At the end of Severance season 2, Mark (Adam Scott) is not very happy with himself. Well, actually, let’s put this a little more clearly in Severance terms: Outie-Mark is not very happy with Innie-Mark — and the feeling is mutual.
Having now had a full conversation with each other for the first time, aided by a severed-technology doorway and a camcorder, both Marks are glad to be talking, working together, and connecting. They just can’t agree on how. Outie-Mark wants to rescue his wife, Gemma (Dichen Lachman), from being kidnapped (and killed) by Lumon, while Innie-Mark wants to start tasting the sweeter side of life (or even just outside air) with Helly R. Their talk becomes more and more heated before completely shutting down, setting up the tense finale episode of Severance season 2 as all hell breaks loose on the severed floor.
What follows is one helluva finale, with “Cold Harbor” ending season 2 not with a bang, but a full-on marching band. And in a way, both Marks get what they want: Innie-Mark succeeds in getting Gemma to the emergency stairwell, hopefully freeing her from Lumon’s clutches. And then he turns around and runs away with Helly, elatedly holding hands and sprinting through the byzantine hallways until they’re finally captured in a freeze-frame zoom to reveal somewhat downhearted faces.
In its own way, “Cold Harbor” feels like it represents all of what Severance is and feels like these days. There are mysteries with no easy answers; characters whose lives are split in one body with two consciousnesses. There’s the split fan reception, where viewers are alternately deeply engrossed in every element of every puzzle right down to the last production detail, or in the deeply drawn character study of the innies and outies. In the end, Severance has always been a show built around duality, for better and for worse. And by the end of its second season, that meant it was a bit at war with itself.
Image: Apple TV Plus
Despite the dichotomy of sentience the innies and outies live with, Severance is at its best when it doesn’t exist at any extreme. And indeed, season 2 was at its strongest when its parts gelled together — like the artful tapestry of Mark and Gemma’s memories woven together in “Chikhai Bardo,” giving answers to the audience at the same time it deepened the study of these two characters.
But the season was more than just the Mark and Gemma show. We went on an ORTBO that clarified Irving (John Turturro) in his mind and ours; we saw Helly R. (Britt Lower) and Mark S. find their way through traumatic doppelganger stress to build something tender. The scope of Severance broadened in season 2, allowing for the core ideas of identity to paint a much more fascinating picture of its world. In the first season, Severance could only wrestle with the implications of Mark’s choice to be severed, separating himself through all that grief at great cost to himself and his innie. But the second season could go wider, with beguiling implications for both lore and story. If innies truly were the characters’ fundamental selves devoid of context, then Irving and Helena were just as compelling as (if not more than!) Mark. Both consider their strong feelings toward Lumon to be innate, and in the second season we can see how wrong their self-image really is: Irving isn’t angry so much as always striving for art and meaning. Helena isn’t devoted to the company so much as she is strong-willed and entitled, in every form. These portraits broadened our sense of how the severance procedure works, but they worked so well because they felt like more than just a meaningful answer to a question; they felt like a clear character-driven choice.
Which is, perhaps, why the finale felt a little flat. The first half of the season tugged at these ideas the way you might pluck at a guitar, finding lovely melodies as it built to crashing, crushing crescendos. But the back half of the season was more singularly focused, answering questions in rapid succession. The final run of season 2 became more purely a lore show, tugged along by endless plot updates — and Mark’s plot in particular. By the end of “Cold Harbor,” we have a good sense of where Gemma, Helly, and the Marks fall, and what Lumon is doing with all of them. But for every love triangle we get some resolution on, there’s a handful of plotlines that simply end. There’s not much to say for the arcs of Devon or Cobel or Ricken, or many of the other threads the second season began to pull at before retreating away to more Mark and Gemma. Even Milchick’s season 2 arc unpacking his race and complicity feels a bit like a sideshow amid all the hubbub.
Image: Apple TV Plus
Watching Severance’s season finale meant reveling in the contradictory feelings. These characters have been done dirty, and now they have to figure out what that means for them. For Innie-Mark, the answer is clear, however futile; it’s not about being on anyone’s side, it’s about living for just a few moments more with the woman he loves — even if that just means dying together with her. “Cold Harbor” felt so cold because it was the culmination of one part of the season and not the others, with promises for a third season that aren’t as clearly legible or enticing as “Gemma is alive!”
So much of “Cold Harbor” is buried underneath layers and layers of lore and opacity: Gemma not understanding as she screams through the glass that this Mark isn’t her husband, he is a severed innie. Helly holding on Gemma’s agonized face, a specter that haunts her giddy wild running. The story is deeper there, it’s just contained. It wants to give us answers while still pushing forward on the mystery. With such a singular focus, it’s no surprise it’s not as expansive as the rest of the season felt.
It’s possible this is a byproduct of a show holding so fast to its secrets. That Cobel’s journey home revealed so much of her own involvement with severance made it feel like she’d loom larger in the final arc of the season after being so absent earlier. If the Gemma reveal of episode 7 came earlier, it’d feel more like just one of many important notes of the season, rather than a culmination of them. The desire to withhold it — for after Innie-Mark and Helly had tentatively found something together — feels like setup to a puzzle that is missing a piece in the end.
At its heart, Severance might be a show about how love, even when seemingly stripped away, will always find a way. It might not permeate the mental blocks of the severance procedure, but it will bloom on either side of that wall. It will hold you through grief and terror and bad jobs, in ways hopeful and sad. The love story at the heart of the show has now left a lot of bodies in its wake, and a lot of unresolved storylines for everyone else. It’s too soon to tell if that’s all Severance will be. But it’s hard to deny it; the heart wants what it wants.
