Why Severance is the greatest show ever made - Part 2: The Kier within Helly

We need to talk about Helly R...or should we say, Helly E?

Right, you lovely bunch of gorgeous, creative coconuts!

Severance Season 2 spoilers ahead. Part 1 here.

Let’s fucking go.

Let’s get that cat right out of that bag:

Severance’s Season 2 finale ending - was it Outie Helly or Innie Helly luring iMark to the equator and away from Gemma?

I guess we’ll have to wait until Season 3!

Nope. Don’t like that.

Severance and Taylor Swift fans have much in common:

We love clowning.

We have at least a year or two to indulge in theories, so why not?

My answer: I’m torn.

The key moment from episode 4, where Irving unveils Helena’s deceit on account that:

“Helly was never cruel.”

It seems like a dead giveaway when analysing the actions of two of our protagonists in S2, E10.

However, BIG, however. It feels too obvious.

Episode 4 handed up this line on a platter. It was the payoff for what we expected throughout the first three episodes. Would they rehash the same reveal/clue in the finale and have us fall for the same trick twice?

Maybe.

But the writers are more intelligent than that. In my opinion, anyway.

Here’s what I think

The finale, as I analysed in part 1, brings us back to the core theme of Severance:

“Who am I?”

Mark ponders this question like a game of ping pong with his Innie and Outie self.

Helly, on the other hand, grapples with it upon meeting her father, Jame. It also leads to one of the episode’s funniest lines when Helly tells Jame to his face how fucking weird he is.

✅ Correct.

Our crusty, dusty, white-haired CEO ghoul throws three statements at his severed daughter:

"What a funny speech you gave at the party.”

"I was cross with you after. I threw a tin of candies."

"I do not love my daughter. I used to see Kier in her, but he left her as she grew."

Anyone who has dealt with a critical parent, “leader”, or person who has let power cripple their brain will know the manipulative shutdown that Jame seems to be angling for in this scene.

The sarcastic and condescending “funny speech”.

The belittling and oppressive “cross with you”.

The hints at abuse and punishment “threw a tin”, even if they were merely candies.

And the ultimate stab to the jugular, “I do not love my daughter”.

We'll never know why Jame Eagan thinks his daughter Innie is tantamount to a Catholic confessional or a ludicrously priced shrink. I don’t imagine a man of his stature, belief system, and morally corrupt worldview having a smidgen of emotional intelligence.

Someone like Jame Eagan being capable of love also seems too farfetched. The entire Eagan family has genetic narcissistic personality disorder, that’s for sure.

And while Helly R has been a rebel against the establishment from day one, I can’t help but empathise with the sh*tstorm that must be unfolding as she learns about her father’s true feelings.

I am not loved/I do not love

As I also mentioned in part 1, love is a central theme to almost any great story worth telling, and Severance is no different:

♥️ Romantic Love

→ Irving and Burt (both Innie and Outie versions)

→ iDylan and Outie’s wife, Gretchen

→ Helly R and iMark

→ Gemma and oMark

→ Devon and Ricken

💞 Buddy/Family Love

→ Petey and Mark

→ Dylan and Irving

→ Devon and oMark

→ The whole MDR team

→ How other teams band together to protect against MDR

💝 Motherly Love

→ Devon and Eleanor

→ The Senator’s wife and her newborn

→ Mrs Selvig/Cobel and Mark

→ Lorne and Emile

❤️‍🔥 Unrequited Love

→ Milchick and Lumon

→ Natalie and Lumon

→ Any of the Innies and Lumon

→ Cobel and Kier/Lumon

→ Helena and her father (shock horror, Lumon)

→ Outie Burt and Outie Irving, in some ways

→ Dr Bower and Gemma

Many threads on Severance’s subreddit suggest that the show is mainly about love. Some fans think this would be a cop-out, while others believe it would be a perfect message.

🧠 My thinking (which literally just pinged into my little brain while writing this; therefore, this may already be a big theory and no big revelation… breathe, Demi)…

Severance is ultimately about whether we can sever ourselves from love.

It’s LITERALLY about love.

(Or maybe my autistic brain is ‘tism-ing too hard on this one?)

I draw this conclusion because I couldn’t quite get my head around why Jame tells Helly he doesn’t love Helena.

🙃 Which then got me speculating:

• What happens to a person when they think they are void of love?

• If Helena isn’t loved, what will Helly risk to save herself and her chance at experiencing love with Mark?

