The latest episode of Severance, “Attila,” was among the series’ most chaotic yet. Spoiler alert, but amid a makeshift brain surgery, the most complicated love square known to man, an awkward dinner date with Christopher Walken and his husband, and the most harrowing scene about paperclips ever put to film, one character’s throwaway line confirmed that Severance is even gayer than we already thought.
In one of the episode’s final scenes, Devon (Jen Tullock) made an ill-timed surprise visit to her brother Mark’s house, where Mark (Adam Scott) suffered what seems to be a stroke after getting his brain injected with a mysterious liquid. But before Mark’s medical crisis, Devon was proposing her own way to get answers about Lumon, which included reminding her brother about a woman she met in the show’s first season.
“Do you remember the rich lady from baby camp?” Devon asked. “The one I, like, kind of had a crush on?”
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Boom. With that, fans immediately celebrated Devon’s apparent queerness. Folks are theorizing that the character is bisexual, given that she’s married to a man — but no matter Devon’s sexuality, she’s already a beloved member of Severance’s growing queer community (and a bright spot in the show’s increasingly gloomy world).
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Devon joins the ranks of Irving (John Turturro) and Burt (Christopher Walken) as one Severance’s main queer characters. Meanwhile, the show also has plenty of queer talent behind the scenes, including Tullock herself, Tramell Tillman as severed floor supervisor Seth Milchick, and Michael Cumpsty as Season 1’s security guard Doug Graner.
In a new interview with Parade, Tullock explained that the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment was actually improvised.
“I was so stoked that they left it in,” Tullock said. “[Series creator Dan Erickson] and I had talked about Devon’s backstory, and that she was probably queer, and dated people of all genders before meeting Ricken. I think she went to Bennington and backpacked all over the world. And she definitely had a hot rugby playing girlfriend for a long time. But I think as an equal opportunity, a queer person isn’t necessarily talking about it constantly.”
“There was even a moment where we had talked about something happening with a female character that got squashed,” she added. “But I remember when I said that line, Adam kind of giggling afterward. And I was like, ‘There’s no way they’re gonna keep that.’ And they did.”
Tullock even hinted that further exploration of Devon’s queerness isn’t off the table: “We’ll see what happens,” she concluded.
New episodes of Severance release on Apple TV+ on Fridays at 3 a.m. ET. Check out the Season 2 trailer below.
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