Editor’s note: This story contains spoilers for “Severance” Season 2 Episode 4.
It may not be an official tagline, but “Severance” Season 2 is really keeping Kier weird.
From the strangers sent in to replace Mark’s (Adam Scott) team to the weird paintings gifted by the board to Milchick (Trammell Tillman) to Lorne (Gwendoline Christie) and the crew at Mammalians Nurturable, the Apple TV thriller continues to embrace the bizarre this season.
In Episode 4, that continues with the ORTBO, or Outdoor Retreat Team Building Occurrence. From the acronym to the location to fireside stories about Kier Eagan’s secret twin brother Dieter — it’s a corporate retreat as only “Severance” could do it, laced with unsettling details from start to finish.
“It’s the first chance our Innies get to be outside, and for some of us, it was our first chance as actors on this show to get to be outside,” Zach Cherry told IndieWire about the experience. “We spent so much time in that one office in Season 1, so it was this really challenging, but exciting and rewarding, chance to do something totally new and different.”
“We went from basically from being in a set with fluorescent overhead lights with no windows… to get to be outside, even if you’re freezing, you’re thankful. You realize why people worship the sun,” said his costar John Turturro.
Ben Stiller, who directed the episode, described it as “‘Apocalypse Now’ in upstate New York” (“there’s always a Dunkin Donuts closeby”), inspired by the question of what a “Severance” corporate retreat would look like. “I think there’s a little bit of Milchick wanting to basically say, ‘Okay, you want to go out in the outside world? Well, here it is,’ and kind of teach them a lesson,” he noted.
Scott said the production team drove as far as their vehicles were allowed to to reach the location before getting into snow cats to complete their journey up the mountain.
“It was amazing. I felt like we were making a movie in the ’70s where people just went out into the wild,” he said. “That’s where we were for 12 hours to shoot until the sun went down, and it was cold, but it was so fun and so crazy. And we were doing it for like, four weeks just out in the mountains, making the show — obviously so different than making the rest of the show.”
The episode’s climax finds Irving accosting Helly (Britt Lower) in the woods, demanding that she admit her true identity and then drowning her in the river until Milchick releases the real Helly. Tillman described the reveal as “masterful,” and that it “shook me to my core when I read what was happening.” It’s a far cry from the Irving of early Season 1, a diligent rule follower and disciple of Kier who would never disrespect the company line.
“I think people have that capacity,” Turturro said. “They do everything by the book, and then all of a sudden something happens, and this other part of them comes out. There’s kind of an emotional catahartic release in that particular thing, that a person doesn’t care anymore.”
Turturro shared that he similar to Irving during earlier points in his career, with people who behaved unprofessionally.
“When you work with some really abusive people, you learn to say, ‘Okay, what’s the worst they can do? They can only fire me. I’m not going to go to jail,’” he recalled. “Once I got over that, I was like, ‘Okay, now if I don’t like something, I can protect myself and stand up for myself.’ That happened after a couple experiences, and I learned a lot from that. So I was thinking a little bit about that with Irving.”
His instincts turn out to be on-point; it is not Helly who emerges but Helena Eagan, shouting at Milchick to reinstate her Innie as she fights for breath in the freezing water. Irving is fired on the spot for assaulting a colleague (and disrespecting the ORTBO), leaving his horrified friends in his wake.
New episodes of “Severance” premiere weekly on Apple TV+.
