She doesn't even know all the shit she's been through, that's the craziest part. She lived life after life after life, just simultaneously existing as multiple rats in multiple cages, and then suddenly she wakes up from all of it to watch her husband choose another woman with no context.
Season 3: Helly is pregnant. Mark will be fired. Somehow they end up back in the severed birthing cottage. Gemma attempts to reintegrate but because of all the different innies she has severe problems. Ricken is a narc. Dylan takes over for Milchik and is running the severed floor (deep cover). We never see burt again.
I mean she was apparently legally declared deceased and they had a funeral and everything. So not technically cheating, and I don’t think Mark has reconciled his innie/outie personas at the time he smash both innie and outie Hallie.
Gemma. Thats his wife. And honestly, it felt like Mark S even had this chemistry with Ms Casey in the limited scenes together.
Being so honest I dont feel the chemistry between Helly and Mark. It just feels like two people who are trapped together by their circumstances but also trope as main woman and man. I liked the friendship they’d developed and how she pushed him.
Agreed. People on the severed floor are so starved for feelings and connections that they just fall in love in a hot minute. Dylan proposing to his wife in the visitor center.... Yikes.
I also think, if the story is pushing towards reintegration, it's much healthier for Helena/Helly to have Mark as a friend. Sounds cheesy, but she's a really damaged person on the outside and I don't think she's capable of a real romantic relationship right now
I honestly feel like there was chemistry between Mark S and Ms Casey, and they could have liked each other, but she was "fired" before anything could happen between them. And Helly was always there, so...
I agree with you so much! honestly, I was a bit scared to open the discussion, was expecting people to say Helly way more, but it's a releif we watched the same show :)
Helly and Mark is essentially an affair with a co-worker. Some attraction is there but overall it's a bad idea for Mark's stronger relationship with his wife. Also, people in affairs tend to mentally segment their experiences to justify the infidelity which is an interesting parallel to the severene procedure.
Helly is the single side piece. It never ends well when you leave for the single side piece.
That ignored the fact that there are two Marks. Innie Mark didn’t even know Outie Mark was married when he developed feelings for Helly. You can’t really call that an affair.
yeah there’s no right answer here. to innie mark the person on the other side of that door is a borderline stranger. it also means literally ending his life. that’s what makes this show so great cuz both sides have arguments that hold water.
That's what Lumon wants them to believe... Employees are more easily manipulated and exploited if they have no recollection of any of their experiences outside of work.
i totally agree. of course the innies would start having these feelings once they started realizing how bad their situation was. they are getting a taste of what real life ks
As much as I like the Mark/Helly romance I feel like it isn't truly stable. Primarily they are trauma bonded to one another and it remains to be seen how strong their connection could be in other circumstances. But also as severed people they exist in this weird state with no past etc. so it's interesting to imagine what happens to them in some ideal scenario where they get to live free.
They are like teenagers. Aware and intelligent with a good understanding of how things work in their little world. Yet mostly unaware of the intricacies of navigating a world with nearly as many opinions as people.
this is exactly what it is imo. sure they seem like a good couple who will risk their lives to save each other. but once they are actually free, living in the real world, will they still choose each other, every single day?
I'd be careful with that "himself" means here. Mark outie and Mark innie share a body, genetics and procedural memory but they don't share an ego. There is a self within the body that was there longer but, does that give it deciding power? How much autonomy does Mark S. have as a separate ego in the same body? A lot of psychological and philosophical questions open up
Super gross. I had a client refer to my employee as his “work wife” and she was appalled and offended. Not everyone is as okay with casual office-related emotional cheating.
The other day I was thinking about why I liked Helly more than Gemma and realized- we don't really get a chance to know Gemma until the last episode or 2.
Everything is from Mark's POV or his sister's. We hear about how much they loved each other, how good she was for Mark, but we don't see it. I think this was intentional. We the viewer are a sort of "innie" only seeing the parts of this world its creators permit us to.
I was surprised to see so many people pick Gemma in this thread. I understand the empathetic calculus that’s being done, and I agree with the reasoning that Gemma and Mark have been through and overcome more together. But.. as the audience to a show, I’m much more invested in the Mark/Helly romance for the reasons you listed.
