4 Glaring Flaws That Kept The ‘Severance’ Season 2 Finale From Being A Masterpiece
The Severance fandom that closely watched each episode and picked apart every easter-egg was met with a finale that provided answers they’d already figured out, while burning questions went unaddressed and new ones arose unnecessarily.
Here are its four most egregious failings:
1. Neither Mark’s innie or outie demand an explanation for what Lumon is doing to his wife.
Cobel finally confirmed what MDR has been doing all this time – parsing through a hashed version of Gemma’s consciousness, categorizing her psychological ‘meta-data’ into the four tempers (woe, frolic, dread, and malice), but neither version of Mark asked the most pressing and pertinent questions.
Why are they doing this to her? Why did they target Gemma as a test subject? How were they able to convincingly stage her death? Why is it necessary to kill her once their goals have been achieved? While fan-theories and internet speculation abound, it’s completely unrealistic that either Mark would make such a critical decision without demanding more context from Cobel.
With so much at stake, and after so much blatant abuse, manipulation, and suffering at the hands of Lumon, no rational person would willingly make such an uninformed decision, or choke down the unavoidable rage. Stiller and the writing team may be trying to preserve enough mystery to stretch across another season at the expense of the tempo and emotional integrity of an otherwise incredible plot.
2. We never confirm if Irving is safe.
In the penultimate episode, “The After Hours”, Irving’s heartbreaking separation from Burt is juxtaposed with Dylan’s suspenseful departure from the severed floor. We are as uncertain of whether innie Dylan’s resignation request will be approved as we are of Burt’s motive to help Irving escape.
The contrast between innie Irving’s earlier apology to Burt for not being ready to kiss him and physically consummate their relationship is mirrored by his confident declaration in the train station that his outie is ready to experience romantic love. The parallels bring into question whether Irving is reintegrated, whether he knows these two statements are connected, and whether he suspects Burt is also aware of what transpired between them on the severed floor.
Finally, the transition between the shots of the train and the dark, ominous hallway leading to the testing floor suggests that Irving may not truly be escaping. We see in the final episode that Dylan returns to the severed floor, but Irving makes no appearance. Jame Eagan does pay Helly a visit, but there’s no clear connection between his arrival and the earlier shots of the test floor elevator. So, why were they there?
As a fan of The Good Place, which gave us one of the most incredible plot twists of all time (and a train that didn’t lead where we expected it to), I would wager that there’s much we still don’t understand about the Severance universe, and that we may find Irving on the testing floor in Season 3.
3. The goat ‘sacrifice’ was insufficiently explained.
The scene between Lorne and Drummond set such high expectations for a meaningful explanation to Severance‘s most bizarre plot point (like TV’s reparations for the LOST polar bears) and then devolves into annoyingly cryptic dialogue joined by equally cryptic hieroglyphics.
Drummond asks if the goat has verve and wiles, and then tells Lorne, “this beast will be entombed with a cherished woman whose spirit it must guide to Kier’s door”, then begins a sacrificial ceremony in which he states they will “commit this animal to Kier and his eternal war against pain”.
As Drummond delivers that dialogue, the screen zooms in on a design bordering the sacrificial ‘altar’, akin to traffic or bathroom icons that take a page from Squid Games, illustrating someone kneeling with their head in their hands, next to a goat, and someone standing with their head held high.
Are we supposed to interpret this literally to mean the goat will be physically ‘entombed’ with Gemma like an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh, or do the icons illustrate a popular fan theory that Lumon is swapping human consciousness with that of goats? Either way, the partial reveal unfairly and unnecessarily tests viewers’ patience.
4. The ‘Cold Harbor’ reveal was anticlimactic and would have worked better as psychological torture for Mark.
While we know Gemma’s struggle with infertility is likely what led to her captivity at Lumon (her clinic intake paperwork bore their logo), we see from flashbacks that Mark’s negative reaction and distancing from his wife during such an emotional low point was likely an even bigger source of pain for Gemma.
Being seated across from Mark in the wellness center and their many interactions on the severed floor should have been a much higher stakes test than the act of taking apart a crib with no other human interaction. We’ve seen that without the use of the Overtime Contingency Plan or attempted reintegration there haven’t been any confirmed bugs with the severance system (black paint bleeding into innie Irving’s consciousness still begs an explanation).
Meanwhile, entering that room should have registered a much more heightened emotional response from Mark. While we see him struggle with grief and alcohol use, we never see him address or confront the regret he presumably has for how he treated his wife prior to what we thought was her tragic death and now know to be a disappearance.
It was a clear opening for him to apologize and admit the many ways he failed to support her and ultimately abandoned her in a time of great need. This writing team could have delivered a heartfelt and Emmy-worthy monologue, which by falling on Gemma’s severed ears would have amplified the desperation and urgency of the situation to create an even more meaningful climax for this season.
With the Season 3 renewal already confirmed, the best we can do is hope the Severance team will make good on worthwhile answers to these lingering questions.