Severance – The After Hours

By: Kelly Kearney

Setting the stage for next week’s extended season finale, this episode finds Mark and Devon joining forces with a surprising ally in hopes that his integration will lead him to his presumed-dead—but very much alive and trapped in Lumon—wife, Gemma. After veering from the main narrative to explore the backstories of Irving, Dylan, Mark, Harmony and Helly, the penultimate episode ties up some storylines while opening the door to the ultimate showdown between Lumon, Mark, and the Eagans.

Shipping Off to Svalbard

It feels like we were just getting to know (and fear) Miss Huang (Sarah Bock), and now she’s being sent to the North Pole. When the episode opens, we see Mr. Milcheck (Tramell Tillman) releasing her from her duties before she can even complete her training. Instead of being reassigned to another floor, Mr. Milcheck is sending her to the Gunnel Eagan Empathy Center in one of the most remote places on Earth. Whether it’s because she was power-hungry or because she tattled to the Board about Seth’s use of “large words” and paperclip manipulations, he has ensured that she will now serve as the steward of global reform—from the North Pole.

As she processes this unexpected punishment, the camera zooms in on her disappointed face. From the moment we met her, Miss Huang carried an air of superiority, determined to outperform every adult on the Severance floor. Now, she’s learning the hard truth: no matter how good an employee you are, once Lumon has no use for you, they discard you like trash. Before she can board the bus to the North Pole, Mr. Milcheck forces her to sacrifice something meaningful to her—her beloved ring-toss game, the only moment we ever see her act like a child. Handing her a statue of Jame Eagan’s head, he orders her to smash it repeatedly, a symbolic act marking the end of her innocence.

Love and Loss

Miss Huang isn’t the only one saying goodbye to something she loves. Over at Dylan’s house, his wife, Gretchen (Merritt Wever), finally comes clean, admitting she has been visiting his innie at Lumon—and that they even kissed. Understandably, Dylan (Zach Cherry) is devastated, barely able to comprehend the idea of his wife cheating on him with his own body. Feeling like his innie and his wife are conspiring against him, Dylan storms out for work, but not before warning Gretchen that he might quit his job and erase his innie forever.

This confession prompts Gretchen to go to Lumon, where she breaks up with Dylan G out of guilt. With nothing left but his work and his MDR coworkers, Dylan falls to his knees, presenting her with a makeshift ring, desperately begging her to stay. He promises to give her a life he’s only dreamed of—one he’s never truly experienced, having never been outside Lumon’s walls. Holding back tears, Gretchen can do nothing but turn her head and walk away, leaving him pleading on the floor.

This is the final straw for Dylan. He’s already said goodbye to his best work friend, Irving, and now, the only woman he’s ever loved. He finally does what his outie threatened—he heads to Mr. Milcheck’s office and resigns. Whether or not this resignation will stick remains to be seen. Outie Dylan may want nothing more than to punish his innie for straying with their wife. Perhaps he’ll force Dylan G back to the office, knowing the torment his innie is now enduring with no love, no friendship, and no escape. Watching the light in his eyes extinguish into anger and darkness was brutal.

A Tragic Farewell for Burving Shippers

Another heartbreaking farewell looms for Burt (Christopher Walken) and Irving 9John Turturro), who have been dancing around their love in the outie world ever since that awkward dinner earlier in the season. When Irving comes home to find that Burt has broken into his apartment, he agrees to go for a ride with him. During the trip, Burt confesses that he’s a Lumon enforcer—but insists he’s never killed anyone. His job was simply to transport people to certain locations, never asking questions about what happened beyond that. Burt viewed the severed procedure as a way to escape his outie’s darkness and in that goodness he found an unexpected love.

Is that what this drive is about? Does Lumon know that Irving is getting too close to the truth hidden behind that long corridor and mysterious door? Did the Board send Burt to Irving the night he followed him to the phone booth, and is this their way of eliminating a threat?

