Caemeron Crain
The following recap contains spoilers for Severance S2E5, “Trojan’s Horse” (written by Megan Ritchie and directed by Sam Donovan)
To my surprise, Severance S2E5 picks up in the wake of the ORTBO featured in last week’s episode. I had thought that something was missing in between the events of “Who Is Alive?” and those of “Woe’s Hollow,” but it would appear that Mark (Adam Scott), Dylan (Zach Cherry), and Irving (John Turturro) simply agreed (as outies) to work over the weekend/go on a work retreat.
At least, that’s what is suggested by the phone conversation between Mark and Devon (Jen Tullock) at the top of “Trojan’s Horse.” She asks him how his work thing went, implying that he agreed to go and she knew about it. I suppose the motivating factor for Mark and the others must have been money. If Lumon offered each a substantial sum in exchange for “working” over the weekend, I could see that overcoming the reasons I didn’t think they’d agree to do this.
It is worth noting that we don’t know what Lumon told the outies their innies would be doing that weekend, though outie-Mark doesn’t seem overly fazed by the idea that his innie fell from a rope and got wet. This is a clue, however, since we did not see that happen.
I’ve been wondering how the innies got out to Woe’s Hollow, since they seem to just come to consciousness out there in S2E4, and I’ve also been wondering what exactly happened as S2E4 cut to its closing credits. Certainly it would not make sense for Lumon to simply turn Irv back into his outie out there in the middle of the woods.
My speculative answer to both questions is the same: that, in addition to being able to switch severed workers between innie and outie, Lumon has the ability to put them into some kind of unconscious state. Mark didn’t fall from a rope, but he was sitting by the water at the end of “Woe’s Hollow,” so I’m taking the implication that he fell in. He must have been pretty wet if Lumon had to tell him about it.
Of course, none of this addresses the biggest question I have about the ORTBO: Why did it occur at all? What was the purpose, from the point of view of Milchick (Tramell Tillman)?
And, it does seem that it was Milchick’s idea. He receives a performance review in S2E5, conducted by Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), and it’s clear that Lumon is upset that this ORTBO led to the termination of an employee (Irv) and a threat to the life of Helena Eagan (Britt Lower). There’s nothing to indicate that the Board called for the ORTBO, and, indeed, Drummond lumps it into a general complaint as he tells Milchick that he’s been too soft on his severed employees. It’s time for that to change.
Earlier in the episode, Drummond and Natalie (Sydney Cole Alexander) meet with Helena to tell her that she is going to have to re-enter the severed floor as her innie. She’s not happy with that at all and protests that she’s almost been killed twice now, but they insist. The Cold Harbor file must be completed—according to Drummond, this will be remembered as one of the greatest moments in the history of the planet—and Mark won’t do it without Helly.
It’s also worth noting here that the muckety-mucks at Lumon have decided to keep the events of the ORTBO from Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry). Helena doesn’t seem terribly happy about that, either, but ultimately seems to content to go along with it. She does not have the best relationship with her father.
Ms. Cobel (Patricia Arquette) is nowhere to be seen in Severance S2E5, but she’s still out there somewhere. I wonder how the power dynamics regarding Lumon’s management will factor into our story as it proceeds.
In the meantime, Helly R. returns to the severed floor, incredibly bewildered. She was onstage as Helena Eagan, then came to consciousness with her head underwater out in the woods, had a moment being held by Mark on a rock, and now she’s back in the office. She doesn’t know who Miss Huang (Sarah Bock) is, or anything about what’s happened since the end of Season 1.
Mark is, understandably, brusque with regard to Helly in this episode. He’d believed that Helena was innie-Helly, let her in on his mission to find Gemma (Dichen Lachman), and ultimately had sex with her during the ORTBO. It makes sense that Mark feels betrayed, and that he has trouble trusting that Helly is who she says she is.
Dylan spills that Ms. Casey is the wife of Mark’s outie, but Mark refuses to talk with Helly more about it, and says he doesn’t want to know what happened to her during the OTC. It doesn’t matter. Lumon is smarter than us. They know everything we’ve been doing because Helena told them. There’s no hope—might as well give up.
