‘Severance’ star Dichen Lachman discusses explosive season two finale: ‘People are going to be so messed up!’

This article contains heavy spoilers for the season two finale of ‘Severance’

Severance star Dichen Lachman has spoken to Rolling Stone UK about the intense and bloody season two finale, and what it could mean for the future of the show and its characters.

The hit Apple TV+ show, the brainchild of writer Dan Erickson and producer/director Ben Stiller, concluded its second season today (March 21) with an enormously dramatic finale that brought the show’s two universes – inside and outside the world of Lumon – closer together than ever before.

After a slow burn of a second season that slowly revealed more about the ‘innies’ Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower), Irving (John Turturro) and Dylan (Zach Cherry) and overlapped with their ‘outie’ lives, the finale throws things into chaos and brings hard choices and conflict between innies and outies to the fore.

The finale begins with Mark’s innie and outie having their first conversation together through back-and-forth messages on a video camera at the birthing centre cabin, the only other place apart from Lumon where a severance threshold exists.

The idea had been presented to him by Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette), Mark’s former boss at Lumon and – as revealed in episode nine – the original brains behind the severance procedure.

Cobel tells Mark that the mysterious floating numbers that make up his legendarily “mysterious and important” work at Lumon are “a doorway into the mind of your outie’s wife,” meaning each file he completes creates another innie version of Gemma. Upon the completion of Cold Harbor, the long-teased 25^th and final file that’s currently at 98% done, Cobel hints to Mark that Gemma (Lachman) may die.

Innie Mark thinks that, in saving Gemma, he will himself die, before his outie counterpart tells him about his ongoing reintegration process, trying to convince him that both Marks can exist together within one brain outside of Lumon.

The pair end up getting increasingly frustrated butting heads over their continued video messages, both wanting to be with the women they fell in love with – innie Mark with Helly, and outie Mark with Gemma. “I want to share it with you,” outie Mark says to the innie about the reintegration process, promising one life for them both together, though angering innie Mark by seeming apathetic and flippant about his relationship with the innie “Heleny”.

Mark’s innie then finally returns to Lumon on Cobel’s instruction and sets about completing Cold Harbor in order to save Gemma. The completion of the task is followed by an absurd and hilarious celebratory party hosted by Mr Milchick (Tramell Tillman) and an animated wax figure of Lumon founder Kier Eagan, soundtracked by a brass band from the Choreography & Merriment division of the building.

Mark then sets about finding the much-discussed long, black hallway and the secret lift to the Testing Floor. Helly and Dylan do their part by delaying Mr Milchick, who’s become locked in the bathroom. On the Testing Floor, Mark is accosted by Mr Drummond (Darri Ólafsson), who is preparing a sacrifice of one of the show’s confusing and legendary goats, who appear to have to die each time a task is completed and another innie version of Gemma created. With help from head goat rearer Lorne (Gwendoline Christie), he manages to apprehend Drummond.

The 25th and final innie version of Gemma is sent into the Cold Harbor room to disassemble a baby’s cot, a cruel attempt to test her memory into recalling the miscarriage she suffered with Mark. “She feels nothing – it’s beautiful,” Dr. Mauer says with malice while watching on a video screen, seemingly confirming the strength of the barriers of severance.

In the elevator from the Severed Floor down to the Testing Floor, Mark changes from innie to outie, accidentally shooting and killing Drummond in the process. He brings Gemma up to the Severed Floor and sets her free via the staircase route explained to him by Cobel. With Gemma – now her outie – waiting in the stairwell, innie Mark then heartbreakingly decides to betray his outie’s wishes, staying inside Lumon with Helly and leaving outie Gemma alone.

“They give us half a life and think we won’t fight for it,” Helly earlier begged the Choreography & Merriment team to get them to assist her and Dylan in slowing down Millchick. At the very end of the season, innie Mark comes through on that promise, blowing the future of the show and its characters wide open.

Read our Q&A with Dichen Lachman below, where she discusses the explosive season two finale, her hopes and thoughts for the show’s third season, and the process of inhabiting 25 different versions of Gemma.

