#Mark and Gemma are Orpheus/Eurydice of course

[lylahammar]

Queen of the underworld 🌾

[starrylayle]

women (of colour) in severance

an incoherent rambling about the female characters in severance, specifically focusing on Gemma and Helly. Mostly Gemma. A bit of Alexa too. Spoilers under the cut.

Ok so to start off, I absolutely adore all the women characters in severance they're all soo spectacularly written.

I remember when I first started the show, I thought that Helly was going to be the stereotypical, fiery and the only female protagonist whose story started off interesting but in the end her only character purpose was to be Mark's love interest. Boy, was I wrong. First the elevator suicide scene and then the Helena reveal, I knew this show knew how to write women.

Similarly, when Ms. Casey was first revealed, I remember rolling my eyes, thinking, oh look another stereotypical robot-like Asian lady who has no greater character purpose. Then, it was revealed that Ms Casey was (partially?) severed and not a part of the staff like I'd initially assumed. Of course, then the Ms Casey = Gemma reveal happened and I was SHOOK. Like,, you mean to tell me that she is actually an important character with narrative purpose? And Mark's wife -- I had assumed she was a -- white woman -- who would never actually have a character arc and would only be shown in dead-wife-john-wick-style flashbacks to further the plot.

I became so hyped. Two characters, the 'dead' wife and wellness lady, were actually one which meant they (she) would actually have character arcs!! And she's a woman of color!! Woohoo!!

But now that season 2 is progressing, as much as i absolutely adore it, I'm just worried that Gemma/Ms Casey will not have the caharcter arcs I wanted. Especially the theory that Casey is secretly a clone and not actually Gemma,,, or that she's brain dead,, or that she'll die again,, or whatever else. I know that it narratively works, but I just wish there was some way that Gemma/Ms Casey could have a proper character/character arc, even if it resulted in death at the end. I hear a lot of Mark/Gemma and Orpheus/Eurydice parallels which gives me hope because Eurydice is still a fully formed character (at least in the musical Hadestown llolol). I've seen some people theorise that Mark may have romantacised his marriage with Gemma and maybe they weren't as happy as they seemed?? Which I highly doubt, considering the info we were given in 'The You You Are'. Or maybe she secretly worked for Lumon beforehand?? I dunno how I feel about these theories but they would definitely make for an interesting plotline and character arc.

I guess what I've realised is that the show writes white women very well (Helly/helena, Ms Cobelvig and Devon) and their woc counterparts,,, not so much. Still holding out hope for Miss Huang, Reghabi (what is her deal btw?? I must know!!), Natalie and Gemma/Ms Casey, and that they will have fleshed out characters by the end, but who knows.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but Alexa, the woman mark went on a date with, was actually a favourite of mine. I was convinced she was gonna be relevant to the plot lmao. but eh she feels more of the 'disposable Black gf trope' :( tbh I'm still delusional enough to believe she will come back. Maybe if Ricken beomes a sell-out Devon will leave him date Alexa?? Yes I sound like a delusional lesbian but cmon Devon clearly liked her enough to recommend her to Mark?? maybee?/ Anyways this was a tangent. Maybe if they decide to go the Helly got pregnant route (which I hope they don't unless it ends in miscarriage) Alexa will be there coz she's a midwife (or doula?? I hear different ppl say different things??)

Anyways, I know this is all very far from the main narrative so I don't mind too much, I'm just hoping that they fully flesh out Gemma because she, along with Mark and Helly, are at the core of the story.

[thelivingautomaton]

severance enjoyers, obviously we know and love and are best friends with the markgemma orpheus/eurydice parallels, but has anyone considered: petey/mark/gemma as virgil/dante/beatrice from the divine comedy. "midway through the course of my life / I came to myself in a dark wood / for the straight way was lost." petey the dead shade, who was mark s's "teacher and author", guiding mark through the floors of lost and tortured souls. "THROUGH ME THE WAY AMONG THE LOST / DIVINE POWER MADE ME, / WISDOM SUPREME, AND PRIMAL LOVE. / ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE." mark being spurred on through his pilgrimage by the promise of reuniting with his lost love (and when he does she immediately chews him out for fucking up his life). is this thing on??? can anybody hear me????????

[thesublemon]

the storytelling in severance season two so far is reminding me somewhat of farscape season three. both use a scifi conceit to literally split characters into different selves, and thereby explore their competing desires, particularly with regards to romance, and selfhood by extension.

