Severance Season 2, Episode 1 recap: Innies return to office after the ‘Macrodat Uprising’
In the words of that creepy greeting Mark S. got from Mr. Milchick in the first few disorienting moments of the new season of Severance, while Milchick is holding a bunch of blue-colored balloons and wearing a shit-eating grin:
Welcome back, everyone. It's been a minute.
I'm sure we can all agree that after a nearly three-year wait for the return of one of the best shows on Apple TV+, the streamer's dystopian workplace drama from director Ben Stiller more than made up for our arduous wait by delivering one heck of a Season 2 opener, titled Hello, Ms. Cobel. It featured one WTF moment after another and was jam-packed with reveals, surprises, and tons of fascinating questions that we'll have to wait to get answers for. But boy, oh boy, there's a ton to unpack here.
Let's do a quick recap. And, needless to say, there will be spoilers about the episode below.
Mark is the first innie (and, at least initially, the only innie) to arrive in the Lumon elevator following the shocking events from the Season 1 finale of Severance. His colleagues, remember, had woken up their innies in the outside world and learned some major secrets about each of their lives. Naturally, we hoped they’d quickly regroup at Lumon on the severed floor and maybe compare notes — but, no. Mark races through the halls to find Ms. Casey, the Lumon wellness counselor who he now knows is his dead wife, but she’s nowhere to be found, her wellness room having been emptied out.
And so it’s back to his workspace he trudges. Only, instead of seeing his three other colleagues at their desks, Mark discovers they’ve been replaced by three new employees: Mark W., Dario R., and Gwendolyn Y. Milchick informs Mark that the other three (Helly, Irving, and Dylan) chose not to return to the office after the events in the first season finale that Milchick also says took place five months ago (???). There’s reason to believe that Milchick's claim about the timing is suss, though, because Milchick also says he’s been promoted to replace Ms. Cobel — and, if that’s the case, why do we still see him unpacking boxes in his office five months later?
Milchick goes on to tell Mark that he and his fellow innies have become the “face of severance reform” as a result of what they did, making them all internationally famous. As proof, he hands Mark a newspaper with an article about it, though if you look closely at the article, you can see that the article's photo of Mark, Irving, Helly, and Dylan riding on a car in a ticker-tape parade looks suspiciously like a Photoshopped version of their group photo from the Lumon office. Curiouser, and curiouser…
A stunned Mark tries to connect with his new colleagues and eventually just decides to sabotage them in order to get the old gang back together. Mark plants a note in the new Mark’s pocket, a note that contains lots of nasty comments about Milchick. Milchick sees through the ruse since Mark didn’t bother to disguise his handwriting, and at first, we’re led to believe that he’s about to fire Mark -- or at least punish him somehow. “Goodbye, Mark S.,” Milchick says ominously as Mark gets into the elevator.
And then — boom, another of the episode’s many surprises. One by one, Helly, Irving, and Dylan all likewise step out of the elevator, disoriented, and clearly having just come from their innie’s experience on the outside that we saw in last season’s finale. So much for Milchick’s insistence that they didn’t want to come back! That man lies as easily as the rest of us breathe.
Back in the MDR office, Mark, Helly, Irving, and Dylan one-by-one share what their innies saw topside. Everyone is truthful, except for Helly — she conceals what she learned about herself, that she’s actually Helena Eagan, daughter of the Lumon CEO. Not only was that a jaw-dropper, to see Helly lie like that, but go back and pay close attention to Helly’s body language as she’s walking down the corridor with Mark and promising to help him find Gemma. Helly’s slow blinks, and the kind of glassy look on her face … I don’t know, but if I had to bet, I’m not so sure that this is still Helly we’re looking at. Did Helena somehow sneak in? I could be way off, but we’ll see.
As the episode winds down, the MDR team is back at their desks, toiling away on whatever the heck “data refinement” really is. We zoom in on Mark sorting numbers into one of the buckets, and then get a quick glimpse of … something called a “Cold Harbor” file with a brief glimpse of a woman who looks suspiciously like Gemma. Come on, Mark, did you forget you started the episode racing down the halls looking for? In all seriousness, it was a great return for a stellar show, but here's hoping we start getting some answers to the biggest questions soon before Severance starts throwing new mysteries at us.
The post Severance Season 2, Episode 1 recap: Innies return to office after the ‘Macrodat Uprising’ appeared first on BGR.
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Severance Season 2, Episode 1 recap: Innies return to office after the ‘Macrodat Uprising’ originally appeared on BGR.com on Fri, 17 Jan 2025 at 09:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.