Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for Severance Season 2 Episode 5.
Last week’s episode of Severance had a massive set of implications for the rest of the season, as the innies finally discovered that Helena Eagan (Britt Lower) was masquerading as Helly R. (and thus a mole for Lumon), while Irving B. (John Turturro) was permanently dismissed for, you know, almost drowning an Eagan. This was all shockingly set against the backdrop of an outdoor work retreat that revealed new, uncanny layers in the Eagan family mythos. Before building towards a powerful set of reveals, Episode 5, “Trojan Horse,” starts with a curious cold open. Before discussing further, it’s important to remember two things we once learned from The Wire‘s Omar Little (Michael K. Williams). First, “a man got to have a code” is fantastic advice (and not just for men either; it’s universal). Second, whistling is absolutely creepy and portends doom.
Episode 5 starts with a man rolling a squeaky cart down a hallway while whistling “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” before making a mysterious request of Optics & Design head Felicia (Claudia Robinson) and her coworker. Everything about this interaction is eerie, from the Gordon Lightfoot nautical ditty to the fact we never see the man’s face, or that he requests a tray full of dental picks before carting the tools into and down a long black hallway terminating in an elevator with a red, downward arrow: the Exports Hall that Irving’s outie had been painting so frequently. After the opening credits, Mark (Adam Scott) speaks briefly on the phone with Devon (Jen Tullock) who clearly doesn’t know he’s reintegrated. He hangs up when Dr. Reghabi (Karen Aldridge) enters, and we learn she’s been crashing at his house. Mark wants to continue with the process so he can recall more of his innie’s memories, but Reghabi is reluctant to put him through more trauma right away.
Meanwhile, Helena Eagan is meeting with Drummond (Ólafur Darrl Ólafsson) and Natalie (Sydney Cole Alexander) to discuss the awkward fact that, in the last episode, she was discovered as a mole and kinda sorta nearly drowned by Irving B. Helena questions whether the other two have even informed her father of what happened (they haven’t), which she’s none too pleased about. Natalie reminds her that Mark’s work (they don’t name him, but it’s Mark) is at 81%, calling back to the Season 2 premiere’s reveal that Mark’s work on “Cold Harbor” is connected to Gemma/Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman). Natalie says that Helly will be fine to return, but Helena claims that the innies are “f*cking animals,” citing that both Helly R. and Irving have tried to kill her. Helena suggests returning to the severed floor as herself again, but Lumon doesn’t want to take the chance, and “Milchick’s errors” have forced their hand. Mark S. won’t work without Helly and, according to Drummond, “the work is mysterious and important, so we must give him her.” Natalie chillingly concludes by mentioning that the Board appreciates Helena’s sacrifice, and that seems to be the end of that.
It’s Irving B. and the Case of the “Elongated Cruise Voyage” in ‘Severance’ Season 2 Episode 5
Finally, the real Helly returns to Lumon for the first time this season, where she responds to meeting Miss Huang (Sarah Bock) with shock and confusion. Later, Helly, Mark, and Dylan G. (Zach Cherry) meet with Milchick (Tramell Tillman), with Helly throwing a volley of increasingly angry questions at him: What is going on? Why was Irving trying to drown her? Dylan G.’s reply, “’cause you’re a f*cking Eagan,” isn’t helpful, while Mark wants to know if Helena was spying on the MDR team. Milchick begins to explain the Glasgow block, but Helly seems disgusted: “Are you saying that she was down here? As me?” Mark wants to know if Helly has even come back at all, while Dylan demands an answer about Irving.
Milchick attempts to explain that Helena was doing “valuable research” that Irving didn’t understand, but when Dylan G. asserts that he’s dead, Milchick replies that Irving’s outie has merely “departed on an elongated cruise voyage.” Dylan declares that he doesn’t “give three f*cks” about Irving’s outie, while Helly seems rightly violated, saying that Helena had no right to take Helly’s identity. It’s a fascinating exhibition of the extent to which innies feel themselves as distinct from their outies. Milchick then launches into a story about the Gråkappan, a gray robe that the King of Sweden would don to go among the people and learn their true issues (think old-timey Undercover Boss). The severed floor manager then claims that Kier Eagan did the same in his “ether factories” (because surely Kier wasn’t just huffing ether and inventing religious texts). Mark and Dylan G. aren’t convinced, calling it “horsesh*t,” while Dylan G. only cares about whether Irving B. is coming back, and Milchick uses the “elongated cruise voyage” line again. “You’re f*cking murderers,” Dylan says.
When the Macrodats return, their four-desk quadrant has been replaced by a three-desk “tri-station” setup that the team is not having one bit. Dylan demands a funeral for Irving, which Mark agrees to “as long as it’s quick.” Dylan’s visibly upset, but Mark heads to the bathroom before being interrupted by Helly R. She asks if he’s OK, and after a brief exchange about what’s wrong with him, Mark admits that he doesn’t know who Helly is, not really. “Yes, you do,” she says nervously. “It’s not my fault my outie hijacked me.” He relents, but there’s a distinctive lack of trust remaining between them. She asks what happened to him, and wants to talk about the experience, but Mark simply wants to forget it. Elsewhere, Milchick works to prepare materials for a Lumon-approved bereavement ceremony, but Miss Huang says that he shouldn’t let MDR have a funeral: “It makes them feel like people.”
