Yahoo Lifestyle ‘Severance’ Stars Britt Lower, John Turturro and Zach Cherry Break Down the Explosive, Snowy Episode That Changes Everything
SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 4 of “Severance,” streaming now on Apple TV+.
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The fourth episode of “Severance’s” second season, “Woe’s Hollow,” drops the Mark (Adam Scott), Irving (John Turturro), Helly (Britt Lower) and Dylan (Zach Cherry) into some unfamiliar terrain: “out-fucking-side,” as Dylan puts it.
After unexpectedly awaking in the snowy wilderness of the Dieter Eagan National Forest, dressed to the nines in matching black fur coats and hats, the innies stumble upon an old-school TV cart. Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) explains what’s going on via a grainy video: With their outies’ blessings, they’ve been sent on a two-day Outdoor Retreat and Team Building Occurrence (ORTBO, for short), in response to their “desire to see the outside world.”
He assigns the MDR members a quest to discover a sacred text from Kier Eagan — as creepy “twins” of each innie wordlessly guide the way. When they discover the tome, it reveals that Dieter Eagan was Kier’s twin brother, who died at Woe’s Hollow shortly after being caught pleasuring himself in the forest.
As they make their way to the Hollow, Irv continues to side-eye Helly, privately warning Mark that he doesn’t trust her, and again questioning her “night gardener” story after the Overtime Contingency (OTC). Tensions run high as Irv becomes increasingly hostile toward the group, but Milchick — looking chic as ever in all-white winterwear — arrives just in time to diffuse the situation.
He brings the innies to a small waterfall (which he tells them is the tallest on the planet) before leading them to a nearby campsite with Miss Huang. When Helly visits Irv’s tent and attempts to reconcile, he again questions what she really saw during the OTC, and she continues to insist she was truthful.
In the evening, Milchick finishes the Woe’s Hollow story, detailing Kier’s first encounter with the temper of Woe: “a gaunt bride, half the height of a natural woman.” Helly bursts out laughing at the tale and provokes an angry, marshmallow-burning reaction from Milchick. While Dylan and Mark laugh along with her, Irving isn’t amused, repeatedly pressing for details about Helly’s OTC claims. Irv lashes out at Mark (“Using your pupils to make love to her while your outie’s wife rots away somewhere”) when he urges him to lay off, while Helly taunts that Irv will never get to see Burt again. “Fuck you all,” Irv yells as he storms into the forest.
Mark checks in on Helly in her tent, and they have sex. Helly confesses that she wasn’t honest about what happened during the OTC, sharing that she didn’t like who she was on the outside. As Mark reassures her, his recent reintegration catches up with him and he sees visions of her face merging with Gemma/Miss Casey’s (Dichen Lachman).
Lost in the woods, Irving dreams of a barren forest and the MDR cubicles — with Burt (Christopher Walken) behind a desk. He’s troubled by a vision of the personified temper of Woe and wakes with a start.
In the morning, Irving finds Helly at the waterfall, admonishing her for her harsh words from the previous night and again insisting that she’s not really his coworker, but her outie: “Helly was never cruel.” He violently submerges her head under the water as he repeatedly demands that Milchick bring back the real Helly. She instructs Milchick to comply, and he radios to “remove the Glasgow block,” confirming Irv’s theory that “Helly” has really been her outie Helena Eagan ever since the OTC. (Meaning, for all of Season 2.)
Irving apologizes as he holds a visibly confused Helly, and Mark rushes to her side. Milchick instructs Irving that he is being immediately and permanently terminated, while an emotional Dylan asks Irving to forgive him for not believing him sooner.
“It’s all OK,” Irving tells him. “Just remember, hang in there.”
Milchick walks Irving deep into the forest. “It will be as if you, Irving B., never even existed or drew a single breath upon this Earth. May Kier’s mercy follow you into the eternal dark,” he says, as Irv’s outie regains consciousness and the episode ends.
