Severance Recap: Unsanctioned Romantic Entanglement

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There are reasons people are afraid of the dentist; all of those pokey instruments going into soft, sensitive places. A cache of dental tools could definitely be used to clean someone’s teeth. Then again, it could also be used for torture. At the top of this episode, we’re treated to an entertaining Tarantino-esque moment in which a worker strolls up a hallway to retrieve medical tools as he casually whistles the melody to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” by Gordon Lightfoot. We don’t see his face, but he approaches a skittish Felicia and her co-worker in O&D, retrieves his sharp objects, then heads down the elevator.

After the emotionally charged events of “Woe’s Hollow,” “Trojan’s Horse” marks the halfway point of the season by returning us to the halls of Lumon and delivering a piece-moving episode that includes a lot of exposition and setup for potential payoffs later in the season. (Think: the elevator teaser. We’re going to see where that elevator goes by the finale, right? Right?!)

The high watermark of this episode is that we got our girl Helly back. And as soon as Britt Lower engages her trademark Helly walk, that loping, barreling, self-protective stride that carries her through the hallways, it’s wild to think that we (or the refiners) could ever have been tricked into conflating Helena with Helly. But here we are.

By the by, I have to point out that I was completely remiss in not actively praising Lower’s embodiment of Helena Eagan in the previous episode. The highest praise I can give is that her performance was so excellent that it transcended my recap brain; I think I actually believed I was watching Helena Eagan, even though I know in my logical mind that it was a performance. Lower has succeeded in creating two very distinct characters, one I truly dislike (Helena) and one I adore (Helly), and her dual performance (triple, if you include her Helena-as-Helly disguise) is one for the ages. Let’s give her an Emmy, too. Okay. Back to work.

Milchick calls all the refiners to his office and tries to explain away Helena’s discretion by telling the story of the Gråkappan, basically the OG Undercover Boss. But I’m guessing that Charles XI didn’t sexually assault his constituents under the guise of being a farmer or whatever. Helly doesn’t care about the story either way. After learning about the insane list of everything that’s happened since the OTC, she’s reeling, and literally no one is there for her. It’s heartbreaking to watch her flail by herself as Milchick gets busy cleaning up the mess he (and Helena) made, Dylan mourns the loss of Irving’s Innie, and Mark quickly shifts into asshole mode.

Mark S. immediately decides to bury himself in his work as a result of all the chaos, much like how he submitted to the severance process when Gemma died. Instead of facing things head-on, he chooses to ignore and repress. Maybe it’s a maladaptive coping skill that transcends severance; maybe it’s reintegration. Obviously, this is exactly what the higher-ups at Lumon want him to do — he’s 19 percent away from completing the much-lauded Cold Harbor file — and, at least for now, they get their wish.

Let’s talk about the Cold Harbor file because it is explicitly mentioned by Mr. Drummond not once but twice in this episode. (He also literally says “the work is mysterious and important.” Cue the pointing Leo DiCaprio meme.) It is so vital to the company, nay, humanity as a whole, that Drummond and Natalie insist that Helena return to work as Helly. Helena makes some excellent points about the Innies trying to murder her on multiple occasions, but no one cares, especially not her father, who might actually beat Logan Roy for the worst 21st-century dad on TV. Later, during Milchick’s first performance review, Drummond brings it up again, saying, “Mark Scout’s completion of Cold Harbor will be remembered as one of the greatest moments in the history of this planet.”

Okay then. Severance theorists have been guessing that Lumon is working on severance chips to somehow provide everlasting life to the Eagan family, and it would make sense that the Lumon higher-ups would think of this as one of the “greatest moments in the history of the planet.” To me, a cult-y, biotech conglomerate holding the keys to immortality sounds like the most horrifying moment in history. Maybe this isn’t what Cold Harbor is all about, but Lumon is undeniably evil, and we can be sure that whatever it’s doing is definitely not for the betterment of the planet as a whole.

Drummond immediately adds a caveat to his bold statement to Milchick, stating, “Do you remember the severed workers’ greater purpose? Treat them as they really are.” Thanks to Helena’s video to Helly last season — and her assertion this week that they are animals, not to mention Miss Huang’s reminder to Milchick that they are not people — we know that Lumon doesn’t believe that the Innies are really humans. So, what are they? Slaves? Fatted calves for eventual psychic sacrificial slaughter? The idea of everyone clamoring to get a severance chip, only to damn a part of themselves to an eternal life of suffering, is incredibly bleak.

You know what else is bleak? Finding out that fucking Ricken Hale is a sellout. He’s let Lumon get their hands on The You You Are and now page 197 slaps no more. Instead of the trite yet undeniably thrilling call to action, “My friends, the hour is yours,” the passage that Mark S. read to rouse his colleagues before they triggered the OTC now reads “… you get to enjoy [the clock’s] ticking, and thus should be happy.” Yuck. Ricken is okay with this because he’s poised to make a boatload of money, but Devon is becoming increasingly suspicious of Lumon’s evil ways and she wants nothing to do with it. She’s also concerned about her asshole brother who straight up lies to her when she calls to check in on him. Devon is too pure for this world, and we must protect her at all costs.

Mark is actually kind of an asshole in both the Innie and Outie worlds this week, lying to Devon and lashing out at poor Helly, and that’s a bummer. Perhaps his hard exterior is rubbing off on his Innie, thanks to the reintegration process? Booooo. I know that he needs to reintegrate in order to learn the truth, but Innie Mark is so innocent and sweet, and it’s sad to think that we might be losing him as the two selves meet. As for reintegration in general, we get a glimpse of mountains of pills, and these awful vials of jizzy-looking goo that Mark must consume to avoid his brain breaking like Petey’s did. The goo vials feature prominently in Oliver Latta’s new credit sequence, with Mark knocking over a bottle as his head inflates out of control. Foreshadowing? Maybe. Oh! And Reghabi is living in his basement now. There’s no way that arrangement will backfire on them when Cobel has a key to his house, right? (This is rhetorical. Of course it will.)

