After almost a three-year wait between series releases, Severance series two has returned with a vengeance as it hit Apple TV back in January of 2025 and began its staggered release. Back on the severed floor, the new set of episodes has granted us further clarity to old questions, but more importantly, has sparked several new ones. This piece will summarise the events of the series thus far, and highlight the burning questions audiences are currently asking.
‘Hello, Ms. Cobel’
The first episode resumes the unsettlingly familiar narrative of the severed innies on their work floor, MDR (Macro-Data Refinement). Each of the four office protagonists awakens as they each arrive at work. They discover five months have elapsed since their ‘Macro-data Uprising’, resulting in their outies becoming symbols of a ‘Severance reform movement’. We learn that only Mark opted to return to Lumon and was given a set of new teammates to work with, who are introduced to their new manager of the Severed floor; Mr Milchick has had a promotion.
Mark sabotages his new team by making a defiant request to the board and reawakens surrounded by his original work-friends. Mark is eager to share his external outie-experience, while Helly and Irving remain quiet. Irving’s spying on Burt and his outer-world husband is shared to be the source of this melancholy, and he is persuaded to stay by Dylan. Dylan’s character is used to view the inner circle of Mr Milchick’s management when he is shown blueprints for a ‘family visitation suite’, stringing him along with the chance of seeing his wife and children while at work.
Work resumes, with Mark S continuing with his MDR file ‘Cold Harbour’, seemingly related to Miss Casey.
The episode is incredibly focused on the severed floor, offsetting the build-up of suspense that was created regarding the outside world in the ending of series one’s finale. The two worlds are kept structurally separate once again, setting the stage for the series’ exploration of separation of emotion, identity and corporate control.
‘Goodbye, Mrs Selvig’
Shifting to the outie perspective, episode two shifts to the lives outside the Lumon building. Following the chaos of the previous episode, Mark wrestles with his denial of Gemma being the ‘she’ who ‘is alive’, akin to Devon’s theories. This culminates in his confrontation with Mrs Selvig/Cobel for information, to which she responds with frustration and a swift exit.
We obtain a glimpse of Lumon’s public relations and damage control in Helena’s public ‘apology’ and explanation for her innie’s erratic and embarrassing behaviour; it is put down to a mixture of medication and alcohol. The board mandates her return to work, despite her reservations.
Equipped with a new job title, a flashback depicts Milchick when he fires both Irving B and Dylan G and later meets Mark on his own with a softer and sneakier approach; he reminds him how much pain he is in and assures him that Mark S feels none of this. The firings give the viewer a glimpse into Dylan’s outie’s experience with non-severed jobs. He attends an interview, quickly brought to a close once his employer is made aware of his severed status.
‘Who Is Alive?’
On his path of attempted communication with his innie, Mark continues to experience disorientation. He searches for his wellness counsellor to understand his condition better, but she is nowhere to be found. His mission extends, unbeknownst to him, within the corridors of Lumon where he recruits his fellow innies to help him find Ms Casey. Irving B visits Optics and Design and sees Felicia. Here, a heartwarming reflection on Burt and his relationship takes place.
On the other side of the hall, Dylan G receives a visit from a woman claiming to be his spouse, making for a heartwarming, but mainly unsettling, meeting between wife and severed husband.
We return to the fleeing Harmony Cobel as she drives to Lumon’s headquarters to confront Helena Egan. She is lured back into the walkway to the building but jolts back at the last minute, conveying a feeling of entrapment she feels without even yet being inside, and speeds away in her car.
Mr Milchick received a gift from the board, something to ‘commend’ his achievements, but more importantly, to give him a likened version of himself to Keir Egan to look forward to and up towards. The portraits are alienating and unsettling, an emotion very thinly portrayed by Natalie behind her strained smile and over-lit eyes.
All in all, underlying cracks begin to show themselves even within Lumon staff, setting the tone for the rest of the series.
‘Woe’s Hollow’
Book-ended by an incredible performance from John Turturro as Irving B, this episode encases a work ‘retreat’ to the snowy mountainous realm of unknown significance to the team. Each member awakens in various patches around looming mountain faces and icy lakes. A virtual Milchick on a transported video informs them that this trip is an incredibly literal response to their desire to ‘see the outside world’; the setting is established as the ‘Dieter Eagan National Forest’. Dylan wonders who this figure is, and is told the answer waits for them in ‘Scissor Cave’, where Keir tamed the four tempers for the first time. We come to learn, later on, that Dieter was Keir’s twin brother who persuaded them to live in the woods as paupers.
