There are lots of unanswered questions in Severance, and one of those mysteries has just been solved: we now know the details of Mark’s Freshman Fluke.
Severance Season 2 is days away from its long-awaited premiere on Apple TV+. Fans are desperate for more information about the inner workings of Lumon – and, most of all, what exactly happened to Ms. Casey, aka Gemma.
Sorry, but we obviously don’t know the answer to that yet. However, fans have been poring over everything they can find before the second season (early episodes, podcasts, books, trailers) in a hunt for any clues.
Now, with some technical wizardry, a Severance fan has isolated the audio in one Season 1 clip and revealed a big detail about Mark’s early days with the company.
Severance audio reveals the truth behind Mark’s Freshman Fluke
When Mark S. began his career at Lumon as a macrodata refiner, his first task was the Allentown file – and he finished it in a single day. This was an unprecedented time frame, and it led to an evolution of the MDR department’s methods.
In Season 1, Helly asks Dylan about Mark’s crystal head cube. He explains that it wasn’t a prize: it was just something they gave him.
Later, Dylan tells Helly that they tend to finish one out of every five files because “they only keep so long… which is better than it used to be before Mark’s Freshman Fluke.”
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From here, the audio fades out as the shot slowly zooms in on Irving, but some crafty fans have isolated the audio so we know exactly what Dylan says to Helly.
“Before my time… don’t go getting all impressed, but I guess when Mark was first hired, he was able to knock out a file in a day. The record before that was seven weeks. They still have no idea how he did it, but they were able to reverse-engineer some new process based on whatever he did,” he says.
“Now the average file takes six weeks. Mark still has the record, which is why he has that gaudy him-head at his desk.”
As for why he was able to finish it so quickly… nobody knows, but it depends on what theory you subscribe to.
If you believe the MDR team is refining the four tempers for new innies and cleaning out their memories, there’s a possibility that Mark was given Gemma’s file first, and since they would have shared memories, he was able to finish it much quicker. Otherwise, it remains a mystery – for now.
Before it premieres on January 17, 2025, check out our Severance Season 2 review, find out exactly what time Season 2 drops, and read our breakdown of the O&D department.
