'Severance' Episode 2 Just Confirmed a Major Theory For Me
You guys do realise that Severance season 2 is ten episodes long, right? After I rewatched this Friday's episode (I'm thorough, okay?), I took a long dive into the winding hallways of r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus. And you all have been absolutely going at it. Lumon would certainly not approve of you writing essay-length fan theories on company hours. (Even if they are very, very good.) Save your energy! We have a long way to go.
Case in point: Season 2, episode 2, "Goodbye Mrs. Selvig." The season 1 finale was so explosive that series creator Dan Erickson and co. had to spend two episodes dealing with the aftermath. This episode almost entirely takes place outside of the severed floor; we catch up with MDR's Outies and find out exactly what happened after Lumon enacted the Overtime Contingency. It probably won't surprise you to learn that nearly everything Mr. Milchick fed MDR about their efforts leading to improved conditions for severed employees was total bullshit.
That said, you might leave this episode disappointed by its relative lack of Reddit-worthy screengrab potential. Except for one particular new addition to Severance...
Boss Baby Kier!
Is that a new opening credits sequence? Damn right it is. If you'll remember, season 1's intro was a trippy animated montage that emphasised the division between Innie and Outie Mark. The revamped version? The two Marks (his Innie is in his office clothes; his Outie wears pajamas) constantly bump into each other, push and pulling their doppelgänger through what I presume are various season 2 locales. (Remember, we've already seen the field of goats and the wintery landscape in season 2's promo material.) If anything, I'd say the new sequence is all about blurring the line between the two Marks. At the end, we see Mark trying to break free from the backside of his own head. It almost goes without saying that Severance is likely teasing further collisions between our protagonist's Innie and Outie.
Elsewhere in the montage, we see something else that'll fan the flames of existing theories. Depending on how much you've read about last week's Cold Harbor tease, you may know that the prevailing theory is that Lumon is working on cloning technology. That would explain the goats, Mark's dead wife reappearing as a severed employee with zero social aptitude, and why MDR is sorting through numbers all day. (Genomes, baby.)
I'll keep this short, because we really need to discuss the actual episode: I was DEEP in my Reddit journey—like, revisiting Petey's map deep—when I saw a variant of the theory (search for u/vicariousted on this thread) that suggested Lumon's plan is to clone Kier and raise him on the severed floor. So! I'll just say that Mark waking up in a bed full of babies—and literal Boss Baby Kier crawling on the floor at the intro's conclusion—feels extremely indicative of what's to come in Severance. Kier is coming, folks.
Sweet Bike, Milchick
This episode is stuffed with (necessary) Outie exposition, so I'll try my best to speed through most of it. We glimpse the impact of season 1's finale on all four of MDR's Outies. Milchick promptly fires Dylan and Irving for their crimes against Lumon. From there, we learn that Outie Dylan, especially, doesn't exactly have the swagger of Innie Dylan—he's very much a Tired Dad who would rather wallow and buy "baby-wipeys" than come home to his family. He interviews for a job at a door company, but is seemingly rejected solely on the fact that he underwent the severance procedure. Once again, let's appreciate the astronomical level of detail in this show: when the interviewer asks Dylan about his favorite door, he says it's the pocket door. His reasoning:
Dylan: "Well, you’re doing your door thing, and then, when you’re not needed, you can just—”
Interviewer: “Tuck yourself away.”
It's the Innie experience in a nutshell, isn't it? Meanwhile, Irving's Outie remains a mystery; he's seemingly upset to learn of his job elimination, yet gives Milchick a bullshit-sounding description of how he spent his time during the Overtime Contingency. He's also making a call on a payphone (?!) when Outie Burt pulls up in his car to spy on him. Elsewhere, Outie Mark does what Outie Mark does: bury his head in the sand. He writes "she's alive!" off as his Innie's reaction to seeing a baby—certainly not anything to do with Gemma. His sister clearly feels otherwise. When Milchick visits them to dig for intel, they're clearly not up for company.
