- "All right, Irving. What I'd like to do is share with you some facts about your outie. Because your outie is an exemplary person, these facts should be very pleasing. Just relax your body and be open to the facts. Try to enjoy each equally. These facts are not to be shared outside this room. But for now, they're yours to enjoy."— Ms. Casey, starting a wellness session
The episode opens with a Flash Back to an unsevered Helly reading for the video we saw in the last episode with Mr. Milchick filming. She’s then led by Milchick to an operating room to get her severance chip implanted. We’re treated to a close-up shot of her head being cut open and her skull getting drilled into, and then the surgery is finished. Mr. Milchick remarks that he’s “very excited to meet her”.
We now see the stairwell exit scene from last episode, but through Outie!Helly’s perspective. Outie!Helly is thrust out into the stairwell, only to find Milchick telling her that her innie is having some difficulty adjusting, and she should just walk in again. She has to do this multiple times before it sticks. We then cut forward in time to the elevator at the end of the day, where Mr. Milchick gives Outie!Helly flowers to congratulate her.
Cue theme song.
Now it's next Monday, and Mark is the first to arrive at the office. Mark goes through his new morning routine as supervisor, before pausing after picking up some desk photos with Petey in them. He hides the photos in the storage closet, upset.
A little later in the day, Dylan and Mark help train Helly on the basics of data refining. Mark explains that Helly has to look for numbers that evoke a certain emotion, then sort those numbers into specific boxes. Helly balks at this seemingly nonsensical task.
A welcome celebration for Helly begins. Mark admits that he hid the photographs because he’s upset about Petey leaving. Helly asks if she can write a note to herself,and is informed that the elevators are equipped with “code detectors”- like metal detectors, but for written symbols. Helly doesn’t believe him, and runs to the elevator with “I QUIT” written on a post-it. The code detectors turn out to be real, and Helly is restrained. Mark takes full responsibility, and is escorted to a place with the misleading title of “The Break Room”.
Later that night, Outie!Mark is on his first date in a while after the death of his wife. It starts strong, but goes sour as Mark defends his severed job and gets in a fight with an anti-severance group called the “Whole Mind Collective”. After getting home from his date, Mark finds Ms. Selvig in his house with cookies. After a brief conversation, Mark goes to sleep.
The next day, Mark calls in sick. Back at Lumon, Helly is confused as to where Mark is and worries he was fired because of her stunt with the elevator. Melchick, Graner and Cobel privately discuss Mark’s absence.
Outside of Lumon, Mark follows the address Petey gave him to an abandoned greenhouse. Petey is living there as he hides from Lumon’s prying eyes. Petey explains more of his situation to Mark- he’s combined both sides of his personality, he believes he’s the first to do so, and the contradictory memories are causing him to go insane. He’s also managed to crudely map out the severed floor. He also plays Mark a smuggled tape recording of Mark himself being tortured in the “Break Room”.
Back at Lumon, Irving nearly falls asleep and has a strange hallucination of the room being filled with black goo. Hoping to remedy this, Milchick brings Irvin in for a “wellness session” with the on-site therapist, Ms. Casey. While waiting for the wellness session to begin, Irving strikes up a conversation about Lumon’s decorative artwork with a charming older man named Burt who turns out to be head of the Optics and Design department. The wellness session turns out to be involves Ms. Casey reading Irving facts about his Outie, ranging from “your outie is generous” to “your outie likes the sound of radar”.
Irving relays his meeting with Burt to Dylan, who calls Burt a “fuck” and expresses a tribalist hatred of Optics and Design, claiming that savage O&D workers slaughtered all the Macrodata Refinement workers years ago, and that’s why there are so few of them. While they’re arguing, Helly completes her first data refinement.
Meanwhile, Mark gives Petey a place to stay in his basement. While using Mark’s shower, Petey has a flashback to his time at Lumon and passes out.
