Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Severance Season 2 Episode 3.
SeveranceSeason 2’s latest episode just dropped, and as usual, we have a lot more questions than answers as the show continues to keep viewers on our toes. But while Mark (Adam Scott) and Helly (Britt Lower) are busy atMammalians Nurturableand Dylan (Zach Cherry) is going on a first date with his outie’s wife, Gretchen (Merritt Wever), Irving (John Turturro) is part of an important plot development. In the scene in question, Irving’s innie takes his first trip to Optics & Design (O&D) following the retirement of his love interest, Burt (Christopher Walken), in order to deliver a “Missing” poster for Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman). Irving runs into Burt’s former coworker, Felicia (Claudia Robinson), andthis encounter gets us closer to solving one of the show’s biggest mysteries.
Irving’s Paintings Depict a Real Location at Lumon
One ofSeveranceSeason 1’s most mysterious plots is theunusual connection between Irving’s innie and outie. Several times throughout the first season, Irving is shown hard at work in MDR when he enters a strange dissociative episode and hallucinates black paint dripping from the ceiling and covering his desk. This begins to make more sense when Irving’s innie uses theOTCto wake up in the outside world. While he is awake, Irving sees thathis outie has been painting the same painting over and over, of a dark hallway lit by a single red light. These details hint that Irving might be susceptible to memories leaking in from his severed self. But nonetheless,Season 1 leaves us on a cliffhangeras to what exact significance the hallway has.
The Search for Ms. Casey Continues in ‘Severance’ Season 2, Episode 3
Might we finally get answers to one of Season 1’s strangest mysteries?
WithSeverance’s most recent episode, the show is now giving us another clue to solving this mystery. When Irving runs into Felicia, she gives him a long and heartfelt hug. This is an important moment of connection for Irving, whose developingrelationship with Burtwas cut short by Burt’s sudden retirement, followed by his discovery that Burt’s outie is in a relationship with another man. While visiting with Felicia, Irving shows her sketches he has been doing of Burt, and she accidentally flips to the last page, where he has recreated the hallway from the paintings in a sketch. Felicia looks down at the image with a serious expression before covering it with a slight smile and asking Irving, “How do you know about the Exports Hall?” This confirms thatthe hallway that has been haunting Irving is indeed a real place inside Lumon.
What Is the Exports Hall, and What Is Its Significance?
Regarding the Exports Hall, Felicia tells Irving thatO&D “send a lot of shipments there. Used to do it ourselves, but now they send a guy.“Irving asks Felicia if she knows how to get there, and Felicia looks at him quizzically. But before we hear her response, the camera cuts to another scene. Though this moment is brief, it throws a whole host of new questions at us. Why did Felicia look so suspicious of Irving’s knowledge of the Exports Hall? It could be that this character we have grown to trust through Burt is suspicious of Irving now, and could potentially pose a threat. On the other hand, she clearly knows some very valuable information that could help MDR in theirquest to uncover what’s really going on at Lumon.
Whilethe true purpose of the Exports Hall remains unknown at this point, we do have an important clue from Season 1. When Ms. Casey is fired, she is ordered to be sent to a place called theTesting Floor. Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) escorts Ms. Casey to a hallway that looks identical to what we now know as the Exports Hall. It is a long, dark corridor with an elevator at the end, and when Ms. Casey enters the elevator, a single red light blinks above the door. Felicia has now given us valuable information that O&D sends shipments here.Could it be that the Exports Hall is an escape route, or is it something much more sinister?One thing is clear:the disappearance of Ms. Caseyis connected to the Exports Hall in some way, and we just have to wait for the rest of Season 2 to figure out exactly how.
