The final sections of this article contain spoilers from Severance Season 2, Episode 7, “Chikhai Bardo,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
One of the most intriguing TV shows streaming on Apple TV+’s Severance. From the unique premise to the wonderful cast and the beautiful cinematography and direction, the show is fully committed to delivering something never seen before. It’s an excellent mix of thriller, sci-fi, and absurdist comedy, following a set of peculiar characters who have surgically divided their personal and work lives.
Following delays from the writer’s strike, Severance‘s second season finally premiered—three years after the first season’s harrowing conclusion. It included a frustrating cliffhanger involving the identity of a character named Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman) and how she relates to the series’ central protagonist. But who is Ms. Casey? Like most things in Severance, the answer is much more complex than it seems.
Updated February 28, 2025, by Joshua M. Patton: As Season 2 of Severance progresses, fans are getting close to knowing what truly happened to Ms. Casey. This article was updated to discuss the latest clues about her whereabouts in the show, as well as discuss the events shown in the “Chikhai Bardo” episode of Season 2.
What Is Ms. Casey’s Known Identity?
Severance’s Soft-Spoken Character is a Mystery in Season 1
To understand Ms. Casey, it’s important to understand the context of Apple TV+’s compelling mystery TV series. Severance centers around Mark Scout (Adam Scott), a man who has taken a job with a mysterious biotech company called Lumon Industries. It’s apparent that he voluntarily joined an experimental program called Severance, which involves surgery to sever one’s mind into two parts: one for work, called the “innie,” and one for home, called the “outie.”
Mark agreed to be severed because he was traumatized, depressed, and stricken with grief over the death of his wife Gemma two years prior. Struggling to cope with the tragedy, he decided that undergoing this procedure would allow him at least eight hours per day where he wasn’t “choking on her ghost,” as he wrote on his “intake” sheet at Lumon. Once severed, the innie does not know anything about their outside lives, awakening once the elevator hits “the severed floor.” Once they leave, they do not recall anything about their time at work. It’s the ultimate way to achieve a work-life balance, or so Mark is told.
Related
Severance Star Reacts to Character’s Shocking Dismissal From Lumon
The Severance star was ‘very pleased’ with how the character’s arc was handled in the episode, “Woe’s Hollow.”
Mark interacts with several individuals while at work. They include his co-workers Dylan (Zach Cherry), Helly (Britt Lower), and Irving (John Turturro). There’s also his manager and supervisor, Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman), and former Lumon employee Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette), who was also his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Selvig, on the outside. Someone else he interacts with is Ms. Casey, the wellness counselor on the severed floor who provides a strange kind of therapy, which mostly consists of facts about their outie. While Mark does not recall that his wife died while at work—or that he had a wife at all—he still feels distressed, even if he can’t figure out why.
Ms. Casey takes care of others on the floor as well. In one instance, for example, she meets with Irving after he has a waking dream hallucinating globs of black paint. She tells him things about his “outie” and looks to ensure that he reacts neutrally to learning them. While on the outside, Mark sees an old friend who he doesn’t recognize but claims to have participated in a reintegration procedure after having had his brain severed, warning Mark about a conspiracy with the company. When this man, Petey (Yul Vazquez), dies, Cobel sends Ms. Casey to do a wellness check on Mark. She asks him to sculpt his emotional state, and using clay, he unknowingly shapes the tree that marks where Gemma was killed in a car crash—a tree his outie visited the night prior.
What Is Ms. Casey’s True Identity?
The Ms. Casey Reveal Upends Mark’s Life and Sets the Stage for Season 2
Mark continues to struggle to move on from Gemma’s death outside of Lumon. His sister Devon (Jen Tullock) insists he go on a date with Alexa (Nikki M. James), who serves as her doula. It’s time, he feels, to put himself back out there. After a disastrous date where he gets too drunk, the two try again and have a good time at a concert and spend the night together. When Alexa sees him next, he’s emotionally unsettled. He rips up a picture of Gemma to prove he’s moved on, but it fails to convince her.
