The penultimate episode of Severance‘s second season featured many sad goodbyes. Who is leaving the company (maybe)? Where are they going and why? And what does it all mean for the season finale and beyond? Let’s dive into our recap of Severance, season two, episode nine. Here are the biggest revelations and questions from “The After Hours.”
Revelations From Severance Season 2, Episode 9, “The After Hours”
Gemma Will Die When Mark S. Completes “Cold Harbor”
It’s a good thing “the numbers” weren’t moving on what was supposed to be Lumon’s most momentous day. In Severance season two, episode nine, Harmony Cobel told Mark Scout Gemma is “already dead” if his Innie completed “Cold Harbor.”
We know his wife’s file is still sitting at 96%, thanks to Mark’s reintegration nosebleed. What we still don’t know are any specifics about the “mysterious and important” work refiners do, let alone why “Cold Harbor” is especially important. We just know it’s somehow even more evil than we could have imagined. Lumon has Mark working on a process that will truly kill his wife. And somehow, it could be even worse than Cobel revealed. (Which is the only thing she’s told Mark even though he told her “everything.”)
We believe Cobel when she says it will kill Gemma, but what if it will only kill Gemma? What if the completion of that file only kills her and not her many Innies? Severance season two, episode nine seems to indicate that would mean Lumon can erase individuals while also creating a severed force of slave labor created by the company.
“The After Hours” Reveals That The Creepiest Human Alive, Jame Eagan, Impregnates Many Woman in Secret
“She’s one of Jame’s.” That lie about Devon was enough to get Cobel past security and into Lumon’s severed birthing cottage. Apparently, the creepy CEO gets enough women pregnant in secret that a loyal guard believed a high-ranking Lumon employee might show up in the middle of the night without warning.
Is he just a rich, powerful, POS narcissist who not only wants to rule the world but wants to populate the world with his own progeny out of some disgusting sense of superiority? Is he really that big of a loser? Could he even possibly want a different heir than Helena? Severance season two, episode nine raises these questions and more.
But it could also be that there is a specific reason related to Lumon’s goals (which keeps connecting to fertility and children)? Is it something simpler like, Jame Eagan wants more potential offspring? Until we find out more, this mystery is just another piece of information that makes Jame Eagan such a vile enigma.
Helly Is Alone But Determined in Severance Season 2, Episode 9
Dylan G. was a real asshole to Helly, blaming her for their plight. Helly didn’t let that or Mark’s disappearance discourage her, though. It made her more determined.
Helly went and found his map to Testing Floor in “The After Hours.” She was still trying to memorize the instructions when she got interupted by Jame Eagan, but Helly seems certain to try and get down there in Severance season two’s finale.
Burt Disobeyed Lumon and To Save Irving in “The After Hours”
Helena told her father, “We’re seeing to Mr. Bailiff.” Everything Mr. Drummond found in Irving’s home worried Lumon enough that they made arrangements to get rid of Irving. That meant sending Burt—who took umbrage at Irving’s description of him as a “low-level Lumon enforcer or goon”—to bring Irv for a ride in Severance‘s season two, episode nine.
During the drive, Burt said he never killed anyone, but he did spend his early Lumon career driving people to places without ever asking what happened to them. Burt knew it wasn’t good. Lumon “disappeared” people, just as Irv surmised in his notes. With Lumon, that doesn’t necessarily mean they killed those people. They might have sent them off to work in some secret remote location across the world. Or, in the last 12 years, they might have severed them and turned them into puppets, the kind of nameless employees who wear masks at waffle parties and monitor refiners. Those missing people might be living on a severed Testing Floor same as Gemma.
That was not the fate that awaited Irving, though. Burt didn’t do his job this time. He recognized his “innocent” side fell in love with Burt and that meant something to a man hoping to atone for past sins. Irv didn’t want to leave because he’s “never had” this kind of connection with someone in his “whole life,” but Burt insisted. He also didn’t want to know where Irv ended up.
Lumon will question him (and likely worse) for letting Mr. Bailiff leave. That’s also why Burt told him, “You can never come back to Kier.” Lumon won’t let him escape a second time.
Seth Milchick Hit a Breaking Point
After mounting, righteous frustration, a lack of respect from both his superiors and his employees on an already disappointing day made Seth Milchick crack. During another absurd dressing down by Drummond, Milchick finally stood up for himself in Severance season two’s ninth episode. He told his boss to “devour feculence” and called out Drummond’s failings. He then had an actual real, human moment on the phone when Mark called out.
