‘Severance’ Season 2’s “Woe’s Hollow” Offers a Chilling New Theory – Hollywood Reporter
Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterSubscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterWhat does Lumon actually want? The Hollywood Reporter investigates a new artificial mystery.
By
Josh Wigler
Contributor
[This story contains spoilers from season two, episode four, “Woe’s Hollow.”]
In its third episode, Severance season two reintroduced one of the Apple show’s biggest mysteries: the goats — namely, what’s up with them? Why are they crawling all over a field tucked away in the severed floor of Lumon? What do they have to do with the macrodata refinement process, if anything?
If you thought goats were weird, though, a certain set of animatronic Innies would like to have a quick word. Episode four, the riveting “Woe’s Hollow,” adds a whole new question to the arena, or at the very least, heightens an old one: Are the Egans hoping to achieve immortality via robotics?
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Throughout “Woe’s Hollow,” we follow a field trip hosted by Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) and populated by Mark S. (Adam Scott) and his intrepid Innies (plus one in disguise, Britt Lower‘s Helena, who has been posing as Helly since the start of the season). They navigate the cold climate of Woe’s Hollow on a quest to see the world’s tallest waterfall, learn about Kier Egan’s (Marc Geller) secret twin Dieter, and watch helplessly as delicious marshmallows burn in the fire as a form of punishment. In the end, Irving (John Turturro) uncovers the truth about Helena, aggressively outing the Outie by nearly drowning her in the hollow. For his efforts, he’s immediately terminated from the company, effectively ending Innie Irving’s time on the show, at least for now, though certainly not forever — Outie Irving still has a lot of work to do, after all.
During all of this, Mark and friends are helped along their journey by some very strange road markers — namely, themselves. Well, sorta themselves. Referred to in the credits as “Shadow” versions of the characters, notably played by other actors, these stilted Macrodata Refiners are a far cry from the genuine article, though they stand right at the edge of the uncanny valley. We never get to see these individuals up close, only far enough away to know they resemble our Innies and can move their limbs in vaguely human fashion, but are otherwise clearly mechanical in nature.
The animatronic refiners featured in “Woe’s Hollow” harken back to the Perpetuity wing of the Severed floor, a grand hall where the various Egan family members are displayed as lifelike replicas. Early in season two, Alia Shawkat’s Gwendolyn Y (not to be confused with Gwendoline C) mentions how her old branch contained animatronic versions of the Egans in their Perpetuity wing. The existence of lifelike animatronics is a well-established fact on the show, and “Woe’s Hollow” only heightens things further, pushing forth a narrative that artificial beings are going to play some sort of role in the future of the show.
A couple of things to noodle on in that direction:° How did the Refiners wind up in Woe’s Hollow? The Outies signed off on the field trip, but did they agree to wake up in precarious positions, such as a frozen pond or an edge of a cliff? If not, then how did Lumon coax them out into their starting positions? The idea that makes the most sense is Lumon having the ability to fully power down the Innies if needed. We already know about the Overtime Contingency, which wakes Innies up on the outside world; we just learned about the Glasgow protocol, which apparently lifts some sort of block connecting the Innie from the Outie; how far-fetched is it to think that some of the other safe words we’ve seen along the way, such as “Freeze Frame,” can’t turn the Innies into some form of mindless, robot-like husk?
° The Woe’s Hollow trip is known as an ORTBO, or, Outdoor Retreat Team Building Occurrence. (Yes, really. Only on Severance!) Mix those letters around, and what do we get? Take a beat, we’ll get back to that.
° The story about Dieter sounds mostly made up, likely by a lustful Kier who invented a lustful brother to cover up his secret shame. After all, how many evil corporations have started because a guy got embarrassed about his wiener in the woods? (Yes, again, really, and yes, again, only on Severance.) Whether or not this bit’s made up, however, we can’t deny that it’s a capital t Thing: “Dieter Egan” is an anagram for “AI-generated.” Cue the Mr. Ortbo theme song.
Between everything put forth in “Woe’s Hollow,” including a world-scrambling word-scramble like “AI-generated,” and much of what we’ve seen previously on the show (such as Kier Egan himself congratulating Helly via a video game message, back in season one), there’s a lot on the table pointing toward Lumon’s immortality intentions involving some form of artificial life. Is the Severance procedure meant to enhance a practice that already exists? Are the refiners working on Egan code, doing their best work to refine the Chosen One’s “code” into something that can be put in an artificial body — or, eventually, into a flesh-and-blood form, such as Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman), potentially a top candidate for such a procedure due to her allegedly “fatal” accident?
So, there you have it: robots, or at least, “ORTBO”s, leading toward an AI form of immortality. Tired, or wired? In truth, some Sev-heads are still fantasizing about Lumon’s goat work leading us toward clones some day — but perhaps the “wired” version of that “tired” take is, quite literally, wired.
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Severance is now streaming the three episodes of season two, with new episodes releasing Fridays on Apple TV+. Read THR‘s season two interviews with creator Dan Erickson and recent cover star, director Ben Stiller.Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every dayInside the business of TV with breaking news, expert analysis and showrunner interviewsSubscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterSend us a tip using our anonymous form.
