Severance Answered One Question While Raising Another

Severance has never been a show to provide easy answers, and Season 2 continues to prove that every revelation comes with new layers of mystery. Episode 4, “Woe’s Hollow,” delivers a major clarification about Helly’s identity—or rather, identities. It turns out that during the eerie company retreat in the woods, it’s Helena Eagan, not severed Helly R, who is in control. This may go to answer a lingering question about whether Helena had been masquerading as Helly for the entirety of Season 2 of Severance. However, the episode’s final moments reveal that severed Helly R is still present, leaving the question as to whether Helena was in charge the entire time or whether she made an appearance for this hike out into the snowy, creepy woods.

But if that’s the case, why was Helena pretending to be Helly during this specific event? Was this a strategic decision, a necessary illusion for a larger corporate scheme, or something more personal? Additionally, the episode leaves room for doubt—has Helena been slipping in and out all season? Could Helly R have been somehow aware (missing days or times the other outies referred to) but unwilling to acknowledge it? As usual, Severance keeps its audience questioning every detail, making the mysteries even more compelling as the season unfolds.

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Irving’s Parting Gift In Severance

“Woe’s Hollow” was an especially bittersweet episode of Severance because while one of the big bads of the Apple TV+ series was thwarted, it was done so by Irv B. sacrificing himself for the good of the group.

Of course, it always seemed to be going that way. Since the beginning of Season 2, Irv hasn’t really wanted to be there anymore. Once a devoted soldier to the cause of Lumon, the exit of his love interest, Burt, was the final straw after starting to realize that the people running the company didn’t have his best interests at heart.

After a confrontation over Helly and Mark making “goo goo” eyes at one another, Irv goes off by himself and gets lost in the woods, eventually falling asleep and having a dream that allows him to put a puzzle piece together. Helly R wasn’t Helly R but was in fact, Helena. And after she initially denies it, he goes to the extremes of threatening to drown Helly/Helena until she admits who she really is, and Mr. Milchick flips the switch to bring her Innie back to the group. In the process, Irv is fired immediately, and as we know at this point, an Innie being fired means death for that personality.

More Questions And Few Answers

What the event does seem to indicate is that Helena has taken over the persona of Helly R more than once. Certainly she could have been been infiltrating the group the whole time, or she could have just appeared for the outing in the woods. The question of course is why would she only come back for that trek?

Now that Helly R. is back some of these answers will almost be given more concrete answers in the next episode. What she remembers and what she doesn’t will quickly lift that veil. Will she start talking about what she saw during the Overtime Protocol event (thinking no time had passed since then) or will she simply be confused how she went from the office to the woods?

There is also of course, the question that has now been outstanding since the end of Episode 3, “Who Is Alive?” That question is obviously, how did the reintegration go and why was Mark S there as an Innie rather than as the complete person?

Mark Continues To Be Central To Everything

One of the biggest questions of all when it comes to Severance continues to be, why is Mark so central to everything and why does it appear his wife is as well? He’s so central to everything that Helena went out of her way to seduce him. And there doesn’t appear to be an end game there, unless it was simply to see if he could get past his wife with his feelings for Helly. That makes little sense though since Innie Mark doesn’t remember Gemma.

Mark has been the Innie that Lumon has found special from the very beginning. He’s the one they didn’t want to lose after the OTP. He’s the one that Ms. Cobel/Selvig moved next to and tried to befriend in the outside world.

And of course, he was the one whose wife is or at least was also employed by Lumon as a kind of HR representative. It seems unlikely that an answer to why Mark is at the center of everything until the end of Severance’s run. But at least “Woe’s Hollow” cemented just how important he is as the show moves forward.

Severance

Release Date

February 18, 2022

Showrunner

Dan Erickson, Mark Friedman

Directors

Ben Stiller

Writers

Dan Erickson

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  Tramell Tillman

  Seth Milchick

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