Apple TV+Severance Season 2 Episode 10 is here, and between Mark’s decision to stay with Helly in Lumon, Gemma’s escape, and that weird scene with the goat, there’s a lot to unpack in the finale. So, here’s our breakdown of the ending in full.
Last week’s penultimate episode of Severance was stacked. As Helly tried to work out how to get to the Exports Hall, Jame found her in the MDR office space. Dylan’s Innie tried to resign after Gretchen turned down his proposal. Burt sent Irving far away from Kier, and it’s unclear when (or if) he’ll come back.
Most importantly, with Cold Harbor still incomplete, Devon and Harmony Cobel took Mark to the Damona Birthing Retreat. In the closing seconds, they woke up his Innie and asked him what he last said when he was on the outside. “She’s alive,” he remembered.
That’s exactly where the Severance Season 2 finale begins – and it is a rollercoaster. So, get ready, as we’re about to dive in.
The Severance Season 2 finale opens with a big Jame confession
Apple TV+Cobel asks Mark if he’s finished Cold Harbor. After some questions about where they are and why Cobel is there, he tells her no. That means Ms Casey (or Gemma, as Devon points out) is still alive and they can save her. She tells Mark about the Exports Hall – but he already knows about it from Irving’s drawings.
Back at Lumon, Jame confronts Helly. “What a funny speech you gave at the party,” he says, as she slyly grabs a pen from the desk. “I was cross with you after. I threw a tin of candies.”
Helly says what we’re all thinking: “God, you’re f**king weird.”
He edges towards her. “I do not love my daughter,” he confesses. “I used to see Kier in her, but he left her as she grew… I sired others in the shadows, but he wasn’t in them either. Until I saw him again… in you.”
Related
Helly doesn’t let him get any closer. “You and your family created Hell and you’re going to burn in it,” she tells him, wielding her pen like a knife… but she doesn’t stab him, and he isn’t fazed. “There he is,” he reacts, almost looking proud. “Tomorrow is a special day,” he says, before walking away and leaving Helly alone, frustrated, and baffled.
Mark raises a big question about the fate of the Innies
Apple TV+Cobel explains: “Once that file is done, you’ll need to quickly get to the black hallway, then down to the Testing Floor. They’ll not let you leave MDR till that file is complete.”
There’s an extra twist: when Mark gets to the Testing Floor, he’ll no longer be his Innie. “Your chip is only attuned to your floor. Once you get down to testing, you’ll be your Outie again,” Cobel adds.
So, this is the plan: Outie Mark rescues Gemma, gets her into the elevator to the severed floor, and then Innie Mark guides her to the exit stairwell. Simple!
Mark is clearly anxious. “If we can prove that she’s alive, if we can prove that they f**king kidnapped her, it will end them,” Devon tells him, pleading for him to agree to help them.
“What happens to us? If Lumon ends, then what happens to every Innie on the severed floor?” he asks, with a tremble in his voice warranted by Devon’s nervous response. “You want me to give my life? The lives of everyone down there? Just to save one person you happen to care about?”
Mark’s Innie meets his Outie
Apple TV+As Cobel says, saving Gemma doesn’t necessarily mean the end of his life. Devon passes him a camera and asks him to press play. “Watch it, record your response, and step outside,” Cobel explains.
Soon after, Mark’s Innie watches the video – and it’s a recording of his Outie (this is a really smart way for both sides of him to communicate). “I guess you know who I am,” his Outie says, making his Innie smile (it must be so weird to hear yourself and it not be… yourself).
“So you know what it is that we’re asking. But the first thing I need to say to you is that I am so sorry. You know, I created you as a prisoner and as an escape. Lumon told me that you’d be happy, that Innies are content and because I took their word for it, you’ve been living a nightmare for two years.
“It’s horrific what they’ve done to you and part of the reason I’m here is to make it right. I hope, now with all we have in common, that you’ll give me that chance.”
Mark’s Innie and Outie negotiate (and argue)
Apple TV+Mark’s Outie listens to his Innie’s first message. “I never expected to get to actually speak to you, let alone get an apology, so thank you,” he says.
“‘Nightmare’ is the wrong word, actually. We find ways to make it work, to feel whole, which is why what you’re asking scares me… whatever this life is, it’s all we have and we don’t want it to end. Can you understand that?”
So begins a back and forth between Mark’s two halves that starts amicably… but it becomes heated.
“I’d say the same thing in your position… however, Lumon doesn’t need to be your whole life. Now, you may have been seeing flashes lately, images from my world out here. I’ve been seeing yours too. It’s a process called reintegration. It’s a way to recouple memories so we can be one person,” Mark’s Outie explains.
