S1E7: Defiant Jazz (with Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard)
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I'm Ben Stiller. I'm Adam Scott. And this is the Severance Podcast with Ben and Adam, where we break down every single episode of Severance. Today, we're recapping Season 1, Episode 7, Defiant Jazz, written by Helen Lee and directed by Ben Stiller.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Applause, applause. The one and only Ben Stiller. By the way, every time I say we break down every single episode of 7, there's only nine episodes that people have seen. Right. And I just want to acknowledge that, okay? On this show, we mount the insurmountable. That's right. Exactly. We climb the mountain of all episodes.

Okay. We have two very, very special guests here to talk through episode seven with us. They're not technically involved in the making of Severance, but if you believe like we do that the fans of Severance are spiritually involved in the making of Severance, there could not be two more appropriate guests for this show than

than Severance superfans Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell. Oh, thank you. Thanks for having us. Thank you so much. This is as close as we're ever going to get to being on the show. So we're very excited. You don't know that.

Yeah, you don't know that. And also, by the way, you guys are both expert podcasters in addition to being incredibly talented actors too. Thank you. And so I'm a little bit like I want to learn from you just by being in your presence, okay? Well, that's flattering. I got to say one of the highlights of our last seven years was talking to you sincerely. Really? Well, both of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have this thing, Dax, I'm curious for both of you when you do podcasts,

Maybe this is just something in my brain, but I will do a podcast and talk and have a great time as a guest and then not remember anything that I said the whole like I remember like bits and pieces. Do you remember every you've done so many of these you both have done. Do you remember everything?

I largely do. And I'll say you are in the minority because most often guests leave and they replay everything they said and then they text me. And Adam's sitting right here and he just did it a week ago. Right. Oh, Detroit. Yeah, I do that too. I do that replay to my head. But luckily, since my memory is so bad, I can't remember the embarrassing things I said. And I just say, OK, it's going to be out there in the world. Well, I also find that some of these podcasts are so sometimes like a nightmare.

a 90-minute, two-hour conversation. So you say so much. And then people out in the world say stuff to me like, oh, that's so cool that you used to go to the Del Mar Theater in Santa Cruz. I'm like, when would I have ever told anyone about... How long would I have to have been interviewed before I got to that detail? There's just so much that you end up saying. But Dax is a steel trap. I mean, I've done far, far... I've dipped my toe in...

and done his a couple of times, but he's certainly the absolute expert. But he's the same way podcasting as he is at home, which is like, well, I don't remember any name of any person I went to school with. It just doesn't, I have to see it written down like in a yearbook or something. I mean, other than my handful of friends.

And Dax will be able to still explain, you know, how the speed of sound works from his, you know, intro college class or like he does not let go of any information. I'm so glad I came. I do want to say Kristen's memory is a little more charming than that, if I can say, because we will be meeting someone and this is an actual example. She

She remembers everyone's dog's name and not them. So she'll Titans of industry. She'll go, Oh, I know that person has a dog. They have no clue what they're the chairman of, but knows the dogs. That is a charming memory. It is until you're living in it. And you're at some event where you need to remember someone who could give you a job. But I do genuinely wake up like groundhog's day every morning, which is kind of nice for my mental health. But,

Because I'm like, well, nothing's wrong. But then I find out throughout the day what's wrong in the world, what's wrong in my life. But I do not forget a dog under any circumstance. People love their dogs. And to remember somebody's dog, actually, that's something that you connect with. I think people appreciate that, I'm sure, more than even remembering their actual name.

If you remember the dog's name. But conversely, if you don't own a dog, Kristen will never remember you. No. So there's also the flip side of that point. That's the other side, yeah. Okay, and the other great, here's the great thing about Dax. I remember dogs. Dax will absolutely mangle everyone's names. He cannot tell the difference between Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, not on screen or in person. And there's always- He would be so confusing for you.

It's always a hybrid of two people. But I speak Dax, so I can usually. Alan and Glenn do not believe you for one second when you say that. Do you guys ever find yourselves being in entertainment? You see someone like across the party and you know you're going to run into them and you Google them to remember their wife's name or their husband's name. Yeah.

Yep. Non-stop. Okay, great. I'm not a liar. I want to steal Seth Meyers has a really funny story about this where he was on a vacation in Israel and then he got invited to meet, I don't know, let's say the prime minister or the second in command. And so he Googled this person to find out and thought, oh yeah, we should meet them. And then took this kind of awkward meeting, then asked where the bathroom was. And as he was told, he walked by the guy's desk and he could see up on his computer was the Wikipedia for Seth Meyers. So it was like both.

I think so many of us are just having meetings with people. We shouldn't be having meetings. If you have to Google the person, why is anyone even meeting? That's what Wikipedia was created for, for people having meetings with each other. Can I just say also, I know you guys are friends and we don't really know each other, but it was so cool to hear that you guys are fans of the show because it's always fun and exciting to hear people who you know and are fans of are fans of something you work on.

And I just think that's so great and so cool. And it was just exciting to know that you guys were watching the show. We do more than watch the show. The show has been disruptive to our lifestyle. We've lost many a night's sleep over these cliffhangers, which we then assault Adam with. We send all these voice memos to Adam and Naomi at night when we're pissed.

And we're like, God, I hope he plays them for Ben. We want Ben to know, too. So it's mutual. Well, I covet those voice memos and we have them. And maybe we'll just play them all at the end of the episode. You should definitely play them. You absolutely should. They're very hostile. Yeah. They're a side of America's sweethearts you don't really want to see. It's really, it will take you aback. Yeah.

So what about the show kind of landed with you guys? Let's just start there. There's so many things to be proud of. It's a really, really huge accomplishment. And I'm not being hyperbolic. The tone is so fucking bulletproof. It's almost impossible. And I think if we could really geek out.

When you're evaluating how much you like a director, I think the key ingredient is like do they have a singular voice they can inject into the funny scene and the sad scene? Like is it unified? Is it unwavering? Does it create rules that never breaks? Like the amount of discipline on display in the show is so impressive. The aesthetic is so wonderfully balanced.

boring and brilliant and subtle and... And somehow unique, like to be able to strip something down so much and use, you know, there's four pieces of furniture you see throughout the show, but does it still have it feel a little unique? Like it could only exist there? And then the cast is so wonderful because there's people we know and there's people we don't know and everyone is equally brilliant. So...

You want to see the ugliest side of Kristen and I. It is in bed watching TV, which we do all the time because we've been doing it for 25 years. So we'll notice, why are they shooting this scene from a bird's eye view? This is nonsense. Of two people talking on a couch. This is an actual example. We're watching a show and they're shooting it from high and behind. The coverage, friend, the coverage. They go to French's that are like on the ceiling looking at the floor. And finally, we play this game where we're on a set. So I have my walkie talkie.

on mine. And I have mine. What we're doing for the listener is grabbing our lapel. Sarah, can you go to two? On two? Yeah. I'm with the director. He wants to know if we're going to be able to look up at any point. Yes. No. Where is the ceiling? No. Why? So we went to lunch, remember? Yeah. And we're back. And we lost the ceiling.

