In the very first scene of “Severance,” two of our heroes, Helly R. and Mark S., speak for the first time. Helly, just having been severed — the procedure in the show where a person has a chip surgically implanted in their brain to separate their work and personal lives — is asked a series of questions to confirm her chip is working.
“Question four: What is Mr. Eagan’s favorite breakfast?” Mark asks. Helly has no idea what he’s talking about, and neither do we — but we will find out, that’s for sure.
For fans of the Apple TV+ series, food has become a peculiar aspect of an even more peculiar show. Everything from fresh fruit to dehydrated dinners has embedded itself into the lore of the show that has fans hypothesizing to high heaven.
The writers have yet to reveal why Lumon has such a high budget for cantaloupe, so as a viewer, it’s impossible not to be spooked by even the smallest of snacks. So, ahead of the show’s Season 2 finale, here’s a ranking of the creepiest foods we’ve seen on “Severance” thus far.
Warning: Spoilers ahead!
17. Chinese food — Season 2, Episode 6: “Attila”
Chinese food is not at all creepy on its own. But Helena Eagan following outie Mark to the restaurant and interacting with him over beef and broccoli and fortune cookies without letting on that she knows their innies work together (and much more than that) surely is.
16. Pip’s — multiple episodes
Again, Pip’s — the diner where outie Mark is seen several times in the show — isn’t creepy in itself. What’s unnerving is the fact that in Season 1, Episode 1, he receives a gift certificate to the eatery because Helly beamed him in the head with a stapler, yet the note his outie receives claims he slipped while “carrying boxes in a room.” This is one of the first signs that Lumon outright lies to its employees.
15. Vending machine snacks — Season 1, Episode 2: “Half Loop”
On Lumon’s severed floor, there is a vending machine operated with tokens (not money — already kind of unsettling) and innies can choose from an assortment of snacks. Closeups reveal Lumon provides packages of edamame, raisins, peanuts, beets, blueberries, ginseng and sunflower seeds, but there are more snacks we can’t see. It’s a little sad that the machine doesn’t contain “Cringies,” a potato chip product enjoyed by Devon that surely exists.
14. Diner coffee — Season 2, Episode 8: “Sweet Vitriol”
It’s rather bizarre that there’s a small-town greasy spoon with multiple customers in it and all they’re consuming is coffee — don’t you think?
13. The melon bar — Season 1, Episode 2: “Half Loop”
Mr. Milchick wheels in an assortment of melons to welcome Helly to Macrodata Refinement (MDR), and the fruit may be on the healthier side, but it’s still a treat. There’s something about the amount of honeydew and cantaloupe — why is there so much for four people? — and its spiky presentation that has a chilling effect.
12. Marshmallows — Season 2, Episode 4: “Woe’s Hollow”
The MDR team is “outside” together for the very first time, camping in a collective activity known as the Outdoor Retreat and Team-Building Occurrence (ORTBO). The recreational workplace activity was meant to strengthen the team’s bonds, with a hike, theremin music and marshmallows embossed with Kier’s face.
However, when Helena (pretending to be Helly) laughs at a particularly spicy part of Eagan history, Milchick orders Miss Huang to throw the team’s marshmallows into the campfire.
“Marshmallows are for team players,” Milchick declares.
11. Mrs. Selvig’s cookies — Season 1, Episode 2: “Half Loop”
Mrs. Selvig — who is actually Ms. Cobel, innie Mark’s boss — brings outie Mark chamomile cookies as a gift. Whether it’s to help him sleep or some other nefarious purpose is never revealed, but it does show the audience early on how all up in both Mark’s business she is.
10. Mark’s meal replacement smoothies — multiple episodes
A depressed man regularly drinking gray sludge for breakfast? Pretty chilling.
9. The dinnerless dinner party — Season 1, Episode 1: “Good News About Hell”
In the pilot, outie Mark attends a dinner party at the home of sister Devon and brother-in-law Ricken where there’s ... no dinner. Only glasses of water accompany the pretentious conversation.
The lack of food at a dinner party is, in fact, creepy — especially since there’s no explanation for it.
