is one of my favorite, favorite authors. I really adore his work, and no one quite builds suspense and atmosphere like John Lecarré, and Hitchcock, too, with that degree of cinematic suspense. I finally saw this in a TV show, and I was really obsessed with it. I'd make sure everyone left the house. I'd close the curtains. I'd sit down and watch it. Then I'd watch it again. The dogs had to be silent. Sometimes they made noises. I was like, Please, you want to stay in the room? You've got to be silent. After that- This is like when I watch Real Housewives with Beverly Hills.

After that, cut to about 2022, I'm having a dark night of the Soul. I'm really like, I want to do something I really want to do. I'm not being creative enough. Why aren't I in severance? I'd never be asked to be in severance. No one would ask me to do that. Really bitter, bitter, finally get to sleep early hours of the morning. This is true. I wake up and there is an email from your producer asking me if I want to be in the show. And that is true and insane. I know.

Isn't it weird? Wait, so you were having a dark Night of the Soul, which all actors have, which is- What is that?

I'm not familiar with that.

Ben's never experienced anything like this- Sorry, no. Ben's had a really smooth ride.

Other than glory.

Yeah, just ask Christine. On a plate.

You had a Dark Night of the Well, specifically as a reaction to Severance.

Like, why am I- Partially. I mean, the show made me angry. Yes. I was angry because I loved it and it wasn't in it.

So we are the givers of pain and delight.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know. It's stamped on the delight slide. It was It was like a kick in the face. Sure. Watching it was a kick in the face.

That is so amazing because I remember us thinking, Wow, should we ask Gwendoline, Would she do it? Would she do it? That's what I remember thinking.

Oh, completely. Yes. Because I remember you had the idea, and it was perfect. It was a perfect idea for Gwendoline to come and play this role. It was all about, Could we get her?

I was like, Oh, man, would she do this? I was so excited and so happy. I just enjoyed when we did meet, even though I didn't have a part to offer, what we talked about. Because we did talk about.

That's my favorite meeting.

Because you have You're just such an interesting person and your experience as an actor, you have a very varied experience where you come from what you do. It's weird, isn't it? Yeah.

You want to talk about that A great experience? Not at all.

I don't want to speak about it. Well, let me ask you the question. In what way do you perceive it to be strange?

Well, you told me a little bit about your background and about the creative community that you were a part of and have been a part of. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Yeah. I grew up in the countryside, and it was a different world then. Magazines were the Internet, and I was obsessed with films. I was obsessed with television. I was obsessed with America and literature and art and fashion. Really, anything I could get my hands off. It was very rural where I grew up, so it was hard to get these things. You had to drive half an hour to get a magazine that would be maybe three months out of date or something. I hated school. It was such a bad experience for me. I had this other rich interior life and world of hoping. When I arrived in London, it was under quite strange circumstances. To be honest, I'd done a fashion show. I'd been spotted on the street for the student designer, and then Isabella Blow, who was a stylist and who discovered Alexander McQueen and Philip Treasey and all these phenomenal people, she discovered me and got me to meet lots of people, lots of designers. Everybody got excited for about two seconds, and then it all just faded away because these things do. But I was where I wanted to be, which was immersed in this creative world, and I was obsessed with St.

Martin's School of Art and the designers that came out of there and the artists around there at that time. I was embraced by a community of freaks, basically, who lived life on their own terms, who identified in different ways, who considered themselves to be outside leaders of societies and misfits, freaks. We were all freaks, but we came together because I suppose we didn't have a home, but we had a home together. The UK at that time had a different system whereby you could find a survival as an artist through one means or another. It was a very, very different time. Having been obsessed with classical work and doing classical plays, I then moved into a different environment of the avant-garde, I suppose, from that extraordinary group of people. Lee Bowery had died two years earlier, who's a really outrageous avant-garde artist who dealt with the absurd and the obscene. He had died two years prior. It was that group of people that were all underground artists. It was hilarious. Everybody pretty much was It was hilarious funny.

You had this background of more traditional Strasberg education? Yeah, and classical work. Then you moved into this more avant-garde. So that must have been an It was a interesting mix.

