SPOILER ALERT: This story accommodates spoilers for Season 2, Episode 7 of “Severance,” streaming now on Apple TV+.
She’s alive!
No less than some model of her is, held captive on Lumon’s Testing Flooring and shuttled from room to room, activating her severance chip and splitting her into a number of totally different identities.
I’m speaking about Gemma, after all, whose wellbeing and whereabouts have been central to the thriller of “Severance.” On this week’s episode, we lastly examine in with Mark’s (not useless in spite of everything) spouse, performed by Dichen Lachman with an attractive coolness — after which an vacancy — in a sequence of heartbreaking flashbacks and harrowing glimpses of the Testing Flooring.
Gemma is to not be confused with Ms. Casey, who, it seems, is only one of lots of her “innies.” In vignettes of Mark and Gemma’s marriage, gorgeously captured by cinematographer Jessica Lee Gagné in her directorial debut, Gemma is charming, playful — removed from the robotic wellness counselor she inhabits on the Severed Flooring.
The episode begins with Mark and Gemma’s meet cute, at a blood drive on the school campus they each labored at. They’ve prompt chemistry, however their destiny could have been sealed from the start — there’s a Lumon emblem emblazoned on the medical gear. Quickly sufficient, Mark and Gemma begin their life collectively, with dancing and Christmas and placing flowers behind one another’s ears. In a single flashback, it’s revealed that Gemma was pregnant. She miscarries, so they struggle IVF. A go to to the fertility clinic reveals one other Lumon emblem, and a glimpse of Lumon’s Dr. Mauer, performed by a cold Robby Benson. As Mark and Gemma’s makes an attempt to conceive fail, their relationship suffers. We witness their final second collectively, exchanging “I like yous” earlier than Gemma leaves the home on the night time of her “dying.” Within the last flashback, Mark is greeted on the door by policemen.
Down on the Testing Flooring, within the current day, Gemma performs costume up, as a nurse brings her into totally different rooms that activate totally different identities. In a single room, Dr. Mauer assumes the function of her husband, supervising her on Christmas morning as her hand cramps from writing too many thanks playing cards. One other room is devoted to dental work, with that specific innie’s total existence strapped to a affected person chair. Gemma’s hand and enamel nonetheless damage as soon as she crosses the severance threshold, and Lumon is gauging how her psychological state — her “tempers” — carries over as effectively. How sturdy are the partitions of severance, and what, if something, bleeds via from innie to outie?
The rooms are named after the recordsdata Mark has accomplished, and there’s just one left: Chilly Harbor. We don’t know precisely what’s going to occur to Gemma as soon as Mark finishes that file, which has been touted as a serious landmark for Lumon, but it surely doesn’t sound good for our estranged lovebirds. It’s exhausting to think about the company that kidnapped Gemma and held her captive for years will merely let her free as soon as testing is accomplished.
On the finish of the episode, which takes place as Mark is unconscious, “journeying” in his reintegration course of, Gemma takes motion, whacking Mauer over the pinnacle with a chair and plotting her escape from Lumon. However when Gemma makes it up the elevator, she’s trapped by her personal thoughts. She’s on the Severed Flooring — she’s Ms. Casey now — and he or she’s informed by Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) to move again all the way down to the Testing Flooring voluntarily. It’s a battle of innies and outies, and it’s going to require each working collectively to make it out of Lumon.
Beneath, Lachman discusses this week’s episode of “Severance” with Selection, unpacking Gemma’s captivity and “heartbreaking” escape try, and theorizing about how Lumon faked her dying within the first place.
Till now, we hadn’t actually seen Gemma in her aspect. We’ve seen Ms. Casey and actually transient glimpses of Gemma. How did you go about shaping that character and the way she would behave?
