Severance Season 2's Doctor Mauer Voiced One Of Disney's Most Iconic Characters

The doctor will not see you if you haven't watched "Severance" season 2, episode 7, "Chikhai Bardo" — because spoilers lie ahead.

We've seen glimpses of Dr. Mauer, played by Robby Benson, on "Severance" before, but in the seventh episode of season 2, the stunning "Chikhai Bardo," we learn a lot more about the not-so-good doctor lurking on the testing floor of Lumon Industries. What you might not know, though, is that Benson also voiced a major Disney character who has at least one similarity to Dr. Mauer, in that the character in question holds a woman he loves captive in the hopes that she'll love him in return.

Let me back up for a second and talk about Dr. Mauer, the man of the hour (so to speak). Alongside a nurse named Cecily (Sandra Bernhard), Dr. Mauer's entire existence within the halls of Lumon seems focused on Gemma (as well as the mysterious project "Cold Harbor," which happens to be the project that Adam Scott's Mark Scout, Gemma's husband outside of the severed floor, is working on). Each evening, Mauer speaks with Gemma and asks how many rooms she visited on the testing floor each day, checking to ensure that she doesn't actually remember what happens to her in each room. (This episode proves that people can be severed more than once, because we know Gemma is already severed, having met her wellness counselor Ms. Casey in the show's first season.) All of this is unbelievably creepy and sinister, and here's a piece of information that'll probably ruin the day of Disney fans everywhere: Benson, the man behind Dr. Mauer, voiced the Beast in the original animated version of "Beauty and the Beast."

In the years since "Beauty and the Beast" released in 1991, audiences have re-evaulated it ad nauseum, and to be really honest, I do think a lot of the "Stockholm syndrome" readings are in sort of bad faith. (Not all stories age perfectly, but saying that Belle, voiced by Paige O'Hara, only falls in love with Robby Benson's prince-turned-Beast because of Stockholm syndrome feels like a stretch.) Still, we need to talk about the fact that the guy who voiced the Beast, a "man" who does kidnap a woman that he desperately needs to love him back, is now playing Dr. Mauer on "Severance."

Obviously, "Beauty and the Beast" is a much lovelier and less messed-up version of this kind of story, in that the Beast makes an earnest effort to be kind to Belle — which is the real reason she ends up falling in love with him and breaking his curse. In "Chikhai Bardo," though, Dr. Mauer certainly isn't making an effort, even though he may think he's being "kind" to Gemma. Mauer is a part of all of Gemma's experiences in the various testing rooms, which indicates that she could only possibly expect pain from him (I'll get into the specifics of those testing rooms shortly), and as she prepares to leave one room, he says "I love you," essentially forcing her to say it in return. He also tells Gemma, at the end of the episode, that Mark has moved on and had a child with his new wife — which couldn't be further from the truth — and hints that she may have been "unfaithful" in the pods as well, which confirms that Dr. Mauer has been attempting to manipulate Gemma into loving him throughout various testing rooms. The Beast and Dr. Mauer might have Benson in common, but Dr. Mauer is so much more insidious than the Beast.

The worst part of Dr. Mauer (which is saying something) is that, despite the fact that he seems to love Gemma, he spends his time on Lumon's testing floor torturing her. In the first testing room she visits in "Chikhai Bardo," called "Wellington," the first of six experiences that day, Gemma encounters Dr. Mauer as a dentist and immediately looks terrified, saying she was just there even though Dr. Mauer says it's been six weeks since her last cleaning. (Again, this puts forth the horrifying prospect of being severed multiple times over, in that each time Gemma enters a testing room, she reverts to a different Gemma who appears to only remember her time in that room.) After visiting Dr. Mauer's dentist for a whopping two hours, according to Cecily, Gemma enters a different room and ends up on an airplane experiencing severe turbulence (or even crashing), watching in horror from her seat as Dr. Mauer's flight attendant is tossed around the plane's cabin like a rag doll.

The most specific form of torture as far as Gemma is concerned, though, is the Christmas room, which is named after the Pennsylvania city "Allentown." In the flashbacks to Mark and Gemma's relationship before their respective severance procedures, Mark mentions that Gemma hates writing thank-you notes, which is exactly what she's forced to do in a room where, as she says, it's "always Christmas." (I could be wrong, but it also seemed to me that she's forced to write said letters with her non-dominant hand, based on the sheer difficulty she experienced while writing and the state of her handwriting, but that could also just be the result of a serious hand cramp.) Dr. Mauer is present for all of the rooms we see Gemma visit, so it's safe to assume that he's a constant whenever Gemma is being tormented on the testing floor. Honestly? The Beast would never.

"Severance" drops new episode every Thursday at 9 P.M. ET on Apple TV+, and if you want to revisit "Beauty and the Beast," you can stream it on Disney+.