Woe’s Hole Gives Chilling New AI Principle

[This story contains spoilers from season two, episode four, “Woe’s Hollow.”]

In its third episode, Severance season two reintroduced one of many Apple present’s greatest mysteries: the goats — specifically, what’s up with them? Why are they crawling throughout a area tucked away within the severed flooring of Lumon? What have they got to do with the macrodata refinement course of, if something?

In the event you thought goats have been bizarre, although, a sure set of animatronic Innies wish to have a fast phrase. Episode 4, the riveting “Woe’s Hole,” provides an entire new query to the sector, or on the very least, heightens an outdated one: are the Egans hoping to attain immortality through robotics?

All through “Woe’s Hole,” we observe a area journey hosted by Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) and populated by Mark S. (Adam Scott) and his intrepid Innies (plus one in disguise, Britt Decrease‘s Helena, who has been posing as Helly for the reason that begin of the season). They navigate the chilly local weather of Woe’s Hole on a quest to see the world’s tallest waterfall, study Kier Egan’s (Marc Geller) secret twin Dieter, and watch helplessly as scrumptious marshmallows burn within the hearth as a type of punishment. In the long run, Irving (John Turturro) uncovers the reality about Helena, aggressively outing the Outtie by practically drowning her within the hole. For his efforts, he’s instantly terminated from the corporate, successfully ending Innie Irving’s time on the present, at the least for now, although actually not ceaselessly — Outie Irving nonetheless has a number of work to do, in spite of everything.

Throughout all of this, Mark and pals are helped alongside their journey by some very unusual highway markers — specifically, themselves. Nicely, sorta themselves. Referred to within the credit as “Shadow” variations of the characters, notably performed by different actors, these stilted Macrodata Refiners are a far cry from the real article, although they stand proper on the fringe of the uncanny valley. We by no means get to see these people up shut, solely far sufficient away to know they resemble our Innies and may transfer their limbs in vaguely human vogue, however are in any other case clearly mechanical in nature.

The animatronic refiners featured in “Woe’s Hole” harken again to the Perpetuity wing of the Severed flooring, a grand corridor the place the varied Egan relations are displayed as lifelike replicas. Early in season two, Alia Shawkat’s Gwendolyn Y (to not be confused with Gwendoline C) mentions how her outdated department contained animatronic variations of the Egans of their Perpetuity wing. The existence of lifelike animatronics is a well-established reality on the present, and “Woe’s Hole” solely heightens issues additional, pushing forth a story that synthetic beings are going to play some kind of function in the way forward for the present. 

A few issues to noodle on in that path:

° How did the Refiners wind up in Woe’s Hole? The Outies signed off on the sphere journey, however did they comply with get up in precarious positions, similar to a frozen pond or an fringe of a cliff? If not, then how did Lumon coax them out into their beginning positions? The concept that makes essentially the most sense is Lumon being able to completely energy down the Innies if wanted. We already know concerning the Time beyond regulation Contingency, which wakes Innies up on the surface world; we simply realized concerning the Glasgow protocol, which apparently lifts some kind of block connecting the Innie from the Outie; how far-fetched is it to suppose that a few of the different secure phrases we’ve seen alongside the way in which, similar to “Freeze Body,” can’t flip the Innies into some type of senseless, robot-like husk?

° The Woe’s Hole journey is named an ORTBO, or, Out of doors Retreat Crew Constructing Prevalence. (Sure, actually. Solely on Severance!) Combine these letters round, and what can we get? Take a beat, we’ll get again to that.

° The story about Dieter sounds principally made up, doubtless by a lustful Kier who invented a lustful brother to cowl up his secret disgrace. In any case, what number of evil firms have began as a result of a man obtained embarrassed about his wiener within the woods? (Sure, once more, actually, and sure, once more, solely on Severance.) Whether or not or not this bit’s made up, nonetheless, we will’t deny that it’s a capital t Factor: “Dieter Egan” is an anagram for “AI-generated.” Cue the Mr. Ortbo theme music.

Between every part put forth in “Woe’s Hole,” together with a world-scrambling word-scramble like “AI-generated,” and far of what we’ve seen beforehand on the present (similar to Kier Egan himself congratulating Helly through a online game message, again in season one), there’s rather a lot on the desk pointing towards Lumon’s immortality intentions involving some type of synthetic life. Is the Severance process meant to reinforce a observe that already exists? Are the refiners engaged on Egan code, doing their greatest work to refine the Chosen One’s “code” into one thing that may be put in a synthetic physique — or, ultimately, right into a flesh-and-blood kind, similar to Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman), doubtlessly a prime candidate for such a process on account of her allegedly “deadly” accident? 

So, there you have got it: robots, or at the least, “ORTBO”s, main towards an AI type of immortality. Drained, or wired? In fact, some Sev-heads are nonetheless fantasizing about Lumon’s goat work main us towards clones some day — however maybe the “wired” model of that “drained” take is, fairly actually, wired. 

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Severance is now streaming the three episodes of season two, with new episodes releasing Fridays on Apple TV+. Learn THR‘s season two interviews with creator Dan Erickson and up to date cowl star, director Ben Stiller.