Unpacking the Severance finale’s biggest plot twist
A study in contrasts.
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I am fully aware that Severance must look and sound like utter lunacy if you’re not watching it. It has its own deliberately dense language and mysterious lore, the combination of which don’t always make sense in the moment, let alone out of context. There were some points in the season two finale that genuinely had me wondering what came from the show, and what came from the accessible-by-edible-only recesses of my mind.1
But the weirdness of the show, and the attention it requires, doesn’t take away from what’s revealing itself as a deeply powerful story. When the specifics of the plot don’t make immediate sense, I can still always hone in on the story’s emotional beats. I want to hone in on two beats in particular from this week’s finale.
Note: It’s impossible to talk about this without spoilers, and it’s also impossible to fully catch up if you’re not current. There’s genuinely too much backstory. So, if this is your bus stop, don’t forget to swipe your pass or buy the driver a tea before you exit. Also, you should catch up!
First of all, these Lumon love triangles & parallelograms are the most diabolical I’ve ever seen. In one corner, we’ve got Dylan and his innie (Dylan G) both in love with Dylan’s wife, Gretchen; and Gretchen in love with both of them. In the other corner, Mark is in love with his wife, Gemma, previously thought to be dead but actually being held captive while Mark’s innie (Mark S) and his team unknowingly build different ways to torture her innies. Mark S is in love with his coworker Helly R, whose outie, Helena Eagan, is a) heir to the Lumon dynasty, b) prisoner of her father’s, c) a rapist (by deception, of Mark S) and d) a stalker (of Mark).
All of this to say, none of this mess was going to resolve neatly. Multiple someones would have to get hurt. And everything came to a head in the finale.
By the time the finale starts, Gretchen has already confessed her feelings for Dylan G to Dylan, and broken up with Dylan G. Dylan G has resigned in despair, effectively ending his life. When we see Dylan G again in the finale, he’s distraught to be back on the Severed floor, until Mr. Milchick hands him his outie’s response to his resignation request.
The last time we saw Dylan, he was furious and upset to the point that he threatened to quit. The audience is primed to expect an angry diatribe from him. Dylan G is expecting the worst, since he wouldn’t be back here if his outie had accepted his resignation. Even Mr. Milchick hands him the letter and fucking skedaddles out of there.
But instead, we get this:
Dear innie,
I've read your request and organized my response into three points.
Point one: fuck you. Gretchen is my wife, and my beloved, and your actions were deeply fucking indecorous.
Point two: I get it. She's perfect. And, given our shared physiology, it tracks that you'd agree. Here's the thing: I've never been an impressive person, so, when Gretch told me that you're, like, this self-assured badass…I dunno. It stung.
So, I guess point three is: I hope someday she sees in me what she sees in you. In the meantime, if I'm being really honest, I guess I like knowing you're there. So, if you wanna leave, you can. But, I think you should stay.
Sincerest regards,
Your outie.
Dylan G’s narration bleeds into Dylan’s, and we see Dylan writing, looking fondly at his wife and kids, getting dressed, and kissing Gretchen goodbye for the day. It’s a warm, quotidian kind of love that we haven’t seen Dylan experience before. All of his interactions with Gretchen heretofore have been heavy, cautious (on her part), and disconnected (on his).
Dylan’s ultimate reaction to his wife’s feelings for Dylan G is a hopeful and loving one. Hopeful that he can take some inspiration from his innie, express his love for Gretchen more, and perhaps become a self-assured badass himself someday. Loving in that he recognizes both his wife and his innie’s autonomy and feelings—their humanity, essentially—and wants both of them to have a choice in what makes them happy. To me, it’s the most romantic moment in an episode full of big romantic gestures.
In the meantime, Mark is trying to convince Mark S to embark on a decidedly hare-brained scheme to rescue Gemma and flee the Severed floor together. Instead of a written note, the two of them communicate via camcorder in a scene that puts all of Adam Scott’s incredible character work on display.
Unfortunately, Mark’s conversation with Mark S couldn’t have gone much worse than it did. Unlike with Dylan, Mark starts out strong.
…the first thing I need to say to you is that I am so sorry. You know, I created you as a prisoner, and as an escape. Lumon told me you'd be happy, that innies are content, and because I took their word for it, you've been living a nightmare for two years. It's horrific what they've done to you. And part of the reason I'm here is to make it right. And I hope, uh, now, with all we have in common, that you'll give me that chance.
Mark S is taken aback by this, but still wary. Understandably so, because, as his outie version, Adam Scott sublimely slips into the used car salesman mode that he arguably perfected in Step Brothers as he pitches reintegration. And as soon as Mark not only describes his innie’s love for Helly as “liking someone,” but calls Helly by the wrong name—triggering Mark S the same way Helena getting Gemma’s name wrong triggered Mark—Mark S becomes openly combative. He agrees to rescue Gemma, but in the last minutes of the episode, Mark S turns his back on his outie and chooses an uncertain future with Helly R instead. It’s a gutting decision, especially so soon after Mark and Gemma have their cathartic reunion, but it’s an understandable one.
Beyond their personalities, and the fact that they are both kind of dicks, Mark and Mark S don’t share any connective tissue. Dylan and Dylan G are in love with the same woman, a fact which makes their shared humanity inescapable. Even if Dylan initially sees his innie as a threat, he sees him as a fully human threat. But Mark and Mark S are in love with two different women, and neither of them can process that the other’s love is truly valid. Mark sees his innie’s relationship with Helly as a crush between two avatars, essentially; and Mark S has never been moved by anyone telling him that his outie is married to Miss Casey.
Mark's reaction to vulnerability, especially to pain, is to detach. It's the entire reason he severed in the first place. Even during his meet-cute with Gemma, once he realizes he's getting swept up in this charming hottie's presence, his instinct is to pull away. He asks her, "I'm sorry--who are you?" in a tone that is playful but also skeptical, like he's reasserting his self-control and refusal to be bamboozled. And when Gemma is in physical and emotional pain over her fertility struggles2, he brusquely tells her to stop her treatment and then throws himself into his work to avoid both their pain.
Dylan is the more openly belligerent of the two, but I think that’s just because he’s more open overall. So he reacts to a perceived betrayal and rejection from Gretchen by lashing out at first; but he also lets himself follow his feelings through. He lets his vulnerability beget more vulnerability. Weirdly enough, what he proposes in his letter feels more like genuine reintegration—allowing for both of his selves to live in harmony, however uneasily—than anything Mark was pitching.
There’s plenty of opaque mystery box stuff that garner the show a lot of attention. The parody of corporate workplace culture gives the show its spine. But to me, the heart of Severance is concerned with how we accept, reject, or protect our sense of self.
Love can make us selfish and short-sighted as much as it can make us generous. Dylan loves his wife, and any version of himself that loving her makes possible. Mark loves his wife, and can only love the version of himself that has her beside him. And, more than anything, Mr. Milchick loves choreography and merriment.
A marching band on the Severed floor? That seems too me to be real.
which, horrifyingly, we are to understand are Lumon’s doing!
Also—that running away was improvised??? It made me laugh so hard I had to pause it
I saved this post for when I finally had a Wi-Fi connection strong enough to finish the finale. I loved it—the finale and the post! I wonder whether there’s been any commentary from the disabled community, because that’s what I kept thinking of during the camcorder conversation — how outie Mark is so condescending toward his innie, and how innie Mark has to assert “we find ways to be whole.” Felt so much like discourse I’ve seen, both explicit and implicit, about the “worth” of a “limited” life.