Hide and Seek

"**Hide and Seek**" is the sixth episode in the first season of the Apple TV+ thriller series ***Severance***. It was released on the eighteenth of March in 2022.

## Synopsis

The team angers Cobel by forming an alliance.

## Plot

### Intro

At home, Cobel has hung Petey's chip on a necklace and puts it on herself. Her phone buzzes with a call from Graner who tells her further analysis of the chip from Petey's brain implicates Regabhi as the one who reintegrated Petey: "She cracked reintegration. I'll find her." She hangs up and kneels to pray at an altar to Kier.

### Act One

Mark goes down into his basement and retrieves Petey's phone. He again sees the many missed calls. In his car, Mark is about to leave his neighborhood when he stops, backs up, stops in front of his trash bin, takes the battery out of Petey's phone, and throws the phone and its battery into the bin.

Burt shows Irving a plant-filled room and suggests it can be "just for us. Our secret place." They agree that having others around inhibits their interaction. Burt takes Irving's hand and asks if it's okay to do so. They discuss company rules agains fraternization. Irving says he's not ready for a romantic relationship with Burt. Burt says, "Just stay. Here with me."

At an outdoor park, Devon carries her new baby. She comes upon Gabby Arteta carrying her own newborn. Gabby doesn't seems to recognize Devon until Devon reminds her about scrounging coffee. Gabby says her baby is named Bradley, despite having previously told Devon the baby would be named William. Devon begins to question the name change but Gabby's husband Angelo arrives and introduces himself. Gabby is particularly uninterested in conversation. Devon finds the whole interaction peculiar.

We hear Ricken's voice reading his book's chapter called Camaraderie, including a statement about struggling alongside others, as Mark sits on the MDR kitchenette's floor reading it. Later in the kitchenette, Irving suggests to Mark, Helly, and Dylan starting an effort in "uniting the departments" via another visit to O&D. Dylan is skeptical but Helly thinks that O&D "is the next piece of this" in the effort to map the building and figure out what Lumon actually does. She suggest she and Mark "go on another mental health walk", referencing the excuse they gave Ms. Casey for their walking around the building. When Mark is reluctant, she chides him about the supposedly "mysterious and important" work. He gets that she's making fun of him. When she goes back to her desk, Dylan sees that something is going on between Mark and Helly. Milchick appears and the three men lie and say they were talking about Ms. Casey, and then ask, "Wait. Where is she?"

In her office, Cobel tells Mark that Ms. Casey failed at her task of watching Helly. Mark: "Because I snuck Helly out. If anyone should be in the Break Room, it's me." She praises Mark's willingness to take the blame for others but "she's just a wellness counselor, Mark." Mark says he was just taking Helly for a walk but Cobel has video footage of Mark and Helly talking surreptitiously in the unused office and she confronts him about MDR being "woefully behind quota." When Cobel says it's not Mark's job "to play nursemaid to every new refiner," Mark gets somewhat angry and asks, "Okay, so what is my job? What is it we actually do here?" Cobel shouts in anger, "We serve Kier! You child! And until you get that through your mildewed little brain and hit quota, MDR's hallway privileges are hereby revoked! So get your little ass back to your desk and stay there until you're told to move!" He leaves.

Dylan asks Helly about her sneaking off with Mark and the baby goats. Helly asks him if he thinks "baby goats" is code for sex with Mark S. He says yes and asks her if that's what it's code for, to which she says no, and that they saw actual goats. Mark arrives and tells them Ms. Casey is in the Break Room and that they're not allowed in the halls anymore and yells in anger, "So no more interdepartmental visits!" Dylan asks if he's serious. Irving says it's his fault for setting a bad example. Mark asks, "Which way did you say it was to O&D?" indicating his intention to break the rules.

### Act Two

The four walk to O&D together. Cobel sees them and tells Milchick to deal with them. In O&D, Burt tells his own employees that the MDR members are present as part of a new relationship between the departments. Elizabeth asks what they refine in Macrodata Refinement. Instead of answering, Irving asks if she's holding a watering can, which makes Burt's employees uncomfortable. Burt says, "We think it might be supplies for the executive wing upstairs. Then again, last week's outfit had more of an aggressive feel." "The hatchets weren't aggressive," Elizabeth says, but Felicia shushes her. Mark says they're trying to put it all together and mentions the department that's raising baby goats. "There's a lot unknown, to us as well," Burt says, "But we keep plugging along. It's important work, obviously." Helly asks, "It's important because it actually is or because you're saying it is?" Burt has no answer. Mark suggests they "work together on this." "Together … doing what exactly?" Felicia asks.

