I’m bringing up the spoiler warning statement for Severance fans. Read it. Again:
I am thankful to have been warned of potential spoilers, my fall cut short by those with wizened hands. All I can be is thankful, and that is all I am.
I believe you mean it. Let’s get started!
Severance Season 2 Episode 3 ‘Who Is Alive?’ opens with a lot of cold, tense driving. Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette, True Romance) seems to be off on some sort of personal quest in her humble Volkswagen Rabbit. Later, we see her stop on the side of a snowy road once again and stare at the breathing tubes from her season one Kier shrine on the passenger seat; an isolated barn or home is framed in the distance. The implication is that we are approaching a key location from her childhood, but she ultimately turns the car around and speeds back to Lumon headquarters.
Meanwhile, Mark Scout (Adam Scott, Parks and Recreation) completes his own icy and hectic commute to Lumon. He is fixated on his wristwatch as the timer calculates the length of his walk into work. Later, we learn that he has had a change of heart about exploring the possibility that his wife is alive and well in the bowels of Lumon. In fact, he has teamed up with his sister Devon (Jen Tullock, Perry Mason) in an attempt to burn an afterimage of the message “who is alive?” onto his retinas in a desperate cry for help from his Innie. It sounds like a pretty nifty DIY strategy, but we’ll get back to that later.
As intriguing as all of this soul-searching and action hero running is, everything screeches to a halt when viewers get the most compelling evidence yet to support the all-but-proven theory that Helly R. (Britt Lower, High Maintenance) is actually an undercover Helena Eagan. This proof comes when she offers Irving B. a warm, nurturing hand in response to his hesitancy about returning to the Optics & Design (O&D) department after the departure of his true love, Burt Goodman. While Helly certainly developed a fondness for the rest of the team by the end of season one, this sort of heartfelt, nurturing gesture is not exactly in her wheelhouse. Viewers note the awkwardness of the interaction, and so does Irv. Speaking of suspicious behavior, Dylan G. (Zach Cherry, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) declines an offer to take part in the team’s adorable search for Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman, Dollhouse), using hand drawn “missing” posters. He claims he will get around to the search later, but it’s clear that the Macrodata Refinement (MDR) crew knows something is amiss.
As the team breaks off on their missions, Mark and Helly make contact with the mysterious goat department, which we learn is called the Mammalians Nurturable Department. “Careful, there’s poop.” There is also an assortment of goat skins, lesions, and deeply bloodshot eyes amongst the employees. We don’t hear much about them or their work, but it is fun to meet Lorne (Gwendoline Christie, Game of Thrones), the manic department head. While we are curious to learn more about these lovable weirdos, all we really know for now is that they have signed on as tentative allies in the search for Ms. Casey. We have every reason to believe them, especially when the most sinister-looking employee recalls the peaceful moment when Ms. Casey told him that his Outie “excelled at stargazing.”
Meanwhile, Irving uncovers some new terminology as well. After chatting up Burt’s bestie coworker Felicia (Claudia Robinson, Wild Sargasso Sea), he accidentally reveals a sketch of the Testing Room elevator that his Outie paints obsessively on the outside. Seeing the sketch gives Felicia a sense of dread, and she refers to the location as the Exports Hall, a place where their department used to drop off product shipments. It’s a tantalizing new moniker for the location, but we don’t get any solid answers.
Dylan’s rogue mission is a bit more mundane, but it may teach viewers the most about this world and the rules of the severance procedure. In a shocking turn of events, Lumon actually makes good on what felt like an empty promise to reward Dylan an audience with his Outie’s wife, Gretchen (Merritt Wever, Godless), in the new family visitation suite. Typically, Dylan’s character provides the ultimate delivery source for humor between his bold self-confidence and well-documented love for Lumon perks, but this scene is marked by Dylan’s timid nature. We see how quickly he reverts to a less-confident version of himself and we are reminded of Petey’s wisdom back in season one: Innies feel emotional pain down there, too.
Dylan quickly questions his Outie’s shortcomings, and it is excruciating to see Gretchen realize that her husband isn’t any happier or any more confident on the Severed Floor than he is when we see him later on the outside, sinking into his chair and seeming overwhelmed by the thought of baking pre-made cookie dough. This later glimpse into Dylan and Gretchen’s home life adds an additional layer of sadness as we see Gretchen taking off for night duty in a police uniform. We have to ask how often these two ever get to see one another, but there is also enough of a spark for us to hope this relationship can be revived.
Meanwhile, on the outside, Ricken Hale (Michael Chernus, Dead Ringers) proves that he is, in fact, totally useless when he is instantly taken in by the false praise from Lumon’s terrifyingly detached spokesperson, Natalie Kalen (Sydney Cole Alexander, A Neighbor’s Vendetta). Ostensibly, she is visiting Ricken and Devon to commission an “Innie-friendly” version of Ricken’s self-published book, The You You Are (an exclusive excerpt now available for free download on Apple Books),
but this visit is clearly an attempt to gather information. Fortunately, our girl Devon isn’t having it. She refuses to fake a smile for the Lumon brass, delivers the most disgusted reading of the word “gotcha” ever recorded, and gets the hell out of Dodge before she gives in to a full wave of anger. Devon is smart, and she knows she is going to have to play it cool if she has any hope of helping Mark with his mission.
