SPOILERS for Severance Season 2, Episode 4 ‘Woe’s Hollow’
Despite all the twists, turns and surprises that Severance has delivered in the last 12 episodes, this is by far the most shocking, perplexing and almost ethereal hour of the series so far. The entire episode takes place with our innies in the outside world (or at least that’s how it seems) with absolutely no prior context or explanation as to what, when, why or how. Aside from a brief introductory video, we’re left to wander the wilderness with our innies as there’s all sorts of dream-like (or rather nightmare-like) craziness occurring. At first it seems like it’s going to similar to a bottle episode premise, or like Severance’s equivalent, but it ends up being the episode with the biggest implications on the series so far thanks to its explosive finale. I had a feeling this would be a huge episode when the recap reminded us about Kier’s four tempers, Helena’s night gardener story and a lot of Irv’s big moments. This whole episode is tense and unsettling, but let’s start at the beginning.
What’s your name? Tony! What’s YOUR name? Ezekiel!
I don’t know about you, but waking up in the middle of a frozen lake was absolutely not on my Severance bingo card this season… but that’s exactly where we kick off. The severance activation sound kicks in and we have Irv (John Turturro), Mark (Adam Scott), Helena (Britt Lower) and Dylan (Zach Cherry) wake up in a frozen landscape. At this point my mind is racing – is this a dream? Is this real? Is this some sort of simulation? The entire episode had me bouncing back between real and simulation, but I’ll cover that at the end.
Out of nowhere, the TV from the Lumon offices just appears on the cliffside playing the Kier hymn, How it’s functioning without being plugged in is beyond me, but then an introductory video from Mr. Milkshake (Tramell Tillman) plays, introducing this experience as the Outdoor Retreat and Team Building Occurrence (ORTBO) where the innies get two days to explore the real world’s wilderness with the blessing of their outies. They made sure to specify that, but I wonder how true it is. After learning the knowledge that they’ll be looking for the Fourth Apendix in Scissor Cave, the location where Kier Eagan first tamed the four tempers, they set off through Dieter Eagan National Forest.
Severance: Episode II – Attack of the Clones
I’ve been harping on about clones across each of my Severance reviews this season and feeling crazier week after week. So the following content was a crazy revelation… if we can take it all at (creepy) face value of course. When the crew starts their journey, there’s a creepy-looking clone of Mark pointing them in the right direction. We don’t get a close up and he doesn’t speak, but something looks off and uncanny about him. Then down the path we see a clone of Helena giving directions, and as we get a slightly clearer look, she looks slightly more deranged and haunting. The crew reaches Scissor Cave and recover Kier’s Fourth Appendix. Reading the book enlightens them about Dieter, who was Kier’s twin, and Woe’s Hollow, the next location on their wilderness quest.
Next up is Dylan’s doppelgänger, who we get the best look at so far, and he looks almost unfinished. Like a low-res, pixelated kind of clone – his features are not quite right and obviously the programmed movements are very robotic. Along the way, Irving expresses his concern to Mark that Helena was lying about what she saw in the outside world. I love this moment showing how much of a logical, critical and speculative thinker that Irv is. It seems he’s gained some of his outie’s sensibilities, who is on his own quest to expose Lumon. By the river they happen across a corpse of what does look to be a seal… but the verdict is still out on that one. When they arrive at Woe’s Hollow, each of their respective clones is standing above the waterfall with an almost angelic glow behind them, like this is akin to the coming of Christ. All of a sudden Mr. Milkshake appears in the flesh with his all-white snow gear to lie about the fact that this sad excuse of a waterfall is the largest in the world, then guide them to a nearby campsite.
