Summary
Severance Season 2 continues to excel in Episode 2, which provides a new perspective on the events of the premiere while filling in some of the between-season blanks.
After an excellently mysterious premiere reintroduced viewers to the world of Severance in its much-anticipated Season 2, “Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig” does the same thing from the opposite angle. While Episode 1 was set entirely within Lumon among the innies, keeping our viewpoint contained and limiting our knowledge about what happened in the immediate aftermath of the first season finale, Episode 2 takes place almost exclusively in the outside world with the outies.
It’s a genius idea, allowing the episode to be both revelatory and tight-lipped. There are still plenty of engaging mysteries to unravel, but at least now we have a slightly better idea of Lumon’s damage-control procedures and what happened in the short time between seasons.
Things pick up right where the Season 1 finale left off. Mark blurts out “She’s alive!” and then, suddenly, is back to his outie self; Helly is berated by her father; Dylan leaves Lumon injured. Damage control kicks in immediately. Helly sits down with Harmony Cobel and offers her a “generous” position on the new Severance Advisory Council, which is clearly to keep her out of the way of the Severance floor and conducting the personal investigation she’d clearly like to, and then records an apologetic video blaming her public outburst on mixing non-Lumon pharmaceuticals with alcohol and trying to be funny.
Milchick is tasked with finding out what the innies might have said in the brief time they were free of Lumon’s walls, and then firing the entire Macrodata team to keep things hush-hush. He smilingly arrives on his motorcycle to visit each of the team members, makes up some nonsense about what happened, and then sends them on their way. But Mark’s visit is different.
Milchick arrives right as Mark, Devon, and Rickon are trying to figure out what innie Mark was referencing, and Devon, who has been skeptical of Lumon since the beginning of Season 1, hovers around, undermining Milchick’s faux-polite explanation of the Overtime Contingency. But Mark isn’t fired. Milchick butters him up about his innie’s bravery and expects to see him back at work on Monday, though Mark remains undecided about whether to return.
Adam Scott and Jen Tullock in Severance | Image via Apple TV+
The fact that Milchick’s objective shifts in Severance Season 2, Episode 2 to making sure Mark returns to work is the first clue that he’s necessary for something. The second comes a bit later after Mark and Devon have discussed the possibility of him having been referring to Gemma in his outburst in unknowing earshot of Lumon’s new security chief, Drummond. Milchick preys on Mark’s grief to encourage him back, reminding him of his statements during his intake interview when he claimed that Severance was the only means of escaping from the torment of his grief. Milchick tells him that innie Mark is happy, and has found love – we also see Helly watching the security footage of their kiss, just as a reminder – which will eventually trickle to his outie if he just gives it time. This, we can assume, is at least partly why he decided to return to Lumon. The 20% raise, pineapple basket, and false promises about an independent inquiry into his claims are sweeteners.
Things aren’t going well for the rest of the Macrodata team, either; Irving catches sight of Burt passing in a car, and Dylan suffers through a prejudiced interview where his Severed status makes him unable to make doors, apparently. It’s presumably a mercy when Milchick does the rounds again, this time to rehire everyone. As we see, the board has decided that Mark can have whatever he wants, which includes his old team back. The only thing that matters is that he remains employed long enough to complete “Cold Harbor”, whatever that is. Mark’s request naturally includes Helly, though it isn’t entirely clear how much her innie is cognizant of upon her return.
At this point, we’ve just about caught up to where we left things in the premiere, though admittedly with more questions, particularly ones concerning Helly, Cold Harbor, and Mrs. Selvig/Cobel, whom outie Mark confronts at the end of Severance Season 2, Episode 2. When pushed about Gemma, she drives off honking her horn and screaming, so I think we can take that to mean she knows more than she’s letting on. At this point, though, so does everyone.
