Streaming Wars is a weekly opinion column by IGN’s Streaming Editor, Amelia Emberwing. Try the final entry Daredevil: Born Once more — An Surprising Connection to the Netflix Sequence May Proper a Decade-Previous Incorrect.
This column accommodates spoilers for Severance Season 2.
Earlier this week, I wrote about Severance Season 2’s penultimate episode being so much darker than it appeared. Dylan G’s resolution to successfully die by suicide is a reasonably jarring second, even when it’s tough to wrap our heads round resulting from him (presumably) persevering with on within the collection as his outie. There’s much more to the episode, with our boys Burt and Irving having what appears like however in all probability isn’t a final farewell and Mark coping with all the things happening together with his mind in the meanwhile. However there’s one thing exterior of all of that that I actively can’t cease fascinated with.
WTF is happening with Helena and Helly R.?
We begin the episode with a quick swim earlier than Helena (Britt Decrease) heads to her father’s property for breakfast. As is at all times the case with the Eagens, actually each second of their encounter is bizarre. Helena eats a hard-boiled egg, to which her father says “I want you’ll take them uncooked” within the creepiest method humanly doable. That is adopted in a while within the episode by an equally unnerving encounter, this time on Lumon’s severed flooring. As Helly R. tries to memorize the instructions left by Irving to get to the darkish hallway, she is interrupted by Jame (Michael Siberry). He tells his daughter’s innie that she “tricked” him, and calls her “My Helly.” True to character, Helly responds with a easy “WTF?” However, pricey reader, “WTF” is by some means not sufficient for regardless of the hell is happening right here.
There’s something flawed happening with each variations of Helly on this episode, I can’t put my finger on it, and it’s driving me mad. The probability of all of this being simply defined isn’t small, however for some cause I want that reply. The goats don’t even drive me into this sort of hyperfixation spiral.
As talked about, conferences with any Eagan are at all times on the unnerving aspect. However there’s something totally different about Helena originally of this episode. At first, I believed the episode title “The After Hours” was a touch towards the extra time contingency reasonably than simply the cabin Cobel (Patricia Arquette) was taking Mark (Adam Scott) to, implying that Helly R. by some means discovered a technique to take over her outie’s physique for the morning. I’d speak myself out of it one second, after which speak myself proper again into the speculation the following. However this proverbial mind tennis ultimately took me in a totally new route.
What if it isn’t Helly R. pretending to be Helena? There’s one thing too easy about that idea. It feels too clear. What if, as an alternative, they’re not flipping the sooner story of Helena taking Helly’s place on the severed flooring, however coming again to it? Keep on with me right here.
At first, this line of pondering appears absurd. Nothing’s occurred to nudge the girl – who was actually homegrown inside a cult – exterior of her loyalist tendencies, proper? Incorrect!
Two inciting incidents have occurred that will have snapped Jame Eagan’s daughter out of her Lumon fugue state. The primary is the aforementioned extra time contingency. A girl who has, so far as we all know, by no means rebelled a second in her life bought the chance to be free. To dissent. To talk up and communicate out about one thing she didn’t help. We additionally know that she was following Helly R.’s revolt in Season 1. How refreshing (and probably terrifying) that should be for somebody who grew up an Eagan!
The second inciting issue was attending to reside as Helly when she was masquerading as her innie. Adventures, rebellions, intercourse?! Helena has grown up in a world that appears down on laborers, however doesn’t appear to be the kind of one that has ever been confronted by the thought of being free, even when that freedom was occurring whereas trapped in a dead-end job.
Two non-Eagan centered scenes in “The After Hours” appear to corroborate this line of pondering. All Helly R. has performed from the second we met her is arise and/or defy each authority determine she encounters. Nonetheless, there was a wierd spark in her when she regarded Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) within the eye after he accused her of insubordination and he or she responded “yeah, no shit,” with a smile earlier than slamming the door to his workplace. Moreover, Dylan G. (Zach Cherry) might have been unnecessarily imply to his good friend throughout his heartbreak, however he has a line throughout their dialog the place he brings up the truth that nobody can inform when Helena takes over her physique, not even Mark.
The ultimate salvo on this unusual line of theorizing comes by the use of Jame Eagan himself. At first, Helly’s “WTF?” to her dad (who she had by no means met) satisfied me that Helly and Helena have been every the place they belonged, Helena along with her father in his compound, and Helly on the severed flooring. However, as soon as I noticed the chance that we spent the entire episode with Helena reasonably than Helly, all of it made sense.
“What the fuck” isn’t actually an inexpensive response from Helly R., who from her perspective would simply be assembly a stranger. Nonetheless, “what the fuck” is a fully cheap response to seeing your father in a spot the place he completely doesn’t belong.
Jame’s little “you tricked me” confounded me for days, nevertheless it appears Daddy dearest might have cracked the code on Helena’s little sport.
If it is Helena residing her alternate life as a girl unbeholden to anybody and on a newfound mission to say “eff the person,” then the follow-up query turns into “to what finish?” Has Helena had a change of coronary heart after experiencing a quick style of what it’s prefer to reside exterior of her household’s monotone cult, or is it only a part?
To that, I don’t have a solution simply but. However I can say that all of it has me rattling excited for subsequent week’s Season 2 finale. What are your Helly R. theories?
