Severance Season 2 Episode 4 recap: Helly reveal changes the show forever

Get ready for the MDR team’s first ORTBO in Severance Season 2 Episode 4, an out-of-office adventure with a huge reveal that will leave your jaw on the floor.

Episode 3 left us on a cliffhanger on par with Mark screaming, “She’s alive” at the end of the first season: after reuniting with Asal Reghabi, he appeared to reintegrate, with his Innie and Outie’s realities colliding in the final scene.

Here’s the thing: in several interviews with the cast and early reviews, people have hailed Episode 4 as a highlight of the new season. According to them, it’s unlike anything the series has done before.

They were right. Severance Season 2 Episode 4 upends the show’s natural order, catapulting the Innies into the outside world for an excursion – excuse me, occurrence – that changes everything.

The Innies wake up for their first ORTBO

Severance Season 2 Episode 4 opens with the sound of the elevator’s ding – but they’re not in the office. Irving’s Innie wakes up outside, surrounded by snow and dressed like a Russian hitman. He’s completely alone… until he spots Mark on a cliff. “Where are we?” he asks, and Mark shouts, “I have no f**king idea.”

Irving makes his way up to Mark, finding Helly (or is it Helena?) along the way. When they get to the top, Dylan emerges screaming from a nearby bush. “Holy sh*t, out-f**king-side. I knew there was no actual ceiling, but this is f**king insane,” he says.

Their attention is drawn to a TV set (much like what you’d see getting rolled into your classroom) on the edge of the cliff. They huddle around, and suddenly, Milchick appears on the screen.

“Good morning, refiners. This is Mr Milchick from work, and I’m thrilled to welcome you to your first-ever outdoor retreat and team-building occurrence,” he explains.

“This ORTBO is in response to your desire to see the outside world. With your Outies’ blessings, you will spend the next two calendar days walking the meadows, thickets, brambles, and brooks that make up the Dieter Eagan National Forest.”

As Dylan asks, who the f**k is Dieter Eagan? “Some of you may be quietly yearning to learn more. The truth you seek lies within the fourth appendix. Kier dictated a fourth appendix in his final hours of life; a text of such sanctity that it is forbidden upon the severed floor. It’s waiting for you in Scissor Cave – the very same grotto where Kier Eagan tamed the Four Tempers for the first time,” Milchick says.

He also gives them a warning: “Stray not from Kier’s path, lest you roil nature’s wrath.”

The team finds Scissor Cave and the fourth appendix

Apple TV+

In the distance, they spot someone – or something – that looks like Mark; it’s more like an animatronic than a person. It points them toward Scissor Cave, so they reluctantly set off to find it.

Curiously, there’s no opening credits this time. We get a title card and then we return to the team’s adventure, traversing across unfamiliar and treacherous terrain. They catch sight of Helly’s Innie replicant (it’s unclear if they’re human or objects, so this is what I’ll call them), pointing them directly to the cave.

Inside, they find a book with the letters “IV” on it: it’s the fabled fourth appendix. “I was not born into this world alone. The lodgings of my mother’s womb I shared with another: a twin brother who was called Dieter,” Helly reads. Dylan suspects the replicants are their twins.

“In infancy, he was my bosom friend. But as we blossomed into boyhood, he beseeched me to take to the wood with him and live as paupers. My love for my twin unbalancing my judgment, I acceded, and we ventured into the wood towards Woe’s Hollow.

Irving believes the point of the ORTBO is to walk in Dieter’s footsteps and find the waterfall.

The journey to Woe’s Hollow brews suspicion

They head off to find Woe’s Hollow. “He always crept like this at this hour, Once concealed by flora, my brother unfastened himself. The din of his fervor fell strangely into concern with the music of the wood… his every thrust found rhythm with the trill of the crickets, and the moaning of the wind, and the snowfall’s yearly thaw,” Irving reads from the appendix.

“Deieter became an instrument of nature, and nature played Dieter with elegance. I had no choice but to listen as he spilt his lineage upon the soil.”

Dylan’s replicant appears in front of them and points them in another direction. As they walk through the woods, Irving admits to Mark that he’s suspicious of Helly. He thinks she’s lying about what she saw on the outside, specifically citing her claim of seeing a night gardener. “It’s clear you do not have an objective perspective due to your feelings for her,” he says.

Before they can talk any further, they stumble on a dead creature washed up on the side of a creek. “Maybe this is what dead things look like,” Mark says, but nobody knows what it is (nor do I, although it does look a bit like a seal).

Irving says they should eat it. “We don’t know if there’s food waiting at the Hollow. We don’t even know where we are,” he argues, but they think he’s being irrational.

Milchick arrives

They make it to Woe’s Hollow, where their replicants stand at the top of the waterfall. “Kier’s twin was always with him,” Milchick says, appearing out of nowhere in his snowsuit. “That’s why we provided the very same for each of you.”

He then claims Woe’s Hollow is the tallest waterfall on the planet. After some teasing, he takes them to their camp for the night, where Miss Huang is readying the grill with “copious luxury meats.” They all have their own tents, and he provides them with fire torches.

Helly makes a “snow seal” for Irving after his freakout by the creek. It’s a playful joke, and Irving says he feels silly… and then he asks her what she actually saw during the OTC. “It won’t change anything,” he pledges, but she doesn’t say anything. She just walks out, leaving Irving even more suspicious than before.

