[Warning: The below and video above contain MAJOR spoilers for Severance Season 2 Episode 6, “Attila.”]
The world is turning upside down for the innies and outies of Severance in Season 2’s latest installment, “Attila,” which made way for several romantically-tinged moments as well as for tense self-reflection.
Following Mark’s (Adam Scott) vision of Gemma (Dichen Lachman) in the previous episode, he hoped to delve deeper into the reintegration process, but work is work, and his innie ends up back in the metaphorical driver’s seat when he heads into Lumon. There, Mark confesses to Helly (Britt Lower) that they had sex during the ORTBO, with him believing it had been her and not her outie, Helena Eagan.
Understandably, Helly is upset, but ultimately, she decides that Mark didn’t do anything ill-intentioned, believing it was Helly he’d consented to have sex with. But she decides that she wants the experience for herself, and so the pair find a quiet room on the severed floor to consummate their workplace romance.
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The activity leads Mark to get a nosebleed, which is also a result of the reintegration process, but when he awakens in his basement, with visions of work and outie life colliding, he gets frustrated and leaves Dr. Reghabi (Karen Aldridge) while seeking out some food at a nearby Chinese Restaurant. There, outie Mark meets Helena Eagan, and there’s an odd sense of recognition between them, at least for Mark whose outie had yet to meet the Lumon heir.
“What you see about Helena in the early episodes, is that she doesn’t seem to be terribly happy. And I think that when she comes to understand this warmth and this kinship that that her innie feels with her work family, but most especially with Mark, that there is a little bit of a longing for that on her part,” series creator Dan Erickson tells TV Insider for our latest installment of iLUMONations: A Severance Aftershow.
“I can’t imagine it was easy growing up with Jame Eagan as a father, and especially with the weight of knowing that you are the sort of heir apparent to a company like Lumon. And add to that the fact that, she was basically asked to sever her brain as a PR stunt. So, I think for her, she’s starting to really wonder… Is this the life that I want, or would I be happier if I could be somebody like Helly?” Erickson adds.
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“We see that manifested through how she feels about Mark, and her curiosity about Mark and whether she herself could have a spark like that with somebody, but… it transcends that,” Erickson reveals.
But Helena and Mark weren’t the only Lumon employees to reconnect on the outside as Irving (John Turturro) headed over to Burt’s (Christopher Walken) for dinner with himself and Burt’s husband, Fields (John Noble). While the trio addressed Irving and Burt’s workplace romance, Fields happened to get rather talkative, hinting that Burt worked for Lumon long before the severance procedure existed.
But what could it mean? Only time will tell, but when it came to shooting the sequence itself, Walken tells TV Insider, “It’s like a family dinner… It’s one of those things everybody has to go to. They don’t really want to, but they’re going… and it grows into something that everybody wishes that they could just go home.”
Still, when Burt went to bid Irving farewell at the door after the meal, it was hinted he’d like to see Irving again but one-on-one. But there’s something a little suspicious about it all as Mr. Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) was seen sneaking into Irving’s home while he was out. Can Burt be trusted? Stay tuned to find out.
In the meantime, Mark faced extreme consequences amid his reintegration process, suffering from a seizure after greeting his sister Devon (Jen Tullock) at the door of his apartment. And Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) worked to resolve the complaints he uncovered during his performance review from the last episode. See what Tillman has to say about that in the full aftershow episode, above, and stay tuned for more as Severance continues on Apple TV+.
Severance, Season 2, Fridays, Apple TV+