At least Devon makes our hero a sandwich after everyone else has left, but the way the camera lingers on her severing the sandwich in two is unnerving.
8. Retirement watermelon party — Season 1, Episode 2: “Half Loop”
Adding another level to the melon bar, when Burt retires, his department sets aside a single hour to celebrate his work life.
For this event, a food reward of the innie’s choice is provided, and Burt chooses watermelon. Several plates of festive-looking watermelon skewers, balls and those jagged halves set the scene for what is essentially this character’s last moments alive.
7. Pineapple bobbing — Season 2, Episode 1: “Hello Ms. Cobel”
This show can’t do anything in a normal way, so when the claymation at the start of Season 2 shows MDR playing a popular Halloween game (at least in the 14th century), they bob for prickly pineapples instead of apples.
This feels logistically impossible, if you think about it. Combine that with the visual of an animated Helly’s head submerged in water (foreshadowing for a later scene involving Irving!) and you have yourself a truly sinister scene.
6. Pineapple gift baskets — Season 2, Episode 2: “Goodbye, Ms. Selvig”
The tropical fruit returns in the following episode, when Milchick brings outie Mark a Lumon fruit basket with a pineapple — a prickly symbol of hospitality — as the star of the show. He also brings Dylan and Irving similar baskets.
When Mark agrees to return to work and later has a conversation about it with Mrs. Selvig, she asks him, “Was a pineapple involved?”
5. Dehydrated dinner — Season 2, Episode 7: “Chikhai bardo”
In the show’s heartbreaking Gemma-centric episode, we see her daily routine on the testing floor, one level below her husband, perpetually separated. All of her meals are in a drawer that holds Lumon-branded pods with labels like “tender cassava,” “rendered marrow,” “apple blossom” and “candied carrots.”
All they appear to be, though, are dehydrated bricks of food that need to be boiled to consume — just one of the many injustices this woman is subjected to in this episode.
4. Key lime pie — Season 2, Episode 7: “Chikhai bardo”
After Gemma’s dehydrated three-course dinner, a too-perfect-looking Key lime pie (Kier lime pie, perhaps?) makes the whole meal seem even more off, somehow.
3. The Waffle Party — Season 1, Episode 8: “What’s for Dinner?”
Who could forget the waffle party?
In previous episodes, characters reference a Waffle Party, and Dylan G. finally gets the opportunity to partake in one. We learned that the freaky fete takes place in Kier’s replica home in the Perpetuity Wing on Lumon’s severed floor. It’s a perk where an employee (in a Kier mask) is given the opportunity to commiserate, probably intimately, with four people playing Kier’s “Four Tempers.”
While there are waffles, drenched in syrup and butter, there’s a different kind of devouring that the audience is meant to consider above it.
2. Helena’s hard-boiled egg — Season 2, Episode 9: “The After Hours”
After Helena goes for a swim in the episode’s opening, we are treated to a beyond creepy sequence where her father Jame Eagan watches her eat breakfast. On the menu: a single hard-boiled egg, sliced into six equal slices. She eats the egg in very small bites, with a fork and knife, and her father remarks that he’d wish she’d “take them raw.” (Girl, run.)
Besides all the other disturbing aspects of this meal performance, we’re reminded that in Season 1, Mr. Milchick reveals that Kier’s favorite breakfast was raw eggs with milk, and it’s very clear individuality is frowned upon in this family.
1. Irving’s watermelon bust — Season 2, Episode 5: “Trojan’s Horse”
By far the most spine-chilling object to appear in “Severance” arrives after Irving is terminated for, well, trying to drown a coworker. At his “funeral,” a spread of fruit is served to his surviving coworkers, and in addition to the usual honeydew and cantaloupe is a large, lifelike bust of Irving carved out of watermelon.
The outlandish fruit sculpture is meant to mourn the dearly departed fellow, but slicing into your colleague’s head and taking a refreshing bite has the opposite effect. The fact that Irving’s love, Burt, chose watermelon as his retirement snack adds another layer of woe to the proceedings.