You lost the ceiling. Yeah. Somehow at lunch. Well, it was there before lunch. And then we're back and it's not. So we're locked into shooting the floor for the rest of it. Unfortunately, yes. Okay. I'm going to try to tell them that. You can go back to four. Thank you. Oh, my God. Yes.

Going to two is the most fun part of our relationship. If it weren't for going to two, we would be divorced. We'd probably be divorced. It's so true. Can I just throw in a couple of little reference points for audiences who are not in show business? Frenches are French overs, right? Over-the-shoulder shots that are behind the actors. Going to two is the two on the radio, the other channel, for like season one.

When you need to say something other than main information. Yeah, you're surrounded on a set with PAs that have earpieces in and microphones on the collar of their shirt. And you'll be mid-conversation with them. You think they're listening to you. And they immediately just go, yes, going to two. And you realize they weren't listening to you. And then someone from wardrobe that has a question about maybe an actor is wearing their personal hat in a scene. That's another thing we'll do. We're watching and some piece of wardrobe looks. That has to be a personal item. So we'll go, Gary, go to four. Yeah, exactly.

Is that a personal hat we're seeing? Because we haven't cleared. There's a logo on it. Yeah, I tried this morning. But Derek, is it Derek or Daryl? Yeah, the day player. And he said he couldn't take it off. There was something about his hair. And because we'll wait shot yesterday. We're going to be in grace if we will shoot the fuck. Okay. You know what one of my pet peeves is with wardrobe? Where if it's...

abundantly clear that the wardrobe is brand new. Oh, yeah. That you still see the fold creases. It was just taken off the rack on the actor in front of the camera. But that's a great bit to go to two with because you asked Janice from Wardrobe why the steamer wasn't available and you talk about how the trucks weren't allowed to be parked on the street because transport didn't get here early enough. The Jenny's down. Well, how long is the Jenny going to be down? We got to steam the shirt. What about the backup Jenny?

Okay, all that to say, that was way too long of a preamble, but there's no going to two on Severance, which is almost impossible. We even do it, you guys, on the Holy of All Holies Game of Thrones. We do. But this is more selfish. We're watching it, and you'll see this huge wide, and there's 65 people on it, and there's a couple of the main stars, and they're buried deep in the background. Yeah. And we see a scene like that, and we're like, they had to be there for six days in the

Right. And,

In Northern Ireland or wherever they were. We've learned from being on set, if the camera can see you, you have to be there for the entirety of the scene. If that scene's going to take a week to shoot, you have to push your body behind someone in the background and be like, well, I just, no, but I was here. I was here. That's one of the first lessons of show business. If you can see the camera, the camera can see you. That's right. So find a spot where the camera cannot see you. Where you get to go home at some point.

Yeah. Most great actors want to talk about their character. I'm constantly like, don't you think my character would have run out right before action to grab something? Because this seems like a scene we're going to shoot for three days. I feel like I'm very, as a director, I'm very sensitive to that when I hear an actor go that route. Like I can tell right off the bat. Yes. You would not like working with us.

No, you would hate it. We're not. We like to be home for dinner. In the beginning of your career, you want to be in the scene more. Oh, yeah. And then as time goes by, you're like, no more. Is there anything else I could be doing? Or is there anything you're going up to directors asking for direction? Is there anything you need me to do? Right. Well, and I don't think he'd mind me telling this story. In fact, I know he wouldn't. But I directed Tom Arnold in a movie.

And we were between takes, and he was clearly so miserable. And I said to him, how long have you hated acting? And he goes, oh, for a long time, buddy.

Like, what the crazy paradox with actors is all they want is to get jobs, and then once they have them, they do not want to be doing the job. I've had that experience, too, where an actor just wants to get it done and get out of there. Yeah. Adam Scott. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, that's me. God, I wish. But anyways, the acting's phenomenal. The writing is so next level. It's a

blows my mind that Dan only had a single writing credit on Lip Sync Battle. That's so impressive. Truly, you think you're like...

dealing with someone who's cracked, you know, a trilogy or something. It's really impressive. And you're doing so much with so little because it's not like a chatty bantery show. Like there's often just stretches of silence and I'm still riveted. I don't like, you know, you can always judge something good about whether or not you think you have to pee during it or you look at your phone and we just do not. We are riveted

riveted when they're walking through endless white hallways because the tension and the tone that's built and every single character is watchable. Because there are a lot of shows we watch where you'll go to a character and they're just not as interesting, but you've developed everyone in such a way that it's just...

It's a ball to watch. That's nice to hear. I mean, you know, it's when you're working on something, when you're in it, you just have no perspective, right? When you're working on it, other than you're just trying to do it. And we did, you know, we did work in a bubble for so long in the first season. The whole thing, I think this whole thing in streaming now,

that you do the whole thing without any feedback is what can be like good and bad. You know what I mean? - Yeah. - Right? - Yeah. - 'Cause you're just like doing, like we completed the whole thing, the whole season. And I remember thinking by the end of it, like, okay, this is like, we did this. Oh my God, is this like any, is anybody gonna like it? Is anybody gonna watch it? It could just be awful too. - Yeah. - You just don't know. - Sometimes when I watch a show, like the very first season of a show,

And it turns out to be a big hit, like Friends or West Wing. I try to pinpoint, and it's usually like four or five episodes in, the moment when they started airing and were a huge hit. And you can kind of try to pinpoint the confidence and the kind of swagger of the actors. The shift. Yeah, when they're just like, we're going to be here for a while. And I don't know if it's actually there or not, but I'm always thinking of that. And on Parks and Rec, it was like this too, where...

You shoot an episode and it's like, what, five weeks and then it airs? It's just wild. It's so wildly different than kind of the modern streaming process. What does that feel like? Because I've never really had it because anything I've ever done on television has been like this or if I'm not in it, directing it or was canceled and never went that far. So never had that feeling of being on something that's a hit, that's successful, and you're doing it in real time.

Right. Yeah, Ben Stiller show. Did you guys make the entire thing and then just deliver it? Yeah, we made the entire 13 episodes. Then they aired 12 of them. And that was it. The whole thing was done within like eight months. They shelved the finale? It wasn't even a finale. That's not very interesting. I know. It was an amalgam of sketches.

I could bore you by going through every one of my favorite sketches from that. It's such a great show. But I have a really arrogant question to ask you, Ben. I've done some kind of armchair analysis of your recent work. And this is, again, this runs the risk of offending you, but I told Adam this. I feel like with Tropic Thunder...

You were like, let me show you I can make a fucking humongous movie. Like, let me show you I can have the action and the explosions and that these comedies can also have this layer. And let me demonstrate I have that skill set. That was accomplished. And I feel like Dannemora, which, by the way, apologies, we just watched for the first time last month and we fucking loved it. But to me, Dannemora is like, now let me show you I can do a very gritty drama.

