"Nothing Says Christmas Like Grouting"
'Tis the season for episode 7 of Severance.
It was about time we got to know Gemma. For nearly the entire first season, Mark’s late wife existed only in his head, her loss the crux of his misery and his motivation for severing. Then we found out she doubled as Ms. Casey, the Wellness counselor, and this season has been driven by the knowledge that she’s still alive and what that means to both Marks. But what did it mean to us? Not a lot, because we only knew her as the nice robotic lady. We needed more to latch onto and more to care about, for that to be a meaningful mission.
WELL. Justice for Gemma, my GOD. This episode tells us where she’s been, if not yet precisely why — we can guess — and some of what she’s been up to, and it is a doozy, anchored by a fabulous performance by Dichen Lachman1.
She’d been asked to do relatively little so far, before being handed the task of not just humanizing Gemma in 56 minutes, but carrying an entire episode, making us care, and breaking our hearts. Because Gemma remembers Mark. She misses hi…