Severance gets a move on near the end of its latest episode, "Who Is Alive?" Mark's about to be reintegrated! Who saw that coming this early in the story? I wonder if it won't pan out, because we still have seven episodes to go, but I definitely want to see what happens next.
Mark stumbles upon this opportunity after deciding to work with his sister Devon to investigate Lumon from within, which surprised me a bit since he was against probing any further in the last episode; I guess he had a change of heart after he calmed down. Together, they want to find out who Mark S. was talking about when he screamed "She's alive!" in the season 1 finale. I thought their plan was pretty clever for a couple of civilians: outie Mark will sit in his car in the Lumon parking lot right before work and stare at the words "Who Is Alive?" written in light, hoping that the after-image stays burned into his retinas long enough for innie Mark to see it after the transition.
But Reghabi, the former Lumon surgeon Mark met last season, interrupts his tests to tell him it won't work, which is hilarious; I like that the episode took the time to build up a plausible way for Mark and Mark S. to communicate only to tear it down in a second. According to Reghabi, the only way to get messages in and out of Lumon is to reintegrate the two parts of Mark's personality, the way she did with Mark's work friend Petey. Of course, Petey died last season, so the process is risky. But after Reghabi hints that Mark's wife Gemma is somehow still alive, buried in the bowls of Lumon, he's willing to take the risk.
Mark's wife being what motivates him makes perfect sense, but it also feels a little...predictable? I dunno, I felt like outie Mark took a few bold leaps forward this episode neither he nor we were ready for, but I'm more curious than confused. We'll pick up that thread next week.
Severance review: Episode 203, "Who Is Alive?"
Mark's (potential) reintegration is the biggest thing to happen this week, but the best stuff is reserved for the innies, especially Dylan, who has been lured away from the rest of the group by the promise of visits with his outie family.
At Lumon, you can never tell what's genuine and what's manipulation, but so far as I can tell, Dylan's meeting with his outie wife Gretchen (Merritt Wever) is the real thing. The scene is sweet and funny and weird in the way the best Severance scenes are. Gretchen is tender with this other version of her husband, revealing things the managers at the company never would share, like the fact that outie Dylan has had trouble holding onto jobs. "So he's actually kind of a fuckup?" Dylan G asks about his outie, like a kid who just realized his dad isn't invincible
Dylan was always the most posturing of the innies, the most braggadocious, the most pompous. But the second he learned his outie had a family, he could think of little else, and was prepared to risk everything for a chance to see them. Lumon is doing an excellent job of turning that liability into an asset, manipulating him right where they want him. But I wonder if it won't blow up in their face. In a brief scene, we see Gretchen — heading out the door to her night shift job — get a little irritated with the outie version of Dylan, who is much more timid than his innie. Might Gretchen fall for the innie version of her husband? How would the divorce work? The possibilities boggle the mind.
Meanwhile, Irving returns to Optics and Design armed with a "Missing" poster for Ms. Casey that Mark mocked up. He doesn't much care about that, though; he'd rather reminisce about Burt with Felicia, who also works in the department. Irving remains heartsick for Burt, and we still don't know what happened at Burt's house after the Overtime Contingency Protocol ended.
But Irving does make some progress investigating the mysterious black hallway his outie has been drawing compulsively, the one we saw Ms. Casey walk down towards the end of the first season, the one ending with an elevator that goes to the "testing floor." Felicia knows it; it's called the exports hall. Optics and Design used to send shipments there, but not anymore. Add some flour to this plotline, because it is thickening.
Finally, Mark and Helly search for Ms. Casey where they found those random goats in the first season. They follow their noses down a long tunnel and emerge into...a huge room where florescent lights shine down on rolling green hills dotted with livestock. It's a surreal, instantly iconic image.
Consistent with the theme of Lumon giving its severed departments insane names that sound way more significant than they likely are, this is the Mammalians Nurturable Department, and it's managed by a stern forewoman played with perfectly prickly suspicion by Gwendoline Christie. While Irving has forged ties between Macrodata Refinement and Optics and Design, the Mammalians Nurturable Department still buys the Lumon company line when it comes to how evil the other departments are; rather than divulge what they know about Ms. Casey, the farmhands in this department surround Mark and Helly in a threatening circle.
I love how Severance balances its many tones. Is the guy dressed up as a big goat hilarious or creepy? When he's staring down Mark and Helly like that, a little of both. But by now Mark is onto Lumon's divide-and-conquer strategy; he wins everyone over with another Norma Rae speech about how they're all stronger together, and that just because Lumon wants them to fear each other doesn't mean they should. Touched, the forewoman shares what she knows about Ms. Casey, which isn't much, but at least the MDR crew has made another connection. All they had to do was reveal that they didn't have pouches.
More and more, it feels like Severance may be a sci-fi tale about unionization: the more the innies talk with each other, the more powerful they are as a group, and the better their chances of finding out the truth. Or maybe I'm getting ahead of myself trying to pin down a show that loves to keep secrets. In any case, I loved this sequence. I have a feeling I'll be thinking about the image of that indoor goat pasture for a while. I don't just want shows like Severance to entertain me; I want them to populate my imagination. The lack of explanation of what the hell the Mammalians are doing makes it even better.
Verdict
In the depths of the Lumon building, Severance gives us the kind of slow, mind-bending build we've come to know and love. Outside, it puts the pedal to the metal. How will a reintegrated Mark mark? Will he go back to work at Lumon and try to play the part of his innie, or will he make like Petey and flee? Will the procedure go wrong? I worry that accelerating Mark's development like this will ruin the deliberate pacing the show has going on, but at the end of the day, I wanted to start watching the next episode the moment this one ended, so the show is doing something right.
Severance Bullet Points
- Mark's elementary school teacher was named Mrs. Lustgarden, which is a hell of a surname.
- Natalie, the Lumon employee who always speaks for the board, stops by Devon's home and charms her husband Rickon by recommending he write a simplified version of his cheesy self-help book The You You Are especially for innie readers. Of course Natalie is just trying to tamp down suspicion from Mark's family members, but a flattered Rickon falls for it hook, line and sinker. Devon is far more skeptical.
- Ms. Cobel tries to push her way back into her old job on the severed floor, but Helena doesn't seem to want to budget. Helena does offer Cobel a private chat with the board, but she feels like something fishy is going on and makes a run for it. She's hard to read, that Cobel.
- Just what is the board? Do we think they're actually a group of real people? We've never seen them in person and they only speak through Natalie, so I have my doubts. Are they the will of Kier Eagan reconstituted in an AI? Some kind of strange severance monster we can't conceive of yet? Theories are welcome.
- "And we live on a cattle ranch?" Is Dylan my favorite?
Episode Grade: B+
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