Severance – The After Hours Review

I’ll be honest. I’ve watched this episode twice and I’m still not quite sure what I think about it. On one hand, there was some swift (perhaps too swift) plot movement in all sections of the narrative. On the other, there were some truly earned and gorgeous moments between characters – okay, between Burt and Irving, really. The rushed feel of the story advancing to the exact point it needs to reach in order to set-up next week’s finale has me more convinced than ever before that Severance is going to end after its third season. But I can’t help but feel a bit cheated that we didn’t get to see everything that led these characters to the moments within “The After Hours.” Yes, we saw Mark and Cobel hit this particular point in the past few weeks. But Dylan, Helly, Jame Eagan, Burt, Irving, Ms. Eustice Huang, and Milchick all seemed to jump various distances in their stories to get to their ending points. And that rubs me a bit the wrong way.

It appears that not much time has passed since the end of episodes seven and eight – based on the state of Cold Harbor, Mark’s physical status, and Cobel’s own journey to meet with him. So, in that short amount of time (a day, perhaps?) we have to assume Burt sussed out just what Irving has been up to (more on that in a moment), Milchick decided to offload Huang from her fellowship effective immediately (we all know why, but it does seem a bit rash in the timeline of the series), Gretchen decided to come clean and blow up both versions of Dylan’s life (why she decided now, after she’d already lied to Outie Dylan is an open question), and Jame Eagan decided to take new interest in Helena/Helly after very much NOT wanting to up until this point (more on that in a moment as well). It’s odd, after two episodes focused on filling in gaps, that we’d then jump a bit in all other arcs to reach an inflection point that saw all of our central characters facing unknown and troubling futures at the same time.

Let’s delve into both the most disappointing and emotionally fulfilling (even if it ended so, so sadly): the reunion of Irving and Burt. It turns out that suspicious look Burt was sporting at the end of their dinner was foreshadowing that Burt was going to be tasked to eliminating Irving from the Kier gameboard. Now, here’s where I get a bit confused. We can assume that Burt was watching Irving’s various late night phone calls for some time, spying on him outside of his time at Lumon. And perhaps both Burt and Irving were playing their own game of trying to figure the other out at dinner – although neither seemed to tip their hand to me. Which means I’m not entirely sure just why Burt broke into Irving’s place and decided that now was the time to get Irving to leave forever. Was he tasked with driving Irving somewhere for him to disappear – what he apparently would do for Lumon in the years before he was severed (turns out Fields was telling the truth about that at dinner)? Or was he acting on his own, removing Irving because he determined he knew too much about Burt’s past and would likely connect him (as his notes indicated) to things he did for Lumon that could get Burt and others in hot water?

We know Irving was trying to bring down Lumon – both inside and out. We know Burt became severed because he wanted to be innocent once more, so he definitely felt guilt over being a part of Lumon’s less-than-savory actions in the past. And, in that truly heartbreaking confession of love, we know that the pair do still feel that same pull of deeper attraction that their Innies had. There is, in fact, bleed over into the real world for the emotions encountered while an Innie. I don’t think Irving was trying to play Burt by admitting his feelings and asking him to try to find the love they had inside on the outside. And boy was Burt clearly tempted. The absolute look of vulnerability on John Turturro’s face as he repeated “I’m ready” almost broke me. And Christopher Walken’s “We can’t” was just as devastating. But I can’t help but wish we got to see the connective tissue that led to Irving and Burt reaching that impasse.

Same for Gretchen and both versions of Dylan. One minute, Gretchen is perfectly content to lie to her husband about visiting his Innie and suddenly she needs to come clean? What was the impetus of that choice? We saw her discontent building, we gathered that while Outie Dylan isn’t a bad guy, he’s definitely checked out in a way that many would find frustrating, but what made her make that choice? Was she told to do so by Lumon? Doubtful. Was there something that happened at home that made her think “If I tell Dylan, we can have what we once had”? It doesn’t seem like their last interaction would have spurred her to say something. It just felt out of the blue, even if we knew this was ultimately the endgame of this particular arc. Now, the Innie Dylan resignation? I didn’t see that one coming. But it fits. He’s so innocent that to him, this hurt is insurmountable. He doesn’t want to live with it – the inverse of Outie Mark’s choice to sever himself – and opts to kill himself instead. He’s already lost his best friend in Irving and now he’s lost the love of his life. What else is there to live for? Now, I’m sure his Outie could force him back to work if he wanted to, but we already know that he doesn’t trust his Innie and Gretchen, so this option actually gives him exactly what he wants. But again, the connective tissue just isn’t all there.

Finally, the most mystifying part of the episode to me were the sequences with Helena/Helly. From Jame suddenly wanting to see her eat breakfast (a single egg, naturally) to him showing up, late at night, on the severed floor to see Helly, I’m not sure just what is happening here. Is something going to happen to Helly when Cold Harbor is solved? We know, thanks to Cobel, that solving Cold Harbor means the death of Gemma – whether literally or figuratively we don’t yet know. But why is Jame, who definitely saw Helena as an utter failure at the start of the season, suddenly very keen to see his daughter? And why was Helly allowed to stay so late on the floor?

If I had to hazard a guess, I’m thinking there’s going to be some sort of ultimatum issued by Mark to Lumon in next week’s finale. Something along the lines of “I’ll finish Cold Harbor, but Gemma is freed before I do so.” And I wouldn’t be shocked if either Lumon goes back on their word or Helly is placed in peril as a result of the trade. Maybe Jame opts to place her in Gemma’s place, resulting in a Sophie’s Choice for Innie Mark? Either way, I can’t see the season ending without Mark being placed in a position to truly choice between his two loves. I haven’t yet seen the finale, so I’m just as blind as you. But with how several of our supporting arcs seem to be in solid stopping places for this season (while we’ll probably see Dylan and Irving again, I think their stories are, more or less, wrapped for the season), I’m betting the finale will focus on Mark and Cold Harbor. For a show that is so meticulous with what we learn, I wish they had taken the time to show their work a bit more this week.