[Trending News] ‘Severance’ Season 2, Episode 4 Recap And Review: Woe’s Hollow

Severance’s fourth episode, “Woe’s Hollow”, begins and ends with Irving B. being drawn into this strange winter landscape and being drawn back out again. A birth and a death. Spoilers ahead.

We open, without credits, to John Turturro’s face, and we end on it. But instead of a look of confusion and fear, the parting shot is one of acceptance and even contentment. He’s about to die; not physically, of course, but in every other sense of the word. And yet he’s at peace, having unveiled Lumon’s deception with Helly R. His quest to reunite with Burt was a hopeless one, but he found purpose and meaning in helping his friends. He didn’t really want to be here anymore, but he used his final days to do good.

This was, in many ways, the Irving B. episode. Every other character in MDR gets their share of screen time, of course, but it’s Irving’s journey we follow. As he stares into Milchick’s face in the end, you can see both his loathing and a newfound confidence. It is now Irving B wearing a look of smug satisfaction, having foiled their little plot, while Milchick (Tramell Tillman) stares back seething in rage. Gone is the timid, rule-abiding, stuffy Irving B. of Season 1. In his place, if only for a few moments longer, stands a hero. Exactly the kind of severed employee Lumon fears.

I love how this show is unafraid to pull back the curtains on many of its mysteries and doesn’t leave us hanging until the end of the season to drop its big reveals. It only takes until Episode 3 for Mark (Adam Scott) to learn that his wife is alive. And the question of whether Helly R (Britt Lower) was in fact Helena Egan is answered in Episode 4. Many other shows would have dragged either or both of these mysteries out until the last possible moment.

Of course, neither was entirely a mystery to us, the viewers. We were 99% sure that Helly R was a mole. And we of course knew who Mark S. was talking about when he shouted “She’s alive!” But to the characters in the show itself these were mysteries. Mark didn’t know that Gemma (Dichen Lachman) was alive until Reghabi (Karen Aldridge) told him. And nobody other than Irving B. suspected that Helly R wasn’t who she claimed to be. He suspected that she was a mole when her story of a night gardener struck him as so utterly implausible, but he only knew for sure after the fire. First, in her tent when he presses her on the night gardener and her eyes give her away; then by the fire, when she says that he’s just acting out because he’s lonely and misses Burt G. “Helly R was never cruel,” he tells Helena by the waterfall, before dragging her to the icy pool to drown.

It’s unfortunate for Mark S, of course, or at least the timing is awkward. After that same moment by the fire, the two head into one of the blue, oh so very blue, tents and make love. It’s testament to Helena’s commitment to the cause that she’d sleep with a severed employee just to get closer. Either that, or there is a part of Helena that craves that kind of connection. Perhaps both.

This was one of my favorite episodes of Severance. Not just Season 2, but the entire show. “Woe’s Hollow” brings us, and the MDR crew, to a wintry wilderness that we learn is part of the Kier National Forest. Milchick lies and tells them that the waterfall they come to is the tallest in the world. It’s one of those small, casual lies that Lumon tells its severed employees that feels all the more sinister because of how absurd it is.

The MDR team is here for an ORTBO, or Outdoor Retreat and Team Building Occurrence. Not experience, mind you, but occurrence. It isn’t something they chose but something that happens to them. They awake scattered, Irving B. on an ice lake; Mark S up on a cliff ledge. Dylan G. (Zach Cherry) somewhere in the woods. Here, they spot strange doubles of each of them, each dressed in the same black winter garb.

The sky is very, very blue. Even when night falls, the night is blue.

They are sent on something of a quest. We learn that Kier Egan had a twin named Dieter. The team travels from the bizarre orientation television to a cave where they find a Lumon tome with the numeral IV on its cover. This is one of the works of Kier and they begin to read from it. They are to walk in the footsteps of Kier and Dieter, who went out into the wilderness on some kind of twisted pilgrimage.

There’s a map to Woe’s Hollow as well, and they do their best to follow it, all the while learning more about Kier and Dieter, including some hilariously written descriptions of the latter masturbating in the woods while his brother listened on. Helly R. later makes a joke about this that upsets Milchick enough that he instructs Miss Huang (Sarah Bock) to throw the marshmallows into the fire. Of course, given that this is actually Helena, we can assume it’s all part of the deception.

At last, after one encounter with what appears to be a dead seal that Irving B. suggests might make good desperation sustenance, they come to Woe’s Hollow where Mr. Milchick, bedecked all in white, awaits them. He takes them to the encampment and reads to them from Kier’s book while Ms. Huang plays the theremin. It’s a haunting and surreal camp.

All of this, by the way, is the first time any of the severed employees have seen the sky. The first time they’ve seen trees or snow. And the first time that any of them has ever fallen asleep.

That had to sink in for me, that last bit. Mark S and Irving B and Dylan G (and Helly R if she’d actually been here) have only ever walked into an elevator and then walked back out. Irving B has drifted off on the job, accidentally slipping into slumber for a brief moment, but none of them have gone to bed, closed their eyes and fallen asleep. They get one night to do this and one night only. One night to sleep, perchance to dream, and then it’s back to the Severed Floor. Not for Irving B, of course.

