This story contains major spoilers for the Severance season two finale, “Cold Harbor.”
The Severance season two finale answers a major question: What is the Cold Harbor file Mark Scout—or, more specifically, his innie—has been working on? The previous nine episodes of the show hinted that it involved Gemma, Mark’s wife, whom Lumon was holding hostage as a test subject. We watched as they sent her into separate rooms and forced her to do activities ranging from dental surgery sans anesthesia to hand-writing hundreds of Christmas cards. The dominant theory checked out in the end—we learned that it was because they were testing the memory limits of each severance scenario on Gemma.
In the finale, Harmony Cobel revealed that each room Gemma went into triggered a different severed part of her brain. The files Mark had been sorting were the feelings or emotions associated with each room. They’re not just any feelings though—they’re Lumon’s “four tempers” of the soul: Woe, Frolic, Dread, and Malice. To sum it all up, Lumon is promising a suffering-free existence for outies, with their innies bearing the metaphorical cross for them. But this revelation is just the tip of the iceberg.
Although Mark Scout’s innie, Mark S., helped Gemma escape Lumon HQ, he shocked viewers when he refused to cross over with her and instead ran back into the severed office with Helly R. He knows he will suffer in the Lumon offices but the alternative is death and a life without Helly (who we all now know is actually an Eagan). Which fate is worse?
That’s yet to be seen. And despite the Cold Harbor case being closed, we still have some lingering questions. We’ll have to wait for Severance season three to find out more, but in the meantime, here are all the still-unanswered fan theories to chew on.
At the beginning of season two, Natalie asks Ricken if he would like to write a counterinsurgent book for innies after his book The You You Are inspired Mark Scout’s innie to revolt. He seriously considers it, to Devon’s disapproval. His hunger for money and influence doesn’t necessarily make him a Lumon agent, however, it is fishy that Cobel and Milchick allowed his book into the office and left it in a room where the innies could find it. Also, he’s been compared to a goat and has a lot of goat imagery generally surrounding him. Season two, Episode seven even revealed that Ricken is a rock climber, with Devon likening his skill to a mountain goat's. Goats, we now know thanks to this finale, are important sacrificial animals to the Eagans. Which brings us to one of the funniest Severance fan theories: Could Ricken even be the outie for a Lumon goat?
Fans have also pointed out how closely he resembles Mr. Drummond. Perhaps he’s even an Eagan? That would explain why Gemma and Mark were targeted for experimentation.
So where does that leave Devon? Enter the “Turtleneck Theory”—the fact that slot of the villains wear turtlenecks because they are hiding something. Devon and Ricken are also often wearing shades of Lumon blue, gray, and white. It could be a personal sartorial choice—or it could hint at something more sinister.
When Jame Eagan visits Helly in the severed office in episode nine, he tells her “You tricked me. My Helly.” She’s extremely confused and responds, “What the fuck?” Up until this point, he had never referred to Helena as “Helly.” He has also never referred to Helly by name, opting to call her different variations of “scum.”
Some fans suspect that Helly was severed as a child so that her parents could control her from the start. That would explain why Helena is so compliant, hardened, and cruel. It also explains why Helly is so hell-bent on destroying the Eagans. This whole innie revolution was set into motion when she arrived as a Lumon worker.
In the finale, when Mark and Helly run off into the sunset, Helly turns and gives Gemma a sinister smirk. As Irving said in an earlier episode, “Helly was never cruel.” Helly also has the strongest death drive I’ve ever seen. She would rather die than stay in that office—and she also would rather die than allow someone she loves, Mark, to stay there. Perhaps Helly has become so blinded by love that she also makes the sacrifice to stay at Lumon. Perhaps her hatred for outies transcends her hatred for the office. Maybe she’d rather suffer in hell with Mark than allow outie Gemma and outie Mark to live happily ever after. Or is she Helena, who doesn’t want to return to her loveless and depressing outie life with her perverted father?
This is by far the most confounding unanswered question that will no doubt have a major impact on season three.
The recurring title sequence of the show has a cartoon version of Mark surrounded by babies in his bed. Plus, in an early season one episode, Mark watches a news segment where it’s reported that a woman working at Lumon got pregnant during work hours. Viewers suspect that the woman is Carol, the person who was there before Helly. There’s also the speculation that Petey and Carol had a work romance like Mark and Helly—which could be the reason why Petey got a divorce and why Petey’s ex-wife hates Lumon.
Why would Lumon want to make babies? There are three theories. One is good old-fashioned eugenics. They want to go forth and multiply. The second is to move the souls of the past Eagans into the bodies of the babies, a.k.a. “the Revolving.” It could also be tied to the Winteride fellowship—Miss Huang and Cobel were so young when they became fellows and were severed, perhaps because children are more malleable and easier to control. If Lumon could sever people when they’re babies, they could hypothetically start with an emotional tabula rasa and create an entire army of compliant workers.
There's also the widespread theory that Helly is pregnant with Mark's baby, which if proven true in season three would raise even more questions: Would the Eagans promise Mark and Helly permanent innie status if Helly/Helena is pregnant with the Eagan heir? This would further complicate the love triangle between Gemma, Helly, and Mark—and could put him in conflict with the rest of his fellow innies.
This theory is mainly a work of fan fiction, but it has become clear that Reghabi worked under Cobel while they perfected the severance procedures. They’re the only two who know how to reintegrate innies and outies. The major clue that people have clung to is that Cobel refused to go with Doug Graner to track down Reghabi—though, to be fair, she was busy stalking Mark and Petey.
A case could be made that she didn’t want to betray a fellow scientist. Or could it be that it would be too painful for her to reunite with her former lover under those circumstances?
Either way, it seems as if there's more to their history that we still need to unpack in season three.
The Milchick mole theory can feel like wishful thinking. Milchick is the most complicated character on the show. He’s a cruel middle manager, but he’s a Black man in a suffocatingly white workplace. We root for the innies when they’re mean to him but we also root for him when he rebels against the Lumon leadership. (And who can forget when he tells Mr. Drummond to devour feculance?) For the sake of his fictional soul, it would be nice to find out in season three that he’s taking Lumon down from the inside out—then again, this isn’t a Disney movie.