As for Helena? Well, Severance loyalists are already fully convinced that she has infiltrated the severed floor and is posing as Helly. Episode 2 only fuels this line of thought. Helena films a dour YouTuber apology video explaining that Helly's outburst was due to drinking alcohol while on medication for an arm rash. (Don't you hate when that happens?) Later in the episode, we see Helena study the footage of her Innie's airport-rom-com moment with Mark. She's... jealous? Maybe? We know next to nothing about Helena's life, but yeah—I'm dipping my toe into the Helly-is-Helena camp.
Time For Milchick to Nick Fury MDR Back Together
If you didn't realise it by now, our fab four macrodata refiners are not international heroes. Milchick just fed the story to the squad to make them reinvest in the work. But after Innie Mark's plea to the board, Lumon decides that his friends should RTO along with him—including Helly R. As Helena says this episode, “We don’t need chemistry. We need Mark S. back to work. Long enough to complete Cold Harbor.”
Milchick offers Irving, Dylan, and Mark their jobs back. The first two are an easy sell. Mark? Not so much. He visits Mark's house—when his sister isn't around, mind you—to offer a fruit basket "compliments of the company." Weirdly, the scene feels like the most honest conversation we've ever seen between Milchick and either Mark, even if the manager of the severed floor clearly has an angle.
Here's the offer: a twenty percent pay bump, regular wellness checks, and an investigation into what Innie Mark did when he infiltrated Outie Mark's home. Sadly, the money is seemingly enough to ensure Mark's return to Lumon. But it's what Milchick says next that puts Mark's heart in a choke hold. He reminds Mark that his decision to sever himself was partially due to Gemma's death. Mark suffered from so much grief that every day felt like a year; the severance procedure meant that he could simply cease to exist for eight hours a day. But Milchick tells Mark that his Innie found love. He knows nothing of his counterpart's pain. “The solace you have given him down there will make its way to you," Milchick says. It just takes time.”
"I Ate Your Shitty Fucking Cookies"
It's time for the most confounding part of this episode: the Harmony Cobel conundrum. There is so much going on with this character. Stalking Outie Mark under the alias of Mrs. Selvig, the Kier shrine in her home, smashing Ms. Casey and Innie Mark together to see if they had a connection. In the season 2 premiere, Milchick tells Innie Mark that Cobel is essentially a pervert who Lumon eradicated from the face of the Earth. In episode 2, Outie Mark receives a similar explanation, albeit a hair more sober: Cobel is severely unwell and she will not terrorise him anymore.
I'd love to end this recap by saying I know exactly what's going on with Cobel, but this episode doesn't tell us much about her future. Early on, Helena thanks Cobel for her loyalty to Lumon and offers her not only an apology, but a promotion: a role on the newly formed Severance Advisory Council. Cobel sniffs out the possibility that it's really a demotion. Is Lumon is putting her out to pasture? "I'll put some thought to it," she says.
We don't see Cobel again until right before the credits, when Outie Mark is snooping around Mrs. Selvig's digs, clearly hoping for some resolution as to what the heck happened in his home the other night. For a moment, she's back to her old self—chiding Mark for staying at Lumon ("You're so easy to sway.") before driving away in her car. Or, well, that's what she was trying to do before Mark ran in front of it. When he asks who she really is, Cobel's expression flashes something resembling concern, which Mark immediately picks up on. "Why did you do this? What the fuck is this all about?" he screams. And the kicker: "Do you know something about Gemma?" Cobel almost seems to consider answering him for a moment—before screaming bloody murder and speeding away.
Severance has made it fairly clear for a long time now that Cobel knows what happened to Gemma. But if she's distancing herself from Lumon, will she actually consider telling Mark what she knows? Where is she going that late at night anyway?
Well, look at me—I started this recap by lecturing you about putting too much energy into Severance, then proceeded to rail off 1,600 words about a relatively light episode. Someone grab me some edamame from the office vending machine. I need to rest before next Friday.
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