‘Severance’ Review: Episode 6 Activates an Unholy Trifecta of Love Triangles — Spoilers
[Editor’s note: The following review contains spoilers for “Severance” Season 2, Episode 6, “Attila.” For coverage of earlier episodes, read our previous reviews.]
Amid Episode 6’s revealing, awkward, and intimate dinner party, Fields (John Noble) presents a seemingly innocuous opinion. “I believe Innies deserve to experience love,” he says. In the moment, it’s a supportive, friendly gesture. Fields, after all, is sharing his table with a man, Irving (John Turturro), who had an “erotic entanglement” with his husband, Burt (Christopher Walken). That their romantic relationship was restricted to the office, where the couple worked as severed employees, is a significant distinction — if Innies and Outies are independent individuals, with no real knowledge of what the other is doing, thinking, or feeling, then it would be hard for Fields to argue his husband betrayed him.
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But that’s a big “if.” In the world of “Severance,” people have been arguing over whether Innies and Outies are separate people since the technology was implemented 12 years ago — or, more to the point, if Innies are their own individuals who deserve their own rights. Lumon Industries is hellbent on expanding its severance program beyond its workforce, but certain states and multiple human rights organizations all back anti-severance legislation, if not a more permanent ban.
In a new wrinkle, it appears organized religions are choosing sides, as well. Fields says the Lutheran Church, where he and Burt practice, maintains “Innies are complete individuals, with souls, who can be judged separately from their Outie.” That belief is why Burt became a severed worker to begin with: He was a “scoundrel” back in the day (“to put it lightly,” Fields quips), and they, as a couple, want a chance to be together in the afterlife.
Except… how will that work, exactly? If the only way Burt is going to reach heaven to be with Fields is through his Innie, what happens when Burt’s Innie gets up there and wants to be with Irving’s Innie? That’s no problem for Irving’s Outie, who appears unattached (so far), but it’s a big problem for Fields, who dedicated a portion of his life to spending the afterlife with his husband. In heaven, can there be two Innies, one for Fields and one for Irving? If souls can be divided on Earth, why can’t God do it again? How does the church feel about that? How does its flock?
Frankly, the Lutheran Church’s position is a bit befuddling to me — there’s no way Catholics and their rigid adhesion to the status quo would go along with this “two souls, one body” idea — but it does illustrate the complex situation severed individuals find themselves. Their Innies lack the authority to make many decisions for themselves — decisions like where they work (and thus, where they live), how long they work (and thus, how long they live), who they work for (and thus, who they work for), and perhaps most importantly, why they work, which brings us back to Fields’ magnanimous sentiment: “Innies deserve to experience love.”
Love, who deserves it, and how the experience of loving someone changes you form the core of Episode 6, “Attila.” Directed by Uta Briesewitz (“Orange Is the New Black,” “The Deuce”) and written by Erin Wagoner (“Bless the Harts”), the hour pivots around three love triangles as they start to heat up. There’s Irving, Burt, and Fields, whose dinner together may have been initially set up as a distraction so Mr. Drummond (ólafur Darri ólafsson) could snoop around Irving’s home, but it still saw sparks (manufactured or not) between Burt and Irving’s Outies (more on this later). Then there’s Dylan’s Innie (Zach Cherry) and his Outie’s wife, Gretchen (Merritt Wever), whose latest family visitation session led to a romantic escalation beyond their corporate-sanctioned hug. And, finally, we have our most complicated trio (or trios?): Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower), and Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman), aka Mark, Helena, and Gemma.
So let’s start the untangling there. This week, Mark’s Innie and Helly — actual Helly, not Helena pretending to be her Innie — finally “got to have that” together, and the sex is so good Mark ends up with a bloody nose. OK, so maybe it’s bleeding as a side effect to his Outie’s reintegration procedure (yet another sign that the two Marks can’t be so easily separated or combined), but let’s choose to believe their shared passion also has something to do with it. What starts with a clumsy confession that threatened to derail their relationship altogether, ends with Mark and Helly closer than ever.
“You thought it was me,” Helly says, after taking a little time to consider what Mark and her Outie did at the ORTBO. “Which means you wanted to, with me. What sucks is that she got to have that and I didn’t.” So Helly goes and gets her own experience with Mark — an experience, as much as Helly would be loathe to admit it, forever linked to her Outie. They both had sex in a “tent.” They both had sex while on the clock. They both had sex with the same Mark (his Innie). They joke about it — it’s what they do — but you have to wonder if Helly’s quick fix will always be an experience that’s just theirs, or if Helena’s baggage will weigh it down.
