‘Severance’ Season 2 Episode 4 Confirms One Theory and Teases Another

Ok, Woe’s Hollow! Severance season two episode four is giving The Revenant, with a side of après ski (and also The Grudge).

Bottom line: This jewel box of an episode is probably the weirdest and most cerebral we’ve seen yet from Severance season two on Apple TV+. And that’s saying a lot, considering last week’s episode involved goat suits and advanced color theory.

With our core four innies stranded in the tundra for the world’s sickest team-building exercise (remind me to never again complain about company-mandated shuffleboard), we’re set up for a tight 50 minutes of broken allegiances, 4-ply washroom tissue and new, um, unions. We’re also treated to the absolutely bonkers origin story of Keir’s twin brother Dieter, who ultimately died for both brothers’ sins.

This all works thematically. The video-game-like corporate challenge supports the idea that these characters are constantly being tested, both to make it to the next level (In their careers? Of higher consciousness?) and in their loyalty to the company and one another. And the idea of twinning or doubling is really hammered home with the Dieter folk tale and the bizarro “others” who stand cliffside pointing into the distance.

But what is going on in terms of furthering the plot? Two theories, one of which I called several weeks ago.

Finally! Things are heating up…and I’m not talking about the torches. (Hey-o!) But if it is Helena rather than Helly in that sleeping bag getting all frisky…what’s in it for her? Sleeping with Mark could be a tactic for splintering the team. But it could hint at the central experiment of Lumon: Finding out if intimacy can overcome severance. We know that Mark has glimmers of his outie life when he thinks about Ms. Casey and that outie Burt and Irving have some sort of awareness of each other. (Why else did Burt spy on Irv in the phone booth?) Is Helena hoping to use sex to override Mark’s visceral memories of Gemma with newer memories of Helly?

The power and danger of sex is also echoed in the campfire story: Dieter died as a direct result of “spilling his lineage upon the soil,” and the creepy child bride Temper Woe is therefore unleashed. You’ll recall, of course, that woe is one of Kier’s four tempers, which he decrees must always be in balance—the others being Frolic, Dread and Malice. The last time we saw madame Woe was at the waffle party, when Dylan got to cosplay as Kier in a sexy lap dance ritual. In other words, according to the gospel of Lumon, desire is something that, if not properly controlled, brings great harm and imbalance.

So what does all this mean for old Mark, who, if I’m not mistaken, just lost his innie-virginity? (Virgininnie?) I predict it’s a calculated Lumon tactic to cause chaos and make Mark lose focus of the quest to find his own woeful bride. It’s also, I think, an experiment to see if Helly can become the new Gemma in his heart and mind.