"Name any US state or territory."
In the first episode, Mark reads a newly severed Helly the list of 5 questions from the Lumon's Training Manual survey:
- Who are you?
- In which U.S. state or territory were you born?
- Name any U.S. state or territory.
- What is Mr. Eagan’s favorite breakfast?
- To the best of your memory, what is or was the color of your mother’s eyes?
Now, in S2E02, we hear the previously-laid-off-then-rehired-then-laid-off-again older employee mention he just bought a place in "Grand Rapids"...this struck me as strange, because I had remembered us only dealing with fictional states and regions!
My beloved partner, however, reminded me we'd heard of "Ohio." Delaware. In fact, it was Helly's answer to "name any U.S. state or territory."
In fact, the Training Manual lists the acceptable answers as follows:
All very normal, right?
Well, until you notice what's NOT on there...
The state on Irving's mail...PE.
I've noticed some folks drawing parallels of the names of the files to Civil War battles, implying maybe Severance exists in an alternate reality where the Confederacy won.
But what if something different happened? What if part of the country seceded, or...severed?