And that was accomplished, I think, with Flying Colors. I feel like Severance, again, I have no business having this opinion. I feel like you've proven you can do everything. And now there's this confidence to when it wants to be funny, it can be funny. When it wants to be dark, it can be dark. There's no, it's just, it feels like everything's been proven and there's a

There's a confidence to this where I feel like the funny side of you gets to come out and all the other sides. It feels really just even in that way. Thank you for even taking the time to watch that stuff. And I really – and honestly, I appreciate that. I think it's sort of –

What you're talking about is basically severance allows this, you know, this tone and this story allows for that in a great way. And maybe there is. Look, honestly, I think we've all been working for a long time, right? After a while, there's a certain amount of like, OK, here we are in life. Life's going by. We're getting older. Yeah.

you know, fuck it, right? I just want to do stuff that I really enjoy and that makes, that I want to see. And yeah, I care about how it's going to be received, but at the end of the day, I just want to, you know, express myself and go for it a little bit if I have the opportunity to do that in a way that is not worrying about

And like I was just saying before, we made it in this bubble. At the very end, I thought for a second, oh, wait, I hope this is good. I hope people... But we had a great time making it within the bubble of doing it. So I think it's just that what Dan created allowed... It was a confluence of events of allowing...

for a tone that could sort of have all those things in it. And I personally think with, you know, when something's in one genre, it's very constricting, right? Because you're not allowed to do certain things. And what's great about having humor or comedy in something like this is people aren't tuning in expecting to laugh. So you don't have the pressure, as we all know in comedy, that's a lot of

Of like to be funny because people even Tropic Thunder people that was a comedy. And I remember having a first screening and thinking, OK, I think we made this really cool kind of like actiony, you know, kind of thing that has, you know, some satire and all that. But it's like a thing. And people were just like the first audiences were like, well, they said it's a comedy where they wanted the laughs to be there. You know, that's the first thing that they're looking for.

In the format they were super used to. Yeah, but it's just sort of in the framework. It's like maybe how it's marketed or how people put it out there, right? This is a comedy. So there's something that's very freeing about having a genre that is not as defined because then you can just have it be whatever and allow people to find what they find in it. And that's been great to work on. And I think that starts with what Dan said

in his pilot, which got me so excited. And then we kind of, you know, went from there on it. Yeah, because the stupid moment, I think it's in Seven with the doors have been installed. And...

Our man is, what's our man's name? Milchick. Milchick. Milchick's checking them, right? But boy, he's checking the fuck out of them. Those doors are clanging. I mean, the speed is impossible. And I'm imagining being at Video Village. It's not lost on you that this is hysterical and what's going on and why are we going to see it close so many times? Well, those doors were effects, right? No, well, they were real, but we sped them up. But it's so funny because I was literally watching this last night, 7-11.

preparing for this with Christine and she's like, boy, he's really checking those. Yes. Yes. And I'm like, you know, behind the monitors, this is funny. Yeah.

I mean, it was just something. Yeah. And that's stuff like, again, like there's no, you know, there's no kind of test screening or anything like that. So there's just like a freedom to go like, oh, this seems funny or like interesting or whatever. And you just kind of go, go with it and try to go with your instincts. You know, it's the moment like the dad is using a tie down strap on something. He's packed some luggage and he gives it like 25 pulls before he goes. Yeah, that ain't going nowhere.

Like that's what it felt like with the doors. But it also, it tells you so much about Milchick too. That's what I loved about that little sequence is that this is that guy and we get these further dimensions of Tramiel's character. There's also an interesting little part of the story there, which is that

What those guys are doing is they're pulling away the, you know, the sort of like, you know, border around the entrance to reveal these doors. They weren't installing those doors. Those doors were there before. So that's, you know, I mean, when you really think about it, they're not like putting in doors overnight, but they're pulling off the covers that. So that's just an interesting layer of like, whoa, I wonder what those doors were doing before. Yeah. I didn't catch that.

Okay, let's pause here and take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll get into Episode 7. At Lumen, things are not always what they seem. Mark, Dylan, Helly, 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.

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Okay, so the first scene is between Mark and who we know as Ragabi, played by Karen Aldridge, the great Karen Aldridge. So they're at the college campus. Is it the college campus in the show? Yeah, they're at Gans, which is where you used to teach. Oh, they're at Gans, right. Mark used to teach there, and she basically leads you to this sort of secret little lab that she set up.

down in the sort of the bowels beneath. This is really weird. This was during the pandemic. We shot at Pfizer Pharmaceutical in New Jersey while they were developing the vaccine. Right. Did you try to get an early dose from anyone? We just started jabbing ourselves with any hyperdemic needles we could find. Breathing deep in every hallway. That's right. That's right.

It was really weird. And then also they had shot other stuff there. And I actually on the on the floor, I found like an old little mini sides from the show Manifest. And I got really upset that Manifest had shot where we were shooting. Ben does not like to hear that any other show or movie has shot at any location we're at.

I get it. And they love to start telling you when you're there and you're like, no, I hate it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And whenever we go on a location scout with like my group, like the person who's, when they start saying, oh yeah, and we had this shoot there and that, everybody looks at me because they know that that person has just basically made this place a place that we don't want to shoot.

But the building in Jersey, the old Bell Labs building that is Lumen, was never on film until... Yeah, that's the crazy thing. That's the crazy thing. What a jewel. I mean, there's a few things you guys have, a few assets that you gotta wonder what the show is without them. And that's one of them. Yeah, completely. It really grounds the entire... Just that wide of that... It's like the Pentagon. The wide of that buys you so much...

into your belief of what Lumen is as like a monolith. It was actually the first location that we found.

And that was really informed a lot of the design of the inside because it still had all of that mid-century architecture on the inside of it. And yeah, so then she takes you down there. Yeah. And then she's kind of talking to me and Doug Grainer shows up and the shit hits the fan. And he's talking to me and she comes up behind him and hits him over the head with a baseball bat. So this was really brutal, really brutal piece of violence there.

and kind of the first one of the show, right? Yeah. How did you approach that? I mean, we knew that we didn't want to ever have the show go into like people with guns and like cloak and dagger-y kind of stuff. And that was something we were really sensitive to. So we were trying to figure out some way that she could take him out that would feel messy and kind of shocking. And so that's where the baseball bat came up.

And yeah, it was weird because we had never had anything like that happen on the show before. And it just felt like, okay, how do we do this and make it feel believable? But, you know, you just do it like a scene like that, right? You just do it like what would really happen.

All I was thinking, I got really distracted by thinking of blocking the scene when you guys first showed up. Like, how are we going to be a reveal? We saw her on the left side of this set. It's not a set. It's a practical location. But now there's this exchange. How are we going to get her behind him? And the notion that this practical location you were at had a way for her to walk around that loop around. That's

That's amazing. You guys are so observant. I know. I'm not kidding. That's crazy. I don't remember if she actually did or if that was...

She came from behind him. It looked practical. And it seemed to be a Wanner. Yeah, you're right. It wasn't, actually. And we wanted to believe that there was a way to get back there. But when we got to that location, we saw, oh, there's this interesting kind of thematic thing where there's like a hallway on one side and then there's the room on the other. And Mark's point of view could be looking at this sort of almost severed image, right? Yeah.

