Prior to this episode, there have been two episodes of Severance's second season that have felt "big," as a sort of departure from the typical structure and style. This week's, following right after another episode that foregrounded a previously back-burner character and revealed a ton about the past of our central character and, specifically, the person whom he lost and hope to one day regain, is itself centered on a character we actually haven't seen for quite some time.
Yes, it's Harmony Cobel time, and boy, isn't it interesting to see her take an episode as protagonist.
Not a ton happens in Sweet Vitriol, but there is some pretty important exposition that is revealed.
The bulk of the episode is showing just how much Lumon has made a ruin out of an entire community. Somewhere up north and by the ocean (they shot it in Newfoundland, so this could be Canada or possibly Maine) is the town of Salt's Neck, and it is there that Harmony Cobel grew up. The town is built around a Lumon factory (likely an Ether Mill, whether or not that's a real thing - but it was in such a factory that Eagen lore says Kier met his wife) but that factory was shuttered. And, evidently, all the bright young minds of the town were brought from the town in the same Wintertide Fellowship that Ms. Huang is participating in, including a young Harmony Cobel.
What is left of the town is bleak - Cobel's old friend runs a coffee shop and deals ether (a decidedly idiosyncratic drug - my primary association with it is Michael Caine's character from The Cider House Rules, though it was also used as an anesthetic back in the day) and the entire place looks dilapidated depressing. The town built up around that factory, and in its absence, it is just slowly rotting away.
Cobel wasn't there when her mother died - she had been brought up in a house with her aunt and mother, the former of whom seems to be a true believer, while her mother was never converted to the Lumon/Eagan faith. And it really is treated like a religion - Harmony's Aunt Sissy (short for Celestine) both worked for Lumon and seems to think that Harmony's mother would have been better off if she had believed, so that she could rest in Kier's breast in the afterlife.
Harmony, of course, is on the outs with Lumon after a lifetime of service, but she has something that she feels she needs, and much of the episode has us guessing what that is. She needs to properly mourn her mother, having never come home after her mother died while she was away. It's heartbreaking and humanizing to a character who has always been so cold and sinister.
But then we get the real massive reveal:
According to Lumon and the general public's understanding, it's Helena's father, Jame Eagan was the inventor of Severance. But as Harmony searches not just the cramped old home in which she grew up, but also the cellar/bunker/storage under a nearby hillock, she finds, hidden in a bust of Kier, her own rolled up notebook that holds within it her original designs - she invented Severance, and Lumon has been using her invention all along. No wonder she was in charge of the Severed floor.
But, we get some forward movement at the end - after receiving countless calls from Devon, Harmony finally picks up, and when Devon tells her that Mark is reintegrating, Harmony tells him to tell her everything - perhaps she will be able to safely guide him through this process where Reghabi was struggling to.
It does seem that Cobel is now being set up as a potentially crucial ally in Mark's efforts, but what she hopes to actually get out of this remains unclear. Still, as Lumon tries to track her down, narrowly missing her at Sissy's house, they clearly need to have control over her - which at this point might mean just ensuring she's dead (though in fairness, we have never actually seen Lumon kill anyone, barring "firing" Innies).
Still, it goes to show you to degree to which these powerful corporations and powerful corporate companies work to consolidate and concentrate not just power and wealth, but even credit for genius inventions (and the severance procedure is a work of genius, whether it's a good thing or not).
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