Helped with directions by mysterious projections of themselves, the team moves forward. Irving’s suspicion of Helly continues as the group treks through the landscape. Arriving at what Milchick informs the infant-experienced innies to be the ‘tallest waterfall on the planet’, and leads them to their campsite.
Irving continues to press Helly about what she saw during the Overtime Contingency, but she denies speaking out of turn previously, that she has said all she saw. She and Mark laugh at Milchick’s retelling of Dieter’s story, sparking frustration in Irving who calls out Mark’s “goo-goo” eyes at his coworker while his wife “rots somewhere”. Helly retaliates by highlighting due to his loneliness in the eternal absence from Burt he must now suffer. That night, Mark and Helly sleep together. Amid vulnerable and heartfelt conversation, Mark tells her he does not care who she is on the outside, and for a moment the screen glitches and we see Gemma’s face.
After sleeping out in the woods and experiencing an incredibly vivid dream, Irving runs through the morning light of the woods to find Helly near the waterfall. When he questions her authenticity in light of her cruelness the night before, she responds that she is “right here”. Questioning out loud who would have the authority to send their outie to the severed floor, Irving springs into action and drags her towards the body of water. In an intense and threatening exchange between Irving, Helly and Milchick, we come to understand it is Helena who has been posing as her innie amongst the team, as Irving suspected. In threatening to kill her, Milchick is forced to switch her back to a traumatised and confused Helly R, and Irving is permanently dismissed. In an emotional but dignified exit, we see his innie walk alone into the forest.
‘Trojan’s Horse’
Back to Mark’s outie, he’s been informed of a small “incident” at work where his innie supposedly fell off a rope. Devon questions if he knows whether or not this is actually true, and he says no. We learn after their call that Reghabi is now living/hiding in his basement while they attempt his reintegration. He has not remembered anything yet but wonders if his innie has while his eagerness to keep going perseveres.
Helena, back in a meeting with Mr Drummond and Natalie, is defiant in wanting to remain as her outie self if she must go back in to aid Mark’s progress with ‘Cold Harbour’. They respond with firmness that it is too risky and that they act per her father’s wishes, though she has not spoken with him. Clocking back in at work, Helly R is disgusted to find out that Helena took host of ‘her’ body to pose with her identity.
A ‘funeral’ is held as Dylan has wished for Irving, but is overshadowed by Mark’s low and uncommunicative mood, something Helly, in particular, holds issue with concerning her recent trauma. He cannot trust that the woman in front of him is definitely her, sparking more anger.
Milchick’s performance review also occurs in this episode. A dystopian and incredibly detailed approach to his time so far in the role unsettles the viewer and places more pressure on the new manager to be perfect in the name of Kier. Improvements for the future included the ceasing of using “too many big words”, and to stop using paper clips on the right-hand corner of documents; both of these ludicrous demands are delivered with the utmost seriousness. In another reference to the mysterious ‘Cold Harbour’, it is said to be one of the greatest moments in history once it is completed, and it shall be completed under Milchick’s management.
On the outside, Irving and Burt meet after Burt tracks down the man who “drove to the outside of his house and started screaming”; he claims that Irving’s behaviour sparked somewhat of an interest in him. He invites him round for dinner with his husband, and recalls how his innie was “let go” after a “romantic entanglement with another employee”.
Mark returns home to find Reghabi looking through Gemma’s things, placing them back in the boxes they were found in. A box of cremated remains catches Mark’s eye, and he states it is what he “thought was her”. Denying Reghabi’s concerns at his coughing and general low state, he walks back up to the stairs of the basement. On his way, he hears the standardised lines of Ms Casey: “Your outie…”, and begins hearing flashes of these statements filled in with oddly familiar and personal information about himself. He turns and the camera does the same with him, and he sees Ms Casey standing in front of him. For a split second, his face endures cycles of confusion, grief, shock and fear until the vision disappears and he is back in his house.
‘Attila’
Only seconds passing from the previous hazy and awakening experience from Mark, the sixth episode of Severance is an interesting one. I would describe its tone as one of reeling from the traumatic and confusing experiences of the few episodes before, namely ‘Woe’s Hollow’. Thrust from the jaws of grief, Mark is plunged into a new kind of heart-breaking confusion after seeing his believed-to-be deceased wife in front of him in a fabricated Lumon hallway. He continues to flicker in and out while at work also, on one occasion suffering a nosebleed that is treated by Miss Huang.
