Severance's Most Disturbing Episode Was Almost Titled After A Star Trek Movie

The season 2 finale of "Severance" is perhaps the show's darkest installment yet. After viewers spent so much time rooting for Innie Mark and Outtie Mark to meet, the two finally get to talk and it does not go over well. It turns out that Outtie Mark is sort of like Outtie Helena, in that he's failed to appreciate his innie as a real, compete person. He doesn't get that Innie Mark values his own life just as much as anyone would, and he's not going to let Outtie Mark turn him off. 

Their inability to find common ground leads to perhaps the most devastating final moments of a TV show finale in years: Innie Mark abandons Outtie Mark's wife, Gemma, in order to go back to a (likely doomed) romance with Helly. You can argue that "Cold Harbor" has a hopeful ending from the innies' perspectives, but it's definitely a downer as far as the outties are concerned. 

The conversation between the two Marks, the one that foreshadows the tragedy of the episode's ending, is what almost led to the finale having a completely different title. As screenwriter Dan Erikson explained in a recent interview with Esquire, "Cold Harbor" was originally named after a "Star Trek" movie.

"[The conversation between Innie and Outie Mark] is a scene I had always wanted to write," Erikson explained. "It's funny — I originally titled the episode "First Contact." It's about their first contact. It's also a reference to Adam Scott, who was in 'Star Trek: First Contact.' I always knew that at one point we had to get these two face-to-face to the degree that it is possible — given that they have the same face."

Ultimately, it seems like the "Star Trek" connection wasn't enough to justify that sort of title. (Adam Scott's role in the "Star Trek" franchise is fun, but short-lived and unmemorable.) It made more sense to go with "Cold Harbor," a title that implied a resolution to the long-running mystery of what the Microdata Refinement team has been "refining" all season.

Although viewers had already been given the gist of what Cold Harbor was about in the season's scary seventh episode, which dove into what's been going on with Gemma this whole time, the season 2 finale was the first time Mark himself learned that the project he's been working on is his wife. It's also the episode where he and Innie Mark manage to work together just long enough to get Gemma out of Lumon's severed floors, something Outtie Mark's been trying to do for awhile. The first contact between the two Marks may have been the catalyst for much of what went down in the finale, but Gemma is definitely the most important person here. 

There's a good chance that Gemma receives a lot more screentime in season 3, and viewers will get to properly know her to the same degree we now know Mark or Helly. This will be a major shift to the series' status quo, one with perhaps the largest ramifications of any plot point from this episode. "First Contact" might've been a decent title, serving as a fun Easter egg for any hardcore Adam Scott fans in the audience, but "Cold Harbor" was definitely the smarter title for the finale as a whole.