Lexington letter: One of the great secrets of "disconnection" was revealed without us noticing

Viewers of Apple TV's excellent suspense series, "Severance," have long wondered what the heroes of the series actually do in their work, in the macro-refining data department.

The answer was apparently revealed in an accompanying book published by Apple

Ido Yeshayahu

06/04/2022

Wednesday, 06 April 2022, 16:50

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Trailer for the "Severance" series (Apple TV Plus)

This coming Friday, the first season of "Severance" in Apple TV Plus (which has just renewed it for a second season) will come to an end.

If you have not watched the series so far, this article is not for you.

She deals in detail and spoilers with big happenings in the series.

To understand what "disconnection" is in general - one of the best and special of the year so far, despite its problems - feel free to read the spoiler-free review, watch the season and then come back.

Continuing to read is not only your responsibility, but also will not tell you much.

Throughout the first season of "Disconnect" we were left with quite a few pending questions.

One of them deals with the quality of work of the heroes, employees of the Macro-Data Refining Department.

Even though their brains are isolating themselves, literally, even so they do not know what they are actually doing.

All they know is that they need to collect collections of numbers that move in front of them on the computer screen, and file them in one of the four available folders, depending on the feeling that emerges from the particular collection they encountered.

For what?

It is not clear.

The distilleries themselves have speculated.

Dylan (Zack Cherry) for example believes that they are cleansing the sea because humanity is required to inhabit it.

Irving (John Tortoro) thinks they're censoring curses from movies.

So far we have not received an answer in the series, but it is very possible that the answer is in "The Lexington Letter", a booklet released by Apple and accompanying the series.

It is recommended to read it, it is free and not long, well written, interesting and sheds light on several elements in the series.

Either way, keep in mind that from now on there are booklet spoilers.

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There are answers.

Adam Scott, "Disconnect" (Photo: Apple TV Plus)

The framework for "Lexington Letter" is an email correspondence between Daria Thorne, a reporter for the local TV station Topica Star, and her editor Jim M.

Daria from France received a letter from a 54-year-old woman named Peg Kincaid, describing how she made a change of occupation from a child transport worker to a detached worker at the local Lomon branch.

The pay was four times what she had earned in the past, and she did not even have to know, or experience, what she had done at work.

One day when Peg got on the elevator at the end of the day, she felt something in her pocket.

It had a secret written message that she and her sister would use as children - instead of letters there are drawings.

A is a seahorse, B is lightning and so on.

That's why the technology that allows the "Lomon" scanner to read letters has not deciphered this secret.

Somehow this secret language, which the girls called "Faglish," gradually floated in the mind of the inner Peg — which, in keeping with the diminutive and obstinate attitude of "Lomon" toward its internally detached workers, is called Peggy below, of course.

Although she was not at all sure that it had any meaning, Peggy decided to try it on her external version, which for her part had not thought about this language for decades, so it also took her some time to remember it.

Peg notes that she did not devote too much thought to her boarding school until that moment, but from that moment on, the two began to correspond regularly.

Peggy told her that she distilled macro data, just like the protagonists of the series, and like them she did not know what this numbers association was doing.

Peg, for her part, told Peggy, at her request, what it felt like to be drunk, or to sleep, or to fall in love.

Peg describes that it was like communicating with a childish version of herself, and after several weeks of correspondence, as strange as it sounded, she began to feel like she had found a new girlfriend.

"She made me see my life differently," Peg writes.

"I used to think my life was boring, or pretty routine, but Peggy thought all the little details I mentioned were fascinating, even glittering."

She continued like this for weeks, until one Friday Peg found in her pocket an excited letter from Peggy, informing her internally that earlier that day, at 2:30 p.m., she had completed the task at hand, a particularly complex and exhausting file called "Lexington."

Peggy said she devoted herself to this and managed to finish the job in a way that everyone at "Lomon", including her boss and also his own boss, were very happy with.

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What's really going on down there?

"Disconnect" (Photo: Apple TV Plus)

Later that evening Peg watched the news and saw Daria Thorne, the one for whom the email was intended, report on a truck belonging to Dorner Therapeutics, a direct competitor of Lomon, which exploded in New York earlier that day, at 2:32 p.m.

