Half of the fun of watching Severance is figuring out Severance. What exactly is Lumon making on the Severed Floor? Where do Innies go when they die? Why the fuck are there goats? But the latest episode, ominously entitled “Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig,” reveals that one of the characters we’ve been following has a secret importance none of us ever noticed.
A show’s protagonist is typically the central force around which the entire plot revolves. Up until now, we figured we were ushered into the world of Severance by Mark S (Adam Scott) because his wife died, his Outie was struggling, and his Innie was secretly growing disillusioned with work after his best friend Petey (Yul Vazquez) had been unceremoniously removed from the Severed Floor without notice. We were wrong, and we should’ve known we were wrong.
In this week’s episode, we get thrown into the Outie world in the moments after the events of the Season 1 finale. We see Mark’s team was actually fired and didn’t refuse to return as Milchick (Tramell Tillman) had led Mark to believe in the Season 2 premiere, Helena Eagan (Britt Lower) tries to suppress Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) by offering her a meaningless advisory role separate of any direct involvement in the Severed Floor, and Lumon goes into full damage control Then, Severance’s biggest mystery is revealed when Helena tells Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), Mr. Milchick, and Natalie (Sydney Cole Alexander) that “we need Mark S back to work long enough to complete Cold Harbor.”
It’s in this moment we have to ask ourselves a question we should’ve been asking since the series premiere: “Why is Mark S so important?”
Not only is this the first time the phrase “Cold Harbor” has been uttered on the show, it’s the first time we’ve seen Lumon treat any employee as indispensable. Later in episode, we find out that Innie Mark’s forcible demand for the return of his team in the Season 2 premiere prompted The Board to give him exactly what he wants. This is the same Board that doesn’t respect a single employee enough to show their faces or speak directly to them, yet now they’re willing to let a disgruntled employee force them to change one of their decisions.
Once we discover Mark’s seeming irreplaceability, certain details of the show go from overlooked fodder to clues. Cobel living across the street from Outie Mark and forcing herself into his life was likely done to make sure he stayed on task. Outie Mark being the only one on the Severed Floor to have someone close to him—his wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman)—work for Lumon appears to be some form of emotional manipulation, especially since he specified her death and his inability to shake her memory as reasons for him getting severed. He’s the only one of the four Innies that broke the rules in the Season 1 finale to not only not be fired, but get offered a 20 percent pay increase to return.
This also gives us a clue into what these people are actually doing for work. At the end of last week’s premiere episode, we see Mark is 68 percent finished with a project called “Cold Harbor” that has Gemma’s face plastered on it. If Lumon has no problem firing and replacing his team at a moment’s notice, it’s safe to assume that whatever they’re working on can be done by anyone. For some inexplicable reason, only Mark can finish his project, which implies there is some sort of connection the workers have to the numbers they’re sorting on the screen. We already know the workers sort the numbers based on an ineffable emotional reaction they have to what the screens show them. Mark being the only one who can finish a project that appears connected to his supposedly dead wife means the project has some inextricable connection to Mark as a person.
What that connection is, and how Mark became such an important figure to a company that’s been around for over 150 years, is still unknown. Now, figuring out why Mark S is so important is the central mystery we all must uncover, because it likely will unravel the entire tapestry of confusion that is Severance.