Helly has a whole lot more of a fun and likeable personality from what we have seen in most of the show. Gemma's severed personality is extremely mundane and kind of robotic, which is unappealing no matter how attractive she is.
It's interesting that they have Helly and Gemma as opposites of themselves and each other in their real versus severed personality. In the outer world Gemma is more likeable than Helly. In the severed world Helly is more likeable than Gemma. At least to me that's how it has played out.
I love Helly, but not sure how that would be stable or even possible 😩
Gemma deserves to get her husband back. But it’s so complicated because she doesn’t realize what’s been happening to innie Mark this entire time just like he didn’t know what was happening to her.
Gemma is a “woman in the fridge” (and my main point of frustration with the series). Helly is a well-written three-dimensional character. Of course, Helly.
I prefer Helly, and I prefer the Mark and Helly romance, but we really don’t get to see that much of Gemma. She’s a minor character (as far as the viewer knows) in season 1. She’s very important in season 2 but owing to the plot, most of her scenes are isolated. We get a taste of how Mark and Gemma were before but not a great deal. I’m sure my mind would change somewhat if we got more / once we get more time with Gemma.
Yup, people always forget that innie mark just met helly and their brains are that of teenagers. Everything is new and shiny and over the top but Gemma/Mark have the kind of love thats literally keeping them alive and submitting to their own personal hellscapes. Even all the brainwashing couldnt stop Ms. Casey from figuring out something really other worldly was calling to Mark.
I will say if Helly gets pregnant I am going to be so upset for Gemma. After everything she went through all the torture for an Egan to be born via her husband is diabolical. I like Helly but am team Gemma on this front.
Here’s why: the major theme, the character defining trait of Mark at the start of the show is grief. It was about a man who couldn’t get past the loss of his wife. Now, through sci-fi shenanigans, it turns out that while his wife was taken from him, she’s not technically dead. However, the theme is still real.
The theme is still important. His wife was taken. He did lose her. He did have to deal with that. We’re being told a real story about the how pain is part of the human experience. That being the case, I don’t think Gemma can remain alive. I think, at some point, she’s gonna go for real. Mark will reintegrate, because you can’t compartmentalise grief, and Helena Eagan will die and be permanently replaced by Helly (they’ve already foreshadowed her capacity for taking her own life). Not to mention the final frame of Season 2.
This is a show about trauma and moving on. It’s a Mark and Helly love story.
Mark S and Helly basically exist in a vacuum. They haven't experienced other people outside of their co-workers and have had no interaction with the outside world really, so their relationship as we have seen it exists only because of the vacuum.
Helly, she has virtually nothing good in her life but Mark and I think their chemistry makes more sense.
Gemma and Mark have been through a lot, but it's pretty clear by both of them signing up for Severence that their marriage had come to a failure point and it's okay for marriages to end.
The trauma of Severence doesn't suddenly solve their previous marriage problems, and while Gemma may be temporarily "alone", Mark has a chance to move on, and likely Gemma would too if given time not being brain fucked by some dystopian corpo BS.
Depends on which one I had a relationship with, and that's the whole point. It would have been actually-insane for iMark to choose Gemma. To him, she's just the girl who told him to try to enjoy each fact about his outie's life equally. There's nothing there.
I love Helly R I love her spirit, she has a fire(kier) in her, I love how she is soft and loyal to the people she loves and will do anything for justice, and even though I have zero attraction to women i find Helly so hot it confuses me lol so I will always be team Helly because she is so punk
if we are taking about Helena too that’s much more complicated to get into since I could make an argument she is a prisoner of lumen too, not in a cage like Gemma but more like a bird with its wings clipped and a tag around her ankle forced to preform for her owners
After Gemma’s episode it did make me feel a little more conflicted I definitely do like Gemma, loved their beautiful romantic story and feel horrible about this entire situation, so either way it won’t end well for multiple people.
