The You You Are

"**The You You Are**" is the fourth episode in the first season of the Apple TV+ thriller series ***Severance***. It was released on the fourth of March in 2022.

## Synopsis

Irving finds an intriguing book at work. Helly aggressively pursues a meeting with her Outie. Mark attends a funeral with Ms. Selvig.

## Plot

### Intro

Helly reads the "compunction statement" again. After a long pause, Milchick says, "I'm afraid you still don't mean it." He sees the clock on the wall change to 17:15. He stands and says, "We'll try again in the morning." As he leads her to the elevator, she appears frazzled. The elevator door closes and then opens again to reveal Helly wearing different clothes. She looks at herself and realizes another day (or more) has passed. Back in the Break Room, the clock shows 9:08. Helly says, "I read it 300 times yesterday," to which Milcheck says, "two hundred fifty-nine. Again, please. Now." She says, "What the hell is that voice?" She breathes deeply and reads the statement again, beginning to break down and cry, going off script and merely saying, "I'm sorry." "No paraphrasing," Milchick says. "Again."

### Act One

In Mark's basement, Petey's phone buzzes. Mark picks it up to see that the phone has gotten multiple unanswered calls in recent hours from one or more blocked numbers. Mark hides the phone in a box. In the restroom at work, Mark examines a version of Petey's hand drawn map. Later, Irving tells Mark it's after eleven and Helly has been in the Break Room since the previous day. Burt appears and Dylan grabs a stapler as if to use it in self-defense and asks how Burt knew where the MDR office is. Burt says his predecessor gave him directions back when the departments interacted with one another. Burt has some handbook totes to show Irving and he invites the MDRs to tour O&D, to which Dylan says "hard pass". After Burt leaves, Irving follows to accept the offer, saying to Mark on the way out, "Kier's whole original vision saw us all working together." Helly arrives, looking stunned. Mark asks her, "How many times?" to which she says, "One thousand seventy-two." Mark and Dylan say nothing.

Irving walks the many hallways, while back in MDR Helly asks, "What about the voice behind the door?" "Crying baby, you mean?" says Dylan. "No," she says. "Like the angry, mumbly guy." Mark says they're "really not supposed to talk about the Break Room. The important thing is you apologized correctly. Now you're out." Dylan provides comic relief regarding fooling the machine. Mark says, "The Break Room sucks, but that's why we have protocols and procedures: so we don't end up there. You'll learn. I promise."

Irving arrives at O&D where Felicia directs him to Burt. Burt shows Irving some stored artwork. Irving describes his own emotional reaction to a particular piece. (At one point, Irving asks where Felicia has gone. "Supply run," Burt says.) Burt shows the painting in a drawer and begins quoting a poem, which Irving finishes. While they are looking at the painting, Bury puts his hand on Irving's. Irving suddenly announces that he must leave. Back in MDR, Helly accidentally sneaks up on Mark who is looking at Petey's map; he throws it in his desk drawer. Helly says she "got to four percent," which Mark compliments, but she's not sure why her work is good. Again walking the long halls, Irving stops and looks into an empty conference room. He enters to see Ricken's book on a chair. He goes back to the hallway and looks in each direction.

In MDR, Helly looks at Petey's map. Mark is surprised she has it and tries to get her to hide it. Instead, she tells Dylan that it's a map of their hallways. Dylan knows that making such a map is against the rules, to which Mark says he found it and, "I think Petey made it" and then silently admits he broke the rules by not turning it in to management. Helly points out Mark's hypocrisy in lecturing her to which he says he was just trying to keep her out of the Break Room. Dylan inspects Petey's map while Helly wonders why it's against the rules to make maps. Mark tries to say the map is unimportant but Helly speculates that the houses depicted as outside their work building were somehow accessible to Petey. She says to Mark, "Clearly he was trying to tell you something." He says no, and she derides him as a boot-licker and says, "You're more loyal to this place than to your friend." Mark preferred the past, before Helly, when "we could have fun, and work, without the whole goddamned department imploding." She says the work is bullshit. He says it's mysterious and important, and cites Kier wanting them to work as family. "I could not," she says, "With as razor to my throat, be less interested in being your family." Holding up the map, she says, "Your best friend left this for you, and you don't give a shit." He takes the map, tells her she's right, he doesn't give a shit, and feeds the map through a shredder. "Thank you, Helly," he says. "Now we can get back to work."

### Act Two

Irving appears, agitated, and announces an emergency. In the conference room they ponder Ricken's book. Mark finds an inscription inside the book to him. He says he'll turn it in to Milchick, which Irving approves but Dylan does not. Dylan says "it's booty with your name on it". Alone in MDR, Helly opens the photocopier to find a paper cutter. The other three return to MDR to find her gone.

At Cobel's office: Helly bursts in with one hand under the slicing blade of the paper cutter and demanding a camera "so I can tape a resignation to my outie, right fucking now! Or you're going to have to explain to her why she's missing four fingers." Cobel has Milchick set up the video camera and Helly records her appeal. Afterward, the entire group walks to the elevator and Helly descends after saying to Mark, "Well, boss, I guess this is the part where I tell you to go to hell. Except you're already here," and to Milchick and the others, "I was never sorry." Helly looks at the video disc in her hand that she has just made as the elevator door closes and then opens to show the same group waiting for her, and different video disc in her hand now.

