The music dance experience is officially canceled—but Severance has returned. After three long years, the macrodata refinement crew is back on our screens. Follow along each week as we break down each episode of Severance Season 2. In the process, we’ll try to piece together what the heck is going on at Lumon Industries.
Crunching the Numbers
One of the major turning points in Severance’s first season was when the MDR foursome activated the overtime contingency protocol, which allowed Mark, Helly, and Irving to (briefly) experience the outside world. While Lumon Industries has deceived the innies about how much time has passed since then—as well as giving them the false impression that the incident attracted national attention—the company can’t put the genie back in the bottle: Our characters are itching for answers. Now, MDR is once again venturing outdoors—this time with Lumon’s approval.
The fourth episode of Severance’s second season, “Woe’s Hollow,” is unlike anything before it. Opening with the MDR quartet gaining consciousness in the middle of a wintry wilderness, the group is informed by a pre-recorded message from Mr. Milchick that they’ll be partaking in an Outdoor Retreat Team Building Occurrence, or ORTBO, in response to their curiosity about the outside world. The setting: Dieter Eagan National Forest, named after Lumon founder Kier Eagan’s twin brother. “Kier dictated a fourth appendix in his final hours of life, a text of such sanctity that it is forbidden upon the severed floor,” Milchick explains. “It’s waiting for you in Scissor Cave, the very same grotto where Kier Eagan tamed the four tempers for the very first time.”
The ORTBO vibe is like a cursed expansion of The Oregon Trail. Guiding our characters along the journey are creepy, spectral doppelgangërs of themselves that reminded me of King Ramses from Courage the Cowardly Dog. (Nineties kids know what’s up.) If I ever saw one of these things in my own image pointing in the direction of my apartment, I’m running the other way:
Once our characters acquire the fourth appendix, we learn more about Kier’s relationship with Dieter. More specifically, the text explores Dieter’s [clears throat] intimate relationship with the forest. “Once concealed by flora, my brother unfastened himself,” Kier writes. “The din of his fervor fell strangely into concert with the music of the wood, and for a moment I could not tell the two apart. His every thrust found rhythm with the trill of the crickets and the moaning of the wind and the snowfall’s yearly thaw. Dieter became, on that night, an instrument of nature, and nature played Dieter with elegance.” This is a very roundabout way of saying: Dieter was cranking it in the woods.
After following the directions of their lookalikes to the titular Woe’s Hollow—a small, picturesque waterfall that Milchick describes as “the tallest on the planet”—the Lumon supervisor brings our protagonists to a campsite. Over a campfire, Milchick reads more from the fourth appendix, in grisly detail, about how Dieter’s body became one with the forest. (“He reached up to grasp at his hair, which was suddenly moss that tore easily from his bleeding scalp.”) An amused Helly mocks the text’s, ahem, masturbatory contents. “That’s actually the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” she says. “He jerked off in front of his brother, and he got punished for it.” An irate Milchick has Miss Huang dump all the Kier-branded marshmallows into the fire, because marshmallows are for team players.
Past ‘Severance’ Recaps
But the hostility between MDR and Milchick pales in comparison to the simmering tension that forms when Irving continues to interrogate Helly about her time on the outside. He just doesn’t buy the “night gardener” encounter, and he believes Helly is hiding something from the rest of the group. (He ain’t wrong!) Irving also chastises Mark, whose romantic feelings for Helly preclude him from thinking clearly about her situation. “It’s OK, we all know Irving’s upset because he can’t ever see Burt again,” Helly says. “And he’s really lonely.” Following that dust-up, Irving storms out into the woods while Mark visits Helly’s tent. Then, to the surprise of no one, Mark and Helly have sex—which, for a couple of innies, is tantamount to losing their virginity. Congrats on the sex, you two. But the real fireworks are still to come.
After spending the night out in the cold, Irving runs into Helly at the bottom of Woe’s Hollow. He posits that Helly isn’t just hiding something from the rest of the team: She’s not who she says she is. “Who would have the power to send their outie to the severed floor?” Irving rhetorically asks. At this point, the audience can piece together that Helly hasn’t woken up since the Season 1 finale—it’s been Helena all along. Once Milchick, Mark, and Dylan reach the top of the waterfall, Irving threatens to drown Helena unless Helly is reawakened. “Goddamnit, Seth, do it!” Helena screams, in between having her face plunged into the freezing water. The facade is officially dropped, and Milchick begrudgingly radios in to have Helly’s consciousness switched back on.
