Thrilling Severance season 2 finale keeps some key secrets [Apple TV+ recap]

It’s season finale time! In our Severance season 2 episode 10 recap of “Cold Harbor,” we find Mark S. carrying out a wild plan with his allies while his tattered team makes a dangerous last stand against Lumon Industries. At 75 minutes, the episode’s a long one, directed by Ben Stiller. And with the hit show just renewed for a third season, the Severance season two finale actually asks more questions than it answers — before delivering a twist at the end.

Last week’s penultimate episode gave us a slower burn than expected on the way to Friday’s climactic season finale, but it did its job. As the macrodata refiners scattered while Mark and his sister Devon teamed up with company soldier Harmony Cobel to fight Lumon, it felt more like everything was coming apart than coming to a frenzied boil. But that groundwork set the stage for Friday’s outstanding final episode.

Severance season 2 episode 10 recap: ‘Cold Harbor’

Last week’s episode nine, “The After Hours,” seemed to bring confusion and loss. Innie Dylan (Zach Cherry), having fallen for his outie’s wife, gets crushed emotionally and quits Lumon. Burt (Christopher Walken) takes Irving (John Turturro) for a ride — and seemingly permanent exile. Innie Helly (Britt Lower) gets Irving’s map to the mysterious Exports Hall, only to be interrupted by Lumon CEO Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry). And Mark (Adam Scott) and his sister Devon (Jen Tullock) team with former foe Cobel (Patricia Arquette) to enact a plan against the company. But we still didn’t know the plan, with all the bickering going on. Now we do, of course. And, as it turns out, it includes more bickering.

The two Marks face off

The Season two finale of “Severance” delivers an explosive conclusion while setting up a dramatic turn for the future — as Apple TV+ just green-lighted season three. As red lights and alarms flash through Lumon’s stark white corridors, some of the answers we’ve been seeking emerge alongside shocking twists.

The episode begins with an unprecedented conversation between Mark Scout and his innie counterpart, Mark S. With a doorway somehow functioning like the elevator at Lumon, they trade video messages using a camcorder at the birthing cabin. Each pleads their case. It devolves into a surprisingly drawn-out argument. Outie Mark promises to finish the reintegration process after rescuing Gemma (Dichen Lachman). He assures his innie they’ll become one person again. Mark S., however, remains skeptical, concerned that reintegration would leave him with a fraction of their shared consciousness and separate him from Helly R. forever. His lover’s outie is, after all, Lumon’s Helena Eagan.

Cold Harbor revealed

The mysteries of MDR’s work are finally explained when Ms. Cobel, now allied with Devon and outie Mark, reveals the truth. Each file Mark has completed has created a new innie personality for Gemma.

And the numbers represent Kier Eagan’s Four Tempers — Woe, Malice, Frolic  and Dread. They essentially create building blocks for new severed consciousnesses. Cold Harbor, the 25th and final file, is the culmination of Lumon’s grand plan to reconstruct Gemma’s mind without memories of her traumatic miscarriage. But it’s still mysterious why Lumon does what it does.

Then the finale revisits episode nine’s cliffhanger — Jame Eagan interrupting Helly as she prepares to follow Irving’s map to the Exports Hall. Their exchange is bizarre. Jame tells her he never loved his daughter, Helena, whom he used to see Kier in but no longer does. Yet he claims to see Kier in Helly. She rushes him wielding a pen as if to attack.

“You and your family created hell and you’re going to burn in it,” she exclaims. But she stops short of striking him, and he barely reacts. It’s almost as if she’s held back by the chip in her head.

“There he is,” Jame says. “Tomorrow is a special day.” Having referred to the impending completion of the Cold Harbor file, he walks away. Helly shouts at him to explain why he came and what he wants from her.

A celebration gone awry

After Mark completes Cold Harbor, Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) stages an elaborate celebration. It feature an animatronic Kier Eagan statue telling scripted jokes at Milchick’s expense. And a very dynamic marching band from the previously unseen “Choreography and Merriment” department performs, with Milchick dancing as he leads it.

During that truly surreal chaos, Helly and Mark execute their escape plan. Helly swipes Milchick’s walkie-talkie and then traps Milchick in the bathroom. She keeps him in there with help from Dylan and a vending machine blocking the door. Meanwhile, Mark uses Irving’s directions and heads via the black hallway and down elevator to the Testing Floor to find Gemma.

Finally, a reason for the goats

In a shocking revelation, we discover the purpose of the mysterious baby goats of Lumon’s Mammalians Nurturable department. In a hidden chamber, Lorne (Gwendoline Christie) reluctantly prepares to sacrifice a goat named Emile as part of a ritual meant to guide Gemma’s spirit to Kier after her final test. Before the sacrifice can occur, Mark interrupts, leading to a violent confrontation with Mr. Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson).

The ensuing fight becomes Mark and Lorne against Drummond in the hallway, ending when Mark uses Drummond as a hostage to access the elevator to the Testing Floor. In the elevator, Mark’s consciousness shifts, and his outie inadvertently discharges his weapon — a livestock bolt pistol meant for Emile — into Drummond’s neck, killing him.

