Severance – Sweet Vitriol

By: Kelly Kearney

After last week’s Gemma-centric episode, this week shifts focus to Harmony Cobel—everyone’s least favorite MDR tyrant. Directed by showrunner Ben Stiller, this episode finally gives us Harmony’s backstory, offering a deep dive into her upbringing and how she became Lumon’s most prolific employee.

At just thirty-seven minutes, the episode may feel like a pause in the otherwise pedal-to-the-metal season, but slower doesn’t mean less significant. This backstory paints a side of Harmony we’ve never seen before, shedding light on her obsession with Mark and her need for respect from Lumon’s creators, The Eagans.

Return to Salt’s Neck

We open on Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette), driving her Volkswagen Rabbit through the mountains until she arrives in a small, impoverished fishing town called Salt’s Neck. The name first appeared on a road sign in Episode 3, when Harmony was en route to the snowy destination but had to turn back to meet Helena at Lumon. Right away, it’s clear this town holds deep significance for her—her expression is both nostalgic and tense, anxiety laced with something resembling longing. There isn’t a moment in the episode where the camera shies away from her brilliantly intense Cobel behaviors.

As for Salt’s Neck, it appears to have been forgotten, its past tragedies still etched into the landscape. Closed-down factories and boarded-up homes tell a story of decay, while a man huffing ether on the roadside offers a grim confirmation: this town was destroyed by Lumon. Now, in the wake of her fallout with the company, Harmony has returned home to reconnect with two figures from her past. With painful memories flooding her mind, she is in search of something important—something she left behind, something she believes could be crucial to reclaiming her place at Lumon.

Faces from the Past

Her first stop is the local diner, where she encounters a few sick people. One woman on oxygen, another, seemingly dazed on addiction, slurping down the specials in depressing silence. There she meets Hampton (James Le Gros), a server who hasn’t seen her since childhood. Their reunion is an odd one—Hampton masks his surprise with caution, keeping her at arm’s length., but Harmony needs a ride, one that will keep her hidden from prying eyes. His truck is the perfect cover for her agenda, so the two agree to meet outside the abandoned ether mill, their reunion– thick with tension.

With its small, sickly population, it becomes evident that Lumon is directly responsible for Salt Neck’s ruin. A rusted factory overshadows their meet-up, still bearing the company’s insignia, hinting at a past where Lumon likely promised prosperity but instead left behind only sickness and economic collapse.

The two old friends’ conversation reveals painful memories of working at the factory as children, suggesting that child labor wasn’t beyond Lumon’s reach. After all, they currently have a teenager running the MDR floor like a pint-sized dictator, labor laws aren’t a part of Lumon’s business model. While Hampton appears to be grappling with lingering PTSD from their past, Harmony funneled that same trauma into something else—becoming Lumon’s most decorated employee. But there is a catch to her success–which we will get to later, that explains why she’s returned to a town that isn’t too happy to see her.

After a bumpy ride, Harmony climbs out of the truck bed while Hampton waits for her to finish whatever she is up to. This is when we meet Harmony’s Lumon brainwashed aunt–Celestine “Sissy” Cobel (Jane Alexander) someone the entire town seems both terrified of and actively avoids, The nature of their relationship remains ambiguous at first, but it’s clear that Sissy is no ordinary townsperson; she holds a powerful, almost haunting presence that has made her a recluse from prying eyes and pointing fingers. She is a hardened woman; drunk on Lumon’s cult-kool-aid, and holds a bitter animosity towards her niece. She is a real piece of work, and through her long-winded praise of Kier we can start to see why Harmony turned out the way she did

Lumon’s Ghosts

Rushing through the house, ignoring her aunt’s demands for answers, Harmony heads straight to her childhood bedroom—only to find it empty. Her belongings are gone. The only trace of her past is a series of markings on the doorframe, tracking her height through the years. The last recorded measurement? Twelve years old. This is the first indication of just how long Lumon has had its grip on her.

Fury rising, she demands to know where her things are. The confrontation quickly escalates into an argument about Caroline Cobel—Harmony’s mother. Caroline had been sick, and Sissy had cared for her–poorly. With chilling detachment, Sissy admits she was the one who pulled Caroline’s breathing tube, convinced that Kier would save her. Her faith in Lumon is so absolute that she feels no remorse for keeping her sister locked away from her own daughter.