Then I went to drama school that was classical training with a method approach, and that was 12 hours a day, 5, 6, 7 days a week. It was brutal. It was really brutal. I arrived thinking, I'm not We're going to make one friend, and left just being in love with everybody.

Was that in London?

That was in London. It was Drama Center London that had a terrifying reputation. Trauma Center.

Which is what attracted you to it?

Was this risky?

It was specifically because it was a classical training with a method approach. There was a choreographer at that time called Michael Clarke, who was doing something similar in that he was classically trained as a choreographer, but he worked with Lee Bowery, and he would work with the fall, and he would work with other avant-garde artists to create these dance pieces. I thought that's who I want to be as an actor. Also the fact that everybody told me no and told me that wouldn't work and I wouldn't work. I It actually weirdly galvanized me at that time. I think because I'm bloody minded is the only conclusion I can come to.

How would you define bloody minded? I like that term.

I suppose it's sticking two fingers up at the establishment.

Right. Which is why this particular school appealed to you in the first place.

This is something I told, you kick the dog and the dog lays down, or you kick the dog and it jumps back up again. I thought I was always the dog that laid down, but then I realized I was the dog that jumped up and murdered you.

That's bloody minded.

It's a nice segue into short- This is my first podcast.

Well, it's a fantastic story.

I mean, it's not going to be your last. It is. It's the last. It's so interesting. That whole world is so interesting because you're talking about a counterculture thing, this group of people that you were a part of. Did you ever imagine that you were going to then end up in this show that would go all over the world? Did you see yourself doing that?

It was completely weird because, to be very honest, things weren't happening for me in terms of my career. They were. I was working, I was doing theater, but no one could see at that time an obvious path for me. But when I was with my friends, I was a star, and I was adored and loved. It was amazing because it didn't matter how I was treated out on the streets walking the dogs or by the rest of the industry because I had a home and I could be loved and adored. That group of people loved that I was a freak. They loved that I was living my dreams out as an esthetic and as a life. So it was a combination of feeling like the waiting for the world to catch up with me, but more generally thinking it was going nowhere.

Were you thinking that way when you took a step outside and got some perspective on your life and taking a step outside of your close-knit group of friends? Or was it something you realized later, looking back?

I think when you're in your early 20s, that whole environment experiment is exciting, and it goes with your passion and enthusiasm for life and wanting to really taste life and experience life, which is what I really wanted to do. I think definitely as I crept closer to 30, I remember the first time I went to Los Angeles, I was on my way to the gym, and someone that worked in the industry who was a friend of the friend said, What age are you, honey? I didn't tell him my age because I was like, God, what age was I? I don't know. 33. I was told. I said, I'm 28. They said, Well, I hope you are, because if you're over 30, this is not going to work. Jesus. To be honest, it was fairly accurate at that time. I mean, who would ever have suspected that this part on television, of all places, on HBO, would arrive of the incredibly unconventional woman who is described being hideously ugly, who fights men, who is on a mission of chivalry and dignity and overriding sense of moral good and be allowed such prominence It was unheard of because the feeling at that time was that people didn't want...

There wasn't audience for that. It was a bolt from the blue. Really, honestly, it was a total bolt from the blue.

Was it season 2 that you started on Game of Thrones?

It was Season 2.

Season 2. At the time, was it apparent to you that this was going to be the most popular TV show in the history of planet Earth?

It's so strange. You saying that I just completely because I've never really taken that aspect on board, mainly because when we were doing it, what's so delightful about show, and I think has resonated through it, is that nobody expected it to be a success. It was this odd fantasy show that nobody expected to go anywhere. I read the books and I went through a whole rocky style preparation for the part because I used to always... I mean, it's how I look now, really, but I used to have really long hair and wear a lot of makeup and be very dressed up. But I never got in touch with that aspect of myself with all the fear points of being incredibly tall and incredibly strong and very unconventional-looking and in some ways disfigured and lots of all the strange elements of me that I did my best to shield. I knew it was time to get in touch with that I don't know, as strange as it might sound. For my wholeness as a human being and as an actor, I had to embrace those things. I could no longer live in denial of them, and I had to embrace them and to be able to have a in which to do that, to become someone else, to become all the things I was horrified and terrified about myself.