Whilst Milchick works on his performance review outcome, Dylan experiences the ‘Outie Family Visitation Suite’ where he meets his wife from the outside. As they meet, Helly and Mark finally engage with what happened between Mark and Helena. Anger and violation turn to curiosity and longing between the pair, and an incredibly intimate and trusting experience ensues.
Irving attends a dinner with Burt and his husband, who appears to know more about severance than him, which is oddly intriguing to the viewer. They talk about Heaven playing a role in Burt’s decision to sever as somewhere to ‘be’ while “the outie burns”.
Helena happens upon a hungry Mark eating Chinese food at a restaurant near his house and sparks up a rather strange sense of flirtatious yet slightly dangerous banter with him. The knowingness that is not shared between them begs questions of violation and agency. It triggers Mark to stop engaging in niceties and flee home, where he apologises to Reghabi for his angry mood and we find him sitting ready for his surgical procedure to “flood” the chip.
Devon’s arrival and Mark’s flinching interrupt the procedure. When Mark arrives upstairs, he engages only a few words with Devon before we see foam at the side of his mouth and a seizure begins to claim his frame.
‘Chikhai Bardo’
My personal favourite of the series so far, and a directing masterclass in a debut from Jessica Lee Gagne, this episode is severance at its finest. We see Gemma in a literal new light, accompanied by warm yellow hues that reassure us this is from long before severance was knowingly a part of the couple’s lives. We witness the two school teachers meet at a blood drive, the bags cleverly marked with the Lumon logo.
I’d encourage any viewer to return to this episode and witness the intimately human and heart-warmingly real growth of love between Mark and Gemma. Alongside these film cuts, we witness their struggle with fertility and the ties this institution appears to have with Lumon.
We are then drawn to Gemma on the inside, and learn she is underneath the severed floor of the Lumon building, metres beneath her husband. Lulled into submission by her newly adorned brain, she is led into several differently decorated and directed rooms titled cryptic names. In each, a feeling of negativity or suffering is evoked, and we wonder what the purpose of this may be. Attention is drawn to different parts of her body feeling pain– her hands, her teeth, her head.
She is fed lies about Mark and his ‘new life’ and ‘successful’ family in the face of their struggle to start one, leading to an attempted escape that is easily contained by Milchick as soon as she reaches the next floor up. We witness the silhouettes of the policeman coming to inform Mark of his wife’s ‘accident’, jumping backwards again. This reminds us of the base and human suffering that found Mark so many months beforehand.
At the end of the episode, Mark awakens on his living room couch, asked by Devon “Where’d you go?”.
‘Sweet Vitriol’
Back to Stiller’s direction, this shorter but impactful episode dives into the past and present of Harmony Cobel.
In classic Severance format, the episode provides misdirection from the wild revelations of ‘Chikhai Bardo’, and while interesting and complex in its explanations of certain factors, certainly drives up the impatience for some major answers in the series as it nears its ending.
Against a gorgeous natural background, we are reminded of the scenes of ‘Woe’s Hollow’. Cobel drives into her home town of ‘Salt’s Neck’, meeting what may be an old flame or friend that she “worked in the factory” with, who helps transport her to ‘Sissy’. She needs something from the house. We learn that her mother died in the house, obscured from her while she ‘worked’ for Lumon as a child under the Wintertide Scholarship. A tumultuous and intense exchange between aunt and niece reveals that her mother was not aligned with Kier or his principles as Sissy is, and we learn the mask and pipe Harmony has been carrying was a part of her mother’s ventilator.
After an almost touching scene of Harmony getting ‘high’ with her old friend, checking the detached root cellar is her last hope to find what she is looking for, and she is successful. A wedge of paper is revealed to house diagrams, calculations, notes, and revelations on the severance process. Harmony herself is shown to have invented the concept and process herself while on the scholarship, and the credit was taken by Jame Eagan and never returned. The notion that severance itself was born out of humble grief and human emotion becomes clear.
‘After Hours’
‘After Hours’ appears simultaneously to be an episode about endings and beginnings. All at once we see emotional and brutal final moments from certain character situations, and yet we feel an intense possibility set off just before the finale.
