Severance Season 1 Recap: Mark, Helly, Dylan, and Irving’s Lumon Journey So Far
This article contains spoilers for Severance season 1. Hello dedicated employee. It’s been awhile since we last saw you. The first season of Apple TV+‘s successful sci-fi drama Severance premiered its final episode on April 8, 2022. By glancing at the calendar on your desk, you may have noticed that today’s date is…a long time […] The post Severance Season 1 Recap: Mark, Helly, Dylan, and Irving’s Lumon Journey So Far appeared first on Den of Geek.
This article contains spoilers for Severance season 1.
Hello dedicated employee. It’s been awhile since we last saw you.
The first season of Apple TV+‘s successful sci-fi drama Severance premiered its final episode on April 8, 2022. By glancing at the calendar on your desk, you may have noticed that today’s date is…a long time after that. Yes, it took Severance creator/showrunner Dan Erickson and company more than a couple years to produce a second season of their complicated workplace thriller.
While the wait was undoubtedly worth it (see review above), the delay means many viewers likely need their memories jogged on the events of season 1 prior to watching season 2. That’s hopefully where we come in.
Like any good corporate orientation document, the following recap is designed to address both the broad and specific beats of the show. The first few sections will provide reminders about the series’ sci-fi concept and background lore, while the latter sections will get into the nitty-gritty plot points of the finale. That all make sense? Doesn’t matter. Let’s begin.
What Is The Severance Procedure?
Who doesn’t want to separate their home life from their work life? Well, on Severance, you can! Thanks to the innovative severance procedure developed by biotech company Lumon Industries, an individual can have a chip inserted into their brain that will bifurcate their consciousness between when they’re at work and when they’re at home. The chip works spatially so a person’s perspective will split upon entering a designated building or room. One’s work self has no knowledge of the outside world while one’s home self has no idea what they do for work. Theoretically it’s a perfect application for highly sensitive work. Employees cannot leak state or company secrets if they don’t know them.
Of course, all science fiction technology has consequences. In the case of the severance procedure, it’s the creation of two separate individuals in one body. Severed workers on the floor, dubbed “innies,” have a severe case of eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. Possessing only the vaguest sense of how the outside world works, they quite literally live to work. They “wake up” when their outie arrives to work and then never fully check out for the day. While their outie goes home, eats a meal, watches some TV, and sleeps, innies simply come right back to work the moment they leave it.
What Work is Macrodata Refinement Doing?
Severance follows four severed employees on Lumon’s own Macrodata Refinement floor: Mark S (Adam Scott), Helly R (Britt Lower), Irving B (John Turturro), and Dylan G (Zach Cherry). Note that they are given only an initial for a last name as a full last name is a right reserved for outies (Mark Scout, Helly Riggs, Irving Bailiff, Dylan George). In addition to the usual office tasks of visiting the coffee station, watching orientation videos, and taking the occasional field trips to other departments (more on that later), the majority of the MDR department’s daily work consists of sitting in front of computer terminals and “refining data.”
What that means in this context is being presented with a screen full of numbers, hovering a cursor over them, and then dragging those numbers into a folder once compelled to do so. When will they feel compelled to do so? They’ll know. As Mark S explains to Helly R: “Each category of numbers feels a certain way on sight.” In addition to being a wonderful satire of work (truly who can’t relate to staring at numbers on a computer all day until they feel something…anything) it’s clear that Lumon Industries is Up to Something with this seemingly menial task.
Of the MDR employees, Mark S, Irving B, and Dylan G have largely drank the Kool-Aid on the importance of their work. Helly R, however, acts as a sort of audience cypher to reveal how strange and discomfiting this all is. Brought to the MDR floor as its newest member in the series’ first episode, Helly refuses to get used to her life as an innie. She spends much of the season trying to devise a way off the floor into freedom and is constantly foiled along the way by her outie who continually returns to work. She even goes so far as to attempt suicide by hanging before waking up the next day back in the office.
Guiding the MDR workers through this are their bosses Mr. Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman), and upward-striving middle manager; and Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette), an icy executive behind a desk. Cobel is known to Mark in the outside world as his doddering older neighbor Mrs. Selvig. There’s also the floor counselor, an enigmatic woman named Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman).
Who Is Petey and What Is Reintegration?
Mark S is the only MDR character whose outie life is glimpsed consistently throughout the season. We see that he took a job with Lumon on a severed floor after the devastating loss of his wife, Gemma, in a car accident. His only family consists of his sister Devon (Jen Tullock) and her doofy husband Ricken (Michael Chernus) Eventually, however, Mark is contacted by an old “work friend” Petey (Yul Vazquez) who attempts to enlist him in a struggle against Lumon.
Once innie Mark’s best pal on the MDR floor, Petey quit his Lumon job and underwent a dangerous medical procedure known as “Reintegration,” designed to reconnect his severed personas once again. Performed by ex-Lumon scientist Dr. Reghabi (Karen Aldridge), the surgery is experimental, vague, and ultimately not very successful. Petey experiences its reality-bending side effects and eventually dies, succumbing to Reintegration Sickness.
