Editor’s be aware: The beneath recap accommodates spoilers for Severance Season 2 Episode 7.

Severance is plenty of issues. It is a send-up of the illogical monotony of company tradition, it is a warning about capitalism, a warning concerning the perils of technological growth. It is a thriller, an exploration of trauma, and a love story between Helly (Britt Decrease) and Mark S. (Adam Scott). It is also a tragedy, centered across the seeming loss of life of outie Mark’s beloved spouse Gemma (Dichen Lachman) and her obvious company rebirth in Lumon. That loss has confirmed a wealthy motivator for Mark and has set the tone for Season 2. Even so, it does really feel curious that, at this level, we have heard about Gemma, we have seen Mark mourn her, and we have seen her as Ms. Casey, however we have hardly ever seen Gemma. “Chikhai Bardo” is a stunner of an episode that gives our greatest look but at Gemma, her relationship with pre-tragedy Mark, and what precisely is occurring along with her in Lumon’s halls.

It seems like Lumon is not the one establishment parasitically surviving off Mark and Gemma’s lifeblood: the episode opens with their meet-cute at a college blood drive. They’re every studying, and after a cute alternate (and amusing on the title of his scholar’s paper, “All Quiet on the Western Blunt”), they introduce themselves. Minimize to a spaced-out Gemma getting blood drawn someplace inside Lumon’s characteristically white halls. We see a short interlude of her with Mark, earlier than returning to Devon (Jen Tullock) and Dr. Reghabi (Karen Aldridge), who’re overlooking the incapacitated, reintegrating Mark. Devon emphatically declares that if Dr. Reghabi provides “one solitary thought” to messing with Mark once more, her life is forfeit. “It is settled f*cking regulation, woman, simply settle for it, the top.” The latter confirms that Gemma is alive, and as Devon sits with the revealed affirmation, we lower to the season’s opening titles.

Gemma Flashes Again To the Previous in ‘Severance’ Season 2 Episode 7

Again with Gemma, an unnamed nurse’s (Sandra Bernhard) over-manicured, pale hand takes a wide range of her measurements earlier than asking: “In case you have been caught in a mudslide, would you be extra afraid of suffocating or of drowning?” (Her reply’s drowning.) Gemma asks, “What number of rooms immediately?” to which the physician replies, “Six.” Later, Gemma opens a cupboard to see the blood-red gown and cute, brief wig she has to don earlier than exiting to a hallway filled with doorways with metropolis names on them: Allentown, Cairns, Dranesville, Siena, Loveland, Tumwater, Adelaide, Sopchoppy, all earlier than touchdown on Wellington (with Rhodes and Chilly Harbor to observe). When Gemma walks by means of the door, her innie emerges in a dentist’s workplace, the place a person rolls in with the cart we noticed in Episode 5 whereas whistling the identical tune, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” “There she is,” the creepy Dr. Mauer (Robby Benson) says. Gemma (we do not know her innie’s title right here) asks, “Might I please get a break? Only for a short while?” “Nevertheless it’s been six weeks,” he replies. “I used to be simply right here,” she says. “I do know, no one likes the dentist,” he replies earlier than beckoning her to take a seat.

On the surface, we reenter Mark’s reintegrating reminiscences. A a lot happier Mark wanders by means of the hallway to catch Gemma en path to a lecture on Hadji Murad, a Tolstoy novel a few insurgent commander who enters a cautious alliance with the Russian forces he’d been preventing as a part of a marketing campaign of revenge. Mark’s introduced her a small ant farm as a result of he remembers her saying that she “favored ants,” however Gemma clarifies that she loves vegetation, and hates ants, earlier than kissing him. The scene slides to a different reminiscence, with the pair dwelling collectively as Mark buys a crib.

A montage of dreamy moments suggests the passage of time, and the pair appear serenely, passionately in love. Minimize to Gemma and Mark having lunch with Devon and Ricken (Michael Chernus), in addition to ribbing him for saying “I belayed my first couloir in center faculty.” “That sounds painful,” Gemma says earlier than turning down a pour of wine from her sister-in-law. Devon understands what meaning. “Oh f*ck proper off,” she whispers because the pair share blissful seems. A sublime transition later sees Gemma in ache, alone within the toilet. She sits within the operating bathe, in shock, with blood operating down her leg. Mark discovers her there, and he or she breaks down in his arms: it appears the subtly-alluded-to child they’d been anticipating was miscarried.

