Severance Season 2 Ending Explained: How Does It Set Up Season 3?

This article contains spoilers for the Severance Season 2 finale. If you’re behind, catch up with our Severance Season 1 Ending Explained before you dive in below.

Another year at Lumon has come to a close, leaving us with more answers and yet somehow more questions than ever before. The Eagan family experienced some major losses in their war to eliminate emotions and create the perfect feelingless workforce, but things aren’t all sunshine and roses for the good guys.

“You and your family created hell and you’re going to burn in it,” an enraged Helly R. tells Jame Eagan in the beginning of Severance’s Season 2 finale. But will they? Let’s dig in!

Severance Season 2 Finale Ending Explained

We learn a lot about what’s going on at Lumon before the credits roll on Season 2. We’ve spent almost four years wondering what the hell the Macro Data Refinement (MDR) team was doing on the severed floor, and it turns out that every time Mark (Adam Scott) and his team complete a new file, they create a new consciousness for Mark's wife, Gemma (Dichen Lachman). The numbers, we’ve learned, were Gemma’s emotions, which is why Mark, the person who knew and loved her the most, was integral to the success of the project.

It turns out that the severance procedure was just a stepping stone to Lumon’s ultimate goal: eliminating all human emotions to create the perfect laborer. No joy, no passion, no rage, no sadness, just unlimited free labor from people the company has managed to disappear.

And the goats? Turns out all of our theories were wrong and they were just run of the mill sacrifices. I’m currently unsure as to whether or not I am disappointed or amused by this development, but I am pleased that we saw Gwendoline Christie’s Lorne have her moment in the sun. Though that’s getting a little ahead of ourselves. Back to Gemma and Mark!

The beginning of the finale features a fun back and forth between Mark and Mark S. (via camcorder recordings) as they fight over what to do. Mark needs his wife to be saved, while Mark S. is unwilling to murder all of his friends and commit a suicide mission to do the saving. Severance’s running theme of autonomy comes to a head here, as both parties are correct as they fight about their complicated catch-22. Even Ms. Cobel (Patricia Arquette) tries to convince Mark S., explaining to him that he and his friends are dead anyway once Cold Harbor is complete. No matter what he does — even if he refuses to finish the project — there will be no more innies the following day. But it isn’t until Mark S. sees Helly (Britt Lower) that he makes his final decision.

After her fight with her father, Helly is ready to, well, raise hell. She tells Mark that they’re all dead anyway before leading a rebellion with the help of Dylan G., who makes a triumphant return by slamming a vending machine into the door that Mr. Milchik (Tramell Tillman) is trying to escape through in order to stop Mark S. from rescuing Gemma.

Mark S. successfully makes it down the dark hallway, navigating to the lower floor where he becomes his outie again. But none of that is important now! To the goats! On his mission to get to Gemma, Mark has to get through Mr. Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson). Unfortunately for Drummond but very fortunate for Mark, Drummond was trying to kill Lorne’s favorite goat, insisting that it would “guide the spirit of a cherished woman” and “this beast will be entombed with a woman whose spirit it must guide to Kier’s door,” whatever all that means. Lorne helps Mark, Mark takes Drummond hostage, and then he accidentally murders him with a weird goat gun when changing back to his outie. Is your head spinning yet? Welcome to Severance.

Mark makes it to Gemma, managing to stop them before what’s left of her is gone forever. The two run back to the severed floor, becoming Ms. Casey and Mark S. while Gemma and Mark were making out in the elevator, and somehow make it to the stairwell where Mark. S coaxes Ms. Casey through the door… but turns just in time to see Helly (or Helena, more on that later) waiting for him at the end of the hall. In what feels like a 10-minute scene that was likely only a minute or so, Mark S. ultimately runs to Helly, leaving Gemma begging her husband to come with her on the other side of the door as his innie and the woman who helped cause all of their suffering run off into the proverbial sunset.

Will There Be a Severance Season 3?

Hot off the presses! We will, in fact, be getting a Season 3 of Severance. Apple TV+ confirmed that the innies and outies will continue their complicated dance for another season. This is great news for a multitude of reasons, but mostly because while the Season 2 finale is a good ending for the chapter, it is by no means an ending for the series. At least not a satisfying one. Here’s hoping the gap between seasons isn’t as rough this time, but it's great to have confirmation that the story will continue either way.

Why Gemma Scout?

In a series full of mysteries, sometimes the answer is just that it isn’t that deep (please see the aforementioned goats). In the case of Lumon targeting Gemma, that very much seems to be the case. While many fans — myself included — found ourselves wrapped up in the idea that Lumon’s goals were rooted in reproduction and immortality, we now know that is definitively not the case (at least as far as Gemma Scout is concerned). For now, it seems that Gemma was only targeted because of her involvement with the Lumon-owned fertility clinic.

