Severance May Slowly Be Showing Where This Is All Headed – Gizmodo
Severance has been massively mind-melting this season but finally, after six episodes, things are starting to come together. Not that the journey hasn’t been fascinating—it has—but with episode six, “Attila,” you can finally look at each story and try to predict where things could be going. Will they actually go to those places? Probably not. But that we can start having conversations about the season’s end is very exciting.To properly discuss this episode, and not make it insanely confusing, we’re going to once again break it down by character. Here’s our recap of the sixth episode of Severance season two, “Attila.”The episode picked up where the last one left off, with Mark’s outie trying to deal with the progress of the integration. It’s disorienting for him, physically and emotionally, but Reghabi assures him it’s normal. His discomfort continued throughout the episode too, with multiple instances of Mark’s outie randomly switching to his innie and vice versa. Later, Mark gets fed up with the procedure and Reghabi suggests taking things up a notch by adding liquid to his head around the severance chip. This is too much for Mark and he storms out.Mark heads to a Chinese restaurant where arguably the season’s most intense scene yet takes place. Helena arrives, clearly having been tipped off that Mark’s outie is there, and the two strike up a conversation that’s bursting with possibility. We know she slept with his innie but he doesn’t know that. He knows this is both his boss and the head of Lumon Industries—a company which, he believes, has kidnapped his thought-to-be dead wife. These two meeting should be a bit of a powder keg.Instead of jumping across the table at her, though, Mark and Helena flirt. You almost get the sense they could be great together like their innies are. But when Helena brings up Gemma, feigning remorse about it, Mark gets scared. He realizes this woman is evil and flees. When he gets home, he decides to expedite the reintegration process by allowing Reghabi to flood his chip.That gruesome process is a success, or so we think. Mark’s sister arrives and as the two fight, he has an episode, falls down, and foams at the mouth. We’re left wondering if he’s okay, but also, what will he remember when he wakes up?In the midst of some of that, innie Mark has some fairly significant things happen as well. He’s having the same blips as his outie, of course, and has to deal with the fallout from his Mr. Milchick encounter in the previous episode. Mark pulls Helly aside and hits her with the awkward reveal that he had sex with Helena, but only because he thought it was her.More on that fallout when we get to Helly. Wrapping up Mark though, it sure seems like the slow melding of his innie and outie is potentially leading to an event where Mark pulls a Helena and his outie goes to work at Lumon posing as his innie. Or, maybe, it’s the flip of the season one finale where Mark’s outte appears at Lumon for a limited amount of time. Either would be very exciting.We’ve already covered the sheer evil of Helena finding Mark outside of Lumon and not just flirting with him, but taunting him about his wife. It’s something Helly would have surely hated, especially after Mark tells her about the two of them sleeping together. She attempts to justify it as another tactic Helena would use to drive a wedge between them all (which is true—but also, we know Helena likes Mark), but she still needs some time to deal. The whole thing is almost impossible to get your head around. She’s sort of been cheated on but not really because it’s actually herself who is doing the cheating,After some self-reflection, Helly accepts that Mark did think it was her and mostly she’s mad she didn’t have the experience he did. So, they decide to have that experience. The pair find a quiet, empty room, and make those memories. As they leave the room, they’re glowing, which is when Mark gets a nosebleed, a sign that his mind is working overtime. But at least things seem good between the innies.The main crux of Dylan’s story revolves around his wife, Gretchen. His usually abrasive innie has become less averse to conflict to make sure he won’t lose the privilege of meeting with her. And the meetings are getting more intimate, as Gretchen voices her displeasure with his outie and his innie continues to fall for her. Their latest meeting even ends with the pair passionately kissing, not something either of them is quite yet ready to deal with.We know this because, back at home, Gretchen lies to Dylan’s outie. He’s trying to justify buying a new car, a perfect example of the scatterbrained tendencies she has begun to resent in him, when he asks about the visit to Lumon. Instead of telling the full truth, or a half-truth, Gretchen goes full lie. She doesn’t just lie about the kiss, she lies about the visit as a whole, saying that it was canceled. Clearly, Gretchen loves Dylan, but she might be falling more for his motivated, more innocent innie.Again, here we start to see things coming to a head. Is Gretchen actually falling for Dylan’s innie? What if his outie finds out? It’s not as if she’s cheating; both Dylans are the same person, just using different pieces of their brains. It’s all very confusing and dramatic, which we love.Before we get to the biggest, most interesting journey this week, we have to talk about Mr. Milchick. After his very poor performance review, Milchick decides to hand the reins of the floor over to Miss Huang for the day to work on some things. Things like, properly clipping hundreds and hundreds of pieces of paper together. Things like, trying to use shorter words which means he turns the phrase “You must eradicate from your essence childish folly” all the way down to “Grow up.” Which he repeats over and over to himself. Clearly, Milchick thinks he needs to grow up and is willing to go to some creepy lengths to do so.After an episode on the sidelines, Irving got this episode’s most tantalizing story. Having accepted the invite the previous episode, Irving heads to Burt’s house to have dinner with him and his husband, Fields, played by Fringe vet John Noble. Every single line of the scene was dripping with layered meanings and all of it raised fascinating questions.The two biggest takeaways though have to do with Burt’s time at Lumon. First up, Irving asks him how he ended up working on the severed floor and we learn that it was religious. When severance was invented, their pastor told them the church’s belief was outies and innies were different people and could have different fates. So, because Burt believed his outie was going to hell while Fields was going to heaven, he decided to get severed for a second chance at eternity together. Basically, they thought they found a loophole in the afterlife, which says a lot about who they are as people.Next, Fields gets emotional as he discusses the chance that Burt and Irv’s innies potentially had sex at Lumon. The conversation gets tense and it comes out that while Burt thinks he and Fields have been using the pet name “Attila” (as in “hun”) for 10 years, Fields knows it’s 20 years because it started when they were having drinks with his Lumon partner. Irving points out that severance didn’t start until 12 years ago and Burt shuts the conversation down. Later, Burt even makes an excuse that Fields wasn’t himself because clearly, that was a mistake. Burt definitely wasn’t at Lumon before severance, right?Except, clearly, he was. Which opens a massive can of worms. Did he help create severance? Was he the first person who did it? We don’t think he’s involved in a particularly malicious way since there’s a very quick scene of Mr. Drummond finding Burt’s address in what appears to be Irving’s stash of secret Lumon documents. Why would Drummond need to find the address be there if Burt was part of the Lumon team? Either way, Burt has some big secrets.It’s worth mentioning that Mr. Drummond scene again. Assuming it’s Irving’s apartment, it’s pretty terrifying that Mr. Drummond has a key to it. Do they keep that close a watch on their employees? Is that how Helena was able to find Mark at the restaurant? Because that wasn’t random. Also, does Irving have anything else of interest in there? What does that “Frolic” tattoo mean? So many questions.Oh, and what is “Winter Tide”? Mr. Milchick said to Miss Huang that she hasn’t yet been deemed “winter tide material” as part of her fellowship. What kind of fellowship is this, exactly? How clued in is she to everything? Is this some sort of Being John Malkovich situation?With Mark’s two halves closer than ever to being together, especially after his medical emergency, Irving uncovering new information about Burt, Helly’s resentment of Helena, Helena preying on Mark, and Dylan’s innie winning over his wife, things on Severance are heating up. Each of those stories is finally showing us a possible path of where the story could be going and we love it. We can’t wait to see if we’re right or, more likely, just be amazed at just how wrong we can be.Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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Source: https://gizmodo.com/severance-recap-season-2-episode-6-attila-adam-scott-britt-lower-2000565608
