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Editor's note: The below recap contains spoilers for Severance Season 2 Episode 4.
Last week's episode of Severance Season 2 was the first to really begin moving the story's central mysteries forward. The premiere was an innie-centric installment that brought the team back together in the aftermath of the rebellion that ended Season 1 (courtesy of the Overtime Contingency), while Episode 2 filled in more of the blanks, bridging the gap between Season 1 and the return to work. Episode 3 revealed new tensions between Lumon and Cobelvig (Patricia Arquette), Dylan G.'s (Zach Cherry) new secret, and a beginning reintegration for Mark (Adam Scott), who's more intent than ever on finding what happened to Gemma/Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman).
Episode 4, "Woe's Hollow," begins with Irving B. (John Turturro) waking up confused and standing on an icy lake, wearing a heavy coat and fur coat. Ahead of him is a cliff, where an identically dressed Mark S. calls down to him. Irving crosses the ice, running into Helly (Britt Lower) and eventually Dylan G., who is amazed and surprised that their innies are somehow all standing outside. (As Dylan puts it, "Out-f*cking-side! Oh, my God. I mean, I knew there was no actual ceiling, but this is f*cking insane.")
The four turn to discover a TV on a stand, identical to the one inside Lumon, playing a welcome video, as Milchick (Tramell Tillman) welcomes the Macrodata Refiners to their first ORTBO (Outdoor Retreat and Team-Building Occurrence — catchy), a "response to your desire to see the outside world." They'll spend two days in the Dieter Eagan National Forest, named after a mysterious family member who is the subject of a Fourth Appendix (so sacred that it's forbidden on the severed floor) that Kier supposedly dictated hours before dying.
'Severance' Season 2 Episode 4 Is All About Twins and Doubles
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The Macrodats are tasked with finding Scissor Cave, where Kier Eagan himself supposedly first conquered the Four Tempers. Milchick sounds vaguely ominous, warning of "nature's wrath" before wishing the team good luck, and then everyone sees something eerie in the distance: a man who looks like Mark, pointing the way to... somewhere. After some debate, they follow his creepy lead. The four walk deeper into the woods as night approaches, finding a pseudo-Helly, who points them in the direction of a small cave. Inside, there's a book embossed with a "IV" on the cover, and Helly opens it to Chapter 1. It starts, "I was not born into this world alone. The lodging of my mother's womb I shared with another, a twin brother who was called Dieter," which is a shock to self-professed Kier devotee Irving B. The passage describes that the twins were close, but Dieter increasingly implored Kier to run away to live in the woods "to live as paupers" until Kier ultimately relented, and the pair journeyed to Woe's Hollow.
The MDR team treks onward, with Irving B. reading the text aloud before Kier's voiceover narration takes over. "Dieter became, on that night, an instrument of nature, and nature played Dieter with elegance," we're told. "I had no choice but to listen as he spilt his lineage upon the soil." (Weird pivot, Kier. HR will be hearing about this.) Appropriately, the line causes Irving B. and Mark S. to stop and stare at each other in disbelief before the group stumbles upon a pseudo-Dylan G., who points them to the right. Mark asks Helly if she's OK, while Irving watches the pair with suspicion, later privately admitting to Mark that he believes Helly is lying about what happened during the OTC. Before the conversation can continue, the Refiners reach a river, where they discover an unidentifiable, half-eaten animal carcass that vaguely resembles a seal. Irving is so hungry that he briefly suggests they eat it, but another arrival puts the kibosh on that idea.
Milchick Reads Creepy Kier Campfire Stories in 'Severance' Season 2 Episode 4
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If the grandiose sight of the Woe's Hollow waterfall isn't enough, the MDR team's unsettling duplicates are also staring down at them from the top of the waterfall. Milchick also shows up in person, where he explains that the four "stand upon sacred earth," and were provided copies of themselves to reflect that Kier's twin was always with him. When Irving mentions being hungry, Milchick escorts them to a clearing with four crystal blue tents and a fire, where Miss Huang (Sarah Bock) is already waiting for them. Promising "copious luxury meats," Milchick adds that the firepit will also be "used for marshmallows and a recital later," among other amenities. As the group settles in, Helly pays a visit to Irving's tent, bearing the gift of a seal made of snow, "in case you were hungry," but Irving takes the opportunity to ask the burning question that's been on his mind: "What did you really see during the overtime contingency?" She's hesitant, but he says she can be honest. "It won't change anything." Still, Helly doesn't supply any real answer before ducking out of the tent.
Cut to Milchick, reading from Appendix IV while Miss Huang accompanies on a theremin. In this particular passage, Kier and Dieter are eating hare in the forest when Kier suggests they return home, provoking a "bewailing whimper" from a grimy Dieter. The passage abruptly darkens: "I was looking at him when his eye came out," Milchick reads. "It popped from the socket, driven by a sudden torrent of pus from his skull." Milchick recounts how Dieter tore at his hair, "which was suddenly moss that tore easily from his bleeding scalp, and as the pus from his eye thickened into sap, I turned from my gargling brother and walked to the pool of the hollow, where I knew the waterfall would drown out my brother's cries." (Dylan thinks that move was smart.) "It was here that I first encountered the temper Woe," he reads, "a gaunt bride, half the height of a natural woman." Milchick then displays the accompanying illustration, as the MDR crew share disbelieving looks. Speaking "directly from her eyes," Woe chides Kier for encouraging Dieter's "wantonness," concluding that "now, he's no one's brother, only chaos's whore."
