You can always count on Severance to leave us with questions, and as we wait for Season 3, there’s a big one about Helly R. and Helena that’s caused quite the debate. At the end of Season 2, we saw Helly (or that’s who we’re told it is) help Mark get Gemma out and revolt against Lumon in a way. However, some fans are theorizing that it was actually Helena down there. Now, though, Britt Lower has set the record straight on whether her innie or outie was the one on that severed floor during that fateful moment.
As we wait for Season 3 of Severance, Britt Lower sat down with THR to talk Season 2, and one specific debate her character (or characters) has caused. While multiple Helly theories are floating around, a particularly popular one centers around the idea that it was actually Helena down there with Mark in the final moments instead of Helly. When asked about this and the possibility of not really knowing which variation she was, Britt Lower said:
That’s so funny. No, there’s no trickery involved in the Severance collaborative. If you track the whole episode and you see Helly trapping Milchick (Tramell Tillman) in a bathroom, her friend, Dylan (Zach Cherry), comes to help. She runs and stands on the tri-desk, remembering her friend Irving (John Turturro) and looking out at this sea of humanity of the Innies… That speech really embodies the question of the whole season: Are Innies people?
Now, we’ve been tricked before. Earlier in Season 2, Helena was pretending to be Helly, which multiple fans theorized about. So, while it looks like Helly is present during the finale's action, there’s still some suspicion that we could be tricked again.
However, Lower is sure that’s not what’s going on here. As she tracked her innie’s actions between Season 1 and 2, she broke down what Helly has been through, and why it led to her actions at the end of the latest finale. She said:
In season one, [Helena tells Helly] she isn’t a person and has no right to make choices about her body. Helly had no connection to meaning in the work that they were doing on the Lumon floor. She was like, ‘This has no meaning to me whatsoever, get me out of here at all costs. In fact, I’m willing to risk my life to do so. Get me out of here.’ The question of season one is, who am I in relationship to this work, which doesn’t have meaning to me (Helly)?
Continuing to break down Helly's evolution on the severed floor, Lower said:
Then, over time, she’s forming this chosen family with Irving, Dylan and with Mark. The connection she has to these people who she loves is then the journey of season two. All of these Innies have this new information about who they are, and it makes them even hungrier for purpose and meaning in their lives.
She’s right, at the end of Season 2, the innies have a new conviction to save themselves. They rise up against Mr. Milchick, and, notably, Mark and Helly run back into the office after leaving Gemma right outside the floor.
It feels like they’re ready to fight based on what they know about Lumon and their outies, and because of that, Lower believes there’s no way Helena is the one with Mark at the end of Season 2. Definitively putting this debate to an end, she said:
So then to see her on that tri-desk at the end saying, ‘They give us half a life and think we won’t fight for it?’ I just can’t believe that anyone else would have said that.
I have to agree with Lower, I don’t believe Helena is capable of acting this way, whereas it’s totally in Helly’s wheelhouse. While her outie put on a fairly successful ruse in the first half of the season, I don’t think she would have done all this while pretending to be her innie. She might be doubting her place in Lumon, but not so much to tear the company down (at least in my opinion). So, even before Lower debunked the theory, I thought that was Helly.
However, now the actress has confirmed it. That was Helly, and going into the next season of the upcoming Apple TV+ show, I’m curious to see how this innie and her outie grapple with what is going down on the severed floor of Lumon.
Sadly, we’ll have to wait a while to find out, though, because Season 3 of Severance has no release date. So, in the meantime, stream the first two seasons with an Apple TV+ subscription, and keep thinking and theorizing about everything Britt Lower just explained.
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