Defiant Jazz

"**Defiant Jazz**" is the seventh episode in the first season of the Apple TV+ thriller series ***Severance***. It was released on the twenty-fifth of March in 2022.

## Synopsis

Mark and the team encounter new security measures from Cobel.

## Plot

### Intro

Mark asks the woman he has met outside a large building who she is. "Come with me," she says as they move away from their too-visible spot. He follows down an interior stairwell into a basement area. She asks him why he didn't throw away Petey's phone, and when he asks her again who she is, she says, “I’m the one who helped your friend.” Mark says "reintegration" killed Petey. She says the procedure was not lethal but that it was Petey’s failure to follow her post-op instructions that killed him when he "ran away at the first sign of sickness." She tells him that she implanted Mark’s chip and claims she’s "still the only one who can deactivate it."

### Act One

They arrive at a small makeshift clinic set up in a dark corner. Mark says he’s not interested in Reintegration. The woman says maybe his Innie is (though she finds the term “Innie” infantilizing). They disagree about what Mark’s Innie would want. She tries to make Mark understand that the Innie *is* him. Mark attempts to defend himself, saying he is not a bad person. She says, "I think you want to do what's right. Both of you."

At that moment, Doug Graner, head of Lumon security, appears. “Mr. Scout,” he says in a friendly tone. Mark doesn't recognize him and asks him who he is. Graner says they "work together ... down there.” Graner asks if Mark is talking to someone. He takes a few steps closer to Mark. “It’s okay. I’m a friend,” he offers calmly. The woman comes behind Graner and hits him on the top of his head with a metal baseball bat. Graner crumples to the ground and she hits him twice more to make sure the job is done. She tells Mark to help her move him. Mark is panicked as he tells her the man she just killed works with him. “No, you don’t,” she replies as they drag the body. “He's Doug Graner, Head of Security on the Severed Floor.” Mark retches and says he's going to vomit. The woman tells him not to as he would be leaving his DNA behind and he stops himself. She removes Graner’s black Lumon badge and offers it to Mark telling him it will give him full, untraceable access and that he should take it to work tomorrow and "He'll know what to do." When Mark asks *who* will know what to do, she says, "You." She demands Petey’s phone from Mark and once she has it says, "I'll take care of this and tells him to go home and get rid of his clothes. As he starts to leave, she says she will be in touch to "finish what Petey started" and then shouts at the stunned Mark to get him moving. He exits into a tunnel/driveway area and stops to vomit.

At home, Mark disrobes and puts his clothes into a trash bag except for his boxer shorts. Alexa appears and asks him where he was. At first he lies and says he was just getting water but she heard his car to which he first says maybe it was as dream but then admits he left because he "needed to drive a little." He says their new relationship "is kind of a big deal for me" and when she asks if he wants her to go he says, "Maybe?, uh, maybe."

The next morning Mark notices the black badge on his kitchen counter and pockets it. He puts the bag with the soiled clothes to his trash bin on the curb when Mrs. Selvig, ever vigilant about Mark’s trash habits ("You usually dispose of your waste in the early afternoon"), emerges from her house. She says Mark looks “troubled” and offers to talk later over tea.

### Act Two

As the clock reads 8:06, Milchick repeatedly tests the new card-activated MDR door. He goes into the restroom, enters a stall, kneels down, reaches behind a toilet, and removes the ideographic card taken by Dylan the day before. In Optics and Design, Milchick gives the ideographic card to Burt. “Now we can focus on the final preparations,” Milchick says. "We shall," Burt says enthusiastically.

Milchick greets Dylan at the elevator. Dylan is confused, asking, “What the hell was that?” Milchick says the previous night’s incident was the result of the Overtime Contingency Protocol, a safeguard procedure to wake workers offsite. “You never told us you could do that!” accuses Dylan. Milchick maintains it was for an emergency and he didn’t even tell Ms. Cobel because she has been stressed. Dylan asks if the boy is his son. Milchick doesn't deny it, but warns Dylan not to mention anything about the experience to the rest of MDR. Dylan asks his son’s name but Milchick won’t tell him, instead offering some unspecified special perks. Dylan appears to acquiesce.

Mark arrives for work and discovers Graner's black card in his pocket. Uncertain, puts it back in his pocket and continues to his floor. Milchick greets him at the elevator, making Mark think he's to be punished. Milchick instead escorts Mark to his new, locked office. When Mark sees the new door, he asks, "What? Are we locked in now?" Milchick says, "I prefer the phrase 'safely situated.' These doors help us ensure you are all tucked nicely in your work spaces." Despite at first being taken aback by the new security situation, Mark then tries (a little too hard) to act as if nothing is unusual.

As Milchick leaves the MRD office, he leaves a voice message for someone, saying that Graner has not yet come into work and, "Just wondering where you are."

