Severance is a show about many things: consciousness, bodily autonomy, baby goats. It's also a show about hallways.
By this point, Lumon's blinding white hallways are a Severance character all on their own. The actors get lost in them. Characters throughout Season 1 and 2 spend good chunks of time mapping them. And in the Season 2 premiere, "Hello, Ms. Cobel," Severance treated us to a long, mind-bending sequence where Innie Mark (Adam Scott) charged through Lumon's dizzying halls in search of Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman), whom he'd just learned was also his Outie's wife, Gemma.
That opening gets a remix in the last moments of Severance's Season 2 finale, "Cold Harbor." Innie Mark manages to free Gemma from the Severed Floor, sending her into the non-Severed stairwell in the hopes she can escape Lumon for good. But Mark doesn't join her. Instead, he grabs Helly's (Britt Lower) hand and takes off running back into the Severed Floor. Now, in a mirror of his "Hello, Ms. Cobel" run, Mark's "Cold Harbor" run carries him away from Gemma, whereas he started the season running towards her.
The callback to Season 2's opening sequence emphasizes Innie Mark's changing relationship to his own wants throughout the season. At first, he wanted to find and save Gemma for his Outie, even as his relationship with Helly bloomed into a full-on romance. But in the Season 2 finale, he realized that him leaving Gemma and Outie Mark together would lead to his retirement and the end of his time with Helly. In the Season 2 finale, he tries to find the best of both worlds for him, and that means saving Gemma and fulfilling the goal he set himself at the start of the season, but also staying back with Helly and realizing his own dream.
Each of these running scenes, both directed by Ben Stiller, differ stylistically. As the season opener, the "Hello, Ms. Cobel" running sequence is showier, with Stiller creating the illusion of a oner. The camera dips and soars around a discombobulated Mark, disorienting the audience along with him as he sprints through the fluorescent white halls.
By contrast, the running scene in "Cold Harbor" is slower, and not just because it uses slow motion! There are cuts breaking up the action, as well as fewer flashier camera movements. Instead, the camera — moving a bit shakily as opposed to the smoothness seen in "Hello, Ms. Cobel" — stays close on Helly and Mark, then becomes the point they're running towards. These less frenetic movements, along with the slow motion and the eventual freeze frame, allow us to really linger on Mark's choice. Yes, there's a beauty to his and Helly's romance and to his decision to fight for them. But there's horror in it, too: Gemma may never see her husband again, and Outie Mark's consciousness might be lost.
So, as red lights ring Mark and Helly while they run, Severance invites us to consider everything they could represent beyond just Lumon's alarms. The warm hue of the red breaks up Lumon's white monotony, perhaps a nod to Mark and Helly finding romance in the most unlikely of places. Yet there's also a sense of doom to them. Mark and Helly may be running away from the outside world, but can they really outrun it — and Lumon — forever?
Severance Season 2 is now streaming on Apple TV+.
