We’ve watched the seventh episode of Severance season two, “Chikhai Bardo,” a few times now and still barely have any idea what’s going on. We know that it confirms everyone’s biggest assumption from the end of last season, that Mark’s wife Gemma is currently alive. But, beyond that, things get fuzzy. It’s by far the trippiest, weirdest episode of the series yet, which is saying something when this season the characters visited a seemingly random outdoor park named after the dead twin brother of their company’s founder, where they encountered mysterious doppelgangers of themselves. This beat that, and it’s not even close.
Truly, the episode was like watching a Severance fever dream from an avant-garde artist, and we mean that in the best possible way. So, first of all, kudos to first-time director Jessica Lee Gagné, the show’s regular director of photography, because she made a truly memorable episode of television. What did it all mean though? Let’s talk about it.
The best place to start is with the episode title, “Chikhai Bardo.” These episodes have titles for a reason, right? Well, Gemma describes it in the episode as “the same guy fighting himself. Defeating his own psyche. Ego death,” which is basically what both she and Mark are going through simultaneously. Each is in their own head, flipping between the past and present, innie and outie, trying to come to terms with their current circumstances. (Also, we’ve seen the Chikhai Bardo card before. Dylan took it from Optics and Design in season one and hid it behind a toilet; it’s why Mr. Milchick, frantic to find it, briefly activates innie Dylan in outie Dylan’s house, setting up the use of the overtime contingency in the finale.)
For Gemma, the episode tells us a bunch of things. We know Lumon is holding her in the building and running experiments on her innie of which her outie is aware. We know her outie hates it. We now also know she and Mark were, at one point, expecting and lost a baby. And we know that one night she went out for an event and just never came back.
As for Mark, when we last saw him, he’d passed out after escalating his reintegration. Here, he’s still unconscious, but on a mental “journey” back to reality. What that really means is we get to see a plethora of important moments in his life with Gemma. We see their meet-cute, family dinners, arguments, lovemaking, and even their final night together. Because, don’t forget, Mark decided to get severed due to his grief over losing Gemma. Her “death” is the inciting incident for the entire show.
So the episode is both Gemma and Mark on mental journeys battling with themselves in some way. The bulk of that centers on the mysterious and until now unseen “testing floor” at Lumon which, yes, is accessible via the exports hall that leads to the elevator that haunts Irving’s dreams. Gemma is there and, each day is forced to dress up in a different outfit and go through a series of tests in different rooms. Upon entering each room, Gemma, the outtie, becomes Ms. Casey, the innie, so Gemma has no memory of what she’s been doing all day. She just, at times, feels the physical effects of it. Like when she has to go through two hours of dental work or write hundreds of thank you notes, something she’s always hated doing.
Gemma’s activities revolve around two people: a nurse, played by the iconic Sandra Bernhard, and Dr. Mauer, played by Robby Benson. The nurse preps Gemma for the day and Dr. Mauer meets her in each room to do whatever is required. It’s never explicitly explained what’s happening here but our big, sweeping inference is the testing floor exists to test the limits of severance by imposing various levels of stress on an innie. Put Ms. Casey through different levels of hell almost like mini stage productions, and see what Gemma does or doesn’t remember. There’s the dentist, an abusive Christmas, and a plane crash. Yes, one of the rooms simulates a plane crash and we have no idea how the hell Lumon pulls that off. But, basically, she’s a human crash test dummy.
Over the course of however long Gemma has been on the testing floor (possibly six weeks), she’s apparently been into every room except one. It’s the one the camera holds on for an extra beat or two so that we all see it: “Cold Harbor.” Yes, it’s the name of the project Mark S. has been working on. The one that’s so important to Lumon. She wants to know what’s in the room, and so do we.
