”The Good News About Hell,” S1/E1
“All forms of tampering with human beings, getting at them, shaping them against their will to your own pattern, all thought control and conditioning is, therefore, a denial of that in men which makes them men and their values ultimate.” Isiah Berlin
Irv tells Mark not to be sad. He says it while sipping water out of a paper cone in a sound proof room of green styrofoam squares. Irv’s grey hair makes us overlook the fact that all the severed employees are emotional children. They are dropped on this floor without experience of the world. They haven’t lived the painful but necessary childhood rituals of losing family pets and seeing close friends move away. They haven’t attached to grandparents and lost them.
Irv says not to be sad, because he knows Mark has just lost his best friend. He’s a naturally compassionate person, this is not a learned persona. But Mark is stuck in between the devastating news of losing Petey, the only one who got his humor, according to Irv, and being born again himself, this time in the guise of Lumen management.
He’s cramming the manual that will walk him through the orientation process and is clearly confused about it. He asks if he really should begin with the survey, noting that it’s a little weird. Mr. Milchick, who is under the table attaching a cable to a monitor (it’s remarkable how often this man has to attach various cables) pipes in that it’s standard, just start with 1A. Except this is only a half answer and partially wrong. Mark is not supposed to start with the questionnaire as he asked, he is supposed to read a preamble first. So Milchick has now screwed Mark twice in one morning.
Mark asks if he could just talk to Helly, which is clearly the wrong answer. Milchick answers that she is entitled to have the information presented to her in the proper order. Milchick leaves, offering the creepy opinion before closing the door that “I just love seeing you all come in like this.”
So the monitor comes on and Irv says “she looks nice.” Mark proceeds, asking twice “who are you?” Irv at this point realizes the mistake and points out that Mark skipped the preamble, leading him to panic. He skips back to the front of the binder and says to Helly “I’m sorry,I got ahead of myself,” before continuing with the “hello, you there on the table …” introduction.
We now get to see Helly’s attempted entry into the control room from Mark and Irv’s point of view. Mark is spending some of this time flipping through the manual for answers to what is happening. Irv at one point seems panicked that she’ll break into the room. They cut away to Ms. Cobel and Milchick, with him asking if he should intervene, and she replies “you should not.” Given what will develop in the episodes ahead, you have to wonder if Cobel is taking some sadistic joy in Helly’s suffering.
The scene then jumps ahead to the post-survey scene, with Mark entering the room telling Helly that she had a perfect score. Mark apologizes for skipping the preamble and causing confusion. But then Helly responds with a brilliant question: “Am I livestock?” Given all that we will see in future episodes about goats, it’s a prescient thought.
”Did you grow me as food and that’s why I have no memories,” Helly asks. It’s an interesting philosophical question that raises so many more questions about the severance procedure, such as, if someone has no memories, how can they have knowledge that is obtained through education and culture? Without rudimentary knowledge, how could they do their jobs? And how could she even ask questions about things like livestock — or know what a memory is — if she was literally born as an adult with no memories on the board room table?
To date, the show has not answered these questions and perhaps they are meant to be left to the realm of our suspension of disbelief. But Helly raises them right at the start, so it’s fair for the audience to question as well.
Mark makes light of this question, pointing out that this would mean growing a full human, giving it consciousness, “doing your nails …” The last part is funny, and Helly will build on the thought later when she attacks the way her outie dresses her like a doll.
She asks her name and Mark tells her that is it is Helly, or more accurately, Helly R. He asks her to sit down and she does, across the table from him. Mark seems to have earned a bit of her trust by talking to her like a human, not an HR rep. But now he goes back to the binder and starts reading from it again. He reads one line as a joke … noting her disorientation and saying the good news is that she’s at an orientation. It falls flat. He says she has been hired to the severed floor of Lumon Industries. She says “the what floor?”
This again throws Mark for a loop and he searches in the manual for what to say next. The closest analogue he can find is a section noting her confusion about the severance procedure. This leads him to read something about the work-life balance and some condescending analogy about a seesaw. This leads Helly to grab the speaker from the table and hurl it at Mark’s head.
She makes a dash for the door, which Mark notes “locks from out there,” and then demands to be let out. He starts to speak as a human to her again, asking her to take a beat, which convinces her to sit down again. He stops reading from the manual and talks. He says that he’s Mark and a few year ago he woke up on the same table and a disembodied voice asked him 19 times who he was. Perhaps because this memory was so strongly etched in his mind, he felt it was the right way to start her orientation.
He noted that he told the voice that he was going to find him and kill him. Helly asked if he did kill him — leading Mark to tell her that, no, that voice belonged to Petey, who became his best friend. He then says “there’s a life to be had here.” She clearly hates this line — “a life to be had?” Mark tries to use the manual again as a crutch and starts the seesaw analogy again, leading Helly to try to take it away from him. They struggle for it, but Mark takes it away.
”Let me the fuck out of here,” Helly says. We see Ms. Cobel and then Irv watching intently on monitors. But now Mark gives his most risky line — telling Helly to ask him again. Irv and Mark had earlier gone over the fact that she would need to ask three times to be let out before Lumon would offer to set her free. Mark is cheating, somewhat, by telling her the way out. She says “Mark, I would like to leave the building now.”
Mark goes to the manual to tell her that he understands that she would like to leave and, while disappointed, “I’d hate to keep you somewhere you’re not happy. So let’s get you outta here.” He knocks on the door for Irv and they enter the white hallway.