Severance Season 2’s Big Helly Twist Explained (And Why It’s A Good Thing)

Marshmallows, like spoilers, are for team players. This article discusses major plot details from the latest episode of “Severance.”

You just never know what you’ll get on any given episode of “Severance” … right? This week, the gang goes on a work retreat to a frigid locale and discovers surprising amounts of new Kier Eagan lore, the joys of creepy campfire stories, and, oh yeah, a back-stabbing mole hidden in their very midst upending everything they thought they knew. That last part, concerning everyone’s favorite innie Helly R. (Britt Lower), is the one making all the headlines in the aftermath of episode 4, evocatively titled “Woe’s Hollow.” Yes, the reveal that the person we thought was Helly R. was actually her outie Helena Eagan is a complete and utter gamechanger. But it wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say that nobody saw this coming. In fact, large segments of the ever-observant fandom picked up on the idea that something was a little off with “Helly R.” as early as the season 2 premiere, even before Irving B. (John Turturro) started questioning her story about encountering a “night gardener.”

As we all continue to reel from the events of “Woe’s Hollow,” it’s worth digging into exactly how this twist came about and what it means moving forward. How long has Helena been in disguise as Helly R.? What hints did we miss (or, for some of us, pick up on) along the way? And, most intriguingly of all, does it even matter that arguably the show’s biggest twist to date was already the subject of a pretty widespread fan-theory weeks ahead of time? Here’s our best attempt to unpack all the ramifications of that Helly R. twist and explain why, oftentimes, the best plot twists are the ones we saw coming from a mile away.

Leave it to a show that’s all about the concepts of identity and bodily autonomy to make things seriously weird between two of our main leads. The romance between Mark S. and Helly R. has been slowly simmering in the background since season 1, even as Mark S. has redoubled his efforts to find the missing wellness director Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman) — who, of course, is actually Mark Scout’s presumed-dead wife Gemma. That love story seemed to be finally consummated in a steamy tent in episode 4, but that twist certainly adds an awkward wrinkle to their dynamic if/when Helly R. finally returns for real. Now that we know the truth, however, it’s worth answering the question on everybody’s mind: When exactly did Helena Eagan begin impersonating Helly R.?

Luckily, that’s the simplest part of this seriously creepy affair. As is usually the case, Irving B. was right all along. Ever since the fateful season 1 finale ended with our innies awakening in the bodies of their own outies and season 2 began, we haven’t actually been reunited with Helly R. at all. As soon as “Helly” stepped out of that Lumon elevator on the Severed Floor and embraced Mark S., we’ve been following Helena all along. The sinister Lumon heir apparent played the role quite well, slipping into her innie’s skin with (relative) ease and stringing our characters along with almost none of them the wiser. When it takes the very precise combination of a paranoid Irving, an uncharacteristically cruel insult, and the threat of literal drowning to wring the truth out of someone, they’ve probably done a pretty good job spinning that little web of lies.

Making matters worse, the hints about her true identity were hiding in plain sight regardless — not quite as out-of-place as a bunch of goats hanging out with Gwendoline Christie in a giant conference room, but close enough. Go back to that premiere episode and you’ll pick up on how uncomfortable Helena initially seems when Mark S. passionately hugs her. Britt Lower also made some subtle acting choices to further differentiate the outie from her innie, including what sounds like dropping her voice by an octave or two. And then there are those telltale scenes from earlier episodes, where Helena in the real-world closely watches recordings of Helly R. and Mark S. from season 1. Somebody was clearly doing their homework … and so were the fans who noticed all of these clues (and more), too.

Now you know why I was treading so lightly in my review of “Severance” season 2 for /Film, don’t you? The other shoe has dropped and we can finally talk openly about the second major twist regarding Helly R./Helena Eagan. (The first, of course, goes back to the season 1 reveal of who Helly’s outie actually was.) In retrospect, it makes sense that director Ben Stiller, creator Dan Erickson, and the entire writing team would pull the rug out from under our feet like this. After the previous season ended with our innies impersonating their own outies out in the real world, wouldn’t the natural next step be for the most malicious of outies to do the same to their innie counterpart in the hallways of Lumon? The creative team left a careful trail of breadcrumbs for us to follow, but it’s safe to say that nobody expected so much of the “Severance” fandom to put everything together as quickly as they did (such as the day after the season 2 premiere, as evidenced by this popular Reddit post).

But you know what? That’s perfectly okay! For as much as “Severance” draws obvious parallels to mystery-box shows like “Lost” or “Fringe,” the appeal of those predecessors also seems to have changed our collective brain chemistry — for the worse. Suddenly, it seemed to become the norm for pop culture events like “The Walking Dead” or “Game of Thrones” to shock audiences with unexpected deaths and twists that subverted expectations for nothing more than cheap thrills. Fans demanded that storytellers to do the impossible: zig when we expected them to zag, but without ever feeling like it came out of nowhere. And, most egregiously of all, shows like “Westworld” actually gave in to such demands and literally rewrote entire arcs … simply because viewers correctly put together the clues that the writers purposefully included in the first place.

At a certain point, we have to understand that the whole reason plot twists exist is because of prior setups leading to satisfying payoffs. If savvy viewers can look past the red herrings and figure things out a little early? Great! That simply means they were paying attention, like the Redditor who figured out that Helly R. was an Eagan way back in 2022 using nothing more than media literacy and thematic intuition. That’s how storytelling is supposed to work, folks. After all, neither Helly R. reveal was ever about the shock and surprise alone; they’re about the ripple effects on our protagonists moving forward. If any series has shown it understands what goes into a good twist, it’s this one. Let’s hope that continues in the episodes ahead.

New episodes of “Severance” stream on Apple TV+ every Friday.