Then Helly asks Mark, “Was it different with me?” The answer is obvious even before he gently pushes her against the wall to make out. At the ORTBO, during the same post-coital afterglow, Helena says, “I didn’t like who I was on the outside. I was ashamed.” Mark asks, “Who were you?” And when she doesn’t answer, he tells her it doesn’t matter. Maybe it wouldn’t, but refusing to answer the question still emphasizes the emotional distance between them, as does Mark’s ensuing flashes of reintegration (when he sees Gemma’s face on Helena). But now, when they’re walking down the corridor, their tousled hair betraying what they’ve just done, there’s no distance. She asks, he answers. If he asked, she would answer. That’s love.
And I think Helena has a taste for it. I’m betting that’s why she shows up at the diner and starts up a conversation with Mark’s Outie. Sure, maybe she tells herself (and her colleagues) that she’s just checking in on him; keeping tabs for professional purposes. But that wouldn’t explain her forced flirting (“You’re clearly not dumb”), her weird bragging (“I’m like the head of the company”), and her attempts to replicate the playful banter she shared with Mark’s Innie (even kinda imitating Helly’s empathy and kindness as she does).
Helena doesn’t factor in Mark’s contempt for her, her father, and her company, or how bringing up his “dead” wife might trigger those feelings during an otherwise pleasant conversation. Was she trying to show him how little she knows about Gemma, as a way to dissuade any assumptions that Lumon is involved with her? I’m not sure, but the scene deliberately sets the two characters against each other, with Gemma in the middle, and it’s enough to send Mark scurrying back home for more basement brain surgery. But it also creates an eerie echo of the relationship between Mark’s Innie and Helly, where Ms. Casey is caught between them. How can either couple survive without killing the other? I don’t know, but each party is become more and more aware of that looming problem.
In comparison, Dylan’s dynamic is pretty straightforward. Gretchen sees a better version of Dylan’s Outie in his Innie. How could she not? Deprived of a life of his own, Dylan’s Innie is extra invested in the life his Outie gets to live on his behalf, which means he’s extra invested in Gretchen. He asks her questions. He tells her how happy she makes him. He assures her she couldn’t be the reason his Outie seems unhappy. He says all the things she wishes his Outie would say and, to Gretchen, the Dylan sitting in front of her, being so nice, is the same Dylan she married.
Except… she must know he’s not. Later, when Dylan’s Outie asks how her meeting at Lumon went, she lies and says it was canceled. She doesn’t want to admit she kissed Dylan in the office because, on some level, she must sense that it’s not the same as kissing Dylan out of the office. She’s starting to recognize, even on an innate level, these are two different people rather than one split person.
All this time, the work tri-station sits empty. Numbers are not being refined. Cold Harbor remains incomplete. Innies may deserve to experience love, they may have to experience love, but that single five-second shot of an empty MDR office makes one point irrefutably clear: If all this love is allowed to continue, Lumon can’t function.
Grade: A-
“Severance” releases new episodes Fridays on Apple TV+.
Further Refinement:
? It’s worth noting that work isn’t the only thing not getting done right now. While Mark and Helly were fooling around, Helly wasn’t fulfilling her promise to go get the directions Irving left tucked behind Dylan’s motivational poster. “I’ll go get it,” Helly says to Dylan. “You said it’s behind the poster of you actually being brave?” A+ joke, F- execution. Right now, none of the Innies are pushing the rebellion forward, whether it’s because Dylan doesn’t want to lose his visitation privileges or because Mark and Helly are busy getting busy. Are they still dedicated to their mission? Or do they have new priorities?
? “Grow. Grow. GROW.” (I’m officially worried about Mr. Milchick.)
? Jesus Christ, Mark. If after all this you die from a brain hemorrhage because you rushed into brain surgery, I’m going to be so pissed. (OK, clearly that’s not how “Severance” will end, but is reintegration actually going to work?! I’m on pins and needles.)
Code Detectors:
? I’ve been told that because of the emphasis Apple’s marketing team placed on Helly taking off her shoes, the internet is convinced she’s pregnant. I mean, OK. Maybe. But I like the shoes as a human moment for Helly; she’s overwhelmed after learning Mark “shared vessels” with Helena, and she needs to take a beat to gather herself. Later, when she’s explaining her anger to Mark, she mentions that Helena “dresses me in the morning like I’m a baby.” With that in mind, it makes even more sense for her to shed her work uniform. She wants to feel like she’s in control again. She doesn’t want to wear her assigned uniform. She wants to just be… her. Does that mean she’s not pregnant? Of course not, but I’m not sure we should be basing our theories on the episodic teases.
? It pains me to say this, but I do not trust Burt. As much as I’d like to believe Mr. Drummond just so happened to know when Irving would be out of the house so he could break in and snoop around, it seems much more likely that the “scoundrel” who’s been working at Lumon since long before there was a severed floor is still loyal to the company. He’s been following Irving. Did he do it on his own, out of personal interest, like he said? Did he do it because some remote part of him still feels something for his Innie’s office partner? Or did he do it because Lumon asked him to do it, and now he’s pushing further to keep Irving under company control?
? Again, I’ll ask: Where is Harmony Cobel?!
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