Before all that though, he is able to successfully convince outtie Mark that something rotten is going on at Lumon. Outtie Mark makes a connection with Dr. Reghabi (Karen Aldridge), who kills Lumon operative Graner (Michael Cumpsty) and gives Mark his access card for use later. He also gains a hand-drawn map of the severed floor from Petey before he dies.
What Is Lumon Industries Up To and Who Is Kier Eagan?
A lot of background lore about Lumon Industries and its mysterious creator is revealed throughout season 1. Lumon is described as one of the world’s biggest biotech companies, founded by Kier Eagan in 1865. For much of its existence, Lumon developed products like topical salves, soaps, and ethers before eventually creating the revolutionary severance chip. The culture inside Lumon is one of a cult of personality around Kier Eagan. The town that Lumon’s headquarters reside in is even named “Kier.”
Lumon employees pepper their language with phrases like “Praise Kier” and when someone dies they are said to be “sitting with Kier” now. His “taming of the four tempers” is the stuff of company legend. Various rituals within Lumon represent each of the four tempers: Woe, Frolic, Dread, and Malice. Early on in season 1, the MDR team is taken on a field trip to the “Perpetuity Wing,” which is essentially a museum exhibit detailing the major moments of Kier’s life. His writings and experiences are considered the core of Lumon’s corporate philosophy. Oil paintings throughout the MDR offices depict important moments from Kier’s life, such as the courtship of his wife Imogene.
Kier’s descendent Jame Eagan is the current CEO of Lumon Industries and looms as a big bad over the proceedings.
What Are The Other Departments at Lumon Industries?
In addition to Macrodata Refinement, a couple other departments are introduced on the severed floor in Severance season 1. The first is the Optics & Design team, led by Burt Goodman (Christopher Walken), who are largely tasked with producing the beautiful propaganda regarding Kier Eagan’s mythos. MDR initially views O&D with distrust but the two teams eventually grow closer with Burt and Irving even developing a romantic relationship.
Another department within Lumon deals with the raising of goats for an unknown purpose. Mark and Helly learn of this fact when they come across a room full of goats with a man bottle-feeding one. “You can’t take them yet, they’re not ready,” the man says. That’s the only clue that we have to the goats’ existence though the show’s producers have insisted we will discover what the department does in season 2.
The severance procedure is even put to use outside of the severed floors within Lumon. At one point, Mark’s sister Devon discovers that her friend Gabby underwent the procedure so that she wouldn’t have to remember the trauma of childbirth, instead sending her innie off to endure it in a special birthing suite.
What Is The Overtime Contingency Plan?
All of the sleuthing throughout season 1 leads to an important discovery for the innies. At one point, Mr. Milchick is able to “wake up” innie Dylan G in the outside world so that he can locate a card he stole. The experience is partially designed to intimate Dylan but all it really does is reveal to him that his outtie has a family and that it’s possible for innies to experience the outside world.
After bringing this knowledge to his friends at MDR, the team resolves to put Petey’s map and Graner’s keycard to use to trigger this technology known as the “Overtime Contingency.” Since Dylan already experienced the outside, he volunteers himself to commandeer the contingency from the inside. He leaves his “waffle party” (a Kier-themed orgy) early and enters into a control room to wake up Mark S, Helly R, and Irving B on the outside. The season 1 finale deals with what they all discover.
Big Reveals From the Severance Season 1 Finale
Innie Mark awakens at a house party and immediately refers to Mrs. Selvig by her Harmony Cobel name, tipping her off that the innies are loose. She and Milchick spring into action to end the Overtime Protocol. Before Milchick successfully overpowers Dylan and halts the process, here is what the innies find out…
Helly R Is Helena Eagan
Helly comes to at a swanky Lumon gala and learns that her outtie is none other than Helena Eagan – daughter of Jame Eagan and heir to the Lumon throne. Helena underwent severance to promote the procedure and built support for its mass legalization. Before Helly goes back “offline,” she is able to take the stage for her keynote address and tell a stunned audience that innies are being tortured and hate their lives.
Irving Has Been Investigating Lumon
Irving awakes to a dingy and sad apartment where he is surrounded by evidence of his outtie’s military service and his talent for painting. One painting in particular, that of a black hallway with a light at the end, appears to hold major Lumon significance. He immediately rushes out into the world to use an employee directory to track down Burt Goodman. Unfortunately he discovers that Burt seems to already be in a happy relationship.
Mark’s Wife Gemma Is Ms. Casey
After innie Mark accidentally ruins everything by misidentifying Mrs. Selvig (but honestly, he really stood no chance. The moment he achieves awareness he’s mid-hug with Selvig/Cobel. What are the odds?!?), he reveals to Devon that he is his innie self. More importantly: he eventually finds a photo of outtie Mark’s wife Gemma and recognizes her as severance floor counselor Ms. Casey. Just as the Overtime Protocol is about to be cut, innie Mark yells out “She’s alive!” to Devon and the rest of the party.
And that’s where things stand when Severance season 2 begins.
All nine episodes of Severance season 1 are available to stream on Apple TV+ now. The first episode of Severance season 2 premieres Friday, January 17 on Apple TV+. New episodes debut on Fridays, culminating with the finale on March 21.
The post Severance Season 1 Recap: Mark, Helly, Dylan, and Irving’s Lumon Journey So Far appeared first on Den of Geek.
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