After a revelatory episode 7, Severance Season 2 takes a frigid flip in episode 8, “Sweet Vitriol.” The episode focuses solely on Concord Cobel’s (Patricia Arquette) icy homecoming to the city of Salt’s Neck. As soon as dwelling to a Lumon ether manufacturing unit, the city has since deteriorated after the corporate drained it dry.
The Salt’s Neck manufacturing unit is simply one of many many puzzle items that make up Cobel’s historical past, which we study in better depth all through all of “Sweet Vitriol.” The episode dives into her household life, introducing her fanatical Kier-worshipping Aunt Sissy (Jane Alexander) and relating her late mom Charlotte, who by no means purchased into the cult of Kier. “Sweet Vitriol” additionally reveals that Cobel took half within the prestigious Wintertide Fellowship, the exact same fellowship Miss Huang (Sarah Bock) is finishing at Lumon.
Most significantly, although, Severance drops a serious bomb: Cobel is the true inventor of the severance process.
Concord Cobel is the actual inventor of severance.
Britt Decrease and Patricia Arquette in “Severance.”
Credit score: Apple TV+
Within the ultimate scenes of “Sweet Vitriol,” Cobel retrieves the very factor she got here to Salt’s Neck to search out: an outdated pocket book. Its pages include graphs of mind waves — together with “standard pre-severed brain waves” — in addition to sketches of the severance chip.
“Mine! My designs!” Cobel yells at Sissy as she leafs by means of the guide. “Circuit blueprint, base code, Time beyond regulation Contingency, Glasgow Block. All of it.”
With that, it is clear: Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry) is not really the inventor of severance, as Lumon would have the world consider. As a substitute, it was none apart from Cobel, who could have even began work on the idea of severance in her days as a Wintertide fellow. But the cult of Kier forbade her from taking possession of the invention.
Mashable High Tales
“It was told Kier’s knowledge is for all,” she tells Sissy. “If I sought credit, I would be banished.”
So not solely does Lumon torture its staff, it additionally plagiarizes youngsters! What new lows will the corporate stoop to subsequent?
Cobel inventing severance explains why she was so obsessive about Mark and Gemma.
Patricia Arquette in “Severance.”
Credit score: Apple TV+
“Sweet Vitriol” units up an interesting arc for Cobel going ahead. Not solely does she appear to be prepared to assist Mark (Adam Scott) and Devon (Jen Tullock) with Mark’s reintegration, she additionally has left Salt’s Neck along with her outdated notes. May she be attempting to assert the credit score she’s owed, many years down the road?
However much more fascinating is how the severance invention reveal re-contextualizes Cobel’s earlier obsession with Mark and Gemma/Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman). All through Season 1, she discovered methods to push them collectively, like having Ms. Casey observe the MDR staff. Cobel was clearly attempting to review if both remembered the opposite from their Outie lives. As a married couple, they have been the proper check topics to see whether or not feelings or relationships may bleed by means of the severance barrier. Her adopted persona, Mrs. Selvig, was one other alternative to see whether or not Outie Mark’s life had modified since his Innie reconnected with one other model of Gemma.
Cobel may have simply been finishing up this unusual experiment within the grander service of Lumon, however understanding that she created the severance process itself provides a deeper private stake to it. She was actually attempting to see if her invention may maintain up below essentially the most rigorous assessments, if the process she created — and might’t take credit score for — has limits, or if she’s created one thing impenetrable to even love and grief. Has she performed god, or is she fallible?
That reasoning can be why reintegration scares her a lot. Reintegration dangers spilling Lumon secrets and techniques, however greater than that, it dangers undermining her life’s work.
Severance Season 2 is now streaming on Apple TV+, with a brand new episode each Friday.
