It’s only on AppleTV, so you would need a subscription.
It is about an alternative world which is very much like ours, but where there is a powerful transnational corporation Lumon , operating in all countries of the world. The corporation has some strange quasi-religious principles and agenda, about which you learn as the show progresses. The corporation is extremely technologically advanced.
The main novelty that the corporation brought about is the procedure called “severance”. A chip is implanted right in the centre of the brain, that creates “a second personality” (by blocking all memories of the first personality) in the same body, the personality which only awakens when a person comes to work, when they go up (or down) in the lift. A first, “original” person doesn’t have any recollection of what happens during the workday. The official explanation is that the “severed workers” simply work on very sensitive information, and it’s just a measure of precaution against sharing this information, but it soon appears that everything is much more complex and dark.
I haven’t yet finished the show, but it’s already clear that it is destined to be a new classic. It’s like a second Matrix . And it’s a serious mindwreck…
So be ready.
I mention that because the show vividly reveals, depicts and illustrates the mystery, and complexity, of human personality. Literally everything in the show is about “who am I?”. I think everyone who says that there is no “I”, “self” or “personality” must watch it.
I wonder if anyone else watches / have already watched ? Let’s discuss, if so (but please without spoilers! :D).
I started watching the first episode based on the reviews of its ingenious plot. But within five minutes I could tell it was too dark for me to continue.
Fun fact: about a mile away from the main building is a small building with a funny looking radio telescope where the Big Bang background radiation was first observed. Wilson and Penzias won their Nobel prizes for it.
Didn’t that become Lucent? For some reason I drove by that site in the 90s… I think I was working with some people from Lucent. My colleagues and I couldn’t get over how much money they spent on their logo.
Maybe that’s why they are filming there? Is it going to show up in the story?
It became Lucent sometime after I graduated high school. I’m not sure why they chose Holmdel, but Hollywood seems to have discovered it. They mention Holmdel in the series “Yellow Jackets”. Our high school’s teams were the Hornets. The British during the Revolution called Holmdel the hornets’ nest because the minute men were very active.
What does it mean exactly, “Numbers are your wife?”
Why did they need 25 different personalities?
What is the endgame of Lumon, if only very roughly?
It was clear that Mark would be torn between saving Helly or Gemma.
The “big secret” about the Cold Harbor that they have achieved that a person doesn’t have emotional responses is
too shallow, insipid and unimpressive. Mark being severed doesn’t remember anything about his beloved, deceased wife, about his best friend – seems pretty successful to me…
Many scenes look simply stupid or too obvious. Jame bluntly shouting @#$%, the big guy ritually killing the goat, the death of the
big guy and the usage of his blood. A very shallow exchange between Mark and Helly. Comically running Doctor Maurer. Etc. etc.
And, of course, poor Gemma has to suffer further, like it wasn’t enough already.
And it would have been a million times better if they simply kept the Mystery going.
Now I feel that Lumon is a semi-random bunch of idiots and losers.
Of course, one can read this allegorically, as a social satire or a Tale about the Power of Love, but either could have been done a million times better.
So, very poor writing in the last episode, unfortunately. Hopefully, the next season will be better, but I am not sure if I am interested enough anymore.
It seems to me that the movie wants to communicate/discuss the view “Memory is I am” or “Memory is myself”. They seem want to show that two separated - severed - memories sharing one body are two different persons. However, when memories are merged - reintegrated, they are back to one person again. I have not finished with it yet, I still have to go through half of Season 1 then Season 2 too.
Everything up to the final episode of Season 2 is almost perfect. A LOT of food for thought…
Only the last episode is disappointing.
And I didn’t write that before, but the show clearly refers to the Buddha and Buddhism (careful, some spoilers! ) : the founder of the mysterious corporation had tamed his four fundamental “tempers” (affects?), the exact combination of which is the true nature of every personality, they are: woe (suffering, distress, pain), frolic (joy, attachment), dread (fear), malice (anger, hatred, hostility). Very much Buddhism- or Stoic-esque.
He had “tamed” them, and since then the company’s goal is “endless war against pain”.
This is reasonable; the question arises, though, that if they didn’t deliver on such an anticipated occasion, can they deliver in the future? Do they really have something to deliver…?
