Severance Just Rushed Through Its Most Mind-Boggling Subplot

Severance Season 2’s fourth episode takes an unexpected turn as Lumon Industries sends its severed employees on an Outdoor Retreat and Team Building Occurrence (ORTBO). The episode follows the Innie Mark (Adam Scott), Irving (John Turturro), and Dylan (Zach Cherry) as they wake up in a frozen wilderness, experiencing nature for the first time while pursuing mysterious clues about Kier Egan and his twin Dieter. Through this unusual expedition, the show delivers one of its most emotionally charged sequences, as Irving sacrifices his Innie existence to expose Helena’s (Britt Lower) deception, forcing Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) to acknowledge her true identity as an Eagan. While these dramatic beats land with devastating impact, the entire concept of ORTBO introduces unprecedented logical issues to the series.

WARNING: Spoilers below for Severance Season 2, Episode 5

For ORTBO to work as presented, Lumon would have needed to coordinate a group of Outie employees arriving at a remote location, guide them to precarious positions – Mark on a cliff edge, Irving on a frozen lake, Dylan deep in the woods – and somehow prevent them from encountering each other before activating their chips. Episode 5 reveals this risky operation was Milchick’s initiative, making the situation even more baffling. How did a middle manager get approval for such a complex endeavor that offered minimal control over employee interactions? Moreover, the location itself seems significant to Lumon’s mythology, featuring what Milchick claims is the cave where Kier tamed his tempers. Yet the company appears unconcerned about multiple Outies learning its whereabouts, directly contradicting their usual paranoia about maintaining absolute secrecy.

[RELATED: Severance Answers Major Questions About One Character’s Outie]

Most troublingly, Episode 5 brushes aside these crucial questions. When Mark’s sister (Jen Tullock) asks about his “weekend thing,” he responds with surprising casualness, mentioning only that he woke up wet after his Innie had a rope accident. Sure, Mark is currently focusing on reintegration, but this throwaway treatment defies logic. From an Outie’s perspective, being led to a remote location, positioned in dangerous situations, and waking up soaking wet should be a deeply unsettling experience requiring significant explanation. The show’s decision to move past this event without addressing its implications suggests a concerning shift in its narrative priorities.

Skipping ORTBO’s Explanation Threatens Severance‘s Foundation

Severance built its dystopian world by exploring how corporations maintain control through rigid bureaucracy. On the severed floor, simple things like eating a melon require paperwork, security checks, and several approvals. Furthermore, employees are constantly monitored, and the labyrinthine structure of the severed floor is created to keep Innies disoriented and separate from each other. Every protocol, no matter how small, reinforces how Lumon dominates its workers through endless regulations and surveillance. Yet, the ORTBO event is the very definition of chaos, as there’s no way to fully control Innies in an outdoor scenario.

Milchick’s performance review in Episode 5 exposes how deeply ORTBO violates the series’ principles. His superiors’ outrage focuses entirely on Helena’s exposure while ignoring glaring security breaches that should terrify a company this paranoid about control. That means the same executives who treat Innies like cattle approved transporting severed employees to an unsecured location without questioning basic logistics. This isn’t just a plot hole. It’s a fundamental betrayal of how Lumon has been shown to operate at every level of its hierarchy.

Throughout the series, the company has gone to extreme lengths to compartmentalize information, ensuring no employee knows more than absolutely necessary about their workspace. Yet ORTBO required giving Outies directions to a critical Lumon location. No explanation is offered for this unprecedented access to company secrets or for how Milchick planned to prevent Outies from sharing this information.

There’s still time for Season 2 of Severance to return to the ORTBO event and tie all these loose ends, but the way Episode 5 addresses the issue is concerning. By treating these massive protocol violations as minor plot points, Severance undermines its own premise. If Lumon can suddenly abandon core security measures whenever dramatically convenient, future conflicts about employees fighting against these restrictions lose their impact. This is about plot consistency and preserving the show’s ability to turn everyday work situations into high-stakes battles for freedom and independence.

New episodes of Severance premiere Fridays on Apple TV+. How did you feel about the ORTBO episode? Do you think Severance will further explain what happened in the outdoors? Join the discussion in the comments!