The things that society told me were wrong as a woman was a dream, was a perfect, perfect dream. I stripped it all. I'd stop wearing makeup, I'd pull my hair back. I lost a lot of weight training. I put on loads of muscle, I did kickboxing. I read all the books. But what was fascinating about the books was that it was such unconventional narrative. It was so subversive. The women were at the forefront, and I thought they'll probably cut that and just leave it as the men. But I thought, if they get this right, I truly think this could of life, but almost nobody else did. What that meant was everyone was committed in terms of creating a piece of work, a drama, where we were all giving everything we possibly could.

I mean, it's great to hear you talk about the very thing that was so unique about you is, of course, what is so special about you and why you're so successful and people want to see your work is also the thing that makes it hard for your world to see before that opportunity comes up. That's something I think it's important to hear because that uniqueness can sometimes make you feel like you're never going to get to where you want to get, but that's also the thing that actually gives you that specialness.

Yeah, And the courage to take all of those things, all of those unique attributes, and push them out on the outside and use them, and in the process, make one of the only characters I've ever seen on the show where I felt like if one hair on her head was harmed, I don't know what I would do with myself. It's incredible hearing any part of your story, Gwendolin. You're just the coolest.

Yeah.

Okay, we're going to take a We'll be right back with Gwendolin after this.

For the past three seasons of 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. Hey, hey, hey, hey, 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 Lepinsky. 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. So we need to move on to Mammalians' Nurturable.

What's going on with Lauren?

Yeah, what's up with her?

Yeah, I mean, Lorne. There's a lot going on with Lorne, isn't there? Are you here to kill me?

No, no, no, no, no, I'm Mark. I'm Heli. And we're with MacroData Refinement. What is this place?

Mammalians' Nurtureable.

So where Mark and Heli are going around to different departments looking for Ms. Casey, and they stumble upon what they come to know as Mammalians' Nurtureable, and Lauren is there. As far as just if we want to start with the wardrobe, which is really unique. What was that process like? Were you working with Sarah Edwards to figure out what you wear?

Sarah Edwards is completely wonderful and really skilled and has a brilliant frame of reference and incredible imagination. She's so great to work with, and she's so good with creating character. She's so good at telling the story so that you receive a deeper experience. Anything I do, I want it to be different. I knew it wanted to be different. Also, in watching Severance so much, I wanted it to have a different feeling in the show. I didn't want to replicate, and as much as I did want to replicate everything, I didn't want to replicate anything. I was led by Ben. I only had something like 4,000 references for hair, but...

It's all- Surprise, surprise. I'm getting this reputation as the guy who is obsessed with hair.

I'm obsessed with Adam's hair.

Yeah, well, we're all obsessed with Adam's hair.

When it was Adam's birthday, I sent Adam the glossiest, blackest flowers I could find in celebration of your magnificent hair.

They were the most beautiful flowers I've ever received.

I'm only eclipsed by your hair.

God.

What I like was that you and Sarah, you connected and went off together and Honestly, for me, doing any project, I'm very collaborative and like to work with people who are really good at what they do. Sometimes I have a specific idea, but lots of times it'll be just like, you know what, come back to me with what you're thinking, what you're feeling. I feel like you guys went off and created this look together, really.

Yes. I just went towards what I was drawn to, which is what I do increasingly these days, rather than trying to be systematic about it. Initially, I had I sound like such an airhead, but then probably I am. I was drawn directly to Martin Margiela at a particular point, particularly when he was designing for Hermès, because those fashion elements together by that conceptual artist spoke to elements of the show. It's a very particular time in the '90s with the color palette as well that I was receiving very strongly that's a favorite era of mine, around 1993. '83 is what I found there. There was a visual there, but I knew I had to go into something real. Now, what's weird is when you and I spoke about the part, I was in the Highlands of Scotland, and We left, and it's a remote place. You have to drive through the moors that were covered in sheep. It's unending, that landscape, and it makes you feel like you're in a totally different dimension with all these sheep's around. Then a good friend of mine is a sheep farmer, and my oldest friend from when I was a child, my first friend, also keeps sheep.