“I started this because I see now how unfair all this is you, and once my wife is free, I swear I will finish the process. ‘Cause this life, our life, belongs to both of us, and I wanna share it with you.”
Mark’s Innie wants clarification of what that would look like. “Would it be a top-bottom situation?” he asks. “It’s both of us… one person combined. My memories and yours, my trauma and yours, but the good stuff too,” his Outie says.
“You’ve been alive for 20 times longer, so whoever this new hybrid person is… it seems like he’d be way more you than me,” his Innie argues, asking exactly how it works.
Mark’s Outie takes a breath and gets candid with his Innie. “I mourned Gemma for two years. I lost my job, my teaching job, because I f**king started showing up drunk. You know, I hid all of her stuff in my basement, ’cause it was easier pretending she never existed, and I thought I was protecting you from that pain,” he says.
And then he rubs his Innie the wrong way by referring to Helly as “Heleny” and making light of their feelings for each other. “You can see why I have to get my wife back, I have to have her back,” he says, but all he does is make clear why he wouldn’t want to give up his life with Helly.
“It’s the person I’m in love with, which you’d know if you’d ever taken an interest in my life before tonight, when you need something. She’s the person I’ll lose if I do what you say, ’cause you know as well as I do that her Outie won’t reintegrate, assuming that’s even real… assuming every word out of your mouth isn’t a lie,” his Innie says.
Mark’s Outie promises to not abandon… himself, but his Innie isn’t convinced. “I think the second you get your wife back you forget I ever existed. I think that I disappear with every Innie down there,” he says, admitting he can’t trust him.
Cobel reveals the truth of MDR
Apple TV+As Mark’s Outie starts to lose his temper, Cobel offers to speak to his Innie. “The numbers are your wife,” she explains. “The MDR numbers from your console. They’re a doorway into the mind of your Outie’s wife, Gemma Scout.”
Cobel asks what he sees when he looks at the numbers. He sees he feels things… and it just so happens that they line up with the Four Tempers: Woe, Malice, Frolic, and Dread. The clusters are her tempers, “the building blocks of her mind.”
“What am I building?” he asks. “Every file you’ve completed is a new consciousness for her. A new Innie,” she reveals. As Mark says, he’s completed 24 files, and Cold Harbor is the last one.
“Tomorrow will be your final day at Lumon,” Cobel says. “You will have served your purpose, and so will she.”
Mark’s Innie asks why Cobel is telling him all of this. “There’ll be no honeymoon ending for you and Helly R. She’s an Eagan. You’re nothing to them, nothing to her, they’re using you… then they’ll discard you like a skin husk. Reintegration is your only chance,” she tells him, but he storms outside.
“You tell him the next thing I see had better be the severed floor, or I swear he will never see his wife again,” he threatens.
Mark’s final day at Lumon begins
Apple TV+Seconds later, Mark’s Innie stumbles out of the elevator on the severed floor, and there’s an unsettling change: instead of ‘Kier Pardons His Betrayers’, it’s a painting of Mark sitting at his desk beneath Woe’s Hollow surrounded by every character we’ve met in Severance so far (curiously, Helena is also standing at the top in the middle of the other Kiers, suggesting Mark’s completion of Cold Harbor may bring about the “revolving” Jame spoke of).
Helly steps out of the elevator, and they share a relieved hug. “I have to tell you something,” he says. “Me too,” she replies.
They walk along the ominously lit corridors, an eerie change from the scorching bright lights. When they make it to the MDR space, there’s a large statue of Kier Eagan in the middle of the room holding a letter for Mark.
“Mark, the Founder wished to witness the historic completion of your 25th file. Helly R. shall also bear witness from her chair. Goodly splendors await upon your victory. Love, Mr Milchick,” it reads, with a pop-up waffle inside the card.
Just a few feet away, Mark’s computer powers up, and they sit down. Helly tells Mark about what happened with Jame and how he said “some cryptic sh*t about the fire of Kier being in [her] and that today is a special day.”
“I know why,” Mark says. “I know why they’re doing this.”
Back at the elevator, Milchick meets Dylan as he arrives at work. “He said no?” Dylan asks, and Milchick tells him to follow him. We also see a name assigned to the painting: “The exalted victory of Cold Harbor.”
Gemma starts her final day at Lumon as reality sinks in for Mark
Apple TV+Down on the Testing Floor, Gemma opens her wardrobe for her final day: it’s the same jacket and scarf from the day she ‘died’, and she immediately recognizes it. Gemma asks her nurse what’s going on, but she’s told to get dressed and that everything will be fine.
