Severance keeps heating up in Season 2. This week’s episode, titled ‘Atilla’ after last week’s ‘Trojan Horse’, moves the ball forward across just about every storyline. Both innies and outies have big, important moments that change the course of events as we head into the back half of the second season. But none of these are as deeply unsettling as the dinner party between Irving, Burt and Fields. Spoilers ahead.
A Hellish Dinner Party
There is something so intensely ominous and creepy about the dinner party Irving (John Turturro) attends at Burt’s house. I expected it to be awkward, but I didn’t expect Burt (Christopher Walken) to be this frightening as an outie. When Irving arrives, things seem friendly enough, though his introduction to Burt’s husband Fields (John Noble) is tense off the bat. (You might recognize Noble as the actor who played Denethor in The Lord Of The Rings).
There’s so much to unpack in this scene.
We learn two conflicting things about Burt. First, that he’s religious. Second, that he has ties to Lumon that stretch back further than his time as an innie.
When Irving asks why they decided to go the severed route, they tell him it was because of Jesus. Apparently Burt led a sinful life in his younger years, and when their church pastor told them that the church’s stance on severance is that innies and outies each have souls, they decided that Burt should undergo severance so that his innie’s soul could go to heaven (with Fields) even if his outie’s soul was condemned to hell. Discussion of hell is fitting here, as I found the entire scene rather hellish. Burt framed by the flickering flames behind him, Fields surrounded by darkness. The once-lovable Burt G. now somehow sinister.
This explanation felt very strange to me. In Christian theology, there is a simple answer to the question of where you go in the afterlife. Accept Jesus as your lord and savior and ask forgiveness for your sins and it doesn’t matter what your past looked like. You’re going to heaven. No severance required. This is the bedrock of Christianity. How would two deeply religious men not understand this? Or is it just a cover story?
Then, at one point, as Fields and Burt bicker over when they started calling one another ‘Atilla’ (as an endearing pun on ‘hun’) Fields (now on the other side of tipsy) says it wasn’t ten years ago, it was twenty. “No!” Burt protests, chuckling. “Yes,” Fields insists, “because I remember we were having drinks with your Lumon partner. Quite startled him.” The table falls silent.
“Didn’t the first severed office open twelve years ago?” Irving asks, confused.
“Yes, it did,” Burt says before turning to his husband, annoyed. “Maybe . . . that’s enough of that.” Fields changes the subject, musing outloud whether or not Burt and Irving ever had sex.
This entire conversation adds a major wrinkle to just about everything we thought we knew. It certainly calls into question their explanation of Burt’s severance. If Burt was involved with Lumon 20 years ago, it’s safe to say he’s far more connected to the company than we’ve been led to believe. Underscoring this is the fact that during this dinner party, Mr. Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) has broken into Irving’s apartment and is rifling through his documents. The timing is curious. Has Burt lured Irving away so that Drummond could take his time searching Irving’s place? This is something Lumon could have done while Irving was an innie, but might not have thought to do until after the ORTBO and his assault on Helena Egan.
Whatever the case, there is much more to Burt than we thought, and I’m curious if Fields is also tied to Lumon in some way. He gives me the creeps, which is pretty on-brand for Lumon. There is clearly also more to Irving, who has been making mysterious phone calls and gathering intel on Lumon. What’s his story? Nobody asked him why he underwent the procedure, though clearly Lumon wants to find out. Is he working for the government, perhaps? Or is this more personal?
Love And Sex On The Severed Floor
On the severed floor, romance is in the air. Dylan G. (Zach Cherry) meets again with his outie’s wife, Gretchen (Merrit Wever) but this time, they grow closer. She sees in Dylan what she no longer sees in her husband: A man who cares deeply about her, who is excited to be near her, who must look an awful lot like Dylan’s outie did years ago, before kids and before self-loathing and before the myriad little indignities of life set in and took hold.
They hug, but this time it’s more of an embrace. And that leads to the inevitable kiss. The question is, can someone cheat on their husband with . . . their husband? When we see Gretchen next, she’s back at home having dinner with Dylan and the kids. He asks how the meeting with his innie went and she lies, telling him they cancelled it entirely.
Meanwhile, Mark S. (Adam Scott) comes clean to Helly R. (Britt Lower) about having sex with her outie. This messes with Helly’s head in a bad way and she takes some time to be alone. Later, she tracks down Mark and tells him that she wants to experience it for herself. They go to an unused room and build a tent out of desks and a plastic sheet. They make love and later, as they kiss in the hall, when Mark pulls back from the kiss he notices blood. At first he thinks it’s Helly’s, but she tells him it’s his. He has a nosebleed, just like Petey did in Season 1.
Ms. Huang (Sarah Bock) assures him that humidity on the severed floor is kept at 45%. “Do you have a deviated septum?” she asks. “I don’t know what that is,” he replies. She asks if he has any other symptoms . . . like hallucinations. She takes his blood pressure, and as she does he flickers in and out of his basement at home. Reghabi (Karen Aldridge) is there. He hears Huang’s voice. “Are you at Lumon?” Reghabi asks. “Do you remember a hallway, a black hallway?” “I remember…I remember…” Mark says.