Helly watches the video, along with Mark, Irving, Dylan, and Milchick, of her outie who says, I know you're unhappy but "I am a person. You are not. I make the decisions. You do not. And if you ever do anything to my fingers, know that I will keep you alive long enough to horribly regret that. Your resignation request is denied."
Mark is at home, on the phone with his sister and looking at on-line pictures of a "birthing center" resort. He claims fatigue and hangs up. A news alert on his phone shows that Petey has died. Mark looks toward Petey's phone in his basement.

In Cobel's office, Graner tells Cobel that the board will understand that "Kilmer wasn't your fault and he certainly wasn't mine." She mentions Petey's reintegration, and when Graner protests that reintegration isn't possible, she says, "We have to get his chip." He says Petey's is set to be cremated after the funeral, and then leaves.

### Act Three

At Petey's funeral, Mark and Mrs. Selvig meet unexpectedly. He says he's there because he heard Petey worked at Lumon. She claims Petey was a customer of "my shop." Mark excuses himself and goes to the bar and gets wine. While he drinks, Ms. Selvig meets June, Petey's daughter. A woman steps to the bar who then introduces herself to Mark as Peter's ex-wife Nina. She guesses that he's from Lumon, "So you didn't even know him at all." June arrives and she and Nina move on. June sits behind Mark and asks him if he knew her dad. He says, Yeah … at work. "Oh. You're one of those," she says dejectedly. "Did you ever think that maybe the best way to deal with a fucked-up situation in your life isn't to just shut your brain off half the time?" she asks. "I'm not exactly sure," he replies. The memorial service then shows a video of June and her father Peter practicing rock and roll together. As it plays, Cobel takes a hand drill to Petey's corpse in the room across the hall. She extracts the chip. Mark exits the main room and crosses the hall, only to find Mrs. Selvig already out in the hallway. June sees the two of them leave together.

Outside their homes, Mark and Mrs. Selvig say goodnight. Mark unlocks his front door, opens it an inch, then closes it again. He drives down a dark road and stops at what appears to be a random spot. He gets out of his car and walks up the snowy hill beside the road. He touches the trunk of a tree and experiences strong emotions. The next day, in Cobel's office, she presents to Milchick the chip she took from Petey's corpse. Ms. Casey arrives, and Cobel asks her to run "a special wellness session with Mark S."

Burt adjusts a painting on the wall of an otherwise blank hallway. Irving arrives, quoting Kier. The two discuss the painting, and Burt says it was a thrill when MDR visited his department and hopes he didn't embarrass himself. The two agree there's nothing to be embarrassed about. Irving accompanies Burt on his rounds replacing artwork. They quote dueling versions of Kier's gospel. Burt asserts that Kier speaks to them "in other ways" than the handbook and paintings.

Mark reads Ricken's book while hiding in the restroom, "Your job needs you, not the other way around." Burt and Irving say a warm goodbye. Ms. Casey calls Mark into her office for his wellness session. Helly says a pleasant goodbye to Dylan and leaves the MDR office. As she walks down the hallway we see she is carrying a long extension cord.

Ms. Casey asks Mark if he would like to sculpt his feelings out of clay. Cobel watches the session on her screen as Ms. Casey puts a ball of clay in front of Mark. Irving moves through the halls with a post-meeting buzz after hanging out with Burt. Helly takes a small trash can to the elevators and uses it to stand on as she ties a noose around a beam in the ceiling of the elevator car. Dylan finds Ricken's book in Mark's desk and reads a poem from it. Irving hears a noise and opens a door to see a group of at least six or eight people working with various machines. Mark sculpts his feelings into a small, tree-like clay statue. We see Helly at her desk, telling Mark she's good and him saying it looks like she's getting the hang of stuff. In the present, we see Helly putting the extension cord around her neck and kicking the trash can out from under herself.

## Cast

### Starring

* Adam Scott as Mark Scout
* Zach Cherry as Dylan George
* Britt Lower as Helly Riggs
* Tramell Tillman as Seth Milchick
* Jen Tullock as Devon Scout-Hale (voice)
* Dichen Lachman as Ms. Casey
* Michael Chernus as Ricken Hale (credit only)
* John Turturro as Irving Bailiff
* Christopher Walken as Burt Goodman
* Patricia Arquette as Harmony Cobel

### Guest Starring

* Yul Vazquez as Peter Kilmer
* Joanne Kelly as Nina Kilmer
* Michael Cumpsty as Doug Graner

### Co-Starring

* Rachel Addington as Elizabeth
* James Augustus Lee as Bartender
* Marc Geller as Kier Eagan (credit only)
* Cassidy Layton as June Kilmer
* Claudia Robinson as Felicia

## Trivia

* This is the fourth episode overall.
* When Irving encounters Burt, who had just finished hanging a painting in a hallway, he recognizes the painting. He is reminded of, and cites, a passage from the handbook: "Kier invites you to drink of his water". In the painting, a man is portrayed looking out over a vista from a high rock. The bodies of water depicted closely resemble all five Great Lakes.
* This is the first episode of the series not directed by Ben Stiller.

## Gallery

* Promotional
* Screenshots