How 'Severance' Episode 5 Advances a Chilling Fan Theory

John Turturro as Irving in Episode 5 of <I>Severance</I> Season 2. Credit - Apple TV+

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Episode 5 of Severance Season 2.

Moments before Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) made the call to terminate innie Irving (John Turturro) at the end of Severance Season 2's gut-punch of a fourth episode, Irv delivered a telling final message to his fellow Macrodata Refiners (MDR): "Just remember, hang in there."

Irv directed his words to Dylan (Zach Cherry) in particular, looking right at him as he accepted Dylan's apology for not believing that Helena (Britt Lower)—daughter of Lumon CEO Jame Eagan and descendant of the company’s infamous founder, Kier Eagan—had infiltrated their group by masquerading as her innie, Helly, following MDR's Overtime Contingency (OTC) breach in the Season 1 finale. Under different circumstances, Irving's parting one-liner may have seemed innocuous. But considering the mission innie Irv had been on to learn the truth about Lumon's so-called "Exports Hall," fans were quick to catch that his goodbye contained an important reference. In the Season 2 premiere, a motivational poster with the slogan "Hang in There!" written above an image of what looked like Dylan flipping the OTC switches was shown hanging in the room where MDR watched the new innie orientation video.

In Episode 5, out Feb. 14, MDR returns to that room for innie Irv's Lumon-sanctioned funeral (complete with a watermelon carved in the shape of their former coworker's head). Dylan notices the slogan and examines the poster to find that Irv hid his drawing of the Exports Hall, with detailed instructions on how to get there written on the back, behind it. After looking at the drawing for a moment, Dylan puts it back.

What does Irving's drawing mean?

The episode is titled "Trojan's Horse," which Ricken (Michael Chernus) says while referring to his new book, which Devon (Jen Tullock) dismisses as Lumon propaganda. But the real Trojan Horse—something that looks innocent but, once accepted, has the power to destroy an enemy from within—seems like it might be Irving himself.

Given what we know about Irving's outie—that he comes from a military background and seems to be actively investigating Lumon—it's unlikely that he wanted to work at the company just to escape his personal trauma for eight hours a day. In Episode 5, outie Irv takes a secretive call in a phone in which he says he thinks he was fired because Lumon knew what his innie was "up to."

Similar to what's happening to Mark (Adam Scott) now that he's begun the reintegration process, outie Irv's consciousness has previously bled into his innie's mind (and seemingly vice versa) since Season 1, signaling that he may also be working with Dr. Reghabi (Karen Aldridge). After seeing his outie's paintings of a dark hallway leading to an elevator during the OTC, innie Irv drew a duplicate image and, in Episode 3, ending up showing it to O&D's Felicia (Claudia Robinson). She was the one to reveal it was a place on Lumon's severed floor called the Exports Hall and that O&D used to take shipments there, until Lumon started sending a guy to pick them up. Episode 5 then started with a cold open in which a mysterious, whistling man picked up a tray of medical and/or torture devices from O&D and brought it to the Exports Hall elevator, the same place where Gemma/Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman) was taken after being "retired" from her role as a wellness counselor in Season 1.

There are a number of theories out there about what actually happened to Gemma and how she ended up trapped at Lumon. But some fans have also been speculating that outie Irving's investigation into Lumon may have to do with his father possibly meeting a similar fate to Gemma. During the OTC, innie Irv found a photo of his dad in a Navy uniform in the same locked trunk where he discovered the rest of the Lumon-related documents. Knowing how Severance operates, this seems like it's probably a pretty big hint about something.

In one recent Reddit post, user Dry_Flatworm_4533 theorized that outie Irv was looking for answers about (or justice for) something Lumon did to his dad. "There's absolutely no way they would show us a LABELED picture of Irving's father if he isn't crucial to the story, especially in a dedicated 'here's literally all of the clues about Irv's outie' scene," they wrote. "He's obsessed with the testing floor elevator, in spite of the fact that he should not know it exists. [And] I don't just mean outie Irving shouldn't know about it—innie Irving shouldn't know about it either. It has no relation to his job [and] prior to being disillusioned by his love for Burt, innie Irv had fully drank the Lumon Kool-Aid, so I can't imagine he had any inkling that something nefarious could be going on."

Now that Dylan has directions to the Exports Hall, we can only hope the remaining innies will start to put the pieces of the testing floor puzzle together and give us some of our own answers.

Write to Megan McCluskey at megan.mccluskey@time.com.