What happens when Lumon takes its Innies outside? Severance season two, episode four showed us the answer and….wow. The episode also raised even more mysteries about both the company and the family who owns it. What happened? What does it all mean? And who was most impacted by a strange excursion in the woods? We have all the insights from you in our recap of Severance season two, episode four, “Woe’s Hollow.” Here are are the biggest revelations and questions from the series’ latest episodes.
Revelations From Severance Season 2, Episode 4, “Woe’s Hollow”
Whoa Helly! (Or Rather, “Whoa Helena!”)
Fan theories that Helena, rather than her Innie counterpart Helly R., has been working on Lumon’s severed floor during season two proved right in Severance season two, episode four. Irv hadn’t fully trusted his co-worker since she obviously lied about seeing a “night gardener” during the Macrodat Uprising. But what made him realize he was working not with any old mole, but with an Eagan was the normally kind “Helly” being cruel to him. His creepy dream also seemed to waken something deep in his subconscious in.
Irving exposed the truth by forcing “Seth” into actually waking up Helly. Irv did that by threatening to drown the fraud in their midst. His actions revealed to Dylan and Mark what was really going on, but it cost Innie Irv his “life.” Mr. Milchick fired him permanently in this Severance episode, and unless someone turns Irv back on, his Innie half is gone for good after “Woe’s Hollow.” (Though we are more than willing to bet we’ll see his Innie again.)
Severance Season 2, Episode 4 Reveals Helena Eagan Doesn’t Like Who She Is (And Possibly Not Her Family Either)
The security footage of Helly R. kissing Mark S. overwhelmed Helena Eagan. It seemed as though Helly R. had found something Helena never had. But it now seems as though Helena’s issues were much deeper than a lack of human connection. In Severance season two, episode four, she slept with Mark while pretending to be Helly, then told him, “I didn’t like who I was on the outside. I was ashamed.”
Before that, she also openly mocked Kier Eagan’s fourth appendix, pointing out how the ludicrous nature of Kier’s overwrought tale about his brother pleasuring himself. Did Helena always feel this way about herself and her family? If so, did she only recognize that when she saw her better Innie half living a life she envied? Will her experience on the severed floor change her at all? If it does, Helena could still play the role of mole after “Woe’s Hollow”—only this time on behalf of the severed employees instead of Lumon.
“Woe’s Hollow” Reveals Innies Can Sleep and Dream on Severance
Innies don’t sleep. In season one, Mark told Helly the best they can do is focus on the benefits of sleep. It’s one of the many things that make their existences a living nightmare. But during the two-day Outdoor Retreat and Team Building Occurrence (ORTBO) exercise, they got to do just that. Turns out Innies can dream, too.
In “Woe’s Hollow,” Irv dreamed he woke up in his work clothes in the middle of a dead, snow-covered forest where the MDR computers sat covered in flies. Burt, with a knowing smirk, then briefly appeared as his co-worker. As did the “half bride” from Kier’s story. The “temper woe” was busy working at her own file.
Outie Irv successfully communicated with his Innie via his paintings of the Testing Floor during “Woe’s Hollow,” but this dream/nightmare also seemed to convey a message to Irving in the Severance episode. When he woke up, he knew for certain Helly was an Outie fraud. Since we know Outie Burt knows more about Lumon than we do, his dream might also might have indicated he already knows what macrodata refiners do. Those computers were in a dead forest covered in flies, the kind of imagery we’d expect someone’s subconscious to associate with a file like “Cold Harbor.”
Severance Season 2, Episode 4 Shows Us That Mark Is Not Fully Reintegrated Yet
Episode three of Severance season two ended with Mark being reintegrated just like Petey. (Well, hopefully not just like Petey.) But we only saw his Innie struggle with being pieced back together once. It happened after he slept with “Helly.” Mark S. is his own person. He was never married to Gemma/Ms. Casey, his Outie was/is. But as Helly told him she didn’t like who she was, Mark’s brain short-circuited, and he briefly saw Gemma instead.
He wasn’t sure what happened or why in “Woe’s Hollow,” and since Severance tells its story in a non-linear way, we don’t even know how long after his reintegration procedure he slept with “Helly.” It’s possible his reintegration didn’t really take, or that it was modified. But Mark S. is still the one in (mostly) charge when Lumon turns on his Innie
The World’s Tallest Waterfall Is Much Shorter Than We Thought
:Deleted. Mr. Milchick actually lied:
Questions We Have After Severance Season 2, Episode 4, “Woe’s Hollow”
Why Did Kier Eagan Really Have a Twin?
Did Dieter Eagan really exist in Severance‘s world? Helly’s reaction to and understanding of the Founder’s absurd, sacred fourth appendix, which he is said to have written in “the final hours of his life,” indicates it’s a real text. But that doesn’t mean Dieter was a real person.
The Scissor Cave, where the refiners found the book, is where Kier is said to have first conquered the Four Tempers of the human soul. He also wrote he first encountered Woe after his brother’s….you know. But considering the fourth appendix is all silly analogies, and also that you can’t trust anything Lumon says or does, it’s also possible Dieter was just Kier’s more animalistic side, the one he “conquered.” If so that concept, that Kier himself was two people in one body, might have been the inspiration for severance itself.
Kier might have thought he severed himself from his basest instincts, desires, and wants, a part of himself he called his “twin” who went everywhere with him until “Dieter” died.
The name Dieter does mean “an army of people,” which is essentially what Lumon is trying to create with severance—an army of people who only exist to serve the company. Dieter can also be read as the word “dieter,” someone trying to lose weight. Did Kier metaphorically shed part of himself, the part he didn’t like (just like his descendant Helena!), a process he described as conquering the Four Tempers? And is that where he got the idea to create a (work)force loyal only to him? Severance season two, episode four definitely left us with many Kier-related questions.
Was There More to the Refiners’ “Twins?”
Lumon is the least trustworthy business on the planet. It also has dead people working at its headquarters where they raise goats underground with employees who can’t remember what they do for work. We can’t just see a bunch of macrodata refiner doubles without wondering if they might be more than we realize. So, is there something more to them? Or are these part-time employees like the ones who worked Dylan’s Waffle Party? We’ll have to wait for the Severance episodes after “Woe’s Hollow” to know for sure.
What Was That Weird Dead Animal We Saw in Severance Season 2, Episode 4?
With everything that happened after, it might be easy to forget that the refiners came across a super weird, frozen dead animal in the woods in “Woe’s Hollow.” It’s hard to believe Lumon would have let them come across anything it didn’t want in those woods, but even if that was unplanned it was still weird. Helena even commented on why it was bizarre.
So why was it there in Severance‘s latest episode? What was it? What does it have to do with Lumon? And, seriously, what the hell was it? It didn’t look like a seal. Or any other animal.
Bonus “Woe’s Hollow” Question: What Do You Think That Thing Tasted Like?
What? What? We’re not saying they should have listened to Irv and eaten it. We’re just asking questions!
That’s what we do after every new episode of Severance, whether the Innies are inside or outside. Or even actually Innies.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist, a company that does not believe in severance. He thinks…. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.