Caemeron Crain
The following recap contains spoilers for Severance S2E7, “Chikhai Bardo” (written by Dan Erickson & Mark Friedman and directed by Jessica Lee Gagné)
I’m sure that the reactions to Severance S2E7 will be mixed, and some will laud the episode for breaking the mold in a significant way. Unfortunately, I will not be one of those people, as I mostly felt myself lamenting how it doesn’t quite feel like an episode of Severance.
Taken on its own, “Chikhai Bardo” may be an emotionally powerful hour of television. We cut between Mark (Adam Scott) and Gemma (Dichen Lachman) in the past, Mark in rough shape in the present, and what Gemma is going through in the present on the testing floor of the Lumon office. The title refers to the fourth bardo in Tibetan Buddhism, which involves a transmutation and dissolution of elements, and it’s easy enough to tie that thematically to what we’re seeing: Mark is virtually at death’s door as he struggles with reintegration; Gemma is supposedly dead but instead finds herself trapped going from room to room and persona to persona… Everything feels like it should come together to create a standout episode of TV, but it doesn’t.
We didn’t really need extended flashbacks of Mark and Gemma’s relationship in order to feel the emotional weight of their current circumstances. It was nice enough to see them loving each other, and to get a glimpse of their dynamics with Devon (Jen Tullock) and Ricken (Michael Chernus), but I already fully believed that they loved each other deeply before seeing any of this.
I don’t mean to devalue any of the scenes on their own—Gemma’s miscarriage was certainly affecting, for example—I’m simply trying to think through why this didn’t all work better for me. Mostly, I think it’s because Severance S2E7 puts a lot of work into achieving a goal the series has already accomplished.
Meanwhile, in the present, Mark spends the entire episode unconscious, with Devon fretting over him. Reghabi (Karen Aldridge) insists that he’ll be fine and wants to continue the reintegration process immediately after Mark has slept this round off, but Devon starts suggesting crazy ideas like calling Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette), so Reghabi leaves.
I get that. As much as I’d like to see Cobel re-enter our story, Reghabi is probably right that Harmony would just turn them into Lumon. Devon refrains from the call even though Reghabi has already left. I presume she’s waiting to learn what Mark wants to do, unless she got too worried and made that call off-camera before Mark woke up.
The most interesting scenes in S2E7 are those of Gemma on the testing floor. She goes from one room to another, in differing outfits, and takes on a different persona in each (with an accompanying dolly shot effect). So it would seem that Lumon is working to go beyond two selves with the severance procedure—Gemma is a multiplicity of selves. Each room she enters is labeled with the name of an MDR file, and Gemma notes that a Cold Harbor sign has recently appeared on the one room she has yet to enter.
That makes sense in terms of the idea that Cold Harbor will be the end of an important process, but I’m not sure how to interpret the fact that the names of MDR files map onto the names of rooms. I had been thinking that MDR is refining people, and perhaps we don’t have to give up on that notion entirely. It just might be the case that all of the people are Gemma, with each room representing a facet of what Lumon is trying to achieve with her.
Why a scenario where she goes to a dentist, another where she painfully writes a thank you note, and so on? I can’t claim to have a theory on that at the moment, and, indeed, found it somewhat frustrating that “Chikhai Bardo” didn’t give us a bit more to work with in terms of formulating one.
Gemma is primarily attended to by Dr. Mauer (Robby Benson), who we previously saw retrieving dentist tools from O&D. He’s still whistling “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”—at least in the dental room. In Allentown, he plays Gemma’s husband, and Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) notes that Mauer has taken a liking to Gemma when we see them talking behind the scenes.
It definitely feels like Mauer is creeping on Gemma when she decides to hit him over the head with a chair, steal his keycard, and make a run for it. Who knows what the doctor may have done to her while she was in one severed state or another, even if it does seem like Lumon is watching.
Regardless, Gemma manages to get to the elevator and up to the Exports Hall, where she proceeds to turn into a confused Ms. Casey. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) has come running to cut her off at the pass, and he tells her that her outie came to an art exhibition but took a wrong turn. Please go back the way you came, Ms. Casey. He leaves her with no choice.
So, Gemma is well and truly trapped, but we knew that already. I had worried that she was perhaps being kept more as a brain in a vat, so it’s good to see that she is doing things and that she is definitely still Gemma at some level. Though, her experience might be worse than it would be if she were comatose.
We still don’t know what Lumon is trying to accomplish with Gemma or Cold Harbor. The comments Drummond and Mauer make in this episode remain vague, and I almost want to see Lumon succeed at this point just so I can know what they’re doing. It does seem that, beyond surveilling the MDR team, the team of four in that surveillance room might be refining the MDR team, but it’s all clues to feed potential speculation without offering anything definitive.
“Chikhai Bardo”
In a flashback scene, we see that Gemma has received a card like those we saw being produced by O&D in Season 1. She interprets it in line with the Chikhai bardo—it’s a man fighting himself; it’s about ego-death. Maybe so, but what’s more noteworthy is that she tells Mark that she thinks the fertility clinic put her on a list to play these sorts of interpretation games, or draw a duck or a rabbit or whatever.
I’m not familiar with anything like what Gemma is referring to, but it does seem clear that Lumon sent her that card, and we can further tie in the fact that Milchick has a duck-rabbit statue in his office. If you’re not familiar with the duck-rabbit, it’s a drawing of either a duck or a rabbit, depending on how you look at it. Take that as you will.
Regardless, I take this as evidence that Lumon was scouting Gemma prior to her putative death. Presumably they also do this with others, though Gemma appears to be the lone subject on the testing floor. We’ve been told that there are other Lumon offices, but we’ve also been told that Gemma is essential. Mauer says something about her siring a new world…
See you next week.
