Grief was a pivotal theme in Season One of Severance, but it primarily existed within the outtie storyline. However, in Season Two, we’ve witnessed loss becoming a dominant force in both segments of the show. This phenomenon has prompted even the innies, who are not well-equipped to handle complex emotions, to contemplate the significance of death.

In the first season, we discovered that Mark Scout, the main character of Severance, opted to become a severed employee at Lumon Industries as a means to cope with the loss of his wife, Gemma, who died in a car accident a few years prior. As the story progressed, it became clear that Mark was still profoundly affected by her passing. He would often sob in his car before going to the office and appreciated the eight-hour reprieve from his sadness when his innie took control of his consciousness. Although Mark’s home, provided by Lumon, contained a few photos of Gemma, the basement remained filled with storage bins holding her knitting supplies, candles, and other tangible reminders of her existence.

The shocking twist, of course, was the revelation that Gemma was alive. This bombshell was dropped not only on the audience but also on innie Mark, who let out a scream of astonishment in the Season One finale. The truth that Gemma and Ms. Casey, the counselor in Lumon’s Wellness Center, were the same person, and that Gemma was indeed alive, opened up a plethora of mysteries for Season Two. This was especially intriguing when considering Ms. Casey’s past revelations about her existence. As a severed employee, she had only been awake for a handful of days and, from what we’ve seen, never transitions into an outtie; instead, she remains at Lumon full-time.

The question remains: why would Lumon facilitate such an elaborate and seemingly diabolical conspiracy? Although the answer is still unknown, in Severance Season Two, outtie Mark agrees to undergo a questionable re-integration procedure after realizing there’s a chance his wife might not have died in the car accident and could be hidden somewhere within Lumon. To Mark, the possibility of a second chance with Gemma is worth the risks associated with tinkering with his already fragile brain.

Simultaneously, innie Mark attempts to find Ms. Casey, unaware of the re-integration process his outtie is undergoing. Although innie Mark does not share his outtie’s grief, the peculiarity of the situation affects him deeply. We are aware that Ms. Casey has been relegated to the ominous-sounding “Testing Floor,” one of Ms. Cobel’s final acts as the boss of the severed floor. (Severance is currently five episodes into Season Two, and Ms. Casey has yet to make an appearance.)

It is worth noting that one reason outtie Mark initially hesitates to attempt re-integration is due to the outcome of Petey, his former Lumon co-worker and a previous test subject for the procedure. Severance Season One begins with innie Mark discovering that his work friend is no longer employed at Lumon. The innies are unaware of what happened to Petey, and speculation arises that something might have occurred to his outtie. Petey’s absence introduces the recurring concept in Severance that when a severed person leaves their job, it effectively means they have died. Their outtie might be perfectly fine, but the version of them that their Lumon friends know simply ceases to exist.

This is why innie Petey’s “death” is more challenging for innie Mark than Petey’s actual death is for outtie Mark. Nonetheless, outtie Mark feels duty-bound to attend the funeral of this man, a total stranger who appeared one day talking about being Mark’s best friend at Lumon and the evils that the company is secretly engaging in.

When Ms. Cobel, who poses as “Mrs. Selvig,” Mark’s eccentric next-door neighbor in Season One, attends Petey’s funeral, it is ostensibly as a gesture of moral support for Mark. However, her true intention is to remove the Lumon-implanted chip from Petey’s skull. While we still do not know much about Ms. Cobel’s background, it is clear that she is a devoted zealot when it comes to Kier Eagan, Lumon’s cult-like founder. Additionally, she seems to harbor great pain over a past event, likely involving her deceased mother, which is the root of her unusual behavior both in and out of the office.

As the enigmas surrounding Ms. Cobel await further exploration, Severance‘s most poignant example of grief not involving Mark stems from the relationship between innie Irving and innie Burt. Despite working in supposedly rival departments, the two men share an instant connection after meeting in the hallway. Their timid flirting is the closest thing to sweetness we’ve seen on Severance, and for Irv, a man haunted by waking dreams of being engulfed in terrifying black goo, his feelings for Burt are a startling revelation in a life previously devoted to numbers and adhering to the employee handbook. When Burt abruptly “retires” from Lumon, he receives a cheerful send-off party, but his departure is as shocking and final as Petey’s.

Irv struggles to cope, slipping into a depression that guides his actions during the “Overtime Contingency” stunt at the end of Season One. Upon awakening in the outside world, Irv tracks down Burt’s address and visits his house, wailing his name and pounding on the door, despite glimpsing Burt with a man who appears to be his husband and outtie Burt having no knowledge of who Irving is. Upon his return to Lumon in Season Two, Irv is a broken man, with Burt on the outside being inaccessible and Burt on the inside having vanished into memory.

Shortly after, Irv makes his own sudden exit, being fired at the end of episode four, which means the Lumon version of Irv is gone forever. For his MDR co-worker Dylan, this is tantamount to murder, despite assurances that Irv’s outtie is alive and well. Due to Dylan’s protests, Mr. Milchick, the non-severed manager of the severed floor, agrees that MDR can hold a funeral to remember Irv.

The ceremony, like all Lumon events, is filled with awkward touches, including a “bereavement kit” and an edible centerpiece in the form of Irving’s head carved out of a watermelon. Dylan delivers a heartfelt yet crass speech, finding some closure in the process, but Mr. Milchick’s underage assistant disapproves, fearing the ritual will confuse the innies into believing they are on the same level as human beings.

With Irv now permanently in his outtie form—and outtie Burt and outtie Irv meeting for the first time in the most recent episode, an intriguing development—the mystery of Gemma/Ms. Casey remains to propel the back half of Severance Season Two, at least as far as outtie Mark is concerned. There’s a wall of hurt he needs to confront, and he’s ready to risk his life to uncover why Lumon has been putting him through hell and exploiting his deepest despair.

New episodes of Severance are available Fridays on Apple TV+.

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