‘Severance’ Season 2, Episode 8 Explained: Who Created the Severance Procedure?

Note: This story contains spoilers from “Severance” Season 2, Episode 8.

Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) has been absent for most of “Severance” Season 2, but Episode 8 put the spotlight back on her with some key revelations that explain the chip on her shoulder.

Episode 8 sends Cobel back to the (cold?) harbor town she grew up in. The place has fallen on hard times — clearly due to the fact that the Lumon factory that used to be in place closed up and the town suffered in turn. While it initially seems like she’s just fleeing back to the one place she knows, in reality she’s looking for something she’d hidden there.

As it turns out, she’s looking for a way to take down the revered Eagan family name after Jame (Michael Siberry) and Helena (Britt Lower) push her out of Lumon. She’s got just the bullet to do that — proof that the Eagans were not the brilliant inventors of the severance procedure. If they lied about that, what else could be false about the Eagan story? (Spoiler: probably a lot).

Below, we break down who is really responsible for the severance program and what it could mean for the final episodes of Season 2.

Who really invented the Severance Procedure?

Harmony’s trip home might have partially been due to the existential flailing spared by being canned by Lumon. But it was also to find some hidden proof to knock the Eagan family down from their pedestal. It was always a long shot that the Eagans themselves invented the concepts and designs for the severance procedure, but Episode 8 reveals that most of the work was actually stolen from Harmony Cobel herself.

She manages to track down an old notebook she’d tucked away filled with blueprints, schematics and theories on everything that became the severance procedure. She did it all: circuit blueprints, code, even the Overtime Contingency and Glasgow Block.

Cobel’s sister insists that Jame Eagan was the inventor until she gets a look at the notebook. It immediately rattles her seemingly unshakeable faith in the Eagans, and she asks Harmony why she didn’t bring it up sooner.

“It was told Kier’s knowledge is for all,” she responds. “That if I sought credit, I would be banished.”

Her sister tries to destroy the notebook – whether to protect Harmony or the Eagon legacy remains unclear. Cobel wrestles it from her in time and flees her home with the evidence she needs.

What is Cobel’s next move?

The episode ends with Harmony getting a call from Devon (Jen Tullock) letting her know Mark (Adam Scott) has been reintegrated and is still alive. She wants to know everything he’s seen and experienced as the episode comes to a close.

It seems like Cobel and Mark are going to have to put aside their differences and work together. Whether she can help shore up the lingering side effects Mark is experiencing from reintegration or use Mark to get her evidence in front of the right eyes, it seems the two are moving into their endgame and they’re doing it on the same side.

“Severance” releases new episodes Fridays on Apple TV+.

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