(SPOILER WARNING)
Apple TV’s Severance has swept social media timelines and in-person conversation with the release of its second season this year. Its sci-fi concept balances mysterious intrigue with a depth of humanity rarely achieved, with incredible performances and cinematography alike. In a streaming world where shows are axed before finding their rhythm or forced to stick to a trusted episodic formula, this series is a real stand-out. More than anything, the finale shows its bravery to risk upsetting the audience. Human connection is rarely a tidy affair, and with many fans shocked by the character choices in this conclusion, there is much to say on how ‘shipping culture’ conflicts with the show’s themes.
For those unfamiliar, Severance is set at a company called Lumon which has developed a procedure to spatially separate an employee’s memory. This creates an “innie” and “outie” version of the same human being: the former being trapped in the company building, knowing nothing of the real world and the latter living life outside the 9-to-5, unaware of the work done inside. While season one focused on coming to terms with this reality and how the innies could temporarily take over the outie life outside, season two tests the moral dilemmas of rebelling against the system they are trapped in.
In this strain, the finale had a litany of issues to resolve. Adam Scott and Britt Lower’s outie characters – Mark Scout and Helena Eagan, respectively – struggle with the desires of their innie characters (Mark S and Helly R). Mark Scout wants to save his wife Gemma from Lumon, while his innie fears escaping as a potential end to his existence. Helly R wants to be with Mark S but her outie is the daughter of Lumon’s CEO. Her own body is tied to the corporate empire they’re stuck in, and she wrestles with her feelings and Mark’s best interests. Surrounded by the mystery of their “macro data refinement” work and the fight to stop Gemma’s demise, it is these relationship dynamics that divided fans.
Mark’s dilemma is presented in a compelling argument between his innie and outie selves in a recorded back and forth at the start of the finale. While the outie seeks help in freeing his wife from the Lumon compound, Mark S fears what will happen to himself and the other innies if they were to take on this task. Fans inevitably feel deeply for the relationship between outie Mark and Gemma following the immaculate episode seven “Chikhai Bardo” this season. Their love story, fertility struggles, and Gemma’s sham death drive the audience to want their reunion more than anything. Mark’s choice to become severed was itself a way to avoid his deep grief, but now he’s forced into the ‘bargaining’ stage in this scene.
Innie Mark’s simple “no” to following the outie’s plans at first appears and is described as childlike, but his reluctance is existential. He is in effect a child, with his memories only consisting of a 40 hour work week for two years, and outie Mark is deceiving him with unsubstantiated promises of a reintegrated future. All Mark S knows is the office, and more than that: he does not even know Gemma, he loves Helly. He fears they will “disappear along with every innie down there”. Outie Mark is certainly a victim of Lumon’s manipulation of him and his wife, but expecting his innie to give up everything for the man who in effect trapped him there is unfair.
The argument was unsatisfying, but at the same time displayed how two personas of the same being have become diametrically opposed. Memories shape people, giving them their own will and motivation beyond any ‘default settings’. When the episode again returns to the innies in the office, however, it is clear that Mark S is not devoid of empathy. Completing the final file means that their lives are potentially coming to an end, so Helly sees freeing Gemma as a way to get back at Lumon. She emotionally wishes for Mark S to have “a chance at living” through reintegration, giving up their relationship and remaining trapped at Lumon. I found the two of them discussing the places in the world they could think of particularly emotional; empty and vague names were all they knew of a world they could ever see, only recalling “Europe, Zimbabwe, and the Equator”. From a Marxist view, it has parallels to travel being a luxury only available to those with resources and time.
Fans who want Helly and Mark S to appear ‘evil’ for the finale are inevitably hindered by this presentation. Helly puts Mark’s freedom above her love for him, and Mark S feels the tragedy of the star-crossed love he has with his colleague. The episode continues with an action-packed rebellion of the innies in the mission to save Gemma, providing the reunion the audience so desperately needed. Mark Scout encounters an innie version of his wife, but she doesn’t know who he is, and yet his promise that “it’s okay” gets through. It’s a beautiful moment of shock, joy, and sadness rolled into one.
However, the escape puts Mark and Gemma into innie states, with Mark S escorting Ms Casey (Gemma’s innie) out of the compound. Once through the door, Gemma’s outie self returns and begs Mark to follow. But this is not the Mark she knows on the other side of the window, this is Helly’s Mark S. Behind him we see Helly appear, and like Orpheus walking out of hell he inevitably turns to look at his Eurydice. The mythological comparisons have been rampant amongst online fans of Severance, which I can only hope a classicist weaves into a future dissertation. While Gemma calls his name, Mark S returns to Helly and they run through the halls of Lumon together.
It’s complicated and painful, brave and confusing. This ending is tragic for Gemma, reunited briefly with her husband only to watch ‘him’ run away with another woman. However, viewers painting Helly as ‘evil’ or ‘the other woman’ getting in the way of the Scout marriage are missing the point entirely. As Helly put it herself, “they give us half a life and think we won’t fight for it”. The shared enemy of all these characters is Lumon; each is trapped in this tragedy because of the company’s desire to control their lives. Corporate alienation has gone so far as to create an entirely different identity, alien to his own wife. In spite of such repression, the ending is triumphant and romantic: Mark S stays in hell because it is a hell shared with someone he loves.
Fans risk becoming exactly what the show warns against by showing contempt for innies and their agency. The depth of Severance is that without evenings, weekends, or holidays, the workers still find something to live for. Neither Mark S nor the audience knows what will become of him and Helly, but they know each other and nothing else matters at that moment. In a way, they did see the Equator at the door where these two worlds collide: innies on one side, and outies on the other. The innies live a life of isolation and repression, but they are not going to give it up for those on the outside. That’s what the finale shows us: defiance and love against a company whose very aim is to control what makes us human.