Throughout season 2, Severance has consistently been the most streamed show on Apple TV+, even outpacing Ted Lasso. No doubt the finale, Cold Harbor, will be one of the most streamed episodes of the season as Ben Stiller brings this season to its compelling conclusion.
Throughout Season 2, there has been a push for the Macrodata Refinement Team to finish the file “Cold Harbor.” Despite the need for the higher-ups at Lumon to see this completed, Mark Scout (Adam Scott) chose to undergo reintegration, the procedure that reconnects the two parts of a severed employee. He makes this decision after discovering that his wife, Gemma (Dichen Lachman), is still alive, even though he believed she had died in a car accident more than two years ago. Instead, in episode 7, Chikhai Bardo, we learn that Gemma is alive on a separate floor, where each file that MDR completes is a new severed consciousness for her.
Mark is unsure how his innie will react to his plan to rescue Gemma, so his sister Devon (Jen Tullock) and Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) take Mark to the severed birthing cabin where Mark Scout and Mark S are able to have a conversation with one another in one of the most exceptional moments of television we’ve seen. Mark S is hesitant to comply with Mark Scout’s request, but things go sideways when Mark Scout mistakenly calls Helly R (Britt Lower) “Heleny.” The slip enrages Mark S, who cannot be calmed by Cobel, who explains that the numbers that MDR has been refining are Gemma’s tempers (woe, dread, malice, and frolic).
When Mark S reawakens, he is on the severed floor of Lumon, greeted by Helly R, who urges him to finish his work on Cold Harbor. She tells him that reintegration may work for him, but her outie, Helena Eagan, will not permit that, saying, “I’m her,” in recognition of this connection that they share.
Meanwhile, Dylan G (Zach Cherry) received a letter from his outie after quitting in the previous episode. Even though Dylan George is upset that Dylan G kissed his wife, he recognizes that his innie is someone that he looks up to and someone that he wants to be for Gretchen (Merritt Wever). In this sequence, Dylan, like Helly, discovers that the space between him and his outie is much narrower than he previously believed.
When Mark finishes the Cold Harbor file, Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) introduces a new Lumon department: Choreography and Merriment. In a turn that literally no one could see coming, a full marching band is released into MDR, where they perform a rendition of the Kier anthem, which is one of the most bizarre and wonderful things ever put on the small screen. Helly and Mark use this chaos as a way for Mark to head to the testing floor to try to save Gemma. After a brutal fight with Mr. Drummond (Darri Ólafsson), Mark is saved by the goat lady, Lorne (Gwendoline Christie), and makes his way to the testing floor, holding Drummond hostage until he accidentally kills him during the switch from his innie to his outie.
While all of this is occurring, Gemma has put on a new outfit, which is actually an old outfit – the one she was wearing when she left Mark and was declared dead. They take her to the Cold Harbor room, where she is given the task of disassembling a crib, identical to the one that she and Mark had purchased prior to her miscarriage. The final test is to see if the severance chip holds when confronting one of the most traumatic experiences of her life. Everything seems to be holding until a blood-soaked Mark enters the room and beckons her to follow him.
The show’s final moments are astounding in their complexity, as we see these two characters go through nearly every combination they could. We see innie Gemma with outie Mark. Then we see the Scouts, who know each other for one brief moment in the hallway, frantically trying to make up for the last two years. Mid-kiss, they enter the severed floor where they are Mark S and Ms. Casey, co-workers who are fond of each other but not romantically interested, showcased when Mark leads her through the halls without holding her hand. Finally, Mark pushes her through the door, and outie Gemma is on one side while innie Mark remains on the other, pausing when he hears Helly call to him.
In one of the most agonizing moments of Severance so far, Mark turns his back on Gemma and goes to Helly as Gemma screams for him to go home with her. And in an echo of Chikhai Bardo, which was recorded on film and is a gorgeous testament to the love that Mark and Gemma had for one another, the final shots switch to film as “The Windmills of Your Mind” plays while Mark and Helly run hand in hand through the blood-red halls of Lumon.
The Severance Season 2 finale is not just an excellent end to this season but an exceptional episode of television, full stop. The writing is impeccable, giving some solid answers to audiences’ questions while also leaving some questions unanswered. The direction was gorgeous, not rushing scenes that needed to linger, but never allowing anything to drag for even a second. The performances are some of the best we have seen out of an already stellar cast. It is cinematic in scale but still fills the role of good television.
The question about whether or not consciousness makes someone “real” has been explored in numerous sci-fi contexts, most notably in Black Mirror in episodes like White Christmas and USS Calister. But what Severance has done is to make us look at what that means in a significantly deeper way. It’s easy to point at the torturous life that the innies are forced to endure and agree that they are real people entitled to acts of kindness and love. But when innie Mark chooses his life and his love over that of his outie’s, it feels almost like a betrayal, forcing us as viewers to reckon with our biases that lead us to prioritize the happiness of those who are like us over those we perceive as different.
There is hope that we won’t have to wait for the next season of Severance quite as long as we wait for Season 2, but in the meantime, they have left us with a lot to think about. And as viewers, if we choose to engage with what the series has left us with, perhaps we can bring our thoughts and our actions into closer alignment, rather than remaining somewhat severed ourselves.
Severance Season 2 is streaming in full on Apple TV+.
Learn more about the show, including how to watch, at the Apple TV+ site for the title.
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