“Why the fuck you lyin? Why you always lyin?” – Irving B
Turns out Lumon cares about the wellbeing of their employees somewhat and has a camp set up with tents in their “MDR Blue”… to make them feel like home I guess. Oh and Miss Huang (Sarah Bock) is there cooking. It also looks like the first time Mark and the others have seen a flaming torch – Mark especially looks awestruck like a two-year old… which I guess he is. Small moments like this that touch on his innie’s youth I really like. Now since Irv didn’t get anywhere with confronting Mark about Helena, he goes straight to the source – he asks Helena in private about what she really saw during the OTC. Initially she tries to play it off, but then she has this menacing switch, panics and leaves. Honestly Britt Lower’s performance in this season has been incredible – the way she’s played this role and injected so many subtle hints at her motives has been a blast. That one 2-second moment where she switches up her entire demeanour in front of Irv was phenomenal. She switched from her Helly persona to Helena in an instant and it was spine-chilling.
Mr. Milkshake kicks off his recital by the campfire, one that’s more of a spine-chilling horror tale than an enlightening story. It’s a gruesome retelling of Dieter’s untimely death, which is certainly code for Kier killing his brother. It then led to Kier encountering the first temper – Woe, who is represented by a gaunt woman, while it’s most certainly the strong feeling he felt after the act. In reaction to this story, Helena starts laughing and taking the piss while Mark joins in on the child-like antics. I believe this is an attempt by Helena to act more like Helly in the wake of Irving being onto her. But it doesn’t work, as Irving then presses Helena again about the night gardener, but this time in front of the whole group minus Mr. Milkshake and Miss Huang.
Helena switches up once again and gets a look in her eye that can only be that of a vengeful outie. She goes on the offensive and pries at Irving’s loneliness and longing for Burt – a moment that would ultimately be the undoing of Helena’s ruse.
“We live inside a dream” – David Bowie, 1992
Sex. Death. Dreams. They’ve forever been connected, and here we get the calm before the storm. Mark and Helena have a touching heart-to-heart which leads to Mark going the distance in a red-lit scene full of passion. As much as this is Helena ensuring she maintains the trust of Mark, I believe part of her genuinely cares for him. There’s a moment in there where she mentions to Mark that she lied about her outie experience because she’s ashamed of who she is. Based on her tone and vulnerability in that scene, I believe there’s some truth to that. Do I believe she’s going to switch sides just like that? No, but I definitely think it’s setting Helena up to have a redemption scene down the line.
Elsewhere, Irving has wandered off into the woods to track down Mr. Milkshake and Miss Huang to tell them the news that Helly isn’t Helena at all. When he falls and his flame goes out, he drifts to sleep and into a fever dream of sorts. He wakes in the forest to find and MDR desk block with Burt and the Woe temper – it’s eerie and chilling, causing Irv to wake up in a panic.
“You’re Fired” – Donald Trump
This entire final sequence happens so fast and packs so many crazy beats that this is going to be a densely packed recap. Following the night’s events, Mark, Dylan and Mr. Milkshake wake to find Irving and Helena missing. Cut to the waterfall and Helena is there staring up at where the clones were… with Irving lurking close behind her. It’s immediately clear the something ominous is about to go down.
Irving tells Helena that Helly was never cruel, and that’s the moment he knew it wasn’t really her. He then questions who would have the power to send their outie to the Severed Floor – putting two and two together and realising she’s an Eagan. In a fit of rage and desperation he grabs Helena and calls over Mr. Milkshake, proceeding to drown her until Mr. Milkshake agrees to turn Helena back into Helly. All the while he’s yelling to the crew that she’s been Helena the whole time spying on them. Then in a wild moment, Helena reveals her true self to the group by pleading to Seth to activate Helly again.
Mr. Milkshake then uses his walkie talkie, telling those on the other side to “remove the Glasgow Block”. This is an awesome reference as in the first season, “Glasgow” was one of the contingencies or protocols visible in the Lumon security room. It seems like the Glasgow Block must be able to prevent someone’s severed self from being activated while travelling to the Severed Floor or during OTCs like this one. I need to paus here and say how I love how they’ve handled this twist. They didn’t drag it out over the course of the season when most people knew it was coming from the first episode. Instead they kept it in the forefront of the storytelling and let it be revealed through one of out main characters solving it over time.
