Severance
Credit: Apple
Last week’s episode of Severance was incredibly divisive, both because of its big Cobel reveal and its bottle-ish nature, giving us an entire (rather short) episode devoted to Ms. Cobel rather than any of the other main characters.
I’ve said my piece about that and, I suppose, made my peace with the outcome of that episode. Now it’s time to dive headlong into the fallout of everything. Mark’s decision to reintegrate; Helly’s attempt to carve her own path after her outie’s violation; Dylan G’s budding relationship with his own outie’s wife; and Irving’s dawning realizations about the true nature of Burt Goodman (Christopher Walken). Spoilers follow.
Love & Animus on the Severed Floor
We’ll kick things off with Dylan (Zach Cherry) who we last saw making out with his outie’s wife, Gretchen (Merritt Wever). Gretchen comes clean to Dylan’s outie about this, and things don’t go terribly well. You can hardly blame him for being upset. Then again, you can hardly blame Gretchen for being drawn to Dylan’s innie, either. She tells her husband that his innie reminds her of the way he used to be. This isn’t helpful, but it’s the truth. And it’s probably something Dylan needs to hear. He’s just going through the motions in life. The severance procedure clearly hasn’t brought him any joy or meaning.
When Gretchen tells Dylan G that she can’t see him anymore, he’s crushed. His life only really started when he met her, he pleads with her, then falls to his knees and proposes, brandishing a cardboard ring he made himself. “I’m really sorry,” she says, and then leaves forever. Dylan is devastated. He goes to Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) and fills out his resignation form. Milchick is stony-faced. He tells Dylan it feels like ingratitude. But Ms. Huang (Sarah Bock) offers up a flicker of humanity, telling Dylan that she’s sorry. “I should have facilitated better,” she says. “It’s not your fault,” he replies. Then he walks to the elevator and leaves the severed floor behind him. Is this yet another innie leaving Lumon for good, or will his resignation be denied?
Speaking of which, we get a bit of Helly R. (Britt Lower) and Helena Eagan in this week’s episode. Both versions have the great misfortune of spending time with her father, Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry) who ratchets up the creepy factor to eleven.
Outside of Lumon, though not far from Lumon HQ, Helena and her father sit down for breakfast in the austere Eagan manor. Helena asks if he’ll join her but he says he’ll “just watch” which is a very weird way to put it. As he watches her take tiny bite after tiny bite of her hardboiled eggs, he says: “I wish you’d take them raw.”
Okay, what? Gross.
Later, as Helly R. sits in MDR trying to memorize Irving’s secret map to the exports hall, Jame Eagan shows up again. He startles her and then tells her that she betrayed him. It’s unclear whether their conversation will continue or if Helly is in some kind of danger and will need to run away. This, like so many other points in the episode, ends on a cliffhanger.
Finally, we come to Milchick. He doesn’t play a huge role this episode but he has a few important moments:
First, we see him telling Ms. Huang that she’s graduating the Wintertide Fellowship and being shipped off elsewhere. She’s not happy about this. It’s clearly Milchick taking a small and rather petty revenge against her for loding complaints against him.
In something of a reversal of roles, we encounter Mr. Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) as he dresses Milchick down for his various infractions. Today was supposed to be the day that Cold Harbor was completed – a glorious day in Lumon’s history – but Mark (Adam Scott) is nowhere to be found. When Milchick thanks him for his “remonstrations” Drummond tells him that he’s using an unnecessarily long word. “Apologize for the word,” he says. Milchick does, but Drummond wants a shorter version, and a shorter version, and a shorter version until Milchick loses his cool and tells Drummond to “devour feculence.” He tells him that he’s only in charge of the severed floor. Whatever happens outside of that is Drummond’s domain. BTFO, in other words.