We also learn that it’s a busy day for Natalie, because in addition to chatting up Ricken, she has been tasked with performing a wellness check of sorts on Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman, Barro’s Cove). Mr. Milkshake seems to be having second and third thoughts about his new position on the Severed Floor. Earlier in the episode, we see him angrily drag Mark’s partially-deflated welcome balloons back to his office; it’s not a subtle metaphor, but it sure is effective! Here, Natalie presents him with a reimagined series of Kier Eagan paintings in which Kier has been presented with dark skin. We learn that Natalie, a woman of color, received a similar package upon her last promotion. While both participants express polite gratitude and admiration for the “thoughtful” gift, their eyes seem to be screaming for help. We’ve seen each of these characters detach from their own humanity and mistreat the human beings around them, but this scene leaves us wondering if they might be ready to rage against the machine themselves. Perhaps this is our first hint at a couple of potential future allies.
Helena is also having a big night on the outside. Professional thorn in her side, Harmony Cobel, resurfaces to once again demand that she be reinstated as manager of the Severed Floor. It is a tense exchange in which Harmony shows her full hand and Helena suggests that she has pushed that hand too far: “I think you overestimated your contributions and underestimated your blessings.” It’s the second tense confrontation between these characters in as many episodes, and it certainly sets up a rivalry with the potential to delight us for the remainder of the series. This sequence also activates our theory brains; please see the Tempering the Evidence section for a more detailed look at this showdown.
Remember when we were so excited by the prospect of Mark’s intriguing idea of contacting his Innie by burning a message onto his retinas? Well, our favorite baseball-bat-swinging, Lumon-security-personnel-head-
We learn that reintegration doesn’t involve any invasive surgery, it’s a “simple” matter of syncing up brain frequencies through the power of tones and suggestion. Mark experiences a few involuntary hand tremors along the way, but ultimately appears to achieve reintegration as viewers are treated to a visual montage of Mark’s consciousness jumping between his Innie and Outie selves.
Finally, the episode fades to white (à la LOST’s season five finale) and viewers are left to brace themselves for what is likely to be a mind-bending experience next week.
TEMPERING THE EVIDENCE
Severance is so full of lore, iconography, and open questions that we could never explore every possibility. Instead, we will try to make things more manageable by “tempering” the evidence. In other words, we will attempt to shape our theories into a more focused and manageable arrangement. But what is a logical arrangement for such a strange and complicated story?
Fans of the show have become all too familiar with Kier Eagan’s theories about human personality as depicted in a painting, the “Taming of the Four Tempers.” In fact, a top fan theory is that the four members of Macrodata Refinement each represent one of the tempers: Woe (Mark), Frolic (Dylan), Dread (Irv), and Malice (Helly). It is even possible that their unique dispositions must work in harmony (Harmony Cobel?) to complete the department’s hidden function or objective.
Each week, we will check in on five theories. We’ll swap them out if they are resolved, disproven or otherwise lose steam along the way. Each of the first four theories will reflect one of Kier’s “tempers,” and for the last theory, we will “throw a Waffle Party.” In other words, we’ll take a big swing, hold nothing back, and attempt to tame the tempers by exploring our most bonkers prediction.
In order to best keep up with this ongoing segment, consider checking out last week’s installment of Tempering the Evidence.
Woe: Clone Development?
If we take the imagery of the opening credits sequence seriously, this theory got a major boost last week. While episode 2.3 doesn’t shed any new definitive light on Mark’s “Cold Harbor” file or exactly what they are developing on the Testing Floor, it does continue to lay some track that makes this theory increasingly feasible.
Most importantly, this week marks the return of Doctor Asal Reghabi, our in-world expert on reintegration. While we get the feeling she would tell Mark just about anything to get him to sign up as her next test subject, we are generally inclined to trust her. While she certainly doesn’t call Gemma a clone, she indicates that some version of Gemma is alive and well on the severed floor. We’ll keep our eyes on this theory.
Before we go, it’s time for a quick brag. Last week, we wondered aloud if Burt G. was hinting at clones in season one when he revealed the nasty rumors circulating through his department about the MDR team:
“I… It’s literally silly. Like, they say you all have pouches….According to some, you each have a larval offspring that will jump out and attack if we get too close…I mean, it’s a joke of course, but I don’t know…The sentiment, you know, somehow holds. People are weird…Though, I’d be remiss not to say…that in this theory, the larva eventually eats and replaces you.” -Burt G.
This week, the creators ask us to harken back to this very line of dialogue when Lorne and the rest of the crew in MND demand to see Mark and Helly’s bellies. What are they looking for? Those same fabled pouches. It seems possible that we will learn something about the origins of that rumor before the end of Season 2.
Frolic: Helena In Disguise?
We went deep on this one last week, and even admitted that the most astute viewers were already sold on this theory by the end of episode 2.1.
