Apple TV+After last week’s shocking ending, Severance Season 2 Episode 5 gives the Innies a chance to mourn Irving – but tension is mounting in and outside of Lumon.
In Episode 4, Mark and his MDR team embarked on their first-ever ORTBO (outdoor retreat and team-building occurence). It didn’t go well: Helly was revealed to be Helena in disguise the whole time, and Irving’s efforts to expose her led to him being immediately and permanently dismissed.
That’s a big shake-up to Severance’s status quo. Irving’s Innie is gone, and Mark will need to deal with the fact he slept with Helena Eagan, not Helly – as will her Innie when she returns to work.
And then there’s the small matters of Cold Harbor and whatever happened to Gemma/Ms Casey. Things get emotional in Season 2 Episode 5 – and the plot thickens.
Another peek at the Exports Hall
The episode opens rather eerily: a man rolls a trolley along the corridor and into a room full of large drawers, where Felicia and an unnamed woman pass him a tray with dental picks and other apparatus.
He leaves and reaches an extremely dark corridor – the same hallway Milchick sent Ms Casey down at the end of Season 1.
He walks into the lift and the doors close. This is the Exports Hall, the same place Irving’s Outie was repeatedly painting. We still don’t know its purpose – but it’s clearly important.
Helena is forced to make a sacrifice
Apple TV+After the credits, we cut to Mark’s Outie arranging his medication – presumably a post-reintegration prescription, along with a Yakult-esque drink (he has about 10 in his fridge). Lumon didn’t tell him what happened on the ORTBO; Devon asks how it went, and he says his Innie fell off a rope and that’s why he got so wet.
Curiously, Mark doesn’t tell Devon about meeting Asal Reghabi and his reintegration. When Reghabi appears, he hangs up the phone. She’s worried about Lumon finding out what’s happening, and Mark is keen to proceed with the procedure.
Meanwhile, Helena meets with Mr Drummond and Natalie after the events of the ORTBO. She asks if she’ll be speaking to her dad about what happened, but Drummond says they’ve decided to spare him from the knowledge of this “contretemps.”
“Well, please let him know that his daughter is alive and well,” she says, bitterly. Drummond says tempers will rebalance quickly. “Some residual trauma is to be expected after such an ordeal,” he adds.
Here’s the problem: Mark’s Cold Harbor file is 81% completed, but Lumon’s Board fears he won’t proceed without Helly (the real Helly, that is). Helena says the Innies are “f**king animals”, but ORTBO has forced the Board’s hand; according to Drummond, Jame Eagan wholly supports Helena returning to the severed floor as her Innie.
“It’s a risk, we know this. But there is no other solution. Mark S won’t work without her,” Natalie says, with Drummond adding: “And the work is mysterious and important, so we must give him her.”
Helena’s Innie returns to work
Apple TV+Soon after, Helena’s Innie steps out of the elevator, confused and disorientated – especially because the first person she sees is Miss Huang. “Who the f**k are you?” she asks.
Helly follows her to Milchick’s office, where she meets Mark and Dylan. They have lots of questions; where is Irving, why was he trying to drown Helly, and was Helena spying on them?
Milchick tries to explain that it was a Glasgow block, but Mark and Dylan are still paranoid – more importantly, they want to know if Irving is safe.
“Helena Eagan, in her executive capacity, was conducting valuable research… Irving had no knowledge of what management’s intention was in this action, and in so doing, he nearly drowned you. Our only option was permanent dismissal,” Milchick explains.
Dylan presumes that means he’s dead, but Milchick says his Outie has “departed on an elongated cruise voyage.”
Milchick tells them the story of the Gråkappan. “In ancient times, the king of Sweden himself was known to go incognita amongst his people in the hopes of learning their true grievances,” he says.
“He would don an old, gray robe – a Gråkappan, the name for which he was remembered – to disguise his royal vestments. Kier Eagan was known to do so himself in his ether factories, and Ms Eagan was carrying on this noble tradition.”
Mark says it “smells like horsesh*t.” Dylan asks if Irving will ever come back, and Milchick tells them no. “It will take time to absorb all that has occurred,” he says, before escorting them back to their desks.
Mark is too paranoid about Helly
Apple TV+When they get back to their workspace, their set-up has been modified to reflect Irving’s removal: now, there are only three desks, and Irving’s desk has been taken away entirely (he’s even been removed from their group photo).
Dylan gets a bit too mouthy with Milchick, who threatens to “rescind certain privileges.” He asks if they can hold a funeral for Irving, and Milchick checks with Mark if this is the team’s official position. “Yeah, sure, as long as it’s quick,” he says, irritating Dylan. Milchick agrees and leaves to “pull something together.”
Mark starts coughing (just like Petey in Season 1), so he excuses himself to go to the bathroom. Helly checks on him, but he’s cold and distant. “I don’t know who you are, I guess,” he says, but as she points out, it’s not her fault her Outie hijacked her body. She tries to talk to him about what happened during the OTC, but he leaves and tells her to forget it.
Meanwhile, Miss Huang helps Milchick prepare a bereavement kit. “You shouldn’t let them have a funeral. It makes them feel like people,” she says. It clearly bothers him, but she makes it worse by reminding him that his first performance review is coming up later that day.
A funeral for Irving
Apple TV+The team gathers with Milchick to remember Irving (he allows them to have a nine-second silence to mark his departure – how respectful).
