(Editor’s Note: The following review contains spoilers for “Severance” season 2Section 9, “The After Hours.” For coverage of previous sections, read our previous Reviews.)
When the little blue bus pulls up to Lumon’s office building, Huang (Sarah Bock) looks more childish than ever. A dripping book bag hangs from the back. Puffy ear muffs frame their full cheeks. Regardless of the administrative authority she practiced on the cut -off floor, and instead is the perception of a young girl moving to a new place. Whether Huang knows where she is going is less important than the sudden movement itself (although Svalbard’s proximity to the North Pole can clarify Mr. Milchik’s irritations with its successor). Tonight, rather than sleeping in her room, next to her parents, she will tip on a plane before spending night after night at Gunnel Eagan Empathy Center. She can have her same bed as Mr. Milchick (Tramel Tillman) suggests, but what comfort a consistent mattress gives pale compared to a stable teen at home. A real home.
Miss Huang may be alone on her journey, but she is not the only one who goes out into the big unknown. Section 9, “The After Hours”, sees that each of the macro -data refines takes a big leap of faith. Some, like Miss Huang, feel that they have no choice. Others choose to live or die rather than take a risk. One rolls the dice, while another employee simply has to see How deep the rabbit hole goesNo matter where it takes her.
So let’s start with her. And Erickson Bookends section 9 with Helena and Helly (Britt Lower) along with their fatherly and professional father, Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry). In the opening sequence, Helly’s Morning Swim leads to a special breakfast that is monitored by her strange father. Slits his hard -boiled egg in sixths and spreads them evenly over a plate that is adorned with a worried young boy who is held at his seat by two elders, Helly voluntarily holds her chair and consumes her eggs (a sought -after treatment among dismissed workers) when Jame looks at, moaning. “I wish you take them raw,” he tells her before he leaves.
When we see the reigning Lumon CEO again, he sneaks up at Helly at work as she tries to memorize directions to the black hall. “You tricked me,” he says. “My Helly.” “What the hell?” She answers, sliding the instructions under the keyboard. Wtf, really. Why Jame visits the cut -off floor remains a mystery, but Helly’s mission is not. Alone in the office, with Mark’s (Adam Scott) was unknown, Irving (John Turturro) fired and Dylan (Zach Cherry) ends, Helly is pushing forward with the plan to save Gemma (Duchen Lachman). She needs answers. She needs independence, and if the pursuit of both means to ward off some Lumon -weird who want to scare her, stop her, or worse, she will try. If that means risking everything she will do it. If she has to follow it alone, she goes.
She knows a little, she is not alone. Out in the wilderness, Mark’s Outie reluctantly embraces her own plan to save Gemma. Well, it’s more like Devons (Jen Tullock) plan, or maybe Harmony’s (Patricia Arquette) plan, but that’s the only plan he has. Neither siblings are under any illusion of control. On the way to the meeting, they debate whether they should go through it without ever questioning facts. They do not trust harmony. They have given her much more information than she has given them, and she is complicated in what has happened (and can still happen) with Gemma. But they need her. “There is literally no alternative but to do what the hell she says right now,” says Devon. “For Gemma. She knows where she is, Mark. “
“Literally no other alternative” maybe drive it a bit – police could be called, a private investigator can be hired, a small army of cut workers can be recruited to overthrow the Lumon Board – but about what Cobel says about Cold Harbor is true (that they have to find Gemma before it is completed), they do not have time for any of it. Harmony promises them a way into Lumon right now. Wouldn’t they be more stupid to refuse it than to take it?
Irving is facing a similar issue. While he wants to stop and find out if he and Burts (Christopher Walken) Excursions can rediscover the romance they shared as Innies, he also has a one -way ticket to security. Burt offers him a way out. They would not be together, but Irving would not be in danger either, as it is suggested that he is now, if he stops. Is it more stupid to stay and hope to revive a love that none of them can remember than to go and find love anywhere else, with anyone else, without the danger?
