On Severance, baby goats have entered the chat

[Editor’s note: In anticipation of Severance’s upcoming second season, The A.V. Club is recapping season one of the show for the first time. Expect a new recap to drop daily through September 2.]    

“Do you know how to make kind eyes?” It’s a bizarre way to ask someone if they know how to display empathy. But it makes sense that Mr. Milchick asks it because it’s such a fake corporate method to show understanding towards someone else. He could advocate for being just kind, but no, instead he asks Mark to “make kind eyes” to welcome Helly back to work. Milchick didn’t need to worry because Mark is inherently compassionate; it’s hard to believe his innie has known Helly for less than a week considering the care he directs her way, especially in this episode. Heck, he’s more concerned about her well-being than Helly’s outie, who sends her to the place where she tried to kill herself merely three days after the suicide attempt. Talk about brutal! 

What Innie Helly doesn’t know is that some pretty major changes have gone down in her absence, and she’s gained the support of her coworkers in the process. “The Grim Barbarity Of Optics And Design” is an incredible halfway-through-the-season installment in how it successfully shifts the tides. There’s an undeniably exciting stimulus to Severance at this point because now it’s not just us, the viewers, or a wise Helly who know Lumon is doing shady, cruel things on the severed floor. Mark, Irving, and Dylan are also slowly realizing that their little bubble isn’t as tidy as they thought. Part of the credit goes to Innie Helly, who immediately began to question this insane existence. It’s slowly corroded the thoughts of her coworkers, and their doubts are cemented by the time episode five ends. 

While Helly’s away recuperating, the three men get caught up in other internal problems. Mark and Dylan are secretly reading the novel they found on the severed floor, The You You Are, written by Mark’s brother-in-law, Ricken—a fact they don’t know. But so much of Ricken’s writing contradicts what they’ve absorbed from Kier’s handbook. Take this passage, in which Ricken remembers a time he failed as an artist: “It was not me who was wrong, but literature itself. To find my place in the world, I would need to break it entirely. A society with festering workers cannot flourish. What separates man from machine is machines cannot think for themselves.” 

This book encourages autonomy, while Lumon’s founder preaches coercion in the name of togetherness and family. Mark is so compelled by this newfound Bible of sorts that he reads it at a rapid pace over three days, secretly spending time with the book in the bathroom. It naturally affects his approach to work because, for the first time, he’s learning that Kier’s words aren’t the only guiding principle for him. Free will, what a concept! This means he helps Helly out when Ms. Casey is sent to keep a constant eye on her. Instead of taking her for a walk to grab pen caps, he tells her he’s been drawing Petey’s map from memory and wants her help to explore the labyrinthine floor. She’s initially dismissive but a wild run-in changes her mind. 

Mark and Helly discover a secret room on the severed floor with baby goats and a single man taking care of them. When his feeding time with the animals is interrupted, he yells at both of them to leave. “You can’t take them; they’re not ready; it isn’t time,” the strange man says. The goats aren’t ready for what? What or who do these goats symbolize? It’s been one of Severance’s most notable mysteries because of how utterly random it feels. (Sorry to bring up Lost again but remember the polar bear on a tropical island?) Anyway, Reddit is teeming with crazy theories on what the goats are, but I keep thinking back to a Helly line from the series premiere. When she awakens in that conference room, she jokingly asks Mark if she’s livestock—a curious choice. He replies, “Do you think we grew a full human and gave you consciousness?”  

Mark and Helly aren’t the only two having a crazy day. Dylan and Irving get caught up in the MDR vs. O&D battle. They’re already on edge because Irv shared his discovery that Burt lied to him about Optics & Design being a two-person team. Instead, they’re a group of six doing some mysterious shit with large printers. Still, Irv and Burt find it tough to stay away from each other so when they meet again in a conference room, sparks are still flying. Dare I say Burt’s flirting actually made me blush because of Christopher Walken’s bashful delivery in complimenting Irving on his “youthful energy” and Turturro’s utterly glorious reception of it. It’s too bad that Dylan is also present to witness this, and he doesn’t approve of this budding romance. (Um, who asked you, dude? Let them live!)

Dylan’s deep-seated, kinda overboard hatred of O&D comes from a tale of the two departments attacking each other viciously in a bloody coup. As he finds out along with Burt and Irving in this episode, it’s just a tactic Lumon uses to keep the employees away from each other. It could also be another experiment to determine how innies behave when fear and distrust are sowed in their rookie brains. Do they adapt immediately, no questions asked? Dylan is proof that is what happens, except his curiosity and liberty have led him to the truth. Irving, Burt, and Dylan realize two versions of the same painting depicting the MDR and O&D battle have been used to pit them against each other for years. To make up for lost time, Burt takes Irving and Dylan to introduce them to his whole team. The proverbial walls are coming down, and Severance is about to kick into high gear.   

Stray observations

• • In lieu of color theory, I’d like to say that Aoife McArdle’s direction is astounding in this episode. It’s aided by the cinematography and lighting because the way Mark and Helly’s conversation in the corridor is framed and lit, going from dark to bright, is gorgeous. This also adds to the tension because you never know what’s lying behind the shadows.
• • This isn’t a stray thought by any means, but I wanted this recap to focus on the innies coming together. On the outside, though, Mark missed many calls from Ricken telling him that Devon has gone into labor. He rushes to their cabin at the Damona Birthing Retreat and meets Alexa again. That’s the doula he went on a date with in episode two that ended pretty badly.
• • Devon, who is four centimeters dilated, decides it might be nice to take a break from an infuriating Ricken and depressing Mark. So she goes on a walk around the cabin in the hunt for coffee. She meets another pregnant woman and talks her way into her house for company, realizing the other lady is pretty damn rich.
• • At one point during the night, Mark tells Devon that he suspects Lumon is up to no good. His sister’s response made me pause because instead of asking him what he meant or why he’d suddenly think that about his place of work, she hurriedly asked, “Who have you been talking to?” It’s a little weird, right? He’s about to confess Petey’s identity but her labor pains distract them from the topic.
• • Mrs. Cobel is trying to prove some point—we don’t know what yet—by sending Ms. Casey to observe Helly. Based on this and sending Mark to her in episode four, is she trying to see how he responds to both women?
• • So, Mrs. Cobel and Mr. Graner (Michael Cumpsty) are fucking, right?
• • I’ve been saying Severance is prudent with tiny details, so I appreciate that as soon as Mark’s innie wakes up in the elevator when the episode begins, he’s immediately panicked and scared for Helly because he doesn’t know yet if she survived.
• • Finally, we learn that Kier met his wife Imogene while they both worked at a factory. So he was allowed to engage in workplace romance, but one if his principles is to not allow it at Lumon. Execs of all shapes and sizes have double standards, huh? Well, it’s too bad for him because Severance is also clearly setting up Mark and Helly.