Let's start with the obvious question a lot of fans had coming into this finale: what is Cold Harbor? Severance derives a lot of its power from its mysteries; to satisfy fans, the finale will have to answer questions in a satisfying way but still not give too much away.
And it mostly succeeds. As a lot of fans theorized, Lumon was putting Mark's wife Gemma through all of those tests to see if the severance procedure would hold under increasingly stressful circumstances. Cold Harbor is her final test: once her new severed personality walks in the room, she must dissemble a crib, recalling when Gemma lost her own baby with Mark in a miscarriage.
Of course, things don't go as planned, but we'll get to that later. The point is that we (pretty much) got our answers about Cold Harbor. Harmony Cobel confirms that the numbers that the MDR team were refining this whole time were the building blocks of Gemma's severed personalities; each time a file was completed, she was ready to enter another room.
At the same time, we don't know exactly what Lumon was planning to do with the severed technology once Cold Harbor was complete, so there are still some mysteries to ponder while we wait for season 3. The finale does a good job of hitting the right balance.
But really, the nature of Cold Harbor is secondary. Film critic Roger Ebert once said that a movie isn't about what it's about, but how it's about it. Severance may be about Lumon's attempts to perfect a dangerous new piece of technology and the employees who push back against them, but how it's about it is what makes this finale one for the ages.
Mark vs Mark
Severance has taken a lot of time off from its main characters this season. We spent one episode with Gemma on the testing floor deep in the bowels of the Lumon building. We spent another tagging along with Ms. Cobel as she returned to her ruined icy hometown. But in the finale, we drill down on Mark S., the Innie who started it all.
And Mark is in uncharted territory. In the penultimate episode he woke up in one of Lumon's birthing cabins with Devon and Ms. Cobel; as a man who's only left the severed floor one other time in his short life, this must be bewildering for him. Devon and Ms. Cobel present him with a plan: after he completes Cold Harbor, go to the long dark hallway that leads to the testing floor. Once he reaches the testing floor, he'll turn back into Outie Mark, who will find Gemma and get out of there. Once back on the severed floor, Gemma will be Ms. Casey again. Innie Mark will guide Ms. Casey through the halls until they reach that exit Helly kept trying to leave through in the first episode of the show, the one with the outdoor stairwell. After she steps into the stairwell, Ms. Casey will turn back into Gemma, who will go public about Lumon kidnapping her. Together, they'll bring this damn dirty corporation down.
It's a neat plan, but it has one big problem: what will happen to Innie Mark, to Mark S., after Lumon goes down. Will he ever come back? Is that not the same thing as killing him? Are Devon and Ms. Cobel asking him to go on a suicide mission? What about the other Innies? Are they all supposed to die?
It becomes clear that as sympathetic as people like Devon are to the plight of the Innies, they've never really thought of them as fully human, which in a way makes them no better than the higher-ups at Lumon. Even Outie Mark, Mark Scout, feels this way. In a fantastic scene, Mark S. and Mark Scout have their first-ever conversation, recording responses on a digital camera and then walking into and out of the birthing cabin to watch them.
At first, Mark S. is in awe that he gets to talk to this person, the "real" him. But Mark S. isn't the same person he was at the start of season 1, the one who sat rapt with attention as Ms. Casey told him that his Innie "can roller skate with grace." He has something to live for now, he has Helly, he has his friends in MDR, and he's not buying Mark Scout's attempts to sell him on the idea that he can live on through reintegration, a process that no one seems to fully understand.
In retrospect, Helly R. was way ahead of the curve when it came to realizing that Innies were fully different people than Outies, rather than subservient subsets. "They gave us half a life and thought we wouldn't fight for it!" she yells later in the episode. Mark S. is finally fighting. He plays the cards he has: "If I don't wake up on the severed floor, you'll never see your wife again!"
This is a thrilling reframing of the conflicts in Severance. We know that Lumon is a dystopian nightmare cult of a company that's probably going to destroy the world, whatever their intentions. Everyone is against them, and no one has suffered more under their heel than the Innies. But what side are the Outies on, in the end? Mark Scout hates Lumon for kidnapping his wife, but I think Mark S. is right to mistrust him; in the end, Mark Scout wants to go back to living a normal life, and a normal life does not include this other person who lives inside his brain. The Innies are going to have to stand up and demand to be acknowledged; they didn't ask to be here, but they are. And if that means fighting their own alternate selves, then let the battle begin.
