The Season 2 premiere of Severance raises more questions about Lumon's sinister operations, particularly the Macrodata Refinement (MDR) department. Mark S.'s work on a file labeled 'Cold Harbor' reveals a chilling connection to Ms. Casey, suggesting he might be manipulating an iteration of the former wellness counselor. This discovery delves deeper into the mystery surrounding Lumon's 'testing floor' and the reconfiguration of innies, hinting at a class-based slavery system where outies control the lives of their severed counterparts.
Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Severance Season 2 Episode 1. The Season 2 premiere of Severance concludes on a rather unsettling note. As Mark S. (Adam Scott) chooses to remain at Lumon , resuming his work on a Macrodata Refinement file, we are given a fleeting glimpse of Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman) through a surveillance camera. Her image is accompanied by various statistics. Both Mark's file and Ms.
Casey's screen display share the name 'Cold Harbor,' suggesting a possible connection between them and hinting that Mark might be inadvertently working on a new iteration of the former wellness counselor. If you thought Lumon was strange, prepare for even more bewilderment. At the end of Season 1, Ms. Casey is relieved of her responsibilities as the severed floor wellness counselor and sent to a location known as the 'testing floor.' This appears to be where innies are entirely reconfigured, emerging with a distinct personality and renewed obedience. While the precise method behind this reconfiguration remains a mystery, it is undoubtedly linked to Mark S.'s current work. Both 'Cold Harbor' designates his MDR file and Ms. Casey's status as a testing floor subject, and both are at 68% completion. Under their respective names and completion rates, there is an identification number, followed by an even more eerie statistic, 'ITNO: 25.00.' This cryptic figure likely implies that Mark is engaged in the 25th iteration of Ms. Casey. At the bottom of the screen, five sorting boxes display different completion rates. Most align with those in Mark's file, except for sorter #1, which stands at 77% on his screen but only 52% on Ms. Casey's display. This discrepancy could explain why it requires further refinement. Each sorter also features four acronyms: WO, DR, FC, and MA. These seemingly correspond to the Four Tempers that Lumon founder Kier Eagan (Marc Geller) is said to have identified — Woe (sadness), Dread (fear), Frolic (joy), and Malice (a desire to do harm). This suggests that MDR's work is intricately connected to the innie reconfiguration occurring on the testing floor, and Mark is directly involved in Ms. Casey's own transformation. Refiners are tasked with sorting enigmatic numbers on their files based on the emotional responses they elicit. This process may determine the proportion of each Temper each new innie iteration will possess in their consciousness.The connection between Mark's MDR file and Ms. Casey represents the first concrete clue about the true nature of MDR's work, and it appears far more sinister than initially perceived. Having innies manipulate other innies is cruel, but in Mark and Ms. Casey's case, it takes on a particularly insidious dimension, considering their outies, Mark Scout and Gemma, were previously married before Gemma's supposed death in a car accident. This might explain the file's name; MDR files are all named after locations — like Lexington and Siena, for example — so 'Cold Harbor' could be linked to Ms. Casey, potentially even the site of her outie's demise. In reality, Cold Harbor is the name of a significant battle in the American Civil War, resulting in a Confederate victory over the Union. This is where it gets truly bizarre, as it might indicate another connection to Severance's own universe. The Battle of Cold Harbor took place in 1864, a year before Kier Eagan established Lumon at the age of 24. During Season 1, it is revealed that Kier was a military doctor in his twenties, prompting him to create Lumon, possibly during the Civil War and even at the Battle of Cold Harbor. Information about Severance's world is scarce, limited to the fact that Kier's town is located in a state abbreviated as 'PE,' a non-existent real-world state. This, coupled with Kier's participation in the Civil War and the outcome of the Battle of Cold Harbor, could suggest that, within the series' world, the South emerged victorious from the Civil War. Instead of race-based slavery, severance might be the harbinger of class-based slavery, dividing society between outies and innies, with innies potentially categorized into multiple tiers. Regarding Gemma and Ms. Casey, their designation as test subjects likely refers to the location where they perished. In Season 1, Petey (Yul Vázquez) mentions a floor in Lumon where individuals do not return as regular innies. These are probably those who died and became test subjects, similar to Gemma/Ms. Casey, whose bodies receive a new, artificial consciousness calibrated and reconfigured by MDR as many times as necessary. This may seem far-fetched, but that is the essence of Severance, so nothing can be definitively dismissed until proven otherwise. Severance Season 2 is available to stream on Apple TV+ in the U.S. New episodes air on Fridays
Mystery Thriller Severance Apple TV+ Season 2 Lumon MDR Macrodata Refinement Ms. Casey Mark S. Cold Harbor Testing Floor Kier Eagan Outies Innies Sci-Fi Mystery Thriller
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