What Does 'Fetid Moppet' Mean? The Severance Season 2 Line Explained

Contains spoilers for "Severance" Season 2

"Severance" Season 1 ends with the major reveal that the "outie" of beloved macrodata refiner Helly R. is Helena Eagan (Britt Lower), direct descendant of Lumon founder and god figure Kier Eagan (Marc Geller). Worse, while Helly was busy prodding her MDR brethren into a burgeoning innie revolt, Helena was using Helly's time on the severed floor to amass pro-severance procedure propoganda to present at a Lumon Gala full of shareholders, press, and politicians. Those plans are disrupted when Dylan (Zach Cherry) turns on the overtime contingency, causing Helly R. to tell the roomful of attendees, "My name is Helly R. I'm an innie, and everything they've told you about severance is a lie! We're not happy, we're miserable! They torture us down there!"

Although Kobel (Patricia Arquette) and Milchick (Tramell Tillman) quickly shut down the overtime contingency, the damage is done. To clean up the mess, Lumon confiscates all copies of the speech while Helena issues a public apology statement claiming the speech was a poorly considered gag she made after accidentally drinking while on non-Lumon medications. The entire fiasco causes her father, Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry), the current Lumon CEO credited for inventing the severance procedure, to look at her in disgust, calling Helena a "fetid moppet," an almost Shakespearean-sounding insult that combines a synonym for foul-smelling with a word usually used a term of endearment for a precious, adorable child. As Ross Bolen of the podcast Oysters, Clams & Cockles observed, "It just feeds even more into the whole like, these Eagans, they don't even use like normal adjectives ... strange diction."

Although not much is revealed about the relationship between Helena and her father, what we do get to see suggests a strong power differential and hints at abuse through Jame's cruel mind games. As Jame tells Helena she looks nice like in a film, her posture slumps slightly as she submissively whispers, "Thank you." Taking her hand, Jame claims that he cried in his bed when he learned "what she tried to do to you." The disquieting interaction is loaded with implications, not the least of which that this is the first time he's seen his daughter since rebellious innie Helly R. attempted to permanently sever her time on the severed floor. 

This also hints Jame doesn't see Helly and Helena as the same person, which is why it seems equally odd that he would look at Helena and call her a "fetid moppet" at some point after the overtime contingency. As the heir to Lumon, Helena is meant to one day take her rightful place as its CEO — an event that seems imminent, given her father's advanced age. As the purported creator of the severance procedure, Jame would understand Helena has no control over her innie's behavior. As innies are more innocent, childlike version of their outies' personalities, it's likely Jame is realizing his daughter's natural personality has a disposition that's unfit for ruthless Lumon CEO and thus no longer sees Helena and Helly as different people. 

Although everything at Lumon is enigmatic, from the goat room to the scary numbers to the Scientology-meets-Mormonism corporate religion, it all comes back to the overarching "Severance" mystery of what the Eagan family is trying to accomplish with Lumon. While Helena presents like a relatively normal human being for the most part, the other Eagans are heavily mythologized and strange, something we're shown explicitly in the Perpetuity Wing's Hall of Eagans with its eight animatronic Lumon CEOs, all Eagans. 

It's impossible to distinguish legend from fact when it comes to the Eagans, as details are revealed here and there in Lumon's Bible-like Compliance Manual, the perpetually edited art of Optics and Design, and good old-fashioned scuttlebutt. Allegedly, founder Kier Eagan and his nature-loving twin Dieter were born to parents with a "close biological relationship," causing Kier and his twin Dieter to suffer from a number of health conditions as depicted in the Kier Cycle painting "The Youthful Convalescence of Kier." Some time after taming the Four Tempers, Kier drew on his military doctor experience and his work in an ether factory to create Lumon Industries in 1865, where he remained CEO until his death in 1939. The years after were marked by a parade of Eagan descendants including Ambrose, Myrtle, Baird, Gerhardt, Phillip ("Pip"), Leonora, and most recently, Helena's father Jame. 

The importance of this family line has given rise to a popular theory among the "Severance" fandom that posits the mysterious "Board" Natalie consults with is actually the Eagan family contained as AI on a motherboard, "San Junipero" style. When Jame tells Helena she will sit with him at his revolving, this may refer to some sort of transfer of consciousness. If this is true, Helena's resistance could ultimately be Lumon's undoing.