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Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers for season 2, episode 3 of “Severance”, streaming now on Apple TV+.
We found love in a hopeless place?
In season 2, episode 3 of ‘Severance’, the Innies all do their own thing. Mark (Adam Scott) and Helly (Britt Lower) explore the goat nursery in search of Mrs. Casey (Dichen Lachman). Irving (John Turturro) returns for the first time to optics and design since Burt’s (Christopher Walken) forced pension and shares stories with Felicia (Claudia Robinson). And Dylan (Zach Cherry) is visited by his view of his oation, Gretchen, played with a soft curiosity by Merritt We Never.
At the end of season 1, Dylan did not get into the body of his oation, and the only short glimpse that the audience has seen is when Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) visits him at home in the first application of the show of the first Application of the overtime contingency. After Dylan discovers that he has a son outside of Lumon, he is increasingly disillusioned and rebellious against the company. So, in the first episode of the new season, Milchick says – in a gesture of goodwill or, more likely, a manipulation tactics – Dylan that Lumon has created an OUTION FAMIUMIE -Visit suite. He also tells Dylan to keep this secret of the other refineries.
In the last episode of “Severance”, Lumon puts the Visitation Suite to the test, allowing Innie Dylan to meet his view of his view under the watchful eye of Mrs. Huang (Sarah Bock). It is immediately uncomfortable: Gretchen stares at her husband and the father of her children, and Dylan talks to a stranger. She tells him about their three children and how his OUTION had trouble maintaining a job for Lumon. “He never found his thing completely,” says Gretchen about her husband, and washes a discouraged look about Dylan, who asks, “So he’s actually a kind of damn?”
In general, Dylan enjoys the visit and is intrigued by his marriage – or is it are wedding? When Gretchen tells him that she is proud of him, gives him a hug and says, “I love you”, it seems to open a door in Dylan’s brains. He was warmed up by affection, something his Innie has not experienced. Back in the house, Outie Dylan Gretchen asks how it went. “It was good,” she says. “Weird good, but okay.”
Cherry spoke with Variety About the episode and how the relationship of Innie Dylan with Gretchen can lead to interesting tensions. He also talks about “severance payment” theories and how Mark’s reintegration process can influence the dynamics between the innies.
The last few episodes have given us the first real glimpse of Dylan’s Outie. How did you prepare to play that dual role? Or do you not see it as a dual role?
It is a kind of double role, but I think they are a lot the same person, and their lives inform each other. An interesting thing with which the show plays is what goes through-qua personality, in terms of temperament, things like that. A primary way that I think of the difference between the two is that Innie Dylan is this extremely confident man, and he has no reason not to be. He has a very limited life experience and he is very good at what he does in that context. There is no baggage, while the OUTION is a version of the same man, but all these other things that stand in the way of his self -confidence.
Innie Dylan really seems disappointed when his wife of his oation, Gretchen, tells him that Outie Dylan had trouble retaining a job. To what extent Dylan has the feeling that the shortcomings of his OUTION reflect on him?
He spends a lot of season 1 hypothesis and self -mythologize about who he might be on the outside, and I think this contributes to his confidence. He tells all these stories about how he could be a captain of the river boat, and he does muscle shows and he joins women left and right. He can tell himself any story about who he is, and it can be true. So when he starts to hear how his oation really is, he is confronted with the fact that those stories are not true. This contains versions that can happen in real life. This is a stupid example, but maybe you consider yourself a really good cook, and then you have your friends for a dinner and they are not so that. Then you go: ‘I told myself this story about myself Is not true. “That can affect how you feel about yourself and what you want to do in the future.
I hear that you improvise a lot on set a lot. Has your background in improvisation comedy been a help or an obstacle in a show such as “Dismissal”, which requires a certain tightness?