Mark’s bloody rescue of Gemma

Blood-soaked and desperate, Mark finds the Cold Harbor room and chases off the nurse (Sandra Bernhard). Realizing the handprint pin-prick security device won’t grant him access, he uses Drummond’s blood from his tie to trick it.

Inside, he finds Gemma in a room where she’s been tasked with disassembling a baby crib, under instructions from Dr. Mauer (Robbie Benson), watching on video. Jame Eagan also watches through a Lumon terminal. The crib looks like the one Mark and Gemma purchased during their attempts to have a child. “She feels nothing,” Mauer marvels at one point, noting a marker of success. “It’s beautiful.”

Despite her initial fear of the blood-covered stranger, Gemma senses a connection and leaves with Mark. As they make their escape, just as the elevator doors close, Dr. Mauer, giving chase, cries out: “You’ll kill them all!” This seems to refer to all those innie personalities created for Gemma through data refinement.

Dylan reluctantly returns

Meanwhile, Dylan G. returns to MDR after his attempt to resign. When the elevator doors open, Milchick greets him. Dylan just says, “He said no?” So Milchick takes him to room to read Dylan’s outie’s response to the resignation. Outie Dylan expresses understanding about innie Dylan’s attraction to Gretchen (Merit Weaver) and gives him the choice to stay or go.

Emboldened, Dylan joins the rebellion, helping Helly barricade Milchick and eventually rallying the marching band members to defy their supervisor with a defiant “F#@k you, Mr. Milchick.” I had thought Irv might find his way back, too, but no such luck. Maybe next season.

Mark’s shocking choice

In the final moments, Mark and Gemma flee through Lumon’s corridors toward an exit. When they reach the door, Gemma steps through, instantly returning to her outie self. She turns back, expecting Mark to follow, but innie Mark hesitates. Down the hallway, he spots Helly, and in a heart-wrenching twist, chooses to remain severed with her rather than reunite with his wife as outie Mark.

The episode ends with Gemma pounding on the door, screaming “Mark! We have to go!” as Mark S. and Helly R. run hand-in-hand down the flashing red hallways of Lumon, choosing their severed existence together over reintegration with their outies. The scene freezes as “The Windmills of Your Mind,” an Oscar-winning song written in 1968 for the film The Thomas Crown Affair, plays, its lyrics eerily apt for the show: “Round, like a circle in a spiral / Like a wheel within a wheel / Never ending or beginning / On an ever-spinning reel …”

What does it all mean?

The finale forces us to reconsider whose freedom we’ve been rooting for all along. Mark S.’s decision to remain severed challenges our assumptions about the innies and outies. The choice represents a complete rejection of servitude — not just to Lumon, but to his outie self as well.

The season concludes with many questions unanswered. How will Mark S. and Helly R. survive inside Lumon? What will happen to Gemma now that she’s free? Will the company’s true purpose truly become clear? (Just spit-balling, but it’s seemingly to eradicate pain from the world by using severed individuals as vessels).

With its highly entertaining blend of mystery, humor and emotional weight, the season two finale of Severance delivers a powerful conclusion while setting up what promises to be a compelling third season (that won’t take three years to come out this time, Stiller has claimed). The innies’ rebellion has truly begun. But their fight for existence comes with a profound cost that neither they nor we fully anticipated.

Previous Severance recaps:

• Season 2, episode 9: Severance sadly sets stage for brutal finale
• Season 2, episode 8: Severance: Wavering Lumon loyalist faces demons, finds revelation
• Season 2, episode 7: An enlightening Severance finally tells Gemma’s story
• Season 2, episode 6: Mark S. risks all as Severance bonds are tested
• Season 2, episode 5: Severance: Innie Irving’s last words take on new meaning as Mark breaks through 
• Season 2, episode 4: Irving B. takes a brutal stand in the icy Severance wilderness
• Season 2, episode 3: Severance boldly sends Mark S. back to his Lumon beginnings
• Season 2, episode 2: Lumon deals with Severance outies in Overtime Contingency’s aftermath
• Season 2, episode 1: ‘It’s been a minute’ since we felt that Severance vertigo

Watch Severance on Apple TV+

Severance season one and season two’s new episodes now stream on Apple TV+. New episodes air on Fridays (though they’re usually available the night after 6 p.m. PT).

Apple TV+ is available by subscription for $9.99 with a seven-day free trial. You can also get it via any tier of the Apple One subscription bundle. Customers who buy a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Mac or iPod touch can enjoy three months of Apple TV+ for free.

After launching in November 2019, “Apple TV+ became the first all-original streaming service to launch around the world, and has premiered more original hits and received more award recognitions faster than any other streaming service. To date, Apple Original films, documentaries and series have been honored with 471 wins and 2,090 award nominations and counting,” the service said.

Apple TV+ is home to more than 200 exclusive movies and TV shows (including breakout soccer comedy Ted Lasso). The service also offers documentaries, dramas, comedies, kids shows and more.

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