The story of the Four Tempers

Apple TV+

As Miss Huang plays the theremin, Milchick reads another chapter from the fourth appendix. “Dieter lay unwashed in his bedroll, thought the hollow’s pool was primed for bathing,” he says.

“We ate of the hare we’d caught and told each other rhyming jokes till our gullets ached. But at last, the thought tickling my mouth emerged. ‘We must return to Father,’ I said. ‘But I promise to look after you in the ether mill.’

“When at last a sound came from him, it was a bewailing whimper. He believed, I suppose, that we’d be woodland paupers forever. I was looking at him when his eye came out. It popped from the socket, driven by a sudden torrent of pus from his skull. He reached up to grasp at his hair, which was suddenly moss that tore easily from his bleeding scalp.

“And as the pus from his thickened into sap, I turned from my gargling brother and walked to the pool of the Hollow, where I knew the waterfall would drown out my brother’s cries.”

The relevancy of the story becomes clear: this is the origin story of the Four Tempers. “And it was here that I first encountered the temper Woe, a gaunt bride, half the height of a natural woman. She spoke to me directly from her eyes and said, ‘This is your doing. You suffered his wantonness. Now he’s no one’s brother, only chaos’ whore,” he reads.

Irving asks if that’s how Dieter really died. “The handbook enriches out work with tales of the founder’s life. Every word is truth,” he says, and Helena bursts out laughing.

She has a different reading of the story: “He turned into the forest because he masturbated… he jerked off in front of his brother and he got punished for it.”

Milchick can’t tolerate the disrespect. He gets Miss Huang to throw all of their marshmallows on the fire. “They’re for team players, Dylan, they don’t just hand them out.”

Mark and Helly… do it

Milchick and Miss Huang leave as Mark, Helly, and Dylan giggle around the fire. Irving doesn’t find it funny – in fact, he wants Mark to stop making “goo-goo eyes” at her.

Irving asks Helly to tell everyone about the night gardener in more detail. When Mark asks him to stop, he says something horrible: “Using your pupils to make love to her, while your Outie’s wife rots away somewhere.”

Helly keeps calm, telling everyone that Irving is just lashing out because he’s lonely. He storms off, and Helly goes into her tent.

Soon after, Mark pops his head into Helly’s tent to check she’s okay. She admits she was too mean to Irving, but Mark says he deserved it. “And I can make goo-goo eyes at anyone I want,” he adds. Helly apologizes for distracting him from looking for Ms Casey. “I know we’ll find her, and you’ve already helped so much,” he says.

They stare at each other, and then we get the scene fans have been waiting for since that kiss at the end of Season 1: they have sex! Afterwards, she admits she didn’t like who she was on the outside. “I was ashamed,” she says.

Mark asks who she was, but she doesn’t say anything. “I don’t care who you are out there, I care who you are with me. That’s all,” he tells her. As they kiss, Mark sees a flicker of Gemma lying down in front of him.

Irving’s vision reveals the truth about Helly

Meanwhile, Irving stumbles out into the woods looking for Mr Milchick. He trips, dropping his torch into the snow, so he finds a boulder to sit on. He falls asleep, but when he wakes up, something isn’t right. It becomes clear that he’s dreaming.

He finds an MDR desk in a small clearing. He sits down, and he sees two people: Burt, who peeks over te desk at him, and the gaunt bride from the fourth appendix. Numbers and letters fly across his screen, often forming the word “Eagan.” The bride gives him a fright, and he wakes up (for real this time).

When Mark wakes up, Helly isn’t next to him, and nobody knows where she is – apart from Irving. He finds her at Woe’s Hollow. He explains that he slept outside and almost froze to death.

“What you said to me last night, it was cruel. Helly was never cruel… so if you’re not her, then who are you? Who would have the power to send their Outie to the severed floor?” he asks.

He knows she’s an Eagan. He grabs her and drags her to the creek, shouting Milchick’s name as she screams for help. “Turn her back, Mr Milchick… she’s an Outie,” he demands as he shoves her head into the water. “She’s been an Outie the whole time… she’s a f**king mole. I’m gonna kill her, Mr Milchick. She’s not Helly, she’s an Eagan.”

Helly can’t take it anymore. “Goddammit, Seth, do it!” she begs, and Milchick orders his team to remove the “Glasgow block.” In an instant, Helly returns; who knows how long Helena was pretending to be her Innie.

Goodbye, Irving

This has grave consequences for Irving. “You have threatened collegial murder in the pond of Woe’s Hollow. For this, there can be no penalty but immediate and permanent dismissal,” he declares.

“There shall be no formal valediction, catered or otherwise. Your Outie will be notified forthwith.”

Dylan apologizes to Irving from the cliff, and he tells him: “It’s all okay. Just remember, hang in there.”

Milchick continues his speech. “Please refrain from any further speech, as you are no longer authorized to consort with any severed employee, nor they with you. Turn around. Walk into the forest,” he orders.

Irving does as he’s told, looking at his team one last time. “Your work space will be cleared and any personal items discarded,” Milchick says.

“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.”

The screen cuts to black. Irving has just been fired – in the world of Severance, that’s tantamount to death for an Innie.

Until the next episode, make sure you keep our Severance Season 2 release schedule bookmarked. You can also check out our recaps of Episode 1 and Episode 2, what you should know about Cold Harbor, and a chilling Easter egg you may have missed.