Severance season 2 is an absolutely terrific installment, but there are few episodes that I consider to be my favorite than its most recent one, aka ‘Attila’. One of the best Apple TV+ shows has performed very well this year, drawing in new fans and beating Ted Lasso to become the most streamed Apple TV+ series and it’s easy to see why. When you have episodes as good as this one, it makes you long for more shows of this caliber.
‘Attila’ was wall-to-wall character development when it came to the macrodata refinement team (MDR) – indeed, so much happened that it was hard to recap everything, but I’ve managed to capture the most important moments. We’ve got affairs, an awkward reunion between Burt and Irving, and reintegration gone wrong – and that’s not even the full story! Here’s my spoiler-filled Severance season 2 episode 6 recap…
Milchick’s disturbing monologue
Following on from Milchick’s disastrous performance review in Severance season 2 episode 5, we just witnessed a new disturbing side to the severed floor manager. He’s clearly been humiliated by the Lumon higher-ups, who flagged things like “uses too many big words” and “uses paperclips incorrectly”, which is micromanagement of the highest level. It’s no surprise Milchick is embarrassed and, although he hasn’t said explicitly, it’s clear there’s some tension between him and Ms. Huang who, as ‘Attila’ reveals, he assumes reported all these things to Lumo’s human resources (HR) team.
After calling Ms. Huang into his office, he reprimands her and reminds her that she can only graduate from her fellowship once he has deemed her Wintertide material. Like many things in Severance, what Wintertide actually is remains a mystery, but it’s clear that the young employee cannot advance without Milchick’s help, and he’s not above using that as a weapon against her.
He informs her he’s taking the day off but, later, we see him standing in front of a mirror (in a Lumon storeroom) where he berates himself by repeating the words “You must grow up” over and over again. In one of my previous Severance season 2 theories pieces, I suggested Lumon may be a cult of sorts and Milchick’s obsessive behavior certainly backs up that claim.
Is this classed as cheating?
Severance season 2 has introduced an intriguing new concept: cheating with a person’s ‘outie’. It’s enough to give you a headache, honestly, but remember, the severance procedure splits a person’s consciousness, so a severed employee’s ‘innie’ will be very different from their real-life persona. It’s effectively two separate people sharing the same body, and there are definitely some moral issues that come with that.
Dylan G and Gretchen are a prime example of this. On the outside, Dylan’s ‘outie’ is not only married to her, but they have children. His innie self is technically not her husband, either, as he has no memory of her until they are introduced in Severance season 2 episode 3 – a by-product of the Outie Visitation Suite that Milchick set up to specifically keep Dylan G onside in Severance season 2 episode 1. We know Milchick has done this after Dylan G accidentally learned he had a family when the overtime contingency (OTC) briefly woke up his ‘innie’ on the outside world. Dylan loves work perks and Milchick couldn’t think of a better one than giving him limited access to his own wife. It’s very sadistic and has formed one of this season’s most intriguing subplots.
As this season has progressed, we’ve learned Gretchen is unhappy with ‘outie’ Dylan and is growing closer to her husband’s alternate self, an experience that must be incredibly confusing. In this episode, they kiss and express that they enjoy spending time together, which could have huge consequences for outie Dylan.
A similar theme was explored with Mark and Helly. In season 2 episode 5, Mark slept with who he thought was Helly but, in fact, it was her outie Helena pretending to be her. Helena used the company’s secret Glasgow Block process, which allows the consciousness of the outie to be awoken on the severed floor. With Mark and Helly feeling used and lied to, they agree to sneak off at Lumon and have sex again, with Helly claiming she “wanted her own memory”, not Helena’s. There are some complicated affairs going on here at Lumon, and it was only a matter of time before workplace romances got really complicated.
This is made worse when Helena continues to stalk outie Mark, finding him in a restaurant and trying to assure him that Lumon is “being better.” After the disastrous season 1 finale, it seems she’ll do anything to salvage the company.
An awkward dinner party
Burt potentially being a villain was not on my 2025 bingo card. However, when Irving’s ‘outie’ met Burt’s ‘outie’ for dinner in episode 6, he was very different from the man we’d seen at Lumon. Something’s going on with him, especially as we saw Lumon’s senior employee, Mr. Drummond, rifling through Irving’s things while he was away having a meal with Burt. In my colleague Tom Power’s Severance season 2 episode 6 theories article, he suggested that Burt could’ve orchestrated the break-in with Drummond, and I’ll be so devastated if he turns out to be a villain. The complicated workplace romances continue, and as Christopher Walken said on the Severance podcast, this dinner is basically “introducing your husband to your boyfriend”. Yeah, that’s awkward.
You’ll remember that ‘innie’ Irving and ‘innie’ Burt were starting to fall in love before Burt was forced to retire from Lumon. Well, it turns out ‘outie’ Burt has a husband named Fields, which just made things even more complex. During dinner, Fields seems bitter about it, drinks a lot of wine, and blurts out that Burt has seemingly worked at Lumon for 20 years. However, Irving clocks that the first severed office only opened 12 years ago, so how is that possible? Something’s not right here.
This entire dinner scene was one of the most awkward things I’ve seen on TV this year and I’m desperate to see what happens next.
A second attempt at reintegration
Reintegration sounds incredibly dangerous. The process, which sees a person’s ‘innie’ and ‘outie’ combined to make them a complete individual again, seems to be the only way for quisitive Lumon workers (*cough* Mark *cough*) to discover what Lumon is really up to. So far, reintegration has only ended in disaster, with Mark’s former colleague Petey dropping dead in season 1 after the process overwhelmed his brain.
Mark, desperate to find out the truth about his wife Gemma, has agreed to team up with Reghabi, a former Lumon employee who also installed Mark’s chip, to hopefully reintegrate him successfully. Reghabi has gone rogue and wants to take Lumon down, so she’s agreed, but episode 6’s cliffhanger ending saw Mark having a seizure, his fate left unknown.
Will Mark successfully reintegrate? Or has Reghabi’s experimental procedure just caused more harm than good? Hopefully we won’t have to wait for an answer, but I get the feeling that the show’s next episode will leave us hanging…
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lucy.buglass@futurenet.com (Lucy Buglass)