The Severance Obstacles are Holding in Season 2 Episode 7

The episode cuts to one in every of Mark’s reminiscences of Ms. Casey. “I am right here to look at Helly R.,” she says, “I am to observe her for indicators of unhappiness.” It is a scene following Helly R.’s suicide try in Season 1 Episode 5, “The Grim Barbarity of Optics and Design,” and we exit it in a Fincher-like method, following cables till we enter a room with 4 desks, going through outward, every assigned to a distinct MDR group member (we see Irving (John Turturro) and Helly R.’s faces on screens). There is a fast montage of the display of the person spying on Mark S. by means of his laptop, exhibiting his progress by means of numerous Lumon initiatives (first Dranesville, then Chilly Harbor). “Are the severance limitations holding?” Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) asks Dr. Mauer, to which he replies, “Sure, the expertise is working.” “You want her,” Drummond replies. “She’s simple to love,” a really Nineteen Seventies-looking model of the creepy physician replies. “She’s keen on me too, in fact.” “Did not she try to break your fingers?” Drummond retorts.

We return to Mark and Gemma visiting the Butzemann Fertility Heart collectively (the place they cross an unsuspecting Dr. Mauer within the hallway), and he talks to her about their go to being the “subsequent step for lots of people,” saying he loves her. She apologizes, however Mark is heat. The episode returns to Gemma sitting alone in a sterile Lumon workplace earlier than we take a nightmarish tour of the hallways, full with the black Exports Corridor elevator. Minimize to Gemma and Mark in one other flashback with a “third time’s the attraction” injection of fertility medicine, then again to Gemma with the creepy Dr. Mauer. “How are you feeling?” he asks. “My mouth hurts,” she retorts. He asks which room precipitated her mouth to harm. “Wellington.” He asks what number of rooms she visited, and so they talk about it, however Gemma would not keep in mind what occurred within the rooms. “How did you’re feeling within the corridor?” Mauer asks, inquiring about whether or not she left any rooms with residual emotions.

As a substitute of answering, Gemma asks her personal query: “There’s just one room I have never been to but, and immediately it had a reputation on it…” “Chilly Harbor,” he replies. “So what occurs, as soon as I have been in all of the rooms?” she asks. He replies in cryptic Lumon trend: “You will notice the world once more, and the world will see you.” “So I am going to see Mark?” she asks. “Mark will profit from the world you are siring,” he replies, “Kier will take away all his ache, simply as Kier has taken away yours.” Her demeanor adjustments, and he or she angrily calls for that Mauer “simply discuss like a traditional particular person” — however he solely eerily replies with “Goodnight, Gemma. Dream candy.”

It is All the time Christmas in Allentown in ‘Severance’ Season 2 Episode 7

Again with Mark, Devon, and Dr. Reghabi, the latter says Mark will get up “when he is able to.” Devon asks Reghabi if she thinks the reintegration will work, and he or she replies they’d no different alternative. Devon then remembers an “innie cottage,” a spot the place severed individuals “grow to be their innies.” “Damona Birthing Retreat,” Dr. Reghabi replies. The 2 argue, with Devon suggesting that the cabin could possibly be a method in, and suggests calling Concord Cobel (Patricia Arquette). “Why would you do this? She runs the severed ground,” Dr. Reghabi replies. “Not anymore, she would not. She would possibly know how you can get to the cabin. And, f*ck, she would possibly know how you can get to Gemma,” Devon counters. Dr. Reghabi rejects the thought, anticipating Cobel to be a real “soldier” who will flip all of them in, however Devon’s dedicated to reaching out. It is the final straw for Dr. Reghabi, who packs her tech, needs Devon good luck, and leaves. “This is not my alternative, it is yours… do not name that girl.” In the meantime, Mark can solely mumble “Chikhai Bardo,” nonetheless unconscious.

We then go to a reminiscence from Mark and Gemma’s previous, with the latter taking a look at a set of the O&D Ideographic Playing cards from Season 1. We have seen one earlier than — the one trying like a person performing yoga into one other’s chest, which Dylan G. (Zach Cherry) beforehand swiped, and it is known as Chikhai Bardo (the title of the episode). “It is the identical man preventing himself, defeating his personal psyche. Ego loss of life,” Gemma replies, earlier than including she obtained them within the mail — and will need to have gotten onto some mailing listing on the fertility clinic. A “bardo,” in Tibetan Buddhism, is a transitional stage between loss of life and rebirth. In Tibetan Buddhism, there are six bardos, three skilled in life and three skilled throughout and after loss of life, earlier than rebirth. The fourth bardo, the “chikhai bardo,” describes the moments of loss of life main as much as the ultimate breath.