During Season 1, Burt and Irving’s bow ended with Irving participating in Burt’s pension party in Lumon. There Irving fought for her husband, and Burt calmed him, shook his hand and said goodbye. They accepted their separate fate … until Irving could no longer endure it. During season 2, Burt and Irving’s bow will end the same way? At the train station, with Irving who is fighting for the love he has never had, told no and sent on his lonely road with nothing but a handshake? Will he again come back to Burt, pound on the front door and refuse to release his first and only love?
Dylan also shoots his shot, and Dylan also comes short. After the Gretchen (Merritt Wever) tells Dylans Outie about the kiss she shared with her Innie, the later subsequent freak-out leads to the former return to isolation. Gretchen informs Dylan’s innie she Can’t see him anymoreand as sweet as his marriage proposal turns out to be – he made a engagement ring out of one Finger trap – It’s an empty gesture. He can’t give her the life he promises, even if he treats her better than his outie. He is an Innie. He lives at work. She can’t live there with him – her Innie would not know any of Dylan – and he can’t leave.
Dylan has come a long way since we first met him. Occupied with meaningless titles (the refiner of the month!) And clinged to his vague competence (he’s good at his job but he doesn’t know what he does?), Everything changed the night when Dylan woke up in his wardrobe and saw his heads. The knowledge that his second half had a wife and children aroused part of Dylan’s Innie that had been buried under a pile of benefits. Penra delete and caricature portrait is just not enough anymore, not when genuine love and affection are on the table, and losing the Gretchen is a bridge too far for a family man denied his family.
So Dylan ends. Despite Helly’s basics to stay – for Irving, for her, for the best – his heart damage is too much to bear. He fills in the paperwork, he shoulder Mr. Milchick’s dissatisfaction, and he goes towards the elevator without knowing when or if he wakes up again. While Irving chooses to live rather than risking being with Burt, Dylan chooses to die rather than risk living without his family (an innie’s death, to be clear, but a deadly choice anyway). Now their fate is bound to Mark, Helly and Harmony (give or take a devon). Will their leaps of faith land on solid ground, or will the unknown remain frustrating out of reach? Here, hope that everyone in some way finds themselves home.
Rating: B+
“Severrance” releases new episodes Friday on Apple TV+. Season 2 final is set on Friday 21 March.
Further refinement:
• For those of you who keep track of the remaining MDR employee referred to in the second paragraph – the one who rolls the dice – Mr. Milchick, who chooses to stand up against Mr. Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) even though it leads to more paper cutting (or his straight termination). Chastised for using big words again, Mr. Milchick apologizes once but refuses to do it again. Instead, he tells him to “eat feculence”, which he also translates “Mon-o-Syll-Ab-Ol-All” to “Eat Shit.” Goddamn, I love a Bitchy Milchick. Change pages, my husband!
• “I’m sorry, the wind whistled over the hole on the back of your skull, so I didn’t really get it. Did you just call my plan a fucking mistake? “Oh, Devon. In another world, you and Mark could have transported a Multi-Cam-Sitcom about a brother and sister who goes on crazy adventures together. Never change.
Code Detectors:
• “We look at Mr. Bogick.” Helena’s bizarre breakfast included a tip-off against Irving’s fate, but how to interpret it is still for debate. Taken a way, Helena says they will “make sure” Irving may mean that she sent Burt to escort him out of the city. After all, Burt’s intentions have been suspected all season. This week he says his old job “Driving people places”, and Irving asks, “Is that what today is?” It can certainly be! Burt never answers, just as he does not answer later when Irving asks if Lumon comes after him to “help” Irving get out of the city. Maybe the answer is that he doesn’t help. Maybe he’s just back at work again. Maybe he never left.
But this gives up an old Bugaboo by me: We all know that Christopher Walken is a good actor, but is Burt? He would have to be if he has been lying to Irving all the time, especially when they say their sad farewell at the station. And I’m sorry, but drivers don’t have to be a big liar, and previous “goons” should probably not be emotionally skilled enough to channel such demanding feelings just to get a guy on a train. So I think Burt was probably ordered to drive Irving somewhere – just not the train station.
