Severance fans share chilling theory after finding clue in name of latest episode

Independent

16-03-2025

Severance has reached the penultimate episode of season two and fans are still scrambling to find clues and theories and understand what the ominous 'Cold Harbor' is.
Severance stars Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Zach Cherry and John Turturro as a group of employees at the mysterious Lumon company, which the equally suspicious Eagan family runs. All four have undergone a procedure called 'severance' in which their consciousness is completely divided between their work selves and home selves in a daring experiment to find a work-life balance.
So far, despite many twists and turns, fans are still trying to figure out exactly what is going on in the show.
After episode eight was branded 'boring' by fans, Severance returned to the stories of the four central characters for episode nine.
One of the biggest mysteries that remains revolves around the fate of Mark's wife, Gemma, who is essentially a prisoner of Lumon - subject to a seemingly endless stream of experiments on the testing floor.
Mark's efforts to save Gemma have now seen him join forces with his sister Devon and former boss Ms Cobel.
Episode 10 is called 'Cold Harbor' so it's highly likely that viewers will discover what that means when that episode airs but those digging into the latest episode, 'The After Hours,' believe they have found a possible clue about Gemma's fate.
Warning: The rest of this article features potential Severance spoilers
'The After Hours' is the same name as a Twilight Zone episode from 1960. It follows a woman named Marsha White who goes to a seemingly normal department store to buy a gold thimble for her mother. She is told to go to the ninth floor but when she gets there, finds only a single saleswoman on a dark and empty corridor, selling just one thimble.
After buying the thimble she notices that it is damaged but when she tries to return it she is told that there isn't a ninth floor and therefore cannot return the item.
Marsha then sees the woman who sold her the thimble but is stunned when she discovers that the woman is just a mannequin.
After getting locked in the store, she learns that the ninth floor is staffed by animated mannequins. The true twist is that Marsha is also a mannequin but didn't realise it.
A clip from the episode has since gone viral on social media and has prompted a chilling theory from fans about Gemma.
'So??? Is Gemma not real? A severed innie persona Lumon sent after Mark to begin with?' asked one person.
'Oh God...if the twist is the same it could mean that Miss Casey was an innie first and Gemma later and she just forgot she was an innie in the first place. She could be an experiment from the very start which is why they went as far as to fake her death and recruit Mark to work for them. That would be heartbreaking. It would mean Mark and Gemma's relationship was manufactured from the beginning,' a second fan wrote.
'Oh my god, this is one of the first theories I've seen on here that's really compelling - I hope this is true! It would make so much about Lumon and Mark/Gemma make sense. And why they couldn't have kids, and why Mark is special,' a third added.
The finale of Severance season two arrives on Apple TV+ on Friday 21 March.