As Gemma tells Mark concerning the toll their makes an attempt to have youngsters is taking up her, he snaps that possibly they need to cease earlier than the scene facilities on black flowers. When the episode jumps again to Gemma, she’s carrying the garb of a passenger on a crashing aircraft, earlier than chopping again to Drummond and Dr. Mauer lamenting that the Chilly Harbor file is caught at 96%. “When he is finished, you are gonna need to say goodbye to her,” Drummond feedback, earlier than asking why Mauer is carrying a “silly” sweater (notably, a Christmas sweater), and the physician would not reply earlier than strolling off. We lower to Gemma wearing a purple gown and placing on a hoop. As she enters a brand new room (Allentown), she narrates the thank-you be aware she’s being pressured to put in writing along with her non-dominant hand to a “Mr. Tisdale” on behalf of her and “her husband” for an electrical grouter. That is the newest letter in a batch of many, her hand exhausted and coated in ink. “How for much longer do I’ve to do that?” she asks. Mauer reiterates that she’s finished, however that Christmas comes again yearly. “It is at all times Christmas,” she angrily replies. “I like you,” he says, forcing her to answer with the identical earlier than she leaves.

Gemma Makes an attempt To Escape Lumon in ‘Severance’ Season 2 Episode 7

We in the reduction of to reminiscences of Gemma listening to Mark angrily dismantle the crib, the pair extra distant than ever earlier than as Billie Vacation‘s “I am going to Be Seeing You” performs (a callback to Season 1 when Ms. Casey’s identification as Mark’s spouse was first revealed). As Gemma listens to the identical tune in her room at Lumon, she will get a go to from Mauer and tells him she desires to go house. In response, Mauer lies to her, telling her that Mark has remarried and had a daughter. “He is moved on. Perhaps you have moved on, too, in one of many rooms. What do you assume?” She would not imagine him, however he asks if she “gravitates” in the direction of one room or one other, suggesting that “possibly [she] felt issues behind these doorways [she] by no means felt with Mark. Perhaps I’ve seen it.” (By the way, he is not mendacity, as a result of she by no means appeared to really feel disgusted with Mark… however I digress). He grabs a duplicate of The Demise of Ivan Ilyich from a shelf (the identical ebook Gemma was studying when she first met Mark) and begins to idly flip by means of it earlier than Gemma knocks him out with a chair. She makes her method down the hall’s darkish hallways in an effort to flee. The episode then cuts to the night time Gemma “died,” when Mark stays house as she leaves for an outing.

Again at Lumon, the elevator Gemma takes to flee opens on the darkish entrance to “Exports,” and as Gemma makes it down the black hallway, Milchick (Tramell Tillman) opens the door. Now Ms. Casey, she asks Milchick what’s occurring, and he replies that her outie has gotten on the unsuitable elevator. “How lengthy have I…” she begins to ask, earlier than Milchick interrupts, asking if she will flip round and return the best way she’s come. Sadly, she walks down the hallway and again to the elevator happening. In Mark’s reminiscences, we see him obtain the police go to confirming Gemma’s so-called loss of life, intercut with present-day Gemma’s heartbreaking discovery that she’s been returned to the analysis ground. Her solely phrase? “Mark.” Again within the current day, Mark wakes up, and all he can take into consideration is Gemma when Devon asks him the place he went.

We be taught loads on this episode. Gemma and Mark’s difficulties in conceiving a baby precipitated their flip to a fertility clinic that appears to be a entrance for Lumon, and her responses to these playing cards are seemingly the explanation why Lumon focused her and faked her loss of life. She’s in some type of analysis wing beneath the elevator Irving’s outie retains portray, and probably entered beneath her personal preliminary free will, maybe with guarantees that Lumon might help her fertility. There, she’s been pressured into changing into a wide range of totally different, impartial innies in numerous initiatives (every with its personal code title and one way or the other related to the MDR information). These innies’ experiences are stored individuated by “limitations,” and so they’re seemingly unaware of one another (on condition that one in every of her innies actually spends her complete psychic life on the dentist), so she has little concept how a lot time has handed within the outdoors world. Dr. Mauer has clearly fallen for Gemma and has been utilizing the innie limitations to manage her — or try to, anyway — however apart from that, we’ve little concept what these totally different initiatives are anticipated to perform, save for his or her possible connection to Kier’s odd psychological framework.

The top purpose is probably going related to the method of loss of life and rebirth, nevertheless, given the episode’s references to Bardos. Might Lumon be attempting to manage loss of life itself? Is it a part of an effort to realize absolute management over an individual? Is the corporate attempting to carry again Kier Eagan? What is going on to occur with the creepy whistling Dr. Mauer? Oh, and Devon is sort of actually going to aim to associate with Concord Cobel, given the Hadji Murad reference and her displeasure with Lumon, so we’ll see how that goes. Within the meantime, reward Kier your job did not sever your persona into one whose complete life is on the receiving finish of dentistry.

Severance Season 2 is on the market to stream on Apple TV+ within the U.S. New episodes air on Fridays.