Not sure, Mark says, "Finding out why there are goats … finding out how big this place is … or how many of us there are. I mean, why won't they tell us what we're doing here? What are they so afraid of? If the Eagan philosophy is illumination above all, they why doesn't that include us? Why are we down here still working in the dark?" After a pause, Dylan says, "That was poetic as shit, man." Burt says Mark is right (surprising Irving), that Kier would want them to be partners, and that he and Mark should "make contact with this goat department, see what they know, and we could each bring—" but he is cut off by Milchick's arrival. While Burt is speaking, Dylan finds some cards with pictograms of people on them performing some kind of motions, and he takes one card and puts it in his pocket. Milchick leads the four back to MDR. Mark tells Milchick they're not children and didn't do anything wrong. Cobel is waiting for them in MDR and begins singing a tribute to Kier. She stops singing and tells Mark he abused her trust. Graner appears and Cobel tells him to escort Mark to the Break Room. Graner takes Mark to the narrow, dark hallway to the Break Room. Mark appears defiant. While he's in the hallway, Ms. Casey appears at the other end, leaving the Break Room. As they pass each other, Mark says, "I'm sorry."

Mark and Alexa eat at a restaurant where she notices Mark's injured hand. He says he hurt it on a water cooler, "Or at least that's what they tell me." They discuss Devon's new baby and how Alexa recommended a lactation expert to Devon. In response to her question, Mark discusses his attempts with his late wife to have children and changing his thinking once it appeared it wasn't going to happen, but then Mark feels weird talking about his late wife on their date. Alexa accidentally references "separating" parts of one's life, trying to say one can't do it.

Alone, Devon researches Angelo and Gabby Arteta on line and learns that Angelo, as a state senator, is an advocate for formally legalizing the severance process. Ricken enters and announces the arrival of the lactation consultant who turns out to be Mrs. Selvig. Ricken notes it's "so serendipitous" that she's Mark's next-door neighbor. Mrs. Selvig holds baby Eleanor and calms her crying.

### Act Three

At Dylan's home, his child counts high numbers while watching cartoons. In another room, Dylan comes to his innie consciousness, quite stunned, with Milchick present. Milchick says, "I've awoken you at home. I need to know where you put it," referring to the "ideographic card you took from O&D," which Milchick saw Dylan take via video footage. Dylan looks around, stunned to realize his in his outie's house. Milchick says, "You have no idea how sensitive this information is. If someone paid you to smuggle out that card—" But Dylan says he took it on his own and hid it in the restroom at work, and "I didn't even know what it was." Dylan's son enters the room to Dylan's great surprise, his innie self not knowing anything about his outie life. Into his phone, Milchick says, "End it." and we see a hand throw a switch and Dylan returns to being his outie self, no longer surprised by his surroundings. In response to Dylan's question, Milchick says, "We're good," and leaves.

Outside the restaurant, Mark and Alexa see a flyer for a performance by June's band and they decide to attend. The band and the crowd have a goth-metal style. Mark takes a video of the band but is told not to by an aggressive attendee. The lead singer sings, "I hate you Lumon, you took my first love. Fuck you, Lumon, it's never enough." The crowd responds, chanting, "Fuck you, Lumon. I hate you, Lumon," giving the finger. Mark and Alexa talk to June after the set. Mark says her dad would have liked the last song. "How the fuck would you even know that?" she asks. A fight breaks out in the alley where they're standing and Mark and Alexa leave. When it's just the two of them, Mark explains that June "is the daughter of someone I worked with, who died, and it's been difficult to piece—" but she interrupts him with a kiss.

Graner appears at Cobel's front door and tells her he got a tip from a campus cop on where to find Reghabi. He explains there's a place on the campus that the dean was told not to pay attention to but "to look the other way." Graner asks if she wants to go with him to investigate but she says no, but "let me know when you have her." Graner tells her, "Maintenance is installing tonight. I think it's a good call."

Mark awakens with Alexa in the bed next to him. He goes to the curb and retrieves Petey's cell phone and its battery from the trash bin. He puts the battery in the phone and it immediately starts buzzing. He answers the phone and a female voices asks him who he is. He says, "A friend of Petey's." She asks if it's Mark Scout and what Petey told him before he died. Mark says nothing, but "I want to understand." She replies, ("You can meet me now"?).

At Lumon, workers put a new door on the MDR office. Outside another darkened building, Mark is approached by a woman who asks, "Are you alone?" He says yes, and "I used to teach at this school." He asks her who she is and she says, "Come with me" and walks away.

## 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
* Michael Chernus as Ricken Hale
* John Turturro as Irving Bailiff
* Christopher Walken as Burt Goodman
* Patricia Arquette as Harmony Cobel

### Guest Starring

* Karen Aldridge as Regabhi
* Michael Cumpsty as Doug Graner
* Nikki M. James as Alexa
* Nora Dale as Gabby Arteta

### Co-starring

* Rachel Addington as Elizabeth
* Michael Caiazzo as Lead Singer
* Margaret Chardiet as Bass
* Ethan Flower as Angelo Arteta
* Marc Geller as Kier Eagan
* Blaze James Gorman as Dylan's Son
* Jonathan Iglesias as Guy at Venue
* Cassidy Layton as June Kilmer
* Tye Miller as Guitarist
* Claudia Robinson as Felicia
* Griffin Stanton-Ameisen as Waiter
* Charles Henry Wood as Drummer

## Gallery

* Promotional
* Screenshots