If I had a nickel for every time Adam Scott has starred in a television show where he got caught up in a complicated workplace romance, I would have three nickels. But let’s be clear: One of those nickels is extremely more fucked up than the other two. Because I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “Don’t let your girlfriend keep you from finding your wife.” It sounds a little like it’s … encouraging infidelity, but really, it just means: If you know the person you’re dating isn’t going to work in the long run, don’t let them stop you from finding the person who will. Break up with Dave Sanderson so you’re free to do enemies-to-lovers soulmate stuff when Ben Wyatt shows up 11 episodes later.
But … what if it’s your dead wife who’s keeping you from finding your work girlfriend? Except outside work, said work girlfriend is your evil boss who may have had a hand in disappearing said dead wife, and she is also so obsessed with you that she’s going to disappear your work girlfriend and assume her identity so that you can be her boss? But also, now your dead wife may not be dead because she’s actually been your work therapist this whole time? And your evil-boss-slash-work-girlfriend isn’t keeping you from finding your not-dead wife—she’s passing out posters to help you find her! Only you don’t know that she’s just helping you search for your not-dead wife to keep up the ruse that she’s still your work girlfriend and not your evil boss. That is, until you get an under-the-table reverse lobotomy and have sex with her (the evil boss, not the work girlfriend) on a corporate retreat without your informed consent, so your elderly gay friend/coworker tries to kill her, and now your actual work girlfriend is back for the first time since you found out that your dead wife may not be dead!
Severance—a show that’s mostly about power, class, identity, dehumanization, and grief and only occasionally about romantic connection—boldly asks the question: What would you do in THAT situation, MARK?
Which is why I had to ask myself a similarly complicated question following the most recent episode: Why am I into this?
Shipping Mark and Helly has never been easy, on account of how their brains were severed by the time they met, meaning they were basically introduced as newborns who were also in an office setting in which he was her boss and she was always trying to kill herself on the job on account of principles. But for the romance lovers among us, that was a dynamic too complex—and, thanks to the fumbling chemistry between Adam Scott and Britt Lower as Mark S. and Helly R., too charming—to resist ...
We thought. Then we found out that Mark’s wife, Gemma, was alive, at least to the extent that her body was walking around the severed floor in the form of Ms. Casey. We also learned that Helly’s outie was, in fact, Helena Eagan, this story’s antagonist and the heir to this whole fucked-up, inhumane empire. Then, after three years, we slowly learned in Season 2 that shipping Helly and Mark would be a task so insurmountable that it kind of started to feel like it could be time to call it quits. What started as a simple two bodies, four people situation (a love line inside an existence square, obviously) became a three bodies, six people situation (a love triangle inside an existence hexagon), which became a three bodies, six people who are all trying to love, find, boink, disappear, or destroy one another in some way situation (two separate love triangles, with two maybe deaths and also a few AI-generated holograms inside a hexagon of destruction). We’re working with levels of geometry the Texas public school system simply did not prepare me for. And that’s putting aside the interpersonal relationship dynamics the likes of which television hasn’t seen since Passions.
But what is shipping if not persevering in the face of interpersonal delusion? Because I would like to point out—to you and to my therapist—that the Mark-Helly ship began as an honest endeavor. When we knew nothing of Ms. Caseys and Helenas, and no one had ever been outside! And while “Woe’s Hollow” would suggest that the once-budding connection between Helly and Mark is never going to be uncomplicated—and that Mark still has to tell Helly that his wife might be alive, and that he had sex with her doppelgänger-enemy because he couldn’t tell them apart—it is still possible to root for these two crazy kids … their two crazy outies … and their dead wife/former therapist.
Knowing what we know now, maybe it’s best if we just map out on a scrap of paper exactly where we’ve been and where we’re going on our journey of (still) shipping Mark and Helly. We’ll tuck it somewhere nice and safe so that when Helena undoubtedly rolls back through, pissed as hell, we can still find our way back to the ship that started it all.
