The Box Set: "Severance Season Two."

Deconstructing Ep. 7: "Chikhai Bardo."

This might be a good time for everyone to read “The Tibetan Book of the Dead” or, barring your ability to take in deep spiritual ideas and practices, perhaps “Lincoln In the Bardo,” George Saunders 2017 acclaimed novel.

Anytime you have a title called “Chikhai Bardo” — or similar oddness — people will search for its meaning online. But of course “Severance” knew this and while people might smartly go looking for deeper meaning, a lot of the themes of the series were laid bare and, arguably, more clear, right in front of our eyes as viewers finally got Gemma’s backstory and early times with Mark, with those flashbacks mixed into the present where she’s very much alive (at least for a short time, perhaps about 3 percent — what’s left of Mark’s “Cold Harbor” refining), an episode that found its success in illuminating Gemma’s ongoing sadness (as that of Mark), and Lumon’s deep cruelty.

With three episodes to go, “Chikhai Bardo” sets the stage for where we are in the story and clarifies a lot of early theories about “Severance.” If you had money on reincarnation or, at the very least, conscious rebirth of the same person, then this episode was the most forceful support.

Tibetan Buddhists — the distinction is important because not all of Buddhism embraces these beliefs — has six “bardo states” beginning with the first, which is basically your birth, life and death, and then moving through the five other, with the fourth being “chikhai bardo,” where “the dying process begins,” and you could argue that this episode shows that Gemma, whose death was faked by Lumon, is going through this exact process, with a heavy implication that once she goes into a door marked “Cold Harbor,” that’s probably the end, at least for her.

Now, this is a good place to take a breath and find some clarity.

In “Severance” we’re dealing with a cult, and within that zealots of different stripes; it is focusing on themes of “duality” and, especially in this second season, Lumon’s push toward a technology of rebirth, which is likely a bit different — a bit more Kier — than reincarnation. In essence, Lumon is trying to take the randomness out — you don’t die and get reincarnated as someone else in another country; you’re you, or more importantly, at first, the Kier family will live on in perpetuity (likely with Mark’s baby that Gemma couldn’t conceive).

In Tibetan Buddhist belief, a “bardo” — also Tibetan word — is a liminal space where you start the transition from the embodiment of your past life into reincarnation. Now, whether you care at all about spirituality or just want to watch “Severance” is up to you and doesn’t have to be embraced or believed, but this is now clearly what they are doing in a story that will primarily involve Mark and Gemma, Mark and Helena and Mark and Helly. Yep, that’s why Mark is referenced as so important.

The last little bit of Buddhist nerdiness that might be of interest to viewers is that Karma Lingpa, (quite the first name) is the person credited with bringing the writings of what would eventually be called “The Tibetan Book of the Dead” to light. Those writings are based on much larger philosophies and teachings called the “Zhi-Khro” which reference “outer” and “inner” states repeatedly.

Do with that what you will. Or what your Outie and Innie will do with it.

(The “zhi-khro” also conjectures “peaceful and wrathful” dieties and, well, if you’re thinking that’s the embodiment of Helena and Helly, I wouldn’t argue against it).

But let’s separate from the episode title and the spiritual beliefs that surround it and focus on the episode itself, which felt like a poem and bomb meeting in a long hallway.

Gemma, in the flesh, in the present, not dead.