‘Severance’ Review: Episode 5 Tightens the Leash on Who Can Be Trusted — Spoilers
[Editor’s Note: The following review contains spoilers for “Severance” Season 2, Episode 5, “Trojan’s Horse.” For coverage of earlier episodes, read our previous reviews.]
Helly is Helly again. You know that. I know that. We all know that because Episode 5, “Trojan’s Horse,” goes above and beyond to ensure we know the real Helly R. (Britt Lower) is back on the severed floor. There’s the little ding when her chip is activated in the elevator (which some fans claim was missing in earlier episodes, when Helena was pretending to be Helly). There’s the shaky cam shot of a destabilized Helly stepping warily back into her workplace (after nearly being drowned at Woe’s Hollow). There’s the preceding scene where Helena Eagan is explicitly told it’s too risky for her to merely pretend to be Helly again. Mark S. (Adam Scott) won’t complete Cold Harbor without Helly, so they must “give him her.”
More from IndieWire
Lower’s hyper-focused performance contributes plenty of conviction all by itself, ensuring that last week’s twist feels both real and complete. Things are back to normal… at least, they should be. But Mark sure isn’t — not after a woman he’s got “goo goo eyes” for spied on him and tricked him into sleeping with her. Dylan (Zach Cherry) isn’t either, although he’s more upset about losing Irving (John Turturro) than feeling betrayed by his colleague and company. The MDR team is utterly fragmented, and the assurances that persuade those of us watching at home that all is right with their underground world again don’t mean as much to the characters living in an upended reality.
“That wasn’t me,” Helly shouts at Mark after his disaffected reaction to Irving’s bereavement ceremony and, in a larger sense, to her return. “I’m not her. I’m not! I’m me — Helly.”
“And how do I know that?” he asks.
“You… you don’t,” she says. “You just have to trust me. This is real. Not everything here is a lie.”
She’s not just talking about her identity. Helly is referring to her feelings for Mark: their ideals, their friendship, their romance — the latter of which, to Helly, has only gone as far as a kiss. Mark knows he went further, but as Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) points out, Helly doesn’t know that Mark slept with Helena, because Helly isn’t Helena.
“That wasn’t me. I’m not her. I’m not.”
That Mark couldn’t tell the difference is a big problem for our team leader. Did he cheat on Helly with Helena? Or did he cheat on his wife, Gemma (Dichen Lachman), with Helena? Had he already cheated on his wife with Helly when he kissed her? How much can be forgiven because Mark didn’t know the woman he thought was Helly was actually Helena? How much can be forgiven because Mark didn’t know the woman counseling him at work was his wife (or, at least, his Outie’s wife)? It’s no wonder he saw Gemma/Ms. Casey in the midst of having sex with Helena — his severed brain is struggling to keep up with all these intermingled feelings.
“That wasn’t me. I’m not her. I’m not.”
Of course, this would be a lot easier if Helly’s argument was as clear cut as she makes it out to be. If his Outie and Innie are separate people, related only by a shared body, then Mark’s Outie can be happily married to Gemma and Mark’s Innie can be Helly’s happy work husband, never the twain shall meet. As for the whole Helena occurrence, they can just write it off as a mistake — Mark was already smitten with Helly (the real Helly) when Helena took her place, so being blinded enough to continue (and consummate) their flirtation is a forgivable oversight. Is it weird? Sure. Is it cheating? Only in a strict physical sense, sans any emotional betrayal.
“That wasn’t me. I’m not her. I’m not.”
But… can we really separate the Innies and Outies so cleanly? Isn’t that exactly what Lumon wants? For the Outies to live their lives without a second thought to that other person slaving away underground? And for the Innies to embrace their lives without ever dreaming of running fast and free through the sunlight? Episode 5 plainly reiterates Lumon’s lowly opinion of its basement-level employees. “You shouldn’t let them have a funeral. It makes them feel like people,” Miss Huang “asks” Mr. Milchick. “They’re fucking animals,” Helena says, when being pressed to return to the severed floor. Later, in the same boardroom, Mr. Milchick is chastised for implementing ineffectual “kindness reforms” for his team and reminded to “treat [severed workers] as what they really are.” “I’m tightening the leash,” Mr. Milchick replies, again referencing that his chipped colleagues are nothing more than dogs, animals, and a means to an end.
