Severance is undoubtedly the most exciting, relevant show on television right now. The second season is currently airing on Apple TV+, and in the three years since the first season was released, the show has gained a massive number of fans and increased viewership. The show's complex themes of grief and how we choose to cope or not cope with our painful memories have been explored in exceptional detail. Everything about Severance, from the set design of the office to the Lumon lore, is incredibly detailed and intentional. Nothing on this show is done by accident and everything has meaning.
The premise of the show revolves around a group of mundane office workers in the Macro Data Refinement (MDR) department of Lumon Industries. These workers have all undergone the Severance procedure, which is a chip that is embedded in the brain to create two separate consciousnesses; one for work and one for everything else. The work consciousness is referred to as an "innie," while the regular consciousness with all of that person's non-work memories is referred to as an "outie."
As season 1 showed us, preventing the two consciousnesses from bleeding into each other is not as simple as Lumon wants them to believe. Season 2 has had Mark S. (Adam Scott) attempt to reintegrate so he can access his innie's memories and discover what Lumon is doing to his wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman), who he previously thought was dead.
Your Rating close 10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 stars 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star Rate Now 0/10 Severance TV-MA Drama Mystery Sci-Fi 10/10 Release Date February 18, 2022 Showrunner Dan Erickson, Mark Friedman Directors Ben Stiller Writers Dan Erickson Cast See All Adam Scott Mark Scout Britt Lower Helly Riggs
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Throughout all of this, Mark has been working on refining the data for a particularly important file, Cold Harbor. The Cold Harbor file has been looming over the story in both seasons, as it is a file extremely important to Lumon. It's been said that only Mark can complete the file, and according to Mr. Drummond (Olafur Darri Olafsson), it will change the world when Mark completes it. Lumon's goal with the severance procedure has never been revealed, but there have been plenty of hints at potential end goals.
One of the biggest questions the show has yet to answer is "What is Cold Harbor?" We know it's vital to Lumon's mission, whatever that may be. We know only Mark can complete the file. We don't know why only Mark can, why it's so important, or what the project actually is. Fans have been spreading theories around all corners of the internet this season, and we have some theories of our own about just what Cold Harbor might entail.
4 Cold Harbor Is About Experiencing Death Close
Throughout season 1, Mark believed his wife was dead. She supposedly crashed her car into a tree, which ultimately killed her. Of course, we discover this is not true in the season 1 finale. When Mark's innie looks at a photograph of his outie's wife Gemma, it reveals Miss Casey, the part-time wellness counselor at Lumon. We had already learned that Miss Casey is sent below the severed floor to the testing floor when Lumon doesn't need her, leading us to realize that Gemma has been trapped down there the entire time.
Lumon targeted Gemma because she had suffered a miscarriage and turned to IVF, making her a perfect subject for experiments all about handling pain and suffering. In the seventh episode of season 2, we see that Lumon has been conducting experiments on Gemma, forcing her to become different innies each time she enters a room, all of which are labeled after an MDR file.
Each time one of Gemma's innies is brought into a room, she is subjected to a different negative experience. Going to the dentist, a particularly turbulent plane ride, and writing out dozens of thank you notes with her non-dominant hand. When she arrives back in her room as Gemma, she is asked by her nurse (Sandra Bernhard) if she feels anything physically or emotionally. Gemma always responds with something physical, like her wrist hurting or her mouth being sore. It's apparent that Lumon is trying to discern if anything from the innie's unpleasant experiences can seep into the outie's memories to cause an emotional reaction. The one room they haven't let Gemma in yet is the Cold Harbor room, the room associated with the important file Mark S. is working on in MDR.
Since each room has involved an unpleasant experience that most people would want to avoid, it would make sense that Cold Harbor would involve an experience so negative that everyone would want to avoid experiencing it. Many fans think Cold Harbor is death based on the experiments and the importance of the file Mark is working on. It has been said that once Mark finishes the file, it will change the world. It's plausible that Lumon is trying to perfect the severance chip so that when a person is about to die, they can activate their innie's consciousness and forego life's most dreaded experience.
All the torturous experiments they are putting Gemma's innies through on the testing floor could be about determining how much physical and emotional suffering an innie can withstand before it bleeds over to their outie. If Lumon can refine the chip enough to prevent any part of the experience from affecting the outie, it could revolutionize the way the world views death.
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Posts 3 MDR Is Deleting Gemma's Innies' Memories Close
"The work is mysterious and important." is what Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) said to the MDR team in season 1, and mysterious and important it is indeed. The sole purpose of MDR is to refine the numbers on their computer screens and sort them into the correct boxes at the bottom of the screens. Mark tells Helly (Britt Lower) in the first season that the numbers will make you feel something, and can sometimes even be scary.
Helly, of course, doesn't believe Mark until she finally refines a set of numbers, and they do in fact scare her. It has become more apparent in the episodes since that the numbers are tied to thoughts or emotions. The emotions the numbers evoke are related to Lumon founder Kier Eagan's Four Tempers (woe, frolic, malice, and dread). Essentially, the MDR team is refining data by grouping clusters of numbers that trigger an emotional response and then assigning them to a specific emotion. We have even seen the abbreviations for the tempers on the boxes they sort the numbers into.
