‘Severance’ Season 2 Episode 4 Breakdown: Woe’s Hollow
In a special episode of Severance, Woe’s Hollow leaves the audience on their feet about what to expect from the rest of the season.
The Ben Stiller-directed thriller follows Mark (Adam Scott), a macrodata analyst at Lumon Industries, who went through a procedure called “Severance,” a memory partition between your work and home life. As Mark befriends his team members Helly (Britt Lower), Dylan (Zach Cherry), and Irving (John Turturro), they begin to devise strategies to break free from their entrapment.
This article contains spoilers for Severance Season 1 and Season 2.
‘Severance’ Season 2 Episode 4 “Woe’s Hollow” Breakdown
Episode 4 of Severance Season 2 takes a detour from the previous episode’s cliffhanger, where Outie Mark had reintegrated back with his Innie Mark. Irving, Mark, Dylan, and Helly wake up to find themselves in a snowy forest. After finding each other, they watch a video from Milchick (Tramell Tillman) explaining that the situation that they’ve found themselves in is a field day retreat called an ORTBO (Outdoor Team-Building and Retreat Occurrence). We skip the opening credits for a clean title card.
Milchick explains in the video that their task is to follow clues toward a cave that contains the fourth appendix to the Lumon handbook. After spotting doppelgangers of themselves along the way, they find the cave with a book containing the material. They find out that Lumon CEO Kier Eagan had a twin brother, Dieter, and that the two had run off together to Woe’s Hollow. The book contains a map of the destination, and the four continue their journey.
As the four make their way to Woe’s Hollow, Irving begins to share his suspicions of Helly with Mark. As they reach a waterfall, they meet Milchick and Ms. Huang (Sarah Bock) at a campsite set up for them. Irving confronts Helly about his suspicions as they set up their tents, but Helly continues to not answer. The four are called out for a campfire story by Milchick, continuing the story from the appendix.
Milchick describes a grotesque story of Dieter dying at the hands of one of the 4 Tempers, Woe; a ghoul illustrated as a bride in the book. Helly starts laughing at the story, which prompts Milchick and Ms. Huang to leave and Irving to accuse her alibi in front of Mark and Dylan. Helly cruelly responds that he’s pent up about never being able to see Burt again, and Irving storms away. Helly and Mark have sex in their tent, right before Mark starts to hallucinate Gemma’s face on Helly’s.
Irving, who decided to sleep out in the woods, has a nightmare of being in his Lumon cubicle outside. He briefly sees Burt (Christopher Walken) across from him, but as he disappears, Irving begins to imagine Woe. After waking up, he finds Helly near the waterfall and accuses her of being an Outie instead of Helly. He pieces together that only a Lumon executive would have the power to do that and yells for the others at the campsite to arrive so he can expose Helly for not being who she says she is.
Irving grabs Helena and drowns her in an effort to convince Milchick to switch her back to Helly. To Mark and Dylan’s surprise, Milchick reveals that Irving is telling the truth by talking to an operator about removing “The Glasgow Block” from Helena. Helly is confused about her surroundings as Milchick makes his way across the waterfall to the commotion. He fires Irving on the spot, leaving the episode on a cliffhanger as Milchick turns off Innie Irving.
Apple TV+’s Severance Season 2 was created by Dan Erickson and directed by Ben Stiller and Aoife McArdle. The series stars Adam Scott as Mark, Britt Lower as Helly, John Turturro as Irving, Zach Cherry as Dylan, Tramell Tillman as Milchick, and Patricia Arquette as Ms. Cobel. The first four episodes are streaming now on Apple TV+.
Thank you for reading this breakdown of Severance. If you enjoyed this article, please check out our reviews section.