“That wasn’t me. I’m not her. I’m not.”
If keeping their employees lives separate from their personal ones is Lumon’s goal, then they’re winning. Just look at Mark. While his Innie is waffling on his commitment to the rebellion, his Outie is desperate to reconnect. He’s downing off-white, wormy-looking potions and a series of pills prescribed by his (mad?) scientist roommate, Asal Reghabi (Karen Aldridge). He’s got a scary cough, keeps seeing visions and hearing voices, but he’s still pushing for more brain surgery sessions in his basement. Mark Scout is risking it all, while Mark S. just wants to get back to work. Does that sound like one person torn between what’s safe and what’s right, or does that sound like two people operating independently of one another, based on separate motives?
“That wasn’t me. I’m not her. I’m not.”
As Season 2 races ahead, a confounding question waits at the finish line: If Mark’s reintegration procedure works and suddenly his Innie and Outie have to simultaneously coexist, what does that mean for his relationships? In a battle between Mark’s new love for Helly and his established love for Gemma, what feelings win out? And if you think that’s an impossible question, what about the one facing Helly and Helena? How can an Innie and Outie live together when they’re fundamentally opposed to each other? We know an Outie can erase an Innie — RIP Irving — but given where our loyalties lie (with Helly, duh), can an Innie erase their Outie? And… should they?
“That wasn’t me. I’m not her. I’m not.”
In the immortal words of Laurence Laurentz, would that it’were so simple.
Grade: B+
“Severance” Season 2 releases new episodes Fridays on Apple TV+.
Further Refinement:
? Love the mugs with Irving’s face on them, hate the handles that look like a set of brass knuckles. (Although, if you really want to work to read something from the construction, you could argue that’s what Lumon thinks Irving deserves — a solid punch to the face.)
? “For the least fun guy in the world, he was really fun.” Dylan’s eulogy could’ve ended there, and it would’ve been perfect.
? Given the flurry of emotions that flew across Natalie’s face (Sydney Cole Alexander) the first time Mr. Milchick saw the paintings of Kier Eagan as a Black man, it almost feels greedy this week when he asks her to verbally elaborate on those “complicated feelings.” But hey, the middle-manager — resented by his staff and sneered at by his bosses — is just looking for someone, anyone to connect with, and it’s hard to blame him for that. Keep using those “big words,” my guy.
? “Oh, you mean putting the numbers in the thing?” I love it when Mark gets snippy.
? Ricken! Come on! Take your “fiscal and creative opportunity” and shove it up Lumon’s ass already! My god, man.
Code Detectors:
? Irving’s Innie may be dead, but his Outie is still working to bring down Lumon. That’s my takeaway, at least, given everything we learned in the Season 1 finale, as well as his repeated trips to the phone booth in Season 2. But who is Irving calling? “So they fired me,” he says in Episode 5. “I think they knew what my Innie was up to.” Then he sees Burt (Christopher Walken) and “comes at [him],” before calming down and agreeing to come over for dinner.
Burt is suspicious on his own, just sitting there in his car, but I’m far more interested in who Irving is scheming with. Does Irving’s Outie know what his Innie was up to? It doesn’t sound like he knows about the ORTBO or Helly (aka the real reason he was fired), but does Irving’s Outie have some sort of access to the severed floor his Innie doesn’t know about? What’s he trying to find out? Why’s he investigating Lumon at all? And who the heck is helping him?!
? One thing we do know: Irving’s Innie had one last trick up his sleeve. His last words to Dylan were: “Just remember: Hang in there.” — a sly reference to the poster of Dylan emblazoned with that very slogan. Dylan remembers, just in time, and checks the back of the poster, where Irving has hidden written directions to the Exports Hall, the long, black hallway with an elevator at the end of it, which Irving’s Outie has been furiously, compulsively painting. Now they know how to get there. What they’ll find, well, that’s still anyone’s guess.
? Where is Harmony Cobel? Is she still driving? Did Lumon snatch her up? Has she been behind any of this, or has she spent the last two episodes in the cold, on her own?
? OK, so the real meaning behind Mr. Milchick’s “story of the Gr?kappan” is… just kidding. It’s pretty obvious — “Swedish horseshit” — and I also don’t care. What really matters is the way Tramell Tillman pronounces “Gr?kappan.” “Grock-shoo-pin.” Lovely.
Best of IndieWire
Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