It’s Three Innies and a Funeral in ‘Severance’ Season 2 Episode 5
The bereavement ceremony boasts mugs with Irving’s face printed on them, as well as an 8-bit screensaver of him waving and a melon bar with a giant centerpiece carved to look like his head. Milchick points out that when employees go “to be with Kier,” they normally attend a retirement party, and the MDR team is asked to spend nine seconds silently remembering Irving and “thanking Kier” for their time together. Dylan G. then gives a eulogy, starting off by saying that it’s hard to “pinpoint” a favorite Irving memory — because “for the least fun guy in the world, he was really fun… he put the ‘dick’ in ‘contradiction.'” He also recounts how Irv once put toner in his water cup (but stopped him from drinking it… until Dylan forgot about it later and drank it anyway). Dylan wraps up the eulogy by admitting that he regrets not helping Irving with an earlier request (unnamed, but it’s clearly finding the Exports Hall), while Milchick asks Miss Huang to accompany him out of the Break Room before she can play her theremin.
Helly and Dylan are sad about the loss of Irving, but Mark S. begins to duck out before Helly presses him about leaving early. “I gotta get to work, but great ceremony, guys,” he says with a tinge of sarcasm. “Irving was your friend, and he’s dead,” Helly says in disbelief. “Why don’t you give a shit?” “Because he’s not dead, he’s just not here,” Mark retorts. “You two catch up?” Dylan asks. “You tell her Ms. Casey’s your wife yet?” Helly’s shocked, and Mark shrugs it off as his outie’s wife, but Helly follows him as he leaves. They have a mutually frustrated argument, and Mark rejects the notion that the team’s efforts to find Ms. Casey will matter “because they are smarter than us, okay? They know everything. Me looking for Ms. Casey, us wandering around, meeting other departments, mapping the floor, all of it, they know everything we’re doing because Helena told them everything we’re doing.” Helly insists again that she and Helena aren’t the same person and that Mark needs to trust that she’s back to herself again. “This is real,” she implores. “Not everything here is a lie. And stop being a f*cking asshole.”
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This One Small Line From ‘Severance’ Has Us Rethinking Everything About Gemma’s Fate
It’s possible that Lumon is even more sinister than it first seemed.
We leave the severed floor and find Milchick with Natalie, about to head into his performance review. He stops to pull her aside for a conversation about the Kier paintings that he’d been gifted back in Episode 3. “I want you to understand I am grateful for them, truly,” he says. “If they’re a measure of appreciation, then I accept that appreciation. I was just wondering if you could share with me a little how you felt when you received the paintings.” Milchick points out that his and Natalie’s experiences at Lumon have been similar in some ways, so he wants to know if she shares his “complicated feelings” about the Kier cycle. Natalie offers Milchick a complex, unreadable look before only responding with the reminder that Drummond is waiting for him. Back in the Break Room, Dylan’s the last to leave. “Guess this is it,” he says to Irving’s watermelon head. “Sorry I let you down.” On the way out, Dylan notices a “Hang In There!” poster on the wall, then looks at Irving’s melon head, then back at the poster, which features Dylan himself straining to keep the Overtime Contingency switches flipped during the Season 1 finale. Taped to the back of said poster, as Dylan discovers, is Irving’s drawing of the map to the Exports Hall starting from O&D. Dylan studies it for a moment before putting it back where he found it.
What Happens at the ORTBO Stays at the ORTBO (Or Does It?)
In Milchick’s performance review, Drummond informs him (and us) that these meetings last between two and six hours “depending on the number of atonements and approbations required” (again, they do these every month). Drummond notes that if they take longer than four hours, there will be a lunch break, with orders taken in advance. Milchick says he hopes that won’t be necessary, but then he’s abruptly handed a lunch menu. Yikes! (It’s a great bit of subtle comedic timing.) Drummond starts by listing Milchick’s positives, first that he “received the gift of Kier paintings with grace,” and that his attendance and urinalysis are excellent. Drummond then mentions “three contentions” against Milchick that have been anonymously reported and since confirmed. “One: uses too many big words … Two: on several of your daily logs, the paper clip was installed back to front, which led to a confusion as to where in the document to begin reading.” Clearly, the best and brightest work at Lumon.
