Severance Season 2: Who Is Asal Reghabi and What Is Reintegration?

This article contains spoilers for Severance season 2 episode 3.

The long wait between seasons for sci-fi thriller Severance created a sense of urgency among viewers to get back up to date. Apple TV+ led off Severance season 2 with a recap of the previous season’s events. Meanwhile, the digital media industry embarked on a “Severance Season 1 Recap” goldrush, with some nerd at Den of Geek even penning a “previously on” primer.

Still, despite that three year delay, Severance season 2 has proven to be relatively easy to follow thus far. Episodes 1 and 2 each picked up right after the unforgettable season 1 finale, and charted the immediate aftermath of the Overtime Contingency and its implications for the innie and outtie worlds. It’s not until this week’s third episode, however, that the recollective momentum falls off the tracks a bit. That’s because Severance season 2 episode 3 “Who Is Alive?” reintroduces an important character from season 1 named Reghabi … who you almost certainly forgot all about.

Who is Asal Reghabi and what is this “reintegration” she speaks of? Allow us to reintegrate you on both fronts.

Who Is Asal Reghabi?

Played by Karen Aldridge, Asal Reghabi is a key figure on Severance (and not just because her name sounds the most like a Star Wars character of anyone in the cast). First introduced in season 1 episode 6 “Hide and Seek,” Reghabi was a Lumon employee who went rogue. She appears to have worked for the company in a scientific or biomedical capacity as she claims to have installed the severance chip in several employee’s brains – including in Mark’s (Adam Scott).

Now she works against Lumon by developing experimental “reintegration” technology that will un-do the severance process and make severed employees whole once again. It’s because of this reintegration work that her path crosses with Mark. Early on in season 1, outtie Mark is contacted by his old work friend Petey Kilmer (Yul Vazquez). Petey claims to be undergoing the reintegration procedure and wants Mark’s help in joining a resistance against Lumon. Unfortunately Petey eventually dies from complications of reintegration.

When Mark turns on a cellphone that Petey left behind, he immediately receives a phone call from Reghabi and agrees to meet with her in an old lab building at Ganz College. Before Mark can get much information, he is approached by Lumon thug Doug Graner (Michael Cumpsty) who Reghabi promptly beats to death with a baseball bat. She instructs Mark to go home while she handles Graner’s body and assures him that they’ll meet back up again at some point to “finish what Petey started.”

“We were interrupted, if you recall,” Reghabi tells Mark in this episode of their first meeting. Indeed we do now recall.

What Is Reintegration?

Reghabi arrives to Mark’s home in Severance season 2 and convinces him not do something dumb by burning a message on his retinas for his innie to read. Apparently the “switch” from outtie to innie dilates the pupils to provide a clean visual slate anyway. Instead, Reghabi advocates for Mark to do something arguably even dumber to get information in and out of Lumon: attempt reintegration.

As Reghabi tells it, reintegration is a way to sew together the innie and outtie consciousnesses. We saw a little how that worked in season 1 when Petey, despite quitting the MDR floor on Lumon, was still able to access some fractured memories from the inside. Of course, Petey also paid dearly for those memories, something that Reghabi is eager to explain away to Mark.

When she first met Mark, Reghabi told him that Petey would have survived reintegration if he had followed her instructions and not panicked the moment he experienced adverse side effects. Here, she tries to assure him that she’s fine-tuned the process even further. But what exactly is that process? It looks quite similar to the sci-fi ritual of the severance procedure itself.

“The monitors differentiate the five brainwave frequencies of the innie and the outtie: delta, theta, alpha, beta, gamma,” Reghabi says to Mark of the machine he’s hooked up to. “One frequency, two waves per oscilloscope. The waves aren’t in sync. Not yet, anyway.”

The interesting part, however, comes when Reghabi fiddles with some knobs and asks Mark questions like “Who am I?” (Asal Reghabi), “What was your mother’s name?” (Fern Scout), and “What is something for which you feel shame? (Left the gate open and the family dog died). It’s not until the ““What month is it?” question that it becomes clear that reintegration is beginning to take hold.

“You mean what quarter?” some semblance of innie Mark responds through outtie Mark’s mouth.

One brilliantly-edited scene that finds Mark splicing into the Lumon conference room in his pajamas later and Mark’s reintegration journey has officially begun. One can only hope that Reghabi has indeed worked out all the kinks.

The first three episodes of Severance season 2 are available to stream on Apple TV+ now. New episodes premiere Fridays, culminating with the finale on March 21.

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