Spoilers follow for Severance season 2, episode 2. Watch it first before reading on.
Severance season 2 is off to a great start already, and episode 2 is finally giving fans what they want – more of the outies! By the time we reached the end of season 1, we knew a fair bit about Mark Scout both in and out of Lumon, but the others have been a bit of a gray area. Personally, I was so excited that episode 2 put more of a spotlight on Dylan, as he’s a character I’ve been desperate to see more of.
Even two episodes in, I’m already on the edge of my seat and I really do echo what fellow streaming writer Tom Power said in his Severance season 2 review. With the first installment posing so many questions, it’s amazing to have major reveals like this so early on. The Apple TV Plus continues to impress.
Here’s what went down in Severance season 2, episode 2.
Getting to know the outies
This episode picks up after the season 1 finale but focuses more on the outies this time around. Helena Eagan, the true identity of “Helly R” holds a meeting where she offers Cobel a more senior job at Lumon, by heading up a new initiative called the Severance Advisory Council. With Milchick now firmly in Cobel’s spot, it’s pretty clear Helena wants him to stay put and to place Cobel elsewhere where she’ll feel important, but she’s having none of it. Cobel wants to be managing the severed floor again but concedes that she’ll think about the promotion before leaving.
After being confronted by her father, Helena films a video apology where she tries to diffuse what happened at the gala after Helly R briefly took control, telling the entire room that Lumon was torturing its staff and everyone down there was miserable. She claims she was inebriated at the time and said some incorrect things, passing it off as a joke. It’s a very unconvincing apology, admittedly, but it’s Lumon’s desperate attempt to patch things up and do some damage control.
Meanwhile, Milchick does the rounds and fires Irving and Dylan, with the latter taking it especially hard because he’s worried about his family and how he’s going to support them. He tries interviewing for another job and it seems to go well until they find out he’s severed, where he’s told they find what he’s done to himself abhorrent. This scene really hammers home just how disgusting some people think severance is, and how whether they like it or not, employees who have undergone the surgery are probably best placed at Lumon. At the very least, they should probably be careful who they reveal that information to. Not everyone takes kindly to severance, after all.
Meanwhile, Mark struggles with the realization that his innie was around his family and Milchick tries to diffuse the situation, but Mark is unsure whether or not he wants to go back to Lumon. Milchick continues to claim that Cobel is a bad person and is the reason Mark’s innie is so distressed, and Mark’s sister Devon seems to take an immediate dislike to Milchick, not trusting what he says (same here actually).
Later on, Milchick arrives at Mark’s home and tries to coax him back with offers of financial compensation and better well-being support at Lumon. Basically he’s doing everything he can to coax Mark back with promises of better things, a technique he seems to love using. He also speaks about Mark’s late wife Gemma (who may or may not be dead, who knows!) and reveals that innie Mark is happy and doesn’t feel the pain that outie Mark does, this time trying to use emotional manipulation to bring him back. He’s persistent, isn’t he?
Lumon is obviously very keen to have Mark back to work as they need him there to complete Cold Harbor, that shocking reveal at the end of Severance season 2, episode 1. Discovering they must do everything they can to keep Mark happy, Helena is instructed to return to the severed floor as Helly R because Mark would refuse to work down there without her. We already saw how angry he was at losing his team in the first episode, so they don’t want a repeat of that.
Reuniting the team
Severance season 2, episode 2 snippets
– Cobel is back and mysterious as ever, I’ve got a feeling she’s going to be a huge key in season 2
– So much more focus on the outies which I loved to see, I’m hoping we get more of a balance between both sides of the characters
– Helena’s video apology reminded me so much of her speaking to Helly R to decline her resignation, it all seems very clinical and forced
– Milchick continues to plot and scheme, does he even get any rest?
All this work does pay off and although Mark did initially express to Devon that he wanted to quit Lumon, he ends up returning after considering all the options Milchick presented to him. Milchick rounds the old team up again not that long after firing them, something that no doubt caused the outies some confusion. However, both Dylan and Irving agree because it’s clear Lumon is providing them with a lot. Irving even offered to pay up if his innie had broken something and Dylan was distressed about being unable to support his family without employment, so it’s clear the outies have no intention of resigning unless their hands are forced. This is good news for Lumon, considering they seem to be using the whole team as pawns to keep Mark where they need him to be.
So the whole gang is back together once again, including Helly R. There’s one important detail, however, that you may have missed. When Helena returns to Lumon, she enters the elevator to the severed floor which implies she is not going down there as Helly R, and is instead posing as her. We are so used to hearing the elevator ping that it was jarring when it didn’t, and Severance continues to torment us with this little detail.
Later in the episode, Mark’s outie confronts Cobel on the outside after seeing her leaving her home, which happens to be right next to his. (Anyone else find this really weird?). Cobel asks if they convinced Mark to stay at Lumon, accusing him of being so easy to sway. She drives off and Mark stops her by running into the road. He asks if she knows about Gemma and she doesn’t answer, instead speeding off away from him which is where this episode ends. But Cobel’s very long, uncomfortable silence implies she does know something, and I’m sure Mark isn’t going to let this one go easily.
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lucy.buglass@futurenet.com (Lucy Buglass)