And then, you know, the surprise of her coming up behind him. And we tried to make sure that the way we cut it was that, you know, we don't see her for long enough that you could believe that she came around behind him. And she did mention that she severed him as well. I think that's an important detail because she said she reintegrated Petey. But she also mentions in that scene that she was the one who severed him, which just gives you a lot more intel on how high up she was and why she.

You kind of go like, oh, she must have a reason to use this baseball bat. Yeah, and she knows a lot about Mark and the procedure. And it's kind of the first time – you can tell the way she's kind of poking and prodding Mark that he hasn't really given much thought to his innie.

He hasn't really considered this person very much. And she's kind of poking him saying, what about – this is a person down there. Well, that's the fun philosophical question I think. Well, there's many. But the one that I am most intrigued about by the show is this notion that we wouldn't ever relegate someone else to eight hours in a room with no memory. Right.

But I would do it to myself because I don't pity myself. I don't have any empathy for myself. I'm a piece of shit and I deserve to suffer and I'm going to suffer at work anyways. It's just interesting. I think it begs this question of like we are meaner to ourselves than we'd be to other people in a way. Yeah.

Yeah. And do things to ourselves, right? More self-destructive things or things that are, you know, that, you know, cutting off. I mean, there's so many, I think, you know, metaphors or analogies that you could think of for what severance is in terms of what how people dead in pain.

or just want to avoid pain. And it's just, I imagine myself, someone saying, you're like, you're being really mean to Dax some eight hours of the day. I go, who gives a fuck? I kind of deserve someone to be mean to like, I, if you told me I was being mean to a stranger for eight hours a day, it would affect me. But I actually imagined being Adam in that scene. And I don't think I'd really give a shit if a version of me was unhappy. It's interesting. Right. And then, and we see how you're sort of equivocating too in that scene. And you're like, sort of like, I'm not a bad person, but it's, you know,

I mean, Mark is just morally very complicated, I think, the whole first season. That's right. And...

The fact that she is the one that actually did the severing is super interesting because it kind of tells us that she's on some sort of redemption path. Yeah, well, that she's got so much information that she changed her perspective. That's right. It also suggests that the stakes of Lumen are much higher than just someone being severed for eight hours of the day. If she's willing to brain a dude.

There must be something hugely nefarious happening beyond just the severing of people. Yeah, yeah. And I thought Karen, she's such a good, interesting actress. And Michael Kempsey, who plays Grainer, just the way they played that scene, I thought he was so creepy in that scene because he's so like...

smiling and kind of nice and kind of the way he talks to your Audi. Yeah. It's just so creepy. And so. He has a very 80s, like video drone. Yes. Scanners. There's something. He would fit right in with those movies for sure. The Cronenberg. And he's the sweetest, like gentlest guy too. It's so wild. Yeah. Well, he, yeah. And he's just, we said this before, he has such a great face and understands how to use it and just knows how much,

power he has and you know just being still and yeah and Karen Aldridge is like you said fantastic and also that was Karen's you know as you guys know too like people come in for a day on a show right and they you don't have any rhythm anything you know making you comfortable it's just like you come in and you got to do a scene that was her first day on the show yeah and she had to do that scene I

I was going to call that exact thing out. That would normally be a scene that you got eight episodes to work up to as a character. And she had to repel in and have her crescendo career, you know, character moment on day one. And not make it too,

because again when you have that challenge of like oh I gotta make this something this is my first scene you can often overdo it and you become arch or some like I'm I need to be villainous or something but she wasn't she was like serious and driven and you wanted to take her seriously and you wanted to know more and she kept she was like

very there but also I felt like kept a lot to her breast to where I was like I need this girl on screen again I want to know more totally super specific and different and because you're right you could just do like CBS guest spot drop in exposition and just be uninteresting yeah but she really managed to kind of give it a lot of texture yeah great she's I love her I love Karen she's fantastic

Okay, so we come back to MDR and, you know, they've got the new doors and everybody's sort of stressed out about that. This is when Milchik shows up because Heliar has hit 25% and she's going to get a music dance experience, which is one of the big perks.

What I like about the scene is that it's the weirdness of what's going on, but we're also trying to tell the story within it. And it was a chance for the actors just to, every actor in that scene is doing such specific stuff. I mean, every single person, I can just go, I'm sure you guys have feelings about it. We have a lot. And in fact, there was a behind, there's a behind the scenes debate between Kristen and I that this scene created and

And this is where you, you get luckier. You're you don't right. You didn't, uh, the actor who plays Milchick, you didn't ask him to dance in the original audition. And then you get to set on this day and you realize, Oh my God, we have a fucking professional. I could watch him dance for two hours. I said to Kristen, we watched that scene. I go, okay, my man, let me just tell you, his ass is so good. He has the best ass I've ever seen in pants. He,

He moves suspiciously well, Kristen. I'm like, he has some showbiz in his background. He's got some Broadway or something. And we went and did a deep dive on that actor because we watched him dance. And I was like, there's something going on here. This guy's too fucking good.

And fun to watch. He's trained. He's got his body. He's incredible. No, it's crazy. You're right. He does have a great butt and he's got a great, I mean, the guy is just so talented. And it was a revelation to me. I knew he was good as an actor and I knew he moved well within the scenes. But this is episode seven. When we got to this, it was like, okay, let's figure out what we could do here. Yeah.

And, you know, we had a choreographer who came, but like basically like Tramiel just kind of went off and said, I got some ideas. I have some thoughts. And then they just showed me, they just showed me this, you know, this dance that he came up with. And I,

I mean, it just makes me so happy watching it. It's just incredible. It's the big gift he gave you, right? It's like you have all these tools at your disposal. You know, you got the lights. You know, you can do some inserts of the record player. That's cool. You can go to the list. You have all these ways you're going to make this interesting. And this motherfucker shows up and just starts letting loose. And you go, oh, I don't need any of that. I'll have that stuff, but I don't need it because this is now all about this guy dancing. It's so weird and specific. And it also, I think...

sort of triggered everybody else in the scene to have their own version of what they would do in this situation.

It really just brought out the best in everybody, I think. Because I love, Adam, how Mark is, first of all, so curious and excited about the music dance experience. Like, literally like a kid, almost like, oh, wow. You know, like wanting to see the table and what's there and what are the different instruments. And you're like a kid. Well, it's a huge deal. And we're all in the midst of this whole disillusionment with Lumen and all of this drama and kind of putting this...

you know, the pieces of this, well, we haven't started putting the plan together yet, but we're all kind of, it's a little disarray as far as Mark's feelings about Lumen. But still, something like this comes in and it's like, oh man, the MDE is about to happen. It's like a celebrity walked in the room or something. You have like almost the first playful smile you have in the show at work. Yeah.

