See You at the Equator

Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for the Severance Season 2 finale.

The end of the remarkable Season 2 of Severance is here, and the last-ditch efforts of outie Mark (Adam Scott) to save his wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman) are in full bloom. Last-minute would be accurate, too, because if Cold Harbor is completed, she won’t survive. Last week we had several major acts of resistance — Helly (Britt Lower) against Milchick (Tramell Tillman), Milchick against Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), and Burt (Christopher Walken) against Lumon (for love, no less). We also saw Irving (John Turturro) depart for whereabouts unknown and Dylan G. (Zach Cherry) file paperwork to quit. A lot is up in the air!

The episode starts immediately by repeating Devon’s previous words (Jen Tullock) to Mark S.: “Do you remember the last thing you said to me?” “She’s alive,” he says. Cut to a Mark S.-eye view of Cobel (Patricia Arquette), who asks him if he’s finished Cold Harbor yet. He’s confused, particularly at the sight of Cobel, but says he hasn’t. “Then she’s still alive. We can save her,” Cobel replies, before going on to explain the existence of a long, black, hidden hallway that’s different from the others. “From Irving’s drawings, with an elevator going down,” Mark supplies, to Cobel’s surprise. “We know where it is.”

Cut to Helly R. in the MDR office, being subjected to the presence of Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry). “What a funny speech you gave at the party,” he says (as Helly covertly grabs a pen off of her desk to wield it like a knife). “I was cross with you after… I threw a tin of candies.” She looks at him with disdain, and whispers, “God you’re f*cking weird.” Jame walks closer and tells Helly that he doesn’t love his daughter — AKA her outie, Helena Eagan. “I used to see Kier in her, but he left as she grew.” Jame admits that he went on to have other progeny “in the shadows” who also were, to his dismay, Kier-free. Apparently, that’s all changed, because now Jame does see Kier — in Helly. She moves in preparation to rush him, coiled to strike with her pen, and stops before delivering a badass line: “You and your family created Hell, and you’re going to burn in it.” However, Jame simply looks at her and makes a remark about tomorrow being a “special day” before turning to leave. Helly demands answers about why he’s on the severed floor and what he wants from her, but the Lumon CEO simply disappears.

Mark Argues With Himself in the ‘Severance’ Season 2 Finale

Back with Mark S., he’s finally catching up to the complex new revelation he’s been given that, once he finishes Cold Harbor, Lumon will subject Gemma to a final test, which she won’t survive. Cobel explains that once the file is done, he’ll need to get to the Testing Floor quickly through that elevator. There, outie Mark will take over, and he’ll have to find Gemma and bring her back to the severed floor so that Mark’s innie can escort her to the exit door. He’s in disbelief, and Devon explains that she knows “this is a f*cking lot, man, but if we can prove that she is alive, if we can prove that they f*cking kidnapped her, it will end them.” When Mark asks what will happen to the innies on the severed floor, though, Devon doesn’t have an answer. “Oh,” he says, “you want me to give my life? The lives of everyone down there…” Devon expresses that it’s more complex than that, but Mark interrupts: “… just to save one person you happen to care about.” Devon brings out a camcorder and tells Mark S. to watch the video on it before opening a door to the birthing cabin’s balcony. Cobel explains he’s to record a response, then step outside, and then both she and Devon disappear downstairs.

Through these recorded videos, outie Mark introduces himself to Mark S.: “Well, I guess you know who I am.” The first thing Outie Mark wants to say is that he’s sorry — he created Mark S. as a sort of escape, and Lumon told him innies were happy, but he didn’t realize Mark S. has “been living a nightmare for two years,” and he wants to make it right. Mark S. thanks Outie Mark for the apology, but explains that innies find ways to “feel whole, which is why what you’re asking scares me.” He hopes his outie can understand that innies don’t want their lives to end. Outie Mark points out, though, that Lumon doesn’t have to be Mark S.’s whole life, and explains that he’s begun the reintegration process promising to complete it once Gemma is free because “our life belongs to both of us.” Mark S. wonders about the possible disparity in existence between the two, since Outie Mark has been alive and aware for much longer. “So, whoever this new hybrid person is, it seems like he’d be way more you than me.” Outie Mark insists that’s not how it works, but he can’t offer an alternate explanation about what reintegration will result in.

