Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Severance Season 2 Episode 3.
Apple TV+‘sSeverancerelies on a unique premise of people living separate personal and work lives byopting into a surgical procedurethat plants a chip in their brain. Unable to remember anything about the other version of themselves, the “innies” never leave the mysterious Lumon Industries, while the “outies” have no idea what they do there or who they work with. In the first season’s finale, Mark (Adam Scott),Helly (Britt Lower), andIrving (John Turturro)use theOvertime Contingency Protocolto experience their outies’ lives, finally getting a better sense of their other selves, but other questions remain once the OTC is reversed.
Now that the Macrodata Refinement innies are trapped on the severed floor again, they must figure out what’s going on, and Lumon has made it nearly impossible for them to communicate with their outies.There is one incredibly risky way to restore the connection between the two halves: reintegration. In many ways, this is exactly what it sounds like, as the procedure reunites the two sides of a severed brain, but there are drawbacks. Lumon doesn’t recognize reintegration as an option, and the series has established considerable risks and dangerous side effects. Even so, inSeason 2, Episode 3, “Who Is Alive?,“outie Mark chooses to take this drastic step despite his earlier refusal.
‘Severence’ Season 1 Proved Reintegration Is Dangerous
Reintegration is first introduced in Season 1 through the character of Petey (Yul Vazquez), innie Mark’s coworker, who elected to undergo the process to remember the life he had inside Lumon. The unofficial and experimental procedure was performed by former Lumon scientist Dr. Asal Reghabi (Karen Aldridge), who was initially responsible for inserting the severance chips into employees' heads before turning on Lumon herself.Season 1doesn’t explain how reintegration works, considering Petey has already undergone the process when he meets Mark, but it does suggest that it is not surgical in the same way that severance is. When Petey died,Mrs. Cobel (Patricia Arquette)had to recover the chip in his head after the fact. Instead,Reghabi describes reintegration as a “full synaptic recoupling"that stops the chip from controlling the person based on their location.
While reintegration allows the innie and outie sides to become the same again, it isn’t a common procedure. In fact, Petey and now Mark are the only known instances of reintegration, and Lumon still publicly denies it as a possibility. Unfortunately, reintegration isn’t flawless, and in Petey’s case, it comes with complications.Petey had serious reintegration sickness as his mind struggled to join its two halves.He had headaches and even hallucinations of the severed floor. The reintegration sickness took a toll on Petey, perhaps even contributing to his mysterious death — proving that, even if it is successful, reintegration is incredibly dangerous.
‘Severance’ Season 2’s Most Surreal Scene So Far Has a Deeper Meaning
“Lumon? They make their doors in-house, it’s f*cking hubris.”
Reintegration Becomes More Significant in ‘Severance’ Season 2
In Season 2, Episode 3, Reghabi returns, and so does the topic of reintegration. Up until that moment, Mark’s sister,Devon (Jen Tullock), had been suspicious of something Mark’s innie said during the OTC. Outie Mark and Devon have been trying to find a way to get a message to his innie, and Reghabi, whoknows more about the process, tells him the answer: he can’t. She insists that the only way is to reintegrate, promising she’ll be more successful this time, and offers to “sew together” the two versions of him. Desperate for information abouthis supposedly dead wife, Mark agrees.
As Mark undergoes reintegration,Reghabi hooks Mark up to wires to sync the brainwaves of his innie and outie selves.As she performs the procedure, she asks Mark questions, some that only his outie knows and some only his innie will — much like the orientation the innies receive at Lumon on their first day. The screen monitors the brainwaves between innie and outie until the two are reunited, though as of the end of this week’s episode, there’s no confirmation of whether Mark will get reiteration sickness. Still, innie and outie Mark are on the same wavelength for the first time. Though Lumon does not acknowledge this process exists, the series has shown that it could work, and if Reghabi truly has worked out the issues, Mark just got a major advantage, now able to work as a bridge between MDR and the outside world to uncover the truth of what’s going on inside Lumon.
SeveranceSeason 2 is streaming on Apple TV+ in the U.S., with new episodes available every Friday.