Choreography and Merriment
That brings us to the second chunk of the episode, which is set on the severed floor; Mark S. does indeed wake up there, meaning his Outie, Ms. Cobel and Devon must be trusting him to carry out the plan. But will he?
In the end, Mark does choose to help his Outie, but only after he has a little pep talk from Helly R., who thinks trusting his Outie might be the only chance Mark S. has to keep existing. After all, Mark S. at least reintegrated himself; Helena Eagan is a selfish cultist who will probably bury Helly R. as deep as she possibly can the second she gets a chance. If Lumon will dispose of them all anyway after Mark completes Cold Harbor, they might as well take the company down with them. "But I want to be with you," Mark says tearfully. "But I'm her," Helly replies.
Mark and Helly talk while Mark sits at this console ready to complete Cold Harbor. Lumon has rolled out the welcome mat for him in the most over-dramatic way possible. Severance fans have noticed that this second season isn't as funny as the first, but I'm not sure they're right; it's more than the line between humor and drama has disappeared.
Lumon has prepared for Mark's completion of Cold Harbor in a way that is so serious and so heavy that it becomes hilarious. How else would you describe the new painting installed on the severance floor: an epic, oil-based panorama depicting everyone Mark S. has ever known, plus the Kier family standing high on a waterfall, watching as he's about to refine the last few numbers on Cold Harbor, his eyes closed and his hand raised like a Catholic saint in some lost Renaissance masterwork? Is it not hysterical that Lumon has brought in a life-sized statue of Kier to watch Mark as he works on his console? And later we find out it's animatronic? And after that we find out that it talks? It even trades petty barbs with Mr. Milchick during a cheesy comedy routine, which means it's not pre-recorded like I initially thought. That bit kept revealing new layers to the point where I forgot all about Gemma and Cold Harbor and everything for a second.
There's more weirdness. After Mark finishes Cold Harbor, Mr. Milchick comes out to the electronic drone of "Sirius," the song the Chicago Bulls have been walking out to since the '80s. Who picked that? And then he brings in a freaking Innie marching band (they never found that department) to celebrate this momentous occasion.
Lumon is such an evil, megalomaniacal company that we forget that they are, to borrow the words Helly uses to describe Jame Eagan, "so fucking weird." Lumon is kidnapping and slavery and theocracy, but they're also waffle parties and watermelon funerals and office marching bands. They're a commentary on how cults and corporations can be so insular that they look absurd to anyone not steeped in their lore. And they don't know they're absurd, which makes them even funnier. The absurdity contrasts beautifully with the intense seriousness. This is what I mean when I say that Severance is less about what it's about and more about how it's about it. It's about itself in the weirdest and most wonderful of ways.
Mark chooses life
Anyway, in all this chaos, Mark eventually remembers what he's supposed to be doing and uses Irving's directions to find the hallway to the testing floor. Meanwhile, Helly runs interference by stealing Mr. Milchick's walkie-talking, luring him into a bathroom. Dylan eventually joins her, and together they're successful at containing their shambolic rube of a boss, at least for long enough for Mark to do his job.
Mark finds the door to the hallway, but runs into trouble in the form of merciless Lumon enforcer Mr. Drummond, who is in a nearby room with Lorne (Gwendoline Christie), the manager of the Mammalians Nurturable Department. They're sacrificing a baby goat, full of verve and wiles, so it can escort Gemma's soul safely to Kier's side. Obviously this is a crazy reason to sacrifice a goat. I don't think there's a non-crazy reason to sacrifice a goat. But this is the kind of weird ritualistic nonsense you get up to when your Fortune 500 company is managed by generation after generation of loopy fanatics.
Drummond, who we sense has been itching to doll out violence the entire series, finally reaches his limit and beats Mark bloody. Happily, Lorne is standing by and is tired of the killing. She and Drummond go at it in a brutal, nasty fight that reminded me very much of when Gwendoline Christie was playing Brienne of Tarth on Game of Thrones and mixed it up with the Hound; that's the level of violence we're talking about here. But of course Severance has to put a surreal twist on it; after the pair subdue Drummond, Lorne thanks Mark for helping save Emile. "Emile is the name of the goat."
