Severance Season 2 Episode 8 Ending Explained: Is Harmony Cobel Trying To Take Down Lumon?
Warning! This article contains spoilers for Severance season 2's episode 8.Severance season 2's episode 8 is not like other episodes of the Apple TV+ series as it focuses solely on Harmony Cobel, her backstory, and her future plans to take Lumon down. Even though Cobel was portrayed as one of the key players in the Apple TV+ sci-fi show's season 1, she barely had any screen time after the first few episodes of season 2. After not being allowed to manage the severed floor again, Cobel turned sour towards the company she loyally worshiped and disappeared before anyone could track her down.
Although season 2 initially hinted that she was heading towards a location called Salt's Neck, it never revealed why Cobel was going there and what she planned to do after her Lumon departure. After maintaining an air of ambiguity surrounding Cobel's whereabouts, Severance season 2 dedicates an entire episode to her story by revealing everything from her Lumon history to the real reason why she felt betrayed by the company. One major revelation about Harmony Cobel's past in Lumon changes everything previously known about her and her contribution to the company.
Why Cobel Agrees To Meet Mark In Severance Season 2 Episode 8's Ending
Cobel Wants To Help Mark Take Lumon Down
Cobel was devastated when Lumon fired her from her job in Severance season 1's ending arc. Despite being kicked out of the company, she maintained her loyalty and helped Lumon contain the Overtime Contingency chaos that ensued in season 1's final arc. To her dismay, even after she proved her dedication to serving the company, Helena did not agree to have her on board as the severed floor manager and only offered her an alternate job profile in the company.
This created a sense of dissonance in Cobel's head where she realized how she had wasted all her life staying loyal to a company that chucked her out like a discarded tool. With this, Cobel could finally see how evil Lumon was, prompting her to run away to Salt's Neck, the small town she was raised in. After she acquires what she wanted from her childhood home, she drives away from Salt's Neck and receives a call from Devon. Instead of ignoring Devon and Mark and staying loyal to Lumon, Cobel does not hold herself back from helping them out.
...Like the severed workers, she, too, was a puppet the company exploited for its own benefit
In Severance season 2 episode 8's closing scene, she realizes she was only programmed to believe in Lumon's vision all her life. However, like the severed workers, she, too, was a puppet the company exploited for its own benefit. This realization makes her hate Lumon and encourages her to team up with those deadset upon taking it down.
Who Arrives At Sissy Cobel's House In Severance Season 2 Episode 8's Ending
Someone From Lumon Manages To Track Harmony Down
After arriving in Salt's Neck in Severance season 2's episode 8, Cobel fears that she is being followed. She also worries that Sissy will not let her inside her home if she sees her car parked outside. Therefore, she seeks Hampton's help and asks him to silently drop her at Sissy's home. Towards the end of the episode, Cobel finally finds what she was looking for, but Hampton spots a car approaching Sissy's home from a distance. Although the episode does not reveal who arrived at Sissy's house, it seems obvious that it was someone from Lumon.
Severance: Harmony Cobel's Role At Lumon Industries & Mrs. Selvig Identity Explained
Patricia Arquette's Severance character, Harmony Cobel, is crucial to the story of the Apple TV+ series, as is her Mrs. Selvig identity.
Sissy Cobel had previously revealed that after Harmony left Lumon, Drummond had called her to tell her about Harmony's defiance. While Harmony spends time in her mother's room and recalls her tragic demise, Sissy seems to rat her out by informing Lumon's authorities about her arrival at her house. This would explain how Lumon came to know about Cobel's whereabouts. Since Hampton, too, seems to have had a traumatic history with Lumon, he expresses his hate towards the company by saying "Come and tame these tempers, a**holes," as the Lumon car approaches Sissy's home.
What Harmony Looks For In Sissy Cobel's Home
She Hopes To Find A Notebook That Proves Her Lumon Contributions
Harmony specifically looks for a notebook in Sissy's home that seemingly contains intricate drawings of something she created. After looking all over her own and her mother's room, Cobel realizes that Sissy would never throw away her belongings. With this, she realizes that Sissy might have stored her things in the cellar. When she goes to the cellar, she finally finds the notebook she was looking for, which contains intricate drawings of all the override protocols and procedures Lumon uses to create the severance barriers in their employees' brains.
The Designs In Cobel's Notebook Explained: Why Jame Eagan Stole Them?
He Wanted Credit For Cobel's Brilliant Ideas
The designs in Cobel's notebook reveal that the severance procedure and its many components were her brainchildren. She was the mastermind behind all the procedures Lumon uses on its workers. However, she was never given the credit she deserved for her work. Instead, Jame Eagan claimed her inventions as his own and took all the credit for her contributions at Lumon. Cobel and Jame Eagan's story is reminiscent of the legend surrounding Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla.