(spoilers for both)

in farscape season three the protagonist is split into two equal selves. one of the john crichtons is able to resolve two seasons of romantic tension, and be in a happy relationship with his alien love interest. meanwhile the other john, bereft of love, obsessively attempts to perfect the technology that will take him home to earth. metaphorically, it’s a conflict between two versions of home, or selfhood. a self that is familiar, versus one that is alien. john yearns for a version of himself that can have it all: earth and aeryn, past and future, known and unknown. but the myth that underlies the season is icarus, and the folktale is the dog with with two bones. one of the johns does seem like he will get it all, and will even be healed of the scifi-metaphor for pain and trauma that haunts his brain—the neural chip harvey. but it turns out that this perfect resolution is impossible. the john that tries to have it all dies; the john that remains as the show’s main character is the john that has nothing. it turns out that it is not possible to simultaneously change and not change. “you can’t go home again,” essentially. if john is to truly move forward, according to the show, he must confront the reality of loss that is inherent to becoming something new, regardless of whether that new thing involves beauty and wonder (love) or something terrible (pain).

similarly in severance season two so far you have one version of mark who has spiraled downwards without love. and who, as of the most recent episode (2x03 “who is alive?”), is willing to risk himself to get that past love back. this is contrasted with a version of mark who “has everything.” he is not shattered by grief, he has a new love interest, he still has some innocence. like the johns, one mark is obsessively fixated on a former state, and one is able to narratively advance. but the fact that the story of how good the more innocent version of mark has it comes from lumon (“the mark i’ve come to know at lumon is happy”) emphasizes how much it is, indeed, a story. that version has also experienced loss, and suffering, and his existence is, of course, literal corporate slavery. it potentially foreshadows that now that one mark is attempting to “have everything” to an even greater degree, by stitching together his separate selves, that something will go wrong. like farscape with icarus, there are two myths suggested by the show so far: the orpheus and eurydice myth, which doesn’t bode well, and the persephone myth, which could go in a number of directions.

both shows use the season’s credit sequence to express the idea of self-conflict. in farscape, the narration over the season three credits is split into two echoing voices, and its description of the show’s premise becomes divided and confused. instead of john saying he’s “just trying to find a way home”, and to meanwhile “share the wonders i’ve seen” as he does in the credits for seasons one and two, john in the season three narration wonders if he wonder if he should “open the door” to earth, or leave it shut. he starts asking questions: “are you ready?”, “or should i stay?” he starts describing the things he’s seen as both “nightmares” and “wonders”. similarly the credits for season two of severance are full of duality and conflict. there is imagery of gemma on one side, and helly on another. the women flicker and run in opposite directions. meanwhile the two marks simultaneously work together and seem at odds. sometimes one mark pulls and carries the other. but instead of the season two credits ending with the two marks merging, as they do in the first season credits, one mark now attempts to crawl its way out of the other.

in general, both shows seem to use the idea of pain, grief, or trauma as a kind of psychological splitting point. and use romantic love to make the longing and loss (the positive and negative) involved in change more visceral. in mark’s case, the metaphor is pretty literal and immediate—the starting premise of the show is that he has split himself into two consciences because of grief for his wife. in john’s case, the metaphor takes a bit longer to develop. he changes in increasingly dark ways over the course of the first two seasons, and only by season three is it time to physically split him in order to explore the implications of those changes. this difference makes sense based on the type of story that each show is derived from. severance is more of a modern gothic tale, exploring the consequences of repression in an eerie atmosphere. farscape on the other hand, is more of a modern odyssey or wizard of oz, a mythological tale of displacement and change.

i don’t have predictions on specific developments in severance, but i’m interested to see where it goes with the metaphorical framework it’s set up so far. like farscape, it could easily end in a dog with two bones sort of way—by trying to have two contradictory things, mark loses both. and perhaps that will be a necessary nadir on the path to some ultimate stage of resolution. regardless, it’s nice to see a new scifi show making use of the genre’s ability for metaphor in a way that doesn’t (yet) feel boring or underdeveloped, whatever it chooses to do with it.

[k0sm1cs]

the parallels between the severance finale and the orpheus and eurydice myth and the different theories as to why orpheus turns around ohhhhhhhh my god let me cook

innie mark/helly - orpheus’ sheer love for eurydice

with all of his overwhelming love for helly, how could he not turn around? how could he not hope to see her face and spend just a few more seconds with her before they (probably) die? she is his entire universe, no matter the dangerous situation they are in he will always choose her. he will always turn around

gemma/outie mark - [his] paranoia that no one is behind him

in this case gemma is orpheus. gemma doesn’t know that mark is severed. she has been told a lie that (outie) mark has moved on. she turns around because although she has been allotted out of her imprisonment, she doesn’t trust that marks right behind her. because behind her is no longer the mark she even knows (literally!). and she’s right!! he’s not!!

innie mark/outie mark - his paranoia that he’s being tricked into leaving without his love

in this case innie mark is orpheus. innie mark has to leave everything he loves (helly, the severed floor bcs tbh he may not love it but it’s Everything he knows) with the trust that his outie will go forward with the reintegration process. we already know innie mark doesn’t really trust his outies loyalty to that plan so of COURSE he turns around and destroys that plan in his own terms. he’s paranoid asf that he’s just being tricked into leaving

[magiefish]

Okay so I’ve watched all of Severance up until the most recent episode (harrowing btw) and I would like to say one thing about where I think the Gemma/Mark situation is going. (Spoilers under the cut)

So, when I first found out that Gemma was Ms Casey’s outie, I thought it would be revealed that Gemma was still really dead, and all the time that Ms Casey is ‘switched off’ she’s really just lying in a morgue somewhere waiting to be switched back on. She, of course, would never know this because she wouldn’t remember being there, and Lumon could literally just make up anything they liked about what her outie ‘does while she’s away’ and she would just have to believe them (I kind of thought this would also be the situation with the goat people - they’re not dead when they’re switched off, but I don’t think their outies leave either, but they would never know that and would just have to go off Lumon’s word that their outies stargaze or whatever. I think this could still happen, but it’s less likely than it was before).

