Spoiler alert! Main spoilers forward for Severance’s second season, so when you’re not caught up, make sure you stream episodes along with your Apple TV+ subscription.
The second season of Severance has come to an finish on the 2025 TV schedule, and whereas I’ll actually be fascinated about Gemma in that heartbreaking ultimate scene till Severance Season 3 premieres, there’s one other Lumon worker who I can’t get off of my thoughts: Dylan. Zach Cherry’s character was developed a lot this season, which turned particularly obvious once I revisited the sequence premiere. Realizing every part we do now, there’s one joke in “Good Information About Hell” that’s taken on a complete new which means.
Severance Season 1: It was an easier time. After enduring the literal torture of “Chikhai Bardo” and every part that adopted in Season 2, I used to be craving the blissful ignorance of finger traps and the coveted-as-fuck egg bar. It healed my soul to listen to Irving quip, “Hello, youngsters. What’s for dinner?” Nonetheless, the place Dylan’s smart-ass response would usually have elicited a chuckle, now the query he asks forces my mind down a Dylan rabbit gap.
Dylan’s Sarcastic Takedown Has Deeper That means After Studying Extra About His Outie In Season 2
The primary time we meet Lumon’s MDR staff, we instantly get a way of each their particular person personalities and their rapport with one another. Like in lots of workplaces, the macrodats function like one thing of a dysfunctional household, and it’s fairly humorous to see that the greeting from Irving (John Turturro) has irked his colleagues, notably Zach Cherry’s Dylan, for some time.
Mark (Adam Scott) factors out how complicated the “What’s for dinner?” query is, asking Irving, “Like, did the youngsters make you dinner on this situation?” Which prompts Dylan to chime in with:
Yeah. What sort of a shit dad are you?
Now again in 2022, that was only a dumb joke, and Dylan taking Irving’s dinner query so actually simply spoke to the straightforward humor of the unworldly innies. However that was earlier than we knew extra about Dylan’s outie and the form of dad he’s.
It Turns Out Outie Dylan’s Fathering Abilities May Be Much less-Than-Best
Not solely do we discover out later in Season 1 that Dylan is the one one of many macrodats with youngsters (apart from Petey, who’s not with Lumon by the beginning of the sequence), we discover out that — to place it bluntly — he’s form of a shit dad.
Perhaps that’s being too harsh. We undoubtedly don’t see Dylan treating his three youngsters terribly or actually even neglecting them, however we don’t see him enjoying with them or interacting with them both.
It’s extra that his normal lack of motivation feels all-encompassing, and I believe his watching TV and forgetting to bake the store-bought cookie dough is supposed to talk extra to his general contribution to his and Gretchen’s residence life.
So whereas Gretchen (Merritt Wever) graciously says that her husband “by no means fairly discovered his factor,” we all know that innie Dylan has a better commonplace for his outie and would little doubt stand by his questions on his different half being “dumb,” “a dick,” and/or “form of a fuck-up.”
Every little thing Modified For Innie Dylan When He Realized He Had Kids On The Outdoors
Nonetheless, again in Season 1, we didn’t know this about Dylan. Whereas his outie was struggling to seek out satisfaction in his life away from Lumon, we solely knew of his innie, who was thriving down on the severed flooring. He didn’t know life might have an even bigger goal till Milchick (Tramell Tillman) activated the Extra time Contingency to seek out the cardboard Dylan had stolen from O&D.
Waking up in his outie’s closet and having his son run in to hug him modified completely every part innie Dylan knew about his existence, and it was instantly apparent how necessary being a dad was to him. Perks just like the Music Dance Expertise not had which means. He didn’t desire a waffle occasion; he wished to recollect his youngsters being born! He hastily has one thing to combat for.
That second was the start of the entire Macrodat Rebellion, which modified all the innies’ lives ceaselessly, and I believe not solely was that keenness to be dad in Dylan’s innie all alongside, I believe he helped rekindle it in his outie.
I Suppose Innie Dylan Bought His Outie To Cease Taking His Household For Granted
There’s been a lot of dialogue from the characters, the writers and the followers of Severance about how a lot of an innie’s persona bleeds by way of from the surface. What persona traits can’t be erased by bifurcating your mind? I believe that shot fired at Irving in Season 1, Episode 1 was an enormous clue into how Dylan operates.
Joking or not, innie Dylan’s first thought when Irving requested, “What’s for dinner?” was to marvel in regards to the welfare of his colleague’s theoretical youngsters. His innie acted like a dad earlier than any of us (even him) knew he was one.
Even in Season 2, whereas everybody was perplexed by the truth that Ms. Huang was a baby, Dylan was the one one who requested if she wanted assist, saying in “Who Is Alive?”:
I do not imply to impugn. It is identical to, are you OK, you understand? They are not, like, forcing you to be right here, are they?
Dylan’s innie had a painful finish to the season. He fell in love with Gretchen after which received dumped for his personal loser outie. Nonetheless, in doing that, it sounds just like the “affair” was the wakeup name outie Dylan wanted.
The anguished cry of, “Gretchen!” won’t ever cease ringing in my ears, however it most likely was the happiest ending we might have hoped for from this weird love triangle. Regardless of what he stated, innie Dylan couldn’t present for Gretchen, however he did encourage his outie to be a greater husband and, in flip, a greater father.
That crack about Irving’s presumably nonexistent youngsters was simply the primary of many hilarious insults hurled good-naturedly at Dylan’s MDR brethren, and I believe it’s fairly loopy that even after we knew so little about what was taking place inside or outdoors of Lumon that these characters’ complexities had been already being shaped.
That stated, I don’t know if Dylan joking about Irving being a “shit dad” was an intentional clue into the innie’s conscience or his outie’s guilt, however given it was one of many first issues we heard from Zach Cherry’s character, it undoubtedly feels extra loaded after seeing him develop a lot over two seasons.
After the Severance Season 2 finale, I do not know the place Ben Stiller, Dan Erickson, and their new showrunners and writers will go subsequent with among the best exhibits on Apple TV+, however I hope they proceed to develop such well-rounded tales for these advanced characters.