Apple TV+Severance is a series about conflict between Lumon Industries and the people they employ, and one character could unexpectedly be the key to that battle, as well as the show’s real hero.
We’re talking about Harmony Cobel, who is played by Patricia Arquette, and the source of anger, frustration, humor, and fear across the first two seasons. While she can also be quite annoying.
In Severance Season 1, Ms. Cobel ruled over the Macrodata Refiners with an iron fist, and frequently treated them like children (though in some respects that’s essentially what they are). While Cobel’s fascination with Mark when in her Outie incarnation of Mrs. Selvig was just plain weird.
Harmony lost her job at the end of Season 1, and she’s barely been in Season 2. However, Episode 8 focused entirely on her and suggested that Cobel might now have the tools and the inclination to bring Lumon down. Severance SPOILERS ahead…
Ms. Cobel might not be the hero we want, but she’s the one Severance needs right now
Apple TVEarly in Season 2 of Severance, there are talks to bring Ms. Cobel back into the Lumon fold, but something spooks the character. She then essentially disappears for much of S2, only to get a standalone episode in the shape of ‘Sweet Vitriol,’ where we learn about her dark past, and how that might feed her potentially heroic future.
When she arrives in her hometown of Salt’s Neck, Cobel meets with old friend and work colleague Hampton (James LeGros). But it quickly becomes clear that their work was child labour, toiling away at the Lumon ether factory.
She then visits her Aunt Sissy (Jane Alexander), and their relationship is strained at best, and toxic at worst, with Cobel desperate for her aunt’s approval, and Sissy spiteful and demeaning in return.
We learn that young Cobel excelled in the factory, and became a star pupil at a Lumon academy, where she won a prestigious fellowship called Wintertide. But that success came at a price, with Cobel detained at the boarding school while her mother was sick and dying.
Related
But Harmony remained loyal to the cause, which is why she now resents being ousted from the company she loves. Though that isn’t the real reason for her new-found rage…
How Lumon created the monster
Apple TV+Inside her Wintertide trophy, Cobel finds an old notebook, proving she invented the Severance procedure and technology, and not Jane Eagan, as Lumon claims.
She shows Sissy, who is initially shocked at the revelation. “Mine,” screams Cobel at her aunt. “My designs. Circuit blueprint. Base code. Overtime Contingency. Glasgow Block. All of it.”
But Sissy can’t – or won’t – believe the truth she’s being exposed to, so in an effort to protect her beliefs, tries to burn the book. But Harmony rescues the evidence, and drives out of town; for what purpose, we don’t know.
Apple TV+That said, we do now know two important facts about the character – that Cobel is a genius, and that Lumon has done her a great wrong. Should she decide to take the company on, that dangerous combination could make her a formidable opponent. Plus, she doubtless knows where all the bodies are buried, and has potential allies in her former Refiner employees.
The episode ends with Cobel taking a call from Mark’s sister, learning that he has been reintegrated, and demanding to speak to him.
“Tell me everything,” are her first words to Mark, before the credits then roll, suggesting that Harmony Cobel might be turning, and end up being the ultimate hero of Severance.
Head here for our Severance Season 2 release schedule, while we’ve also got recaps of Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 7, and Episode 8.