“So, what happens when they extract the chip?” Helly asks Mark, and his lack of answer is an answer in itself: it could kill her. Mark says he could just “not do it” and doom Gemma and save himself, but as Helly says, if Cobel “is telling the truth, we’re screwed either way.”
“If you get her out, maybe that will take down Lumon like his sister said,” she adds. “And maybe you can do this combining thing.”
Mark says his Outie could be a liar. “What if he’s not?” Helly asks. “At least you’ll have a chance at living.”
“Yeah, but I wanna live with you,” Mark says (if you think this is heartbreaking, just wait for the rest of the episode). “But I’m her, Mark. I’m her,” she replies. A single tear falls from Mark’s right eye, and he decides to finish the file.
Dylan’s Outie responds to his resignation request
Apple TV+As Dr Mauer and Mr Drummond observe from beneath them, Mark gets to work on Cold Harbor. Meanwhile, Milchick shows Dylan how his Outie responded to his resignation request – and he allows him some privacy so he doesn’t need to witness an “embarrassing emotional response.”
“Dear Innie, I’ve read your request and organized my response into three points,” the form reads.
“Point one: f**k you. Gretchen is my wife and my beloved, and your actions with her were deeply f**king indecorous.
“Point two: I get it. She’s perfect, and given our shared physiology, it tracks that you’d agree. Here’s the thing: I’ve never been an impressive person, so when Gretch told me that you’re this self-assured badass… I don’t know, it stung.
“So, I guess point three is… I hope someday she sees in me what she sees in you. In the meantime, if I’m being really honest, I guess I like knowing you’re there. So, if you wanna leave, you can – but I think you should stay. Sincerest regards, your Outie.”
Mark finishes Cold Harbor
Apple TV+As Mark hits 99% on Cold Harbor, Helly tries to remember place names – including the Equator. “Is that a building?” Mark asks, and Helly jokes, “Or a continent.”
“I just wish we had more time,” Helly says, softly, as Mark hovers over his final cluster. She slips him the instructions to find the Exports Hall and he finishes the file.
Suddenly, the office is engulfed in darkness… until green lights emerge in the corner and a spotlight hits the statue of Kier as ‘Sirius’ by The Alan Parsons Project starts playing. “Mark S, in completing your 25th Macrodata file, you have drawn my grand agendum nearer to fulfillment, thus making you one of the most important people in history,” the Kier statue says.
“Revel now in the fruit of your labors and hail your earthbound steward, your very own floor manager,” it adds, as Milchick hops into the room and struts into the spotlight.
Kier makes a joke about how one of the core principles – Vision – prevents him from saying Milchick looks handsome. Milchick says it’s an honor to host someone “so sapient, so magnanimous”, and Kier interrupts, “My, you’re verbose. Good thing you didn’t write the first appendix, it would have burst.”
“It’s an honor to receive your barbs, Mr Eagan. The legacy you’ve left behind is truly and irrefutably larger than life,” Milchick says. “You mean, my company?” Kier asks, and Milchick replies: “No, I mean this wax statue that’s five inches taller than you actually were.”
There’s an awkward, tense silence. “Thank you for that feedback… Seth,” the state says, allowing Milchick to introduce Choreography and Merriment.
Season 2 gets its own dance party as Mark tries to find Gemma
Apple TV+As Gemma walks down the hall to the Cold Harbor room, Milchick conducts a marching band in the MDR office and Jame arrives at his private cubicle. “The efficacy test will begin shortly,” Dr Mauer tells him.
Milchick kicks off the next song – ‘The Ballad of Ambrose and Gunnel’ – as Mark flees to the Exports Hall. “See you at the Equator,” they tell each other, and Helly snatches Milchick’s walkie talkie as a distraction for Mark.
While Mark runs along the corridors, Helly locks Milchick in the bathroom, and Dylan helps her block the door with a vending machine.
The dark truth of Cold Harbor is revealed
Apple TV+Gemma finally walks into the Cold Harbor room. Inside, there’s nothing but a crib – the same crib Mark bought before she had a miscarriage (hence why it was called “col d’Arbor” on the box). “Enter the room,” Dr Mauer orders as Jame watches through his screen.
“Who are you?” Dr Mauer asks. “I don’t know,” Gemma says, and she approaches the crib. “Take it apart,” Dr Mauer tells her, and Jame queasily watches as she slowly dismantles it.
“The barrier is holding. She feels nothing… it’s beautiful,” Dr Mauer says as Billie Holiday’s ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ plays in the background.