I had to do some very undercover questioning about it. What struck me was in I'm speaking to my friends, the sheep farmer, and being around them was the life and death nature of it. The whole time, these lambs are being born because I couldn't get close to goats. I could only get close to sheep. During lambing season, that's life or death.

What do you mean life or death? You mean if they don't get the amount of wool that they need for the season, they won't survive?

I mean the lambs being born. When you're around things being born and breeding, it's very intense and very emotional. The darkness that I could sometimes see, I felt was really core to lawns. That darkness and the rawness and researching farmers and people dealing with animals and the way that so many farmers will commit suicide because of what they're around, because it's so hard, because you're dealing with animals. I mean, these are just a few perspectives. Putting those elements together. I loved that Sarah Edwards had this idea of this Thierry Mugler jacket, but making it filthy and deconstructing it and changing it. I wanted to change my silhouette a little bit as well.

Yeah, and the kerchief.

Yes, it's amazing. That was Sarah, and it was so perfect. We really love the idea of the rubber boots to be in that environment, the idea of wading through blood or feces or whatever you have to deal with.

The idea of this department was Really the antithetical to anything we'd seen in terms of literally, like you're saying, it's organic and there's grass. Creating that space was... Jeremy Hindle had this really smart idea where we wanted to have this hilly terrain, and we knew that the reality of building this hilly, grassy area on a soundstage would just be impossible. The scale of what the was going to be, we wanted it to be really big. The solution was that he found a golf course out in Jersey. No, it was Brooklyn. Was it Brooklyn? It's a golf course in the far reaches of Brooklyn. We built a tent over the golf course and put up some walls and supplemented the rest of the computer. That was the environment. That was one of the first things that we filmed for the second series.

We put up lumen walls up against the tent. Is that correct?

We put walls up that were in where they would be, but only the first 10 or 15 feet of them. Then the rest, we augmented with the computer. But we were all in a tent for a number of days shooting this with real goats, lots of real goats, and incredible people in this department, the Bamaulions' Nurtureable Department, the actors that we-They were great. Found were just so committed. We wanted people with these just rugged, intense faces that, like you're saying, I've been dealing with these life and death situations out there. Obviously, there's a lot of mystery about who Lauren is and what she's up to. But what I loved about what you brought to the part, first of all, everything you're saying about your imagery, your inspiration, that to me is why you work with an actor. People say, Oh, you hire an actor, they They come in, they learn a lot. It's like, no. When you work with an actor who is really a great actor, you come in, you came in with all these ideas that, to me, it translates no matter what of those ideas actually ends up visually in the show, it's the fact that there's so much invested in what you're doing and thought into this character, and you're making a real person.

That is what makes any of these characters on the show work, in my mind, is the belief in this world, no no matter how fantastical or weird it is.

Yeah, and you get the sense when we walk in there that Lauren is going to be formidable to Mark and Haley, and you get the sense that there's this severe protectiveness that she has over this place and these animals, not just the animals, but those people that you guys have been through it and that you need to, you have a need to protect each other and the animals.

There's this scene when basically you guys go to her and say, you're looking for Ms. Casey, you won't really give any answers, and then you basically get freaked out and ring your bell.

But there was an incredible moment where the goats were everywhere. I love the goat.

Your desk is in the middle, in the corner of the goat room.

But at one stage, a goat came up to the desk and was butting its head against my knees under the ask.

While we're shooting this serious scene.

And I am quite good at not laughing. I laughed. I laughed and I laughed. And I probably made some woo noises.

I remember when I was shooting my coverage and I was trying to maintain this serious thing with you and a goat was eating my shoelaces.

And it really tickles. A baby goat won't stop trying to eat your clothes.

It was amazing to having a makeup touch-up and the goat eating the brush or the sponge. That's right.

It was chaos.

I was there for it. It was amazing. I loved every second of it. But also the goats were one of my absolute favorite moments of the first series because when I was watching it and then when I heard the goat cry and I thought, Are they putting goats in it? They are not. They are not putting goats in it. They are not. It was such a sublime moment with Wyatt feeding the goat. It was just sensational. I think I did some cursing and some pacing. Then when you said that I was in charge of the goats, it was a Hallelujah moment.