Innie Mark Meets Innie Helly
How to act: Chill, fine, totally casual, and falling in love only a normal amount
I had no intention of shipping anyone on Severance. It’s not that kind of show! In Season 1, there were too many mysteries to uncover, too many Eagans to hate, too many baby goats to be curious about. Plus, Birving splashed onto the screen as the obvious romance, stealing everyone’s hearts over at Optics and Design. But the love between innie Irving and innie Burt was also recognized, realized, and ruined via retirement-murder in a matter of episodes. Little did we know that, lurking in the slow-burn distance, Helly’s pluck and bravery were slowly breaking down Mark’s normally complaisant walls, and Mark’s support and patience were finally making Helly feel cared for …
Also, when Mark saves her from swallowing a message to her outie and getting probed by Mr. Milchick, and she spits the message in his hand, and then they go exploring together? I’m so sorry, was I not supposed to clock in for shipping duty?
No, when Helly first showed up on the severed floor determined to cut her fucking fingers off or die/murder her outie trying, it didn’t seem like Season 1 of Severance would culminate in a desperate, lapel-grabbing kiss. But Mark and Helly revealed themselves to be excellent frenemies who went on mental health walks and fought the man together. He was 2 years old, and she was 0. They’d met, like, five other people in their whole lives. Apparently, there was bound to be a little kissing all along, and the showrunners were wise enough to keep it simmering on low for most of Season 1. And we were dumb enough to fall for it …
Like sheep to the slaughter. Because we didn’t know outie Mark’s wife was alive, OK???
Curveball: Gemma Is Alive … Sort of … Maybe
How to act: Proceed with cautious acceptance and pragmatism
The reveal that Mark’s dead wife, Gemma, has been, in some way, kept alive on the severed floor as Ms. Casey—and disappeared again to the testing floor by Ms. Cobel—was a bittersweet break for Mark-Helly shippers in the Season 1 finale. Because we can acknowledge that Mark and Helly have a fun and flirty thing going on—while also acknowledging that outie Mark would give basically anything for his wife to be alive again. He went so far as to sever his brain so that he wouldn’t have to think about the fact that she’s dead.
But also … innie Mark doesn’t know his outie. And we can see all the flaws in the severance procedure while also acknowledging that a severed person has a right to find what makes them happy (intra-office banter, elevator kissing, etc.) … right? Right??? Plus, our understanding of Gemma’s new life is very limited. We have no idea how Lumon brought Ms. Casey to life on the severed floor and no idea whether there will be any semblance of Gemma left when Mark finds her. Should something implausible and possibly even more heartbreaking than her death—“We’ve harnessed your attachment to your dead wife to make you work day in and day out to create immortality for the people who severed you in the first place,” for example—end a perfectly good office crush? I don’t begrudge Mark—innie or outie—trying to find Gemma or Ms. Casey. I’d even go so far as to pass out flyers alongside him with mixed feelings. However, there’s simply no reason for us to jump ship just because we may also need to search for outie Mark’s wife—that sounds like a fun little task to do together!
Curveball: Helly Is Helena Eagan
How to act: Cling to the power of unconditional love (yes, even when the condition is Helena)
OK, admittedly, the reveal that Helly's outie is the heir to Lumon is a bit more of a setback. Less so for us (I’m still having a great time!) or for Mark (because surely innie Mark could get over the connection once Helly doubles back down on trying to mutilate her outie with any available chance and/or office supply), but more so for Helly, who may have to shift out of that cozy kissing place she’d settled into once she has time to process that she has to take down her outie, with whom she shares a body. Theoretically …
Because we actually have no idea how it would have gone if innie Helly had the chance to reveal to innie Mark that her outie is an Eagan—my shipper heart says it would have been fine because love conquers all. But between getting tackled at the Lumon gala and waking up in the next season of Severance while drowning, Helly hasn’t exactly gotten a ton of time to sit with that information. We, however, have carried on with this ship in the face of uncertainty …
Innie Mark Meets Outie Helena, but He—and We (Sort of)—Think He’s Reuniting With Innie Helly
How to act: Like we know what’s going on, but she doesn’t know we know (and he literally doesn’t know anything … ever)
As you can read, this is where things get a little existentially complicated. What if your work girlfriend was also the woman who ruined your life? What if you Single White Female’d yourself? You’d think the answer to these questions would be “bad, bad, bad,” but for a while, things are kind of OK between innie Mark and outie Helena.
