Warning! Spoilers for the first two episodes of Severance Season 2 are ahead! If you aren't caught up, catch this elevator to the severed floor once you are.
One of the best shows on Apple TV+ is finally back on the 2025 TV schedule, and there's no doubt we are in for a wild ride. Severance Season 2 premiered a little over a week ago, and already Ben Stiller and Dan Erickson's unorthodox workplace thriller has created more questions than answers. Only two episodes have dropped, so for the most part, fans are still in the dark about the mysteries at Lumon. However, armed with two new episodes, Severance theories have been circulating the internet, with a very popular one being about Helly R.
There’s a lot of evidence hinting at the idea that Helly R. might not be herself in this second season, because fans think she is actually Helena Eagan spying on her severed coworkers. Ever since the Season 2 premiere, this has been one of the primary fan theories on the internet, with content creators like @andrewsvisual on Tik Tok sharing some pretty convincing reasoning: her new awkwardness with Mark, the way she fumbles around for her computer switch, and the fact that she lied about her experience on the outside.
In a lot of these videos, this last reason is the main evidence supporting the fact that Britt Lower’s innie character is not who she says she is, but I think otherwise.
The Main Piece of Evidence Surrounding The Helena Spy Theory
In Season 2, Episode 1, when we finally get the four Macro Data Refiners alone, they waste no time asking each other about their moments awake on the outside. Upon Helly’s turn, she hesitates only a second before saying that she awoke in a nondescript apartment, watching the nature channel. She continues by saying she went outside to tell the first person she saw, a gardener, all about what was going on with Lumon’s severed workers.
The audience knows this is a lie. The truth is she’s an Eagan, one of the people running the show at Lumon. Helly lying is definitely suspicious, and there are also a couple of gaping holes in her story. Holes that are so obvious that Irving (John Turturro) even questions one of them, the fact that the person was gardening at night.
And I get where he's coming from, given that not only was it nighttime when they woke up, but it was also the middle of winter, and there was lots of snow on the ground. These are facts Helena would know, but not necessarily Helly, who has never seen anything outside the Lumon building.
This poor lie is exactly why I think it is really Helly on the severed floor, not Helena.
Why I Think It Is The Real Helly On The Severed Floor
In the second episode of Season 2, we find out more about Helena Eagan. Not only is she running the show on the severed floor, but as suspected from her refusal to let Helly resign in Season 1, she is very cold and calculated. Had she remained Helena upon entering the severed floor, she probably would have been prepared with a much better lie, one that doesn’t draw suspicion.
Yet Helly seemed very put on the spot in the break room. She was most likely still reeling from the fact that she is an Eagan and the spokesperson for severance, which technically happened less than an hour ago for her innie.
But why lie? @jbuckstudios hit the nail on the head in his TikTok video when he said that telling her fellow refiners her real identity on the outside would “scare them and all trust would be gone.” She probably is ashamed, and a bit guilty, of her outie’s actions too. Any awkwardness with the others, especially Mark, probably has to do with this new knowledge.
Like this piece of evidence, much of the other evidence of her being Helena can be explained away, but the opposite is true as well. The only way to find out for sure is to stream the new episodes of Severance every Friday with an Apple TV+ subscription. Be sure to catch up on Severance Season 2 if you haven’t already, and let us know where you stand on this theory!