Mammalians Nurturable offers a sacrifice
Apple TV+Elsewhere, Mr Drummond emerges from the elevator in the Exports Hall on the severed floor, while Lorne (the goat wrangler from Mammalians Nurturable) walks down the hall with a baby goat in a trolley.
“Mammalians Nurturable brings an offering,” she tells Mr Drummond. “Has it verve?” he asks. “It does,” she says. “Wiles?” he asks. “The most of its flock,” she confirms as the goat bleats.
“This beast will be entombed with a cherished woman whose spirit it must guide to Kier’s door. Is it up to the task?” he asks, and Lorne says she is (how Gwendoline Christie resisted the urge to pet the goat I’ll never know).
Mr Drummond prepares the bolt pistol and asks Lorne to give him “its life… we commit this animal to Kier in his eternal war against pain.”
Lorne lowers the gun to the goat’s head and asks, “How many? How many more must I give?” Mr Drummond tells her, “As many as the founder calls.”
Mark kills Mr Drummond (by accident)
Apple TV+Before Lorne can shoot the goat, Mr Drummond hears Mark banging on the elevator door outside. He shoves Mark against the wall and punches him in the face, before throwing him around like a ragdoll and trying to choke him. Mark bites him and wriggles free, but Mr Drummond overpowers him and starts to strangle him.
Lorne walks out and holds the bolt pistol to his head. “No more killing,” she says, and a fight ensues between them. Lorne knocks Mr Drummond to the floor and Mark uses his tie to choke him – however, as she picks up the gun, Mark begs her not to kill him.
Mark holds the gun to the back of Mr Drummond’s head as they walk down the Exports Hall. “Emile [the name of the goat] thanks you,” Lorne tells him.
As the elevator lowers to the Testing Floor, Mark switches to his Innie – and in the crossover, he accidentally pulls the trigger, and Mr Drummond dies a horrible death gargling on his own blood. His body collapses as the elevator doors open – but hey, at least Mark is where he needs to be.
Mark finally finds Gemma
Apple TV+This is it, folks. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for since Season 1 Episode 7, when we found out that Ms Casey was actually Mark’s Outie’s wife: he finally finds Gemma.
But first, Helly appeals to the Choreography and Merriment staff to help them keep Milchick locked in the bathroom. “They want our whole department gone. If he gets out, we’re dead. They’re gonna turn us off like f**king machines. You’ve seen them do it, I know you’ve lost friends too… and you could be next,” she says.
“They give us half a life and think we won’t fight for it… right, Milchick? Please help us.”
Mark finds the Cold Harbor room, but he’s confronted by the Testing Floor’s nurse. “Step off, f**ko,” she tells him, but she runs away after he yells in her face with the bolt pistol.
His blood doesn’t open the door (remember, all of the doors on the Testing Floor need a finger prick to open), so he covers his finger with his tie – which happens to be soaked in Mr Drummond’s blood – to trick the sensor.
It works, and Mark creeps inside to find Gemma. She doesn’t know who he is, but he manages to convince her to step outside the room. “Oh f**k,” Jame reacts as she leaves with Mark.
Her memories rush back in an instant. Mark and Gemma are back together again!
How does Severance Season 2 end?
Apple TV+Severance Season 2 ends with Gemma escaping Lumon – but Mark’s Innie refuses to leave and stays with Helly.
Mark and Gemma make a break for it as Dr Mauer chases them through the corridors. They make it to the elevator, and as the door shuts, he shouts, “You’ll kill them all!”
Does he mean that all of Gemma’s alternate consciousnesses will cease to exist, or could there be a graver threat from Gemma leaving the Testing Floor? The former seems more likely, but who knows when it comes to Severance.
They kiss as the elevator rises to the severed floor – until Mark switches back to his Innie… and Gemma switches to Ms Casey. “What’s taking place?” she asks, but Mark stays focused and guides her to the exit stairwell.
Meanwhile, Milchick barges out of the bathroom, but he’s too late – and he’s outnumbered. “F**k you, Mr Milchick,” Dylan says, surrounded by the Choreography and Merriment players.
Back at the exit stairwell, Mark tells Ms Casey she needs to leave. She reluctantly walks out, but Mark’s Innie doesn’t follow her. Helly appears at the other end of the hall, and as Gemma screams, bangs on the window, and begs him to come outside, he walks away and takes Helly’s hand.
They run along the red-flashing halls together; smiling, scared, their futures perilous and uncertain. The episode ends. Now that’s a cliffhanger.
Find out what we know about Severance Season 3, and catch yourself up with our guides on the Eagan family tree and the Lexington Letter. If you’re looking for something else to watch, we’ve rounded up the best shows like Severance and all of the year’s releases in our 2025 TV calendar.