“I mourned Gemma for two years,” Outie Mark goes on to explain, emphasizing that he ultimately lost his teaching job as a result of drinking before going on to simply pretend that his wife never existed by hiding her things in the basement, and later rationalized that severance saved his innie from that pain. He notes that Cobel explained that Mark S. has found love, and he asks his innie to think of what he and “Helleny” have and multiply it by “thousands of days of joy, and arguments, and passions.” Reserved but angry, Mark S. corrects his outie. “It’s Helly, actually,” he says, “which you’d know if you’d ever taken an interest in my life, before tonight, when you need something.” He adds that they both know he’ll lose Helly, though, because Helena Eagan won’t reintegrate, “assuming every word outta your mouth isn’t a lie.” Outie Mark explains that he’s merely trying to get his wife back, and Mark S. angrily barks that the second his outie gets Gemma back, “You forget I ever existed. I think that I disappear along with every innie down there.” Outie Mark claims that they’re “in this together,” and pleads, “Can’t you just trust me?” Mark S. answers coldly and in one word: “No.” Outie Mark then complains to Devon and Cobel about his innie’s unreasonable behavior, to which Cobel suggests that she’ll speak with Mark S. alone.

Helly Wants Mark to Keep Living in the ‘Severance’ Season 2 Finale

Once alone with Mark S., Cobel breaks it all down for him: “The MDR numbers, from your console. They’re a doorway into the mind of your outie’s wife, Gemma Scout.” He doesn’t grasp her meaning, so she clarifies by asking what he feels when he looks at the numbers themselves, and Mark S. describes a variety of emotions. Cobel interrupts: “Woe, frolic, malice, dread.” “So you’re saying the clusters are…” Mark starts to ask. “Her tempers,” Cobel explains. “The building blocks of her mind.”

“Every file you’ve completed is a new consciousness for her,” Cobel clarifies. “A new innie.” The realization hits, then, as Mark admits he’s completed 24 files. Cobel informs him that Cold Harbor is the last, and tomorrow will be Mark S.’s final day at Lumon. “You will have served your purpose, and so will she.” Mark S. doesn’t understand why Cobel is filling him in on this, but she’s about to serve him a brutal truth. “Mark, there’ll be no honeymoon ending for you and Helly R. She’s an Eagan. You’re nothing to them, nothing to her… they’ll discard you like a skin husk.” Mark S. gets angry, and tells Devon that if she loves her brother, the severed floor had better be the next thing Mark S. sees, “or I swear he will never see his wife again.”

Mark S. storms out of the birthing cabin, ignoring Cobel’s insistence that she cares about him, and immediately emerges out of the severed floor elevator, faced with another odd painting — this time of himself at a computer, flanked by the series’ cast in painted form, striking a holy pose with his hand raised towards the sky. As he stares down the picture, Helly enters behind him. The two embrace before making their way to MDR, where they find the room dark apart from a spotlight on an animatronic statue of Kier holding an envelope for Mark. The note inside reads: “The Founder wished to witness the historic completion of your 25th file. Helly R. shall also bear witness from her chair. Goodly splendors await upon your victory. Love, Mr. Milchick.” As Mark and Helly sit at their desks and his computer boots up, Helly mentions her strange encounter with Jame Eagan, and then the episode cuts to the severed floor elevator opening again to reveal a stunned Dylan G. (Zach Cherry). “He said no?” Dylan inquires, clearly shocked by his outie’s rejection of his resignation request.

Back with Mark and Helly, the latter asks how they can trust Cobel, but Mark claims she seems different compared to when she was their manager. He suggests he could just avoid completing Cold Harbor, but Helly reminds him, “If she’s telling the truth, we’re screwed either way.” She also suggests that if Mark gets Gemma out, it might take down Lumon, and then he could do “the combining thing” with his outie (AKA reintegration). Mark S. seems inclined to think his outie is a liar, but Helly emotionally points out, “What if he’s not? At least you’ll have a chance at living.” Mark insists he wants to be with her, but Helly, thinking of her own outie’s existence as an Eagan, simply says, “But I’m her, Mark. I’m her.” Tears in his eyes, Mark turns back to his computer and works to complete Cold Harbor.

