The sixth episode of Severance beautifully balances the drama with the comedy - it's a superb dramedy. Almost every scene is a highlight; almost everything works wonderfully. I am not sure which scene should be labeled as the best scene, but I will start by talking about the one between Mark and Helena - the outies. At a restaurant, Mark encounters Helena when he catches the latter smiling at him from her seat. Something tells me that Helena planned this meeting; if this turns out to be true, I won't be surprised. But observe how their conversation moves through different moods nimbly. What starts with a note of politeness shifts into flirty territory and then lands on uneasy ground when Helena mistakenly uses the wrong name to refer to Mark's wife. Now consider another dinner table scene between Irving, Burt, and Fields. It begins with Burt cracking a joke about being unable to recognize Irving. Instead of tickling your funny bones, this remark infuses the atmosphere with a sense of awkwardness, which the director Uta Briesewitz not only maintains throughout this gathering but also jacks up when Fields asks whether Burt and Irving ever had unprotected sex in the office.
Briesewitz provides the episode with plenty of visual energy. She and writer Erin Wagoner have filled Attila with "mirror scenes" like the aforementioned dinner table sequences between Mark and Helena and Irving, Burt, and Fields. Another example includes the jump from Helly and Mark's kiss to the one between Dylan and Gretchen in the Outie Visitation Suite. Gretchen continues to lie to the outie Dylan about her session with his innie. Can you call this cheating? Well, Helly does feel betrayed by Helena's exploitation of her body. She used Mark's affection for Helly and vice versa to make love to him. Helly is angry - she feels cheated, all right. Hence, she takes Mark to a room to get her own experience instead of listening to his description of the sexual event. You know what they say: practice is better than theory.
Not everybody is getting laid or kissing or eating food with their lemans. Poor Milchik is busy improving himself based on the results of his performance review. While standing in front of the mirror, he shortens "You must eradicate from your essence childish folly" to just "Grow." What's so fascinating about this scene is that it reveals how flexible language can be. Lumon also expects its employees to be similarly flexible so that they can bend according to the rules and demands of the company. What else? Oh yes, the reintegration process moves forward urgently. Mark brushes aside the risk of hemorrhage and tells Reghabi to flood the chip. After the operation is completed, Devon arrives, and while talking to her, Mark becomes unconscious. He falls to the ground, but don't worry, I am sure he's alive. You will see him walking and talking next week.
Final Score - [8/10]