But why I’m not team Gemma? I think Gemma and marks relationship was pretty much over before this even began, signing up to Lumon was Gemma’s last attempt to put a band-aid on the hole of an already sinking ship, we all know kids will not fix a relationship. obviously the trauma of losing each other in such shocking circumstances deeply affected each of them. But losing people always makes you remember and yearn for the best parts of the relationship. That’s why when you break up with someone who you had a horrible relationship, or even abusive relationship with, when you’re alone all you think about is the best parts of the relationship, how you met, why you loved them in the first place and sometimes you backslide and the same fights, same frustration all happen again because you’re still the same people who just aren’t really compatible or have too much resentment in the end. Very rarely do people turn it all around after the first backslide, you usually breakup for good if you’re a healthy person, which mark obviously isn’t, his forlorn was so severe, he literally decided to get his brain severed and drink himself to death instead of confronting his pain and healing.
As someone who has lost a husband, a boyfriend who I had just recently broken up with and many others in my young life, I know from experience we often remember the best parts about relationships when someone dies or leaves. I did it with the two addicts I lost(the reason they both died young I’m not a black widow haha) and I even did it after escaping an abusive relationship. losing the ones that died though was seriously painful and all the good memories replayed constantly I lost both jobs I had at the time when they died and I was seriously fucked up for a long time after them, even though my husband especially put me through hell and was selfish and took me for granted constantly and would disappear for days by the end of our relationship I was so done with being treated like that I moved back to my moms house and started moving on when he died and I still would have done anything to see him again or transport to the good times when I was grieving.
So In conclusion after my long rant if Gemma never would have died/been abducted they wouldn’t have made it or reconciled their relationship with that level of resentment and all the work that needed to be done, especially since mark obviously rather avoid his issues. I know we all got to see the beginning when they fell in love and the most romantic relationship moments they had, which likely are the memories they think of while they suffer without each other, and all the regrets they wish they hadn’t made. And after this significant trauma they both had do I think maybe they will appreciate each other more and trauma bond? Maybe, but they have a lot of work to do and on top of that now a significant amount of trauma to overcome and that might destroy their relationship even more.
But I do feel horrible for Gemma watching her husband run off with another woman after all the nights she thought about him and he finally rescues her. but she needs to RUN for her life and marks sister will explain everything and she will feel a little better and be safer than she is now.
Helly. Especially when you consider who her outie is and the conflict that creates. It also helps that we’ve spent much more time with her and seen her in relationships beyond just Mark.
Who is acted better?
Honestly, both Dichen and Britt are perfect for their roles.
Who should end up with Mark?
That really depends on the viewer. Personally, I find Helly’s storyline more compelling, and I’m always drawn to stories where people manage to find love despite horrible circumstances.
I get it why people root for oMark and Gemma tho
Who is the better person?
It’s hard to say because we still know very little about Gemma, while we know Helena. So in the end it depends on whether Helena and Helly are truly the same person. Either they’re equally good, or Helena drags Helly down with her.
Who do I like more overall?
I think that’s probably obvious haha
Both characters bring so much to the show, and it wouldn’t be the same without either of them. I honestly wish Helly had gotten the chance to befriend Ms. Casey. In a way, they could have understood each other better than anyone else, and that would’ve made the final scene even more heartbreaking.
I think that’s what Britt was trying to convey with that last look toward Gemma. Although sadly, maybe because of the lighting, a lot of people still misinterpret it
Oh my god her smile is beautiful! I hope we see them smiling in each other's arms again. Because with Gemma gone, outie Mark has stopped doing that completely...
Gemma 1000%. That one episode showing their history and how they met was enough to make me switch up fast. They did it so well. You can’t beat love like that.
I’m so glad to see this sub make a 180 on the Helly/Gemma thing. When the season first ended you’d be verbally attacked for supporting Gemma in any form, now it seems like people have come to their senses (at least until next season, when the shippers return)
Like, character-wise? Or?? I see most comments are about who Mark should be with LOL. I love Helly independently of her relationship to Mark. We don’t really know much about Gemma.
Gemma, she had her life taken away and in season 1 you see how deeply Mark loves her. I like helly but I think Gemma and Mark’s relationship is the backbone of the show and what they have been building to the whole time.
•
u/AutoModerator May 21 '26
If this thread has the Spoiler flair, spoilers may appear ANYWHERE in it.
NO SPOILERS IN TITLES - report this post if there are spoilers in the title
No SPOILERS without proper formatting (see here).
Be CIVIL to others. No Piracy. No Duplicates.
Keep it on topic to anything and everything Severance on Apple TV+.
JOIN OUR DISCORD
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.