Helly Looks for the Equator in the ‘Severance’ Season 2 Finale

Now in the Break Room, Milchick gives Dylan G. his outie’s response to his rejected resignation request. Milchick admits he’s too “swamped” to stick around while Dylan reads it, sliding the paper forward before suddenly making a mad dash out of the room. Dylan takes out a letter from his outie, which is organized into three points. First, “f*ck you,” his outie writes, because Dylan G.’s actions with Gretchen (Merritt Wever) were “indecorous.” Point two, he gets it, though, because Gretchen’s the best. He moves on to explain that “when Gretch told me you’re this self-assured badass, I don’t know… it stung.” Point three, he says, is that he hopes she sees in him what she sees in Dylan G., and at some level, he’s glad to know Dylan G. is at Lumon doing what he’s good at. He gives Dylan G. leave to go or stay, exist or not, but he hopes his innie sticks around.

As Helly keeps Mark company while he works on Cold Harbor, she admits she’s been trying to name other places in her mind besides Delaware (a callback to the very first episode) and has come up with three: “Europe, Zimbabwe, and the Equator.” They banter about what the Equator even is, but as their laughter trails off, Helly admits, “I just wish we had more time.” He gives her a small nod, and she grabs Irving’s directions to the Exports Hall elevator, gets up, and nestles her cheek to his while covering his hand over his to sort the final batch of numbers in the Cold Harbor file.

The completion of Cold Harbor kicks all of Lumon’s baddies into overdrive. Dr. Mauer (Robby Benson) pulls a phone out from his desk and calls Jame, while Drummond is clearly moving through the halls with ominous intent. The MDR floor then goes dark, and fog begins pouring into the room through machines in the walls. A spotlight highlights the Kier animatronic, who celebrates Mark S. for his completion of Cold Harbor: “You have drawn my grand agendum nearer to fulfillment, thus making you one of the most important people in history.” He’s encouraged to “hail your Earthbound steward, your very own… floooooor manager!” Milchick comes out to canned applause, and he does a self-effacing bit with the Kier animatronic. “Well, it’s truly special to host a man so illustrious, so sapient, so magnanimous…” Milchick’s interrupted by robo-Kier: “My, you’re verbose… good thing you didn’t write the first appendix, it would have burst.” Clearly stung, Milchick tells robo-Kier, “It’s an honor to receive your barbs, Mr. Eagan. The legacy you’ve left behind is truly and irrefutably larger than life.” “You mean my company?” it asks. “No, I mean this wax statue that’s five inches taller than you actually were.” Milchick’s got jokes! After a pause, robo-Kier coldly responds, “Thank you for the feedback, Seth.”

Milchick then introduces the Choreography & Merriment department, and a Lumon marching band pours onto the severed floor — while, elsewhere, Gemma puts on the clothing she was wearing the day Lumon faked her death and is presumably led to her probable doom. In yet another room inside Lumon, Jame sits down to observe the “efficacy test” for Gemma’s final innie. Back at MDR, Milchick prepares to lead the band in a performance of “The Ballad of Ambrose and Gunnel,” high-stepping and shoulder-rolling his way around the office (it’s as great as it is ominous), while Helly prepares to create a distraction so that Mark can sneak out. “See you at the Equator,” she says, and he repeats it back to her before she takes off, stealing Milchick’s walkie-talkie and leading him into the MDR bathroom while the band plays on. Mark makes a break for it, running down Lumon’s labyrinthine hallways as he follows Irving’s handwritten directions.

It’s Lorne to the Rescue in the ‘Severance’ Season 2 Finale

Everyone’s heading down hallways. While Mark, Drummond, and Gemma are on their respective paths inside Lumon, Lorne (Gwendoline Christie) is delivering a goat from Mammalians Nurturable, looking regal but unhappy. Back at MDR, Helly tries to keep Milchick stuck in the bathroom, but she’s having trouble keeping the door shut as he tries to break through. Just then, Dylan enters with a fiery war cry, shoving a vending machine forward to block Milchick’s path. Milchick tries to kick it down, but for now, he’s stuck. At Cold Harbor, Gemma enters a stark white room to find an assembled baby crib. Her task is to take it apart as Mauer and Jame observe her, presumably to see if it triggers memories of her core Gemma persona. Meanwhile, it turns out that Lorne is delivering the goat to Drummond as an offering from the Mammalians Nurturable department. “Has it verve?” Drummond asks. It does. “Wiles?” “The most of its flock,” she replies. Drummond explains that the goat “will be entombed with the cherished woman, whose spirit it must guide to Kier’s door.” (What is it with rich culty weirdos entombing women?)

