Severance has all the time been a horror story, albeit one set in a principally generic workplace. That blandness is a big a part of what makes it so scary: beneath the company communicate, drab decor, and unflattering fluorescent lighting is one thing very sinister. And within the present’s newest episode, it makes use of that vitality to faucet into a brand new, much more terrifying sort of worry.
Spoilers forward for Severance, as much as season 2, episode 7.
The episode, referred to as “Chikhai Bardo,” picks up with Mark (Adam Scott) recovering from a course of referred to as reintegration that’s designed to reunite the 2 halves of his thoughts: the outie who lives a standard life, and the innie who’s confined to the unyielding hell of the basement of tech big Lumon Industries. Because of this, it has an virtually Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind vibe to it. As Mark is handed out on his sofa post-surgery, and his mind is seemingly stitching itself again collectively, we get flashbacks of how he met his spouse Gemma (Dichen Lachman) and the way their relationship turned strained after they struggled to conceive.
Gemma is healthier identified to Severance viewers as Miss Casey, the disturbingly calm wellness director at Lumon. In the surface world, she is believed to be lifeless following a automobile accident. Her loss of life is the principle motive Mark turned severed within the first place, as an try to keep away from the grief, at the least a little bit bit. But one of many present’s largest mysteries has been not solely simply how it’s that she’s nonetheless alive but additionally how she ended up dwelling this mysterious life in Lumon’s basement.
“Chikhai Bardo” gives a little bit perception into this. In addition to Mark’s flashbacks, we additionally get to see how Gemma was remodeled into Miss Casey. The course of entails all types of disturbing checks, which principally contain sending her innie into unusual rooms — in a single, she’s experiencing a airplane crashing; in one other she undergoes hours of painful dental work — after which seeing how her outie reacts afterward. Lumon tracks every part about her bodily and psychological state and, it appears, makes use of that info to excellent the severance process and make her the best wellness teacher, a job that entails serving to different innies keep calm and productive. The objective is to topic the innie to brutal circumstances and for it to influence the outie as little as attainable. The torture is each psychological and bodily.
But this additionally factors to an extremely disturbing revelation. Up till now, the severed characters within the present have seemingly all been there by alternative. For their very own private causes, characters like Mark, Helly (Britt Lower), and Dylan (Zach Cherry) all made the choice to separate themselves in half. That doesn’t erase the hellscape that their innies must dwell via, nevertheless it does clarify how we obtained to that time. Miss Casey is totally different. While it’s not completely clear how or why she obtained concerned with Lumon, it positive looks like the corporate was concerned in faking Gemma’s loss of life — and used that as cowl to do all of those experiments in secret beneath the idea that nobody would ever discover out about it since she’ll by no means be capable to depart.
Image: Apple
We already knew that Lumon was a terrifying megacorporation that may do unseemly issues within the title of effectivity and secrecy. And we knew there was some messed-up stuff happening in that basement — the goat farm and the break / torture room are simply two examples. But Gemma’s transition into Miss Casey reveals simply how far this company will go to make severance work, and the way a lot management it has to drag it off.
The severance process is spatially dictated, which means that folks swap from innie to outie primarily based on the place they’re. So far, that has been fairly easy: outies exist out within the large world, and as soon as they go right down to the basement in an elevator, they turn into their innies, who can solely exist elsewhere with particular Lumon permission (like when everybody went on a retreat in episode 4). But issues are rather more complicated for Miss Casey and Gemma; they swap forwards and backwards continuously as they enter new rooms, in a manner that permits Lumon full management over the place they will go and when. There really isn’t any escape for both of them. And the truth that Lumon can get away with faking a loss of life to create a human lab rat, properly, that’s fairly a bit scarier than some goat farmers who seem like Midsommar extras.
What’s been nice concerning the second season of Severance is how every revelation results in a brand new, even darker thriller. Discovering extra about Miss Casey has solely made me wish to know much more about her, notably how she connects to Mark’s huge mission, which we all know is “mysterious and essential” — and the extra mysteries are uncovered, the extra essential all of it appears.
