One Severance Season 2 Finale Injury Was For Real — And It Made It Into The Episode

If I may paraphrase Stefon, Bill Hader's character from "Saturday Night Live," the season 2 finale of "Severance," titled "Cold Harbor," has everything. A marching band! A tearful romantic reunion! A camcorder argument between Mark Scout's (Adam Scott) innie and outie! Also, there's a brutal fight scene that, apparently, also features a real injury Scott earned during shooting.

In a feature in GQ that ran after "Cold Harbor" aired, Scott said that while his character's innie Mark S. was being savagely attacked by the evil Lumon employee Mr. Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) in the hallways of the company's severed floor, he actually beaned his noggin on one of the set's walls. "I mean, the truly dangerous stuff that requires skill was stunts, and they were incredible," Scott recalled before revealing that the episode's director — and the show's executive producer — Ben Stiller had to get involved. 

"I did hit my head on a wall at one point," he continued. Afterwards, I was like, "Wait, wait, wait," because I got slammed into the wall. I was supposed to bring my arm up — we practiced it over and over again — but I just got caught on my suit." Still, apparently Stiller was really into the shot they got, injury notwithstanding: "[We] called a doctor and all that stuff. Ben [Stiller] was making sure I'm OK, then he came up to me a little later and he goes, [whispers] 'By the way, so good,' so it's in the show."

Elsewhere in the interview, Adam Scott was blunt and said that "Severance" is just a tough show to shoot overall, which isn't shocking. As a guy whose grief over his deceased wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman) drove him to agree to a "severance" procedure where his "innie" goes to work at Lumon and his "outie" in the real world knows nothing about what he does during the day, Mark goes through a lot in "Severance." In season 2 alone, he undergoes a risky neurosurgery in his basement that might allow him to "reintegrate" (which would, ideally, make his innie and outie one and the same) and is tricked by Helena Eagan, the sinister heir to Lumon, while she pretends to be her own "innie," Helly R. (Both Helena and Helly are played by Britt Lower.) Also, again, he has to stage an argument with himself via camcorder in "Cold Harbor" as his "innie" and "outie" go to war. As Scott explained, "Severance" is hard work, but it's incredibly fulfilling.

"The show is labor-intensive, which is a good thing," he said. "It's the most fun I've ever had working. There's no scene on 'Severance' that isn't complicated. Over and over, I've fallen into the trap of being like, 'Oh, we're shooting the thing tomorrow where I walk into the room and tell Helly to come with me. This will be easy.' But then we're there on the day, and it's like, oh, no, this is happening. There's always nine things going on. There's no actual simple scene on the show. And that's what's so fun about it. There's no day of rest. This season in particular was draining physically for me, but that's also really good. That's part of what I love about making it: any skills I may have picked up over the years, I use it all on the show. So at the end of a 10-month season, I'm wiped out."

The most surprising part of "Cold Harbor" (which is saying something) also centers around Mark, specifically focusing on a vital choice he makes in the episode's final moments. Since discovering that Gemma is still alive at the end of the show's first season, Mark has been trying to find her, even as he develops a romantic relationship with Helly R. — and in the standout season 2 episode "Chikhai Bardo," the audience learns that Gemma's "outie" is trapped below the severed floor on Lumon's testing floor, essentially being tortured for a twisted research project. (Gemma's "innie" is the severed floor's wellness counselor Miss Casey, and it definitely seems like her presence is meant to test the bonds of severance as she and Mark repeatedly interact.)

So what does Adam Scott think of Mark's impulsive decision, after staging a daring rescue, to leave Gemma behind and instead run away with Helly on the severed floor? "[Creator] Dan [Erickson] had a perfect place to end the season, and it was just a matter of how to get there," Scott told the outlet. "I think that was always thought of as a great place to leave it — or, maybe end it right before the choice is made. But we all were thinking it would be great to let the audience experience the decision to go through with it. When it was time to actually shoot it, it was like, 'Wow, OK, we're really doing this.' This is a bold way to go, and a heartbreaking way to go, particularly since I have so much admiration for Dichen [Lachman] and Britt [Lower], and I love those characters so much." Not only that, but Scott thinks it really comes down to the vastly different lived experiences of his "innie" and "outie":

"I think Innie Mark spent a good amount of the season trying to figure out how to find Gemma and get her out of there for his Outie. His Outie was doing the same, and they had the same mission, but at a certain point they diverged a bit. It put them on a collision course, and so at some point there had to be a decision for someone. It's agonizing, but I think by the time the choice is in front of him, Mark has grown up a bit and knows he's in love with this person."

"Severance" is streaming on Apple TV+ now.