Milchick has been growing disillusioned with Lumon for weeks, but it led him to recommit to the company. If he ultimately turns on the Eagan family and their faithful employees, this could be the moment he finally realizes his self-worth is not wrapped up in Lumon’s success.
Questions From Severance Season 2, Episode 9, “The After Hours”
How Did Helly “Trick” Jame Eagan?
“You tricked me, my Helly.”
….What? How? What was Jame Eagan talking about when he spoke to his daughter’s Innie? How did she trick someone she doesn’t even know? And why did he call her “my Helly? in “The After Hours”?
That was very weird, just like everything else he did during this episode, like when he watched Helena eat eggs while wishing she’d “take them raw” like Kier Eagan.
Did this “trick” have something to do with why Helena was so nervous with her dad that morning and in the car on the way to Lumon? That’s far from the only question that Severance season two, episode nine has us asking about Helena Eagan, though.
What Was the Meaning Behind Helena Eagan’s Swim in “The After Hours”?
Nothing happens on Severance without real meaning and purpose, so of all the things to show Helena Egan doing at the start of a “momentous day,” why swimming? Was it merely characterization? Irv B. recently threatened to drown Helena. Did this swim show she’s coping with the trauma? Did it reveal she’s struggling with it? Or was there a direct connection between this episode’s sequence and Miss Huang’s Kier ring toss game that features the Founder in a bathing suit swimming?
The likely answer is that it’s all of those things and more. (That makes the smashing of the ring toss game especially tantalizing as potential foreshadowing.) We just don’t know why or how it matters yet.
Is Harmony Cobel Really Mark’s Ally Now on Severance season 2?
Harmony Cobel told Mark they’re allies now in Severance season two, episode nine, but are they really? Are they really a unified team with a singular goal? Or is the inventor of severance using Mark for her own personal agenda? Even if she is, she still might be the only person who can save Gemma, but it’s hard to have too much faith in her when this is how she’s greeting his Innie.
Did Lumon Send Dylan G. to the Testing Floor?
Outie Dylan threatened to quit Lumon after his wife Gretchen told him she kissed his Innie. But Dylan G. beat him to the punch. He quit after Gretchen said she needed to stop visiting him and rejected his very sad marriage proposal. The severed employee filled out his paperwork and handed in his badge.
And then Lumon might have sent him to the Testing Floor.
The sequence showing Dylan getting on the elevator, which didn’t use his key, ended with the elevator dinging on the Testing Floor. That suggests Lumon did not let him leave. Instead, they might have sent him down with Gemma.
How could they get away with that? Dylan’s Outie has no way of knowing his Innie quit unless Lumon tells him. So they can “free” Dylan G. every work day and then send him back down to the Testing Floor when his Outie shows up for work. It keeps the disillusioned Innie away from the other refiners without anyone, Innie or Outie, knowing what’s really going on.
That is unless Helly gets down there in the Severance season two finale and finds him. (He’ll really feel like an asshole if she saves him right after he blamed her for his situation.)
Why Did The Episode Include An Ominous Shot of the Water Tower?
We’re used to ominous shots of Lumon’s HQ. This season two episode of Severance had plenty of those. But that shot of the seemingly useless water tower (it’s so far away!) made us wonder if it’s holding something else entirely. Water might actually be the last thing an evil “balm” company that uses ether to make child laborers compliant would hold in abundance.
That water tower was important enough it got a speaking role in the Lumon claymation video…
Seriously, What Is the Deal with Miss Huang on Severance?
“Your bed will be moved from your parents’ home to the Gunnel Eagan Empathy Center in Svlbard, where you will work to steward global reforms.”
Okay, bye, Miss Huang. Good luck in Norway. Without your parents. While you work on empathy. Just one question before you leave: what is your deal?! Why did Lumon send a child to work on its most important floor? Why are they moving her bed out of he parents home? Who are they? Why are they allowing any of this? And why is Miss Huang so unusual? Is it because she’s like her parent, a person okay with his daughter working on a severed floor and being sent around the world on Lumon’s behalf? Someone like Jame Eagan, the guy with all the secret kids?
Miss Huang is still such a mystery, and we don’t even know why she’s important to Severance‘s story yet. That’s exactly why she’s far more important than we ever guessed.
Of course, it’s any guess what we’ll find out in the Severance season two finale. Even if it answers a lot of these questions, it’s likely to raise all-new ones, too. Severance always does.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He does not “take” his eggs raw. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
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