We are greeted with the interiors of the mansion Kier and Helena seemingly share; the camera focuses on her perfected form while she swims in their pool, and follows her to breakfast with her father. Stating he doesn’t want to eat but to ‘watch’ her do so instead, the dynamic between father and daughter is solidified in its uncomfortable and unusual manner. As he watches her slice up a hard-boiled egg, he says: ‘I wish you’d take them raw’. His preference harks back to series one, in which Lumon’s employees learn Kier Eagan’s favourite breakfast is ‘three raw eggs in milk every morning’ during their orientation questionnaire. A ‘historic’ day is named that morning, so we can assume it is the promised date for the completion of ‘Cold Harbour’.
We return to the severed floor as her innie storms to the office only to find that Mark S is absent for the second day. Frustrated and demanding answers from Milchick, her efforts are insurmountable as he busies himself with Mr Drummond and Miss Huang. In a meeting with the young girl, he announces it is the final day of her ‘Wintertide Fellowship’, the same one we learned Cobel underwent in the last episode. She is gifted a bust of Keir and must ‘sacrifice’ something material to honour the occasion. For this, she is made to smash up her ring toss game with the weight of the bust. A forceful and final removal of her childhood is made clear here, and she is told her ‘bed’ will be moved from her parent’s house to a company building in Norway.
Milchick also stands up to Mr Drummond’s infringing authority and complaints as to Mark’s absence. The sophisticated and lengthily worded vocabulary Milchick has been ordered to repress returns with a vengeance, and he returns to the management of his severed floor.
Focus switches to a sickly Mark and sister Devon, who drives him towards a meeting with Cobel. A reluctant and interrogative manner consumes Mark throughout the conversation, during which he attempts to leave several times. Cobel tells Mark that if he has already finished ‘Cold Harbour’, then Gemma is ‘already dead’. She tells him no more about the specifics of the file. He spits at her that she ‘better be… alive’. Cobel also orders Mark to call Milchick and explain his absence. What begins as a classic ‘call in sick’ ends up appealing to the suppressed human side of Milchick and how the company has consumed him, simply stating that he ‘needed the day’. After some objection, Milchick allows him the time under the promise he will see him tomorrow. Faced with the worry and firm tone of Devon who reminds him this is all ‘for Gemma’, Mark gives in and they place him in the back of the pickup truck, mirroring Cobel’s journey through Salt Neck. They then make their way to the private maternity suite that once enabled them to meet and speak to ‘innie Mark’.
Alongside Miss Huang’s sealed fate, another ending in this episode exists between Dylan G and his ‘outie’ wife Gretchen, who has been visiting him for some time now. Before their meeting in this episode, we see her tell her ‘outie’ husband about her kiss with innie Dylan. His response is a feeling of huge betrayal, threatening to quit Lumon altogether. She then faces his severed form, ultimately telling him that she cannot see him anymore due to this reaction. In a heartbreaking motive from Dyland G and a ring he has fashioned at his desk, he attempts to propose to Gretchen, telling her he loves her ‘all the way’ despite being ‘just an Innie’. Helly attempts to console Dylan, reaffirming that all the outies use them and treat them without love, only for their selfish interests. Dylan appears too heartbroken and stuck to accept her help, and throws her ‘Eagan’ self back in her face, insinuating that this, in some ways, is all her fault as the CEO in waiting. She argues that Irving could see the difference between the two selves, and he pierces her with the reminder that ‘Mark couldn’t’.
Touching on Irving’s outie, he is met with Burt sitting in his home on a return, who persuades him to take him for a drive. We do not find out too many specifics on his role within Lumon, only that he would drive people places and make sure he ‘didn’t know where they got off’. In a warped and self-resolving version of these events now he is separated from the company, he drives Irving to the station where he urges him to get as far away as he can. In a touching exchange, Irving longs to hold on to the love they have found, but Burt assures him that they can’t. As the train speeds away from the platform, and amidst the heartbreak, there is a light in Irving's eyes in knowing that he has loved, and has been loved.
Ending with Mark’s journey to the birthing facility, Cobel secures their entry by claiming a fake-pregnant Devon is' ‘one of James’’. Reaching a suite where Cobel stands backlit by a roaring fire and dark wooden accents, Devon asks Mark’s innie if he remembers the last thing he said to her: ‘She’s alive’.
The final episode of Severance airs in the UK this Friday 21 March, a long-awaited finale to the many questions raised and drawn out over this season. Happy watching!