Lower, Turturro and Cherry spoke with Variety about the explosive episode, unpacking Helly’s big reveal, Irving’s aggression and Dylan’s emotional reconciliation.
Britt, this episode reveals that we’ve actually been watching Helena impersonate Helly for the entire season up to this point. How did you manage that massive 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’re in very different circumstances, both trapped in different ways by the same company. Helena is trapped in a familial way. She’s trapped in a family that she didn’t choose. This particular family is in charge of a company that has a high amount of control within the lore. There’s a cult-like quality to the company.
It made sense to me, through the brilliant writing that Dan Erickson crafted, that a person raised in this high-control environment would have the most rebellious inner child. And so I kind of thought about it as the inner child versus the inner critic. We all have those parts of ourselves. The part of ourselves that is more free and alive and in touch with the things that we were when we were a kid. That sense of who you are that’s just kind of pure as a child. And then there’s the part of you that’s been hardened and conditioned and had to compose oneself through navigating all the expectations of life and family, especially in Helena’s case, and the expectations of her strange dad.
It was really interesting to be in the perspective of Helly R., as Helena, as Britt, taking a look around. I felt a lot of sorrow for Helly R. that her identity within her chosen family was being abused, taken advantage of, and that her friends were being tricked. And then I felt a lot of sorrow for Helena, that she was getting to be this part of herself, trying to blend in, but couldn’t quite. She didn’t totally belong there, and she didn’t really earn the connections and the way that they were connecting with her. I just tried to have a lot of empathy for both of those perspectives and to just be present to what was happening.
John, this episode felt like the boiling point for the new Irving we’ve come to know this season. This character, who 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’s something that he’s kind of bonded now closer to Dylan, and Adam and Britt’s characters, and that some there’s something that he just picks up immediately: the whole group is at risk, and not just him. He takes it further and further. And then once he has that dream, it’s the last piece of that puzzle.
Sometimes people reveal themselves in one gesture or one sentence. I direct movies, and I’ve cast people based on one little thing they did. I think he picks that up, and just takes it all the way and doesn’t really care about what’s going to happen or the consequences of his actions, because he feels like they’re being spied upon.
You touched on the relationship between Irving and Dylan that’s been expanded this season. Zach, why do you think Dylan is so desperate to keep Irving in the office, and why was that final moment of reconciliation at the end of the episode so important?
Zach Cherry: I think over the course of the first season, Dylan starts to realize maybe he does care about not trying to go it alone, and he starts to build these connections with the rest of the office. And then as he learns more about his outie’s life, he starts to realize what he’s missing out on, and so much of that is about a connection. Irving is someone that he’s been able to make this really strong connection with that he sort of neglects a little bit this season, because he’s thinking about his own thing. So I think all of that kind of comes together for him in this episode.
I feel like the Dylan we knew last season would have reacted very differently during that pivotal waterfall scene.
Cherry: Yeah! I think that’s one of the fun things about this season, is learning more about the characters, and then watching them learn more about themselves, and seeing how that that changes how they behave.
Helena bursts out laughing when Milchick finishes Dieter Eagan’s story. What was behind that moment?
Lower: I think that was the accumulation of so many years of wanting to make fun of the mythology, and poring over the ways in which that scene in the myth is using very flowery language to basically say, “This guy was punished for this erotic act with himself in the forest.” I think she’s getting a chance to have a laugh about it through this rebellious version of her. She’s like, “This is the filter who would get to do that and not suffer the consequences.”
The entire show touches on the idea of bodily autonomy, but Mark and Helly/Helena becoming intimate really brings that to the forefront. Was that something that was in your mind as you all approached this episode?
Lower: There was always something in Season 1 that I found to be strange about the experience of Helly waking up in office attire that she hadn’t put on her own body. And all of these innies are going through that experience. That’s like the most basic free will you have in the morning: what clothes are you putting on?
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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