Severance Recap: Are You In or Out?
The line between Innie and Outie is very thin on Severance this week, as Mark is stuck between his two selves — and Helly learns the truth about her alter ego.
This week’s episode finds Mark still recovering from last week’s outdoor excursion. He thinks he fell off a rope, but he tells Reghabi (who seems to be living with him now) that he hasn’t remembered anything else yet. “Well, maybe your Innie has,” she tells him. Meanwhile, Helena is traumatized by her near-death encounter with Irving: “I’m not going back down there… They’re f–king animals.” But Mark is at 81% completion on the all-important Cold Harbor project, Mr. Drummond reminds her, and he won’t work without Helly: “We must give him her.”
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So Helena heads back into the elevator and switches into Helly, and she’s confused by everything she sees, including Ms. Huang. She asks why Irving tried to drown her, and Dylan tells her: “Because you’re a f–king Eagan.” Milchick says Helena was “conducting valuable research,” telling the tale of a king who disguised himself to learn more about his peasants. (Oh, kinda like Undercover Boss!) Milchick adds that Irving is not coming back, and Dylan calls them “f–king murderers.” He insists on a funeral, and Milchick reluctantly agrees, radioing Ms. Huang to ask for “a bereavement kit.”
Helly checks in on Mark, and he’s still shaken by the whole mix-up: “I don’t know who you are, I guess.” She says she’s the victim here; her body was hijacked. But Mark isn’t ready to hear it. At Irving’s company funeral, Milchick invites them to take nine seconds to remember their friend — generous! — before Dylan gives a heartfelt eulogy: “For the least fun guy in the world, he was really fun.” They wheel out a watermelon carved in the shape of Irving’s head, but Mark takes one bite and then wants to get right back to work. He says Irving’s not really dead; his Outie is still alive. Helly wants to know what his problem is — and then Dylan breaks the news to her that Ms. Casey is his Outie’s dead wife.
Helly is shocked, but she offers to help find her and figure this out. Mark says it’s no use, though: “They’re smarter than us! They know everything!” And that’s because “Helena told them everything we’re doing.” She insists she’s Helly, not Helena, and pleads with him to trust her — and tells him to “stop being a f–king asshole.” (Well, that sounds like Helly, at least.) Dylan apologizes to the Irving watermelon head for letting him down — but he stops in his tracks when he spots a motivational poster on the wall that says “Hang In There.” (Those were the last words Irving said to him before he was dismissed, if you remember.) Dylan looks behind the poster… and finds a note with directions and a picture of a long, dark hallway.
Milchick, meanwhile, prepares for his performance review, asking Natalie first what she thought of the paintings she received — and admitting his own feelings were “somewhat complicated.” At his review, Drummond informs Milchick that there have been three “contentions” lodged against him. He “uses too many big words,” first of all, and he used a paper clip incorrectly. But the big one is: The new team of refiners he placed with Mark failed, and he arranged the outdoor excursion that brought “great risk and harm to the Eagan name.” Cold Harbor “will be remembered as one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of this planet,” Drummond asserts, and he encourages him to go “back to basics” and “treat them as what they really are.”
Mark gets back to work, but he has a sudden headache glitch — from his reintegration? — and packs up to go home. Milchick stops him, noting that he’s leaving work six minutes early. He pointedly reminds Mark that he’s here to refine, but Mark flippantly replies: “Whatever you say, Mr. Milchick. Praise Kier.” Milchick gets right up in Mark’s face and asks him, “Did you and Helly R. catch up?… Did you tell her that you f–ked her Outie at the ORTBO?” (Whoa!) He wishes Mark “a restful evening” as he enters the elevator. Ricken, meanwhile, is excited to write a new version of his book for Innies, even though Devon tells him it’s the opposite of what he wrote before. She says he’s watering down his work… but he just sees dollar signs.
And in case you were worried, Irving is alive and well on the outside, telling somebody from a phone booth, “They fired me.” He sees he’s being followed, and it’s Burt, who wants to know why Irving was on his doorstep screaming his name. Irving doesn’t know, and when Burt says he was fired, too, for an “unsanctioned erotic entanglement,” Irving wonders: “You think we were an item?” Burt’s husband Fields thinks so. He even cancelled their trip to Milwaukee! Burt invites Irving over for a nice ham dinner to hash things out. Back at Mark’s, Reghabi is fine-tuning his reintegration when he starts to hear a voice saying things like “Your Outie can parallel park in less than 20 seconds.”
Suddenly, he finds himself in a Lumon hallway — as an Outie! He looks around, confused, and then finds himself face to face with… Ms. Casey. She’s the voice in his head, he realizes, as he snaps back into Outie world again. That line just keeps getting thinner, doesn’t it?
Got thoughts on this week’s Severance? We invite you to join us in the comments below for mirth and merriment.
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