Severance's Heartbreaking Gemma Episode Is Making Me Rethink Helena's True Intentions For Meeting Up With Mark's Outie

Spoilers below for Severance’s latest episode for anyone who hasn’t yet streamed it with an Apple TV+ subscription, so be warned!

Rarely has an episode of television stuck a harpoon through my heart and ripped it out quite as brutally as Severance did with its episode "Chikhai Bardo," and it’s technically not the first time it’s happened during the 2025 TV schedule thus far. (Losing Irv as an ORTBO consequence was also highly damaging to the soul.) We now know a lot of the dark and depressing things that Lumon has put Gemma Scout through, and with that information, new contextualizations emerged.

Lumon execs started watching Mark and Gemma when their relationship was founded, and seem to prioritize the couple more than any other employees, proving time and again it’ll go to any lengths to achieve its desired goals. So after witnessing Robbie Benson’s Dr. Mauer utilize myriad torture techniques with Gemma, all under the watchful eyes of one underling or another, I started rethinking the prior episode’s key exchange between Helena Eagan and Outie Mark (oMark for short).

I Originally Thought Helena Sought Mark Out Because He And Helly Shared Vessels

Britt Lower and Adam Scott's respective talents and mutual chemistry were on full display during the sixth episode's "chance" Chinese restaurant encounter. The scene jumped from innocently uncomfortable to friskily amorous to harshly toxic — enough to cause oMark to run away from the table — and the full extent of Helena's motivations remained mysterious throughout, even as she obviously grasped for info about his OTC experience.

And call me a basic-brained lump, but I believed that one of Helena's biggest reasons for having an in-person conversation with oMark stemmed from the fact that Helly and iMark had sex earlier in the day. Whether her intentions would have been psychosexual and malicious or sincerely intrigued by oMark's personality (or both, I guess), I'm not sure. But the fact that these characters' bodies are having sex even if their minds aren't, I think we can agree that's weird and is a reason to address someone in public.

I do still believe that Helena entered that restaurant fully aware of her innie's private meeting with iMark, with or without security footage, but I no longer think that fucking with oMark's head about it was her strongest impulse.

I Think Helena Wanted To Be Seen In Public With Mark

Viewers know that among the many devious things that Lumon pulls off, "surveilling employees" is old trick for old dogs like Drummond. We've already seen the bearded Lumon enforcer keeping his eyes on Mark during a public meal with Devon, and we've seen the deep-voiced goon sneakily entering Irving's house and looking through his Lumon-related paperwork.

Since Mr. Milchick has thus far always chosen to approach the company's employees at home rather than in the wild, Helena could have also gone that route, since she no doubt knows exactly when he's home and when he's not. So why did she choose to approach him out in the open?

So that someone else on Lumon's payroll could take pictures of them sitting at the same table and smiling together. At the time "Atilla" aired, this theory wouldn't have made much sense, but the context that Episode 207 provides makes it more palatable for the speculative mind.

Near the end of "Chikhai Bardo," Dr. Mauer's hyper-gross energy came out in full force as his evaluation turned into proddig Gemma about having emotional feelings for one of the many bizarro personas he took on in the Testing Floor's rooms. And when she didn't bite, he dropped another massive Lumon lie by saying Mark had moved on after her death, and that he was with another woman.

Gemma also didn't immediately buy into this declaration. However, Mauer was convincing enough to plant a seed of doubt in her mind large enough to spark an escape attempt. (Though seemingly not her first, given the comment about the doc's fingers being broken at one point.)

Obviously the company's seemingly vast array of artists who created the stop-motion Lumon Building's "Microdat Uprising" video could surely whip up an artificially generated image of oMark having a good time with another woman. And I have to think that some of them did. But the next best thing would be a real-life situation where oMark can appear smitted by another woman long enough for someone to take a few pictures, without anyone having to mention the moment where Helena intentionally got Gemma's name wrong just to get a rise out of the not-quite-a-widower.

Which is all to say, I fully expect a recovered Dr. Mauer to break Gemma's heart in the near future by showing her the images and playing up how happy oMark looks smiling and talking with Helena. I still don't think that'll be enough to fully break her spirit, but I'm already dreading the look on her face as she tries to sort out those emotions.

It's Hard To Be Optimistic About Mark And Gemma Reuniting

if Dr. Mauer is truly able to convince Gemma that Mark has moved on, then things may go fully south in the form of self-harm, or Gemma might feel so defeated that she just turns into a zombified husk as the trials continue. Those are arguably the two worst-case scenarios.

But any way one slices it, there are no versions of this story where oMark and Gemma are able to live together in the outside world without some form of additional trauma being thrown in, at least without every single chip-switch being disabled within the Lumon building. Barring such a power outage, Gemma leaving the building would likely require iMark giving Ms. Casey the full low-down on everything and then convincing her to effectively kill both herself and Mark's innie by joining him on the main Severed Floor elevator. Seems like the easiest option, but the weight of the sacrifice can't be ignored.

Hopefully Severance ends with talking goats reading storybooks about the MDR characters to their offspring. Well maybe not hopefully. In any case, only three new episodes remain in Season 2, and they will continue to stream Fridays on Apple TV+.