Sure, most fans suspected that Helly was actually Helena Eagan the moment she returned to the severed floor in Season 2—because Helena is a bad actor, and Britt Lower is a perfect actor. But innie Mark—who has recently received the first kiss of his young life, a kiss so monumental that it was featured in the Claymation documentation of the innie revolution—does not know that he’s now flirting with Helena Eagan while they search for the body double of his outie’s dead wife. It is a little weird that he doesn’t figure things out, though, because this version of Helly no longer knows how to flirt, can’t turn her computer on for shit or explain what a night gardener is, has almost entirely stopped stomping down the halls to fuck up Lumon’s whole deal, and is definitely doing a lot less lapel grabbing and a lot more strange heavy-breath staring at Mark’s mouth instead.
Which ultimately kind of maintains this Mark-Helly ship, because …
Curveball: Helena’s a Loser Incel Who Just Wants to Feel Love
How to act: Just lean all the way in?
Turns out, while Helena Eagan is a fetid moppet, she is motivated by one other thing: being obsessed with Mark S. (innie and outie form) and wanting what her innie has, which is the freedom to kiss boys without the familial burden of oppressing others. Helena watching the clip of Helly (technically someone who exists inside her!) kissing Mark—apparently something Helena has never done at her big age—is just about the creepiest possible way to develop a crush and a jealous obsession. Who’s a person now, Helena?! It’s Helly!
Unfortunately, now Helena has gone down to the severed floor to steal all of Helly’s shit. Can you imagine what she’d do if she found out her dad told Helly he was proud of her moments before she blew up Lumon’s whole spot? And then Helena had to go on TV to say she’s an alcoholic for her upstairs job, then go to her downstairs job and help her crush search for his dead wife, who is stunning even in a pencil sketch? It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for her.
Helena’s fail-virgin bumbling might briefly work on us, and it might even work on innie Mark, but outie Mark? Oh, he’s still in full grief mode, and he might just save us from ourselves.
Curveball: Outie Mark Reintegrates Because He’s Obsessed With His Wife
How to act: Great, perfect, love this curveball, just need it to curve a little faster, actually
Since the overtime contingency coup, outie Mark has held off on truly believing that what Devon heard his innie say could be true—that Gemma could be alive. He couldn’t trust the message—or messengers—enough to bring down the messily constructed walls he’d been working on building since she died. But the moment he hears Dr. Reghabi finally say the words “Your wife is alive at Lumon,” Mark immediately disregards the fact that he watched Petey nosebleed to death from reintegration, asks no follow-up questions about the semantics of saying “at Lumon” and “the last time I saw her,” and basically says: “Hook up those nodes and pour on the Mortons, doc. I’m ready to DIY this brain back together and see my WIFE.”
Reintegrated Mark Goes Glamping With Outie Helena
How to act: On red alert—innies aren’t made for the great outdoors, and our judgment has been compromised
Unfortunately, reintegration doesn’t seem to work very quickly at all. Next time we see Mark, he’s in a frozen tundra under Lumon’s watch, acting entirely like innie Mark—which is to say, still completely buying into Helena’s shtick. And to be fair, she has gotten a little better with time! On the ORTBO, Helena makes several jokes and even says the word “penis.” (Ah, the freedom of pretending to be the severed version of yourself that your weirdo cult family made you create in the first place!) And Mark is loving it—like, Zendaya on a press tour with Tom Holland loving it.
And that’s when you know … something bad is about to happen, something irredeemable. Because this woman is not that funny.