To me, this is a bigger deal than Mark S losing his virginity. There’s something so profoundly troubling about the fact that Innies never sleep. So diabolical about Lumon forbidding and punishing accidental catnaps.

For his part, rather than cosy in a warm, blue tent, Irving B wanders off into the forest after his confrontation with Helena. He loses his torch and loses his way and ends up sleeping outside in the elements. When he sleeps, he dreams of the only place he knows, but MDR is now surrounded by a terrifying forest. Not the welcoming green of pine, but the wintry branches of a barren forest. There is typing on the keys in the next cubicle. And there she is, the tiny bride, Woe, clicking away. She turns her pale eyes to Irving.

Then there is the monitor. The numbers are scary.

When he wakes, it is as though he has found his resolve out there in the night, in the trees, in the nightmare, or perhaps just in his survival of the elements. “I spent the night outside,” he tells Helena. “I could have died.” Of course, he does in the end. But he goes out like a boss.

Helena almost fooled me this episode, just before Irving cast off her mask. She lays with Mark S after they make love and tells him, “I didn’t like who I was out there.” He tells her that it doesn’t matter who she is out there, only who she is now. For a moment, I thought maybe that’s all it is. Maybe this isn’t a scheme. Maybe Helly R really is just too ashamed of her Outie’s identity to tell the truth. Perhaps that’s why her lie was so clumsy. But there is so much evidence beyond the night gardener. There are so many clues that she is not, in fact, Helly R, that even in my moment of doubt, other contradictory doubts went to war with one another. Of course, I wouldn’t have to wait long to find out the truth.

The final scene is shocking and breathtaking and intense. Irving B. confronts Helly at the waterfall, then drags her to the water shouting all the while for Milchick. Mark S, Dylan G and Milchick race over when they hear the commotion. “She’s been an Outie the whole time!” Irving shouts as the others reach the top of the waterfall. “She’s a *$ing mole!” Irving says. “I’m gonna kill her Mr. Milchick!” He holds her head underwater as Mark S panics above, he and Dylan begging their friend to stop. “She’s not Helly,” Irving says as he drags her back out of the water, “she’s an Egan. Turn her back, Mr. Milchick! Turn her back!”

It doesn’t take much time dunked under ice-cold water by a murderous Innie for Helena to shout at Milchick “Seth, do it!” much to the confusion of Mark S and Dylan G, who have no idea what’s going on or who Seth is. Milchick gets on his radio and says, “It’s Milchick. Remove the Glasgow block now.”

When he does, we see Helena disappear and Helly R return, still underwater, but when Irving pulls her from the pool he can tell already. He pulls her to him, shivering and soaking wet and confused and frightened, and embraces her. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry Helly.” Mark S and Milchick run to them. Dylan G is too much in a state of shock to follow. Milchick tells Irving to stand up. He’s more furious than he’s ever been.

“You have threatened collegial murder in the pond of Woe’s Hollow,” he says, his voice steel. “For this, there can be no penalty but immediate and permanent dismissal. There shall be no formal valediction, catered or otherwise. Your outie will be notified forthwith.”

Dylan G. shouts from the top of the waterfall, “Irv, I’m sorry, I should have listened.”

“It’s okay, it’s all okay,” Irving calls back. “Just remember: Hang in there.”

Milchick tells them to stop fraternizing. “Turn around!” he commands, as Dylan shouts from above, “Leave him alone!”

Irving walks to Milchick and the two glare daggers at one another, though Irving’s expression changes from anger to almost something like amusement. “Walk into the forest,” Milchick orders. Irving smiles. There is no fear in his eyes, only the knowledge that he’s won. He walks into the forest as Milchick condemns him to death and erasure:

“Your workspace will be cleared,” he says coldly, “and any personal items discarded. Your file, including any and all professional interactions and personal relations, will be purged and destroyed. It will be as if you, Irving B, never even existed nor drew a single breath upon this earth. May Kier’s mercy follow you into the eternal dark.”

That jittery severed-elevator music plays as Irving shuts his eyes for the last time, and the screen goes to black.

I cannot really put into words how momentous all of this was, or how affecting. Ben Stiller once again directed this episode, and it’s one of the finest he’s done so far. I’ve already watched it three times, and each time I notice some small detail I missed before. But mostly, I just want to take a moment to gush about John Turturro’s performance. Everyone was good here. Tillman, in particular, was such a perfect antagonist and the two standing off there at the end has to be one of the best moments in the series so far. But Turturro, an actor with many brilliant performances across many roles in TV and film, puts in a career best this episode. He’s able to do so much with his eyes. In that last scene alone, the range of emotion and expression is so astonishing that I genuinely hope he wins a Best Supporting Actor for this role come awards season.

The episode itself answers some questions but raises new ones. That Lumon is able to use a “Glasgow block” to prevent severance from occurring is fascinating and, I suspect, important even beyond Helena’s duplicitous infiltration. What happens now? Irving B is dead. What about Helly R? Will she return, and if so how will the others receive her? Or will Lumon try to trick them again? The ORTBO was an unmitigated disaster. Will there be consequences? So much to ponder, and six episodes left in Season 2.

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