It was crucial to everybody to make the connection with Mark actually grounded. We mentioned them having difficulties of their relationship, and that was a very powerful factor we stored coming again to: How will we make this relationship really feel lived-in? Folks could have observed that up till now, I didn’t spend loads of time on set. So, the time to construct that rapport with somebody was primarily nonexistent. However Adam Scott is such a beneficiant actor, and everybody made me really feel so snug. Mainly, Episode 7 was like my first day in school for Season 2 as a result of I hadn’t actually been there. I felt an incredible quantity of stress to do my very best. We performed with Gemma quite a bit, taking loads of time with these scenes and dialing in additional depth, much less depth.
What did your schedule appear to be for Season 2? There’s even a meme about how Gemma pops in for a number of seconds in every episode to “serve face” after which vanish. Would you are available for like someday to shoot these little flashes of Gemma?
Yeah, I’d are available occasionally to shoot these little beats. A few of them had been extraordinarily technical. The one within the tent [in Episode 4, as Mark sleeps with Helena], they’d a monitor that I used to be taking a look at, and I needed to line my face up precisely to the place of Britt Decrease’s face. They’d a particular piece of equipment to have the ability to do the take.. I simply keep in mind mendacity there and never transferring for hours to get that one second. This present is stuffed with issues like that, which the viewers members could not discover. The quantity of labor that goes into among the technical photographs is extraordinary. We had been making an attempt to get that two-second shot for a superb half of the day.
Have been there any scenes from Episode 7 that had been equally difficult, technically talking?
For the airplane set piece, they constructed this a part of an airplane on hydraulics, and I needed to take anti-nausea medicine as a result of I used to be in there all day. The entire thing was transferring round like a aircraft that had extreme turbulence, or that was going to crash.
This episode appears like the reply to the Season 1 cliffhanger of “SHE’S ALIVE!” However how alive is Gemma, actually? She’s been held captive for years and appears fairly depleted. How a lot of Gemma’s true self is left?
I positively assume part of her — that pleasure and ease and frivolity — is gone, to some extent. She simply desires to get residence to Mark. Ms. Casey is kind of rudimentary. After I acquired the script for Episode 7, I believed, to justify that fairly literal particular person, who’s simplistic in some ways, possibly it’s as a result of her thoughts has been bifurcated so many instances. Not like the severed flooring, the place it’s simply their work particular person and their particular person in the true world, maybe as a result of Gemma has so many various variations of her thoughts, that has affected her. That’s my fan concept — that there could be part of her that’s gone. However I do assume she is basically there, and her love for Mark and her energy and dedication remains to be there.
Within the flashback to when Mark and Gemma first meet, they’re giving blood on the college they each work at, and there’s a Lumon emblem on the machine. On the fertility clinic, there’s a Lumon emblem on the consumption type. It appears to point that Lumon has been part of their relationship and their lives for a very long time. What ought to we take away from that?
They’ve positively been watching them for a very long time. My concept is that it has one thing to do with Lumon deciding to select this couple and monitor them. You additionally see Dr. Mauer [Robby Benson] on the fertility clinic — he simply walks by. The entire world is Lumon. Even [the restaurant] Pip’s is owned by Lumon. My concept is that they picked one thing up with Gemma’s blood work when she went to the fertility clinic, and that’s acquired one thing to do with why they picked Mark and Gemma. I observed that the Christmas tree tinsel within the Christmas room [on Lumon’s Testing Floor] is identical as Mark and Gemma’s Christmas tree of their lounge. I discussed that to the writers, and so they didn’t affirm or deny something.
So you may have your personal theories, however the writers don’t inform you when you’re heading in the right direction?
By no means. And certainly one of my favourite issues is taking a look at different individuals’s fan theories on-line. They go into such depth, and it’s actually rewarding. A few of these guys needs to be writers! They’re so gifted.
Earlier within the season, Mark tells Devon that he recognized Gemma’s physique after the supposed automotive accident. Clearly, she wasn’t useless. Have you learnt the logistics behind how Lumon faked her dying?