Anyway, this episode took that theory and put it in the paper shredder, and I wasn’t even really mad about it other than I felt like it fucked with the shows whole arc of grief. As everyone has been saying, Orpheus and Eurydice, you can never bring back the dead, ya da ya da ya. I just didn’t feel like I’d find it satisfying for Mark and Gemma to be together again, but I also didn’t think I’d find it satisfying if one of them just died, because then it’s like. Well why didn’t you just commit to killing one of them in the first place. We’re back to square one here.

However, I then remembered that Mark’s reintegration is a thing, and I’m having some thoughts about it. Because, see, innies and outies, though quite similar in many regards, are still ultimately kind of different people. They have different memories and different experiences and therefore *slightly* different personalities and perceptions. Thinking back to Peter Kilmer / Petey, it kind of struck me how he didn’t seem exactly like either Kilmer or Petey but a weird mix of the two. Like he said, the relative chronologies are all fucked, so reintegration fucks with your personality and your experiences. In reintegrating, he ceased to be either Kilmer or Petey but became a kind of Petey-Kilmer. The closest comparison I can think of is (lord forgive me for being a horror fan and therefore making a rather unflattering one) is like. Brundlefly from The Fly 1986? Like a fly and a guy get into a gene splicer and then they both become each other while both the originals cease. Or something. Idk.

What I’m trying to say is, with Mark reintegrating (and without Mark S’s consent, which is a death-of-personality horror story all by itself), I think he’s so blinded by his grief and devotion for Gemma that he doesn’t entirely realise that in synching up these two sets of memories he is, effectively, killing himself. But I think he’ll just keep going. And by the time he maybe does get Gemma out and they’re together again, they’ll only look at each other to realise that the person who wanted her back and the man she was waiting for is dead.

And baby. I’d fucking love it.

[planet4546b]

my horrid little severance discussion gripe is that i do not in fact think that severance is about orpheus and eurydice because it is in fact the opposite mark did not go to the severed floor to get gemma back (although that’s the goal Now it was NOT his original goal) he did it to forget her completely because to live with the grief was completely unthinkable and his response was to try as hard as possible to run from it. the fact that gemma was down there anyways is because of course it’s inescapable. there’s more than one narrative about grief in the world you know. it’s different

[josephinekhawaja]

Tagging this for OTP as I thought it interesting the constant juxtapositioning and interchanging of Gemma and Helena that even I did not pick up on myself. And the idea of both women being the Persephone. We are really going there with this show. Though the true love triangle of the series so far is of course Burt, his husband, and Irving (do you think we could interest Burt’s hot husband in a lease in Grand Rapids, because I still think we should hook him up with that sassy geezer Mark W — Mr “Fuck you, Lumon!” has endeared himself to me completely, sad to see him go). And to me Helena is the Persephone -- with her Hades being her family legacy. While of course Gemma is the Eurydice to Mark’s Orpheus. With I expect the similarity of that not working out in the end.

[shidoutsukiomi]

I will say I'm not really feeling the takes of Mark S being 'selfish' for picking Helly over Gemma when his whole point of existence is to not have to worry about or have any connection to Gemma... like of course he was gonna

However I am eating up the takes of it being comparable to the Orpheus and Eurydice myth I cannot get enough of it at all. Yes it's such a simple myth but it feels like it fits a little too well and the way it felt like Mark was Orpheus but the last episode twists it so Gemma is Orpheus...

and then also also also I am so curious why this is all focused on this one group of innies. I think I'm correct in thinking they were all working on Gemma's files in some capacity and my question is just why. Everything seems to revolve around Mark and Gemma and I just gotta know why. And yeah normally you can think that in stories of 'wow this is happening to the right people equipped to deal with these problems!!' sure but all of this seems just strange and too calculated almost. If there's one thing I know about Lumon there's something strange going on etc

I really enjoyed the last episode of Severance and I felt like there were so many good moments in it... the milchick stuff was off the charts goofy and I loved all of it... Helly's smug little face as Mark S picked her... Gemma still being in Lumon and not really 'free' yet... Lorne absolutely nailing Drummond... so much of it was so good and I kind of love what they're doing with it but I'm so eager to find out more

like I wanna know what they're doing with the MDR team slowly rallying round the other departments in particular?? I mean I can see what they're doing but I wanna know what they're doing and I want it now