‘Severance’ Star Dichen Lachman Breaks Down That ‘Heartbreaking’ Gemma Episode: ‘Part of Her Is Gone’ – Variety
By
Ethan Shanfeld
SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 7 of “Severance,” streaming now on Apple TV+.
She’s alive!
At least some version of her is, held captive on Lumon’s Testing Floor and shuttled from room to room, activating her severance chip and splitting her into several different identities.
I’m talking about Gemma, of course, whose wellbeing and whereabouts have been central to the mystery of “Severance.” In this week’s episode, we finally check in with Mark’s (not dead after all) wife, played by Dichen Lachman with a sexy coolness — and then an emptiness — in a series of heartbreaking flashbacks and harrowing glimpses of the Testing Floor.
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Gemma is not to be confused with Ms. Casey, who, it turns out, is just one of many of her “innies.” In vignettes of Mark and Gemma’s marriage, gorgeously captured by cinematographer Jessica Lee Gagné in her directorial debut, Gemma is charming, playful — far from the robotic wellness counselor she inhabits on the Severed Floor.
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The episode starts with Mark and Gemma’s meet cute, at a blood drive at the college campus they both worked at. They have instant chemistry, but their fate may have been sealed from the beginning — there’s a Lumon logo emblazoned on the medical equipment. Soon enough, Mark and Gemma start their life together, with dancing and Christmas and putting flowers behind each other’s ears. In one flashback, it’s revealed that Gemma was pregnant. She miscarries, so they try IVF. A visit to the fertility clinic reveals another Lumon logo, and a glimpse of Lumon’s Dr. Mauer, played by a chilly Robby Benson. As Mark and Gemma’s attempts to conceive fail, their relationship suffers. We witness their last moment together, exchanging “I love yous” before Gemma leaves the house on the night of her “death.” In the final flashback, Mark is greeted at the door by policemen.
Down on the Testing Floor, in the present day, Gemma plays dress up, as a nurse brings her into different rooms that activate different identities. In one room, Dr. Mauer assumes the role of her husband, supervising her on Christmas morning as her hand cramps from writing too many thank you cards. Another room is dedicated to dental work, with that particular innie’s entire existence strapped to a patient chair. Gemma’s hand and teeth still hurt once she crosses the severance threshold, even though she doesn’t remember what happened to make them hurt. And even more important than her physical symptoms are her mental state, as Lumon gauges the degree to which her “tempers” carry over as well. How strong are the walls of severance, and what, if anything, bleeds through from innie to outie?
The rooms are named after the files Mark has completed in the macrodata refinement unit, though, to him, the work remains “mysterious.” There’s only one room left: Cold Harbor. We don’t know exactly what will happen to Gemma once Mark finishes that file, which has been touted as a major landmark for Lumon, but it doesn’t sound good for our estranged lovebirds. It’s hard to imagine the corporation that kidnapped Gemma and held her captive for years will simply let her free once testing is completed.
At the end of the episode, which takes place as Mark is unconscious, “journeying” in his reintegration process, Gemma takes action, whacking Mauer over the head with a chair and plotting her escape from Lumon. But when Gemma makes it up the elevator, she’s trapped by her own mind. She’s on the Severed Floor — she’s Ms. Casey now — and she’s told by Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) to head back down to the Testing Floor voluntarily. It’s a battle of innies and outies, and it’s going to require both working together to make it out of Lumon.
Below, Lachman discusses this week’s episode of “Severance” with Variety, unpacking Gemma’s captivity and “heartbreaking” escape attempt, and theorizing about how Lumon faked her death in the first place.
It was very important to everyone to make the relationship with Mark really grounded. We discussed them having difficulties in their relationship, and that was the most important thing we kept coming back to: How do we make this relationship feel lived-in? People will have noticed that up until now, I didn’t spend a lot of time on set. So, the time to build that rapport with someone was essentially nonexistent. But Adam Scott is such a generous actor, and everyone made me feel so comfortable. Basically, Episode 7 was like my first day at school for Season 2 because I hadn’t really been there. I felt a tremendous amount of pressure to do my absolute best. We played with Gemma a lot, taking a lot of time with those scenes and dialing in more intensity, less intensity.
