The memorial held for Irving (John Turturro) in Severance Season 2, episode 5, was memorable for a couple of reasons: 1) the deeply disturbing fruit head, and 2) the discovery made by Dylan (Zach Cherry) behind that poster.
But what exactly did the note he found say, and what does it mean?
We've dug into it all below...
What's written on the note?
After Mark (Adam Scott) and Helly (Britt Lower) leave Dylan alone at the memorial, he finds a note behind the "Hang in There" poster on the wall — an image which resembles Dylan holding the switches in Season 1's finale, and words that echo the final words Irving says to him in Woe's Hollow at the end of episode 4. On one side of the note is a drawing of the long, dark corridor that outie Irving obsessively recreates in artworks. On the other side is a written message.
Here's the full transcription, which basically amounts to a series of directions:
"From O&D, first turn right, all the way down the hall and turn right, turn right, turn left, down a long hall and turn left, turn left, turn right, right, left, left, right, right, left, right, left, left, right, right, left, left down long hall and turn right, then left, right, turn right one more time and all the way down a long hallway..."
So where do those directions lead, and why did Irving leave them behind in a note?
What does the note mean?
To understand the meaning behind the note, we need to revisit two earlier scenes in Severance Season 2: one from episode 3, and one from the start of episode 5.
In the first one, Irving revisits the department where Burt (Christopher Walken) used to work — the O&D (Optics & Design) referred to in the note. There he meets one of Burt's colleagues, Felicia (Claudia Robinson), who accidentally sees a drawing of the dark corridor that he's sketched in the back of his notebook.
"Who do you know about the Exports Hall?" she asks him. "We send a lot of shipments there. Used to go ourselves, but now they send a guy."
Irving's response, before the scene ends, is to ask Felicia where it is.
At the start of episode 5, meanwhile, we see a man pushing a trolley. He meets Felicia and another woman, presumably at O&D, where they hand him a tray of what looks like surgical or dental tools. The man is then seen swiping a card in a door that opens on a long black corridor — the same corridor from Irving's drawing — that ends in an elevator with a red down arrow. The man steps inside and the door shuts.
When we put all these moments together, it seems pretty clear that the note Irving has left for Dylan is a set of directions to this "Exports Hall". His outie was obsessed with it and his innie became obsessed with it, too.
Where does the exports hall lead?
This isn't the first time we've seen that long, dark corridor. In Season 1, this is the corridor that Mark's wife, Ms Casey (Dichen Lachman) is sent to after she loses her job — a place then-boss Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) refers to as "the Testing Floor".
In a nutshell, Irving has unknowingly just given Dylan the key to solving the puzzle that Mark and Helly are trying to get to the bottom of: Where is Ms Casey?
Severance Season 2 is now streaming on Apple TV+, with a new episode every week.
