Severance’s Creepy Physician Is True Nightmare Fodder

Although Dr. Mauer made himself totally identified in “Chikhai Bardo,” the seventh episode of Severance season two, we’d really encountered him earlier within the season. He strolled into Optics and Design to select up dental instruments, then wheeled them to that ominous elevator on the finish of the Exports Corridor. It’s the final place we noticed Ms. Casey on the finish of season one, so to attach the 2 characters wasn’t an enormous leap. However “Chikhai Bardo” exceeded our worst nightmares in that regard.

The truth that Dr. Mauer is consistently whistling “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” Gordon Lightfoot’s folksy but morose ballad a couple of ship that sinks in icy waters, spelling doom for all aboard, actually units the tone completely, doesn’t it?

Most of “Chikhai Bardo” revolves round fleshing out Gemma and Mark’s love story—lengthy earlier than she turned Ms. Casey, tending to a completely unaware Mark on the severed ground at Lumon. The episode was so beautifully acted and directed, it was straightforward to give attention to these components instantly after watching it. Nevertheless it’s Dr. Mauer who lingers in its bleakest moments, exhibiting us that there’s a brand new MVP amongst Severance‘s not-insignificant stack of malevolent characters.

The creepy physician is an archetype that horror followers will instantly acknowledge; it preys on the worry {that a} medical skilled will put aside their “do no hurt” oath and reap the benefits of their place for merciless or murderous causes. Dr.  Hannibal Lecter, Dr. Giggles, the Lifeless Ringers twins, the Human Centipede man, and anybody concerned within the PTSD-inducing plot of Coma—you recognize them, and also you rightfully worry them. And Dr. Mauer is true up there. Whereas his ways do trigger Gemma bodily ache, his psychological assaults are exponentially extra agonizing.

As of the newest episode, we don’t but have the complete image concerning Lumon’s invasive curiosity in Gemma and Mark’s relationship. We all know they visited a fertility clinic with ties to Lumon, as all bio-tech in Severance‘s world appears to be. The power additionally has a connection to Dr. Mauer; blink and also you’ll miss him skulking by way of the background of that scene. We’re effectively conscious that Gemma drove to an occasion one darkish evening and by no means got here dwelling, with police arriving on Mark’s doorstep to ship the unhappy information. And, in fact, we all know Gemma underwent the severance process and have become the robotic Ms. Casey, the counselor on Lumon’s severed ground.

“Chikhai Bardo” answered one of many greatest Severance inquiries to date, exhibiting us the place Gemma has been dwelling since her supposed dying. And it’s develop into obvious her ordeal has one thing to do with Mark’s work sorting numbers in Lumon’s Macrodata Refinement division. There are nonetheless numerous puzzle items left to fill in. However Dr. Mauer’s introduction into the story left little doubt, if we had any earlier than, that there’s true evil at work right here.

Dichen Lachman’s efficiency as Gemma has gotten rightful reward, however Robby Benson as Dr. Mauer is equally formidable—a onetime teen idol (see: 1976’s Ode to Billy Joe and 1978’s Ice Castles), he additionally voiced the Beast in Disney’s 1991 animated traditional Magnificence and the Beast, and has popped up in TV reveals (together with Mates) and in video video games right here and there. However his Severance flip provides proof which you can usually discover excellently efficient villains by casting towards kind.

Gemma’s quartered in a subterranean, featureless room the place she’s surveilled by cameras and watched over by an ever-present nurse. Her bodily well being is fastidiously monitored and regimented, however it’s her psychological stability that Lumon is most excited by probing. She’s Dr. Mauer’s solely affected person; on daily basis, he meets her in every room off the lengthy hallway on the testing ground. She doesn’t keep in mind their interactions, as a result of every house triggers a special severed persona. Every has their very own wardrobe and coiffure: the dental affected person, the traveler on a airplane that’s about to crash, the… Nineteen Seventies tennis participant? (We don’t see the room for that one, simply the outfit.)

Most haunting, although, is the room the place “it’s all the time Christmas,” a dreadful model of the vacation during which Gemma’s wearing a frumpy bathrobe and compelled to pen an infinite stack of thank-you notes. (In Gemma’s pre-Lumon life, she particularly loathed writing thank-you notes.) Like all of the rooms, that is the one actuality this explicit consciousness ever experiences. It’s the identical as Mark and the opposite severed staff consistently snapping awake within the elevator, feeling like no time has handed since they left the workplace, besides a lot extra dreadful. Think about your whole existence was getting your enamel drilled again and again. Or being on a airplane that’s about to crash.

In every of those terrible places, Dr. Mauer is an energetic and overly keen presence, clad in his personal particular outfits; it might probably solely be the case that he designed every side of this course of. He’s the dentist, the flight attendant, the tennis coach, and—most distressingly—the “husband” within the Christmas room. Even Drummond, the Lumon bigwig retaining tabs on Dr. Mauer’s experiments, questions his alternative of sweater, which he pairs with a stick-on beard and mustache. On this room, he emits a exceedingly unwholesome vibe, calling Gemma “sweetheart” and forcing her to say she loves him.

That is particularly sickening given this earlier trade between Drummond and Mauer: “You want her.” “She’s straightforward to love. She is keen on me too, in fact.” “Didn’t she try to break your fingers?”

Dr. Mauer additionally interacts with Gemma as herself, querying her about her experiences, ensuring she remembers nothing, and displaying not a shred of humanity—he has the alternative of “variety eyes,” one thing Severance made some extent of emphasizing in season one. He’s patronizing, and fairly clearly takes improper enjoyment in having such whole management over one other individual.

“When he’s carried out,” Drummond tells Dr. Mauer—referring to Mark’s progress on the mysterious “Chilly Harbor” undertaking, which Severance has teased as an finish level for Gemma’s ordeal—”You’ll must let her go.” Dr. Mauer says he’s conscious of that, however there’s one thing unsettling in his countenance. One thing that implies he believes precise tender emotions are propelling these pressured “I really like yous.”

Why else, when Gemma pleads to go dwelling, would he mislead her and say Mark’s moved on since she’s been MIA—with a brand new spouse and daughter, including an additional knife-twist? Why else would he then suggest that maybe Gemma’s moved on too, possibly with out realizing it, possibly by rediscovering love with Dr. Mauer in one of many severed rooms?

It’s the ickiest of all issues to contemplate, that she would have emotions for this odious man and never even keep in mind them, and that he would slither round and plant the likelihood in her mind. Her escape try ends in heartbreaking failure on the finish of “Chikhai Bardo,” however there’s a ticking clock on this distress. Chilly Harbor’s secrets and techniques are sure to be revealed quickly—solely three episodes in season two left to go—and with them, closure of some variety. With Dr. Mauer in cost, and the ruthless Drummond peering over his shoulder, it’s a must to surprise if there’s any ending the place Gemma survives, a lot much less ever goes dwelling.

Need extra io9 information? Try when to anticipate the newest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on film and TV, and all the pieces you must learn about the way forward for Doctor Who.