Severance Chikhai Bardo Explained: What Really Happened to Gemma?

Streaming Wars is a weekly opinion column by IGN’s Streaming Editor, Amelia Emberwing. Check out the last entry Severance May Have Just Laid the Groundwork For the Greatest Betrayal Yet

This column contains spoilers for Severance Season 2, Episode 7.

I try to avoid column entries focusing on the same show two weeks in a row, but Severance has been on one lately so we’re absolutely headed back to Lumon this week.

“Chikhai Bardo” takes us back in time (sometimes), weaving flashbacks with what appear to be current events as we learn about Gemma (Dichen Lachman) and Mark’s (Adam Scott) relationship alongside Gemma’s fight to free herself from Lumon. On our journey with the two, we learn about her miscarriage and their subsequent struggles to conceive even after consulting with a fertility clinic. But, while the glimpse into their past lives makes us feel closer to Gemma, it’s what’s happening in the (presumed) present that blows the lid off things.

While we knew Gemma was alive, we weren’t sure how or to what extent. Her presence at Lumon indicated that perhaps it was only her Innie’s brain that survived, but we never knew how she had an Innie persona to begin with. Additionally, the episode’s title gives us hints as to what might actually be going on while also potentially adding more questions, and we may be closer than ever to learning what the hell is going on with Miss Huang (Sarah Bock).

Buckle up, we have a lot to talk about.

What Does Chikhai Bardo Mean?

In the episode, Gemma and Mark briefly talk about a set of cards. It doesn’t go well.

“Chikhai Bardo… it looks like two guys fighting,” Mark quips.

“No, it’s the same guy fighting himself, defeating his own psyche. Ego death,” Gemma responds. She adds later that she "thinks she got onto the mailing list at the clinic.”

Mark makes fun of her for doing something he thinks is stupid, she responds in kind that he’s being an asshole, and their brief argument ends with him telling her that maybe they should just stop trying to conceive. It’s a rough moment in the couple’s life, but what’s most interesting here isn’t their fight, it’s what Chikhai Bardo actually means.

Tibetan Buddhism breaks down the cycle of existence into six states, called bardos. Each bardo represents a different stage of life, death and rebirth. Chikhai Bardo is the fourth stage — the bardo of dying. This begins when the body internally and externally senses signs that death is close and results in what is known as the “clear light of death.” The goal in the midst of the clear light of death is to maintain lucidity, but many black out during the process. Meditation and training help with the aforementioned lucidity, but ultimately it’s not something that everyone can achieve.

The above is, of course, a very brief look at this complex and layered aspect of Buddhism; I highly recommend you read up more on the subject if you’re curious, but that’s about as much as we can discuss here without getting too rabbit hole-y. It’s also important to note that the other bardos may very well have their part to play in this story as well, but more on that in a bit!

Was Gemma the First Severed Person?

The structure in “Chikhai Bardo” intentionally keeps the timeline of events muddy and difficult to follow as we experience disorientation alongside Mark, but Gemma is far from the first person severed. The severance procedure was introduced 12 years ago to the public — though recent events imply that it could have been started as early as 20 years ago in the series. Mark joined Lumon and elected to have the severance procedure done only two years prior in the show’s timeline, which means Gemma has been held hostage during that period.

However, it does seem likely that Gemma may be the first severed person of her kind. What I mean by that is the fact that she seems to have multiple severed personas. We have the most experience with Ms. Casey, who is relegated to the severed floor, but we see a new kind of severance with Gemma while she’s deeper in the Lumon facility. There, it’s not severed floors but severed rooms. We see a host of them as she walks down the hall to a room called Wellington, where she meets with her “dentist” (who is presumably playing with severance technology in one way or another), with others including Cairns, Dranesville, Siena, Loveland, and Tumwater. She then passes Rhodes immediately when she leaves with her handler (Sandra Bernhard), and eventually passes Cold Harbor — a room featuring the code name of Mark and MDR’s actual work. It’s later confirmed that Gemma has visited six rooms during the day that the episode takes place: Billings, Locknau, St. Pierre, Cairns, Zurich, and Wellington.

We see Gemma visit one final room before her daring attempt to escape: Allentown. It’s here where Robby Benson’s “Doctor” plays house with her, forcing her to write hundreds of thank you notes for fake Christmas gifts the “happy couple” recently received.

What’s most interesting on Gemma’s home floor is that it seems like different rooms may bring out different personalities even further beyond Ms. Casey and whichever personas she’s meant to be during Lumon’s experiment below the severed floor. In Wellington, she seems almost frightened, asking if she may please have a break. In Allentown, her frustration with “her partner” is evident alongside her pain. In an undisclosed room, she’s seemingly on a flight and experiencing extreme turbulence that seems likely to lead to a plane crash. Additionally, each room that we’ve followed her into includes Benson’s The Doctor, with no questions as to why she keeps meeting different versions of him. How many different ways has Gemma’s brain been severed? And what do her teeth have to do with it?

