‘Severance’s Wild Fan Theories

Arianna Langford

Staff Editor

The popular Apple TV+ series Severance is, once again, having the world question the limits of work-life balance with the rollout of its new second season. Riding off the wave of the 12 Emmy Award nominations and 2 wins the show received for season 1, it’s safe to say that the series had a lot of expectations to live up to.

But the series, backed by executive producer and director Ben Stiller, bounced back even stronger. Severance has now surpassed Ted Lasso to become Apple TV+’s most-watched series ever.

What’s the appeal? Well, its story revolves around the one thing that almost everyone in the world has believed, at one point or another, to be the most boring, painful, grueling part of life: work.

But Lumon, the series’ pharmaceutical corporate antagonist, supposedly eliminates the bores and pains of work with a new procedure called severance.

During severance, a chip is inserted into an employee’s brain that erases all memories of work while preventing them from remembering their personal life while at the office.

In Severance’s second season, the main cast grapples with world-shattering revelations from the end of the first season, and many more questions were introduced in season 2: who is alive?

How will the characters react to knowing who their outside selves are? Why is Miss Huang a child? What’s with the goats? And, most importantly, what is Cold Harbor?!

Severance fans have taken to social media to try solving these questions. Here are some of the most interesting, popular, and controversial fan theories for season 2 of Severance. Major season 1 and season 2 spoilers ahead!

Lumon is trying to resurrect Kier Eagan: This fan theory, laid out by Reddit user fillgates, poses that the purpose of Macrodata Refinement’s work is to rebuild the consciousness of Lumon’s late founder, Kier Eagan. fillgates points out that the Macrodata Refiners sort numbers into boxes representing the Four Tempers, which are woe, frolic, dread and malice. Kier Eagan would want his consciousness to be made up of the Four Tempers.

This also aligns with the cult mentality of Lumon, which, like many real-life cults, has pursued some type of immortality. “The ultimate goal is likely not just Kier,” fillgates says in a Reddit post. “… but the entire Eagan lineage.” This theory also explains Lumon’s goats, theorizing that the goats might be used for biological testing to physically clone Kier.

However, there’s been a lot of pushback against this theory. “I think narratively, the writers wouldn’t go for a dead CEO hivemind without having Kier involved,” user DigitalEmu said in a Reddit post addressing this theory. Overall, the Severance fanbase seems very divided on this theory.

Cold Harbor creates the perfect corporate slave: @anniekshaffer on Instagram has a very interesting theory about what Cold Harbor is based on American history. In an Instagram reel, she connects the costume design to the American Civil War battle at Cold Harbor, which the Confederacy won.

The severed employees, such as Mark and Helly, typically wear blue, which could symbolize the Union. She theorizes that Mark is organizing emotions in Cold Harbor so that Lumon can figure out how to sever an employee to have no emotions, creating corporate slaves and mirroring the Confederacy’s protection of slavery.

She supports this with Lumon’s odd treatment of Milchick and his identity as a black man, specifically when the company gifted him portraits of Lumon’s white founders painted as black men. This is an interesting interpretation of Cold Harbor that connects to the show’s messages on corporate diversity.

Miss Huang is a zombie: There are many theories about who Miss Huang really is, but this might be one of the craziest. There are a few things in the show that could point toward Miss Huang being a zombie.

First, her job outside of Lumon as a crossing guard could symbolize someone who leads souls to the afterlife.

Secondly, Reddit user snegurachkasometimes theorized that Miss Huang being a “Wintertide Fellow” could be a reference to the film “Wintertide,” where a city faces a wave of depression that makes people act like zombies. This leads to the idea that Miss Huang’s body might not be controlled by her original consciousness.

The season has now ended, but there is still so much more to be discovered.