Irv asks Mark about labels on the restroom soap dispensers, using it as an excuse to go to Optics & Design. Mark reminds him they are locked into their office. Milchick arrives with a cart of snacks & a turntable to give Helly and her officemates a five-minute Music Dance Experience as a reward for her "reaching 75% refinement on Siena." Irv points out that she's only at 73%, to which Milchick says, "Yes, well, it's been a tough morning on all of us." Helly asks, "Why for you?" but he ignores her question. Her choice of music is Defiant Jazz. The music plays, lights flash, and they dance with varying degrees of enthusiasm, except for Dylan who looks only at his computer and gets progressively more tense. As Milchick gets ever closer to Dylan and the music reaches a wildly distorted crescendo, Dylan hears his son saying, "daddy," and then snaps and attacks Milchick, knocking him down and biting him. The others pull Dylan off Milchick. Milchick tells Dylan he'll report him to Ms. Nobel to which Dylan says, "Yeah? You wanna go see her together?" Milchick leaves, saying only, "The Music Dance Experience is officially canceled."

Dylan explains the Overtime Contingency to the others and that he saw his son. Irv tries to tell Dylan the boy is not his son, but Dylan won't accept it. Helly says, "This is good. We could use this. If they can wake us up on the outside, what's to stop us from doing it to ourselves?" Irv says the controls are somewhere they can't access. Mark pulls Graner's black card from his pocket and asks, "Like the security office?" Realizing what they have, but no idea how Mark got it, they agree to try to awaken their Innie selves on the outside. They use the black card to leave the MDR office. Irving heads for O&D "to make sure Burt's okay."

Mark and Helly make their way to the security office & enter via Graner's black card. They see the equipment that monitors Lumon employees, including themselves. They find a manual that describes the Overtime Contingency. They see Cobel on a video feed from an elevator, and Helly tears one page from the manual and they leave.

Back in the MDR storage closet, Mark, Helly, and Dylan discuss the fact that the security office was unmanned and that the overall security might not be as rigorous as it seems, to which Helly says, "It's too bad nobody told you guys that everything here is bullshit." They review the manual page that describes how to invoke the Overtime Contingency, and agree that Dylan will carry out the steps in the security office while the other three are their Outie selves.

### Act Three

Irv comes upon a party taking place at O & D, which turns out to be a retirement party for Burt. Milchick is surprised to see Irv but shows a video made my Burt's Outie who praises Innie Burt's colleagues even though "I don't really know any of you" and says they will stay with him "in some deep yet completely 'unaccessible' corner of my mind" even though "I have no recollection of actually meeting you and no idea of your names or any of your physical characteristics or even how many of you there are."

Irv asks the group, "Are you just going to stand here and let him die?" Burt is confused. Milchick says Burt's Outie is retiring and, "It'll happen to you some day." Irv says to Milchick, "You smug muthafucka. You're not severed. You'll walk out of her with your memories; you carry them home with you every night. No one can rip them away from you, snuff them out like they never existed. Like you never existed!" Milchick orders Irv back to MDR but Burt asks that Irv stay at Burt's party and Milchick gives in, saying, "I don't know what's gotten into you people today." Irv feigns submissiveness. Milchick escorts Irv back to MDR after Burt's party.

Mrs. Selvig teaches Devon how to breastfeed her baby. Later the two woman chat over tea, Mrs. Selvig shrugs off her duty to go her "store," and Devon talks about meeting Gabby Arteta and how Gabby didn't remember meeting Devon previously. Devon wonders if Gabby's lack of memory resulted from using severance to have a baby but not have to remember the pain of labor. Mrs. Selvig asks why Mark chose severance. Devon explains how Mark's wife died and he was emotionally unable to keep teaching. Mrs. Selvig asks if Mark ever talks about his late wife. "Not as much as I wish," Devon says. Mrs. Selvig says that when her husband died, "I thought I saw him everywhere," and asks if Mark ever thinks he sees his wife. Devon looks at her quizzically.

Harmony Cobel arrives outside her office and is met by Natalie who has the board on the phone via her head piece. Natalie tells her Doug Graner is dead and asks if Harmony knew Graner was missing and if she had spoken to the police. Harmony says whoever killed Graner probably also reintegrated Peter "Petey" Kilmer and says she'll share her findings that reintegration is possible with the board in person, without Natalie as an intermediary. Natalie says the board agrees and will meet with Harmony at the Eagan family gala next week "and discuss this further. Details to come." The two women stare each other down ominously and Harmony says, "I look forward to receiving them."

After Irv returns from Burt's party, he says to the other three, "Let's burn this place to the ground." They look at one another. Mark nods.

Mark drinks and scans his phone, finding a news article about Ganz College. There's knock on the door which Mark opens to find Alexa who has come for her phone. A drunk Mark tries to convince Alexa he's over his late wife by tearing up a picture of her, but Alexa knows he's an emotional mess and leaves. Mark tapes the torn photo back together and we see that his "late" wife is the Innie known as Ms. Casey.

## 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
* Dichen Lachman as Ms. Casey (credit only)
* Michael Chernus as Ricken Hale (credit only)
* John Turturro as Irving Bailiff
* Christopher Walken as Burt Goodman
* Patricia Arquette as Harmony Cobel

### Guest Starring

* Sydney Cole Alexander as Natalie
* Karen Aldridge as Regabhi
* Michael Cumpsty as Doug Graner
* Nikki M. James as Alexa

### Co-starring

* Rachel Addington as Elizabeth
* Marc Geller as Kier Eagan
* Claudia Robinson as Felicia
* Mark Kenneth Smaltz as Judd

## Gallery

* Promotional
* Screenshots