Following all the commotion, with Helly waking up presumably for the first time since the events of last season, we say goodbye to Irving. Well specifically his innie, and I suspect potentially not forever. Mr. Milkshake arrives in a fit of range, rage unlike anything we’ve seen from him so far. He subsequently fires Irving effective immediately, with Irving take the moment to say a final, albeit brief farewell to Dylan while Mark and Helly are curled up on the ground. With one quick call, Irving is shut down, with Mr. Milkshake saying his innie will be wiped from existence – “It will be as if you, Irving B., never even existed”. Something tells me it won’t quite be as simple, but this could be the last we see of Irving as an innie. As the episode cuts to black, I immediately want to know what the aftermath of that moment is with his outie waking up to that absolute chaos.
Lingering thoughts
First thing’s first – clones are confirmed. It absolutely seems like it, although it also looks like they’re not quite ready yet. The clones in their current stages look like husks of humans. They all stand with an awkward posture, with features that aren’t fully formed and a zombie-like stature. Of the four of them Irving’s looked the most normal, and perhaps that’s due to Irving having been at the company the longest meaning they’ve had the most time to perfect his via his data sorting. Perhaps these clones are nowhere near as far along as Gemma, who is presumably the first and most advanced, hence why they need Mark to finish his work. This also ties back to the pilot where we saw someone behind Mark in the hallway that looked eerily similar to Mark. This basically confirms that that was in fact a clone of Mark. But now what’s the purpose of the clones? Are they trying to replace the innies? Replace the outies? Or maybe bring the innies to life in a cloned body so they don’t need the outies anymore. All of these questions and more I’m sure will be answered in the season(s) to come.
Next up, what’s the deal with the timelines? When we last left Mark’s outie, he was being reintegrated… so how did he get into the middle of a snowy landscape? There’s a moment in the episode, while Mark and Helena are doing the deed, where Helena glitches into Gemma for a split second. It’s the same sort of effect that happens in the intro animation and signifies the merging of Mark’s innie and outie. But here’s the problem – if that is the moment Mark’s outie reintegrates, how can his body be in two places at once? I guess it could be a gradual merging, but I have no clue. However this links to something I was thinking about this episode – is it all a simulation?
Early in the episode I was going back and forth about this being real or a simulation. As time went on, and given the ending, I was led to believe it’s real… but moments like a TV set appearing out of thin air and functioning without being plugged in would say otherwise. I really believe this episode has all been a simulation. I don’t think they really got the outies, including Dylan’s, to go all the way to the middle of an icy landscape, dress in the same winter gear and go on a two day expedition. I think there’s elements of the simulation that are real – for instance Helena was terrified of dying and Mr. Milkshake was there in the flesh, but it’s all probably in some high-tech simulation room that Lumon has created. I mean, we saw room that was just a goat’s pasture last week, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility. So it being a simulation isn’t negating the events of the episode – everything really happened, but it’s in a simulation setting. It still doesn’t fully explain the timeline of Mark’s integration to getting here, but I’m sure they’ll get to that.
In the end, this episode was insane to say the least. Just when you thought you knew where the story would be heading, Ben Stiller and co. drop us in the middle of an icy lake and say “figure it out”. What initially seemed to be a bottle episode that fills some gaps in Kier’s past, turns out to be one of the biggest and most eventful episodes of the entire series. This entire episode has a very unsettling, unnerving and uncanny feel about it the entire way through. With the creepy clones that show up, the ethereal music and tone, and the presence of Irving’s haunting dream, this whole episode feels like a bit of a drug trip. I also need to highlight the editing – there’s some great, experimental edits used in the scene transitions that were quite fun. A nice change from the otherwise static editing at Lumon. As the episode starts off very slow, it builds and builds in tension thanks to Irving pressing Helena about her lies, all the way until it literally explodes. The final five minutes are massive, sure to have huge implications on the show going forward. This episode could turn out to be even more important in hindsight.
9.3/10
Everything Movie Reviews 