A Tiny Detail Makes Dylan’s Severance Season 2 Episode 9 Story Even Sadder

It’s not a good idea to secretly meet your spouse’s “innie,” and it’s also not a good idea to keep reading if you haven’t watched “Severance” season 2 episode 9, “The After Hours.” Spoilers ahead!

Season 2 of “Severance” presents a very interesting moral quandary. If you’re married to someone who splits their consciousness into their “innie” and “outie” every day at Lumon Industries, is it cheating if you start a relationship with your spouse’s innie without telling their outie? According to the outie version of Dylan George, played by Zach Cherry, the answer is yes, that’s definitely cheating — and he would know, because this exact thing happens to him in the season’s penultimate episode “The After Hours.”

Gretchen George (Merritt Wever) has been visiting Dylan’s innie, who just goes by Dylan G., at Lumon throughout season 2 — because, as a twisted reward probably meant to keep him happy and working efficiently, Dylan has been granted a visitation room as a Lumon “perk” where his innie can interact with his real-world family. Where Gretchen and Dylan’s relationship outside of Lumon is strained, to say the least, Gretchen can’t help but feel drawn to the sweet, thoughtful, and attentive version of Dylan she meets in the bowels of Lumon, but this perk leads to a truly gutting situation with another of Dylan G.’s hard-earned “perks.” 

In season 1 of “Severance,” we learned that by completing a certain percentage of his tasks in the macrodata refinement department of Lumon, innies earn perks that feel absolutely banal to viewers — until you consider that, for innies at Lumon, there’s really not a lot to get excited about. Dylan G. tells his coworkers in season 1 that he earned paper finger-traps, which number among some of his only possessions. During a catastrophic moment with Gretchen in season 2, the finger-traps return … in the most devastating possible way.

After a nasty confrontation with outie Dylan — where he threatens to quit his job at Lumon to stop Gretchen from, to paraphrase him, following him to the company headquarters and using his own body to cheat on him — Gretchen goes to see the innie Dylan G. again and says that she was honest with her outie husband. (Zach Cherry’s delivery of “Was he happy for us?” is so sweet that it’s actually soul-crushing.) Because outie Dylan was so angry, Gretchen says that she can’t see Dylan G. anymore, breaking his heart into a million pieces. Dylan G. tells Gretchen, “My life started when you came here,” before dropping to one knee and pulling a surprising item from his pocket. “I know I’m just an innie, but I love you all the way. I do. I made this for you,” Dylan G. says, offering a ring made from one of his paper finger-traps.

Gretchen, who is literally already married to a different version of this same guy, starts crying and leaves (obviously, this whole scene is gorgeously performed by both actors, but Merritt Wever’s silent tears are particularly striking, as is Cherry’s desperate scream as she departs). Gretchen likely doesn’t know exactly how important and meaningful it is that Dylan G. turned one of his finger-traps into a ring for her, but we do; again, innies don’t own things, so the finger-traps are unbelievably important to Dylan G.’s little innie life. Dylan G. has always been one of the show’s most sympathetic characters, but this scene with Gretchen takes things to a new level … and ultimately leads Dylan G. down a devastating path.

Ultimately, Dylan G. starts experiencing what I can only describe as an existential crisis after Gretchen leaves. Despite Helly R.’s (Britt Lower) attempts to cheer him up, Dylan G. is absolutely inconsolable and makes a decision: he’s going to quit, meaning that he, Dylan G., will cease to exist. As such, he goes to see the severed floor’s manager Mr. Milchick (Trammell Tillman), who’s been having an absolute meltdown throughout “The After Hours” as well for very different reasons, filling out a form requesting that his innie “resign.” (Again, this resignation means he will basically … die, insofar as innies can “die.”) After checking every single box as to why he wants to resign, including “anger,” “fatigue,” “loneliness,” “guilt,” “shame,” and “annoyance,” Dylan is scolded by Mr. Milchick, who says, “I’m sure you know this is very disappointing and reeks of ingratitude.” Despite that and a strange apology from Mr. Milchick’s child deputy Miss Huang (Sarah Bock), Dylan seems determined, and after waiting in the hallway of the severed floor, he steps into the elevator for what may well be the last time.

So what happens to Dylan — and Dylan G. — now? Well, much like his best innie friend Irving B. (John Turturro), he may leave the severed floor behind for good. Perhaps he’ll return to the door factory, where we saw Dylan’s outie interviewing for a job in the season 2 premiere. The season 2 finale, “Cold Harbor,” drops on Apple TV+ on Thursday, March 20 at 9 P.M. EST, so we’ll find out Dylan G.’s fate then.