After she leaves, however, Mark decides to try to put the photo back together. When viewers see the image clearly for the first time, they realize Ms. Casey is Gemma. Because of the severance procedure, Mark doesn’t recognize her when he’s at work. The second he leaves the office, he forgets about her, and when he arrives, he only knows her as Ms. Casey. Thinking back, fans may have caught clues, like slight glimmers of recognition in Mark’s eyes. It’s as though he felt strangely comfortable with Ms. Casey but couldn’t figure out why. Also, Ms. Cobel breaks into Mark’s house, taking an old candle that belonged to Gemma, which was used during one of his wellness sessions. Lumon is clearly testing them to see if Mark or Ms. Casey recognizes each other while on the severed floor.
Related
Lumon’s Quirkiest Employee May Secretly Be Severance Season 2’s True Villain (& It Makes Sense)
Despite their heroic attempt to make things better at Lumon, a new series of perks could turn one of the MDR workers against the others in Season 2.
It also seems that Ms. Casey may have slight emotions towards Mark, indicating that she has either gone through the severance program herself yet still feels a connection to Mark as her “innie.” The next day, he again meets with Ms. Casey at the office. She tells him she’s being “retired,” and Mark feels responsible. Ms. Casey was supposed to be observing Helly after she tried to harm herself, and Mark tricked her so they could sneak away together and talk. Ms. Cobel watches this final wellness session with something like fear or excitement (or both) because the two have made a connection as their innies.
A pivotal moment in Severance‘s first season finale helps Mark’s innie realize the truth. As part of an elaborate plan using the “Overtime Contingency,” Mark can temporarily be his “innie” on the outside through a process known as overtime contingency. It will only last a few minutes, but he hopes to get clarity in this brief period. Mark interacts with people at a party at his sister’s house. Mrs. Selvig is there, but Mark calls her “Ms. Cobel,” which lets her know the Overtime Contingency is activated. Just before Mark reverts to his outie, he sees a framed photo of himself and Gemma. He picks it up, shocked, realizing that it’s Ms. Casey, and then rushed out of the room to alert his sister, shouting, “She’s alive!” Mark reverts to his “outie” and seemingly does not know the recognition he just made.
The Mystery Around Ms. Casey Continues in Season 2
Mark and Helly Make It Their Mission to Rescue Gemma
Season 2 of Severance has answered a few questions but also introduced new mysteries. But the biggest mystery of all was related to Ms. Casey’s whereabouts. She was seen for the last time taking an elevator down to the Testing Floor, a top-secret location at Lumon. The Optics and Design department refers to it as the “Exports Hall.” This location matches the mysterious paintings made by Irving’s outie, emphasizing its importance in Severance‘s overarching plot.
Related
Adam Scott’s Step Brothers role changed his career, shifting him from drama to comedy before returning to his roots in Severance.
In Season 2, Episode 3, “Who is Alive?”, Mark’s innie and Helena search for Ms. Casey on the severed floor, to no avail. They hand out missing-person posters featuring her face. Ms. Cobel has been fired, and Mr. Milchick does nothing to stop them. The two eventually stumble upon the Mammalians Nurturable department, members of which reveal that they also had sessions with Ms. Casey before she disappeared.
Ms. Casey is finally seen again in Severance Season 2, Episode 5, “Trojan Horse”, in a scene that could either be a memory or a hallucination. The episode begins and ends in the corridors that lead to the mysterious Testing Floor. As Mark struggles with the side effects of reintegration, he has a vision of Ms. Casey, who says, “Your outie is going to…” The rest of the phrase is inaudible, but theories suggest that the sentence could end with “kill me.” There was also a glimpse of Gemma on a computer screen at the end of the Season 2 premiere, suggesting she is connected to “Cold Harbor,” the crucial file Mark S. is working on.
Gemma and Ms. Casey Returned in a Big Way in “Chikhai Bardo”
Ms. Casey’s Past With Mark & Present at Lumon Was Revealed But Unexplained
Severance Season 2, Episode 7, “Chikhai Bardo,” is centered around Gemma, her history with Mark, and how she spends her days at Lumon. The title references a Buddhist concept involving the transition one’s soul makes between life and death. In the present, Gemma is sequestered in a room on the Testing Floor, which feels more like a hospital than the office-style rooms above. Each day, she visits rooms that share the names of the files the Macrodata Refinement team works on. Inside, her severance chip activates and gives her a new personality, where she undergoes strange experiments led by Dr. Mauer (Robby Benson). In one, she endures a painful dental procedure, while in another, she’s on a plane experiencing harsh turbulence.