• Does Helly, having just been told she reminds Jame of Kier, suddenly realise her Outie’s doom and her Innie’s potential gain?

Lumon’s goal is to control love and its effects on us.

Control people’s memories. Fine.

Control people’s “tempers”. Sure.

Control how people love. You control them entirely.

If you can control everyone, you have absolute power in a human society.

👁️👁️ Helly R or Helly E

I had to pause to rewatch the final episode again.

Now I’m sure it isn’t Helena down on the severed floor.

If Helly E is such a disappointment to Jame, why the f*ck would he send her down in place of Helly R in the company’s most integral moment?

Especially when he seems so besotted with the idea of Helly E being Kier’s obvious latest manifestation (whether true or bonkers old guy delusion).

Did Helly R switch herself?

The elevator dings when she first comes back to the floor with Mark. Therefore, she would have had to have switched herself at some point during Milchick’s stunning performance.

However, she would not be able to switch between her severed states so quickly or without the help of another. The security room has been moved to an unknown location.

Therefore, she can’t activate the overtime contingency - the only way to switch between severed states on the severed floor. Even if she could, we saw how hard that was for Dylan in the last finale.

From what we see, everyone and their goat are tied up in some battle or march to the death. So, logically, how the hell could it be Helena and not Helly in the final scene? (Hell).

More importantly, WHY WOULD SHE?

If iMark didn’t trust oMark, Helly would not trust Helena on Kier’s green earth.

Even though she repeats to Mark, “I’m her”.

I don’t think this is the literal part.

I think there is something to be said about the equator talk.

The word “Equator” has Latin origins in the word “equal.” One of Cobel’s final arguments to iMark is that he and Helly are NOT equal, but what if they could be?

What if there was even a tincy wincy chance?

Would their love for one another be worth the fight?

✅ My vote:

We’ve got Helly shooting her shot at an actual existence, real love, and maybe even world domination. I wouldn’t put it past her to be the one to take down Lumon from the inside.

After all, people do crazy things in the name of love, power, and freedom. And Helly has a chance at all three.

But Helly (or Helena) is the villain. Lumon is.

She’s simply a human who is sick of being treated as less than.

In that final scene, her first roadblock is Gemma, and it’s time to get her out of the way. I don’t think it’s callous. I think it’s honest. She only knows and loves iMark. Not oMark. Not Gemma.

Therefore, she owes them nothing.

And if you’re telling me you’d sacrifice the one person you love most in the world for two strangers?

You’re lyin’.

👩‍💻 Let’s macrodata refine this conclusion.

Some say that great grief cannot be experienced without love. And there’s arguably no more tremendous grief than the loss of a child.

Cold Harbor represents the final step towards ridding Gemma of anything she may still love or have a loving attachment to.

Grief is the proposed final trigger. Cold Harbor is the result.

“The barrier is holding…she feels nothing.”

Remarks Dr Bower as he watches from behind his screen.

Big emphasis on the “feel” though as opposed to “remembers”, “knows”, “understands” etc.

Jame’s eyes glisten at the same thought.

They’ve severed love from human consciousness - assuming that the balancing of the four tempers ultimately ladders up wherever love originates from.

Or so Lumon hoped until oMark shows up.

Jame knows the efficacy test has failed when he realises who is in the room with her.

Though Gemma has no clue who Mark is (Innie, Outie or otherwise), she still trusts him. Somewhere deep inside, love is taking control of Gemma.

The nurse screamed, “It’s the fucking spouse!” in a tone that suggests, “Of fucking course this would happen.”

It makes me wonder if this was Harmony Cobel’s plan all along. The chip's inventor knows precisely how to test its limits. She said she was integral to completing Cold Harbor, and Lumon didn’t listen. But Cobel doesn’t listen to Lumon; she answers to Kier.

That is possibly why she barely gave very few answers to Mark. And what she did reveal felt expository. Unfitting for the excellent writing of Severance so far. Perhaps she was serving up a cold, hard plate of lies to get what she wanted.

Perhaps the only people who genuinely know the answer are Ben Still, Dan Erikson, and potentially Tim Cook (if I had Apple’s share price, I’d sell a stock or two to buy the answers out of the writers).

All I do claim to know is…

Love can help us do the impossible.

But love can also make us cruel.

Love,

Mr Milchick

P.S. Please subscribe to the next part, where I’ll discuss more theories, plot pacing, cinematography, season 3’s set-up, social commentary, and, of course, Mr Milchick.