Dylan delivers a bittersweet eulogy, telling a story about how he put toner in his water cup to make a point. “He asked me for help with something near the end, and I didn’t listen. In his final moments, he would have been fully justified in telling me to suck my own f**k, but he didn’t. He was awesome and I miss him,” he says.
Afterwards, Milchick allows them to “briefly partake” in a fruit memorial, with a watermelon shaped like Irving’s head. He leaves with Miss Huang before she can play the theremin, which upsets her.
Helly asks Mark why he’s acting like he doesn’t care about what happened to Irving. “He’s not dead, he’s just not here,” he says. Dylan asks him if he’s told her about Ms Casey being his Outie’s wife, so he storms off, and Helly chases after him.
“Why won’t you talk to me?” Helly asks. It becomes clear what’s bothering Mark: no matter what he does, “they know everything… me looking for Ms Casey, us wandering around and meeting other departments, mapping the floor, all of it. They know everything we’re doing because Helena told them.”
Helly vows that wasn’t her, and she’s not Helena. “You just have to trust me. This is real. Not everything here is a lie, and stop being a f**king asshole,” she tells him.
Milchick’s first performance review
Apple TV+Milchick heads upstairs for his performance review. Before he goes in, he tries to speak to Natalie about the paintings (the “recanonicalized” portraits of Black Kiers), and asks how she felt when she received them.
“Our experiences here have been similar in some ways, we face similar challenges, and perhaps the paintings and the somewhat complicated feelings they evoke,” he says, but Natalie keeps her poker face, and they go into the meeting with Mr Drummond.
It starts with praise: his attendance and urinalysis are both in the excellent range. However, there have been three contentions: firstly, he uses too many big words; and secondly, he uses paper clips back to front on several logs.
The third grievance: he brought in a new refining team which failed to coalesce, he instituted kindness reforms that haven’t deterred curiosity or idling, and he arranged an ORTBO which resulted in an employee’s termination and the exposure of Helena’s identity.
“Look, Seth. Mark Scout’s completion of Cold Harbor will be remembered as one of the greatest moments in the history of this planet. It will take place under your stewardship. That’s quite a legacy you will leave,” he says.
“This milestone seems to have clouded your judgment. I think it’s time to go back to the basics, Seth. To remember these severed workers’ greater purpose, and to treat them as what they really are.”
He pledges to tighten the leash, and Drummond smiles.
Hang in there!
Apple TV+Dylan stays with Irving’s fruit head. “Okay, asshole, I guess this is it. Sorry I let you down,” he says as he gets up to leave… before he notices a poster on the wall with three familiar words: hang in there.
Those were the last words Irving said to Dylan. They were a clue: Dylan finds directions to the Exports Hall hidden behind it.
Meanwhile, as Mark sits at his desk, his sight starts to flicker – but it’s brief. He leaves six minutes early, but Milchick catches him as he steps into the elevator. Mark asks if there’ll be an article about Irving’s funeral in the “Bullsh*t Gazette.”
Milchick hopes they’ll have some productive workdays ahead. “Whatever you say, Mr Milchick. Praise Kier,” Mark says.
Milchick then gets very close to him and asks if he’s told Helly about sleeping with Helena Eagan during the ORTBO. It’s an intense face-off, and it leaves Marl unsettled.
Devon doesn’t like Ricken’s new book
Apple TV+Devon reads a few pages of Ricken’s revised Innie version of The You You Are. She believes it’s the opposite of what he wrote before, but according to Natalie, Innies “tend to thrive in an environment of structure… once that is established, they are more open to self-expansion.”
Ricken says it’s a Trojan’s horse and it could even beget a revolution. Devon believes he’s being manipulated for Lumon’s propaganda machine, but as Ricken says, it’s a “fiscal and creative opportunity unlike any [he’s] yet seen.”
Irving meets Burt’s Outie
Apple TV+Irving’s Outie returns to the same payphone from Episode 2, but it’s still unclear who he speaks to. “They fired me. I think they know what my Innie was up to,” he says, before he catches sight of a nearby car and someone watching him.
It’s Burt! “I got this thing. When somebody shows up on my doorstep screaming my name, I wanna know why. Call it a quirk,” he says, before asking why he was at his house. Irving doesn’t have an answer, but Burt knows it was his Innie.
Burt tells Irving that he was fired because his Innie had an “unsanctioned, erotic entanglement with another worker. They wouldn’t tell me who, then you show up at my door.”
Irving asks if he thinks they were an item, and Burt says that’s what his husband Fields thinks. Burt invites Irving for dinner at his home, and he agrees.
Mark sees Ms Casey for the first time
Apple TV+Back at Mark’s home, he finds Reghabi rummaging around Gemma’s belongings – including a box with her ashes. “Who’s in there?” he asks, and Reghabi says Lumon know people at the local morgue.
He asks when they’ll keep going with reintegration, but she’s wary of pushing ahead too quickly.
“Are they hurting her?” he asks about Gemma. “I don’t know,” she chillingly replies.
Suddenly, he starts hearing Ms Casey’s voice. His realities start to collide until he finds himself in an unfamiliar hallway. He steps out into a bright white corridor, just like the ones you find at Lumon – uncharted territory for Mark’s Outie.
Ms Casey appears behind him. Even though it’s his Innie’s memory, this is the first time Mark has seen his wife alive since her death. Seconds later, the whole thing vanishes, and he’s standing alone in his house.
You can find out when the next episode drops with our Severance Season 2 release schedule. We’ve also broken down why Helly is probably pregnant, and if you want to refresh your memory, we also have recaps of Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, and Episode 6.