Other than Dylan’s resignation, the only other moment with Milchick comes shortly after his confrontation with Drummond when Mark calls in sick. At this point, Mark and Devon (Jen Tullock) have met up with Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) and she’s told him to call in sick. If Milchick suspects in “chacanery” he’ll lock Mark out of the building and then it’ll be too late. If Cold Harbor is already finished, it’ll be too late and Gemma (Dichen Lachman) will already be dead.
That’s a pretty big revelation, and one that Mark is not happy to learn. But why? What exactly is Lumon planning with Gemma and Cold Harbor? Why does she need to die when the file is completed and she enters the final room? So many questions, all of which will have to wait until next week.
In any case, Mark tells Milchick that he’s actually not sick. He just needed a day. Sometimes it’s like that. After all, isn’t Lumon all about that work-life balance? It’s just work, he says. You can understand that, right Mr. Milchick? Milchick is quiet for a long time, perhaps pondering all of this, perhaps just thinking about how to best handle this bump in the road with all his superiors breathing down his neck. In the end, he makes Mark promise to come in the next day.
Mark, meanwhile, hides in the back of Harmony’s pickup truck and she and Devon smuggle him into the birthing cabins. Cobel makes up a story for the security guard, telling her that Devon is “one of Jame’s” and that nobody’s to know. Apparently creepy old Jame Eagan has many dalliances that are cleaned up using severance technology (among other means, no doubt). Mark S. wakes up in the cabin, understandably confused and disoriented. The episode ends with him spotting Cobel as she stands, looking rather diabolical, in front of the fireplace.
Investigator Irving And Burt Badman
I realize that this first section covered most of the characters and bases from this second-to-last episode of Season 2. The only loose ends are Irving (John Turturro) and Burt, who Irving finds in his apartment, reading through his notes. Irving’s notes are curious, indeed. He’s been looking into several “disappearances” and possible “deaths” that Lumon has had a hand in, and a Mr. Burt Goodman is potentially one of Lumon’s “goons.” Burt finds this wording rather hurtful. “Lumon,” he says, “is very specific with its language.”
Later, as they go on a drive that Burt insists upon, he tells Irving that he never hurt anybody. He was just a driver. He didn’t ask questions. It’s all very mafia-esque, but then Lumon is one part corporate entity, one part cult and one part criminal organization. Burt clearly did get his hands dirty even if he didn’t do any of the hurting personally, and this is why he decided to sever. He wanted to feel like a part of him could still be innocent. It’s not quite the same yarn he spun at dinner with Fields about Jesus and forgiveness and all the rest, but who knows if any of that was even real to begin with.
Irving takes Burt to a train station and tells him he needs to go. He needs to get on a train and not let Burt know where he’s going and never, ever come back to Kier. It’s pretty obvious at this point that if he does, Lumon won’t let him live. “They’ll come after you,” Irving says to Burt. Burt brushes it off. “I’ve never been loved,” Irving tells him. Never in his entire life, until Burt G on the severed floor. He wants to experience that. “I’m ready,” he says. Burt tells him no, they can’t. But Irving keeps repeating it, over and over. Burt isn’t swayed. There is no sweet moment, no outie kiss. Irving and his old dog board a train and off they go. Burt sits in the station, looking old and tired and sad.
And now we have just one more week to go before the end of Season 2 and whatever insane cliffhangers they leave us with.
This was a really strong episode and I’m glad we’re back to the main cast and Lumon and back on track after two weeks of side stories. It’s good to see Dylan and Irving and Helly and even Milchick again after a few weeks delving down other storylines. Of course, this was largely a setup episode, laying all the pieces out so that we can knock it all down in the season finale titled, naturally, Cold Harbor. What will happen next week? Mark’s innie and outie are set to have a conversation, though he’s also partly reintegrated. Dylan has resigned. Helly is facing her creepy outie’s dad. Milchick seems hellbent on continuing his mission for Lumon, but he’s clearly also having a crisis of faith. And what will Cobel do? Mark is right when he says they can’t trust her. Is she going to double-cross them in the end?
Much to ponder! I’ll be sad when the season is over and we have to wait another couple years for Season 3.
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