Was Gemma Ever Really in a Car Accident?

At the beginning of the episode, I didn’t think so. It was my assumption that they found Gemma through the fertility clinic and tricked her by dangling the potential of a child in front of her. However, knowing what we now do about Chikhai Bardo, I absolutely believe that Gemma was, indeed, in an accident. But I also believe that it was Lumon who caused it.

Earlier in the season, Mark also insists that he “saw the body!” when people are trying to convince him that Gemma is alive, making those cloning fan-theories seem more likely than ever. Especially given the fact that they had access to Gemma’s DNA thanks to the fertility clinic which, at this point, I feel pretty confident that they either own or partner with.

Why Is Lumon Holding Gemma Hostage?

Y’all… The possibilities feel endless at this point. What are those little freaks doing with her?

Right now, a prevailing fan-theory posits that Ms. Huang is somehow Mark and Gemma’s kid. Obviously, the math doesn’t math with there only being two years since Mark saw Gemma last, but given that we’re looking at clones, metaphysics and an all-powerful global cult, Lumon’s walking child labor violation sure does seem like she could somehow be their offspring. That would certainly answer the “to what end” aspect of the question, but not necessarily the why part of it.

But the why aspect is likely ultimately pretty mundane. As far as the outside world is concerned Gemma Scout died in a car accident two years ago, Lumon proffered a fake body, and if she (literally) resurfaced, people would start asking a lot of questions. Especially given the fact that keeping Gemma’s outie consciousness seems imperative to their research. She goes outside and you bet she’s going to tell the world what the Eagans and their cult empire are up to.

What at first seems to be a throwaway line ultimately ties everything together in a neat little bow. There are two separate scenes where Gemma notes that she has visited six rooms on her no-good-very-bad-day, and it sure does appear as if each room has a corresponding Bardo, and whatever the Eagans are up to is intrinsically tied to Buddhism and a bastardization of its tenets for their own means.

These are the six bardos:

Kyenay Bardo (Life)

Samten Bardo (Meditation)

Milam Bardo (Dream)

Chikhai Bardo (Death)

Chonyid Bardo (Dharmata)

Sidpa Bardo (Existence)

And these are the six rooms Gemma confirms she’s entered that day:

Billings

Locknau

St. Pierre

Cairns

Zurich

Wellington

Kyenay Bardo (life) explains why they need Gemma’s core personality to remain. Throughout the episode we see her doing yoga (Samten Bardo/meditation). Milam Bardo (dream) remains in question, but Chikhai Bardo (death) goes beyond her car accident and explains the near-death plane ride we saw her on, despite us not knowing the corresponding room. That leaves her dentist experience as well as Chonyid Bardo and Sidpa Bardo in question. Allentown — her thank you card nightmare with Dr. McCreepy — is not one of the six rooms corresponding to a Bardo, which feeds into the idea that it isn’t part of the experiment. The guy just wanted some extra time to be a predator.

What’s particularly interesting when it comes to the “to what end” aspect of the why is what Lumon needs her for and how the bardos play into it all. They’ve made it abundantly clear that Mark’s participation in and completion of Cold Harbor is imperative, but is Gemma there for whatever Cold Harbor is or something else entirely? Is Mark somehow killing the last vestiges of the wife he knows? Are they trying to grow an army of child laborers so they don’t have to deal with the question of Outies vs. Innies ever again? Or is it an army of clones for the same purpose? AND WHAT DO THE GOATS HAVE TO DO WITH ALL OF THIS?!

All we know at this point is that the introduction of the bardos all but confirms the longstanding theory that the master plan here involves helping Kier Eagon continue eternal life, but I suspect we’re gonna get a good amount of explanation on the “how” real soon.

Who Is the Doctor?

The Doctor, as seen in different personas for each room we’ve met him in, including Gemma’s private chambers where she bludgeons him with a chair and makes her escape, is key to everything involving Gemma. He’s in love with her, but that seems to be more of a complication that came later rather than a reason for her current incarceration.

I have no evidence to support it yet, but there’s something about this guy that just screams Eagen descendent. Perhaps much of that is tied to the fact that Eagens seem to be the only people at Lumon allowed to show emotion, or maybe it’s just because (bless you, Robby Benson) he’s got hardcore cult leader face.

Ultimately, I have no idea if this guy is anything more than just a creepy mad scientist. But I mostly just hope Gemma hits him with a chair again.