Another breathtakingly complex, actually beautiful episode -- 2.6 -- of Severance. Tables sum it all up for me. Let me explain.
I thought all the key moments happen at tables. Here are some examples:
[Yes, there will be spoilers ahead ... ]
1. The empty, now three-person table of our innies on the severance floor. Empty because innie Dylan was with his outie wife, and they were kissing. (Apparently, as we learn later, this led to Dylan's innie privileges with his outie wife being suspended, maybe terminated.) Also not at that table were Mark's innie and Hellie, in a great series of scenes that end with them making love. As I've said, I'm always rooting for them as a couple. (Unfortunately, as we see a little later, Mark has a bloody nose. We might well think at the time that the nose was the result of the lovemaking. But we learn later that it almost definitely was the result of the more intense treatment he's being given to unite his innie and outie.)
2. There's a very different kind of table, in a Chinese restaurant, where Helena just happens to be seated as Mark (outie) is gobbling down a ton of food. She comes over to talk to him. I can't quite figure out what's going on with her -- is she really attracted to Mark (I guess she should be, if her innie is), or is she doing this for Lumon, or maybe both? I'm pretty sure -- at least at this point -- that Mark the outie has no knowledge of his innie making love with Helena or Helly. Do I have that right?
3. And third table features Irving, Burt, and Cecil (played by Fringe's John Noble -- great to see him again!) at the dinner table with the ham. Like everything else in Severance, this dinner is no pleasure -- or maybe there's a bit of pleasure, mixed in with lots of angst, born of Cecil's jealousy over Irving and Burt. Unless I'm wrong, this is the first dinner we've seen with two outies and someone (Cecil) who's not really an outie, since he (presumably) doesn't have an innie. That's an obvious but I think important point: one might think everyone in the world -- our world, and in Severance, most people in the world -- are outies. But I think that's not quite correct. Because I think that in order to be an outie, you have to have an innie.
So I learned lots of things from those tables in Severance 2.6, and I'll see you back here next week with my review of Severance 2.7.
See also Severance 2.1: Ultimate Fake News? ... Severance 2.2: Multiple Dylans ... Severance 2.3: Innies<->Outies ... Severance 1.4: Innies Out in the Snow ... 2.6: Watermelon Man
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