“I don’t want her memory. I want my own.”
After learning that her outie Helena Eagan and her workplace crush Mark S. (Adam Scott) “shared vessels” during Severance Season 2, Episode 4’s ORTBO, Helly R. (Britt Lower) processed the momentous betrayal of her body and decided to reclaim the sexual experience for herself in Season 2, Episode 6, “Attila.”
“You thought it was me, which means you wanted to, with me,” Helly told Mark. “What sucks is that she got to have that, and I didn’t — that she used me to trick my friends, used my body to get close to you… It’s disgusting.”
After Mark consented to another round of unsanctioned workplace lovemaking, the two innies made their way to a conference room, used a tarp to craft their own version of the tent where Mark and Helena hooked up, and engaged in softer, more tender display of intimacy than the one in Severance‘s first sex scene. They expressed their nerves before undressing themselves, and Mark — in this case, the more sexually experienced of the two — assured Helly that everything was OK. They giggled, softly kissed, basked in each other’s close proximity, and Mark even received verbal consent from Helly before he took things to the next level.
For MarkHelly stans — or anyone who feels a greater sense of loyalty to Lumon’s innies over their outies — the sweet, gorgeously shot sex scene may have felt redemptive. But in the murky, maddening world of Severance ethics, it’s crucial to remember that Helly violated Helena’s body and autonomy just as Helena violated hers. And once again, Mark’s outie was fully unaware of and unable to consent to his innie’s intimate actions.
With each passing episode, the Apple TV+ series says “To hell with typical love triangles,” expands the ideas of romantic limitations between two people, and propels viewers and characters further down a ceaselessly twisting thought spiral regarding consent. While Mark and Helly’s innies and outies collectively consist of four consciousnesses, with Helena secretly descending to the severed floor and connecting with Mark’s innie, then pursuing Mark’s outie — not to mention the Gemma and Miss Casey (Dichen Lachman) of it all — fans joke that a shape for Severance‘s Helly/Helena/Mark relationship has yet to be created. (But fan edits to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste” sure have been!)
To take the conundrum a step further, at the root of both sex scenes and amidst constant consent chaos, Severance star Adam Scott reminds us that both innies and outies are investing real emotions in these relationships — something that’s constantly kept in mind while creating the show.
“We discussed every aspect of [the love scenes], because it’s completely different circumstances for each,” Scott told Decider over Zoom. “Ben [Stiller] directed Episode 4 and Uta Bresiewitz directed Episode 6 and the second love scene. Uta and Ben discussed it as well. And I think that the second one is truly the two of them coming together. There’s much more of an innocence and purity to that one. But the first one is incredibly special in a totally different way. I think there are real feelings being shared there as well. Mark thinks it’s Helly, and also this is something that obviously he’s never experienced before. And he is falling deeper and deeper in love with Helly, but it’s just a different person than he understood her to be.”
Lower reiterated that the team “had a lot of conversations about the delicacy of those two scenes” and stressed that “Season 2 really explores the connections the characters start having outside of the chosen work family” as well. One of the most unique character connections — just barely outside the chosen work family — also takes place in Episode 6, when Helena Eagan boldly stages a run-in with Mark’s unsuspecting outie at a restaurant, once again toying with his mind and egregiously taking advantage of his severed status.
Remember in the Season 2 premiere when Milchick accused Cobel of developing an erotic fixation on Mark and his outie “in what might be termed a throuple?” Looks like he got the wrong girl! After spotting Mark from across a Chinese restaurant, Helena flashed a big cheesy grin, walked over to introduce herself (mind you, she had sex with his innie!) and sat down to engage in some sick, twisted, incredibly layered small talk. As the two chatted about Lumon and engaged in seemingly flirtatious banter, things took an even darker turn when Helena intentionally referred to Mark’s late wife Gemma as Hannah.
“I think she’s 100% fucking with me, just toying, seeing what reaction she can get,” Scott said during an episode of The Severance Podcast. “And when you think of all the baggage in that scene, it’s like earlier that same day, you both slept with each other. But neither of you are aware of that. But she’s aware that she slept with you, and you’re not aware that you slept with her — with either of her,” director Ben Stiller added.
After Episode 204, Decider broke down the reasons why Helena is so taken by and curious about Mark, but since Season 1, concerns related to the severance procedure and consent at large were present and extend far beyond Mark and Helly. (Remember that news report about a newly severed woman whose innie got pregnant?! Or the senator’s wife, whose innie seemingly exists for the sole purpose of giving birth?)
In Season 2, Episode 6 alone, we see Dylan’s (Zach Cherry) innie kissing his outie’s wife, Gretchen (Merritt Weaver), which — depending how you think about it — may constitute cheating. Though Dylan’s body is the body of Gretchen’s husband and she tries to assure Innie Dylan they are together all the time, the innie and outie have separate consciousnesses, and Outie Dyl likely wouldn’t be too thrilled to find out his wife was slipping away to his workplace to seek emotional, and now physical intimacy, she craves from his innie.
And, of course, there’s the Burt (Christopher Walken), Irving (John Turturro), and Fields (John Noble) of it all. From the moment Fields told Irving, “What’s mine is yours,” after he went to their house for dinner, his warranted distress over the idea that Burt and Irving may have been an item on the severed floor was clear.
“Do you think you two ever made love at work?” he asked Burt and Irving, fully unaware they have their own ship name, Burving. “There is a non-zero chance that the two of you had unprotected sex, and so I feel I have the right to ask.” Fields opts to say the quiet part out loud, and honestly, it’s refreshing.
Season 2, Episode 6 served as yet another reminder that no matter how straightforward or the actions of severed beings as innies or outies seem — be it a tattoo, haircut, or wardrobe decision or a sexual partner — there’s always a major blind spot and a different consciousness on the other side of the chip that should have a say, but doesn’t. So is reintegration, which essentially undoes the severance procedure by combining innie and outie consciousness and memories, the only solution to Severance‘s consent crisis?
New episodes of Severance Season 2 premiere Fridays on Apple TV+.