It's perfect.

Let's listen to that little scene where once you gathered everybody around, you're holding them captive for a moment to figure out what to do, and then you finally decide what you're going to do.

Excuse me, have you seen this woman? Hey, stop that. Her name's Ms. Casey. She was the wellness director. Stop that. Have any of you seen her? Enough. We decided to send I encourage her to inform Mr. Millchick of your inquiry.

No, no, no, no, you can't do that. They could kill her if they find-That's not a mamalian's problem. It's an any problem. Listen, we used to be afraid of other departments, too.

We're not afraid of you.

Look, They just disappeared her. If we let this happen to Miss Casey, then who's going to step up when it happens to us? If one of your goats went missing, wouldn't you go looking for it?

Just hear the goats. I know, babe.

There was no shutting them up.

But the hot beat. They aren't interested. Yes, it's a tense scene. It's a tense Oh, my God.

It sounds incredible.

Well, I love your character because she has so much... She's very protective of both the goats and the goat people in your department, which to me is indicative of there's a lot there that we obviously don't know about. But it feels like, again, we've noticed that these departments, first season it was O&D, now it's Mammalians and Nurtureables, are kept so divided from each other.

And so suspicious of each other. Yes.

It takes it to that next level.

Yeah. And like you, a lot of people had this real reaction to the goats. It ended up being this hallmark of the show that we didn't really anticipate. I don't know if you did.

No. After the first season, people responded to that goat scene, that one scene, and we felt like, well, that's good because it's part what the story is about. But I have to say, though, I do have a fond memory of talking to you when we were prepping. You were hanging out somewhere, maybe it was when you were in the north there with the sheep. I remember just checking in with you once and you said, I'm just here with the sheep. Yes.

Well, yeah, because I would go down to the countryside to be around sheep. I walk through the fields for hours, for days, weeks to develop this, to find this, to be fearless. So when I was put with the goats, and we went looking for goats, we found goats as well. I put my hands, my fingers through the chicken wire, and they are freaks, goats. They are. They're really highly intelligent. They climb, They climb up things, they eat things. I did everything I could to be around those animals and to also lose my natural prissiness and to get into the guts of the situation. I loved it so much.

It was thrilling. Amazing commitment, and it totally pays off in the work that you do in this show.

Gwendoline We've been inviting people to call in to ask questions of the show, and the goats have really resonated with people. About a third of the calls that come in go a little something like this.

Hello, this is Ashley. I am wanting to know whether or not we will find out what is with the goats. I was just wondering what's the deal with the goats.

How are the baby goats doing?

And when will they be ready?

Just wanted to know if the baby goats is code for sex with Marquess. And if the goats are actually people. As well as the goats being fed milk. So what's going on here with all this dairy?

Just wondering, I've been raising them on my own here for a while.

Just want to know what you guys are going to do with all these babies, all these goats. I think that's all my questions for now.

Thank you so much. Prade Gear.

Yes. One of those guys sounded like you, Adam.

He did.

I think the guy that sounded like you was the one that asked if the goat stood for sex with my guess.

Well, as people will now see that there's a reason the goats are there, and we're going to find out more, and we found out a little bit.

How lucky were we to have Gwendolen heading up the goat Department.

To have you on your first podcast. What about that?

Well, thank you both for making dreams come true. Something as simple as that, putting me in my favorite show on TV. A simple thank you.

Not being an experienced podcaster, I'd say you're a very good podcast.

Oh, my God.

I will never podcast again.

No. Keep it pure. That's it.

It was this one moment in time.

That's great. It makes it even more special for us. Yeah, 100 %. Thanks, Gwendoline. It's so great to see you.

Thank you so much for coming over and doing this. We were in person, by the way.

Yeah, this is in person. It's so much fun in person. So much better.

Yes, it's a lot more fun in person. But I personally love to be a disemboded voice.

Well, thanks for flying in from England for this.

Yeah, exactly.

Better catch your flight home. It's a pleasure.

