Top 10 Unanswered Questions Severance Needs to Answer

Harmony Cobel may be one of the most captivating tv villains we’ve seen in some time– that is, given she’s a villain at all! Cobel is both the head of the severed floor at Lumon, and Mark S’s seemingly harmless– albeit quite nosy– neighbor. While we spent a fair deal of time watching her integrate herself (pun intended) into Mark’s personal life, what we never fully come to understand is… why? Do her motives have something to do with Gemma’s alleged death and re-emergence on the severed floor? Does she have some personal stake in the severance process? Is she actually as dedicated to serving Kier as she claims? No matter what the true reason is, we imagine the truth is far from Milchick’s freaky explanation.

The premiere episode of “Severance”’s second season surely spawned more questions than answers for expectant fans– which, to be fair, is exactly what we anticipated! Of them, one of the more curious developments was the new group of refiners brought in to replace the rest of Mark’s team following their uprising. Apparently, they were in part transferred over from a defunct Lumon branch, assuming that they were to be “retired” –cough, cough– permanently. So, what happened to their previous branch? Also, exactly how many Lumon branches are there? Is the fact that one of them was shut down indicative of larger problems at the company that we’re not yet privy to? And finally… will we ever see this new MDR team again? Time will tell!

We don’t care what anyone says… Dylan is the star of Macrodata Refinement. Having surrendered himself to manning the control board during their overtime contingency rebellion, we the audience see the least of Dylan in his “outtie” form. Though we previously learned that he has a son, that’s really all we know about his life on the outside. Milchick manipulatively discloses to him that he has two other children and a wife named Gretchen, but we find it hard to believe anything he says at face value! We have to wonder: what motivated Dylan to be severed? We can make some assumptions– perhaps the pay or the benefits are particularly good for someone supporting a family. But knowing “Severance,” we can’t imagine the answer to be so simple– maybe Dylan’s outtie has a dark secret that we’re yet to learn. And no, we’re not talking about the MILFs.

Speaking of the rebellion, when MDR breaks into the security office, we see a whole slew of control options available to management which correspond with settings in the severed employee’s chips. We know this to be the case, as this led to their ability to wake themselves up on the outside. So, what else can they do with those pesky little mind control devices? There are settings like “elephant,” “clean slate,” and “glasgow,” which for now, we can only make inferences about. But based on their names, they all have some connection to the mind, memory, and consciousness. For example, “glasgow” is a term used in the measurement of brain function in patients in comas, and an “elephant” never forgets. As for “clean slate,” that one sounds pretty self explanatory… and bleak. Will we see these functions come into play at some point? For the plot, we hope so. For the employee’s mental state, not so much!

When Irv wakes up on the outside during the overtime contingency, he’s in the midst of painting a dark hallway, and at the end of which, a red elevator button shining down. We keen observers recognize this as the path to the testing floor, which we’d seen Ms. Casey disappear into. First of all, what does Lumon do to employees on the testing floor? Why has Irv been there, and why does his outtie have an obsessive recollection of it? Early in the first season, there are indications that his memories seem to be converging in a mysterious way, as black goop visually bleeds into his innie’s perception while at work. We know that he has a long history with the company, but has he been “reset” in a way that’s unique to the others?

The concept of reintegration is a particularly head-scratching one. When we meet Petey on the outside, we learn that he’s undergone a procedure to converge his severance chip, so that he has access to both his “outtie” and “innie” memories. This ultimately kills him, as there was a failure in the maintenance process, which we later hear from the rogue Reghabi. Reghabi claims that she installed the devices, and now aims to reverse the terrible work that she’s done. We see very little of her, so it’s challenging to know exactly, for lack of a better phrase, what her deal is. Now, not yet having seen any developments in the “outtie” world since the events of the finale, there’s a theory swirling that Mark may have opted to reintegrate. We can’t know this for sure, but we have a hunch that Reghabi’s character will return, and that we’ll learn more about this puzzling procedure!

Arguably the biggest twist of the season one finale is the reveal that Helly is actually Helena Eagan, Lumon CEO’s daughter. When she wakes up outside, she brashly reveals that she’s actually Helly, and that she’s miserable on the inside. When she returns to work in the premiere, she makes the interesting choice to lie to her team about her “outtie”’s identity. This has raised the question: is the person we’ve seen back in MDR actually Helly, or is Helena posing as her “innie” self to sabotage their operation? There’s a tiny easter egg that may be intended to imply the latter, as Helly’s newest file to refine is titled “Santa Mira,” which may be an allusion to “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

No, we’re not calling MDR the GOATs… even though they are. We’re talking about the literal goats that Helly and Mark stumble upon when they’re exploring the severed floor. We only see them (and their frazzled handler) that one time, and there’s never any indication as to why they’re there or what they’re going to be used for. But once again, we can use some of our “outtie” knowledge and context clues to try and fill in the blanks here! Scientifically, goats have been used for cloning research since 1999, so there’s likely some genetic experimentation going on at Lumon which is being tested on this misplaced herd of cattle.

Now onto what may have been the biggest twist of the first season as a whole– the revelation that Mark S’s wife, who was presumed dead, is actually alive as a severed employee at Lumon. As we mentioned earlier, we know that her severed counterpart Ms. Casey was sent down to the testing floor, but that’s the last we see of her. The final frames of the season two premiere seem to suggest that Gemma is alive, as we see her face and what appear to be some vitals flash on Mark’s screen. While this clearly wasn’t visible to Mark, this also implies that the work that he’s doing at MDR has some bearing on Gemma’s life. This will surely be a major plot point in season two, and we’re on the edge of our seats waiting to learn more!


FakeOut #1: And finally, the question on everyone’s mind…


Oh, wait. They answered that one. Nevermind!

We keep making reference to MDR, or Macrodata Refinement, which is the Lumon department in which Mark, Helly, Irv and Dylan are bound. But… no one actually knows what they’re doing, or why they’re doing it. They’re tasked with fencing off numbers on their screens, which are meant to make them feel a specific emotion. And, as we predicted in the previous entry, it seems that there’s some connection between MDR and the employees themselves, though it’s still entirely unclear. However, the fact that the team must be severed to complete their work, and that their “innies” are kept in the dark as well, seems to exhibit that there’s something sinister happening in Macrodata Refinement.



Do you have theories about any of the questions we posed here? Fire them off in the comments!