Spoilers for Severance Season 2. Praise Kier!
AppleTV dropped the Season 2 finale of Severance late Thursday/early Friday, depending on your time zone. I was dodging spoilers all damn day, but I finally watched the finale and it made me really mad. Before I get into my thoughts, some general upkeep. I’m including photos of the cast (and director/executive producer Ben Stiller) from their Paleyfest appearance on Friday, where they gathered for a special screening and general presentation. Leading into the finale, many noted that AppleTV had yet to greenlight a third season, so there was a real possibility that this could have been the actual show finale. But then on Friday, Apple greenlighted a third season, and Stiller promised that it wouldn’t take three years to get Season 3 (which was the gap between the first and second seasons).
As for the finale… first of all, I found it really hokey how they brought Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) back into the story after she went MIA for much of the season. I was fine with her stand-alone episode, but I simply don’t believe that Devon would have seen Mark with a hole in his skull and immediately thought “we need that weird woman, Cobel.” I understand why they needed Cobel plot-wise, but I just thought what Devon did was out of character for someone suspicious of everyone and everything connected to Lumon. That being said, Cobel’s work in the “birthing cabin” was interesting, and I loved the way they shot the two Marks speaking to one another.
It was also deliciously creepy to see the conversation between Jame Eagan and Helly on the severed floor – the fact that he went down there to talk to his daughter’s innie just hours after he had breakfast with Helena, gross. He apparently sees Kier in Helly, and not Helena. Helly almost curb-stomped him right there. That was one of the reasons why I didn’t believe that “Helena” was down there the next day – that was Helly telling Mark about the weird experience with Jame.
Anyway, all of the stuff with Innie Mark rescuing Gemma and for a brief moment, Outie Mark and Outie Gemma were reunited… it was beautiful. I loved that Gwendoline Christie protected Emil and that she and Mark managed to take down Drummond. I thought the thing about Mark’s trigger finger twitching as he switched from innie to outie was brilliantly done too! Basically, the only thing I didn’t like was the very end – outie Gemma screaming for Mark as he backed away from the door and ran off with Helly. Apparently, the original idea was Helly standing at the end of hallway and Gemma on the other side of the door, and innie Mark was trying to decide where to go. From Ben Stiller’s comments to Variety: “There was a brief moment where we thought, maybe we do another cliffhanger where Mark is between Helly and Gemma. But, pretty soon after, we realized we can’t do that again — people will kill us. So, we wanted him to make the choice and set up a dystopian conflict.” You can read that interview here – Stiller and Dan Erickson have a lot of answers about some of the hidden history, like yeah, Lumon is sacrificing/killing people with some regularity down there, that’s why Gwendoline Christie’s character asks how many more goats must she give.
The wildest part? Mr. Milchick and the marching band celebrating the completion of the Cold Harbor file, then Dylan barricading Milchick in the bathroom. I guess they’re setting this all up as a Season 3 “innie rebellion.” But…who knows. Lumon is supposed to be a huge multi-billion-dollar company with endless resources. I don’t think an innie rebellion is going to end well for the innies. It also seems like the Glasgow Block would mean that Lumon could easily un-sever the innies at any given moment, and there goes the rebellion?
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
