Helly or Helena, Irving’s fate

Spoiler Alert: This story contains spoilers for season 2, section 4 of “Severance”, streaming now on Apple TV+.

The sky is the limit literally for our dishonest macrodata refineries.

The Fourth Episode of “Severance’s” Second Season, “Woe’s Hollow”, falls the brand (Adam Scott), Irving (John Turturro), Helly (Britt Lower) and Dylan (Zach Cherry) in some unknown terrain: “Out-Fucking Side , ”As Dylan puts it.

After unexpectedly waking up in the snow-covered wilderness in Dieter Eagan National Forest, dressed for the nines in matching black fur coats and hats, the innies stumble on an old-school TV shopping basket. Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) explains what is going on via a grained video: With their broadcasts, they have been sent on a two-day outdoor retreat and teambuilding (Ortbo, for short), in response to their “Want to see the outside world. ”

He assigns the MDR members a quest to discover a sacred text from Kier Eagan – as an eerie “twins” of each inntity guide the way. When they discover Tome, it reveals that Dieter Eagan was Kier’s twin brother who died at Woes Hollow shortly after he was caught and rejoiced in the woods.

As they go to the cave, IrV continues to spot Helly, private warning mark that he is not trusting her, and again to question her “Night Gardener” story after overtime readiness (OTC). Tensions run high as IrV becomes more and more hostile to the group, but Milchick-Ser Chic out as ever in completely white winter clothing arrives in time to diffuse the situation.

He brings the inns to a small waterfall (as he tells them is the highest on the planet) before leading them to a nearby campsite with Miss Huang. When Helly visits Irv’s tent and tries to unite, he questions what she really saw under OTC and she continues to insist that she was truthful.

In the evening, Milchick The Woes Hollow History ends and detailed Kier’s first meeting with the woe -temperament: “A tense bride, half of a natural woman’s height.” Helly bursts out and laughs at the story and provokes an angry, Marshmallow-burning reaction from Milchick. While Dylan and Mark laugh with her, Irving is not amused, repeatedly urgent for details about Helly’s OTC claims. Irv lashes out onto Markus (“Use your students to love her while your outie’s wife rats away somewhere”) when he encourages him to dismiss while Helly Spotter that Irv will never see Burt again. “Fuck you all,” Irv shouts as he storms into the woods.

Mark checks on Helly in his tent and they have sex. Helly confesses that she wasn’t honest with what happened during OTC, and shared that she didn’t like who she was on the outside. As Mark calms her down, his recent reintegration catches him, and he sees visions of her face merging with Gemma/Miss Caseys (Dichen Lachman).

Lost in the woods, Irving dreams of a barren forest and the MDR cabinets – with Burt (Christopher Walken) behind a desk. He is concerned about a vision of the personified temperament of woe and wakes up with a start.

In the morning, Irving Helly finds the waterfall and exhorts her for her harsh words from the previous night and again insists that she is not really his colleague, but her outie: “Helly was never cruel.” He trembles his head underwater as he repeatedly requires Milchick to bring the real Helly back. She instructs Milchick to comply, and he radios to “remove the Glasgow block”, which confirms Irv’s theory that “Helly” has really been her Outie Helena Eagan ever since OTC. (Meaning, for all season 2.)

Irving apologizes as he has a visibly confused Helly, and Mark rushes to her side. Milchick instructs Irving that he will be ended immediately and permanently, while an emotional Dylan asks Irving to forgive him for not believing in him before.

“It’s all ok,” Irving tells him. “Just remember, hang in there.”

Milchick enters Irving deep into the forest. “It will be as if you, Irving B., never even existed or pulled a single breath on this earth. May Kier’s grace follows you into the eternal darkness, ”he says, when Irv’s Outie regains consciousness and the episode ends.

Lower, turturro and cherry spoke with Black About the explosive episode, unpacking of Helly’s great disclosure, Irving’s aggression and Dylan’s emotional reconciliation.

Britt, this episode reveals that we have actually seen Helena mimic Helly throughout the season until this time. How did you deal with the huge challenge as an actor?

Britt lower: I’m not sure I can explain it. These are two sides of the same person so they share a body and a subconscious, but they are in very different circumstances, both trapped in different ways of the same company. Helena is caught in a family way. She is trapped in a family that she did not choose. This particular family is responsible for a company that has a large amount of control within LORE. There is a cult -like quality for the company.

It made sense to me through the brilliant writing that Dan Erickson drafted that a person who was raised in this high control environment wanted the most rebellious inner child. And then I thought of it as the inner child against the inner critic. We have all these parts of ourselves. The part of ourselves that is more free and vibrant and in contact with the things we were when we were a child. The feeling of who you are is just kind of pure as a child. And then there is the part of you that has been hardened and conditioned and had to compose themselves by navigating all expectations of life and family, especially in Helena’s case and expectations of her strange father.

It was really interesting to be in the perspective of Helly R., like Helena, as Britt, and looked around. I felt a lot of grief for Helly R. that her identity in her chosen family was abused, benefited from, and that her friends were fooled. And then I felt a lot of grief for Helena that she should be this part of herself and tried to interfere, but couldn’t quite. She didn’t hear completely at home, and she didn’t really earn the connections and the way they associated with her. I just tried to have a lot of empathy for both of these perspectives and just be present for what happened.

John, this episode felt like the boiling point for the new Irving we’ve gotten to know this season. This character that used to be so gentle is now fully radicalized. How did you bring him to that point?

John Turturro: I think it probably stems from his background and his training if he was in the military or not. There is something he is kind of tied now closer to Dylan, and Adam and Britt’s characters, and that some that are something he just picks up immediately: the whole group is in danger and not just him. He takes it on and on. And then when he has that dream, it’s the last piece of that puzzle.

Sometimes people reveal themselves in a gesture or phrase. I direct movies and I have thrown people based on a little thing they did. I think he picks it up and just takes it all the way and doesn’t care what will happen or the consequences of his actions because he feels they are being spying.

You touched the relationship between Irving and Dylan that have been expanded this season. Zach, why do you think Dylan is so desperate to keep Irving in the office and why was the last moment of reconciliation at the end of the episode so important?

Zach Cherry: I think during the first season Dylan begins to realize that he may be interested in not trying to go alone and he is starting to build these connections with the rest of the office. And then when he learns more about his outie’s life, he begins to realize what he misses and so much of it is about a connection. Irving is someone that he has been able to make this really strong connection with the fact that he kind of neglects a little this season because he thinks about his own thing. So I think all the kind comes together for him in this episode.

I feel like Dylan, we knew last season would have reacted very differently during the central waterfall scene.

Cherry: Yes! I think it’s one of the fun things about this season is to learn more about the characters and then see them learn more about themselves and see how it changes how they behave.

Helena bursts out and laughs when Milchick finishes Dieter Eagan’s story. What was behind that moment?

Lower: I think it was the accumulation of so many years of wanting to make fun of mythology, and poring over the ways in which the scene in the myth uses very thriving language to basically say, “This guy was punished for this erotic action with himself in the woods. “I think she gets a chance to laugh over it through this rebellious version of her. She’s like “This is the filter that would do it and dislike the consequences.”

The whole show touches on the idea of ​​bodily autonomy, but Mark and Helly/Helena, who get intimate, really brings it to the forefront. Was it something that was in your mind when you all approached this episode?

Lower: There was always something in Season 1 that I found out to be weird about the experience of Helly who woke up in the office facility that she had not put on her own body. And all these innies are going through this experience. It’s like the most basic free, you want in the morning: What clothes are you putting on?

This interview is edited and condensed.