The blast claimed the lives of six people and caused extensive damage to the street.

The next day Dorner reported that some of their component had been destroyed and led to this explosion.

"It almost looks like it was industrial espionage," Peg writes.

The following week Peg tried to figure out from her internal version again what the numbers meant, and specifically the Lexington file.

Finally, she even told Peggy about the explosion and asked her to stop distilling numbers, no matter what the consequences.

"I told her that if I was right, then 'Lomon' had exploited both of us in favor of something treacherous and terrible. I told her that none of it was her fault. And that I loved her. I did not hear back."

Weeks passed without Peg hearing from her inner self, and even though she physically knew everything was fine, this silence made everything look very scary, Peg says in her letter.

She did not know what to do - resigning might have been the most plausible option, but in doing so she was in fact condemning Peggy to death.

Finally, one evening when she got on the elevator at the end of a work day, Peg felt something thick hidden in her belt.

Excited and frightened, she held back until she was completely out of the "Lomon" area, stopped her vehicle to the side and only then pulled out what it was: "a macro data distiller's orientation leaflet."

Along with it was a note in plain English:

"Dolly, the security guard, found your last note. I was in the restroom, I do not know how long," Peggy wrote, without ever explaining to Pegg what the restroom was.

"I think you're right about Lexington. Lomon is updating the code detector today but it's not working today. Hopefully this leaflet will provide you with clarity. Watch out. I love you too."

Peg spent hours reading this leaflet, which she said was written like a child, but could not get information from it.

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The circumstances of her "death" are not accidental.

"Disconnect" (Photo: Apple TV Plus)

The following week she had neither heard from Peggy nor written anything, fearing that the new detectors might decipher their secret language this time.

Peg finally surrendered and scribbled in Faglish: "Are you okay?".

She got off the incredibly cramped elevator and tried to hide it.

As always she immediately found herself rising back in the elevator - except this time she felt something tucked in her mouth.

When she looked at her watch she found that it was 9:10 - only ten minutes had passed since she entered.

When she got to her locker she spat what was in her mouth - a crumpled sheet of paper that read: "Expired, leave now. Go to a safe place. They will try to follow. Nothing they say is true. Distribute the training leaflet. The answers are there if you look. Thank you. Go for my life. You were the best part of them. I will always be with you. Peggy K. "

Peg called her supervisor and resigned on the spot, got in the car and drove out of Topika without even passing her house.

The letter to Thorne is the next step in her attempt to help all the disconnected and expose the exploits of "

Although the journalist tended to look into the matter, her editor decided to give up.

The story sounds absurd and she has another task to deal with.

Since he has a contact in Lomon, he wrote, he will check in front of him.

"Are you sure?" Daria asked, writing that she could handle both this story and what she had in addition.

Jim replied to her in an email that was too late anyway: he just got it from Caroline from the obituary department: "Margaret 'Peg' Kincaid, 54, has died following complications from a car accident."

Maybe it's better that way, Jim noted, the whole letter sounds absurd and it's not that they want to get into a "Lomon" lawsuit against them now.

The Nashville Tribune did something similar in the past, were sued and went bankrupt six months later.

He ended his letter this time with a signature: Jim Milczyk, editor, Topika Star.

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He has a brother.

Seth Milczyk, "Disconnect" (Photo: Apple TV Plus)

In the eighth episode of "Disconnect" we saw that the group managed at the last minute to meet its quarterly target - who knows what damage they caused and to whom.

Either way, if anyone had any doubt, "Lomon" is a vicious and ruthless corporation.

This booklet not only reveals with high probability that the purpose of the macro-refining data refinement department is industrial espionage, although the mechanics of the matter are still very unclear, but some other interesting things.

First, Seth Milchik, in charge of the detached floor, has a brother in Kansas, and Jim's turn to him led to Peg's death.

Second, Lomon has a history of assassinating its employees through road accidents.

It is doubtful that it was a coincidence that Gemma (Dichen Lakman), Mark's wife (Adam Scott), was also involved in a car accident in which she allegedly died, until it turned out not to be.

And finally, the training leaflet is indeed attached to the letter, and if Peggy promised that the answers were there, perhaps a dive into it would yield some additional insights as to the nature of the work and the numbers.

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• Disconnection - Severance