During their argument, Harmony accuses Sissy of killing Caroline, and that’s when another horrifying truth comes to light—Sissy was the one who sent young Harmony to the factory to grow in the tutelage of Lumon–the company she claims saved their town. Kier had seen something in the child, and Sissy, blinded by devotion, had hoped Lumon would mold her into some kind of chosen disciple.

The weight of it all—her mother’s death, her stolen childhood, the betrayal of the only family she had left—becomes too much to bear. Overcome with rage, Harmony storms upstairs and breaks into her mother’s locked room. Grief-stricken, she crawls into Caroline’s bed, inhaling deeply from an old oxygen tank beside it. But the tank isn’t filled with air, a brownish liquid sloshes inside—we can assume ether, the very substance Lumon used to keep the town under its thumb.

For the first time, the cracks in Harmony’s cold exterior begin to show. She isn’t just the ruthless soldier of Lumon we’ve come to know—she is a woman who feels. Hampton sees it too. Ignoring Sissy’s verbal onslaught, he makes his way upstairs to check on his old friend. A silent understanding passes between them, and, just like they did in their youth, they get high together. Relaxed, disarmed, and momentarily freed from the weight of her pain, Harmony releases a deep, gut-busting laugh. Then, in a moment of nostalgia or longing—or maybe both—she kisses Hampton.

There is history in that kiss. A history the episode leaves tantalizingly unexplored, but one this reviewer hopes to see unfold in the future. The haze of their momentary escape doesn’t last long. Harmony suddenly remembers why she came. Whatever she’s searching for, it’s too important for Sissy to have simply thrown away. Tearing through the house, ignoring her aunt’s shrill protests, she heads for the shed, and there, buried in a forgotten box, she finds it—a notebook.

Not just any notebook; inside are pages filled with her own childhood writings—blueprints, theories, and the very foundation of what would later become the Severance procedure. The realization is staggering. Harmony was the one who conceived this experiment. A brilliant child whose ideas were stolen by the Eagans—along with her credit, her power, and her future.

Harmony Has the Upper Hand

From here the pieces start to fall into place. This is why she has leverage over Helena (Britt Lower). This is why her Mark (Adam Scott) and Devon (Jen Tullock) debacle still afforded her a second chance with the company. Speaking of Devon, she keeps calling Harmony’s phone, but the woman has no time to talk to her now; she is on a mission. Mark’s sister isn’t the only one concerning phone calls; she also learns Sissy has been talking to Mr. Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), who must be tracking Harmony’s whereabouts. Without hesitation, she rips the phone cord from the wall and shoves the notebook in Sissy’s face, demanding that she finally acknowledge the truth—that Lumon stole everything from her. Instead of snapping out of her Kier-induced trance, Sissy simply nods at the brilliance of Harmony’s mind and then turns on her completely. She brands Harmony and Caroline as heretics, claiming they were never worthy of Lumon’s blessings, or part of Kier’s true vision. Then, she tosses the notebook into the fire, forcing her niece to wrestle it out of the flames before it can be destroyed.

That attack on her creation, her mother, and her entire life is the final straw. Shaking with rage and betrayal, her voice breaking as she demands to know—why? Why was she forced into this life? Why was she robbed of her mother, her childhood, her own ideas? Sissy is unmoved by her niece’s pain. Her devotion to Kier blinds her to everything, even the suffering she has caused. Harmony realizes then that she will never get the validation she craves. Never hear the remorse she longs for. When Hampton yells out that someone is coming, she storms out of the house, clutching her stolen notebook like a relic of a past that was stolen from her. Hampton agrees to stay behind and allows Harmony to take his truck and drive away from Salt Neck. As she hurries away from a car’s approaching lights, she finally answers Devon’s call. Mark has been reintegrated, and Harmony must speak with him immediately. For the first time in decades, Harmony Cobel isn’t just a soldier for Lumon; she is a woman on a mission, and perhaps, with the help of Mark, she is ready to take back what’s hers.