Early in the Season 2 finale of the acclaimed, much-memed Apple TV+ series “Severance,” a man has a spirited debate that ends up encapsulating much of what keeps the show’s fans watching. The person he is talking to? Himself, via an old video camera. Mark (Adam Scott) records messages for Mark. And Mark replies.
Created by the writer Dan Erickson in collaboration with the producer and frequent director Ben Stiller, “Severance,” which was just renewed for another season, is centered on a cultlike company named Lumon that allows employees to “sever” their work lives and their home lives via a chip surgically inserted into their brains. The people who clock in every day — the “innies” — have no idea what their “outies” do after quitting time, and vice versa.
At the end of Season 1, Mark’s innie led his office-mates Dylan (Zach Cherry), Helly (Britt Lower) and Irving (John Turturro) in a mini-rebellion, executing “the overtime contingency,” which allowed them all, very briefly, to live their outies’ lives. This is how Mark learned that his outie’s wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman) — presumed dead in the outside world — was still alive as an innie at Lumon.
Season 2 has been primarily driven by outie Mark’s efforts to reintegrate his consciousness with innie Mark, in hopes of rescuing Gemma from Lumon. In the finale, the two Marks argue over whose needs are more important: If Gemma leaves Lumon, will outie Mark terminate his employment there — and in the process terminate innie Mark?
“Severance” Season 1 arrived not long after the pandemic, at a time when people were questioning how much of their lives were being spent in an office — and how much needed to be. As the story has expanded into more existential mysteries, it has spoken more to the “rise and grind” mind set sweeping through much of the modern world, where having relationships or hobbies — or even a good night’s sleep — is considered somewhat suspect. The Season 2 finale brings to a head some of the story lines inspired by our increasingly out-of-whack work-life balance.
At the end of Season 1, Helly learned her outie is Helena Eagan, the daughter of Lumon’s chief executive Jame Eagan and the granddaughter of the company’s founder Kier Eagan. Before getting severed again, Helly gave a public speech as Helena, excoriating the inhumanity of Lumon’s severance program.
The PR fallout from that speech carried over into the beginning of Season 2, as Lumon began making more of an effort to take the innies’ mental health into account. Dylan’s innie was granted visitations with his outie’s wife (Merritt Wever), who developed romantic feelings for the more confident, passionate work version of her husband.
In the finale, outie Dylan sends a letter to innie Dylan, begrudgingly praising him for wooing his own wife. Buoyed by the letter, Dylan heroically joins Helly in keeping their floor manager Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman) — and a marching band — at bay, while Mark sneaks off to look for Gemma.
The appearance of the marching band in the finale — brought in from Lumon’s “Choreography and Merriment” department — is another reason so many love this show. Erickson and Stiller are spoofing the stiltedness of American office culture, from the 1950s to today. Milchick is a Lumon true-believer, who uses little trinkets and over-the-top break-room parties to motivate.
Yet throughout this season, even Milchick’s faith in Lumon has wavered. He has suffered microaggressions related to his race, and he has been criticized by his bosses for failing to control his direct reports. In the finale’s most spectacular scene — in which he brings out the band after bantering awkwardly with an animatronic version of Kier Eagan — Milchick seems to have a hard time summoning up genuine enthusiasm for the celebration. (It doesn’t help that the robot Kier calls him “verbose,” which was a stinging criticism on Milchick’s performance review.)
The celebration is meant for Mark, for completing an assignment that has been another of this season’s plot drivers: a mysterious project known as “Cold Harbor.” It is revealed to innie Mark as being related to Gemma, whom Lumon has been using a vessel for multiple personalities.
Outie Mark is desperate for innie Mark to rescue Gemma, because the Cold Harbor file is the last one Lumon needs him to complete. When it’s done, Gemma and innie Mark will most likely be eliminated.
“Severance” has always been purposefully vague about how the severing process really works and why Lumon is so invested in it. (These are questions left dangling for Season 3 and beyond.) That vagueness has extended to exactly what is happening to Gemma, as she takes on new personalities, unwittingly guided by innie Mark’s number crunching.
But the show has been very clear about the fundamental humanity of the innies, which is why a life spent only working is so unsatisfying for them — even with the occasional cupcake or musical interlude. During that conversation between the two Marks, the outie inadvertently insults his innie when he describes innie Mark’s office fling with Helly (who outie Mark calls “Heleny”) in terms that make it sound like something cute and juvenile, and not as something that gives the innie’s work-life meaning. That fundamental misunderstanding of what innie Mark’s existence is like is what leads to this episode’s tense, exciting conclusion.
The Season 2 finale is long, running over an hour and 20 minutes. But it has strong momentum, thanks to that Cold Harbor deadline. For his part, Mark needs to complete the file (which he does … hence the marching band) to set the escape plan in motion. When Lumon moves Gemma to a new location in the office building, Mark should be able to get to her.
The “Severance” creative team and cast have a lot of fun weaving sci-fi elements into what is essentially, in this episode, a heist thriller. When Mark finds Gemma and tries to rush her out of the building, both of them struggle with the general weirdness of Lumon and with the way their consciousness shifts depending on which floor they’re on. Sometimes they’re innies; sometimes they’re outies. (And on at least one floor there is a sacrificial goat with verve, provided by Lumon’s “Mammalians Nurturable” department. That is “Severance” for you.)
The heist is a success. Mark gets Gemma out of one of Lumon’s exit doors, where she reverts to her outie self. But then Gemma watches in horror as Mark, on the other side of that door — and still an innie — chooses to leave her and run back to Helly. The season ends with Mark and Helly together in a freeze frame, as Mel Tormé sings “The Windmills of Your Mind.” It’s like a moment ripped from one of those hip, stylish, ennui-laden 1960s movies.
It also brings us back to that conversation from earlier in the episode, forces us to ask a question: Which Mark are we really rooting for? This is a show about how corporations can treat people like cogs; and it is also a show that suggests these cogs have a right to their own personalities, feelings and interests.
But this is left unresolved at the end of Season 2: What are Mark and Helly running toward? As they head deeper into the machine that dehumanizes them, perhaps they are content to know that at least they are making their own choice — outies be damned.