Why do you decide that's how Mark feels about that? Well, I think at that point there had been just a couple little instances of kind of stimuli that come in from different directions and just assuming that –

stimuli is hard to come by down there. This machine rolls in with 45s and musical instruments. And I figured it was something Mark had heard about but hadn't experienced yet. So couldn't wait to get his hands on just the feelings of the MDE. One thing I love about the sequences is that it's completely rooted in

character because you know milchick is just trying to cover his ass and provide distraction and we should say it's a the mde is a creation of mark friedman one of our writers and co-showrunner season one and it's a really great path for milchick as well as and then it turns into this sort of

Just show stopping moment in the show. And it's just like Ben said, it really provides this great pathway for all the characters to kind of come out of their shells a little bit. Dylan included. But it also highlights the like you see so many specific character traits when you see them have the stimulus. But if you zoom out, it also highlights the.

The monotony and the loneliness and the suffering that – oh, a cart, an Ikea rolling cart with a record player on it and a maraca is what is going to get these people to smile. It's like a monster truck show. Yeah. It really highlights the suffering that they experience on a daily basis that you sort of like –

You don't lose track of it all, but you sort of – because you've seen it before, I like that it was highlighted here that like, yeah, they're just in those white hallways. There is nothing – there are no labels on the soap in the bathroom. There's – everything is just so barren. Yeah.

Yeah. And also the other thing I was excited about when we shot it, I remember thinking about as we were going through the season was like, oh, I knew we were going to do this thing with the lights. We were going to change the color of the lights. And I remember thinking, oh, I hope people first of all, I hope people buy that and think that's, you know, it doesn't seem to like kind of.

over the top that or break the reality but it was so exciting to me to think at some point in just seven episodes in we're going to see that the lights can change colors and they can do like a you know Saturday Night Fever in reverse or whatever like ceiling you saved that and we didn't know that the lights were going to change until we were shooting the scene I think I tried to hold it back yeah

Yeah. I remember also when we had to test for it, when you guys weren't there with the crew, we did a test and then we had like a little dance party because we were like timing it out to the song. And it was really fun because, because it would get very oppressive on that set because the ceiling is so, so low and, and our set that's literally like the MDR room is in the middle of all the hallways. So it's like, you really are like, it's very claustrophobic after. And I know Totoro used to go crazy because he's the tallest, like Dax, you would not like it there. Cause it's,

it's very low ceiling. I mean, I'm assuming you're tall. That's how you're getting out of inviting me there? So I'll be on. That's fine. I'm short. I can be on the show. Jax doesn't need to be on the show. But Totoro's the tallest cast member and I know he used to get to him. That's funny you'd bring up the lights because that was going to be a really nerdy specific question for you, Ben, which is,

You want the lights for obvious reasons. It'll make the scene more interesting. And then, though, you've got to play through the logic. So you go, okay, Lumen installed these lights to be multicolored. And then you have to maybe create some reason in your mind where you don't feel like you're jumping the rules, right? And I just wonder – I can imagine that would be the kind of decision that you'd really –

mull over a lot more than people might guess. Yes, we're constantly thinking about things like that all the time. And to me, it makes total sense in terms of, you know, the world of Lumen that they would do this because it's something that they are able to do to save as a, you know, reward that, you know, just as the audience would be surprised that the, you know, that

The people, the employees would be surprised too. And it's all, we're always thinking about what would Lumen do? How would Lumen approach this? But it was really fun. And then I have to say,

Adam, your bad white man dance as he's approaching you, it makes me think, I always think of Billy Crystal. There's like the white guy overbite. White man overbite?

It makes me laugh out loud every time I see it. I remember when I started doing that one, like stepping into it, because we were trying to get to me putting my hands in my pockets to discover the key card. Right, right. And so I started doing a thing like this. This is great for a podcast, demonstrating the dance moves. He's putting his arms up in sort of a robotic motion. And you loved it so much. You're like, don't forget that. Do that. You loved the...

Walking in place thing. So I was sure not to forget it. Yeah, that was so fun. It was so fun. I mean, it was an entire day, obviously, and it was a blast, especially watching Tramiel dance. Yeah, it was two days. It was two days, and one day was sort of the dance, and then the second day was Dylan's blow up. And, you know, when Milchik gets behind him and starts sort of like doing this sort of like,

almost like this devil over his shoulder. It's just crazy. And it was really great to see Zach...

be able to, like, really own that scene. You know, a guy who's just-- he's such a good actor who's never really played scenes like this before in his-- 'cause he gets cast a lot as, like, the funny guy who's a brilliant comedic actor, but he has so much inside of him. And that scene after he's attacked Milchik where he's just-- he's just got so much of that sort of residual energy, it's just-- it's so believable and so raw.

This episode could be called Dylan's episode because we've also just learned he's a dad, which is really not what I was expecting. He's so blue all the time and adolescent in his humor. Yeah. Yeah. To find out that he has a child that loves him is kind of a

mind-blowing detail all of a sudden. And then that has awoken in him, this now person who's going to get violent at work. Yeah. And it's interesting because up to this point on the show, there are all these examples of weaponizing different office supplies around the MDR. But this kind of discovery that he's a father turns... It just shifts Dylan so much. There's something primal that shifts in him immediately.

And then he ends up biting Milchik, like going for – tackling him, obviously. But then he bites him. How is that sort of figured out? How did you guys land on that, Ben? It's sort of the social experiment aspect of the whole thing. Like what if you learn this knowledge that you have a family on the outside? You know, like it's like –

It's just he can't control it, right? It's just bubbling up inside of him and he's stuck. I think it's like the claustrophobia of being stuck in this place that he can't get out of knowing that he has loved ones. So it was just like, what can we have him do? And I think it was probably in the script that Mark had that he bit him. The part I always enjoy too is Milchik's sort of, he's very upset and says the music sucks

Dance experience is officially canceled. Oh, my God. I remember him doing that and just thinking Trammell is a superstar. Just on point. Incredible. It's a moment of hopefulness, though, too, because when you're watching the show and you're that's I mean, that's why it's a great show. You're playing out this fantasy of this was happening to you the whole time you're watching it or we are.

And you're wondering what is the thing that can't be severed, right? That's like the human hopeful thing. You'd like to believe that love for something couldn't be severed. That's the hopeful message that kind of is revealed in a very bizarre way. We want to believe there is a part of me you couldn't ever sever. Right.

And I like to think as a parent, that would be the thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And now it's not severed anymore because he's immediately in love with this kid. Yes. He receives that love for an instant and everything changes. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's what's interesting for the actors throughout the show is that they're always...

able to be asking those questions about what is coming through, what isn't coming through for every scene. Yeah, I mean, the show's about so much, but it's about identity. It's like all these things we think are intrinsic to us, but really how much of us is this memory we have of the things we've done? And we'd like to believe there's some intrinsic quality to us that couldn't be severed

And I don't know, that's always on the table with the show. Yeah. Yeah. And there is a moment for each of the four characters in MDR where everything changes once they get a taste of or a feeling for an experience, love of some sort. Each one of them, it causes them to have a shift and have a

need to get the hell out of there. Yeah. We get two doses of it because Irving also shows a side of himself we would have never thought was in him through love as well. Yeah. Which at first was down there with him. So everything's a-okay and then it's taken away. You know what it made me think of? I know we're jumping ahead, but I remember listening to this great New York Times podcast, Rabbit Hole, and it tracked people. Do you hear that? Yeah.