Once again, this week doesn’t give us a definitive answer to the question, but it becomes more and more likely with each passing scene.
Season 2 “Helly” continues to awkwardly mime human emotion and ask a lot of unnecessary questions. Most importantly, her hesitance and confusion over how to navigate the chemistry of a near-kiss moment with Mark is much more reflective of the emotionally curious Helena we saw reviewing footage in episode 2.2 than the Helly who gave Mark a confident smooch in what might have been her Innie’s last moment of existence.
This theory is all but proven, but it’s worth sitting back to see how long they want to string us along here.
Dread: Permanent Innies?
Last week, we desperately tried to hang on to the theory that the shadowy figure over Mark’s shoulder in the season two premiere was actually a sign that Mark had already undergone the process of reintegration. This week, we actually got to see Mark initiate his reintegration. Unless the series decides to pull some wacky timeline shenanigans, our theory is officially off the table. It’s time to go in a new direction:
This week, we met the colorful cast of characters from MND, led by the wonderfully wacky Lorne. It’s still unclear what role MND has to play in the larger mission of Severance. This department could prove to be anything from the cornerstone of the central mystery to a vibes-only creepy/creative payoff of a vibes-only creepy/creative goat reveal from season one.
In any case, taking in the dirty, bloodshot, pock-marked faces of the MND Innies leaves us wondering what sort of explanations their Outie counterparts get for the clear physical toll of their distressing indoor work with outdoor animals. Back in season one, Mark got a carefully-applied sterile bandage for his minor injury, along with a note of explanation and what we can only assume is a “coveted as fuck” VIP pass to Pip’s diner.
This contrast begs an important question: are there enough VIP burgers in the world to let an Outie brush aside a persistent skin infection and ever-present signs of malnutrition?
Perhaps this is a simple case of artistic vision overstepping in-world logic, but it could also be a sign that MND consists of some form of permanent Innies left to rot away in service of a mysterious and hellish corporate objective.
Back in season one, Ms. Casey/Gemma seemed to be living the life of a full-time Innie. Since then, the show has linked her visage with the processing of MDR files. Could these goat-tending employees simply be the vestiges of failed experiments? Could they be the result of files that MDR failed to process before the end of a quarter?
Whatever the explanation, the employees of the Mammalians Nurturable Department serve as our latest reminder that all is not well for Innies at Lumon.
Malice: Ms. Cobel the Usurper?
Last week, we dug deep into season one lore and tied those details to Ms. Cobel’s actions in episode 2.2 to argue that Ms. Cobel is operating in direct opposition to her bosses. This week’s episode only supported our suspicions about Ms. Cobel’s belief that she is particularly worthy of glory in Kier’s eyes and that she sees the Eagan’s as a corrupt and unworthy force. In fact, she says as much to Helena during their parking lot confrontation: “Everything I accomplished, I earned through dedication and industry. Not because I was born into it.”
Furthermore, Cobel continues to push for a return to her position on the Severed Floor. We still have a lot to learn about the specifics of Ms. Cobel’s mission, but she is clearly not existing in lockstep with the current leadership at Lumon.
Photo Credit: AppleTV+
Waffle Party: Cobel = Gemma?
This oddball, assumption-based theory remains deeply unlikely, but if you missed last week’s article, please look back to see the line of logic that brought us to theorize that Gemma’s consciousness might actually be alive within Ms. Cobel.
There isn’t a ton of new information in Episode 2.3 to support the overall theory, but we do get some potential evidence that one of our assumptions might have some merit.
In order for this theory to work, we have to assume that Lumon has the ability to mix-and-match or otherwise manipulate and control consciousness through severance chips. We also have to assume that Ms. Cobel is fitted with her very own chip.
This week, a strange interaction with Helena offers some (deeply circumstantial) evidence that both of these things could be true.
After Cobel and Helena’s tense exchange, Helena suggests that it’s time for a “reset” and, after a quick call to face-of-the-board Natalie, she prompts Cobel to join her inside the Lumon offices for a meeting with the board. As Cobel approaches the offices, she somewhat suddenly stops in her tracks. Helena looks back with a patronizing smile, Cobel appears disoriented, and then storms back to her car and out of the parking lot. This is a maneuver we’ve seen from Ms. Cobel more than once.
It feels almost as if the “reset” was literal. Could the board have some control over Cobel via severance chip? If so, it would open the door to a whole host of theories, including our personal longshot theory that Gemma is alive somewhere within Mark’s former boss.
It also makes us wonder if Harmony Cobel has been “reset” before. When we first meet her in season one, she is unpacking boxes in her “new office.” Mr. Milchick instructs Mark to compliment her on the new digs, but based on her reaction, we can tell that the compliment is taken as an attack – a little dirt in the face after a recent change in status or position that prompted the move.
We can still only speculate, but perhaps her frustration and disorientation could have been linked to some mental tampering at the hands of Lumon.
Well folks, thanks for joining us on another wild ride! We’ll see you next week in the (new and improved) break room!
