At last, Severance has returned to Apple TV after a long and arduous three-year wait between seasons. I’ve already published my full Season 2 (spoiler-free) review. Now, we can dive into each individual episode as they stream every Friday. There’s so much to unpack in each one, I really can’t wait! Let’s start with a brief recap of where we left off back at the end of Season 1.
Spoilers follow.
The Overtime Contingency
Season 1 ended on a pretty insane cliffhanger. Our “Innie” heroes had discovered the Overtime Contingency (or OTC) thanks to Milchick’s (Tramell Tillman) snafu with Dylan (Zach Cherry) and since Mark (Adam Scott) had come into possession of Graner’s (Michael Cumpsty) keycard, they were able to take control of the security room and awaken their Innie selves in the Outie world.
Irving (John Turturo) discovered that his Outie was investigating Lumon on the side. He also had painted dozens of disturbing paintings of a long, black hallway with an elevator at the end—an elevator going down beneath the Severed Floor. The lovelorn Irvigin disregarded all of this and the greater plan to go find Burt (Christopher Walken) who he discovered was married. We last saw him at Burt’s house calling out his name.
Meanwhile, Helly (Britt Lower) found herself in the halls of power at a big, swanky Lumon event where her Outie was set to speak. Her Outie, we learned, was Helena Egan, the daughter of company boss, James Egan. She used her podium to cry out for help, telling the onlookers that the Innies were being tortured and mistreated and were anything but the happy-go-lucky workers pictured in all the soiree’s blown up photographs.
But the biggest moment came as Mark navigated his sister Devon’s (Jen Tullock) house where his brother-in-law Ricken (Michael Chernus) was giving a reading from his self-help book to a crowd of sycophants. Here, Mark was surprised to see Ms. Cobel (Patricia Arquette) and even more surprised to find a wedding photo of his Outie with the woman he’s come to know as Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman). When Devon and Ricken’s baby goes missing, chaos erupts, and as Mark puts together the pieces—learning that everyone up here thinks Ms. Casey/Gemma is dead—he shouts out “She’s alive!” just as Milchick overpowers Dylan on the Severed Floor and puts an end to the OTC.
Three years have passed in the real world as we all waited to see what happened next. And as far as what happens next in the Outie world, we’re going to have to wait a bit longer. The entirety of Severance’s Season 2 premiere takes place on the Severed Floor at Lumon.
5 Months Later . . . .
We open to an elevator, and to Mark S. waking up back in the Severed Floor. His last memory would be of the party at Devon’s house. You can tell he’s still flustered and upset, but he’s quickly welcomed back to work by Mr. Milchick who tells him that five months have passed, and that he and his fellow workers are now all celebrities in the world above. That they’ve become the face of Innie reform. Of course, savvy viewers will rightly question anything and everything Milchick says. Has that much time really passed? Are they really famous for their little rebellion? Or is it all lies, lies and more lies?
Things have certainly changed down on the Severed Floor. Milchick tells Mark that none of his fellow workers chose to return to Lumon. They’ve been replaced by an entirely new crew of Macrodata Refiners. Milchick has taken over Ms. Cobel’s job as Floor Manager, and a child—Ms. Huang (Sarah Bock)—now holds Milchick’s old position, a role that confuses us as much as it does Mark and his new co-workers. “Why are you a child?” the other Mark asks her during a game of pass the ball. “Because of when I was born,” she replies, tersely.
Mark is not happy. He is not at all happy that his team—his only friends in the world—have been replaced. So he plants a fake note in Other Mark’s jacket pocket. The note is pretty hilarious. It is a note from Other Mark to his Outie, mocking Milchick (calling him Mr. Milkshake) and labeling him a shambolic rube. The note suggests that the Outie strap explosives to him in order to take out the Severed Floor entirely. But, of course, Milchick knows immediately that it’s Mark S’s doing. “You didn’t even bother to disguise your handwriting,” he says, before stripping Mark S of his leadership position.
Mark S begins to smile and Milchick asks him what he’s smiling about. “You don’t even know what I’ve done to the kitchen yet,” Mark S. replies, and when the other sgo to see, he bolts. He runs all the way to Milchick’s office (formerly Ms. Cobel’s office, where the computer screen still says “Welcome, Ms. Cobel, much to Milchick’s dismay). He finds the speaker and plugs it in and begins begging the Board for their help. “If you really care about helping Severed people, get me my team back,” he pleads. Milchick finally catches up to him and then leads him to the elevator. “Are you firing me?” Mark S asks, disbelievingly. “On you go,” Milchick replies.
When Mark S opens his eyes, he’s back on the Severed Floor, leaving the elevator once again, but this time the clock on the wall has been replaced by a massive painting, depicting Kier as well as the MDR employees. Kier is forgiving his wayward children. It’s very creepy.
Then Dylan appears, and Irving. They’re all fresh from the events of Season 1. Irving, in particular, is deeply upset. Then Helly appears, much to Mark’s relief. Their brief romance is still very much on his mind.
The Curious Incident Of The Gardener In The Night
While the foursome would very much like to learn what each Innie saw on the outside, they’re also worried about surveillance, though Helly notices that the security camera in their work area is gone. Then Ms. Huang shows up (much to the bafflement of the newcomers) and tells them that Mr. Milchick is waiting for them in the Break Room—that most terrifying interrogation chamber from Season 1.