Episode seven made it clear that Miss Casey isn't Gemma's only innie. Each time she is brought into one of the rooms named after an MDR file, a different innie who has only experienced whatever's in that room is activated. This means that the MDR team is actively refining the numbers and data associated with what's happening in each room that Gemma's innies enter. By refining or sorting that data, they are likely altering her innies' memories. MDR may have been unknowingly tasked with deleting Gemma's innies' memories to create a version of an innie that feels nothing and remembers nothing. If that's the case, Cold Harbor may be about deleting Gemma's memories of her outie life, so that she feels and remembers none of the pain of her life previously.
Imagine if Gemma and Mark are finally reunited, and Gemma either doesn't remember him or no longer feels enough emotion to even care about him. It would be the most devastating thing in the world for Mark, perhaps more devastating than when he thought she was dead. Lumon wants to change the world, and creating a chip that allows you to sever feelings and memories without having to have a separate consciousness would be revolutionary to them. Mark and Gemma are also important to Lumon, not necessarily because they care about them, but because they are useful to them. Lumon has ruined his life before, and they wouldn't hesitate to do it again if it meant they could achieve their goals.
2 Lumon Is Trying to Prevent People From Having Negative Experiences Close
The multiple rooms Gemma's innies have repeatedly been forced to go into involve negative or painful experiences that most people would prefer to avoid altogether. We see different innies go to the dentist, experience an extremely turbulent plane ride, and write out hundreds of thank you notes using her non-dominant hand. While we didn't see inside the other rooms her other innies went into, we saw Gemma dressed in different outfits getting ready to enter those rooms. She was shown in a businesswoman's outfit and a workout outfit, for example. It's heartbreakingly obvious that Gemma has been forcefully severed into numerous innies that only know the world of whichever room they are assigned to. The only constant in each innie's life is Dr. Mauer (Robby Benson), who sinisterly oversees each room Gemma's outies are in, and then Gemma herself when she's back in her room.
Putting Gemma and her innies through never-ending emotional and physical torture has to have a purpose other than tormenting her. Lumon is testing the limits of each of her innies and how far they can go before the physical pain becomes too much for the outie to handle. They are also trying to determine how far they can push innies before their emotional turmoil affects the outie's mental well-being. So far, Gemma is only experiencing physical residual effects from the experiments on her innies. However, Gemma's mental state is obviously being affected by living on the testing floor and never seeing the light of day. Since each room has dealt with an unpleasant experience, Lumon may be trying to develop a version of the severance chip that prevents people from having to withstand negative experiences.
The room for Cold Harbor might be the final stage of perfecting this type of severance chip that blocks people from having negative experiences. In season 1, Devon stumbled upon a wealthy woman at the birthing retreat that was on her second or third child. When Devon saw the woman again days later at a park, the woman didn't recognize Devon, clearly indicating she had somehow been able to sever herself to not experience the pain or trauma of giving birth.
If the rich already have access to this kind of severance technology, it makes it more believable that Lumon is trying to sell to the world the idea of foregoing negative experiences. Michick even sells the idea of severance to Mark in the first season as a fresh start and a way to forget his grief. Burying grief and painful memories is at the crux of the themes of Severance. Lumon represents the false notion that you can ignore your trauma and grief, and the innies represent the reality that you cannot simply ignore your memories; you have to face them. Cold Harbor could be the final stage of refining the chip to be activated when a person begins exhibiting signs of distress.
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Posts 1 Lumon Is Refining the Four Tempers Close
As we have learned since the third episode of season 1, Kier Eagan's Four Tempers are the pillars of Lumon's ideology. Woe (sadness), Frolic (joy), Dread (fear), and Malice (rage) are the four main emotions that make up Eagan's tempers. The four characters who work in MDR even represent these tempers, with Mark S. as woe, Dylan G. as frolic, Irving B. as dread, and Helly R. as malice.
The Four Tempers are integral not only to Lumon and its mission, but to the overall story and themes of Severance. They are a focal point of the perpetuity wing of the Lumon building and are mentioned frequently by Lumon employees. MDR is refining numbers into categories that match the Four Tempers, which likely means MDR is altering the tempers of each of Gemma's innies.
By sorting through the data associated with Gemma's innies and their emotions related to the tempers, Lumon is purposefully changing the way innies think and feel. Lumon could be having MDR refine the Four Tempers to create a mass of severed people who no longer feel the four main emotions human beings experience. Lumon is all about workers being dedicated to their jobs and not having any distractions from outside the office. The notion of having a perfect work-life balance is how they attract candidates for the severance procedure.
When all the numbers in the Cold Harbor file have been correctly sorted by Mark, he could effectively eliminate the Four Tempers from Gemma. Meaning, Lumon would successfully tame the Four Tempers by developing a version of the severance chip that removes those emotions altogether. This would allow newly severed people to be free of the four main emotions and perfectly suited to being corporate lackeys. Removing joy, fear, sadness, and anger from a person would leave people without enough emotional capability to have strong thoughts of their own. It would leave them emotionless zombies with nothing to live for but going to work and doing their jobs. It would coincide with Severance's themes of capitalism and corporate superiority.