Severance Season 2's Biggest Mysteries & Unanswered Questions

Please try to enjoy the following major spoilers equally. This article discusses events from the season 2 finale of "Severance."

Phew, everyone take a breath. Three years ago, "Severance" season 1 built to an unforgettable cliffhanger that seemed to shake up the entire series moving forward. Season 2 has taken a rather more deliberate approach from week to week, taking time for huge detours such as the flashback-heavy episode 7 or the surprising (though somewhat less effective) origin story for a certain Ms. Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette). By the end, however, things ramped up at a precipitous pace and left us on an even bigger cliffhanger than before. While rescuing Gemma (Dichen Lachman) from the clutches of Lumon Industries, Mark S. (Adam Scott) makes an abrupt, last-minute decision that could have larger ramifications to come. Just when it seemed like the plan had gone off without a hitch, our favorite innie decides to leave Gemma in (relative) safety and return to the arms of his favorite innie, Helly R. (Britt Lower). The final image of the season sees Mark reenacting his season-opening mad scramble around Lumon's hallways, though this time around his circumstances have changed significantly.

There's no telling where things could go next, but that's not stopping us from wildly speculating anyway. Season 2 provided a host of answers to burning questions we've had all along, but not all. As the smoke clears on the finale and all eyes look ahead to whatever season 3 might have in store for us, we've been busy rounding up all the remaining mysteries that are still keeping us awake at night. For the sake of both your attention span and mine, we'll chalk up slightly more minor ones as honorable mentions. These would include the identities of those on Lumon's mysterious "Board," the whereabouts of the eternally-peppy secretary Natalie (Sydney Cole Alexander), and whether the stuffy author Ricken Hale (Michael Chernus) ever actually got around to rewriting his book specifically for innies.

For all the rest, however? Here's an extensive breakdown of every major unanswered loose thread that remains. Oh, and in case that big ol' warning up top didn't make it clear, there will be spoilers ahead.

This might seem like an odd place to start after a finale that gave us so many answers regarding the nature of Cold Harbor — Lumon's central ambition in keeping Gemma imprisoned below the severed floor — but the question remains. Thanks to Cobel's exposition dump in the birthing cabin (what a sentence), we know that all of Mark S.'s refining work at his computer station has actually been about creating various innie consciousnesses for Gemma to be split off into. We know that Lumon has been subjecting her to various experiments — essentially torture — in order to test the bounds of the severance procedure. What we don't know, however, is the "why" of it all.

It seems that much of the Cold Harbor project is built around the numbing or even erasure of pain, which is highlighted as one of Kier's main obsessions, hence Gemma being forced disassemble the crib of the child she'll never have without batting an eye or shedding a tear. But any detail beyond that remains intentionally obscured. Even after the finale, we've yet to receive an explanation of why Lumon picked Gemma specifically, how they faked her death, whether it was merely a happy coincidence that a distraught Mark Scout went on to undergo the severance procedure, and just what the heck they planned on actually doing with Cold Harbor had they achieved their goals. 

That last part is perhaps the most significant ... and the most likely to be resolved in a third season. Cobel informed a horrified Mark and Devon (Jen Tullock) that completing the Cold Harbor file would inevitably mean the death of Gemma and likely Mark S. and the rest of the innies, as well. But to what end, exactly? What does Lumon intend to do with what they learned from the Cold Harbor experiment that would have ramifications out in the real world? That, frustratingly, remains to be seen.

This is admittedly related to the question above, but it's just different enough to merit some space to itself. Every show needs a main, overarching villain, and the evil corporate entity known as Lumon Industries sure fits the bill. By now, viewers are well familiar with the controversial idea of severance and the gross exploitation of workers that this technology has led to ... but, thus far, we've been kept fully in the dark about what the whole endgame here truly is.

Let's tackle all the various elements one by one. Is Lumon and its corporate backers seriously trying to accomplish all the grandiose, pie-in-the-sky ambitions that's fed to the innies on a daily basis ... or is all that talk about Cold Harbor representing the most important thing in the history of humanity just propaganda from a faceless conglomerate? Is perfecting the severance procedure their one and only mission? If so, how does the legacy and quasi-religious fervor for original founder Kier Eagan fit into it all? Are higher-level employees like Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman) and Cobel fully aware of the grand designs of the company they're working for? Are Lumon and the Eagan family genuinely trying to take over the world or something? Could this all go back to the fan-theory about clones? Are we overthinking this?

A show like "Severance" can send even the most reasonable-minded audiences down a rabbit's hole of conspiracy theories, and we'd expect nothing less. Maybe these pressing mysteries will be solved next season. Then again, maybe not.

Okay, now we're getting to the down-and-dirty details. With all this laid out, can you think of another show that buries so many important establishing details under the crushing weight of mystery box storytelling? But as someone who thoroughly enjoyed "Lost" back when it was on the air, in all honesty, I'm perfectly okay with "Severance" keeping so much of its basic premise under wraps for as long as it has.

That includes the literal setting of this story, which is as fundamental as it gets. To be fair, previous episodes have highlighted that the town surround the Lumon office is apparently called Kier, PE, as seen in various license plates on cars and other identifying elements scattered throughout town. Eagle-eyed fans will quickly realize two important implications here. First, this is clearly named after the long-dead Eagan family patriarch and further hints at the idea of Lumon's strong influence on the real world. Secondly, and most obviously, there is no state in the US with the abbreviation of "PE."