Drummond continues to note that the bulk of the review day will revolve around Milchick’s “kindness reforms” that hadn’t prevented curiosity or idling from the MDR team, emphasizing that Irv’s termination and Helena’s discovery provoked “great risk and harm to the Eagan name.” We return to Mark scrolling through project files until he lands on and opens “Cold Harbor,” while Drummond’s voiceover plays: “Mark Scout’s completion of Cold Harbor will be remembered as one of the greatest moments in the history of this planet. It will take place under your stewardship.” It’s clear Milchick’s not getting canned, but Drummond adds that “this milestone seems to have clouded your judgment; I think it’s time to go back to basics, Seth… remember these severed workers’ greater purpose, and to treat them as what they really are.” Meanwhile, Mark S. works a little on the Cold Harbor project, moving it to 85% before getting a migraine that phases a desk photo quickly out of his perception. As gets up and heads to the elevator, Milchick promises Drummond he’ll tighten the leash.
Down on the severed floor, Milchick halts Mark’s elevator before it can close, and enters. “I see you left work six minutes early,” Milchick says. “May I come in?” He awkwardly corners Mark, asking about the funeral. Mark asks if Miss Huang took notes, following up with the zinger of, “I can’t wait to read her article about it in that newspaper you showed me. What was it called again? The Bullsh*t Gazette?” Milchick expresses hope that the MDR team can get back to work, which Mark summarizes as “putting numbers in the thing,” adding, “Whatever you say, Mr. Milchick. Praise Kier.” Milchick moves inches from Mark’s face, and asks if he told Helly that he “f*cked her outie at the ORTBO … Helena Eagan, leader-in-waiting of this company.” For once, Mark doesn’t have a quick comeback, and on that note, Milchick leaves.
‘Severance’ Season 2 Episode 5 Sets Up a Dinner Date for Burt and Irving
Cut to Devon and Ricken (Michael Chernus) at home as they read pages from his innie-adapted copy of The You You Are, which contains passages like “Your sovereign boss may own the clock that greets you from the wall, but you get to enjoy its ticking, and thus should be happy.” Devon chides him for the new pages directly contradicting his earlier work, but Ricken defends himself, saying that Natalie emphasized that innies thrive in structure, and Devon criticizes him for using Lumon’s language. “Well, it’s a Trojan’s horse!” Ricken replies, adding that if his ideas get to all the severed employees, “it might beget a revolution.” “These aren’t your ideas,” Devon says, adding “Lumon hurts people, you know that, and if you want to water down your work so they can use it for their f*cking propaganda, then you’re hurting people, too.” She rules. Ricken says he’ll think about it, but this new version of his book is “a fiscal and creative opportunity unlike any I’ve yet seen.”
We revisit Irving’s outie as he regards his wall of black paintings. He tears them down and goes on a walk, making a call on a pay phone before noticing Burt (Christopher Walken) watching him from inside a parked car. Irv confronts the other man and asks why he’s been followed. “I got this thing,” Burt says. “When somebody shows up on my doorstep screaming my name, I want to know why… why were you at my house the other night?” Irv doesn’t know, and Burt realizes it wasn’t the Irving he’s speaking to. “I got canned a couple of weeks ago,” Burt admits. “They said my innie had an unsanctioned, erotic entanglement with another worker.” Burt put two-and-two together (as did his husband, Fields), but now he’s inviting Irv to come over for dinner to sort it all out.
At home, Mark finds Reghabi sorting through Gemma’s belongings in the basement to jog his memories. He wants to continue his reintegration, but she tells him to wait one more day because “it’s not an exact science.” Mark asks a loaded question. “Are they hurting her?” “I don’t know,” Reghabi honestly answers. As he turns to walk upstairs, Mark’s memory and perception fluctuate as he hears Ms. Casey’s voice. “Your outie can parallel park in less than 20 seconds.” His mind phases again, in and out, between his own home and Lumon’s walls, as he hears other facts in voiceover: his outie can gracefully roller-skate, pays his bills within three days, and once captured a butterfly. He emerges into a bright Lumon hallway to find Ms. Casey standing in front of him. “Your outie is going to…” she says, before Mark snaps back to his own house, teary-eyed and stunned by what he’s just seen.
The key theme of this episode is tension: Helly and Mark are at odds, Seth Milchick seems to be ill-at-ease with Lumon but commits to being harder on the MDR team, and Devon doesn’t approve of Ricken’s propaganda. On the other hand, Dylan has discovered Irving’s map to reach the Exports Hall, Irving now has a dinner date with Burt and his husband, and Mark’s reintegration has given him a glimpse of the one person he’s been searching for the truth about.
New episodes of Severance Season 2 are available to stream every Friday on Apple TV+.
Severance
Severance’s “Trojan’s Horse” spins off a lot of tension following last week’s reveal about Helena/Helly and Irving’s departure, making for a stunner of an episode.
- Release Date
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February 18, 2022
- Showrunner
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Dan Erickson, Mark Friedman
- Strong dramatic situations provide for really great work from Adam Scott, Britt Lower, and Tramell Tillman this week.
- The episode directly sets a number of narrative dominoes in place that will have wild implications for our now-at-odds MDR team.
- Devon has been an underserved character at times, and this episode is setting up a powerful arc for her while Jen Tullock continues to do incredible work.