But Mark falling for Helena after she body snatched Helly isn’t his fault. He just saw the sun for the very first time! There’s a lot for him to take in. Show creator Dan Erickson said in Apple TV+’s “Inside the Episode” that “in many ways, Season 1 was about childhood, and Season 2 is about adolescence.” Recall that just a few episodes ago, a kiss was a big shock to the senses—and now Mark and Helena posing as Helly are taking it all the way to pound town inside Helly’s Lumon-appointed tent, stocked with a space heater to light up their fornication in a gorgeous ruby glow and lure Helena to confess, “I didn’t like who I was on the outside—I was ashamed.”
And Mark’s response—“I don’t care who you are out there; I care who you are with me”—is almost sweet enough to confirm our original premise: that if Mark knew the truth about Helly’s outie, he would understand and help her like she’s helped him. And then they could just keep kissing in and around elevators, because the real Helly has taught him that his innie’s needs are just as important as his outie’s, and he can put himself first, and—
Unfortunately, that was never on the table because Mark hasn’t actually seen innie Helly since Season 1. What just happened in that tent did happen without informed consent, and it all comes crashing down on him extremely hard when …
Curveball: Irving Mutha Fuckin’ B. From Macrodata Mutha Fuckin’ Refinement.
How to act: Obsessed with our ship’s unknowing savior and Helly resurrector
To our brief foray into sympathy for poor-little-rich-girl-monster Helena Eagan that very nearly turned into a ship all its own, Irving said: “Over my dead body. Or better yet—hers!”
I don’t know where this Irving came from; I don’t know whether he’s secretly reintegrated or whether the trauma from losing Burt was such a shock to his system that he became the most intuitive innie alive. Maybe it was that whole first night of sleep, which Lumon should’ve definitely been more worried about giving to the innies. But Irving has been on Helena’s ass since she told him that she gave her overtime contingency message to a night gardener. You can pretend about a lot of things in this world, but you cannot pretend that Irving B. is dumb or that he didn’t know and love his friend Helly.
Does Irving plant his flag pretty firmly in Mark-Gemma shipping ground when he hisses at Mark (pre-tent, even!), “Using your pupils to make love to her while your outie’s wife rots away somewhere?” Well, sure. But a loss to Helena is a win for us all. And when Irving repeatedly dunks her head underwater and forces Mr. Milchick to “remove the Glasgow Block,” bringing innie Helly back to life for the first time since the Season 1 finale, and Mark runs to her, even in his deep confusion … that’s amore, as they say.
Reintegrated Mark Finally Meets Innie Helly
How to act: Ready to be hurt again
So let’s just reflect for a moment here: Innie Helly got tackled at the end of Season 1 while exposing Lumon’s lies and woke up drowning because Lumon’s heir stole her identity and had sex with her work boyfriend. Innie Mark learned that his outie’s wife was maybe kept alive as part of a sinister plot run by the company he works for, and then outie Mark let a whistleblower from that same company tinker with his brain in a basement. And then reintegrated Mark was deceived into having sex with the daughter of that company’s CEO, who was pretending to be his work girlfriend in order to spy on him so that he’d keep doing their sinister work that only he can do. Yes, we came in trying to enjoy an innocent little romance in this wild and twisted show and accidentally ate a box of Oops! All Tragedies. The ship is in shambles. I would not blame Mark and Helly if they never felt a little flirty inclination again …
But if I may circle back: You can’t let your alternate personality’s dead wife or your fraudulent ex-girlfriend’s ill intentions keep you from finding your soulmate, and you can’t let your evil outie who’s jealous of you keep you from convincing your work boyfriend to trust you again. Sure, Mark still has to tell Helly that his wife might be alive and that he had sex with her doppelgänger-enemy because he couldn’t tell them apart. And yeah, Helly still has to explain to Mark that her outie is an Eagan, and there’s actually no way to tell them apart, but she promises she’s Helly this time. But more difficult waters have been sailed. Let’s reassess once outie Mark ever so casually runs into Helena at a bar later this season (as glimpsed in the Season 2 trailer). Maybe by that time, the college geometry course I’m planning to audit will allow me to digest this multidimensional love octagon.