What was your first reaction when you heard what was going to happen in the finale?

When I read the ending, and then finally saw it in all its majesty, I was like, ‘People are going to be so messed up!’

You seem like a fan as well as a cast member – is it what you expected to happen?

I really did not expect that ending at all. There were so many different ways it could go. Truthfully, I knew that it was going to be a doozy, because that’s what makes the show great. I knew it was going to really upset people.

In the finale, Mark says, ‘I think I know why they’re doing this’ about Lumon’s grand plan and the capturing of Gemma, but we as viewers never find out. What do you think it is?

It could be so many different things. My fan theory – and I haven’t spoken to [the writers] about it – [is that] it would make sense that it’s a commercialisation of the [severance] tech. They really want to take it out to market in a big way. If you look at our society in terms of any wanting to eradicate anything unpleasant from our lives, a feeling or an emotion or some pain that you’re going through, it’s a human thing to want to do. Even the idea of work – if we can get a machine to take over, we will. It’s a convenience thing.

In my opinion, I feel like we’re going way too fast, and you do have to experience contrast in your life to enjoy the beautiful moments. [They are] not as beautiful if you don’t have the sad ones or the painful ones.

How do you see season 3 going? Is it going to be Gemma, Devon, maybe Irving and Cobel too, all trying to break the innies out of Lumon? Are Mark and Helly happy staying there together even if it leads to probable torture?

It could go in so many different directions. How big is that place? It’s an enormous, enormous place. Who knows where they could go. I just know that whatever it is, it’s going to really mess with everyone, and everyone’s gonna be screaming at their screens! That’s why people love the show so much, because it pulls at you from so many different directions.

There are endless possibilities. I wonder about Gemma’s character having so many different innies, and I’m curious as to how that affects her being on the outside. Can she even get out once she’s outside? How much control do they have? It’s going to be a very interesting time when and if we get those scripts.

There are so many different Gemmas portrayed by you in episode seven – how did you go about giving them all their own distinct characteristics?

I used my body and the way my body would react to that scenario to take me into those places. I wasn’t on my own – Jessica [Lee Gagné, series cinematographer and episode director] did such a beautiful job with episode seven. What a way to come out as a director with an incredible piece of work. She’s just phenomenal.

We had time to play and dial those [characteristics] in and out, and make it enough of a difference without going too far. If we went too far, it might have gone into too much [of a] comedy. It had to feel real, and it had to feel grounded in the sense that it is just a different part of who Gemma is. [It’s about] the torture of your whole life, [but] only being in that one situation and not really knowing anything else, but just instinctively feeling uncomfortable. It was a challenge, but I felt completely 100% supported.

And we see the return of Ms. Casey very briefly in the finale – what was it like portraying that particular innie across the show?

One of the most heartbreaking moments for me was when poor Ms. Casey thought she was going to be able to see her friends again, and Mr. Milchick sends her back down the elevator. I really liked Ms. Casey and I loved how she loved all those innies and the interactions she had with them. She felt like she belonged to something, and all of us just want to belong.

Was it nice to be able to portray a loving and loved Gemma in that episode, instead of the confused innie or abused outie we’d seen within Lumon beforehand?

It was! We filmed the flashbacks at the end of the season, when everything else was done, because we were waiting for the nice weather. It was [in spring] and it was on film, so the whole dynamic of everything changed – we weren’t inside the Lumon world. It felt very freeing and exciting.

The Testing Floor – even as a person like Dichen going to work, or even the crew – there’s an oppressive feeling about it. Everything is monochromatic and very intense, so it was amazing to be outside. It felt very much like an indie filmmaking vibe. Ben [Stiller] had a Bolex [camera] which he had to crank up. When Jessica was setting up her main scenes, we would go out with Ben. He was getting all muddy in the dirt, filming on this old 16mm camera. It felt really collaborative and freeing, and was nice to end filming the season with those flashbacks.

And it looks like season three will see you shooting many more scenes outside Lumon…

I’m knocking on wood!

Both seasons of Severance are available to stream now on Apple TV+