So what the heck is going on here? Theories abound that "Severance" takes place in a far more heightened world than our own, which is certainly backed up by the presence of that anti-severance protest group from season 1 known as the Whole Mind Collective and the bizarre frozen wasteland the innies are dropped into on their Outdoor Retreat and Team-Building Occurrence (ORTBO). But there are other intriguing clues that things aren't entirely on the level, such as the idea that we've only ever seen the town of Kier covered in snow despite quite a bit of time passing between both seasons or the subtle notion that nobody in "Severance" seems to own an iPhone (though, as critic Jake Kleinman pointed out in a recent Mashable article, there's a fun real-world reason for this, too). We'll just have to wait and see if this is ever fully addressed.

Man, it's been rough sledding for all the Irving B. (John Turturro) fans out there. First, his innie ended up getting, ah, permanently retired from Lumon employment during the aforementioned ORTBO episode. (Attempting to drown the heiress to the Eagan family legacy in the sacred pool of Woe's Hollow will probably have that effect.) Then, against all odds, the series returned to Irving in the form of his outie and his ongoing investigation into Lumon Industries ... until he, too, ended up bidding farewell to the show when he got a little too close for Lumon's comfort and was ferried away by Burt G.'s (Christopher Walken) outie to some unknown location far, far away from Kier, PE. Two tragic goodbyes for the price of one? Brutal.

But it's the activities of Irving Bailiff (as his outie is known) that continues to have us scratching our heads. Remember, we found out way back in season 1 that his oil painting hobby somehow started bleeding into his innie's life within the severed floor of Lumon. That seemed to imply that Irving had previously undergone the reintegration procedure that Mark S. most recently started, but things got weirder from there. As we all learned, his outie was painting a very specific location hidden deep within the halls of Lumon — the black testing floor hallway leading to that creepy elevator which, in turn, pointed the way to Gemma's confinement below. How could Irving's outie possibly have known about this to paint it over and over again in his apartment? And, on a related note, what made him suspicious enough to conduct an investigation into Lumon in the first place? The season 1 finale shows Irving's innie, wakened by the Overtime Contingency, discovering his outie's copious notes about Lumon employees and where they live. Since then, we've seen Irving Bailiff make multiple phone calls from a public payphone to some mysterious individual who's apparently helping him.

Now that Irving has left the show twice over, will this little mystery ever be resolved? Will season 3 bring John Turturro back into the action somehow, perhaps by cutting short Irving Bailiff's exile and having him return to the action? We're dying to find out, either way.

Ah, those pesky numbers. One of the first things "Severance" ever introduced to unsuspecting audiences back in its debut season was the concept of those work stations and the job of sorting random-looking numbers into digital bins for ... reasons. All we knew was that each grouping of numbers evoked certain feelings that the workers of Macrodata Refinement would innately perceive. For much of the show, this busybody work has remained a question mark: What exactly are they doing and to what end? In the season 2 finale, Cobel finally spills the beans that Mark S. has been unwittingly creating new innie consciousnesses for Gemma with every file he completes during the workday. Every emotion corresponds to one of the core "tempers" associated with the Eagan cult that serve as "building blocks for the mind," as Cobel puts it. Constructing these blocks also contributed to Gemma's predicament, however, condemning his outie's wife to further torture and experimentation in those various rooms on the testing floor. Bleak stuff.

But, wait, so what about the rest of Mark's coworkers then? Although never directly stated, it's easy to make the leap that Mark S. was given this task because his outie holds such close ties to his wife Gemma and, thus, he'd be the best person to sort through her tempers. That certainly would explain why Lumon holds him in such high regard and treats him as the only person capable of completing the Cold Harbor file. So ... what were Helly R., Irving B., and Dylan G. doing all this time, then? They had been working on various files throughout the two seasons, too, but was all that number-crunching contributing to Gemma's imprisonment? Are there multiple people like Gemma trapped on the testing floor, just waiting to be found? How deep does this go?

Of all the various questions, this is one that I suspect may never be answered. The other innies had to do something at work all this time, even as the focus would eventually center on Mark S., so perhaps it was easiest for the writers to simply brush this aside. This may end up a mere, meaningless "plot hole" in the grand scheme of things.

Isn't this the question of the day (and all the days ahead)? After everyone's properly digested the ending of season 2 and all the breadcrumbs hinting at where the story will go next, it's only natural to look ahead to season 3. And at the forefront of all our minds will inevitably be the topic of what could possibly happen once the next season arrives.

Well, let's look at this analytically. Several key pieces remain up in the air, starting with Mark S. and Helly R. remaining on the severed floor while Gemma is finally free (or close to freedom, at least, considering that she still needs to navigate the rest of the Lumon office building unscathed before exiting the premises and ending her waking nightmare). Dylan G. still remains inside, too, and having all three in Lumon's clutches would be a hell of a bargaining chip against the turncoat Cobel, Mark's sister Devon, the rogue Lumon scientist Asal Reghabi (Karen Aldridge), and, of course, Mark's outie. There's also the uncertain status of Mr. Milchick, who came extremely close to outright insubordination against his superiors on several occasions this season and seemed to be positioned as a wildcard who could potentially flip allegiances. That could still happen, but our bet would be on Milchick's major character turn going down sometime in season 3.

Beyond that, there's the uncomfortable reality that "Severance" can only go so far. If you ask me, the tense debate early in the finale between Mark's innie refusing to let his existence get wiped away and Mark's outie insisting on saving his wife at all costs almost represents a tipping point for the show itself. If the goal is to take down Lumon, that effectively means the end for half of the show's premise. Can the writers keep delaying that inevitable, just to keep the innies involved in the story? Or, as I suspect, will season 3 need to mark the conclusion of this entire story — one way or another? We'll have plenty of time to chew that over, but hopefully not too much time. One thing's for sure: Nobody's willing to stomach another three year wait for the next season of "Severance."