This article contains spoilers for Severance season 2, episode 7, “Chikai Bardo.”
Severance star Dichen Lachman and director Jessica Lee Gagné break down the severed rooms in season 2, episode 7, explaining their significance. The episode, titled “Chikai Bardo”, reveals that Gemma (Lachman) has been kept on the testing floor and has been severed multiple times. One innie version of her seemingly only ever experiences going to the dentist. Another experiences turbulent flights, while yet another is stuck writing thank-you notes.
In an interview with ELLE, Lachman is asked what it is she thinks that Lumon hopes to achieve by putting Gemma in all these different rooms and different scenarios. In response, the actor makes a point about how there’s an impulse in society to move away from experiencing anything unpleasant, which is what Lumon is tapping into. The Dollhouse alum also wonders if it’s possible to experience the full scope of life without those unpleasant moments. She explains:
In our society, we have this desire to avoid anything unpleasant. I think Lumon is trying to develop a chip so that no one ever has to experience anything unpleasant, like going to a job they don’t like or giving birth or going to the dentist, like we see Gemma do in this episode. Our society is going in a direction where we don’t want to experience or feel anything unpleasant, and this is a way of shutting all of that out. But I would probably never get this severance chip because you can’t experience joy, fun, pleasure, or leisure without the contrast of the things that you don’t like.
Gagné gave her own take in an interview with IndieWire, explaining that the idea for different rooms and some of what happened in those rooms came from series creator Dan Erickson. Gagné, a cinematographer on the Apple TV+ drama, in addition to directing “Chikai Bardo”, also elaborated on why Gemma behaves differently in some of the rooms:
What was very interesting about working with Dichen and for her to create this character — every room is a different personality. Every room, her life experience is so different. You have to put yourself in the shoes of someone who is basically living these different things — the original ideas for the rooms came from Dan Erickson. He was like, “What are the things that I or that people hate?” The dentist. Flying.
The Christmas card thing, I think, is a personal thing for him, and [in that room], what was so interesting to me was the opportunity to make Gemma rebellious. I feel like you have to be like a teenager that’s pissed off because this guy is kind of trying to be nice — he had a whole different personality in that room, and they always fed off of each other quite a bit, which was really fun to play with, because he could be so fricking annoying and weird and trigger her. It’s seeing what will come out. In that specific scene, she got to play the angry teenager, which ultimately is when she rebels and something pushes him over the line.
What The Different Rooms Mean For Severance
It Is A Deeply Meaningful Question
The goal of the different rooms in Severance season 2, episode 7, seems to be to remove any displeasure out of life and presumably create a situation where anyone wealthy enough to potentially sever themselves on-demand. This leads to a profound question about what life actually means if we can simply select which moments we choose to experience, opting out of anything even mildly tense.
Read more…
Every Testing Room Gemma Enters In Severance Season 2 Episode 7 & What They’re For Explained
Severance season 2’s ep. 7 gives a glimpse of a few rooms on Lumon’s testing floor, which leaves space for many theories surrounding Gemma’s future.
But on an immediate, character level, the question might be just how much Lumon actually knows about Gemma and Mark (Adam Scott). Also in “Chikai Bardo”, which is written by Erickson & Mark Friedman, it’s revealed that Gemma loathes writing thank you notes. The same thing Lumon has her doing on the severed floor. Lumon is also behind the fertility clinic that Mark and Gemma visit, as the writers inch the story forward while providing questions that are not exactly the easiest to answer.
Our Take On Gemma’s Time On The Severed Floor
It’s Unexpected In Many Ways
When the new season debuted, it was teased that the sci-fi thriller would answer questions about the Severance characters that viewers might not have even realized that they had. That looks to be the case with Gemma. But it does also get to a core sci-fi, and perhaps dystopian, conceit of what it costs to live a life without pain.
New episodes of Severance season 2 are available to stream Fridays on Apple TV+.
Source: ELLE, IndieWire
Severance
8/10
- Release Date
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February 18, 2022
- Showrunner
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Dan Erickson, Mark Friedman
- Writers
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Dan Erickson