We never found out who Irving was secretly communicating with during his investigation into Lumon, but Burving fans are holding onto hope that this isn’t truly the end for the couple. Even though the dynamic between outie Burt and Irving differs from their innie counterparts, their chemistry still sizzles beneath the surface. The feelings they share are undeniable—even if they can’t seem to act on them.

Whatever Irving has uncovered about Lumon, we may never know, because Burt tells him to leave town. He drives him to the train station, buys him a ticket to a place far beyond Lumon’s reach, and warns him never to return—to the town or to Kier. Irving takes Burt at his word, and the two share an emotional goodbye, one that echoes the tenderness of their romance in Season 1. With soft touches and whispered words, Burt admits that he’s letting Irving live because he fell in love with the innocent side of him. Irving, unwilling to say goodbye, admits that he’s never been loved so selflessly before—at least, not his outie. As the two confess their feelings, their faces draw closer, and Irving leans in for a kiss—but Burt stops him, just as innie Irving once did when Burt tried to act on his emotions.

Instead of a kiss, they press their foreheads together. Then, with his dog Radar at his side, Irving boards the train, leaving Burt alone at the station towards an unknown destiny we hope does not end in a dark corridor..

Mark, Devon and Harmony’s Plot to Save Gemma

With MDR’s side dramas and romances wrapped up, the episode clears the way for a Mark-centric finale. Throughout the episode, Mark (Adam Scott) is forced to wait in the snowy woods with his sister, Devon (Jen Tullock), and her unexpected new confidant, Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette). Devon insists on calling Cobel after Dr. Reghabi drilled a hole into Mark’s head—an integration procedure that took him a while to fully wake up from.

As they stand in the woods debating their next move, Harmony convinces Mark to call Mr. Milcheck and say he won’t be coming into work due to feeling under the weather. This, of course, sends the Board into a frenzy. Mark is only points away from completing Cold Harbor, and his absence disrupts their plans. Naturally, Mr. Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) blames Mr. Milcheck, but Seth has had enough of taking the board’s heat. When Drummond criticizes his leadership, the head of the Severance Floor doesn’t hold back. Using his signature multisyllabic vocabulary, Seth fires back that Mark’s failure to come to work is Drummond’s fault, since Milcheck’s job is only to control Mark inside Lumon—not beyond its walls. Drummond is stunned by this insubordination, but Milcheck doesn’t care. He throws the man’s demands back in his face and tells him that if he wants Mark so badly, he can go get him himself.

Finding Mark won’t be too difficult, because after calling out of work, he climbs into the back of Harmony’s truck, and she and Devon head to the Demona Birthing Retreat in the dead of night. After passing through Lumon’s security checks at the front gate, innie Mark wakes up in one of the lodges—only to find his sister and former boss working together.

What is Helena Hiding?

Meanwhile, Helly (Britt Lower)spends the episode wondering where Mark is and why he hasn’t shown up to work. She tries to rope Dylan into a plan to follow Irving’s directions and locate the dark hallway, but he isn’t interested—after all, it’s his last day at Lumon. Later, we see her tucking Irving’s drawing behind her keyboard, just before her father, Jame (Michael Silberry), pays her a surprise visit on the Severance Floor. “You tricked me, my Helly,” he says, but what exactly does he mean? Is he referring to the overtime contingency plan? Is he concerned about what happened between Helena and Mark at Woe’s Hollow? Or is there something even bigger at play—something connected to an earlier scene in which he micromanaged how she ate her eggs? Helena carefully sliced a hard-boiled egg into six parts, but we know her father eats two raw eggs for breakfast every morning and he expects everyone to follow his lead. That’s his preference. Everything about her disappoints him—nothing is ever good enough.Could this abusive relationship between father and daughter be the catalyst for Helena’s interest in Mark? Are these eggs foreshadowing a big reveal that will complicate Mark’s quest to find his wife?

As Mark navigates the birthing retreat, hoping to make his way to Gemma, and Helly wrestles with her feelings for him and the consequences of their office hookup, the stage is set for an explosive season finale. The long-awaited answers to Cold Harbor and Helena’s secretive plotting against her father are finally within reach.