Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for the Severance Season 2 premiere.
It’s nice to see the Macrodata Refinement gang back together inSeverance, but someone is not being truthful. During the MDR team’s huddle in the new Break Room inthe Season 2 premiere, the refiners share what they saw on their whistleblowing mission atthe end of Season 1, butHelly R. (Britt Lower) lies to her peers, hiding the fact that her outie is Lumon heir Helena Eagan. Instead, she tells them that she woke up in a boring apartment and spilled everything that Lumon does to the innies to a “night gardener,” whose brother is a cop. The story doesn’t hold, and even Irving B. (John Turturro) notices, but why would Helly lie?
Is Helly R. Ashamed of Her Outie’s Eagan Background?
Before she blows the whistle on Lumon’s treatment of innies in the Season 1 finale, Helly is in the bathroom trying to come to terms with the fact that her outie is actually Helena Eagan.She looks in the mirror and repeats theBreak Roomapology speech, saying to herself: “Forgive me for the harm I have caused this world.” It’s a tough moment, and it becomes clear that she isn’t comfortable with who she is outside work. Helena Eagan’s existence isn’t just harmful to Helly, but to every severed Lumon employee, people who suffer the same kind of torture Helly has.
When the refiners are in the new Break Room in the Season 2 premiere, they are still trying to make sense of everything going on. It’s a lot to process and, for them, it has just happened. Knowing that the Eagans are largely responsible for the inhuman treatment towards innies,it’s fair that Helly would feel reluctant to share that her outie is theEagan heir, and this may be why she lied, either being afraid of being shunned by her colleagues, or trying to bury that knowledge from her own self. The thought that Helly lied because she’s ashamed of being an Eagan may beeveryone’s first instinctupon watching the Season 2 premiere, and it makes sense. Her being an Eagan could perhaps be used as leverage by MDR to get whatever they want from the Board; it wouldn’t last long, but it could be an early attempt to gain the upper hand.
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Could Helly R. Have Been Replaced by Her Outie, Helena Eagan?
Lying to her coworkers isn’t the only thing about Helly’s behavior that seems strange. She and Mark S. (Adam Scott) are definitely weird around each other, given their kiss in the Season 1 finale, but, after he mentions that Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman) is his outie’s wife, things get even weirder.She constantly reminds Mark S. that he and his outie are not the same, and, while that may be a sign of jealousy or even Helly speaking from the heart as she tries to distance herself from Helena, it’s definitely something that confuses Mark S.
This may actually be a hint that it wasn’t Helly who came back to the severed floor, but Helena, and there are many reasons for such an exchange. Helly and Helena have never had a good relationship, despite sharing a body, and that’s even before Helly found out about her outie’s background. Helena believes that the innie persona that is created by theseverance procedureisn’t a person, and said so to Helly in a video, and, in return, Helly has threatened to harm herself and even attempted suicide. Helena simply can’t risk losing her life because of a fight with her innie.
Helena has already proven that she has no problem with being despicable towards Helly, and we wouldn’t put it past her to have studied Helly’s behavior to try and emulate it so as not to raise any suspicion at MDR. It may sound like a stretch, butHelena simply has too much at stake to risk Helly destroying her family’s companywith the help of her colleagues. Secretly taking Helly’s place would allow her to keep an eye not only on MDR, but also onthe newly-promoted Mr. Milchick(Tramell Tillman), who has also made too many mistakes in Season 1. Helena has a golden opportunity to prove herself to her father, current Lumon CEO Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry), as well as the Board, by taking a hands-on approach in pacifying the company’s most rebellious severed floor.
SeveranceSeason 2 is available to stream on Apple TV+ in the U.S. New episodes air on Fridays.
Mark leads a team of office workers whose memories have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives. When a mysterious colleague appears outside of work, it begins a journey to discover the truth about their jobs.
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