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I haven’t read any reviews or takes on any episode or season of Severance so maybe a lot of this is old news, obvious, no duh stuff, but here I am enjoying writing about it anyway. Also this is absolutely chock full of spoilers. Now who’s saying no duh?

Severance is telling dozens of stories at once about love, family, faith, and the undercurrent to all of them of course is the violence of capitalism bending us to its will for generations. 

In this finale of season 2 (which aired on the spring equinox in a spectacular alignment of symbolism), Mark S. is at the birthing retreat with Devon and Ms. Cobel. He has not yet finished the Cold Harbor file, which means there’s still a chance to save Gemma. The catch: Mark S. needs to work with Mark Scout to save a woman he doesn’t know to help a man who trapped him forever on the Severed floor. Oh also he’ll die if they succeed. 

Understandably, Mark S. has some reservations. 

Without getting into the mechanics of it, Innie and Outie Mark have a conversation in which Mark Scout pleads with his innie to cooperate and help him. Although pleads isn’t exactly the right word. He’s trying to convince Mark S. to agree to the plan, but he’s doing it in a way that’s forced and sounds more like bad PR spin than an actual urgent, heartfelt request. In fact, it sounds like Mark Scout doesn’t actually care or have any interest in what Mark S. needs at all. It’s the wrong move when his Innie is beginning to crave and build a life for himself.

Understandably, Mark S. again has some reservations.

The exchange winds up unresolved until Ms. Cobel explains (in a genuinely humane way, for Cobel) that fighting for his love – Helly – is futile. Once Cold Harbor is done Lumon won’t have any use for him anyway, so why not take one for the team and die early.

In convincing him to go along with the plan, Cobel reveals the files he’s been working on each create a new consciousness or Innie for Gemma. Every completed file is a new Innie and he’s completed 24 files. 

The Reason, as Always, is Profit

Why? Why is Gemma down there in the first place? Why has this company been torturing her for two years in this highly fucked up way? A business with a stick rammed this far up its corporate ass isn’t just doing all of this for funsies. They have to accomplish something with it that benefits the organization. And it’s clearly a big deal! One that could make so very much money, all in service of Kier’s mission to rid the world of pain. 

The company’s old-timey roots are in selling ether – a substance that takes the pain away but has rather unseemly and visible side effects that could cast the company in a negative light. Being responsible for creating a ruined factory town full of addicts and medically fragile elderly people isn’t exactly a PR win. (At least it didn’t used to be. Rimshot! Also: sobbing.) 

But pain remains unpleasant and there’s money to be made so innovation continues apace. Which brings us to the revolutionary Severance procedure, currently undergoing human trials in the form of Gemma Scout.

To a woman absolutely feeling beat to shit by trying and failing to have a baby, not to mention the strain it’s put on her marriage and her body, the chance to reset and return pain-free certainly would seem appealing.   

So, Macro Data Refinement’s true purpose is to be part of Lumon’s research and development process to discover whether a “minimally invasive outpatient procedure” is effective and possible to mass market as a way to relieve us of our various workaday woes. 

It’s a much more efficient, cleaner method than huffing an ether soaked rag, if you don’t count the whole drilling a hole in your brain part. 

It seems Mark S. chose to go along with the plan, because there he is, back on the Severed Floor, about to finish Cold Harbor. While he shares what’s going on with Helly the light on their faces is slowly changing from a ghoulish, deathlike green to warmer more “alive human” colors echoing the conversation. Helly catches him up on her visit from Creepy Jame who I think hinted pretty hard that she could perhaps simply be Helly all the time, on account of him hating his regular daughter Helena for not being Keir enough.

The Exalted Victory of Cold Harbor

No time to get into the logistics there – Mark S. is about to get the ultimate waffle party: The Exalted Victory of Cold Harbor must be celebrated.

Mr. Milchick dances in to host a celebration featuring an animatronic Keir, and the Choreography and Merriment Department, which is an entire college marching band. (This, by the way, is what I will be picturing at every corporate celebration for the rest of my life.)

Mr. Milchick has been through it but he’s still doing all he can to exceed expectations and live those Lumon core values, but it’s never enough. He didn’t ask to be stuck with all these fuckups in MDR who can’t manage one simple ORTBO without resorting to attempted homicide, after all. It’s rare for me to sympathize with corporate middle managers, but Milchick and Tramell Tillman’s amazing performance make it easy.

Milchick has to bear being belittled in front of his team by an animatronic CEO, perform a ridiculous celebration dance leading the band around the room, and he’s thanked for it by getting trapped in the bathroom by Helly’s tricksy distraction to help Mark S. escape and continue with Operation Rescue Gemma. 

He’s fucking had it. And good for him! 

While performing his professional duties, his body movements are always deliberate and precise, much like his impressive use of language. (Devour feculence!) Now, he’s shedding all that decorous behavior and using brute force to plow through the door (and the vending machine Dylan G. pushed in front of it). Unlike a few weeks back where he’s forced to reduce the phrase “leave childish things behind” to little more than a growled “grow” as a response to his performance review, this is his choice to break free and embrace a more feral part of himself. It’s actually the only thing that can free him. Following the rules and Lumon’s exacting protocol certainly wasn’t going to do it.

