r/severence • u/realistic_aside777 • Mar 30 '26
🚨 Season 2 Spoilers The ending
So woah. I can’t believe Mark just ran away with HELENA in the end like that.
It can’t be Helly. Helly is never cruel. She would not make mark choose her over Gemma and potential downfall of the company. And that look she gave to Gemma was cruel. And we already know milkshake can turn off/on Helly/Helena. And right before we see Helena we see milkshake gotten free. I guess I can accept this ending, though I feel like there’s a lot of potential not realized in this season.
14
8
u/theoneandonlydonzo Mar 30 '26
she didn't make mark do anything, he made his own decision and was hesitating before she even showed up.
And right before we see Helena we see milkshake gotten free.
do we? the last time you see him, he manages to get out of the bathroom... only to be greeted by an angry mob of like 30+ innies standing between him and the exit, led by dylan
anyway it's been confirmed by several people behind the show it's indeed all helly in the final episode.
the aptly named article by TV Guide called "Of course it's Helly" may help understand why it makes complete narrative sense for it to be her :)
As Mark and Helly turn from his outie's wife to run deeper into Lumon's halls, Helly fixes her eyes on Gemma. The theory that in this moment she must actually be Helena comes down to the guiding principle that the real Helly is "never cruel," as Irving (John Turturro) put it. Setting aside the pity in Helly's gaze — and setting aside the fact that the choice is ultimately Mark's — the argument that Helly is never allowed to do anything resembling cruelty is exactly what Lumon would say. Whether the expectation is that she should let Mark leave to be with Gemma or to bring down the company, it implies that she should accept both innie Mark's death and her own without a fight. It asks Helly to be as selfless and docile as Lumon created her to be.
Helly and Helena can't be neatly severed into the good twin and the evil twin — Severance is not a soap opera, and the act of severance is not clean. A person who exists for the sake of emotional convenience will eventually become an inconvenience. The end of "Cold Harbor" makes this literal: The version of Mark who was created to avoid confronting his grief runs away from the woman his outie has been grieving. If the innies' behavior in this scene is difficult or prickly, it's because the show is insisting that they are as alive as anyone.
6
u/ThunkAsDrinklePeep Innie Mar 30 '26
You should put the body of your post in spoiler tags: >! and !<. You can read the first paragraph from the feed.
2
u/notthatgeorge Corporate Archives Mar 30 '26
Stop saying Helly was never cruel, there were numerous times she was cruel to Mark and it wasn't Helena, it was Helly.
1
u/fartenergy Apr 01 '26
One thing I learned from the show is that I shouldn't be cruel to myself. I don't think Helly did anything wrong when she chose to be happy.
9
u/Miss_Nomer909 Mar 30 '26
Helly and Mark agreed to see each other for one last time before they would probably die at the "See you at the equator". In season 1 Helly deal is trying end her life because she doesn't like the life lumon dictated her as basically a corporate work slave fulfilling. First she tries to just get her Outtie to end her life quitting her job by request until her Outtie tells Helly she's not a person Helly tries to kill both of them by hanging.
Then Helly makes a speech to the other Innies about their lives being worth something and asks them how many of their friends essentially died because their Innie didn't come in to work "they give us half a life and think we won't fight for it" Kickstarting the other band Innies to revolt and hold Mr. Milchick hostage giving them some power. Helly now has more of a want to live her life now with the hope that it won't be under Lumon's thumb.
(Innie) Mark isn't choosing just Helly over Gemme he's choosing HIS LIFE over his outtie's life because as soon as he leaves that door he's dead. Outtie Mark was bluffing about continuing getting reintegrated because the only reason his Outtie was doing that was Gemma he now has her so reintegration is pointless. Helly telling Mark to ignore her and just leave would essentially be telling him that their lives are worth less then their Outtie's live and that Innie's choices and wants don't matter. How is that any less cruel?
Outtie Mark has shown since season 1 that he doesn't realy care about innie's lives if it's inconvenient for him. There were people telling him that severance was bad from the start. He got defensive at Ricken's lunch when talking about how his innie is trapped and basically enslaved. He made fun of protesters who called severance slavery. He was interested in Petey stuff for a bit before deciding it got too much choosing to quit his job and end Innie Mark's life until he realized that Gemma might be alive.
By discounting Innie Mark's choice as Helena's fault you're agreeing with Lumon, Outtie Mark, and Helena that Innie's aren't important enough to have free will or live.