Was It Helly or Helena Who Stopped Mark From Leaving With Gemma?

The first moments of the finale give us an answer as to why Helena Eagan seemed off when visiting her father in last week’s episode: the dude hates her. Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry) tells Helly that he used to see Kier’s light in his daughter, but she lost it over time. Now he sees that light again in Helly who is, as you’d expect, nonplussed by the “compliment”. But, while we now know the root of the daddy issues, I’m still not sure we didn’t see Helena Eagan in this week’s episode.

Last week I questioned whether we spent time with Helly or Helena throughout the episode, with Dylan G. (Zach Cherry) bringing up the fact that nobody but Irving (John Turturro) could tell the difference between them and her acting weird all episode. The beginning of the finale signals that she is 100% pure Helly R. as she tells her father he and the family are going to burn and rallies the resistance against Mr. Milchick. It seems that she continues to be Helly as she tells Mark he has to go through with saving Gemma even though all the innies will die, but in that moment she is at peace with the decision and later things seem to take a shift.

Mark’s standing at the stairwell with Gemma, watching his outie’s wife beg him to come with her. Then Helly, who had previously said her farewells to Mark, runs to the end of the hall and stares at him, willing him to choose between the two of them. While I suppose it’s possible “see you at the equator” could have been them making a plan for the rendezvous point (the equator divides hemispheres, the door divides innies and outies, I don’t know – everything feels like a stretch on this show until it doesn’t), the scene feels off.

I don’t know if it was Helly wanting to die with her boyfriend or the Eagans overriding the situation to have Helena take over in order to keep Mark hostage, but I do know that if it was Helena then her motives remain in question. How long do you keep drinking the koolaid when daddy hates you?

The other key question here is what happens to Gemma after their departure? Will Lumon goons swarm her in the hallway? Will she somehow manage to escape the facility she has zero familiarity with undetected? Are Ms. Cobel and Devon (Jen Tullock) waiting for Gemma and Mark outside? I have a lot of logistical questions and even more frustrations about where we left things!

The Fall and Rise of Dylan G.

What a character Dylan’s become as we’ve watched him evolve from selfish busybody to an active rebel against Lumon’s injustices. Season 1’s overtime protocol never could have happened without him, and after finding out he was being forced to continue to live against his will — or rather encouraged to go on living by his outie — he chose to fight rather than wallow. The end of the innies would be a devastating development for a multitude of reasons, but none so much as the loss of Dylan G. who has learned not just to love, but that loving anything — whether it’s friends, partners, work, etc. — means fighting for it. A true, fussy king.

What Happens to Mark S. and the Innies Now?

Mark S. and the innies are, perhaps, the biggest reason this story needs to keep going. We have answers, but we don’t have the answers. What are the answers? I don’t really know! But I know that we don’t have them and that I need them.

Mark S. has sent a person who could end Lumon’s existence out into the world with a story that can be corroborated by the woman who created the severance procedure and the pissed off sister of a man still being held prisoner. Justice rarely comes for corporations, of course, and Lumon will surely find a way out of whatever PR and legal disasters they find themselves in. But that doesn’t change the fact that they have a large number of people within their walls that they no longer want to let out and a lot of people who love them on the outside.

Freeing them isn’t an option, because right now there’s no existing plot device that would allow them to keep on living outside of the severed floor. Keeping them prisoner has more drawbacks than benefits, so that doesn’t seem to be the move either.

Then there’s the added complication of their interpersonal relationships. While there’s been no mention of it since Mark initially had sex with Helena and then Helly, there is a significant chance that, when the show continues, Gemma will have to deal with the fact that her husband successfully got another woman pregnant, a result that has so many implications that it would take a whole other 2,000-word editorial to break down.

Everyone’s fate remains the biggest question remaining of the show, but one thing’s for sure: Gemma is going to need so much therapy.

Is Irving Gone Forever?

Speaking of uncertain fates, Irving did not have a role in Season 2’s finale. He seemed at peace on the train in the previous episode, as he rode into the sunset with his dog knowing that the man he loved loved him in return but wasn’t brave enough to come along (or perhaps knew if he did it would be the end of both of them). But, at peace or not, it’s hard to imagine Severance without his presence. It seems likely that Irving will take over Cobel’s narrative role in Season 3, in that we don’t see him for 90% of the season but he pops back in when we least expect it and drops a major bombshell on the mystery.