It had their YouTube history and it could show where they started and where they ended. And a lot of these people started with pretty benign people they were following. And then there's this trajectory and it involves Jordan Peterson and Sam Harrison. And these people ultimately end up getting, you know, very fundamentalist. Well, most of them white nationalists. That's where radicalized and it leads to there. But they're interviewing one woman about leaving QAnon and

They were talking about for her when one belief butts up against another belief, that's just a little bit more powerful. So for her, it was she was an atheist. She started in Occupy Wall Street. So QAnon felt right. And it felt right until all of a sudden there was biblical scripture being put out by QAnon. And her atheism was stronger than the QAnonism. And it broke it.

And so for Irving, it's like it finally butted up against one thing truer and more powerful than his belief in cure. Yeah. OK, we are going to take a quick break and we'll be back to talk about the melon party. Business taxes was stressing about all the time and all the money you spent on your taxes. This is my bill.

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Before, Dax, you were talking about how Irving's feelings of love kind of overtake anything else in him. And I think, you know, that's for this moment when he comes to see the O&D retirement party for Burt is when he really, I think, you know, we've been seeing him sort of

slowly become more and more affected and getting to this point. But when he sees that Bert is just going to be basically sent off into the sunset, you know, it really triggers something for him. And in terms of Chris Walken and Totoro, you talked about that relationship being something that really kind of gives you some respite from the

you know, the starkness of the show. I love this scene because it's so much about the pain of a person you wouldn't think was necessarily someone who could fall in love at this point in his life in this environment and an unlikely couple. But really, it's a very human thing. No one would ever predict we would hear Irving say, you smug motherfucker. You're like, oh, Irving knows that word? I didn't think he did. Yeah.

I also believed this relationship more. And I said this to you the first time we watched it between Irving and Burt more than I have believed many a relationship I have ever seen on television. The only comparable chemistry to theirs is you and Adam Brody. Yeah, that's right. Two high watermarks for chemistry. In the great Netflix show, nobody wants this. That's right.

But the Chris Walken and Totoro relationship is based in their actual relationship in life in terms of their friendship. And they enjoy working together. And Chris was Totoro's idea to play Bert. I was going to say that the show is so brilliantly written. We don't need to applaud it anymore. But I'll say that I guarantee if you were to just read any of the scenes with them in there, none of what you're feeling is in text. Right.

Those scenes aren't particularly mind-blowing in what the exchanges are. It's what they're doing around the words. It's all acting. Yeah. It's incredible. Those guys are unbelievable. And you can just – when you're just around them, even if they're not working in a scene, just them as guys, you can just feel the affection they have for each other. Yeah. Well, Irving saying you smug motherfucker, to me that's such a also classic –

John Turturro line for some reason. It just like, I just think, you know, I'm into like, you know, Barton Fink and Miller's Crossing and, you know. Some people can swear at an Olympic level and he's always been one of them. Yeah, yeah. Let's take a look at that scene. You're all just gonna stand here and let him die? Let him what? Are we being punished for defying the guidance of the founder? Bert's Audi is retiring.

It'll happen to you too someday. You smug motherfucker. You're not severed. You walk out of here with your memories. You carry them home with you every night. No one can rip them away from you. Snuff them out like they never existed. Like you never existed. That's enough. You will go back to MDR. Mr. Milchick, please. It'd be so wonderful to have him here. Don't say anything more.

You can stay for Burt's party and support his transition, but only if you behave in a manner that brings no shame upon yourself, the founder, or his progeny. I don't know what's gotten into you people today.

It's crazy how good it is just the audio. But you know what that made me think just listening to the audio and John is a fan of his. There's a little bit of Burt Lancaster in there. I don't know if you've ever seen Sweet Smell of Success, which is one of my favorite movies, but he's just got his cadence a little bit. It's just something in there that reminds me of that. Yeah.

Can I just say one thing about the scene prior to that explosion by Irving? We see the video that Burt's Audi has made, correct? Just before Irving's explosion? Yeah. This is kind of strange, but a lot of things about this job are. You all know that better than me, I'm guessing. And of course, I don't really know any of you, but the man standing there with you now does. He's worked with you for nearly seven years and

I hope they've been good years. I don't know what they've been like or what exactly I or he has been doing with you, but I do know how I feel every day when I come from being with you. I come home feeling tired but fulfilled. I feel satisfied. I must like you very much. And though today is my last day with you, I'm certain you will remain with me in spirit in some deep yet completely unaccessible place.

And here's another moment where you're just riding this line. There's so much comedy. He's on the verge of saying, I don't know any of you guys one too many times. It's the perfect amount of him pointing out. He has no idea who he's talking to. I mean, he's talking to imaginary people. I love that you pick that out because it's one of my favorite Chris Walken moments in the show. And I love that you pick that out.

And for a couple of reasons, one, because it's so fun. His timing is just brilliant in the way he reads that. Yeah. Even though I don't know any of it at all. It's like it keeps vacillating between really sincere and then pointing out the obvious that I have no fucking clue who I'm talking to. And I remember, you know, when we shot that, it was also just one of these experiences I'm sure you've had with actors who you're a fan of and, you know, maybe idolize, look up to, like,

Like Christopher Walken came in the morning we did that and he just had that monologue down. First take, boom, had it. We did it like maybe like, I don't know, like maybe four times, but like he had it from the first one. And I was just, I was, I literally like had this moment where I was like,

"Oh, this is the best thing in the world, to have Christopher Walken reading these lines, and he's such a pro. At this point in his career, the guy comes in totally prepared and nails it." I was so happy. I was just like, "This is the reason we do this."

He just keeps negating himself. I don't know the exact words, but he's like, you've been so nice. And it's been such, although I don't know any of you. Well, he kills it in the end because he says, I have no recollection of actually ever meeting you or no idea of your names or any of your physical characteristics or even how many of them there are.

Of you there are. Anyway. That is the cherry on top. Or even how many of you there are. It's useless, but here we are. But then he says, at the very end, he says, and Bert, I see you. Congratulations. To himself. But he also points to the wrong way on the monitor. Yes, oh, I loved that. That's great. He points to Mila Csikszentmihalyi.

It's kind of reminiscent of his watch up the ass scene in a sense. Because it's like this weird mix of sincerity. Yes, yeah. Yeah.

One of the great film monologues. It's also the first time it's kind of introduced in the show that when someone leaves the job for any reason, they're effectively dead. For all intents and purposes down here, they are dead and buried. Yeah. It's like the ultimate Munchausen where it's like they've convinced them to celebrate this. Yeah. But they won't experience it. They're gone. Yeah.

All right. So let's check in with a cobell Selvig up at the, up at the house. And she's been at Devin's house as Mrs. Selvig in her, uh, hand that rocks the cradle mode where she shows up.

