Basic fundamental rules some are missing and how you can use them to predict future events for Helena

One of the beauties of Severance is that the show runners respect their viewers intelligence and allows you the viewer to piece together future events through hints and intentional scenes. It's how most mystery media should be.

So, with that the writers have laid out some basic fundamentals for us and are what you should be keeping in mind while crafting theories.

Fundamental 1: The show will never outright lie to you. Almost every single scene and clue put on your screen has a larger meaning towards future events. The show drip feeds you these clues so sometimes what they're hinting at is vague until more clues are given to you and some are so subtle you will have to look back on them after a reveal (The Gemma/Casey reveal in season 1 is a good example of subtle hints). The one thing this show doesn't do to you is subvert expectations by lying to you. Almost everything can be solved by you the viewer when the writers want you to solve it.

Fundamental 2: This is the most important aspect of the show laid out to you at this point and the reason I am making this post. Innies are the core personality of their Outties before life events forces change in your personality. Outtie Mark is innie Mark who went through the death of his wife, Outtie Dylan is innie Dylan who struggles finding a job, Outtie Irving is innie Irving personality wise but we don't know his backstory yet. This obviously means that Helena is Helly who was born into a cult and evil magacorp.

Those are the only 2 fundamentals you need to know to accurately predict how the Helena story arc will go and gives you an idea of what each scene so far means to that arc.

It feels like people are missing these fundamentals when analyzing the behavior of Helena in episode 4. Some are mentioning how everything Helena has done has been purposeful manipulation and based on the fundamentals above that's just not correct. This doesn't mean Helena is instantly redeemed and is immediately going against her family and Lumon. It just means she is conflicted about who she is..

So, now let's lay out the purposeful scenes given to us by the writers.

First and foremost the most important scene of the season so far was the scene of Helena watching Mark and Helly kiss and replaying it over and over. During that scene, Helena laughed and cracked a small smile from the joke Helly made. As the scene progressed and Mark and Helly kissed, we see Helena grow wide eyed and we get a shot of her eyes watching the clip. This is to showcase the intrigue Helena has and thus this scene starts the journey of Helena's reflection (both figuratively and literally since the clip was reflected in her eyes)

Now that the most important scene is shown, we then further get a scene of Helena being incredibly awkward in the hallway with Mark in episode 3. This obviously signifies Helena genuinely having feelings for Mark but not knowing what to do in that moment because of how she is on the outside.

Another big hint shown to us by the writers is that Helena is an absolutely awful manipulator. The night gardener excuse isn't the only thing, it's her being very obvious when it came to the cameras in the hallways. It was so obvious the majority of the fanbase knew it was Helena.

I believe it was made so obvious to show you that what you could see as good manipulation in episode 4 was actually not manipulation at all. Instead it was genuinely the Helly side of her personality shining through and that her confession of being ashamed of who she is outside is genuine.

With that being said that doesn't mean Helena is instantly rebelling against Lumon and her family. It just means she is conflicted right now and that the culmination of Helena's arc will be to rebel just like Helly would because that is the core of her personality. It's just hidden behind cult indoctrination.