What Was Up With That [SPOILER]?

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

Severance has prompted a bevy of fan conspiracies, theorizing over the story’s themes and endgames. Season two of Severance has definitely fueled these musings, but the most recent episode, “Woe’s Hollow,” was full-blown insanity. Fans already suspected that Lumon was conducting human experiments for the government, but this episode blew the doors off subtle connections to suspected real-world cabals, going full tinfoil hat.

Beginning a quasi-bottle episode that was bizarre even by Severance‘s standards, the innies find themselves about as outside as they can be. In the arctic Dieter Eagan’s National Forest, Mark, Helly, Dylan, and Irv together gain consciousness and, like the audience, have a lot of questions. Via a conveniently placed television monitor, Milchick tasks them with navigating the forest’s snowy brambles and brooks toward Dieter’s fourth appendix in the ominous ‘Scissor Cave.’ After a bunch of standard Kiel propaganda and menacing threats delivered in archaic English, they’re directed by distant reflections of themselves who point their creepy path. Then things get weird.

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A Mysterious Dead Thing

On their Outdoor Retreat and Team Bonding Occurrence trek, the gang stumbles across a bloated carcass resembling a seal. Irv, suggesting they don’t know where their next meal will come from, recommends they eat the supposed dead animal. A close-up shot of the rotting body tells the audience that, due to its rounded snout and whiskers, it is likely a seal. Curious fans are left with more questions than answers, though, despite the alleged confirmation.

What’s unclear is why the seal’s there and what it represents. Sure, it makes sense in real life for an animal to decompose in a treacherous environment, but why are we seeing it here in this scene, on this show? Symbolically, dead animals generally represent pain and loss in some way, many times as an ill omen for the loss of a loved one. Could one of the characters die in this episode? Well, yes, but like the seal, that happens here figuratively.

It seems that even before the team learned of their objective, Irv’s innie was on his own mission: to uncover the truth of Helly’s identity. Unfortunately, Milchick “retires” Irv after his later meltdown, where he nearly drowns outie Helly to force her innie’s reemergence.

Irv’s innie had erupted after experiencing sleep for the first time and, consequently, having his first dream. He saw Helly’s face and the name ‘Eagan’ via numbers on his computer monitor, confirming Dieter wouldn’t be the only shady Eagan the crew discovers on this trip. During the Macrodata Refinement dream sequence, viewers see the file name ‘Montauk’ before the scene ends, resulting in Severance‘s spookiest jump scare thus far. This ‘Montauk’ links directly back to the dead seal, and connects indirectly to a treacherous real-world conspiracy of the same name.

Good Thing They Didn’t Eat It

The Montauk Project is not only the original title of Stranger Things, but a rumored real government experiment in the 1980s. Said by Author Preston Nichols to be carried out on Long Island, New York at the Montauk Air Force Station, the classified operation was supposedly a treasure trove of government conspiracy hall of fame experiments. Allegedly, Montauk was home to the prodding of alien life, time travel, invisibility, and various limits of humanity, including but not limited to mind control.

One sign of ‘proof’ achieved by conspirators was the 2008 surfacing of an unidentifiable pinniped-like carcass found on a beach in Montauk, New York. It was found not far from the air force station and, presumably, not too removed from the fictional town of Kier, set in the same state. The grotesque body was unidentified and dubbed “The Montauk Monster,” living in infamy ever since. The Montauk references were in no way coincidences, and may be indicative of Lumon’s larger dastardly antics.

What Does This Mean For Severed Workers?

It’s already clear the company has interests in manufacturing consciousness-severing technology to use on human subjects. What we learn in Dieter National Forest is that Lumon isn’t only concerned with creating two versions of people internally, but externally, as well, given those projections of the group en route to the cave. Could those projections be actual clones? That would be very Montauk of Lumon.

Cloning may just be the tip of the iceberg regarding Lumon’s additional practices. Given the series’ occupation with mind-alteration and free will, the Montauk Project’s mention suggests the imminence of actual mind control. Who’s to say that unsevered characters such as Milchick, Natalie, and Ms. Huang aren’t just lackeys, but human marionette dolls under the puppeteering of Lumon’s board? Natalie and Milchick seem to have their professional doubts,, but clearly these experiments are works in progress. This isn’t great news for Lumon employees, but it does produce waves of possibilities for Lumon’s nefarious agenda and the Severance fans who attempt to predict it.

Severance

Release Date

February 18, 2022

Showrunner

Dan Erickson, Mark Friedman

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  Tramell Tillman

  Seth Milchick