As the lactation consultant, which I just love everything Patricia does in this little sequence, how insane she is. And I would be mad at myself if I didn't say in public, we're just coming off of Dannemora. The fucking delta between those two performances is so huge. She is such a queen. God fucking bless Patricia Arquette.

My God. One of my favorite moments of the whole show is when she's doing the lactation example. And I do like this, a soft breeze. And then she's doing it so sincerely and seriously. And then this smile comes over her face and she takes the rubber baby and flings it to the side. Essentially looking like she's broken its neck. No, you try. No.

And there's this huge smile on her face, but she's whipping the baby with such a level of violence. Now's a great time to introduce that. In addition to going to two when we watch things, Kristen is an incredible mimic. Yeah, I absolutely exactly like her. World-class mimic.

And there's always a character in a show that she latches on to. And so I hear Patricia Arquette's dialogue twice every single time. She says a line, then Kristen next to me in bed says it. Yeah, it's a tick. It's really. Oh, Mark, your inefficiency and free-range chicken roaming is ultimately your responsibility. Oh, my God. I mean, she, her. That's so great. She's mine, guys. That's so great. Her, oh, Mark. Her oh marks are insane.

I live for them. And when she sees him outside, by the way, the scene between the two of you outside in the snow where you, you know, she says, hey, let's have some lavender tea later. And you're like, I'm just going to see how the day develops. And she says, Jack Frost needs a new dandruff shampoo. Yes.

That, I was trying to remember where that joke came from. It's so ridiculous. It was either an improv or a pitch in the moment, I think. I think I remember you coming up with it then and then Patricia. But she came up with when in the episode where she says, open or close when you're leaving and she says both.

Yeah. That was her improv. I mean, she's just brilliant. That's an amazing impression. Yeah. It's only one of a thousand she can do. No, but we go around our house saying, Mark, Mark, everywhere. Oh, Mark. Oh, Mark. And...

And this story she's telling when we kind of come into this scene with she and Jen is so insane. Oh, yeah. And when she's talking about aiming her boob like an angry fire hose. It's insane unless it's happened to you. I found it very on the nose. I've expressed in a public bathroom.

Into the toilet paper. Yeah. But yes, absolutely. You have to. Well, it's like you guys, it's a faucet. There's a reality and a practicality to it. It is a faucet. And if you don't let it out, your skin will pop. So can I pitch something to everybody to lighten the load on Patty's plate, which has got to be immense. Let's have Kristen do all of her ADR. That's a good idea. I love that.

I'm sure Patricia would love it. That's my favorite place is that ADR booth. I feel like Cobell might have some relatives or something. I don't know. Time travel element? Watch this. Oh, that would be great. All right. Yeah. And anyway, and then she also has in that scene where she's basically, you know, Devin's telling her about, you know, meeting the state senator. And then Patricia's like, oh, wow. Yeah.

What does she say? She's so crazy. Should we play the scene? Why? We have Kristen right here. What a snoot. That was it. What a snoot. Wait, can you read the Clark Gable line? Oh, yeah. Well, I don't think I'd remember even Clark Gable if I'd just given birth. So...

That's wild. This is like the dance scene. This is like Milchak's dance scene. You had no idea this was coming your way. Severed. Why do you think Mark did it?

It's so good. It's like the combination of your impression and it's one of my favorite scenes that Patricia does. It's just perfect. And Clark Gable is such a weird... It's such a... What a reference. Jack Frost's dandruff and Clark Gable? Like, who the fuck? Where are we pulling these things? What's your zeitgeist? It's so weird. Jack Frost...

But Dander, though, to me, this is the first time we've seen her. She's lost. She's losing control. Yeah. I don't think she makes the Jack Frost, Dander joke any other time, but she's like she's losing control. Yes, for sure. That is correct. That's a desperate joke she's making. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So back at Mark's house, Mark is pretty drunk. And, you know, again, I just want to say Adam –

You never have tried to make Audi Mark someone that the audience is endeared to. You just play him as a real human being, and I feel like that's so important. I mean that in a good way. The audience cares about you because they see a real person, but Mark is not in a good place here. And actually, this is probably one of the toughest scenes, I think, to feel for your character because when Alexa shows up,

To get her phone, right? Yeah. You're a real... He's being gross. You're awful to her. It's very uncomfortable. That scene is very uncomfortable. You do drunk really, really well. You do. It's so hard to do drunk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, people get... Sometimes people get real happy when they're feeling the exact opposite. The drink kind of provides that feeling.

I remember in acting school, there was a teacher that told me to play drunk. All you have to do is pretend you're balancing a bowl of water on your head. And that's not what I do. That also sounds harder to me to do. Me too. To imagine than being drunk, which I've done 10 million times. Oh, I like that practical trip. I was doing it right now. I don't know how to use that. Imagine a thing you've never, ever done to access the thing you did last night. Exactly. That's fucking nuts. If I can call out that acting teacher. Yeah.

Anyway, so, so she, it's pretty, it's, it's really hard to watch really. Cause it's your, and you do this awful thing where you pull out a picture of Gemma and you tear it up in front of her. Yeah. Uh, and, uh,

Even in rewatching that I was, you know, taken by like, we also put that picture like right in front of the audience. And I remember just having to trust that it would be out of focus and people wouldn't be able to see. And, uh, and then you, you know, and then you immediately feel awful about what you did and, uh, come back in and start to tape it back together.

Yeah. And you chose I'll Be Seeing You by Billie Holiday for this sequence for him taping the pieces back together. And that's because you own a piece of that library, right? Exactly. That's how I make all of my musical choices. Sure, sure. It's just whatever's going to bring in the green for old Ben. My grandfather produced that track. Yeah.

But, yeah, Adam, you just are so good in that scene where you're putting that picture together. I love how the scene looks to Jessica Lee Garnier, a cinematographer, did a great job, which is very kind of stark and...

When we're making the show, we don't really have anybody to show it to when we're in that bubble of making the show. So the only people I showed it to was my kids and Christine. Yeah. And I remember showing them the rough cut of that episode as we were in process, you know, and them going like, "Whoa!" And then having that reaction. That was the first time I saw anybody react to that, you know, twist.

I felt, okay, well, maybe this is going to be something people, you know, respond to. But it's also like, you know, when you do make a choice like that, I also am so, I always think like, are people going to go along with this too? Right. We did. We absolutely did. We were shook. You're also coming off of one of the most uncomfortable scenes because you're, the smile on your face when you think that ripping up this picture in front of her is going to land and just her grounded reality of,

ultimately kind of like sad pity and a little bit of disgust is so hard to watch because you have a smile on your face when you're ripping it and it's like, oh my God, he's ripping a picture of his dead wife in front of this new girl. Oh my God, this is so uncomfortable. And then you take, you guys really take your sweet ass time when you tape that picture together, waiting, waiting, waiting. So you almost don't know what to feel, which I loved because there's no...