It’s not clear what’s in that room but we do see a space that could, potentially, be the Cold Harbor room. At one point the camera sweeps out of a computer, up a set of legs, and reveals a person who looks like an alternate Mark S. He’s surrounded by three other people all of whom look like the four main characters on the show. They’re overseen by Mr. Drummond and Dr. Mauer and each is watching their look-alike as they are working. This seems to be the place Lumon is tracking Mark S.’s progress on Cold Harbor, which is stuck at 96%. They blame the nosebleed but we know the nosebleed only happened because Mark S. and Helly had sex.
As for Gemma, we see this is taking a toll on her. She knows being here at Lumon isn’t right and at a certain point, hits a breaking point. It’s when Dr. Mauer tells her that Mark remarried and had a daughter with someone else. That he’s moved on and maybe she should too. Gemma can feel he’s lying and, in a fantastic moment of rebellion, smashes Dr. Mauer with a chair and makes a run for it. She even makes it up the elevator to the hall but, after all, this is Lumon. The elevator ride triggers her innie who is obviously confused. Mr. Milchick cuts her off, lies to her about her outie visiting the building and forces “Ms. Casey” to go back.
Of course, we’re retelling this much less elegantly than the episode does. The episode itself unfolds like a lyrical dance moving from Mark’s memories to Gemma’s, and often blending the two. The montages of their relationship are truly beautiful and reveal a totally new version of Mark and, for the first time, how wonderful Gemma is. We can see why she loves him, why he loves her, and that even through all their struggles, their relationship is strong.
That’s kind of the main throughline but there’s so much else to unpack. Here are a few other things.
After Mark and Gemma lose their child, we see them go to an IVF office at the Butzemann Family Center. (“Butzemann” is like a German “boogeyman,” by the way.) And as they walk into the office, for a brief second, we see Dr. Mauer! He’s watching them in real life. What the heck does that mean? Was he Gemma’s Harmony Cobel, living lives both inside Lumon and out?
When Gemma talks about “Chikhai Bardo” she’s filling out some kind of personality test she got in the mail. Mark doesn’t seem happy about it but she enjoys it. The implication here, especially since we know these exist inside Lumon thanks to Dylan in season one, could be this is one of their earlier interactions with Lumon. Maybe even one of the incidents that got them on their radar.
Mark’s story in the present is probably the least interesting part of this particular episode but it does have very crucial moments. One, Devon meets Reghabi and learns about Mark’s reintegration. Two, Devon learns Gemma is alive, and three, Reghabi fears that Devon could call Harmony. We haven’t seen Harmony in a few episodes but certainly she has to play a big part before the end here. Thankfully, it won’t be Devon’s fault as she decides not to call her about Mark and Gemma. Yet.
Remember back in episode five, “Trojan’s Horse” when we saw someone picking up dental equipment from Optics and Design while whistling the song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald?” Well, a person is whistling that again too in this episode and he just so happens to have dental equipment. We looked back and, yes, it was Dr. Bauer in the previous episode picking up the supplies upstairs. On Severance, everything eventually links together.
Finally, the biggest thing is we still don’t know why Lumon faked Gemma’s death to keep her trapped at Lumon. But, there is a moment that alludes to it a bit. In the mystery doppelganger room, Drummond and Mauer say that when Mark is done with Cold Harbor, their time with Gemma will be over. This assertion possibly suggests all of Lumon’s actions were just so Mark could do this Cold Harbor project. Whatever it is, it’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and Gemma may have just been collateral damage. A reason to make sure Mark joined the company. It’s a chilling though but one we can’t shake.
Surely there’s more too. It was an excellent episode that did something we both love and hate. We finally answered a few of the show’s biggest mysteries. Is Gemma alive? Yes. What is she doing at Lumon? Weird tests. But in answering those questions, now we have even more questions than before. Questions that are much more disturbing and profound. Why did they fake Gemma’s death? Why do they need to run these tests? How many other people have had to take these tests? What exactly do they accomplish? We could go on and on. Planting itself deep in your brain as Severance has is clearly the mark of a good show. But with this week’s admittedly beautiful episode, we’re starting to worry if it’s all a little too much.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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