The good news: After four episodes, Helly is finally reunited with the rest of the team. The bad news: It’s come at the cost of Irving’s employment. As punishment for his actions, Irving must face an “immediate and permanent dismissal.” Of course, this isn’t a normal workplace firing: By no longer working on the severed floor, innie Irving will effectively cease to exist, much like his beloved Burt last season. The final moments of “Woe’s Hollow” see Irving walk in the direction of the woods, a feeling of contentment washing over him before losing consciousness. Just like that, innie Irving is no more—and Severance delivers one of the show’s most momentous episodes to date.
Unanswered Questions
What’s a mystery box show without them? Here’s what we can’t stop thinking about.
Why was Helena infiltrating MDR?
Now that we know Helena was pretending to be Helly, the question is: Why? It could be as simple as Helena didn’t want to risk Helly attempting to die by suicide again, especially when she’s made it clear that she does not want to stay on the severed floor. It’s just as likely that Helena was gaining intel for Lumon, since the company was so blindsided by MDR’s overtime contingency scheme. (Lumon is clearly monitoring its severed workers, but nothing beats having somebody on the inside.)
What’s less clear is why Helena chose to sleep with Mark. Was Helena simply committing to what she believed Helly would do in that situation, or was she also attracted to Mark? Could it be a bit of both? In any case, it’ll be interesting to see what the ramifications are from Helena infiltrating MDR—and Mark’s pants. (Sorry.)
What’s the deal with Dieter Eagan?
Obviously, Helena would know all about the Eagan family tree, but for the rest of us, Dieter is a new discovery. We still don’t have a lot of information about Dieter—other than his, uh, intimate relationship with the woods—but the fact that he’s Kier’s twin helps explain why the MDR foursome had creepy look-alikes giving them directions during the ORTBO. (“Kier’s twin was always with him; that’s why we provided the same for each of you,” Milchick tells them.) It’s also interesting to have a twin thrown into Severance’s Eagan lore when the concept of innies and outies isn’t all that dissimilar: Individuals with their own identities who are fundamentally connected to another person (or consciousness sharing the same body).
The jury’s still out on what, exactly, happened to Dieter—unless you believe Kier’s fourth appendix is a work of nonfiction about how masturbating in the woods has dire consequences straight out of a body-horror film. But every time we learn about the Eagans’ bizarre family history, it raises more questions than answers.
Is innie Irving gone for good?
The interesting thing about Severance is that you can “kill” a character off without having the actor exit the series. For now, Irving’s dismissal means his innie will cease to exist, which is heartbreaking in and of itself. But at least we won’t be losing the talents of John Turturro, who should have plenty more to do outside of Lumon HQ. As we learned in the Season 1 finale, outie Irving had been investigating Lumon on his own; presumably, a lot more time will be afforded to that subplot going forward. Plus, we should get some scenes between outie Irving and outie Burt—you don’t cast someone like Christopher Walken if you aren’t going to use him.
At the same time, perhaps we don’t have to definitively say goodbye to innie Irving. All it takes is a return to work for his consciousness to be reawakened; Mark threw a fit at the start of the season that resulted in Lumon bringing back his MDR pals, so there’s always a chance for innie Irving to make a dramatic comeback. Basically, I’m not ruling anything out on this show—even the return of an employee who nearly drowned the CEO’s daughter at a corporate retreat.
What the hell was up with that animal carcass?
On the journey to Woe’s Hollow, the MDR crew stumbled upon a bloated animal carcass that sorta resembled a seal. No words could do that moment justice; take a look for yourself:
Truly, what the fuck? I have no idea what to make of this scene or what it’s meant to represent—I’m just glad nobody was convinced by Irving’s suggestion to eat it for sustenance. There’s not enough imodium in the world to handle digesting that mystery meat.
What is the Glasgow Block?
When Irving is trying to drown Helena and demanding that Helly be brought back, Milchick gets on a walkie-talkie and instructs someone to “remove the Glasgow Block.” Shortly after, Helly is reawakened. Going back to Severance’s first season, when Dylan was in the control room activating the overtime contingency, eagle-eyed viewers could spot other functions that can apparently be used on severed workers. Some of the names of these functions: Beehive, Branch Transfer, Clean Slate, Lullaby, Goldfish, and—drum roll please—Glasgow.
So, what exactly is the Glasgow Block? It clearly prevented Helly from regaining consciousness, even when Helena was on the severed floor. The name is potentially a reference to the Glasgow coma scale, which is used to assess a person’s level of consciousness after a traumatic brain injury. Our best guess, then: After Helly’s speech in the Season 1 finale, Lumon effectively put her in a coma with no intention of waking her. And they would’ve gotten away with it too if it weren’t for that meddling Irving.
