In typical “Severance” fashion, there are a lot of spinning plates heading into the Season 2 finale.
The penultimate episode found Mark (Adam Scott), Devon (Jen Tullock) and Cobel (Patricia Arquette) band together to question Mark’s innie and figure out how to rescue Gemma (Dichen Lachman). Irving (John Turturro) seems to be heading off to greener pastures while Dylan (Zach Cherry) handed in his resignation, and Helly (Britt Lower) continues to struggle with her outie being an Eagan.
There are lots of questions yet to be answered, and hopefully some come in the Season 2 finale. This is what you need to remember and keep in mind before Friday’s ending.
What is Cold Harbor?
When we see Gemma in Episode 7, she has been severed a number of times and each innie is experiencing a different mundane task – going to the dentist, writing thank you cards, flying in a plane – but the Cold Harbor door has remained a mystery. Going into the finale it’s still unclear why this specific file is so important, but Lumon seems to want to go more public with the severance procedure.
There is a lot to parse from the brief image of Ms. Casey and her Cold Harbor readings. To start simply, one seems to be a heart rate monitor and other stats keeping track of her vitals.
At the bottom are five percentage bars lined up much like the sorting boxes that the MDR team place their encrypted data in once it makes them “feel something.” There are a four acronyms featured beneath each of Ms. Casey’s percentage bars as well: WO, DR, FC, and MA. Eagle-eyed fans drew a connection in Season 1 between these acronyms and the Four Tempers Lumon’s cult-like founder Kier Eagan claimed every soul possessed — Woe, Dread, Frolic and Malice. It’s likely these four emotions are close to the ones the MDR team “feels” when refining their data at work.
Kier Eagan killed his brother for masturbating
Based on what we knew about Kier previously, it was obvious he was a bit of a pearl clutcher, but what the MDR team found out during their ORTBO in Episode 4 takes it to a new level. The appendix from his hidden book revealed that Kier once “had no choice but to listen as he spilt his lineage upon the soil.” Basically, Kier caught his brother treating himself like an amusement park and it did not sit right with him.
Milchick’s recital of more of Appendix IV around the campfire reveals that Kier claimed Dieter slowly and violently was destroyed and became a tree for the heinous act of masturbating. Reading between the lines though it’s evident that Kier killed his brother by drowning him — using the waterfall at the hollow to drown out the struggle.
Kier met the Woe Temper at Woe’s Hollow
Shortly after Dieter turns into a tree/is horrifically killed by Kier getting caught masturbating, the Lumon founder says he was confronted by the Woe Temper for the first time. Is this likely the sadness and guilt that slammed into Kier after he drowned his twin brother? Sure, but an Eagan loves a lie so the appendix explains the Woe Temper as a physical being.
Kier describes Woe as “a gaunt bride, half the height of a natural woman.” The picture in the appendix shows a short, older woman with lank hair standing at the foot of the waterfall in Woe’s Hollow. Kier claims Woe spoke to her from her eyes rather than her mouth saying, “this is your doing. You suffered his wantonness, now he is no one’s brother — only chaos’s whore.”
Where has Gemma been?
Episode 7 finally dove into where Gemma/Ms. Casey has been since she was shuffled off the severed floor at the end of Season 1. What we did know is that she was tied in some way to the Cold Harbor file that Lumon is desperate for Mark (Adam Scott) to finish. What we now know is that most of the data the MDR team has been refining has been collected by her (and likely others).
Many thought each individual file the MDR team was working on was possibly tied to a person and Cold Harbor represented Gemma. Episode 7 revealed that the various file names — Wellington, Allentown, etc. — are scenarios that Gemma (and again likely others) are put through. They represent the mundane but excruciating long dentist visit or writing Christmas thank you cards to the more extreme plane crash.
Gemma as Ms. Casey either represented one of these scenarios or was a way to get her and Mark to interact. Regardless, she has been suffering in a monotonous cycle visiting multiple rooms per day, all while being promised she’ll eventually be reunited with Mark.
Harmony Cobel invented the severance procedure
Harmony’s trip home in Episode 8 might have partially been due to the existential flailing spurred by being canned by Lumon. But it was also to find some hidden proof to knock the Eagan family down from their pedestal. It was always a long shot that the Eagans themselves invented the concepts and designs for the severance procedure, but “Sweet Vitriol” reveals that most of the work was actually stolen from Harmony Cobel herself.
“It was told Kier’s knowledge is for all,” she tells Sissy. “That if I sought credit, I would be banished.”
Her aunt tried to destroy the notebook – whether to protect Harmony or the Eagan legacy remains unclear. Cobel wrestled it from her in time and flees to help Mark and Devon.
The “Severance” Season 2 finale will be released Friday on Apple TV+.
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