Severance fans, I’m sure you’re feeling like you could fill a notebook with theories right now. I would easily spend all day sitting here and questioning the Apple TV+ series until we’re uncertain that anyone in Macrodata Refinement is even alive anymore. So to keep us on track after everything revealed in episode 9 (read our full breakdown here), let’s focus on Cold Harbor.
When Mark S. (Adam Scott) and his Severance team sit down to resume work on their mysterious number-sorting project in season 2, an image flashes onto Mark’s screen showing his wife, Gemma (Dichen Lachman)—aka Ms. Casey, the wellness counselor. There’s a file name at the top that reads COLD HARBOR, along with many other symbols and data points.
We’ve seen the names of other files before. As fans may recall, Mark S. was rewarded for completing a file named Allentown back in season 1. “There’s a whole backstory there that is just kind of alluded to,” creator Dan Erickson told Variety three years ago. “The idea is that Mark came in and he was inexplicably better at refining the files than others were, at least for that first file that he worked on, which was called Allentown. Each of the files has a different name, and we generally went with place names. Mark came in and was able to really quickly refine this file, and then they were able to reverse-engineer a better procedure from what he did. We don’t get into it super far, but the idea is that he is kind of Cobel’s golden boy in that way because he came in and sort of had this great success.”
Well, the Severance team finally delivers some answers in season 2. Fair warning: Spoilers abound from here on out. To peel apart what Cold Harbor refers to, let’s take a deep dive into everything that Severance has revealed so far.
Mark S. is 85 percent of the way through his file of “Cold Harbor,” which appears to have some connection to his wife, Gemma.
For starters, Gemma is alive. And not just as her Innie, Ms. Casey, but as Mark’s wife, Gemma Scout. Whether Lumon staged Gemma’s car accident or secretly rescued her from it, episode 7 reveals that Gemma is alive and living under supervision in the same Lumon building where Mark and the MDR team work.
For now, it seems that the cloning theory may take a backseat. As Adam Scott told
Entertainment Weekly right before season 2’s premiere, cloning didn’t really excite him as the answer. “This sounds like what Lumon would be doing in a super-boring version of Severance,” he said.
This is very surprising, especially with all those goats running around, but there’s some other reason that doctors are monitoring Gemma’s vitals. A lot of information prior to Gemma’s reappearance really supported the popular fan theory that the severed floor is perfecting cloning technology. Goats are quite synonymous with cloning. It’s not a huge jump to say that MDR certainly seems like it’s identifying and sorting out abnormalities in genetic code. Still, it remains unclear why Gemma is subjected to extreme emotions as various separate Innies.
Previously, we correctly guessed that “ITNO: 25.00 (BUILD)” on Mark’s computer screen stood for “iteration number 25.” Mark S. was 85 percent of the way through building the file back in episode 5. Now it’s confirmed that the two are linked. The file names correspond to different rooms down on Gemma’s floor. There’s even a room labeled Cold Harbor.
“There’s only one room I haven’t been to yet and today it had a name on it,” Gemma says in episode 7, talking about Cold Harbor. “So what happens after I’ve been in all the rooms?” Her taskmaster, Dr. Mauer, responds, “You will see the world again—and the world will see you.” When Gemma asks if that means she’ll see Mark again, Mauer says, “Mark will benefit from the world you’re siring. Kier will take away all his pain just as he has taken away yours.”
What happened to Ms. Casey?
There are also five sorting bins at the bottom of Mark’s screen, each labeled with four categories: “WO, DR, FC, and MA.” Many eagle-eyed Severance fans have already connected these to a quote from Lumon Industries founder Kier Eagan. As he states in season 1, “Each man’s character is defined by the precise ratio that resides in him. Woe, Frolic, Dread, Malice.” He named these four principles his “tempers.” There’s also a scene in which Ms. Cobel reads from Eagan’s words, including the quote: “Tame in me the tempers four, that I may serve thee evermore.”
Is it possible that sorting the correct ratio of these tempers is essential to the severed floor’s work? Is Mark refining Gemma’s emotions in all of these rooms? For some reason, Lumon has yet to perfect the severance technology. Are Mark and Gemma their best hope?
Following episode 9, Mark will likely return to Lumon in the finale to try and save Gemma. Hopefully, he won’t be too late. A popular fan theory suggests that Cold Harbor may spell the end for Gemma. As one fan theorized on Reddit, “Cold Harbor is going to simulate Gemma drowning.” In a previous episode, she stated that drowning was her greatest fear. “The question is, how is the new Gemma innie going to react to her first ever moment alive being unable to breathe?” the fan continued. “It’s terrifying to think about.” It’s also possible that the Severance season 2 finale takes the Cold Harbor room in a completely different direction.
Kier Eagan may also attempt to play God by becoming immortal. As the quote reads, “Tame in me the tempers four, that I may serve thee evermore.” The key word here is evermore, as in forever. “It all comes back to Kier Eagan, who is the founder of the company, and basically this idea that everything they’re doing is to fulfill this vision that he had, that he wanted to enact,” Erickson said in his interview with Variety. “It all comes back to this weird quasi-religious, quasi-cult-like reverence that everyone has for the late founder of the company.”
Erickson was right when he said that fans had yet to figure out what MDR was doing on the severed floor. “That’s something that we still don’t know,” Erickson teased before season 2 began. “I mean, I know.”
Stick with us to the season 2 finale next week, as we’ll surely revisit and adapt our theory. We feel close, readers! Really close.