The way it helps me is that you have to listen and be very present with your scene partner, because there is no script. You can’t just think about what you will then say. So I try to follow that approach with everything. If you work with such incredible actors, as I have been lucky with ‘resignation’, you get so much of them to be with them and look at them and listen to them. It helps me find out what the scene is about. In this episode we meet my wife, who is played by Merritt Wever, who is an incredible actor and is so attentive. There were so many times that when I read the script, I would think: “Maybe this is what the scene will be.” Then I get there and I am in the room with her and she brings so much that it changes the whole dynamic. It was nice to find out what our relationship was together, as we did.
I wondered if you have improvised the ‘he stupid? He a dick? “Line.
No, I don’t think so! Even if I improvise, much of it is not in the show. Part of it does that, but it helps me to find out the limits of the character. And it helps me to keep the scenes alive.
What do you think about Dylan back when Gretchen says: “I love you”?
That is probably the first time he has ever heard that. It is something that perhaps normal for her because of her relationship with his oation. But for him it is a huge moment. I doubt that he has ever heard someone seriously say that they love him, and certainly not in the context of the wife of his oation.
Why does Lumon allow these visits? Is it just to keep Dylan at a distance, or is there a greater tactic in the game?
It is a good instinct to wonder why Lumon is doing something. This season they have to deal with the consequences of what the innies did at the end of season 1, and they seem to follow a different approach with each of them. His family is the ultimate carrot for Dylan. That is something he really invested in, so Lumon knows that they can use that. Maybe it’s just to keep him focused, or maybe it’s to control a wedge between him and the other refineries. Who knows? It is interesting to see how it changes the dynamics of the MDR crew, because he now has a secret that he is not allowed to tell them.
In the previous episode, Dylan goes for a job interview at a door factory. Is it written in the script that he would be interviewed by a Doppelgänger?
I believe it said they look very much like it. The actor who played the interviewer is Adrian Martinez, and I told him as we photographed the scene that there have been several times in real life where people have complimented me for his work. They said: “Hey man, I loved you in ‘Focus’, or whatever it is. And I will look up the film in which I was and he was. So that was really nice to do that with him And very surreal.
His character appears to be biased against severed people. That is a feeling that is indicated in the show, but is not shown too much openly. What is your sense of the wider political climate around the severance payment, in the universe of the show?
We don’t really know it yet. It is clearly a controversial problem. We see that it is a topic of conversation in the first episode, on the dinner of Ricken and Devon. We see that there are some students protesters and we see some company spider about the procedure. I don’t know what I would compare with, but I think it is an apparently new and controversial thing that people disagree.
The episode ends with Mark who starts the reintegration process and merges his inie and outing reminders. How can that influence his relationship with Dylan and the other innies?
It will be interesting to see. There is so much going on this season for every Innie. Last season they were very united with one thing in mind and worked on this specific goal. This season Lumon has put various things in each of their sights. Dylan is aimed at not losing the privileges given to him. He is a bit in his own world this season.
Do you read fan theories about the show online?
I do a bit, more than most cast. I am more online than most cast in general. I’ll send me friends, I’ll see [Stiller] post things again. It’s fun how many people deal with the show.
Do you ever read theories that you think it could be true?
There are absolutely moments when I will read and go: ‘Huh. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but that is really interesting, “or:” Oh, I didn’t notice that they did that. I’m sure they did that on purpose. “
Would you ever go to Ben Stiller or Dan Erickson and ask for their thoughts?
I tend to keep it for myself. I don’t like to ask too many questions. I like to just let their information come to me if I need it.
The “Severance” press tour has almost “bad” in terms of how many interviews you have all done. Is there a question that you are the most sick to be asked?
I didn’t get sick any of the questions. The nice thing about our group, especially when we do interviews together, we are ways to entertain each other and ourselves while we still answer the questions. Something we still talked about is playing the innies and the outies, and that distinction. But it was never boring because I continued to find new ways to explain it, and I tried to surprise Britt Lower and John Turturro with my new analogies. I would say: “It is a kind of two slices of pizza that lie next to each other …” Even when I hear a question, I will still find a way to make it fresh.
This interview has been edited and condensed.