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Irving Challenges Helly and Goes Solo in 'Severance' Season 2 Episode 4
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After an increasingly intense reading, Milchick cheerfully concludes, though not before teasing the next chapter: Kier and the Thieving Nanny. Irving asks if Dieter really died that way, but Milchick swears every word is true. It prompts laughter from Helly, while everyone looks on. "He turned into the forest because he masturbated," she laughs, prompting a chuckle from Mark. Everyone laughs apart from a serious Irving and a furious Milchick, with the latter ordering Miss Huang to throw the team's intended marshmallows in the fire before walking away from the group.
As Mark, Helly, and Dylan continue cracking jokes, Irving isn't amused and tells Mark to "stop making goo-goo eyes" at Helly — and then brings up the topic of the alleged "night gardener" from Helly's outing while probing for further details like his clothes, flashlight, and other elements. Mark chides him for the interrogation, but Irv fires back about Mark looking at Helly lustfully "while your outie's wife rots away somewhere." It's a comment too far for Dylan and Mark, but Helly dismissively chalks it up to Irving's loneliness over missing Burt (Christopher Walken). In response, Irving picks up a torch and storms off into the forest. Later on, Mark checks on Helly in her tent, and they banter for a minute. Mark attempts to flirt, but Helly seems morose and apologizes if she's been distracting him from searching for his wife. Mark insists she's "already helped so much," and the two begin to kiss, which leads to them sleeping together. Meanwhile, Irving heads deeper into the forest, tripping and extinguishing his torch in the dark before falling unconscious under the cold night sky.
The Truth Comes Out About Helly in 'Severance' Season 2 Episode 4
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Back in Helly's tent, she tells Mark that she didn't like who she was on the outside, and was ashamed. When Mark inquires about her outie's identity, she pauses long and silently before he insists he doesn't care. Suddenly, Helly's face shifts into Gemma's and back again in Mark's view, a clear side effect of his reintegration. Meanwhile, a dreaming Irving discovers the four desks of the Macrodata Refinement floor embedded in the woods, covered in insects. As he sits down, Burt briefly appears in one of the other cubicles and flashes a coy grin before disappearing — and then Irving sees the inhuman bride Woe typing away at another computer. As the numbers turn to letters on his own screen, Irving snaps awake and heads back to the camp in the daylight. Mark can't find Helly upon waking, and Dylan admits no one's seen Irving since he walked away from the fire, while Milchick greets them at camp. Meanwhile, Helly approaches Woe's Hollow alone before Irving comes up behind her, surprising her with a "Hey, kid." He also points out that what she said about Burt last night was cruel, "and Helly was never cruel." She tries to insist she's Helly, but Irving muses, "So if you're not her, then who are you? Who would have the power to send their outie to the severed floor?" Helly can only reply with, "I'm sorry."
Irving then calls for Milchick as he forcibly drags Helly to the river. "Turn her back, Mr. Milchick!" he screams. "She's an outie!" As Mark, Dylan, and Milchick look on from the top of the waterfall in horror, Irving dunks Helly face-first into the freezing-cold river, threatening to kill her. "She's not Helly! She's an Eagan!" With no other option, Helena finally breaks the act when she temporarily resurfaces: "Goddamn it, Seth, do it!" Milchick pulls out a walkie-talkie from his coat pocket and issues an order to an unseen figure: "Remove the Glasgow block now." As Helena struggles beneath the water, we hear the missing elevator ding, and Helly R. is triggered back in. With that, we finally have confirmation that Helena Eagan has been impersonating her innie ever since her return to the severed floor in Season 2. Irving pulls a confused Helly from the water, apologizing profusely, and hugs her, but Milchick has no other choice but to permanently dismiss Irving for "threatening collegial murder in the pond of Woe's Hollow." Irving tells a distraught Dylan to just "hang in there" before Milchick orders him to walk into the forest, promising that all proof of his time at Lumon will be destroyed. "It will be as if you, Irving B., never even existed, nor drew a single breath upon this Earth. May Kier's mercy follow you into the eternal dark." Lights out, Irving, cut to black.
It's a huge reveal that Helena has been masquerading as Helly the entire time. We don't know what will ultimately become of Irving, what that thing in the forest was, what really happened to Dieter (or if he was even real?), what the blowback for Milchick almost getting an Eagan killed will be, or the actual deal with those creepy doubles. Stay tuned as we follow Severance Season 2's increasingly odd and otherworldly revelations, but what's truly next now that Irving is gone and the real Helly has returned?
New episodes of Severance Season 2 are available to stream every Friday on Apple TV+.
Severance
Severance Season 2 Episode 4 is a stunning showcase for John Turturro, as a huge reveal about Helly shocks the MDR team on the weirdest camping trip ever.
Release Date February 18, 2022
Showrunner Dan Erickson, Mark Friedman
Writers Dan Erickson
Pros & Cons
- John Turturro shines here, with Irving intense and unyielding in his pursuit of this long-suspected truth about Helly.
- Tramell Tillman also gets props here for his intense commitment to a bizarre, long storytime that puts Eagan lore in a new light.
- Giving the MDR team time outside as their innie selves is a smart move, putting them in wildly new situations and providing an eerie aspect to newly revealed Lumon lore.
- The pacing is a little off-kilter in this episode, with serious advancement being weighed most heavily at the end.
English (US) ·