Review: Severance, "Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig" | Season 2, Episode 2
And now you know...okay, so not the REST of the story, but more of it than last week
“What the fuck is this all about?”
As I noted in last week’s review, there was a clear vibe in the opening episode of Severance’s second season that this was but one half of the story. The aftermath of the Overtime Contingency had two parts: the Innies’ return to Lumon was one, but the consequences for the Outies was the other. Accordingly, it wasn’t shocking to see that the episode opens with the same disembodied voiceover from last season’s finale that the premiere began with, but this time transitioning into Outie Mark waking up at Ricken and Devon’s party.
What follows is an inherently low key affair, as far as Mystery Box shows go. It’s an episode filled with answers, but to questions that we just learned last week, and none of the really important ones. Why did Mark originally return to the severed floor alone? Because Milchick—immediately elevated to head of the severed floor once Cobel is forcibly retired to an invented “promotion”—is given latitude to fire Irving and Dylan and does so. Were the new employees there to spy on Mark? Seemingly not, since the only concern for Helena and Milchick seems to be that Mark S. returns to work and “Cold Harbor” moves toward completion. Were Milchick’s claims about the impact the Innies had on the perception of severed people true? Not remotely, although he does make some promises to Mark about independent oversight that indicate Lumon is gesturing toward some kind of reform (but mostly just to convince him to come back).
This kind of Rashomonic storytelling is an inherently valuable tool for a show like this, but always with the risk that we end up exactly where we left off, mystery-wise. And after the discourse around last week’s episode centered so clearly around the mystery of Helly’s behavior upon her return, the fact we don’t get clarity as to whether the theory that Helena has disabled her implant and gone undercover herself is a bit of a let down. I had gone into the episode really hoping that, if we were getting more of Helena’s perspective, we were also going to get a clear answer. This is in part because I find it frustrating when the audience gets so far ahead of a show that we spend weeks fully aware of something the show intends to present as a twist—it’s just not a pleasant experience. However, I also think that the story would be plenty interesting with a fraction more certainty, and it would provide some relief to be able to have a somewhat more solid foundation for where the character journeys are taking us.