Issue #367: Severance, The Trojan Horse, and Three Children in a Trench Coat
This is the fifth consecutive week of me writing about Severance (2022). You can find my writing about the previous episodes here:
“Hello, Ms. Cobel”: “Will Writing About Severance Spike My Newsletter Views This Week?”
“Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig”: “‘A Cure for Mankind’ in Severance’s ‘Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig’”
“Who Is Alive?”: “W. E. B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon Take On ‘Inclusively Re-Canonized Paintings’”
Starting this week, on Friday at 9pm Eastern time, I’ll host a group viewing of the weekly episode of Severance in the newsletter Discord. I did this with some friends for watching “Woe’s Hollow” and it was a lot of fun, so I’ll widen the attendance. We had some pretty robust post-show discussion. To join the Discord and the group watch, become a paid subscriber and follow the link you’ll receive via email.
Other headlines for the week: I worked on some non-newsletter writing, details TBA. I finished Suits (2011), finally. The show was pretty rough in its late seasons, but some of the season nine episodes were great. Episode seven, “Scenic Route,” stands out as a particularly fun one.
I also drank deep from the trough of big budget filmmaking, seeing both The Monkey (2025) and Captain America: Brave New World (2025). I found them both to be good, The Monkey a rich text, and Captain America a Marvel movie for people who like Marvel and Bourne movies. Fans of Marvel who have enjoyed pre-2019 films but not more recent ones will like, but maybe not love, Brave New World. The movie restored my confidence in Anthony Mackie as a leading man in a big way.
Who Owns The Trojan’s Horse?
“Trojan’s Horse,” the title of this week’s Severance episode, is a thought-provoking malaprop. It communicates that the episode is about deception, drawing its name from the mythical undertaking of the Greeks to enter the city of Troy through the supposed gift of a wooden horse. But the actual episode title, said by Ricken (Michael Chernus), introduces the possessive in a way that confuses the story. The horse was given by the Greeks to the Trojans, but the gift was in fact a means of treacherous attack. Does the Trojan horse belong to the Greeks or the Trojans? Certainly, the addition of a possessive “s” evokes the ambiguity of the ownership of the body in Severance. To whom, the “innie” or the “outie,” does the body belong?
But this is an episode of questions rather than resolution. The re-introduction of Helly R (Britt Lower), the ongoing re-integration of Mark S (Adam Scott), the funeral for Irving B (John Turturro), and the performance review of Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman) all serve to emphasize various themes the show has been dealing with all season.
“Trojan’s Horse” highlights contradiction, a word that itself is significant to the episode. Dylan G (Zach Cherry) says Irving “put the ‘dick’ in contradiction” during Irving’s funeral. Obviously this only makes phonetic sense, not orthographic sense — there’s no ‘k’ in contradiction.
This is the announcement of the theme, contradiction, that organizes the differing views about the innie identities. Repeatedly, their status as subjects deserving of moral status is called into question by Lumon leadership. Miss Huang (Sarah Bock) says to Milchick, “You shouldn’t let them have a funeral. It makes them feel like people.”
Helena Eagan (Britt Lower) renews her disgust regarding the work persona she takes on, calling the innies “fucking animals.” And Mr. Drummond (Darri Ólafsson) advises Milchick during his performance review, “To remember these severed workers’ greater purpose and to treat them as what they really are.” The implication in Drummond’s words is to treat them as something less than human.
At the same time, the severed workers are equally convinced of their personhood. Helly R’s confrontation with Milchick has her lay claim to the body she inhabits, saying that Helena was stealing Helly’s body.
All of this serves to reinforce the question posed in the third episode’s title, “Who Is Alive?” What exactly is happening in the confines of the severed floor is full of unknowns. This is true at the level of plot, as each employee continues their “mysterious and important” work, “putting the numbers in the thing.” But it is also true when evaluating the ontological substance of the severed consciousness. Is it a life? Aside from the sci-fi contrivance, is wage-labor diametrically opposed to what constitutes living?
The barrier between Mark S and Mark Scout, and Helly R and Helena Eagan, has collapsed, bringing the uncertainty to the fore about how the parts of the innie and the outie intermingle. Mark S has to confront the mediation that governs human relationships, the impossibility of truly knowing what another is thinking. Because he can’t discern the difference between Helly R and Helena, he refuses to trust her.
His disillusionment manifests in general hostility to his friends. He’s disinterested in their problems and Irving’s funeral. He doesn’t mourn him “because he’s not dead. He’s just not here.”
Severance is a show where location and life are inextricably linked, though. If the severed person is not here, as in on the severed floor, that means they are not anywhere. In this way, we see that Mark S has momentarily found himself giving into Lumon propaganda at the precise moment Milchick seems willing to concede the half-truth about what it means for an innie to “retire.” What Mark knew at the beginning of the series, that his colleagues being fired amounts to their death, he has unlearned because of all the ways Lumon foment’s uncertainty and deception among the severed workers.
This, too, is the case for Milchick, Natalie, and perhaps everyone but the absolute authority of Lumon. The employees are divided and pitted against each other, even as they share the condition of subordinate laborer.
The opposition between Mark S and Milchick follows the pattern of the opposition between Milchick and Natalie. Despite their collective subordination, they are both locked in adversarial relationships with one another. And every potential for united action is subverted by the illusory incentives Lumon presents — music dance experiences, Kier-faced marshmallows, and positive performance reviews.
Mark is clearly suffering as a result of his re-integration, which has not compromised the integrity of his two separate identities but has led to some “remembering” by Mark Scout about the experiences of Mark S. Though the episode doesn’t show it as clearly, Mark S’s final confrontation seems inflected by vague recollections of Mark Scout’s life and knowledge.
Their union, however, will exact from Mark a significant cost.
Weekly Reading List
It was a big weekend for live TV.
This whole video is great, but the best stuff starts at 2:50. The All-Star Game was really, really bad.
By contrast, SNL’s 50th Anniversary special was pretty good. I’m not a huge fan of the show but Eddie Murphy is still undefeated.
I’m very excited to see this film.
https://www.ecf-echoppe.com/produit/the-lacanian-review-subscription-abonnement-2/ — A new issue of The Lacanian Review is available now.
Until next time.