Severance season 2 episode 3 recap: reintegration begins

In Severance season 2 episode 3, the MDR team, under the belief that it’s been five months, is back to work, continuing their quest to take their evil employers down. They discover new, strange departments, encounter some really strange new faces, and meet up with some old friends as well in the latest episode of Apple TV Plus’ acclaimed series.

An aggressive U-turn

Cobel (Patricia Arquette) is on the road. She gets to a place called Salt’s Neck before abruptly turning around and heading back. Because who really wants to visit a place called Salt’s Neck?

She heads straight to Lumon waiting for Helly (Britt Lower) in the parking lot. After considering Helly’s offer from the last episode, Cobel says if she returns, she wants to monitor MDR, citing Mark is so close to completing “Cold Harbor” and wants the credit. She also wants Milcheck out. Helly believes she’s overestimated her contributions. But Cobel tells her Lumon doesn’t have a choice.

They talk to the board, but something really doesn’t feel right. Nothing ever does at Lumon. So Cobel, in a panic, turns the other way and runs to her car and drives off, to Helly’s disappointment.

The strange Department of Mamalians Nurtuable

Meanwhile, Mark (Adam Scott) is fully back to work at Lumon. He’s timing his entry into the building from the parking lot to when he’s severed. But once he gets severed down the elevators, he prints out flyers of a (really) crude drawing of Gemma/Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman), and asking Helly and Irv (John Turturro) to pass them out.

As they set out to see if anyone has seen Gemma, they come across a hallway that’s only about 3-feet high. They crawl through it and find it leads to a strange, large room full of goats on an artificial farm. There’s a lot of creepy guys in goat costumes watching them, when a woman (Gwendoline Christie), presumably the lead of the weird goat people, approaches them and asks if they’re there to kill her. They naturally say no, and ask what the place is. She replies that it’s “Mamalians Nurtuable.” Okay…

Mark and Helly talk to the woman, asking her if she knows anything about the Wellness department or Ms. Casey. She warns them they should leave, but when Mark refuses, she rings a bell and the creepy goat people appear out of nowhere and surround Mark and Helly. Regardless, Helly continues her inquiries to the annoyance of the woman. However, as she begins to get upset, Mark reminds her that if they can make Ms. Casey disappear, any one of them could be next, including their goats.

The woman cooperates (I guess they love the goats) and says she used to visit Ms. Casey for sessions in their “husbandry tanks.” She and her staff all seem to have liked her, but they believe she was retired. If Mark believes otherwise, they will not to hinder his search.

Strange art

Milchick (Tramell Tillman) arrives at Lumon and, for his work, is given a series of paintings recontextualizing Lumon’s history with Black versions of Kier and his subjects as a gift. Likely a ploy to seem diverse, but really offensive in all honesty. As he finishes up work for the day, he looks at the insulting paintings, boxes them up and sticks them in a filing cabinet.

Irv goes on his own to search for the black hallway from his paintings. On the way he stumbles upon Burt’s (Christopher Walken) old department, Optics and Design (O&D). Felicia (Claudia Robinson) comes by and welcomes him, and they hug. It’s good to see someone not insane at Lumon. They talk and reminisce about Burt. Irv shares some really sweet sketches he made of Burt for every day he didn’t see him. However among his drawings is one of the hall from his paintings. Felicia asks him how he knows about “The Exports Hall,” where they send a lot of shipments. He asks her where it is? The plot thickens.

Dylan’s innie and Gretchen

Dylan (Zach Cherry) decides to sit out on Mark’s search for Gemma and Irv’s search for the “black hallway,” since he’s "in a groove” with work. Immediately out of nowhere, Ms. Huang (Sarah Bock) appears and asks Dylan to follow her. She leads Dylan to the security room: now the Outie Visitation Room for Lumon innies with families on the outside.

He sees pictures of his wife on the monitors surrounding him (which again is creepy). However, to his surprise, his wife Gretchen (Merritt Weaver) appears behind him. Ms. Huang informs Dylan he’s earned an 18 minute visit with his outie’s wife, in which they discuss their three kids and get a bit closer, despite the strangeness of the situation.

As Dylan’s session with his wife ends, she tells him she’s proud of him and loves him. He doesn’t know how to respond, but feels great. However, that evening in their home life, Gretchen leaves for work, while Dylan's outie watches the kids. He asks her how meeting his innie was. She says it was weird but good.

Reghabi and reintegration

Meanwhile, Natalie (Sydney Cole Alexander) from the Lumon board visits Devon’s (Jen Tullock ) home to discuss Ricken's (Michael Chernus) book, because Lumon wants an “innie” version. Suspicious, Devon leaves to visit Mark. They make a sign that says “Who is Alive” for Mark’s innie, and tell him he has from the time it takes from the parking lot to the elevators to burn the image into his retinas, which is a bad idea.

As Mark tests this out, Asai Reghabi (Karen Aldridge) shows up and stops him. She tells him that Gemma is alive and there’s only one way to get information in and out of Lumon, which is reintegration (also a bad idea, remember what happened to Petey in season 1). So, Reghabi and Mark begin the reintegration process. As they commence, the episode ends with the two sides of Mark's persona blending, insinuating that the reintegration process may actually work. We’ll see.

New episodes of Severance air every Friday on Apple TV Plus.