Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Severance Season 2.
“See? Pouchless.” With this seemingly innocuous line, Gwendoline Christie‘s Severance character, credited as Lorne, gave us the funniest moment in Season 2 so far. The line is spoken in Episode 3, “Who Is Alive?,” during Mark S. (Adam Scott) and Helly R.’s (Britt Lower) brief passage through Mammalians Nurturable, that weird Lumon department where they raise a bunch of goats. While searching for a missing Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman), the severed MDR employees end up in a field, surrounded by Mammalians Nurturable employees. Though they eventually manage to get themselves out of what could have become a pretty ugly situation, the goat keepers have one request for them: they want to see Mark and Helly’s belly. As the duo lifts their shirts, Lorne lets out this cryptic comment. However, a fellow keeper is quick to retort that this proves nothing.
The scene is funny no matter how you look at it. If, much like Mark and Helly, you’re completely at a loss about what’s going on, you’ll probably laugh at the absurdity of it all. And, of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. However, if your memory is a little sharper, you will certainly enjoy this scene at a different level. After all, Lorne’s comment about Mark and Helly being pouchless is a callback to an even more absurd Season 1 moment, one that reveals a lot about how Lumon treats its severed staff. But, in light of the events that have taken place in Severance‘s first season finale, what exactly it reveals might be something entirely different from what we first thought.
‘Severance’ Season 1 Puts MDR and O&D on Opposite Sides
OK, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, it’s important to remember what exactly the pouchless comment is referencing. To understand that, we have to go back to the beginning of the relationship between Irving B. (John Turturro) and Burt G. (Christopher Walken). The two star-crossed lovers first meet in the very second episode of the show. In it, while admiring a painting, Irving ends up meeting the man behind the department responsible for producing the corporate artwork that he so admires. The two quickly fall in love with each other, but there is just one tiny problem. Well, two tiny problems. One is that Lumon doesn’t take kindly to office romances. The other is that the people at MDR absolutely hate the folks at Burt’s Optics and Design. After all, at least according to Dylan G. (Zach Cherry), long ago, O&D staged an attempted coup, in which they violently disemboweled members of the MDR team.
Such horrors are depicted in a painting called “The Grim Barbarity of Optics and Design” — a painting that Irving stumbles upon one day. It is no mere accident, of course, but part of a plan by Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) and Ms. Cobel (Patricia Arquette) to keep him away from Burt. The plan, of course, doesn’t work. Still, that doesn’t stop Dylan from going on and on about how O&D folks are evil. But Dylan’s (and Milchick’s, and Cobel’s) narrative eventually goes down the drain as he and Irving take a trip to O&D headquarters in an episode aptly titled “The Grim Barbarity of Optics and Design.” There, they find out that Burt has been lying about the size of his department, which is composed of many more people than just him and Felicia (Claudia Robinson).
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“Have you come to kill me?”
Burt’s lie is meant to keep his staff protected from the ferocity of MDR. While Dylan is convinced that O&D was the department responsible for the coup attempt, Optics and Design have heard a completely different story. To them, it was MDR that tried to take over, brutally butchering other departments. Burt even shows Dylan and Irving a painting they had never seen before called “The Macrodata Refinement Calamity,” which shows MDR people disemboweling O&D personnel. Burt also reveals to Dylan and Irving that other departments at Lumon have come to fear MDR, creating terrible urban legends about them having kangaroo pouches and carrying a larval offspring that is prone to attack.
What Does the MDR Urban Legend Say About Lumon?
This is what Gwendoline Christie’s Lorne is referring to when she says Mark and Helly are pouchless. The two, of course, understand nothing of the interaction, as they weren’t present when Burt told Dylan and Irving the “truth” about MDR. Much like most forgetful viewers, they’re completely lost. But all this thing about pouches is a lot more important than it seems. It’s not just a funny joke: it also says a lot about Lumon and how it treats its employees. Keeping the MDR pouches in mind isn’t just relevant for humor’s sake, it is also essential to understanding what’s truly going down at the mysterious company.
Apparently, Lumon has a vested interest in keeping MDR isolated. This, of course, has to do with how much the company despises worker solidarity and wants to keep its people as separated as possible. However, it is not an urban legend for each and every department that is getting spread around, but a very specific one about an alleged MDR Calamity. The O&D coup, at least as far as we know, is only afloat at MDR.
It is no secret by now that MDR has been working with some pretty sensitive information, though we don’t know exactly what any of it is, so it makes sense for Lumon to want to keep others away from them. But considering that MDR has indeed staged a rebellion, sending three outies out into the world, could there be some truth to the whole Calamity thing? Was there ever a coup? Is this Lumon’s way of telling a real story in a light that makes the company look like the hero? So far, it’s impossible to know. All we can say for certain is that having a pouch is far from innocuous in the Severance universe.
New episodes of Severance Season 2 premiere Fridays on Apple TV+.
