Apple TV+’s ‘Severance’ revolves around a company called Lumon Industries in New York City where a “severance” programme is put in place. It is used to surgically divide memories of employees between their work and personal lives, however, when a mysterious worker shows up outside of work, the employees start figuring out the truth about their jobs.
Recap
The episode gets underway with Mark’s outie meeting up with the elusive Lumon employee, Regabhi. She tells Mark that she is reponsible for inserting the severance chips inside Lumon workers and she is the only one who can turn them off.
While Mark is figuring out these turn of events, Mr. Graner shows up to the scene — owing to a tip from campus security — and tries to speak with Mark. Regabhi uses this moment to slaughter Graner and hands his access card to Mark, asking him to flee and bring this card to his innie.
Moving on from this opening, the narrative shifts to Mark’s sister Devon conversion with Harmony Cobel (disguised as Mrs. Selvig). The former expresses her concern over Gabby not recognising her in the previous episode and mentions that she may have severed her memories to get some closure from the pain of childbirth.
They also talk about Mark and his life before joining Lumon. Elsewhere, Seth Milchick explains to Mark the new measures taken by the company to prevent inter-department interactions.
Dylan confronts Seth about waking his innie outside of work only to be told that the company has a protocol known as “overtime contingency” that allows Lumon to trigger the work personality away from office in emergency situations. This still doesn’t give Dylan closure as Seth does not reveal the name of his son to him.
After a while, Seth organises a music and dance party to celebrate Helly finishing 75% of the Siena file, which doesn’t end well. Extremely frustrated with Seth, Dylan attacks him, much to everyone’s shock.
As Seth leaves to inform Harmony of the incident, Dylan tells everyone about the “overtime contingency” and how he was woken outside of work. Mark also comes clean to his team about possessing Graner’s access card. The group collectively decides to break free from Lumon’s bonds and to use the contingency to contact their outies.
As they head to locate the security office, Irving decides to head to O&D to check on Burt. Meanwhile, Helly and Mark discover the security room and realise that the company keeps a very close eye on all its employees and the “overtime contingency” is activated using a couple of levers.
Dylan opts to stay back after work to wake Mark and Helly on the outside. Elsewhere, Irving meets Burt and discovers that he is retiring. This triggers a rebellious response inside of him and he admonishes the non-severed Seth for the exploitation of the severed employees.
After work, as Mark sits and drinks at home, his date Alexa visits him. Severely intoxicated, he scares her off after ripping a picture of his dead wife in front of her to prove his loyalty.
As Alexa leaves, Mark slowly puts the picture back together only to reveal that his “supposedly” deceased wife is none other than the very alive Ms. Casey, the wellness counsellor at Lumon.
Review
- Ben Stiller returns to direct Defiant Jazz and the episode kickstarts a domino effect of revelations and actions that take up the intensity of the show to colossal levels.
- The episode brings about important developments for Mark as an innie as well as an outie.
- The pace finally picks up with Dylan’s outburst, Graner’s death, and the discovery of the “overtime contingency”.
- The revelation of Casey being Mark’s ex-wife opens an entirely new pandora’s box of Lumon’s sinister workings as this confirms that he was manipulated by the company to join them.
Rating: 4/5
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