The Cobel revelation explains why Harmony felt so heartbroken after Lumon removed her from the severed floor. She took pride in the fact that she got to contribute to Lumon's growth by inventing and examining the severance procedure, but the company took that away from her.
It is widely believed that Thomas Edison only patented Tesla's inventions under his name and presented them to shareholders without giving Tesla enough credit for his contributions. While there is no evidence that Edison stole from Tesla, Cobel's backstory highlights how the powerful forces behind Lumon run the company like a cult. They manipulate workers like Cobel into believing that their sole purpose is to serve Kier while silencing any recognition of their individual contributions.
Harmony Cobel's Lumon History Explained
Like Miss Huang, She Was Once An Intern At Lumon Industries
Severance season 2's episode 8 not only reveals the truth about Harmony Cobel's Lumon contributions but also discloses how she was recruited by the company when she was only a child. Like Miss Huang, Cobel was a minor when she was taken on board by the company as an intern. Similar to Huang, she was among the participants of Lumon's prestigious Wintertide Fellowship and was only deemed worthy of the fellow after she proved how industrious she was during her tenure at a Lumon factory.
Severance Key Facts Breakdown | |
Created By | Dan Erickson |
Rotten Tomatoes Critics' Score | 97% |
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score | 83% |
Streaming On | Apple TV+ |
Although the episode does not delve into the details of Cobel's Wintertide journey, it suggests that Hampton, too, worked with her at the Lumon factory. Hampton keeps emphasizing how Lumon unethically made them perform child labor, revealing the dark truth about the company's history of exploitation of young, impressionable minds. When Cobel and Hampton get high, Cobel also recalls how she was only nine the last time she got high on ether. This hints that Cobel and Hampton were constantly exposed to ether and its intoxicating effects when they worked at Lumon's ether factories as children.
Celestine "Sissy" Cobel's Role In Lumon Explained
Sissy Was The Youth Apprentive Matron At Lumon
Although Severance season 2's episode 8 does not explicitly mention Sissy Cobel's role in Lumon, it highlights how she, too, is blinded by her devotion to the company. For a few seconds, the episode also features a shot of a plaque on one of the walls in Sissy's home, which reveals she was the "Youth Apprentice Matron." It also shows that she was labeled the "Quarterly Striver" in the "4th Quarter," suggesting that she had deep ties with the company as its employee for quite some time.
What Happened To Harmony Cobel's Mother
Cobel's Mother Passed Away When She Was Young
Severance season 2's episode 8 reveals that Cobel's mother had a terminal illness. Cobel agreed to work for Lumon from a young age because she believed it would help her afford her mother's treatment. However, while she was away working for Lumon, her mother passed away. As seen in the Severance season 2 episode, Cobel remains traumatized by her mother's demise and even carries her breathing tube with her.
Severance season 2 is scheduled to have a total of 10 episodes, with its final episode set to be released on Mar 21, 2025.
Cobel tries to blame Celestine for her mother's death by claiming that she did not look after her. However, to Harmony's shock, Celestine claims that her mother died after she disconnected her own breathing tube from her life support machine. Although Harmony refuses to believe Sissy Cobel's claims, the revelation deeply unsettles her.
Lumon's Impact & Influence On Salt Neck Explained
Lumon Destroyed Salt's Neck In The Name Of Development & Employment
Even though Severance season 2's episode 8 does not delve into the depths of Lumon's influence on Salt's Neck, it hints at how the company destroyed the town. Many citizens of the town seem to face severe health conditions and use breathing tubes, suggesting that Lumon heavily polluted their air and water. To make room for its growth, the company also seemingly forced many people to move out while the remaining ones were forced to work under Lumon.
Since the town's economy became a little too dependent on Lumon, many residents had little choice but to accept the company's terms and even experienced significant financial blows when Lumon discarded them. Cobel and Hampton's history in Lumon also reveals that the company even took over educational institutions in the town and replaced them with training centers that made young children work in factories in the name of promised future employment. The tragic state of Salt's Neck economy in Severance season 2's episode 8 confirms that Lumon's rise has been marred by corporate greed and exploitation.
Severance is a psychological thriller series featuring Adam Scott as Mark Scout, an employee at Lumon Industries who undergoes a "severance" procedure to separate his work and personal memories. However, as work and life personas mysteriously begin to collide, it quickly becomes clear that not all is as it seems. Created by Dan Erickson and directed by Ben Stiller and Aoife McArdle.
- Cast
- Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Zach Cherry, Tramell Tillman, Jen Tullock, Dichen Lachman, Michael Chernus, John Turturro, Christopher Walken, Patricia Arquette, Sarah Bock, Marc Geller, Michael Cumpsty
- Showrunner
- Dan Erickson, Mark Friedman
- Directors
- Ben Stiller
- Writers
- Dan Erickson
- Main Genre
- Drama
- Seasons
- 2
- Story By
- dan erickson
- Streaming Service(s)
- AppleTV+
