“Severance” finally revealed what's happening to Gemma, and Adam Scott says he's 'just so blown away'

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Severance season 2, episode 7, "Chikhai Bardo."

Severance finally revealed what's been happening to Gemma (Dichen Lachman) this whole time, and it's even worse — and weirder — than Mark (Adam Scott) could ever imagine.

Apple TV+'s office thriller delivered an episode out of the norm this week with "Chikhai Bardo," pulling back the curtain not only on what Lumon's been doing to Mark's missing wife below the severed floor, but also the story of Mark and Gemma's entire relationship before Lumon ever got involved. Through flashbacks, we learn that Mark and Gemma met while donating blood, and went on to live a happy life together full of love ... until Gemma had a miscarriage. The couple tried IVF to no avail, and not being able to get pregnant took a toll on Gemma. We also learn that Lumon was monitoring Gemma for a while before abducting her.

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In the present-day timeline, we learn that Gemma has been severed into multiple different Innies, each one specific to different rooms on another floor in Lumon. Led by Lumon employee Cecily (Sandra Bernhard), Gemma is herself and knows where she is, until she willingly entered each room (Allentown, Cairns, Dranesville, Loveland, and Wellington are some of the room names — a.k.a. the names of the files completed by Mark and the MDR crew) and became severed into different Innies. In one room, Wellington, she visited a dentist-doctor (Robby Benson) for a two-hour procedure while she's monitored the entire time. In another room, she's a passenger on a crashing plane, and in Allentown, she's forced to write endless thank-you notes at Christmastime. None of the rooms/Innie existences sound pleasant.

The only room she hasn't been in yet? Cold Harbor, which is the name of the file that Mark is currently working on — and the one that Lumon upper management is so invested in him completing. When Gemma asked what that room is, she's vaguely told she "will see the world again and the world will see" her once she goes in. When she asked if she'll ever see Mark again, she got another vague, Lumon-speak response from the doctor: "Mark will benefit from the world you’re siring. Kier will take away all his pain just as Kier has taken away yours." That implies that Gemma turned to Lumon to help with her emotional distress over not being able to have a child, just like how Mark became severed to deal with the grief over losing Gemma.

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After finally having enough of whatever these experiments are, Gemma asked the doctor — who fell in love with her during all the different role play he's had with her Innies — if she can just go home to Mark. But he lied to her, telling her that Mark remarried last year and has a daughter now, so he's moved on from her. She didn't believe him, and when he tried to manipulate her further by saying that she might have also moved on in one of the rooms, she attacked him and tried to escape. Unfortunately, the elevator took her right up to the severed floor, so she became a very confused Ms. Casey, and Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) foiled her escape, bringing her right back down in the elevator.

Series star Scott tells Entertainment Weekly that he was so impressed with his costar Lachman for what she did in this week's episode. "Dichen is incredible — I'm just so blown away by her performance, seeing Gemma crawl through broken glass for so long," he says.

The flashbacks to Mark and Gemma's relationship were a shocking change of pace for Severance's story, and Scott reveals that bringing them to life on set was an entirely different process behind-the-scenes as well.

"It was really interesting and completely separate from the rest of the show, as far as how we made it, what it was about," Scott says. "Just the timeline and the material itself was just lifting us up and dropping us into a different world entirely, so it was super fun."

Related: Severance stars Adam Scott, Britt Lower unpack that massive episode 4 Helly twist

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The show's cinematographer Jessica Lee Gagneé directed the episode, and Scott says she actually shot it on film to achieve an entirely different look and feel from other episodes.

"Everything culturally about the show Severance changed when we made this episode, all the way down to the noise the cameras made was completely different," Scott says. "The equipment was different, and so we needed to shift how we made the show, and I think it looks beautiful. I think Jess did an unbelievable job."

Severance season 2 debuts new episodes Fridays on Apple TV+.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly