Severance Season 2 Reveals That Lumon’s Sinister Goals Aren’t That Different From Our Reality

This post contains spoilers for “Severance.”

It is impossible to narrow down the core of “Severance” to a few overarching themes. The Apple TV+ series has never shied away from tackling complex notions of identity, often shaped by grief, loss, cult-like devotion, or the ills of living in an aggressive capitalist culture. The very idea of severance as a procedure raises ethical questions, as those who willingly chose it were not fully made aware of what they were getting into. Lumon Industries, the terrible, conniving evil that looms over the world of the show, has its claws hooked into a dozen malpractices that are masked as pioneering feats of progress. Every victim that Lumon has claimed has been an experimental guinea pig for them, serving some sort of hidden purpose while being constantly abused and lied to. However, one particular social demographic has suffered the brunt of Lumon’s grand and evil scheme: women.

Misogyny is deeply entrenched in our real-world reality, reflected even in seemingly progressive corporate cultures that appear to bat for equity and empowerment. Lumon is no different at first glance, but the corporation’s ethos is so nefariously misogynistic that it makes its end goal more dangerous than it seems. Of course, loss of autonomy is not a gendered notion by any means, as every innie who has been a part of MDR — Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower), Dylan (Zach Cherry), and Irving (John Turturro) — was belittled and manipulated by Lumon at some point. However, the show’s second season abruptly reveals the truth about Gemma (Dichen Lachman), whose fate emerges as the key to answering the most pressing questions about “Severance.” While the scope of the show is larger than Gemma’s heartbreaking arc, it is undoubtedly integral to exposing every facet that paints a comprehensive picture of Lumon’s horrifying schemes.

The show’s glorious, nail-biting season 2 finale, “Cold Harbor,” proves that saving Gemma marks the point of no return for every remaining MDR employee, as it thwarts everything Lumon has been meticulously working towards. Let’s take a look at the misogyny inherent in Lumon’s treatment of Gemma, along with other instances that solidify their unsavory intentions towards women.

“Chikhai Bardo” revealed Gemma’s nightmarish experiences at Lumon, where her consciousness is split into various innies who are trapped in the realities of every room she walks into. The finale reveals the exact number: Gemma has 24 innies, and the completion of the Cold Harbor file would mark the creation of the final, 25th innie. Although we do not have all the answers, it is clear that Lumon’s experiments encircling Gemma are integral to the company’s purpose, considering how enraged and crestfallen Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry) and the middle management seem after Mark fights his way to Gemma and rescues her.

Several hints point that Gemma was chosen by Lumon as a test subject and that her traumatic miscarriage is at the crux of these warped experiments. The final Gemma innie who enters the Cold Harbor room is a blank slate, existing solely to take orders from Dr. Mauer’s (Robby Benson) disembodied voice and take apart a child’s crib without triggering a strong emotional state. The goal is to deduce if the visceral trauma of her core self leaks into this pocket consciousness.

It doesn’t, meaning that severed women experiencing deep-seated bodily trauma can potentially dissociate into an identity that is wholly unaware of such a painful experience. But there’s also a flip side to this: the Lumon birthing cabins ensure that some innies only exist to give birth and endure pain, their personhood defined by this singular experience. With Jame Eagan’s icky plan about impregnating women to achieve a warped ideal (capturing Kier’s flame) being exposedit is clear that Lumon views women’s bodies as receptacles for achieving their own ends, their pain/trauma being used as fuel for their goals. Even Gemma’s Allentown innie cements this sentiment, as this part of her is stuck in a reality where she mindlessly does what he hates and is forced to put up with an unpleasant husband (Dr. Mauer).

Given Lumon’s track record, it is not farfetched to assume that these experiments — if applied on a grander scale — might lead to a systemic subjugation of women, making it more difficult for them to escape abusive situations.

Ms. Cobel/Selvig (Patricia Arquette) has been a mystifying presence throughout “Severance,” and her true motivations are finally revealed in the short, one-off-coded episode, “Sweet Vitriol.” She remains as complicated as ever, as she is someone who helped Lumon forge the foundation of their company-wide purpose, being the inventor of the severance procedure. This revelation explains everything: her cult-like devotion to Kier’s causeher austere, secretive demeanor, and the howls of betrayal she lets out from time to time. The death of her mother still haunts her, possibly filling her with guilt, and she grapples with what she needs to do next. Cobel has given her whole life to Lumon since she was a child in her hometown, but this loyalty has only been rewarded with negligence and dismissal. Now, she’s livid and wants to tear Lumon apart.

What can be a more blatant instance of misogyny than a man, Jame Eagan, taking complete credit for Cobel’s scientific brilliance that allowed Lumon to rise to prominence in the first place? For her, the work is mysterious and important because she is the reason it even exists, but Lumon promptly removes her from the severed floor as soon as they think she is a liability. This is quite the dilemma, as Cobel’s inventions make her complicit in Lumon’s schemes (reinforced by her actions as floor manager for two years), but she is not exempt from the covert misogyny that is integral to their company-wide ethos. As it turns out, neither is Helena Eagan, who is perceived as useless by her own father, and treated with icky contempt in the few instances we see them together.

Circling back to the season 2 finale, we see Lumon celebrate their (short-lived) success when Gemma appears unmoved by the cot and begins taking it apart. But even in this blank-slate psychological stage, echoes of her personhood bleed through when (outie) Mark approaches her. He reminds her who she is, that she is loved, and that is okay for her to trust him and leave the room. Even when she morphs into Ms. Casey in the elevator, she intuits that enough is enough and that she must escape Lumon before it is too late. Gemma’s escape is the ultimate f-you to Lumon, as it is a reclamation of her tormented personhood. It is an emphatic reminder that Gemma is, indeed, alive.