Contrast that with the youthful Choreography and Merriment band who continue playing and marching around while Helly desperately pleads for help. Literally standing on a desk begging them to have a heart because “They give us half a life and think we won’t fight for it!” (Severance says unionize.)

The distraction worked. Mark S. is running through the halls looking for the way to Gemma and who should he run into but Lorne the goat minder (Gwendoline Christie)! She’s brought the goddamn cutest white baby goat you’ve ever seen to a special room where Mr. Drummand, the Mean Beardo boss, is waiting to sacrifice it. Yeah, pretty fucked up. 

It’s all white, sleek, tech aesthetic, not unlike an Apple Store. The baby goat is placed in a dedicated animal sacrifice container. It’s very culty and hard not to think about our real life tech company overlords and their own cult-like behaviors. Lorne’s upset at another sacrifice and is on the verge of doing something about it when Mark S. accidentally bangs on the room’s door and gets their attention.

It’s time for fisticuffs, baby.

Mr. Drummond, Mark S. and Lorne beat the living shit out of each other. It’s a brutal scene. There’s no music – just the sound of fists and the air being knocked out of a guy, grunts, and the squeaking of a bloody cheek being dragged across a shiny white floor. It’s raw, and messy and fueled by pure instinct. When Lorne screams, aiming the gun at Drummond, it’s as if she’s finally releasing an ancient hurt. It’s a righteous, cathartic burst of life in the face of stifling, clinical oppression.

Mark S. forces Drummond to take him to the testing floor at gunpoint but ope! In the elevator he’s Mark Scout  – who has no idea why he’s covered in blood. Mark Scout accidentally and promptly shoots Drummond.

Questions will have to wait because it’s time to hop off the elevator and over Mr. Drummond’s corpse to start searching for his wife, who is about to begin the final test in the trial: the Efficacy Test. 

The Final Test

Gemma Scout enters Cold Harbor and remains Gemma Scout. The only thing in the pristine white room is a crib – the one Mark tore apart. If the Severance procedure works as it’s supposed to, Gemma should be able to be exposed to this item that symbolizes the worst pain she’s ever felt and not only not be affected by it, she shouldn’t even know why anyone would think she would be affected by it. 

The voice in the speaker tells her to take the crib a part – and she does with calm precision. 

I was talking with another fan a few weeks ago, and they suggested Mark and Gemma’s story was a retelling of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. That’s the myth where Orpheus, so broken by grieving the loss of his beloved wife Eurydice, travels to the underworld to bring her back from death, only to lose her again by defying Hades’ order to not look back as they made their way back to their world. 

Listen. There’s being right, and there’s hitting the ball out of the park directly into space. 

In the final sequence of the episode, Mark Scout finds Gemma in the white room, surrounded by crib pieces. He gently helps her understand who she is and why he’s there before he takes her by the hand to run for the elevator. Inside they tearfully reunite, until they hit the Severed floor and switch to their Innies (which gives us a pretty good joke between Mark S. and Ms. Casey). 

Mark S. sticks to the plan and brings a confused Ms. Casey to the exit door, pushing her through it and so she may reclaim her life as Gemma Scout. He’s about to do the same when he hears Helly calling for him. In a heart wrenching moment we see Gemma pounding at the door, desperately screaming for her husband to join her. Except it’s not her husband. It’s Mark S., who has turned his back on Gemma – literally walks down the hall without looking back – and betrayed his Outie. 

As Gemma wails in agony Mark S. and Helly run away hand-in-hand down the halls, blissfully in love, as if they’re skipping through a gauzy meadow and not a stark hallway with sirens blaring and red lights flashing. 

Plato thought Orpheus was a coward for not being willing to stay in the underworld and die for his love. Mark S. chose to stay in the underworld for love. Is he the brave version of Orpheus? Is Helly Eurydice? Is Gemma Orpheus? Is Mark Scout Hades?

Sorry, no answers here. But Double-Vision Orpheus and Eurydice will be a fun puzzle to think about while waiting for Season 3. (If you’re a fuckin’ dork, which I clearly am.)

What I do know is in order to get where they need to go, just about every character has to shed their allegiance to rules and conformity at great personal risk. They all need to live more than half a life, and that means things will be messy. When each of them reaches their breaking point, life finally jumps out of them. They can’t break away from what’s holding them back without being brave enough to let go of living as they always have. 

Now for Some Questions & Speculation for Fun: 

• Is Helly knocked up? 
• Did Jame really offer Helly R. the chance to always be in that “vessel?” Or did my stoned ass just imagine it?
• What’s up with Ricken? Is he out working on his Innie book and minding the baby? (This maybe was explained but I can’t deal with Ricken because he reminds me of a nemesis, so I kinda tune him out as self care).
• Creepy Jame says he sired others in the shadows, meaning he has several other kids. Is that why the freaky birthing center exists? Gross.
• Oooh also is the Severed procedure in line with some political “have a bunch of babies” shitshow? Because of that Senator’s wife in the birthing center? Double gross.
• Is everyone on the Severed floor an innie? Milchick isn’t. Ms. Huang isn’t. Cobel wasn’t. So how many are there really?
• Did Cobel invent the Severance procedure as a way to prevent other towns from falling to ruin like hers did?