Speeding Up The Reintegration Process
Reghabit wants to speed up the process, though she warns him there’s a slight risk of hemorrhage. But there’s another way. They can “float the chip” through the hole in his skull that he already has from the severance procedure. But he’s frustrated, exhausted and starving. He storms out of the basement and heads to the local Chinese diner, where he eats an enormous amount of food. Reintegration apparently really works up an appetite.
But he’s not alone. Who should show up at a nearby table, but Helena Egan herself, though she doesn’t look like the Helena we see in the upper halls of Lumon. She has her hair down. She smiles her big, bright white smile at him and he stares back, a look of discomfort and confusion on his face.
Helena gets up and comes to his table, sitting across from him, and the two introduce themselves. She pretends like they’ve never met since Mark obviously has no idea that she was a mole or that they had sex in a tent during the ORTBO.
Helena, it seems, is here for two reasons. The obvious one is that she’s spying on Mark, trying to glean information out of him. She wants to know how he’s doing after the “systemic error from the other night.” “The systemic error?” Mark says. “You mean the overtime thing?”
But the less obvious and more interesting reason is that Helena has genuine feelings for Mark. For her, pretending to be her innie was in some ways a liberating act. She was able to be someone other than her father’s daughter, other than a Lumon boss. Their banter is instantly flirty. When he quips that she invented a revolutionary medical technology she demures, saying that wasn’t her that was her father. “You should meet him sometime,” she says.
“You wanna take me home to dad already?” he asks. “Yeah I think it’s finally time,” she replies. “Alright, let’s do it,” he replies. “You’d be the first,” she says, and it’s all very flirty and light but that’s actually a pretty revealing thing to say. Helena is basically admitting that she’s never had a boyfriend, or at least nothing serious enough to warrant a meeting with her father. There’s clearly more to her little dinner ambush than figuring out what Mark knows. She wants to be close to him, wants to see if this version of Mark might feel something for her the way she clearly feels something for him.
It all goes south when she mentions his wife, apologizing for his terrible loss, and he remembers that this woman knows, must surely know, that his wife isn’t dead. That she’s somehow been taken to Lumon, that all this tragedy and loss and mystery is her fault. He tells her he has to go and she seems confused at the sudden shift in tone. “What is it?” she asks. “Nothing,” he says. “Goodnight.”
He rushes back to his basement, to Reghabi. They float the chip, which involves her sticking a rather insane needle into the back of his skull, into his brain, and flooding it with fluid. “How long will this take?” he asks. “Fast,” she replies. “Fast, how fast?” he asks, and then his eyes roll back into his head. He sees Helly R laying beneath him. Her face and his wife’s flicker back and forth. He jerks back from the frame, clearly in pain, grabbing at his head.
There’s a knock on the door above. It’s Devon (Jen Tullock). He heads upstairs, looking pretty rough, and let’s her in. She chatters about a new idea she’s had to get a message to his innie, but he cuts her off. He already has a new thing he’s working on. She wants to know what it is but he won’t tell her. Then, whatever’s happening to his brain kicks in even harder and he faints, hitting the ground hard. He convulses on the floor as Devon calls his name. Reghabi bursts into the room. “Don’t touch him!” she shouts. Mark convulses, foam dripping from his mouth.
Eradicate From Your Essence Childish Folly
Last, but not least, we come to Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) who, after an awkward meeting with Ms. Huang, goes about his business, making sure to get the paperclips just right. He looks over his performance review. One of the complaints against him was his use of big words.
He stands beside a small lamp and looks himself in the mirror. “You must eradicate from your essence, childish folly,” he says, echoing his words to Ms. Huang earlier. He pauses. “You must eradicate from yourself, childish folly,” he says. The camera zooms in on his reflection.
“You must abandon childish things,” he says, narrowing it down. “You must grow up. You must grow up. Grow up. Grow up. Grow up!” he says, each time more intense, a look of utter self-loathing on his face. “Grow! Grow! Grow! Grow! Grow,” he growls at his own reflection. He clicks the light off.
There is tumult in Milchick now. Ever since he received the race-swapped Kier paintings he’s been experiencing doubt. The performance review only heightened his sense of aggrievement. Will he fall out with Lumon or steady his resolve? Whatever happens next, I have to give Tillman kudos for such an intense performance.
Really, I should extend that to the entire cast in this remarkable episode. Every scene, every moment was just crackling. Not a lot actually happens, but so much takes place. We learn so much about Burt, though none of it is good and mysteries abound. Mark is one step closer to fully reintegrating, but that process appears to be going very badly. Dylan G. and his outie appear to be on some kind of collision course, with Gretchen caught between the two. And Helly R and Mark S just tightened their bond in a way that makes the future of Gemma (Dichen Lachman) and Mark’s relationship (should they ever reunite) more complicated than ever. Meanwhile, Ms. Cobel (Patricia Arquette) is still nowhere to be found.
We’ll find out more next week. There are just four episodes of Season 2 remaining and so many questions yet to answer.
Check out my previous Season 2 recap/reviews below:
And here’s my Season 2 spoiler-free video review:
What did you think of ‘Atilla’? What do you make of Burt and Fielding and their relationship with Lumon? And what is Irving’s outie up to? Let me know your thoughts on Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook.