Is Woe’s Hollow some kind of simulation?
Full disclosure: I hate covering mystery-box shows because I always come up with theories that, in retrospect, make me feel like an idiot. Case in point: I don’t think Woe’s Hollow is in the real world. Setting aside how wildly irresponsible it would be to toss a bunch of workers in the middle of the woods during winter, there’s a lot of strange stuff going on in the episode. For one, the characters have no idea how they got to Dieter Eagan National Forest—or whether that’s even a real place, since everything Lumon tells them should be taken with a grain of salt. Granted, it’s possible another severed worker function wiped the characters' memories of traveling there. (Goldfish, perhaps?)
But my real point of contention is that Irving didn’t freeze to death despite spending the night outdoors. Now, we have no idea what the temperature is, but with all that snow and Irving beginning the episode standing on a frozen lake, I’m going to guess: Really Fucking Cold. The next morning, however, Irving is completely fine—not even any frostbite. (I’m happy he survived the night, but seriously, he should look like Jack Torrance at the end of The Shining.) But the best evidence I can offer is when the characters originally convene on a cliffside where Mark is waiting:
Beautiful, yes? Well, look what pops up on the cliff moments later:
I refuse to believe Milchick or Miss Huang rolled out a television within seconds or without anyone else noticing. (Also, when Milchick first greets the MDR quartet in person, it’s like he appeared out of nowhere.) There’s something off about Woe’s Hollow, and since I previously compared the ORTBO to The Oregon Trail, I might as well double down: The whole thing was a simulation. (Readers, be kind when I’m almost definitely proved wrong in a month.)
Reddit Theory of the Week
For weeks, the Severance faithful on Reddit believed that something was up with Helly. The theory gained enough steam that entertainment outlets started running with it. But I’d like to give a special shout-out to the wonderfully named Reddit user u/READMYSHIT, who put together 15(!) pieces of evidence that Helena was pretending to be Helly—and that was just after watching the Season 2 premiere. Credit where it’s due: If you read their shit, you learned some shit.
Employee of the Week: Irving B.
We all know that one dude at work who really buys into the company culture, behaving less like an employee than a devout cult member. (Looking at you, [name redacted] from my previous place of employment.) At the start of Severance, that description certainly applied to Irving. He fully drank the Lumon Kool-Aid, so much so that he (proudly) memorized the company’s nine Core Principles. That Irving was so committed to Lumon made MDR’s uprising in the first season all the more satisfying, especially when he declared, iconically, “Let’s burn this place to the ground.”
Now, innie Irving has put his very existence on the line, exposing Helena’s deception. (One could say Irving really put the “Team Building” into Outdoor Retreat Team Building Occurrence.) Without Burt in his life, perhaps Irving felt like he had nothing to lose, but as a final(?) act of rebellion, it’s one that will galvanize the rest of MDR. “Your file, including any and all professional interactions and personal relations, will be purged and destroyed,” Milchick tells him. “It will be as if you, Irving B., never even existed nor drew a single breath upon this earth.”
Except that isn’t true: Irving’s memory will live on through his colleagues, and if they continue to expose Lumon’s hypocrisy and misdeeds, they’ll have more than honored his sacrifice. Yes, Irving might’ve been blindly loyal to Lumon, but by the end of his employment, he saw right through their bullshit.
Design Porn
Severance isn’t just a story; it’s an atmosphere. Each week we’re highlighting our favorite looks captured by the show’s eerily gorgeous production design and cinematography.
Last year, Bloomberg reported that Apple was trying to rein in spending on TV and film production for its (genuinely underrated) streaming service. One of the most surprising tidbits was that Severance’s second season reportedly cost upward of $20 million per episode(!), which, even accounting for strike-related production delays, is a ridiculous amount of money for a series largely confined to a corporate setting. Well, at least we know where some of that budget has gone. “Woe’s Hollow” doesn’t just establish a new locale for the show: Dieter Eagan National Forest is a real showstopper.
As for the Lumon of it all, let’s give the company a quick shoutout for the aesthetically pleasing campsite, featuring blue tents to reflect MDR’s color scheme:
If Spotify ever considers sending The Ringer on an ORTBO, “Woe’s Hollow” has given me some ideas on what to include (green-and-black-branded tents, marshmallows) and what to avoid (bloated animal carcasses, scheduling team building in the middle of WINTER).