Drummond opens a compartment in the room and takes out a single-shot captive bolt pistol for the sacrifice. “We commit this animal to Kier,” he says, handing Lorne the pistol, “and his eternal war against pain.” Lorne puts the pistol to the goat’s head, but pauses and asks, “How many more must I give?” Drummond answers, “As many as the Founder calls.” Across the hall, Mark’s attempts to break through the door leading to the black elevator interrupt the ceremony, and when Drummond emerges from the room, the pair get into fisticuffs — and by that I mean Drummond punches Mark S. square in the face before they tumble. Mark’s getting the worst of it, but puts up a great fight until Drummond gets the upper hand, strangling him before Lorne emerges and puts the pistol to Drummond’s head. “No more killing,” she says. He lets go, but then knocks her down. Despite their relative size disparity, Lorne does serious damage, knocking Drummond down while Mark uses his tie to strangle him. She satisfyingly beats Drummond bloody and puts the pistol to his head again, but Mark stops her from pulling the trigger.

Back with Gemma, she’s still taking apart the crib while Billie Holiday’s “I’ll Be Seeing You” plays in the background. “The barrier is holding,” Dr. Mauer says. “She feels nothing. It’s beautiful.” Mark S. escorts Drummond down the hallway to the black elevator, gun to his neck, but turns to thank Lorne as she watches him, goat in her arms. “Emile thanks you,” she replies. “Emile is the name of the goat.” Mark S. gets Drummond in the elevator as his hostage, but as the elevator descends, and he switches over to his outie, Mark accidentally pulls the trigger, shooting Drummond in the neck and causing him to bleed out everywhere — including over Mark himself — before collapsing dead.

Mark stumbles over Drummond’s body as he emerges from the elevator, navigating the hallway to try and find Cold Harbor, while, back in MDR, Helly starts stealing the band’s instruments to strengthen the barricade against Milchick. Milchick orders Choreography & Merriment to return to their departments, but Helly stands on a desk to appeal to the department, telling them that Irving is gone, and the whole severed floor will be turned off if Milchick escapes. The members of C&M are clearly contemplating Helly’s words, especially once she says, “They give us half a life and think we won’t fight for it.”

The Revolution Ruins Milchick’s Day in the ‘Severance’ Season 2 Finale

Mark finally finds the Cold Harbor room and drives the floor’s nurse (Sandra Bernhard) off with the (admittedly unarmed) pistol. Using his tie, which is now soaked in Drummond’s blood, to open the door, he finds Gemma dismantling the crib on the other side. She doesn’t recognize him, despite his reassurances, and Mauer attempts to convince Gemma not to listen to him. “We were married for four years,” Mark says. “We had a life together, and if you come with me right now, we could get it back.“

As Jame screams in frustration, Mark leads Gemma out of the Cold Harbor room, and it’s there that she finally recognizes him. They tearfully embrace, but there’s little time for reunions; lights are flashing and alarms are blaring, so the two run to the elevator, where they share an emotional kiss… until they hit the severed floor. “What’s taking place?” Gemma asks — actually, it’s Ms. Casey again. Back in MDR, Milchick finally kicks the vending machine over and leaps up onto it, but finds himself facing a unified front consisting of both C&M and Dylan. Meanwhile, Mark S. successfully gets Gemma to the exit door, but while she appeals to him to follow her so they can go home, he sees Helly at the other end of the hallway. Despite Gemma’s fervent cries, Mark S. runs towards Helly, and the pair run down the hallway together to the tune of Noel Harrison’s “Windmills of your Mind,” happily holding hands, before the episode ends.

The Severance Season 2 finale wraps up a lot of elements. Gemma is safe from being entombed with a goat, but still needs to leave Lumon, and maybe the town/state. Cold Harbor is finished, but its ultimate result was interrupted. Dylan G. isn’t dead, and Milchick has an innie uprising on his hands that could easily spread. Mark S. and Helly are trying to find their Equator, most likely someplace within Lumon’s massive halls (so they can be together for however long is possible). On the other hand, there’s a lot of fuel for a potential Season 3. Devon will likely take the controversial Lumon to task once Gemma’s free. We still don’t know what Cobel’s ultimate intentions are, really, and undoubtedly, Mark and Helly aren’t safe as long as they remain inside Lumon. For now, our favorite innie Macrodats get a happy ending, and Gemma’s free — even if she’s really, really unhappy about it. Meanwhile, Severance Season 3 awaits, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Severance Seasons 1 & 2 are available to stream on Apple TV+.