Related
Lumon’s Quirkiest Employee May Secretly Be Severance Season 2’s True Villain (& It Makes Sense)
Despite their heroic attempt to make things better at Lumon, a new series of perks could turn one of the MDR workers against the others in Season 2.
Perhaps the most disturbing room is “Allentown,” where Dr. Mauer, in a fake beard and wig, forces her to write dozens of “Thank you” notes for Christmas gifts. Gemma is angry about this, but before he lets her leave, he makes her tell him that she loves him. It’s heavily implied that Mauer has a dangerous obsession with her. While the exact nature of these experiments is still a mystery, they are testing the “severance barriers.” This likely means that any of the multiple personas Gemma takes on are bleeding into her outie mind-state, especially since so many of these rooms are traumatic and painful for her.
Gemma tells Dr. Mauer she wants to leave and see Mark, and not only does she not know that he thinks she’s dead, but Mauer lies that he’s remarried. Gemma doesn’t believe him, and she clobbers Mauer with a chair. She tries to escape the Testing Floor, but the elevator takes her to the severed floor. There, she becomes Ms. Casey and has no idea she is running away. The episode ends with her crying and defeated, unable to leave. In an earlier scene, Mr. Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) tells Mauer that when Mark completes Cold Harbor, the doctor must “say goodbye” to her. Mauer also tells Gemma that when she finally visits the Cold Harbor room, she will see the world, and the world will see her.
Your husband remarried last year, and he has a daughter now…. You’ve been gone a long time, Gemma. He’s moved on. Maybe you’ve moved on, too. In one of the rooms. What do you think? Do you feel yourself gravitating towards one room or another? Maybe you felt things behind those doors you never felt with Mark. Maybe I’ve seen it. – Dr. Mauer to Gemma in ‘Chikhai Bardo’
Also, in “Chikhai Bardo,” viewers see her history with Mark, from their meet-cute at a Lumon blood drive to their wedding. The episode also covers their efforts to conceive a child through in vitro fertilization. Not only do they visit a Lumon clinic, but Dr. Mauer can also be seen in the background. Lumon targeted Gemma, sending her a strange questionnaire with the ideographic cards viewers saw in Optics and Design in Season 1. The night Gemma “died,” Mark was home working on something for his classes as a history professor specializing in World War I. It didn’t seem like Gemma knew that was the last time she’d see Mark; she even asked him to come with her. Yet, somehow, she ended up on the testing floor, and police officers came to their house to inform Mark she’d been killed.
Will Ms. Casey Be in Severance Season 3?
Apple is Yet to Confirm Severance’s Future Beyond Season 2
Given that Ms. Casey’s true nature is one of Severance‘s biggest mysteries, the enigma is likely to go on for more seasons. Ben Stiller has confirmed that Severance‘s writers’ room has been assembled, and they are actively working on Season 3, though Apple TV+ has not yet announced a renewal. The goal is not to keep fans waiting for another three years. Given the show’s success and positive reception, the announcement will probably be made soon. Ms. Casey may be a key character in Severance Season 3—as long as she survives Season 2.
Related
The Answer to Severance Season 2’s Cold Harbor Mystery Has Been Hiding in Plain Sight
One of Severance’s core mysteries is slowly being unraveled, and eagle-eyed viewers think they know how.
One seemingly confirmed Severance theory is that Gemma underwent the severance surgery without Mark’s knowledge after she was taken. Her Ms. Casey persona is a part-time employee and just one of many personalities she takes on. Her situation is the opposite of the innies on the severed floor, who sometimes want to leave Lumon but cannot. Her severed personalities don’t even know that she’s part of a testing program, and it’s her outie who wants to leave but is helpless.
Fans hope for a sweet reunion between Mark and Gemma, but they also want answers as to how she ended up severed, how Lumon took her, and what they told her she was doing there in the first place. The last interesting detail is that if Mark or any MDR workers somehow make their way down to the Testing Floor, they should revert to their outie state, meaning Mark would reconnect with his wife. It also means Helly would again become Helena Eagan while Dylan would become his outie, with no idea what he was doing there. It remains to be seen if Severance will continue to tell Gemma’s story in the rest of Season 2 or if “Chikhai Bardo” was just a taste of her struggle that won’t be revisited until Season 3 or later.
