Severance recap: Shared vessels
Season 2, Episode 6: Attila
Good evening refiners, I’m three days late on this so let’s dive right in. This episode opens right where we left off, which is shocking for anyone who watches this show.
Mark S. is recovering from his flashback of Ms. Casey listing out lame facts of his life.
We quickly cut to innie world where it’s revealed that Mark is having trouble distinguishing between his two realities. He’s also exceedingly hungry because reintegration surgery is apparently anti-ozempic.
“Helly, we shared vessels.”
Mr. Milchick is sensing a coup from Ms. Wong, which is double depressing because he’s been on the job for like 20 minutes and she hasn’t learned algebra yet.
Meanwhile, Mark S. finally comes clean to Helly R. about their sexual encounter during the ORTBO. She is understandably jarred by this event, even moreso because Mark opted for the phrase ‘we shared vessels.’ This is somehow exceedingly worse than high school’s George’s go-to text to women after we made out at a party, “So…that was fun haha.”
Dylan G. meets up with his outie wife at the family visitation center, musing that he wants to “hear about his offspring and stare at your face,” and asks “is it ok if we try the hug again,” both lines of dialogue which, once again, are ripped directly from my texting archives.
Suddenly, Dylan G.’s outie’s wife goes in for the kiss, in what I think technically qualifies as cheating? If I’m Outie Dylan, I’m punching myself right in the balls just as the elevator doors close.
“I don’t want her memory; I want my own.”
Helly R. you dawg!
It’s important to remember that the innies are essentially the bare essence of who their outies are. In the battle of nature vs. nurture, the innies are essentially all nature. Lumon tries to control them, but their core personalities still shine through.
Helena, as we’ve known from day one, is defiant, outspoken, and self-assured in what she wants. If not born into the worst family ever, she would likely be an influential revolutionary of some sort i.e. a civil rights lawyer.
She will not stand by and be content to let Helena dictate everything about how the innies live, what happens to her body, etc. She wants agency.
So she takes matters into her own hands and declares plainly to Mark S. that she wants to make tender, sweet love to him in a makeshift “tent” under some covered desks in storage.
Fun fact: My old office had a bunch of those standing desks in storage in a similar fashion and I arranged their heights to create a hidden fort under which I would hang out and watch Dog the Bounty Hunter while killing off the remainder of the day’s clock. Surprisingly this did not lead to me getting laid under there.
“You must eradicate from yourself childish folly”
Milchick doesn’t appear to take constructive criticism well. He spends his day in a storage room anally putting on paper clips the correct way. (Anally like overly meticulous and neat. He’s not putting paper clips in his butt).
He then does his best Robert De Niro impression from Taxi Driver, refining his earlier phrase, “You must eradicate from yourself childish folly,” down to “grow up” and then just simply “grow.”
Why he’s angrily saying grow to himself in a mirror I don’t know but it feels significant.
Fresh off his second ever sexual encounter, Mark S. has a nosebleed, a telltale sign of reintegration sickness. This is treated by Ms. Wong, doing her best Doogie Howser impression, as Mark continues flashing between his innie and outie.
“I was guided to Lumon’s door by Jesus.”
Straight up forgot about this uncomfortable dinner between Burt, his husband Fields and Irving. Wild move bringing your side piece over to the house.
Burt recounts how he got started at Lumon as a way of redeeming his outie self who committed some unspecified negative acts.
Meanwhile someone busts into Irving’s house and starts looking at his research into Lumon. His identity is never revealed but by pure size I’m assuming it’s the giant Icelandic dude who works for Lumon and did Milchick’s performance review.
Back at the dinner, Fields appears to drunkenly let a major secret slip. He mentions an anecdote about Burt and his Lumon partner that happened 20 years ago, despite the Severance program only existing for 12 years.
Loose lips sink ships, Fields. I knew something was off about Burt.
Fields follows up that truth bomb by wondering aloud if Irving and Burt’s innies ever made love, which he hopes was “beautiful.” Have some self respect you cuck, cmon.
“I’m like the head of the company, Mark”
Helena, channeling her inner Ms.Cobel decides to be a weird stalker and visit Mark’s outie at a Chinese restaurant.
Likely due to her family name and her generally intimidating, icy personality, Helena clearly hasn’t had many (or any) male suitors in her life. She’s jealous of her innie’s ability to connect so deeply with Mark S. and wants to feel that for herself, even if it’s not “her” that he’s in love with.
She joins him at his table and brings up his dead wife, mistakenly calling her Hannah. There are three possibilities for this faux pas.
She’s a rich elite who doesn’t bother to learn the names of those below her
Hannah is the first name given to innie Ms. Casey and she Freudian slipped
Good old fashioned negging
Either way, Mark S. is clearly spooked by Helena, as some part of his brain knows not to trust her.
“Sorry for being a dick, let’s do it…tonight”
The episode comes to a climactic finish as Mark undergoes the least sanitary surgical procedure of all time in his moldy and unsterilized basement.
Surgeon lady like drowns the severed chip in his brain, essentially short circuiting it.
Mark’s brain then starts freaking out because of the black market basement surgery and the fact that I think she just put his head back together with surgical tape?
Mark then passes out from a seizure or brain hemorrhage or stroke in front of his sister and surgeon. Can’t believe that didn’t work.
Quotes of the episode
“Helly, we shared vessels”
“You must eradicate from yourself childish folly”
“There’s a nonzero chance that the two of you had unprotected sex”
Theories
Burt clearly has a much bigger role at Lumon than whatever he was doing with the paintings and brochures. He alleges he was fired after his affair with Irving, but there’s a couple issues with that:
Why wouldn’t Irving also be fired?
Why would his outie make a goodbye video and have a retirement party if he was canned? A company like Lumon is handing you your shit in a filing box and sending you out the door accompanied by security. Doesn’t add up.
It’s not exactly a subtle easter egg that Burt has been at Lumon longer than Severance has existed. However, Fields does make a slightly more subtle mention of Burt’s former Lumon partner. Having a partner at a company generally implies you’re either in a position of importance i.e. legal partner or you’re some sort of scientist i.e. lab/research partner. Given the nature of the work, I’m guessing it’s the latter. Bro deadass might have invented Severance.
Lingering questions
Where are the goats?! We want the goats!
I hear tomorrow’s ep is a banger. Strap in folks.
