Rest straightforward: we don’t have one other Lost on our arms. As beloved as that basic thriller field present was, it was equally irritating for the best way it teased huge secrets and techniques with solutions that both underwhelmed or by no means got here. With the mysteries in Severance piling up since its first season, viewers have had each proper to be anxious they have been in for one thing related.
But present’s season 2 finale didn’t simply present that each one of its mysteries, regardless of how small or bizarre, meant one thing. It did so in a chic means — neatly connecting disparate storylines collectively, whereas additionally leaving simply sufficient unclear to make for one more nice cliffhanger. And it was all whereas being bizarre and terrifying in a really particularly Severance means.
This story incorporates spoilers for the season 2 finale of Severance.
Let’s recap a few of these lingering mysteries. There was the completion of the Cold Harbor file that Mark S. (Adam Scott) had been engaged on and that Lumon Industries was eagerly awaiting, calling it “mysterious and vital.” There was Gemma / Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman), who had been present process a sequence of tortuous experiments deep in Lumon’s basement, for unclear causes. There was the ominous elevator hidden down a deep, darkish hallway. On a bigger scale, there was the query of simply what Lumon was doing this for, anyway. Oh, and there was the goat farm housed inside an area usually reserved for workplace cubicles.
The finale, appropriately referred to as “Cold Harbor,” was centered totally on the innie and outie variations of Mark trying to work collectively to rescue Gemma. To make it work, each Marks needed to coordinate, which concerned speaking to one another for the primary time by way of recorded video messages. Like most issues in Severance, it begins out humorous and playful earlier than taking a darkish flip, as innie Mark realized that saving Gemma and taking down Lumon would imply not solely the tip of his existence, but in addition the tip of each innie on the severed flooring, together with his personal love curiosity Helly R. (Britt Lower).
Image: Apple
Eventually, they attain an answer of kinds, an infiltration of Lumon that’s crammed with reveals. It seems that the “scary” numbers Mark had been discovering in his information have been linked to Gemma’s checks; every file he accomplished created a brand new innie for her, which allowed for a brand new type of process. In the 2 years that Mark had been working at Lumon, he had created a whopping 24 Gemma variants, and Cold Harbor was to be the final and most vital. Because, it appears, Lumon’s final objective is a “struggle in opposition to ache,” and the corporate was trying to strip Gemma down into an unfeeling husk by way of these checks and innies. (How this advantages a megacorporation stays to be seen.)
Oh, and the goats? Sacrificial choices earlier than huge moments in Lumon’s progress towards this objective.
The reveals have been satisfying, however what was nice in regards to the finale is that it didn’t really feel like Severance’s creators have been merely checking off bins of issues that wanted to be addressed. Each reply felt like an natural a part of the rescue mission. It was tense, bloody, and crammed with the surreal mixture of humor and unease that makes Severance so distinct. Amid the heartfelt reunion between Mark and Gemma, in addition to Helly’s rousing speech to the opposite innies, was Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) awkwardly bantering with a wax statue of Lumon’s founder, full with canned laughter within the background, and the belief that the corporate has a complete division devoted to “choreography and merriment.”
More than something, the finale constructed on what the present has established over the previous two seasons. What began as an unsettling office horror story has morphed into one thing each extra elaborate and even creepier. If the primary season was about organising the foundations and parameters of this world, the second season is a pointy, incisive, and brutal exploration of how these guidelines really influence the characters in usually horrifying methods, pushing additional and additional on the idea of severance as a software for controlling individuals each bodily and emotionally. Even one thing as mundane as a marching band takes on a sinister tone in Lumon’s basement.
And regardless of cleverly weaving collectively its numerous plot threads, the finale wasn’t precisely neat and tidy. We bought solutions, however there’s so much that continues to be unknown. Perhaps the largest revelation is simply how clear it’s now that Mark’s innie and outie are very totally different individuals, every combating for their very own very totally different lives. Those variations are in direct battle with one another. That element turned what may have been a cheerful ending into one thing extra sophisticated — but in addition a narrative with a transparent path in entrance of it forward of the newly confirmed third season.
