This article contains spoilers.
“Severance” has once again split minds and shattered expectations.
After three years of agonizing suspense since its first season released, Season 2 of the hit Apple TV+ thriller was dropped in weekly episodes from Jan. 17 to March 21.
The new installations peel back even more layers of the eerie corporate nightmare inside Lumon Industries. The season masterfully delivers jaw-dropping twists, existential dilemmas and a perfectly crafted finale that not only massively boosted the show’s popularity but leaves fans reeling for more.
“Severance” focuses on a fictional procedure that allows people to sever their work life and personal life: creating a mind that is only able to function or “turn on” when a person takes an elevator down to the severed floor of workers. Lumon distinguishes between its severed employees’ two identities by calling their work personas “innies” and their outside-world selves “outies.”
These employees work for Lumon, completing monotonous tasks such as sorting random numbers on a computer. The company’s true purpose remains a mystery, identified simply as a biotechnology company, leaving audiences eager to theorize.
Mark Scout (Adam Scott), the series’ protagonist, chooses to undergo severance after believing he lost his wife, Gemma Scout (Dichen Lachman), in a car accident. However, in a shocking Season 1 twist, it’s revealed that Gemma is alive and being held for mysterious testing on a secret floor beneath the severed office in Lumon. The characters’ primary mission throughout Season 2 is to find and rescue Gemma.
Once on the severed floor, Mark S., or Mark’s innie, builds up relationships and desires separate from his outie’s — specifically, a romantic connection with fellow severed employee Helly R. (Britt Lower ’08). I loved how Season 2 deepened the divide between innies and outies as their romantic goals surface and begin to diverge and conflict, adding to the growing tension between their separate identities.
In Season 1’s finale, Helly R. is revealed as Helena Eagan, the CEO’s daughter and an heir to Lumon’s founding family, the Eagans. A major Season 2 twist is that for the first four episodes, Helly R.’s innie is secretly an unsevered Helena, blurring the lines for the innies, especially Mark, about how different they actually are from their outies.
The show’s focus on the innie-outie divide mirrors the modern struggle for work-life balance, where individuals often feel forced to compartmentalize their personal and professional selves, leading to questions about identity and autonomy in an increasingly demanding, inflexible corporate world.
The season also introduces new mysteries such as the discovery of the traumatic backstory of former severed floor manager Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) and the new character Miss Huang (Communication freshman Sarah Bock), a robotlike deputy manager on the severed floor who is somehow still a child. These plot lines left me eager to uncover more company secrets as the series continues.
The final episode, “Cold Harbor,” can only be described as a perfect episode of television. The finale addresses the show’s main dilemma, whether innies are real people with their own minds or simply extensions of their outies. This debate shines through in a sequence where both Marks indirectly have a conversation with each other.
In a dramatic climax, innie Mark chooses not to follow a liberated Gemma and his outie’s wishes and instead follows his heart, turning around to Helly and running through the severed floor with her hand-in-hand. To me, this is what “Severance” is about: developing a sense of self and the power of personal choice in the face of oppressive control.
It was so satisfying to see this character development for Mark S. To watch him not only bring down Lumon, but also choose himself is a huge moment for the progression of the innies’ senses of self. As the show cuts to credits directly after Helly and Mark’s dramatic slow motion run to Mel Tormé’s “The Windmills Of Your Mind,” I practically fell off the edge of my seat and cheered.
Thankfully, Season 3 of “Severance” was confirmed by Apple TV+ just hours after the Season 2 finale aired. Because production isn’t facing obstacles such as the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike, showrunner Dan Erickson has said he hopes the next season will come sooner this time around, although the exact release date is unknown.
Until then, the lingering questions and shocking twists of Season 2 will continue to fuel heated discussion and anticipation for what’s to come.
Email: d.hanna@dailynorthwestern.com
X: @DaltonHanna06
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