Spoilers for the entirety of Severance.
There is a lot of substance in this show and I could go on and on about all its different themes and parallels but what I want to ramble on about is its masterful retelling of The Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice or rather Dan Erickson’s rendition of it. Now, just a heads up, this is only my analysis and obsessive pondering, and this could all be fairly circumstantial and was not even brought up in the writer’s room.
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice always fascinated me because I felt that it was such an honest perspective on love and the things it compels us to do. But it’s also a tragedy — one that is born out of the pureness and simplicity of love. One could simply say: “What all Orpheus had to do was not look back and he and Eurydice would have been out of the underworld.” But he loves Eurydice. It’s as simple and tragic and sweet as that. Yes, in hindsight, the right thing for him to do was simply push forward, but that is logic, and try as we might, the powers that govern the heart will always take precedence. The desire to look at your wife and know that she is there will surmount all logic. Orpheus knows this, and if you have even an inkling of what it is like to love, then you know this.
When Gemma is revealed to be alive and trapped on another level below the severed floor, the thematic parallels of The Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice start to take shape. We can even assign the characters and settings from Virgil’s original story with the show. Mark and Gemma being Orpheus and Eurydice, Ms. Cobel and Mr. Milchick both embodying Hades and Persephone, the rulers of the underworld, which in this case is the severed floor. But this is where Dan Erickson and the other writers deserve their praise — with the concept of severance and the introduction of Helly.
But before that, let’s talk about what Severance is even trying to say.
In Season 1 Episode 6, at 13:25, Zach Cherry’s character Dylan G. says: “Well, maybe love transcends severance.”
And in this scene, whether the writers knew it or not, they summed up the core tenet of the entire show. Does love transcend severance? Does love transcend hell? All the innies’ acts of rebellion have been for the sake of love. Dylan G. wants to experience the love of his outie’s family, Irving B. wants to be with Burt, and Mark S. and Helly R. fall in love with each other. While The Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is about getting someone you love out of hell, Severance is about loving someone while in hell.
With the groundbreaking advancement of the morally-gray procedure known as severance, Dan Erickson and Ben Stiller created a story that would dissect the very principles of love and what we do for it. And that love is presented most potently with Mark, Gemma, and Helly. The existence of Helly is another element of genius from the writers because it asks the question of “What if Orpheus was forced to choose between two loves?”. It would have been riveting enough to see the story unfold where Mark battles against the evil that is Lumon to save his wife, but instead severance, both the show and the procedure is much more complicated than that. It adds another tragedy. Another version of “looking back”. Another way to fail wrought about by the irrationality of the heart. In this story, Orpheus has a single body, but two hearts that love different people. To outie Mark, Gemma is his Eurydice, but to innie Mark, Helly is his Eurydice. The writers also did a phenomenal job with developing both Gemma and Helly. We grow to love Helly’s rebellious verve and steadfast wiles throughout the show, so naturally, we root for the love that she and innie Mark have despite the evident conflict that it will ensue with outie Mark and Gemma. Personally, I was more on innie Mark and Helly’s side until the second season’s seventh episode: “Chikhai Bardo”. In this episode, we get a beautiful directorial debut from Jessica Lee Gagné, (the show’s main cinematographer) illustrating the idyllic and almost ethereal life that outie Mark and Gemma once had, while spliced in are scenes of Gemma’s torment in the basement of the severed floor. After this episode, knowing what outie Mark and Gemma had lost, their shared trauma with a miscarriage, it would be natural to want to see them reunite. As a viewer, there was only a miniscule fire in me that wanted outie Mark and Gemma to see each other again, but that was before this episode. Seeing how the two loved each other added fuel to this fire that demanded they get what they deserve — each other. But then again, what about innie Mark and Helly? They too, like outie Mark and Gemma, deserve to be together.
In the final episode of the second season, outie Mark descends into hell (with the help of innie Mark) to retrieve his beloved wife, fending off against the guardians of the underworld and traversing its cold hallways. They reunite, and embrace, like pieces to a puzzle, an ocean to its shore, Orpheus and Eurydice. But in a cruel twist of fate, innie Mark has to be the one to guide Gemma out of hell and he is the one who must take the step out as well. But face to face with the exit, it dawns on him that he is leaving his Eurydice — his Helly. And in dichotomous beauty, in rhythmic storytelling, in defiance of Virgil’s work — it is not the absence of a voice that makes him look back, it is the existence of it. Helly says “Mark.” and he turns. Like clockwork. He damns not only his Eurydice to hell but himself as well. He chooses Helly. He chooses hell.
