In last week’s episode of Severance, we only saw one side of the equation. We spent the entire Season 2 premiere inside the fluorescent confines of Lumon’s Severed Floor. This week—much as I suspected—the coin is flipped. In ‘Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig’ we spend the entirety of the episode in the world of the Outies.
Spoilers ahead.
In Episode 2, we pick up moments after the events of the Season 1 finale. The “Outies” of Mark S. (Adam Scott), Helly R. (Britt Lower), Dylan G. (Zach Cherry) and Irving B. (John Turturro) have all come back to their senses. Lumon, meanwhile, is scrambling to figure out how best to control the damage.
We learn pretty quickly that Milkchick (Tramell Tillman) was lying to Mark when he told him that it had been five months and that the Macrodata Refiners had become the “face” of the Severance reform movement. Nobody outside of Lumon learned anything at all about the Overtime Contingency. Helena Egan even makes a brief video that she sends out to Lumon employees and others who attended the gala explaining that she mixed a prescription drug (from a non-Lumon facility!) with alcohol and this impaired her judgment, leading to her ill-advised “prank.”
Meanwhile, by the time Mark S. is told by Milchick that it’s been months, it’s actually only been a weekend. This is made even more obvious when the new MDR employees are fired and we see Mark W threatening to sue Lumon as he’s escorted off the premises as Mark Scout walks into the building.
Lumon’s damage control is interesting for a couple of reasons:
- Milchick drives his motorcycle to the homes of Dylan and Irving and fires both of them. Neither takes the news well. Milchick doesn’t explain the reasoning at all to Irving and tells Dylan that he was the “aggressor” in a physical altercation at work—leaving out the important details, obviously.
- Milchick does not fire Mark, however. Instead, he encourages him to come back to work, first at the home of Mark’s sister Devon (Jen Tullock) and her husband Ricken (Michael Chernus) and then later when he brings a gift basket—with a pineapple for bobbing—to Mark’s townhouse and offers him a raise.
- For whatever reason, Lumon needs mark. And it has something to do with a mysterious project code-named Cold Harbor. We don’t get any more information than that, but it’s clear that Mark’s presence is essential to the completion of this very important, very secretive project while Dylan and Irving are considered expendable.
Of course, it turns out that this is not exactly true. Mark S throws such a fit that they decide to bring back both men, as well as Helly R, though at this point I think it’s safe to say that everyone is questioning whether it’s truly Helly R or her “Outie” given the lies she told in last week’s episode. We also see some shots of Helena Egan watching security footage of Helly R and Mark S’s interactions, almost as though she’s trying to understand how her “Innie” acts, and learn the relationship dynamics between her and her co-workers. What’s super interesting about this is not just that it’s possibly her doing research on how to act down there, but the fact that she seems almost wistful while she watches, as though she finds Helly R and Mark S’s romance sweet. Maybe as an Egan and a powerful corporate overlord in her own right, she’s had no time for such frivolities.
We also see what Ms. Cobel is up to on the outside world. Or should I call her Mrs. Selvig? Ricken suggests “Cobelvig” as a helpful nomenclature. Oh Ricken, never change. She is offered a new position at Lumon in charge of Severance affairs, but she doesn’t want it. She wants to be put back in charge of the Severed Floor. She tells Helena that she’ll think about it, but when Mark runs into her outside of their townhouses, she’s clearly leaving town. When she finds out he’s returning to Lumon she asks if their offer to return “involved a pineapple” which is lowkey hilarious. She also mocks him for being so easy to sway.
When he confronts her about Gemma (Dichen Lachman), however, she goes silent. He presses her on the point and she screams, driving her car at him and forcing him to leap aside. It’s a clear admission that yes, all of this involves his dead wife who may not actually be dead.
This is a truth that Mark Scout does not want to accept for most of the episode. When he and his sister and Ricken are talking earlier on in the episode, they all agree that his Innie must have been referring to the baby, who Mrs. Selvig had left behind when she absconded from the house earlier that evening. Only Devon seems to doubt this. Ricken is convinced, but Ricken is an imbecile. Mark—who has spent two years grieving and making peace with his loss—simply can’t accept the possibility that somehow his wife is alive and has been abducted by Lumon. When he meets with Devon at the diner, he gets incredibly defensive when she presses the point.
When he storms out we see Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) sitting at a nearby table listening in on everything. Clearly, Lumon wants to find out what they know both inside and out of the Severed Floor. (I recognized Ólafsson from Eurovision Song Contest, in which his character very badly wanted to hear—over and over again—Ya Ya Ding Dong. This is a very different role).
Beyond all of this, we learn a bit more about Dylan and Irving. Dylan, we are not entirely surprised to learn, has a tough time finding a new job. He has a disastrous—but hilariously awkward—interview at a door manufacturer called Great Doors (like the great outdoors, I guess) where the interviewer, played by Adrian Martinez to look almost like Dylan’s twin, turns out to have very strong and very negative feelings about the Severance procedure.
Irving, meanwhile, goes to a payphone to make a mysterious phone call. A car pulls up and someone watches him from inside. A moment later we see who it is: Burt (Christopher Walken) who watches Irving with a very curious expression on his face. Something fishy is going on.
All told, this was another great episode of Severance. It’s interesting to see everything from the Innie perspective last week, and then see how events unfold on the outside this week, especially because it shows just how duplicitous and manipulative Lumon is when it comes to their handling of the Innies. We have plenty of mysteries to gnaw on: What’s up with Helly R? What’s going on with Burt? What on earth is going on with Ms. Casey / Gemma? And what is Cold Harbor, exactly? Oh, and where will Ms Cobelvig go and is she truly leaving Lumon despite her religious zeal and devotion to Kier?
Lots to think about over the next week as we wait for Episode 3! What did you think of this week’s episode?
Let me know on Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. Also be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me here on this blog. Sign up for my newsletter for more reviews and commentary on entertainment and culture.