Yeah, straight after this podcast.

Okay, we're going to take a break. We'll be back right after this.

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Let's start with the newest Lumen the Visitation Suite. While Mark and Heli are looking for Ms. Casey, Dylan is meeting his Audi's wife. Should we listen to some of that?

We have three kids. Right.

And you know he or...

My husband has had trouble keeping He's keeping other jobs. He dumb? No.

He a dick?

No. What is wrong with him?

Oh, nothing's wrong with him.

He Just... He never quite found his thing.

So he's actually a fuck-up?

Yeah. I mean, this is obviously part of Milchick's manipulation of Dylan that started in the first episode of the season and based on his demand from the end of season one. Yeah.

It seems to be working. Yes.

That's the thing. At the end of season one, Dylan has been, ever since he saw that kid in the closet, there's just no going back from that. We were thinking, Okay, who's to be Dylan's wife. Much like with Gwendoline Christie, why not just go to one of the great-Go to the best. Actresses around. Merritt Weaver agreed to do the part, and she's so organic and I think grounded that relationship in such a great way. It's just such a weird thing where what world are we in where a wife is meeting her husband who doesn't know her at all?

I know. You know what's so great about... I mean, one of the thousands of great things about Merritt Weaver and her work is in this scene, you can really just read all of that that you were just saying, the strangeness of this and the strangeness of meeting your husband for the first time, and he doesn't know who you are. You're reading it all. They're not talking about that. She's not saying, This is weird because of this, this, and this. They're carrying on the scene, but you're seeing it all and feeling it all just from her experiencing it. She's so good.

Yeah, and it has a little bit of a vibe of almost like a prison visitation scene, even though they've remodeled the security room into this This was a Jeremy Hindle idea to refabricate the room into this lush little, very anodyne warm place. It's a lumen version of I like that the backdrop behind the windows where the computers were is like a natural history museum painting of a beach and some gulls.

Yeah, and you get the sound effects of seagles and beachy vibe Yes.

Which is just- And like reeds, like dried reeds.

That's right. It's also condescending. Yes.

But what's great is that you start to see this inkling of what their relationship he probably was when they first met. She's seeing that. Dylan, of course, is just experiencing this woman who he thinks is so cool.

Yeah, his mind is blown. But you can see the sadness in her of, yeah, like you said, reading this, feeling this sweetness from him and you starting to learn more about her relationship with Audi Dylan through watching her behavior with any Dylan. It's really interesting.

His world is turned upside down.

Yeah. You're seeing how Milchick being able to hold this over Dylan, the promise of something like this in contact with his family is compromising him in other areas of the episode. You see his interactions with Irv are now slightly compromised. Yeah.

Then, of course, we see back at home right after that. Yeah. Oh, my God. She's not quite saying what happened to Howdy Dylan, which similar to me to season one, Dan's idea of having the Rickon book turn Innie Mark onto Ricken as this incredible, almost messianic figure, while on the outside, he can't stand him. It's just a simple idea. I love this simple idea that could only happen in this premise of the show, which is that Dylan's wife starts to have these feelings for his innie as if he's another guy.

Yeah, she is keeping things from the Audi and not being completely honest with him about the nature of her experience.

Yeah, because you get the feeling from that hug that there's a little bit of spark of something, which in a normal world would be like, Oh, this is actually could be good, but they are two separate entities. I don't know. That's just for me, what's so fun about the show is to be able to explore premises like that.

For sure. Getting to see Audi Dylan being this guy who has a little adrift. He goes to work every day, but he isn't aware of what he's doing there. He can't even get his shit together enough to make the cookies for his daughter's class. He's just there and you can see her holding up everything, spinning all the plates of the family.

Yeah, she has a uniform on. She works in some, I don't think we quite see exactly what it is. Yeah. And Zack Barry also told me that when he found out Merritt Weaver was doing the show, he was so excited because he's a huge fan of hers. But also, I think Zack's wife is like she's her favorite actress. Wow. That's cool. We joke with Zack in terms of his actual commitment level to reading the scripts or watching the show or being in 12 different shows. But...

Which he is.