My concept is that they gave her some Shakespearean potion, that Lumon has made salves and balms and stuff. Possibly it’s one thing that stops your heartbeat and respiratory for sufficient time to pretend her dying. I’m entering into the weeds right here, however…
I like the weeds!
If Mark noticed Gemma utterly charred up, he may truly assume Devon’s proper, as a result of the physique wouldn’t have regarded like Gemma. He would have seen a charred physique. In order that’s my concept.
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In Episode 7, Dr. Mauer tells Gemma, “Kier will take away all of [Mark’s] ache simply as he has taken away yours.” What ache is he referring to?
As a lady, it’s very tough to really feel like your physique will not be doing what it’s meant to be doing. I didn’t have something clarified [by the writers], however I feel everybody agreed that [Gemma’s inability to give birth] had been very painful for her, and he or she felt responsible. She felt insufficient.
Are you able to discuss in regards to the dynamic between Gemma and Dr. Mauer? He blatantly lies to her about Mark remarrying and having a toddler, and he clearly has some form of fixation on her.
He positively does. She loathes him, clearly. His relationship together with her is completely totally different as a result of he will get to expertise being in all these totally different rooms together with her. He’s infantilizing her in a method. I feel possibly she understands that they’ve time collectively that she’s not conscious of, which is tremendous creepy. That would go into some actually darkish locations. Gemma has been on the Testing Flooring for therefore lengthy that she is numb. Lastly she breaks, particularly when he revs her up with that horrible lie about Mark. I don’t assume it’s the primary time she’s tried to make it out, as a result of Drummond asks Mauer, “Didn’t she break your fingers?” So, she’s had these moments the place she’s misplaced all tolerance and makes a break for it. It’s heartbreaking, she’s trapped by her personal thoughts.
One of the crucial heartbreaking moments is when she makes it to the elevator however then turns into Ms. Casey on the Severed Flooring. She doesn’t know the way she acquired there, and that permits Milchick to mislead her and ship her again down.
We shot that scene 4 instances, multi function take. She runs to the elevator, transitions from Gemma to Ms. Casey, then from Ms. Casey to Gemma and has that second with Sandra Bernard’s character. That was in all probability essentially the most difficult factor I needed to do as an actor.
Mark is reintegrating, merging the reminiscences of his innie and his outie. His innie is in love with Helly. How may his reintegration complicate his seek for Gemma?
Proper! How a lot affect is Innie Mark going to have on Mark’s outie? And what’s that life going to be like? It’s truly actually unhealthy. I don’t know the place it’s going to go, however that’s what’s sensible about it. The philosophical questions are infinite.
There’s one widespread fan concept that hyperlinks Ms. Huang [Sarah Bock] with Gemma, that she’s some form of lab-grown little one between Mark and Gemma, or that they’ve in some way shrunken Gemma? It doesn’t actually make sense to me, however have you ever seen that?
I’ve seen that. I don’t blame individuals for having that concept, as a result of when Mark seems to be at her within the first episode [of Season 2], there may be some form of flash, isn’t there? Initially, I even questioned if she had one thing to do with Gemma. I wasn’t 100% certain. I didn’t ever get to ask, however I don’t know whether or not I like or dislike that concept. I can see why individuals may assume there’s a hyperlink.
So it’s not utterly out the door?
I don’t know! The time-frame can be off, due to her age. However it’s attention-grabbing: why would a younger teenager be on this place? Why isn’t she at school? It does elevate loads of questions. Sarah is a rare actress. She did such an exquisite job, and the anomaly there may be actually intense.
At this level within the present, what do you view as the most important looming query?
What I need to know as a fan is who’s behind all of it, and why are they doing it? Why did they choose the individuals they picked? Clearly, Lumon has some volunteers, and so they’re world — we had that great Italian man in Episode 1. What’s their mission, and the way a lot do they management? However I do really feel like we get loads of solutions this season. It’s not all left as a thriller for the sake of a thriller. They’re answering questions and asking much more.