There's always a sort of tip of the hat you can get from the director of like, I know here's the music is swelling now. You're about to feel this or, you know. And when you're taping that picture, there's just kind of this pause of watching it and going like, is something going to happen or am I just going to watch it? There's a nothingness there.

which I think actually it packed when we first watched it a huge punch because you didn't know that you were going to see the picture. Directorially, it wasn't teed up. Like, we're about to reveal the long-asked question, who was Gemma at all? Oh, it's not like you showed it three times in an insert with Adam's finger over it. It was blurry. It was just there. If you had ended the episode...

on Adam taping it together, looking at it and crying, I still would have thought that was a decent ending. But the fact that you gave us that twist, I think makes it worth it. Well, it has a really implicit motor to it, which is just...

Of course, he's going to tape a picture back together of his dead wife. Like you have a red herring or something, you know, like you're certain you already understand what this is about. So you're not your radar is not up for that moment. Yes, that's what it was. But we did miss a moment to go to two. That could have been the only moment we would have gone to two on Severance. Taping of the picture. Yeah.

Mike, can you go to two? Yeah, on two. Yeah, the mag just ran out. So they're bringing a new mag in. I didn't think this was going to go on for 12 minutes of shot. I don't think anyone in camera knew. Right, right. Can you let me talk to props real quick? Because last they said we had one roll of scotch left. One roll of scotch tape. And if he uses this roll. Well, what's the reset? I need to know what the reset is because they're bringing a new mag in right now. It's 145 in the morning. So the Duane Reade is closed. But listen, we have, what we have is double-sided tape.

Can we make that work? I'll ask Ben, but there's no way Ben's going for double-sided on this. Can I pitch you? Can I get you here for one more pitch? Yeah. We got a ton of gaff tape, all different colors. Is there a way? He might buy that. Okay. We'll just put the mag on and then I'll talk to Ben about the gaff tape. Thank you so much. I'm pretty sure it was 145 in the morning, by the way. I'm hiring a new AD team. Oh, we're on. Nothing gets by us. Nothing. Nothing.

Oh, my God. But also the voiceover is this listing of stuff about his wife, almost like from the point of view of, it's like something Ms. Casey would read off about his wife. Oh, yeah. What does he say? She would sneeze twice. Yeah, she would sneeze twice. Should we play that clip? Yeah, let's play that. Let's play that. I'll be seeing you. My wife was allergic to nutmeg. Nutmeg.

And when she sneezed, she always sneezed twice. My wife liked other people's dogs. My wife thought cardigans looked ridiculous. I loved all these things about her. Equally.

Also, the resonance of equally. Yeah. When you've severed something because you're trying to get rid of the bad because everything in life is both. Right. Yeah. It's happiness and sadness. It's all the things. And you like them equally. Yeah. All right. Well, I think that's it. I don't know if it's arable.

Oh, you know, we should play these voice messages you guys sent. Oh, we really can hear them? Seriously? Oh, yeah. I would kind of love to see this. Oh, my God. I believe this is the first one, I think. All right, you son of a bitch. You wanted the compliments? Well, here comes the fucking complaints. Belle and I just sat here.

on the edge of our seat waiting to find out what happens when you guys come to you fucking prick piece of shit prick and that goes for Ben too losers oh buddy are we fucking pissed that this episode just ended so you wanted the fucking cake and now you gotta take the rat poison too you piece of shit

Okay, here's another one. Oh my goodness. Quick update. You'd probably find funny. My wife just ran through a plate glass window off the second story of our home and was rushed to the hospital. You probably want to know if she's still alive. I will tell you next week. Okay. That's my favorite one. That really brings home the pain of the cliffhanger. That's right. Yeah. Here's another one.

If you're listening to this message and you're not on set, phew. That was like a hurry up and make the second season type. You got to play your response though where you had us over a barrel. That's a really good one. All right. Dax, just in response to your unbelievably ridiculous and insulting audio message, not only am I not filming right now, I'm sitting here

In a jacuzzi, relaxing. So, so far, so far away from even being close to filming. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, again, eat shit. Adam's go-to is always eat shit, which you really nailed. But there's a great one when you digest, yeah. Having us over a barrel, yeah.

Ben, do you want to give us your phone number? Would you like to be included in these? Do you want to be in on this? I so want in on this. I want in on this relationship. We send a lot of voice memos from bed at night. And it usually comes from us watching someone on TV that we know. And we'll be like, wait, let's tell them. Yeah, we're like, oh my God, we know these people. We can tell them we love this. I want it. Yes, you're getting my number. This is so good. This might be. Okay, this is Adam's response.

So I'm here in New York working on the show and it'll be ready when it's ready. Okay? I heard your message on February 25th. I listened to it. And then I brought it in. I played it for Ben. We listened to it together. And you know what we decided to do? We decided to slow the fuck down. That's right. We're going to take it real easy.

So you're just gonna have to wait a little bit longer. You fucking assholes. Eat shit. Secondly, how dare you? How dare you conduct a perfect interview with David Letterman? God damn you to hell. I'm going to listen to it several more times. Fuck off. Where did you... Alright. Alright.

I think that when season two starts airing, we have to continue this tradition. Without question. Oh, it's going to happen from us. It's just whether or not you're going to want to play still. Oh, I will. I will. Cannot thank you guys enough for coming all the way over here. And it makes such a difference that you're here. It's so...

Fantastic. So thank you. Honestly, we're flattered to have been invited. Sincerely. You guys are awesome. This was so much fun. So fun. We like liking things and we really like severance. And the detail that you guys are thinking of, it's just so smart and just lovely. So thank you. Yeah. And now I'm going to

be saying go to two to people and they won't know what I mean. I know. That's such a good bit. That's why you can only marry someone else who's been on set for 20 years. Yes. Because what else would you talk about? Yes.

And that brings us to the end of Episode 7 of the Severance Podcast with Ben and Adam, Defiant Jazz. Next up is Episode 8, What's for Dinner? Stream all episodes of Season 1 on Apple TV Plus right now. And Season 2 premieres on January 17th. Eat shit.

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 Finkel, Henry Malofsky, Jenna Weiss-Berman, and Leah Reese-Dennis. The show is produced by Zandra Ellen and Naomi Scott. This episode was mixed and mastered by Chris Basil.

We have additional engineering from Javi Crucis and Davy Sumner. Show clips are courtesy of Fifth Season. Music by Theodore Shapiro. Special thanks to the team at Odyssey.

and Hilary Schuff. And the team at Red Hour, John Lesher, Carolina Pesikov, Jean Pablo Antonetti, Martin Valderudin, Ashwin Ramesh, Maria Noto, John Baker, and Oliver Ager. And at Great Scott, Kevin Cotter, Josh Martin, and Christy Smith at Rise Management. We also had additional production help from Gabrielle Lewis, Ben Goldberg, Stephen Key, Kristen Torres, Emmanuel Hapsis, Marie Alexa Cavanaugh, and Melissa Slaughter. 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 lives.

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 work faster. In fact, with Confluence, teams can see a 5.2% average boost in productivity in one year. So that would equal out, like if we're playing with like, let's just say 100%, 5.2 of those percentage points. Yeah. 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. So 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 slash Confluence. That's A-T-L-A-S-S-I-A-N dot com slash C-O-N-F-L-U-E-N-C-E.