But all joking aside, it's been so much fun to watch Zack really rise to the occasion with this character and the depth that he shows and the vulnerability and the innocence and this new There's the Audi Dylan, but there's also any Dylan is softening. The guy who just cares about finger traps and perks.

Muscle shows.

In season one is starting to actually have these emotional vulnerability. Yeah.

His world is opening up in a really big way, and Zack is just phenomenal. Yes. Okay, next up, let's talk about Ms. Cobell. The last time we saw her, she was speeding away in her car, almost running Mark over. Now we find her sleeping in her car on the side of the highway.

That song, that Stone Roses song, Love Spreads, It's not something that probably you would guess would be a music cue to go with Cobell, but I really felt like Stone Roses. It's her era. If we don't know what time frame the show is actually in. But for Patricia and myself, that '90s era music, it felt like the right era for her. When we put that song on for the radio that she turns on, just there's something about the vibe of that song. Then we played that sequence of you going into work and timing how long you can keep an image in your eyes, this weird idea of trying to burn this image into your eyes. You're trying to figure out, Adi Mark, how long he can keep that, so he could possibly be able to see who is alive on the insides of his eyelids when he comes to as his innie in the elevator.

That's the plan.

You do your little experiment. The next time we see Cobell, she's driving down the road, this snowy road, and she gets to this sign that says Salt's Neck, 200 and something miles. She has this moment, she looks down to the front passenger seat, and we see that little breathing tube. We don't know what she's thinking, but we get the sense that maybe something with Salt's Neck and that breathing tube are connected. We know that that breathing tube, if we look closely, in last season, had the name Cobell on it. She decides she's not going to go to Salt's Neck. She's going to U-turn and go back. We see her pull in front of Helena. Yeah.

Helena thinks she's done for the day walking out to her car.

That's right, with her ominous-looking driver. Yeah. Cobell says, basically, I'll come back, but she has her terms. Mdr, non-negotiable. Marcos is so close to completing Cold Harbor. I intend to finish the work that I started.

Which is why Milchek must go. He's not equipped for the task. I must be floor manager. I hear ego, hubris, arrogance. Care teaches us they only cause pain. Everything I accomplished, I earned through dedication and industry.

Not because I was born into it. She thinks she has some leverage here. Right. And says, You owe me this. I'm integral to this company, but she wants to get rid of Milchick and get her job back. Helena just shrugs it off and invites her in the building to discuss it further.

And this is the second time we get to see this dynamic, the flipped dynamic, of Helena in charge of Cobell. There's this really weird moment where you don't know what's being inferred, but basically, Helena is saying, We could do whatever we want. She says, Come meet the board, come talk to the board. And Cobell goes with her until she gets close to the car and she sees Helena's driver, and there's this moment. We don't know what it is, but it just feels wrong. Something in her gut feels wrong.

I think that she's unsure. She's not completely sure, but she's unsure if she'll ever come out of that building again, if she follows her in there.

Yeah, it's all implied and-I could be wrong, completely. But something in her says she doesn't want to go in there, and she turns around and drives off.

It's just so fun watching them and how great Brit is as Helena. It's just so much fun.

Yeah. No, so far this season, to see Helena as a character, it's basically a brand new character. I think Brit has really... The way that you guys have delineated these innies and outies is just always so much fun to watch. Then, at the end of the episode, when you see Ragabi, I think jump starts us into the propulsion and the forward momentum of the season, and you decide to go in for this reintegration idea.

Yeah, well, finally, Mark gets an actual answer, a black and white answer to the question, Is Gemma actually alive or not?

Let's listen to that scene.

How could you not tell me?

We were interrupted, if you recall. Mark, I want to help you, but you have to trust me. There is one way and one way only to get information in and out of Lumen, and that's reintegration. I'm better at it now. I can make it work with you. I can sew together a version of you that loves her with a version of you that can-Yes, do it. You're sure?

I want to see my wife. I remember when we were talking about how to do this scene where Ragabi tells you she is alive. And this is the moment now where you're ready to accept it because I think you've heard it enough.

Yeah, the ground's been softened enough.