That’s wrong, of course. There is hope for the mission our innie friends have undertaken, and it turns out I was right to draw a connection between Irving’s parting words to Dylan in S2E4 (“Just remember: Hang in there!”) and the poster of Dylan performing the OTC we’d seen previously in the Lumon office. Dylan makes the connection when he sees the poster after the bereavement ceremony they have for Irving, and behind it he finds Irving’s drawing of the exports hall, along with directions to it from O&D.
The cold open of S2E5 also provides us with a glimpse of the exports hall and O&D’s relationship to it. A man in a white coat, whistling “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” comes to O&D, where Felicia (Claudia Robinson) and Elizabeth (Rachel Addington) give him a tray of dental tools that he proceeds to take down the exports hall and into the elevator we’ve previously seen Ms. Casey enter. Does someone down there need a root canal?
At the same time, there are indications that Milchick will be clamping down on MDR in the wake of his performance review. As Mark attempts to leave work a few minutes early, Seth stops him in the elevator. He knows that Mark hasn’t told Helly about the intimate encounter he had with her outie, and that Mark does not want to have that conversation, so his question is a threat.
It also, interestingly, turns the situation around on Mark to treat him as though he was the one taking advantage of Helena. That’s not fair, since, if anything, it was Helena taking advantage of Mark, but the whole thing is really messy. It makes sense that Mark doesn’t want to talk about it with Helly, or for her to know what happened, but I expect that dam to break at some point. It will be interesting to see how Severance uses this tension to serve its story.
In the outside world, Irving takes another walk to the payphone to call someone, but notices Burt (Christopher Walken) watching him from his car. When we saw a similar scene previously, Burt’s surveillance of Irving seemed ominous, but when Irving confronts Burt it turns out that the latter just wants to know why this guy was banging on his door the other night. It’s caused some problems between him and his husband, Fields, particularly since all that Lumon would tell Burt when they let him go was that his innie had been having an unsanctioned erotic entanglement.
Burt invites Irving over for dinner, and I’m really curious to see where their relationship leads. We know that outie-Irving has been investigating Lumon, and that he was intentionally trying to get a message about the hallway to his innie through a combination of sleep deprivation and repetitive painting, but we still don’t know much else about this guy. Who was he calling on that payphone? Could he be working with Reghabi (Karen Aldridge)? And how does he know about the exports hall in the first place?
Speaking of Reghabi, she’s apparently living in Mark’s basement now, as the two continue a slow process of reintegration. Mark wants to go faster, but Reghabi is cautious. Nevertheless, “Trojan’s Horse” ends with Mark experiencing flashes of Ms. Casey telling his innie things about his outie, along with some visual hallucinations/memories of the inside of the Lumon office. So it would appear that a more reintegrated Mark is on the horizon.
It occurs to me that the now fractious dynamics between the innies might provide some cover for a reintegrated Mark to enter the severed floor. Traditionally, the distinction between innie-Mark and outie-Mark has been so stark that I suspected he’d be found out immediately, but at this point innie-Mark is pissed off and unhappy. Maybe it will be more flashes rather than a full reintegration, though.
“Trojan’s Horse”
The title of Severance S2E5 stems from something I haven’t found a way to work in: a comment Ricken (Michael Chernus) makes to Devon about the Lumon-approved edition of his book. This edition basically says the opposite of what The You You Are was saying originally, and Devon calls Ricken out on that.
He tries to claim it’s a “Trojan’s Horse” to get his message to Lumon employees, but Devon rightly notes that it isn’t if the real message is gone. In short, Ricken is willing to be a sellout with regard to his book, and he makes that pretty explicit.
Further, Ricken is the kind of guy who likes to pretend he’s erudite when he really isn’t, so the slip to “Trojan’s Horse” is hilarious. The phrase is “Trojan Horse” and stems from the story of the Greeks tricking the Trojans with a large horse in order to win the Trojan War. The possessive Ricken uses points in the wrong direction, which makes me wonder if he actually knows the story. If you think I’m making too big of a deal of that, fair enough, but this detail is in Severance for a reason, if only a comedic one.
Of course, on another level, we might think of Mark as something of a Trojan Horse vis-à-vis Lumon. They want/need him to complete the Very Important Cold Harbor file, but may well be welcoming in the threat that will ultimately destroy them.
