Severance Season 2 Episode 7 “Chikhai Bardo”: Who are we without our memories?

Spoiler Warning: The following article discusses significant plot points and key details from Severance. 

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If you clicked on my article, I can imagine your world also got rocked by Severance Season 2 Episode 7. Written by series creator Dan Erickson and executive producer Mark Friedman, “Chikhai Bardo” is an episode that kept my eyes glued, jaw dropped, and head spinning. Making her directorial debut in Episode 7, Severance cinematographer Jessica Lee Gagné crafts a gorgeously messy mosaic of Mark S (Adam Scott) and Gemma (Dichen Lachman)’s past relationship. Throughout the episode, we relive their time together like how we recall our own memories, in fragmented flashbacks that weave in and out of the present. Like any other Severance episode, “Chikhai Bardo” doesn’t shy away from getting deep and existential. Questions previously posed in the series resurface: Can identity exist independently of memory? Is forgetting a form of healing, or a way to avoid grief? And of course, does love transcend severance? 

Episode 7 is like a time machine; the show slows down, and we spend the episode traveling back and forth between Mark and Gemma’s past and present. In real time, Mark is in a liminal dreamstate as he recovers from his reintegration procedure, while Gemma is on the testing floor, under the watchful care of creepy Dr. Mauer (Robby Benson) and stoic Nurse Cecily (Sandra Bernhard). Between Mark and Gemma’s memories, we piece together a rough timeline of their relationship—from their meet-cute at the Lumon blood drive, to their sunny honeymoon phase, to Gemma’s heartbreaking miscarriage, which inevitably creates a rift in their marriage. 

Unlike Severance’s sterile, cool visual tone, the flashbacks in Episode 7 have a soft quality, untouched by Lumon’s coldness. Gagné uses film (a first for Severance) and flexes her shooting chops with a 16mm handheld Bolex, which is what provides those intimate, candid glimpses into Mark and Gemma’s life. Time moves too fast as we get sucked into the unfolding of Mark S and Gemma’s relationship; we see their love crystallize in the books they read, flowers they pick, and dishes they wash. 

Adam Scott and Dichen Lachman in “Severance.” (Apple TV+)

And yet, however comfortable it is to ease into the groove of Mark and Gemma’s relationship, there’s an underlying feeling of dread for the impending end that’s approaching. Gagné reveals everything through close-ups of Mark and Gemma’s eyes, sprinkled throughout the episode. It’s in Gemma’s eyes that we see her heartbreak and shame over losing her unborn child, exhaustion from undergoing rounds of IVF, and numbness as we watch her slowly slip away from Mark. And it’s in Mark’s eyes that we see frustration from being unable to get a read on Gemma, helplessness as he struggles to snap her from a spell, and absentmindedness when Gemma says “I love you” to him for the last time before the car crash. When Mark scoffs at Gemma’s explanation for a playing card depicting Chikhai Bardo (death of the ego), it’s in their eyes—the portals to the soul—that we see they’re on different frequencies, not quite able to sync up. 

Dichen Lachman in “Severance.” (Apple TV+)

At the core of every episode, Severance aims to get closer to understanding what makes humans human. This question is raised plainly in the beginning of Episode 7 when Mark, instantly entranced by Gemma, asks her “I’m sorry, who are you?” upon their first meeting. Mirroring the first scene of Season 1 when Mark asks Helly (Britt Lower) through an intercom “Who are you?” as she’s lying face-down on the wood table, Severance continues building on this paradoxically simple yet complex question: Who is Mark S? Who is Gemma? Who is Helly R? Who is Dylan G? Who is Irving B? Who are you? 

Severance doesn’t explicitly answer any of these questions, nor do they seem to want to; it’s up to the audience to decide for themselves. Personally, Severance makes me think about how our existence is like a constellation made up of different particles—people, places, things, memories, feelings, emotions. Things come, go, evolve, and devolve, and subsequently, the self morphs in reaction to these changes. Our identity is contingent on the people, places, and experiences we encounter, which in turn, dictates how our life unfolds. 

 Adam Scott and Dichen Lachman in “Severance.” (Apple TV+)

In the last scene of the episode, Mark wakes up in a haze after a long recovery sleep following reintegration surgery. His sister Devon (Jen Tullock) is at his side; she emotionally asks him “Oh Mark, where’d you go?” Disoriented, Mark tries to decipher what from his vivid dreams was real versus imagined, present versus absent. A beat after, reality comes crashing down on Mark, and the look in his eyes tells us he remembers. As achingly painful as it was to watch Mark relive the grief of losing his wife, I was equally relieved that his memories were still intact.

Who are we without our memories? When we forget something (or someone), does it still exist? Are we alive if our bodies are there, but our psyche isn’t? 

In a world where memory can be severed, Severance places us in a high-stakes situation in which every person, moment, and experience is in limbo, or bardo, teetering between existing and vanishing into thin air. As a result, memories become a lifeline for innies and outies alike to cling to some sort of reality, or truth. 

Remembering is a superpower—it defies time, space, and reality. Remembering keeps the people who aren’t with us anymore alive. Remembering gives our lives dimension, meaning, and purpose; it makes us the we we are. As hard as grief, loss, and death are to endure, these are also particles that make up the constellation of who we are. Refining out parts of life doesn’t make grief disappear; instead, it settles deeper into our bodies, becoming increasingly harder to ignore. What’s interesting about memories is that no matter how hard we try to control them, what we remember is often beyond us. What a terrifying yet liberating thought.