And I feel like that's believable. But we were talking, I remember we went out to the parking lot to figure out what the angles were for the car scene of her in the car talking to you and telling you this. You said to me, when you hear that news, instead of just sitting there, you said, I think I might want to go outside and maybe get almost might make me sick, or that physical reaction when you get such momentous news. I remember we talked about that, and you did what you thought you might do there. I think that ended up making the scene a lot more interesting visually, too, in terms of and motivated for when you decide, yeah, you're going to... You decide you want it because you have to make this decision of, yes, I'm going to go for this. I want to see my wife again.

Yeah, and it's Something that's been building over these first few episodes, which is to actually get someone to believe that someone that they've been grieving is still alive. We all felt like it was something that he needed to hear many, many before he would believe it, and this is the point where he does. That's why I love working with you so much, is that we're in a situation like that, and I get an instinct that this news would drive me to feel sweaty and hot and nauseous, and whether I actually throw up or not, it's too big a moment to contain it in the car. That's just emotionally what I thought was going on, and you're there to go along on that ride and agreed with it. So we took the scene outside of the car. And that's really, really fun to come up with that stuff with you on set.

And I think it's important, too, because that leads to the next moment in the scene where you do agree to the reintegration right on the spot. So I think that build up to you saying, yes, let's do it, is more believable because you've had that reaction to the news building up to it, because it is a place also where the tempo of our storytelling shifts really quickly into boom, hard cut to you in the basement with Regabe. She set up the homemade equipment, and we're just going for it. There's another version of it where it could take another whole two episodes to get to that. But by believing that decision for you by the reaction you had to the news to me, then makes that next part of it believable.

Yeah, the episode easily could have ended on, I want to find my wife, and then we get to that event. But yeah, we just jumped right into the reintegration stuff.

All right, before we go, it's time to check in with our buddy, Zack Cherry, and see what he actually thinks is going to happen in episode four. Because for real, he's not seen any of the episodes until they air. He doesn't see them. It's really questionable how much he actually engages in.

He essentially reads his lines. His lines. That's it. He learns them phonetically.

I heard that. Hey, Ben. Hey, Adam. It's me again. I'm here to fulfill my solemn duty of delivering predictions on what's going to happen in the next episode of Severance. I do take this very seriously because I think our show, sometimes you need a little help figuring out what's going on. I hope I'm here to help the fans and provide them with a valuable service. Now, Now, let's get into it. Next time on Severance. We've now seen Mark's early time, as in any, during his reintegration process, and I think we're going to go even further back and we're going to see what was happening in Keir at the time of the dinosaur.

What?

Maybe there's a dinosaur named Dylan and a dinosaur named Irving, and they're also friends.

That makes no sense.

Yeah, I feel like he put as much thought into that as he does into anything else. Though I do like the time. It's some good apple tie in with one of their nature shows or something.

I just love the idea of a dinosaur named Dylan and a dinosaur named Earth.

That could be another Dreamworks franchise in the works.

Sure. Okay, so on that note, that is it for this episode, The Severance podcast with Ben and Adam. We'll be back next week to talk about Season 2, Episode 4.

Yeah, and thanks again to Gwendal and Christie. Just the best ever. And you can stream every episode of Severance on Apple TV Plus with new episodes coming out every Friday.

And then make sure you're listening to our podcast, which drops right after the episode airs. 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 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 Finkel, Henry Malowski, Gabriele Lewis, Jenner Weiss-Burman, and Leah Reece Dennis. This show is produced by Zandra Ellen, Ben Goldberg, and Naomi Scott. This episode was mixed and mastered by Chris Baisal. We had additional engineering from Javi Krustas 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 LeVay, Melissa Wester, Matt Casey, Kate Rose, Kirek Courtney, and Hilary Shuff.

And the team at Red Hour, John Lesher, Carolina Pesacob, John Pablo-Antonetti, Martin Valderuten, Aswin Ramesh, Maria Noto, John Baker, and Oliver Acker.

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

We had additional from Kristen Torres and Melissa Slawter. I'm Ben Stiller.

And I'm Adam Scott.

Thank you for listening.

And may Keir bless our little goat friends.