This article contains spoilers for Severance season 2 episode 10.
Severance has done it again. The season two finale delivered massive plot twists, a handful of concrete answers, and an ending that upends the entire world of the show.
The electrifying conclusion of the first season of Severance saw Mark S. trying to communicate to Devon that Gemma was still alive within Lumon’s walls. While season two wasn’t always fully focused on this objective — there are other plotlines, after all! — the finale lived up to the central promise of the season one cliffhanger. Severance season 2 episode 10 “Cold Harbor” toyed with our hearts and minds while also giving us some things to chew on while we wait for a season three renewal. (Please, Apple? We know you’re going to do it, so just do it.)
So, where exactly did we leave everything at the end of Severance season 2? Let’s break it down. Please appreciate each answer equally.
What Is Cold Harbor?
Cold Harbor was an innie created specifically for Gemma to face her inability to conceive, which was her deepest trauma. The room that triggered this consciousness was outfitted only with a single crib that she was asked to manually dismantle. As she takes it apart, the evil doctor who has been supervising her treatment marvels, “She feels nothing,” and “the barrier is holding.”
Back in episode “Chikhai Bardo,” Gemma asks this doctor what will happen to her when she enters the Cold Harbor room, and he says, “…you will see the world again, and the world will see you.” This sounds like nonsense, but then when she asks if she’ll see Mark again, he states, “Kier will take away all his pain, just like he has taken away yours.” This very much indicates that Lumon’s goal is for the severance chip to create the ability for people to sever from every discomfort in life, including their worst traumas.
In a throwaway line while Mark is completing the file, we hear Helly ask Mark what will happen to Gemma when they remove the severance chip following her completion of Cold Harbor, and Mark raises his eyebrows, indicating that this process would kill her. Lumon didn’t ever want Gemma; they wanted the information they programmed on the chip.
What Happens to Gemma?
Gemma is saved from death by none other than her husband. Well. Both the innie and outie versions of her husband help with her jailbreak, but still. As her Cold Harbor innie is dismantling the crib, Innie Mark gains access to the elevator at the end of the ominous black hallway by taking Lumon bigwig Mr. Drummond hostage with a bolt gun. As the elevator descends, Mark transitions into his outie self and a muscle reflex causes him to discharge the gun, killing Drummond in the process. Outie Mark is then able to gain access to the Cold Harbor room using his tie that’s soaked in Drummond’s blood. Sick.
Outie Mark sees Gemma for the first time in 4 years (sob!) and, despite the fact that he’s covered in blood, he gets her to come with him. They escape through the halls, changing into Ms. Casey and Innie Mark when they get to the elevator. Innie Mark brings Ms. Casey to the stairwell, where she turns back into Gemma. But Innie Mark doesn’t leave. He spies Helly, and he stays within Lumon while Gemma screams fruitlessly into the window beyond the door. It feels like she’s home free, but with all the sirens and red strobe lights activated, she’d better run fast if she wants to get away from Lumon before someone catches her.
Why Was Cobel Helping Mark?
Other than a taste for vengeance and an odd, unexplained affection for Mark, the answer here is somewhat unclear.
Ever since Helena Eagan declined Cobel’s request to return to the severed floor, Cobel has been on tilt. In the most divisive episode of the season, she returned to her hometown to recover old drawings of the severance chip that prove she was the inventor of the revolutionary technology. It feels like she wants to burn everything down. Helping Mark appears to be her way of telling the Lumon brass to devour feculence, but in her own chaotic way. I suppose we’ll see if she has any lingering allegiance to the company in season three.
What’s Up With the Goats?
Occam’s Razor posits that the simplest answer tends to be the correct one. Many cultures and religions have historically sacrificed goats to the gods for a variety of different reasons. Lumon is built upon a god-like figure, Kier, and they have quite lofty ideas about the work they’re doing. It would stand to reason that they would sacrifice goats when they’ve reached a milestone in their severance research, and even moreso if it involved the death of someone they’d come to respect.
When Lorne brings an unbearably cute goat to Drummond, he states that “this beast will be entombed with a cherished woman whose spirit it must guide to Kier’s door.” So, perhaps the goats don’t have severance chips in them after all. Maybe they’re not even being cloned. Maybe they’re just sacrifices. Good news though. This goat, named Emile, gets to live.
How Big is the Severed Floor, Really?
When Mark S. finishes the Cold Harbor file, an entire marching band materializes out of thin air. Milchick says it’s the Choreography and Merriment department, and there are oh so many people in it. Tubas and trombones aren’t exactly quiet instruments, so I don’t know how this department has been kept under wraps from other departments like MDR and O&D unless the severed floor is miles wide. Are the hallways actually underground tunnels? What other departments lurk around every corner? And, why on earth does the entire severed floor only have a single manager? Milchick was always set up to fail.
What’s Next for the Innies and the Outies?
There are a few characters that we don’t see in this episode, most notably Burt and Irving. In the penultimate episode of the season, Irving chugged off into the sunset with his trusty pal Radar beside him, but his character still has so many mysteries to unveil. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, John Turturro hinted that he will be back for a third season, stating that Severance creator Dan Erickson has shared a wealth of Irving’s backstory with him, and that he’d like to bring it to the screen. So we definitely won’t count Irving out as the story progresses.
As for Dylan, well, it’s unclear if his position at MDR will still be there once the dust settles after the Cold Harbor debacle. But since the season ended on his outie literally telling him that he likes the idea of his badass innie existing at work, chances are that he’ll be back, too.
Milchick and Cobel? They’re probably both persona non grata at Lumon right now. I truly hope they find one another and team up in the near future. If aligned properly, those two might just be unstoppable.
Now, Helly and Mark? They have chosen chaos. However, chaos is the only way that they could conceivably survive together. In a moment that feels very inspired by the iconic ending of Mike Nichols’ film The Graduate, Innie Mark chooses to stay with his love Helly on the severed floor instead of leaving with his outie’s wife. He runs to her, and they clasp hands, jogging through the hallways of Lumon, surrounded by red warning lights.
What could this mean for their future, or the future of the show as a whole? Well, earlier in the finale, Helly is visited by Jame Eagan, her outie’s father and the CEO of the company. He admits to her that he doesn’t love his daughter, Helena, and that he doesn’t see the fire of Kier in her anymore … but he sees it in Helly. Even though she just conspired to free Gemma, the fact that she’s caught Jame’s eye in such a Kier-based way seems promising. I don’t think she needs to worry about her innie persona being switched off just yet, and since Innie Mark is her main man, he might get some protection out of the deal, too.
Innie Mark is just running on love at this point. His only hope is that the severed floor is so big that he and Helly can go find somewhere to hide out for a while. In fact, earlier in the episode, Helly is trying to think of more place names, and she comes up with “the equator.” She and Mark have a cute back-and-forth about what the equator could be, with both of them theorizing that it’s a really big building. Later, when Helly helps Mark make a run for the black hallway, she says, “See you at the Equator.” Perhaps Lumon’s severed floor really is the equator for all innies, and Mark and Helly will be bringing rebellion to the other departments in its latitudes during season three.
All 10 episodes of Severance season 2 are available to stream on Apple TV+ now.
The post Severance Season 2 Ending Explained: What Is Cold Harbor? appeared first on Den of Geek.
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