Severance Confirms Major Season 2 Fan Theory Is True (And It’s Devastating)

Ever since Severance season 2 premiered on AppleTV+ this year, a major theory has appeared across the fandom. As Mark S. (Adam Scott), Dylan G. (Zach Cherry), and Irving B. (John Turturro) all returned to work at Lumon in the wake of season 1’s huge cliffhanger, there’s been something off about their co-worker Helly R. (Britt Lower). The season 1 finale of Severance offered a major reveal about Helly, that she was in fact, secretly, Helena Eagan, the daughter of Lumon’s CEO and someone who was severed as a means for building good PR. With every new episode of Severance, fans have been theorizing that the Helly R. who returned to the severed floor in season 2 hasn’t been who she said she is, and could have been Helena herself just playing the part. Now, we have an official answer. SPOILERS WILL FOLLOW.

In the latest episode of Severance season 2, the team goes on an ORTBO, Outdoor Retreat Team Building Occurrence. Lumon naturally frames this little excursion as a nice gesture being given to the “Innies” because of their desire to see the outside world, but along the way it is filled with further haunting tales of Kier Eagan and a brand new appendix for The Compliance Handbook. Irving is naturally drawn to the tales within this text, but his lingering suspicions about Helly R. from the season 2 premiere only continue to grow.

Severance season 2: What happens on the ORTBO?

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That night, Irving presses Helly about what she saw the night that the Overtime Contingency was tripped and they all got to experience the outside for the first time. He goes back to her insistence that she ran into a “night gardener” when she woke up, a detail that he finds preposterous. His other coworkers come to Helly’s defense around the campfire, but Helly then makes a comment that appears to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. She deflects Irving’s suspicions by saying: “We all know Irving’s upset because he can’t see Burt again.”

This reference to Irving’s in-office fling with Burt (Christopher Walken) from season 1 drives Irving up the wall, and he marches off into the woods to be on his own. The next morning, after he sees a vision of Burt in the woods (along with the personification of one of the four tempers, Woe), Irving confronts Helly while they’re alone. Standing near a waterfall that allegedly had major significance for Kier. He questions her identity once again, but then plays his trump card regarding the comment that she made.

“What you said to me, it was cruel. Helly wasn’t cruel,” Irving says. “If you’re not her, then who are you? Who would have the power to send their outie to the severed floor?”

From there Irving makes a shocking decision, grabbing Helly by the back of her neck and forcing her toward the wintery water in front of them. He begins to cry out for Mr. Milchick, drawing not only the supervisor on the severed floor but his two other co-workers, Mark S. and Dylan G. As they arrive and observe from above, Irving shouts for Mr. Milchick to “turn her back,” shouting that Helly is an “outie,” a “mole,” an “Eagan,” and that he’s going to kill her if Milchick doesn’t turn on her severed chip.

Naturally, Dylan and Mark are distraught by this development, still believing that Irving is over reacting and wrong. As Irving continues to shout, he pulls Helly’s head from the freezing cold water to allow her a breath, prompting her to shout toward Mr. Milchick, “Do it, Seth!” Milchick grabs a walkie talkie from his belt and asks an unknown person to turn off the “Glasgow Block.” As Irving holds Helly’s face under the water, that familiar ding from the severed floor elevator goes off, confirming to the audience that it was true. This entire time in Severance season 2, Helena Eagan was posing as Helly R. any time she was on the severed floor. 

“Helly R. is Helena” theory confirmed by Severance season 2

Irving apologizes to Helly, who is confused by where she is and what’s happening to her. As fans may recall, the Overtime Contingency was turned off as Helly was on stage at a Lumon event and trying to break the entire severance procedure open to the public. As a result, when Helly woke up with her head submerged in freezing water outside it was almost certainly a major shock. The confirmation of Helly/Helena’s real identity isn’t the end of the episode, as Mr. Milchick has one last trick up his sleeve, firing Irving B. from Lumon, essentially killing him.

The revelation that Helly has actually been Helena this entire time is one that will ripple out in a major way moving forward for Severance season 2. Not only will Dylan G. and Mark S. question everything that has happened so far, but it’s unclear what this even means for their “work lives” moving forward. Though a tinge of normalcy was put in place for the Macrodata Refinement team, they’re now essentially without two of their co-workers. This means their mysterious and important work will almost certainly hit a wall and their lives as severed employees will no doubt be altered forever. Those are just a few of the questions that will arise from this latest reveal in Severance, alongside, How will Lumon respond? Will Mark ever see Helly again after this? And most importantly, how will this alter his search for Ms. Casey aka, his wife Gemma.

Severance debuts new episodes on Apple TV+ every Thursday.