Mark uses the bolt gun Lorne was supposed to use to kill the goat to force Drummond to help him onto the elevator, holding it to his neck. Then, hilariously and horribly, the gun accidentally goes off just as they hit the testing floor and Mark S. switches back to Mark Scout. Drummond drenches Mark with his blood and then lays on the ground, the elevator doors closing and opening on his legs. Soon after, Mark encounters Sandra Bernhard's nurse character and screams and screams at her until she goes away.
Y'know, this might be the most grimly funny episode of the show yet.
But we have to get serious. Mark makes his way into Cold Harbor and manages to coax a severed Gemma into coming with him. Once back in the hall, Gemma returns to herself and the pair have a tearful reunion. It's moving, but even with more focus on her this season, Gemma remains something of a cypher. We still don't know what exactly happened the night she left to go to that party. Is it as simple as Lumon kidnapping her and then locking her on the testing floor entirely against her will? Did they trick her into coming? Or was she complicit? There's a lot about her we don't know, so I can only get so choked up.
I'm more invested in the relationship between Mark S. and Helly R., so I'm okay with what happens next. Mark S. follows through with the plan to escort Ms. Casey to the exit. When she crosses the threshold, she becomes Gemma again. The door closes. Gemma can't open it from the outside. Helly appears in the hallway behind Mark, who has a choice. Does he choose to leave Lumon and become Mark Scout again, trusting that he will live on through reintegration? Or does he take this half-life he has and make the most of it?
Mark chooses life. While Gemma screams outside, Mark takes Helly's hands. Together, they run through the hallways of the severed floor, bathed in red warning light, to the tune of Noel Harrison's "The Windmills of Your Mind."
Verdict
I was happy for Mark and Helly. Gemma has been through hell, but Mark and Helly were born there, and they still managed to find happiness in each other. They didn't ask to be here, but they are and they're real and I don't begrudge them trying to taste the wine while they can. This ending is the lunatics taking over the asylum. Or maybe it's the slaves rising up against their masters. It was definitely spellbinding television.
What happens next? I can imagine a season where Mark, Helly and the other Innies hole up on the severed floor with their Outie hostages (how the tables have turned, Mr. Milchick) and make demands of the outside world. In the meanwhile, they could explore the building and find answers to the many questions that have yet to be addressed. What was Lumon planning to do after Cold Harbor was complete, and why did they consider it so important? We haven't gotten to the bottom of this mystery box yet.
But Severance has proven it's about more than just the mysteries. Love live love, and long live Helly and Mark.
Cold Bullet Points
- Tramell Tillman, who plays Milchick, can dance the house down. Did anybody have any doubt?
- The second season of Severance started with a remarkable sequence of Mark running through halls of the severed floor and ended with another. We love a bookend.
- I have not conveyed how gorgeous this episode looks. They do remarkable things with the lighting; Lumon darkens the severed floor for Mark's final refinement session, bathing him in an eerie spotlight as he walks down the hall. At the end, as Mark and Helly run down in the hall enjoying their freedom, they're bathed in red light. That light indicates that something is very wrong on the severed floor, but I'll bet Mark and Helly will remember it fondly for however long they've got left.
- Dylan shows back up on the severed floor; his Outie refused to accept his resignation. Outie Dylan writes Innie Dylan a touching letter at once excoriating him for romancing his wife, but also expressing sympathy; he gets it: Gretchen is perfect. It sounds like Outie Dylan would accept Innie Dylan's resignation if he asked for it again, but Outie Dylan likes it that Innie Dylan is out there, because it gives him something to aspire to. That's a huge turnaround from when Innie Dylan worshipped his Outie like he was some untouchable hero. Everything is getting flipped, and I love it.
- "You and your family created hell and now you're going to burn in it," Helly tells Jame Eagan. She got all the best lines in this episode.
- "You'll kill them all!" Dr. Mauer shouts at Mark and Gemma as they leave the testing floor. What could he mean? Maybe that by taking Gemma away Mark was effectively killing all of her severed personalities? But Lumon was planning to kill Gemma anyway, so I doubt he'd care too much about that. Add that to the list of questions for season 3. Maybe Mark and company can ask Dr. Mauer what he meant in season 3; after all, they're trapped in the building together now.
Episode Grade: A
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