Throughout the episode, we see that Innie Mark isn’t feeling so hot. Emotionally, he’s overwhelmed by the events from the ORTBO, deciding whether or not to trust Helly is making his mind spin, and he can’t even begin to contemplate the loss of his oldest friend, Irving. Also, he’s getting severe headaches and coughing like a small Victorian child with the plague. Mark S. has probably experienced physical aftereffects of Mark Scout’s hangovers — both of the alcohol and grief varieties — before, but these headaches are cutting through like gangbusters because the reintegration process is working.

It’s worth mentioning that the remembering that’s essential to the reintegration process feels similar to the process of unearthing repressed traumas … and both Mark S. and Mark Scout have loads of unprocessed trauma. Reghabi is encouraging these memories to come to the forefront, and while she’s giving him tons of meds and mystery goo, she’s not working with him to effectively heal from his experiences. Mark is resistant to any sort of inward reflection, so I get it, but I’m worried to see what happens to him when he’s flooded with painful memories that he’s unable to navigate in a measured way.

Much like the conclusion of the third episode, Mark’s memories start to join together just as the hour ends. It’s another cliffhanger situation that culminates in Mark Scout finally seeing Gemma inside of Lumon. As Mark walks through the halls of his home, he hallucinates that he’s coming out of the Break Room on the severed floor. He walks down the dark hallway, hearing Gemma’s voice recite facts about his Outie (a.k.a. him). As he walks out into the bright white corridor, he turns and sees her. As his shock takes hold, she begins to tell him a fact about his Outie in the future tense (!), saying, “Your Outie is going to …” but the vision warbles and breaks. The episode ends with Mark, his eyes teary, his mind spinning, trying to make sense of seeing his lost love resurrected.

Interestingly enough, Burt and Irv also pull the thread of lost love in this episode, but it’s far less dark and depressing than the Mark and Gemma story line. Last week, I said I knew we weren’t done with Irv, and I’m so glad he’s back already. We don’t see Innie Irv, but I still have hope for him. This week, his Innie gets a bizarre funeral and his Outie reunites with Burt. There’s lots of love for both versions of Irving in this episode, and I’m here for all of it.

After the Innies learn that Irving B. is gone for good, Dylan demands a funeral, and Helly agrees (how I missed her rebellious energy!), chiming in that she wants one too. Mark is ambivalent, so the funeral proceeds with a glorious melon bar featuring an Irving head carved out of Malaysia watermelon. Dylan gives an adorable, expletive-laden eulogy, then everyone mingles for a bit. Dylan gets agitated that Mark isn’t more mournful and blows up his spot by telling Helly about the situation with Ms. Casey. Mark bolts, and Helly runs after him, leaving Dylan to wander the break room alone. He spies the “Hang in There” poster — which, in a very funny twist, features Dylan holding the two switches open during the OTC — and sticks his hand behind it, finding Irv’s drawing of the elevator with directions written on the back. For some perplexing reason, he puts it back where he found it, but we all know the Innies are finding that elevator by the end of the season. (Please, dear Kier, let them find the elevator by the end of the season.)

Meanwhile, Outie Irving updates his contact via the mysterious pay phone. He says, “It’s me again. So, they fired me. I think they knew what my Innie was up to.” Irv then spies a car stalking him, and it’s Burt! I just can’t with these two. Even though these two Outies have never met, they seem to have the same spiritual connection and easy rapport that their Innies did. Burt shares with Irving that his Innie had been fired from Lumon for an “unsanctioned romantic entanglement,” then Irv showed up, pounding on his door, and kind of mucked things up with his hubby, Felix, in the process. The men put two and two together, deciding that they must have been involved somehow on the severed floor. Burt invites Irving over the following evening, and Irving graciously accepts. At least now Irving finally has his answer to the question, “What’s for dinner?” It’s ham.

It’s time for my staggered exit, so I’m going to go grab the elevator. Until next time …

Severed Sentiments

• Ricken mentions his revised version of The You You Are being a “Trojan’s horse” into Lumon, but I think that Mark, in all his reintegration glory, is the actual Trojan horse being referenced in the title.

• Dylan says the word “fuck” no less than four times in this episode, and I love his commitment to profanity.

• As Reghabi sifts through Gemma’s things, looking for something that might help trigger more memories for Mark, the camera pauses on a unique pendant. There’s a circle with indecipherable writing on it, suspended in the center of a larger gold shape. Is this a symbolic representation of an Innie inside an Outie brain? Was Gemma somehow voluntarily involved with Lumon before she died?

• If Mark is 81 percent done with the Cold Harbor file, where was his Music-Dance Experience? Perhaps Milchick canceled them entirely after Dylan chomped him.

• Speaking of Milchick, he’s made a ton of errors, but Lumon wants to keep him on because they know what he’s capable of. Their petty gripes with his (excellent) vocabulary and paper-clip usage feel like they could have been plucked from Office Space, but Drummond’s largest issue — the calamitous ORTBO and institution of kindness policies that aren’t working — is valid. Later in the episode, Milchick shows how wrathful he can be by threatening Mark in the elevator. He says, “Does [Helly] know that you fucked her Outie at the ORTBO?” It’s sinister, and I’m so worried about my refiners.

• We get another moment where Milchick asks Natalie about the paintings. In response, she stares at him blankly like a Westworld robot, then completely changes the subject. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had said, “Doesn’t look like anything to me,” before she walked off. What’s her deal?