When they arrive, however, the cramped dark room is gone (much like how the Wellness room Ms. Casey worked in is gone). In its place is a welcoming space with comfy chairs, a gaudy projector and motivational posters on the wall. Milchick tells them that they’re famous now and that Lumon has put together a new video that will be shown to every Innie from this day forward. The video is . . . wow. It’s something.
The animated short is narrated by the Lumon building voiced by none other than Keanu Reeves himself. The Lumon building tells the story of the MDR Rebellion, praising its participants who fought against injustice and led to all the wonderful reforms that now await them, including better snacks and perks (like Pineapple Bobbing!?) more freedom to roam the halls and so forth. When the video ends, all four Innies look completely baffled. Milchick tells them that he doesn’t want to be their jailer and that they have a choice now. If they leave, nobody will stop them. Or they can stay and continue their important work. There will be no microphones listening in, no cameras, no invasions of privacy at all.
They believe nothing he says, with good reason, but when he leaves they share their stories. Mark tells them about Ms. Cobel being at his sister and brother-in-law’s party. And he tells them that Ms. Casey is actually his Outie’s wife, and that everyone thinks she’s dead. I’m glad to see this big revelation addressed early on.
Helly, however, whistles a very different tune. She says she woke up in a boring apartment watching TV. She had a “Save the Gorillas” shirt on. She tells her coworkers that she went outside and ran into a gardener who she tried to get help from, but he thought she was crazy. Irving frowns at this. “A night gardener?” he asks, dubiously. When it comes time for Irving to tell his own story, he gets up and leaves, clearly upset. Dylan follows him, telling the others he can handle it.
What follows is a very moving scene between Dylan and Irving. Irving wants to leave. He wants the pain to end. He doesn’t want to keep going without Burt. Dylan tells him that Burt would want him to stay, because Dylan wants him to stay and without Irving around he’d be sad. “I’m your favorite Perk,” Irving says with a sad smile.
When they embrace, Irving tells Dylan a secret—a secret, it appears, he does not want to tell the whole group. His Innie, he reveals, was a painter. He painted dozens of paintings about a long black hallway with a down elevator. He doesn’t know why, but he thinks it’s important.
Dylan is summoned away by Ms. Huang, who takes him to see Mr. Milchick who apologizes to Dylan for not being a better boss and a better listener, and then reveals a surprise: He’s designing an Outie Visitation Wing, where Dylan will be able to meet his Outie’s family. But don’t tell the others, Milchick says. They’re all single. We wouldn’t want resentment to build. It’s clearly some kind of insidious divide-and-conquer tactic, but Dylan is understandably excited at the prospect.
When he returns to MDR, the gang is reunited. Irving pops back in, having changed his mind about leaving. They sit at their desks as music starts to play, ready to get back to work—and to figuring out exactly what the hell is going on down here, and where Ms. Casey has gone. It’s a great, exciting ending to a great, exciting season premiere.
But before we wrap this up, we need to rewind. We need to rewind to the night gardener. Remember, Helly changed her story around completely. She didn’t tell her friends about waking up as Helena Egan at the big Lumon bash. Her story was entirely, 100% false. As I watched I had three thoughts about this and what might be going on:
- First, it’s possible that Helly R is so embarrassed by the fact that she’s an Egan that she wants to cover it up, not tell her only friends that her Outie is one of the bad guys. So she invented a half-baked story that she found harmless enough. Only one detail was suspect, and Irving latched onto it. The night gardener.
- Second, Lumon has somehow tinkered with Helly R’s memories, implanting a false memory to replace the real one. This doesn’t quite work, however, since they could have done the same to Irving G and Mark S as well. As far as we know, the Severance technology doesn’t allow full-scale modification of memories. Nothing can be supplanted in this fashion.
- Third, and most compellingly, I thought: This isn’t Helly R at all! This is Helena Egan pretending to be Helly R. She’s a mole! My only doubt on this point is the Severance technology itself which, we all know, activates on the Severed Floor. Helena Egan would surely become her Innie the moment she goes down the elevator, making this kind of spycraft impossible. Of course, if the OTC allows Innies to wake up in the outside world, surely a reverse technology could exist that allows Outies to bypass the Severed transformation on the Severed Floor also.
Whatever the case, something is rotten and it has to do with Helly/Helena and her BS story about her time above.
Another pretty massive revelation is that these Lumon facilities are everywhere. There are hundreds of them with hundreds of Severed Floors, hundreds of very different Perpetuity Wings (one has animatronic Egans, another’s Egans are made out of brooms). The reach of Lumon is clearly much, much more than we ever realized in Season 1. This is a massive, politically powerful global corporation controlled by the Egan family.
All told, a fantastic return to Severance even if we’ll have to likely wait until next week to learn what’s going on up above with Mark Scout and the rest of the characters outside the halls of Lumon. The music, the cinematography, the sense of urgency, the weird quirkiness, it’s all back with verve and gusto. I have no complaints.
You can read my full Season 2 spoiler-free review right here.
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