This article comprises spoilers for Severance Season 2 thus far, together with its penultimate episode “Sweet Vitriol.”
Season 2 of Severance has delivered up thus far, with the sequence firing on all cylinders since its long-awaited return again in February. However, there’s been a definite lack of Patricia Arquette’s Harmony Cobel. The present’s lead-in to the Season 2 finale modifications all of that, giving us a Cobel-centric episode that rearranges every little thing we knew in regards to the severance process up thus far.
The episode brings an finish to Cobel’s highway journey, discovering her in a sleepy coastal city long gone its heyday. Everything we see is decrepit, as much as and together with the Lumon manufacturing facility that “saved” the city earlier than slowly killing it. We get a glimpse on the former chief of Macrodata Refinement’s childhood, confirming that Lumon was into baby labor nicely earlier than the introduction of the severed flooring’s Miss Huang (Sarah Bock). Cobel’s mom died a tragic demise on this city, whereas her fellow baby laborers grew to maturity hooked on ether and with nowhere to go as soon as the work dried up. Those left stay loyal to Kier, aside from James Le Gross’ character Hampton, who appears to have grown to hate Lumon lengthy earlier than Cobel joined the occasion.
Hampton helps Cobel make it to her childhood residence undiscovered — Kier is all the time watching, in any case — and it’s right here that she finds what she was on the lookout for: a pocket book that blows the lid off the complete rattling sequence.
Earlier this season, when she was staring down Helena Eagan (Britt Lower), Cobel implied that Lumon owed her. She was, actually, fairly adamant about it, keen to let go of a long time of labor and spit within the face of the non-offer for her to take a place outdoors of the severed flooring. In “Sweet Vitriol” we be taught why: it wasn’t an Eagan who created the severance process, however Harmony Cobel herself. Turns out that her adamance was justified in any case.
This additionally implies that Devon’s (Jen Tullock) instincts had been proper when it got here to calling Cobel about her considerations about Mark (Adam Scott), even when it was ill-advised because of Cobel’s earlier allegiances. There is, actually, no yet one more suited to make sure Mark survives re-integration than Harmony Cobel. But the actual query stays: whose aspect is she truly on?
On the one hand, hell hath no fury like a longtime loyal laborer who realizes how exploited they’ve been over time. On the opposite, Cobel has been indoctrinated within the Kier cult her complete life. Was her life’s work being stolen from her sufficient to truly convey her to assist Mark?
Moreover, what does this revelation imply for the thriller surrounding Gemma? Lumon operates on a have to know foundation, with every of their departments being distinctly siloed from each other, however Mark and Gemma’s fates appear intrinsically intertwined in a means that extends past their love for each other. It stands to cause that Cobel doesn’t simply know what occurred to Gemma and the place she is now, however that she spearheaded the entire thing from the start.
Mark’s sickness appears more likely to delay Cold Harbor’s completion, however will that matter if the opposite macrodata refiners are exhibiting up for work? That doesn’t appear to be the case, contemplating Lumon’s insistence on maintaining him round, however he’s going to should return to work finally both means, if solely to bust Gemma out of her cell.
Like all revelations in Severance, studying this details about Cobel sparks quite a lot of main questions even past what we’ve already mentioned right here. For occasion, will Cobel make it out of this season alive? She’s received enemies on all sides and Lumon has made it clear that they aren’t fearful about foolish issues like legal guidelines. However, it’d be a major blow to the sequence to lose her character so quickly, particularly after we’ve missed her a lot of Season 2. Redemption adopted by demise is a longstanding storytelling trope, however right here’s hoping the present’s writers select to subvert that in favor of maintaining one of many sequence’ most attention-grabbing characters alive.
At any fee, Severance Season 2’s penultimate episode might have shifted gears a bit, but it surely’s nonetheless servicing the overarching thriller in very significant methods. This Cobel revelation may imply main issues for all of MDR, and expands the universe considerably by introducing new corners of the globe that Lumon has destroyed. This growth issues as a result of we cannot be caught on the identical thriller eternally, and there may be sufficient meat on the bones of the Kier cult story to maintain this going and, most significantly, attention-grabbing for a really very long time.
See you again on the severed flooring for subsequent week’s Season 2 finale.