Yeah, I’d come in from time to time to shoot those little beats. Some of them were extremely technical. The one in the tent [in Episode 4, as Mark sleeps with Helena], they had a monitor that I was looking at, and I had to line my face up exactly to the position of Britt Lower’s face. They had a special piece of machinery to be able to do the take. I just remember lying there and not moving for hours to get that one moment. This show is full of things like that, which the audience members may not notice. The amount of work that goes into some of the technical shots is extraordinary. We were trying to get that two-second shot for a good half of the day.
For the airplane set piece, they built this part of an airplane on hydraulics, and I had to take anti-nausea medication because I was in there all day. The whole thing was moving around like a plane that had severe turbulence, or that was going to crash.
I definitely think a part of her — that joy and ease and frivolity — is gone, to some degree. She just wants to get home to Mark. Ms. Casey is quite rudimentary. When I got the script for Episode 7, I thought, to justify that quite literal person, who is simplistic in many ways, maybe it’s because her mind has been bifurcated so many times. Unlike the severed floor, where it’s just their work person and their person in the real world, perhaps because Gemma has so many different versions of her mind, that has affected her. That’s my fan theory — that there might be a part of her that’s gone. But I do think she is essentially there, and her love for Mark and her strength and determination is still there.
They’ve definitely been watching them for a long time. My theory is that it has something to do with Lumon deciding to pick this couple and monitor them. You also see Dr. Mauer [Robby Benson] at the fertility clinic — he just walks by. The whole world is Lumon. Even [the restaurant] Pip’s is owned by Lumon. My theory is that they picked something up with Gemma’s blood work when she went to the fertility clinic, and that’s got something to do with why they picked Mark and Gemma. I noticed that the Christmas tree tinsel in the Christmas room [on Lumon’s Testing Floor] is the same as Mark and Gemma’s Christmas tree in their living room. I mentioned that to the writers, and they didn’t confirm or deny anything.
Never. And one of my favorite things is looking at other people’s fan theories online. They go into such depth, and it’s really rewarding. Some of these guys should be writers! They’re so talented.
My theory is that they gave her some Shakespearean potion, that Lumon has made salves and balms and stuff. Maybe it’s something that stops your heartbeat and breathing for enough time to fake her death. I’m getting into the weeds here, but…
If Mark saw Gemma completely charred up, he might actually think Devon’s right, because the body wouldn’t have looked like Gemma. He would have seen a charred body. So that’s my theory.
As a woman, it’s very difficult to feel like your body is not doing what it’s meant to be doing. I didn’t have anything clarified [by the writers], but I think everyone agreed that [Gemma’s inability to give birth] had been very painful for her, and she felt guilty. She felt inadequate.
He definitely does. She loathes him, obviously. His relationship with her is totally different because he gets to experience being in all these different rooms with her. He’s infantilizing her in a way. I think maybe she understands that they have time together that she’s not aware of, which is super creepy. That could go into some really dark places. Gemma has been on the Testing Floor for so long that she is numb. Finally she breaks, especially when he revs her up with that horrible lie about Mark. I don’t think it’s the first time she’s tried to make it out, because Drummond asks Mauer, “Didn’t she break your fingers?” So, she’s had these moments where she’s lost all tolerance and makes a break for it. It’s heartbreaking, she’s trapped by her own mind.
We shot that scene four times, all in one take. She runs to the elevator, transitions from Gemma to Ms. Casey, then from Ms. Casey to Gemma and has that moment with Sandra Bernhard’s character. That was probably the most challenging thing I had to do as an actor.
Right! How much influence is Innie Mark going to have on Mark’s outie? And what is that life going to be like? It’s actually really bad. I don’t know where it’s going to go, but that’s what’s brilliant about it. The philosophical questions are endless.
I have seen that. I don’t blame people for having that theory, because when Mark looks at her in the first episode [of Season 2], there is some sort of flash, isn’t there? Initially, I even wondered if she had something to do with Gemma. I wasn’t 100% sure. I didn’t ever get to ask, but I don’t know whether I like or dislike that theory. I can see why people might think there is a link.
I don’t know! The time frame would be off, because of her age. But it is interesting: why would a young teenager be in this place? Why isn’t she in school? It does raise a lot of questions. Sarah is an extraordinary actress. She did such a wonderful job, and the ambiguity there is really intense.
What I want to know as a fan is who is behind it all, and why are they doing it? Why did they pick the people they picked? Obviously, Lumon has some volunteers, and they’re global — we had that wonderful Italian guy in Episode 1. What is their mission, and how much do they control? But I do feel like we get a lot of answers this season. It’s not all left as a mystery for the sake of a mystery. They are answering questions and asking even more.
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