Cold Harbor is the most important clue to Severance’s biggest mystery

If anything, Severance Season 2 has only raised more questions than before, but it has delivered one massive clue about what Lumon is really up to. Two words: Cold Harbor. 

After our trip to the Severed Floor in the Season 2 premiere, Episode 2 shows us what happened to Mark, Helly, Irving, and Dylan’s Outies after the Overtime Contingency Protocol. Yes, that includes what Devon and Ricken make of Mark’s “she’s alive” revelation. 

As always, there’s some shady dealings going on behind the scenes at Lumon, where many questions remain, including just what the hell they’ve done with Gemma/Ms. Casey. 

Given Severance Season 3 is in production, don’t go expecting all the answers just yet. But in Episode 2, there’s yet another mention of Cold Harbor, sparking fresh theories about the company. Warning: spoilers ahead!

What is Cold Harbor?

Cold Harbor is the file Mark’s Innie is working on, and he’s essential for the job. This is evident by the fact that the Lumon team demand he return to work even after the ‘Macrodat Uprising’ in order to “finish” the project. 

Apple TV+

It’s also got something to do with Gemma/Ms. Casey, as was revealed at the end of Severance Season 2 Episode 1. When the MDR Innies decide to stay and work, the camera closes in on Mark’s screen. 

We’re shown an image of Mark’s (supposedly) late wife, alongside the file title ‘Cold Harbor’ and a series of digits. Underneath, there are five bins with progress rates for the categories and their subcategories. 

These include WO, DR, FC, and MA, which are undoubtedly a reference to Kier’s Four Tempers: Woe, Frolic, Dread, and Malice.

In Episode 2, the project gets another mention. After Milchick (or “Milkshake”, if you like) convinces Mark’s Outie to return to work, Helly’s Outie Helena Eagan watches him arrive from the Lumon building. 

She’s joined by Milchick and Drummond, as well as Natalie, who she asks, “Are you satisfied with this?” Drummond, our new Lumon henchman and spy, explains that Mark’s “sister seems more uppity than he is,” referring to Devon. 

Apple TV+

This takes place before Helly, Irving, and Dylan were brought back, meaning Mark’s being joined by his new team: Gwendolyn and Mark W, who were laid off from branch 5X and “a floater from overseas,” Dario R.

Natalie and Drummond seem dissatisfied with his selection, although Milchick points out he only had 48 hours to pull this together. “Hopefully there will be some chemistry,” he says. 

But Helena interjects, “We don’t need chemistry. We need Mark S back to work, long enough to complete Cold Harbor.”

Clearly, Mark is essential to completing Cold Harbor, and Cold Harbor is important to Lumon – it was even the working title for the show while the team worked on Severance Season 2.

As for why, it could be a while before we find out, but the online community has theories. 

The best Cold Harbor theories 

The leading theory is that Macrodata Refiners are essentially programming humans in order to bring them back from the dead or recreate clones of them. In Mark’s case, his work on Cold Harbor involves inputting Gemma’s consciousness. 

In Severance Season 1, we learn about Mark’s Innie’s Freshman Fluke. He mysteriously finished his first file in a single day, which could be why Ms Casey ended up on the Severed Floor (before being sent back to the Testing Floor… perhaps because of a fault in her coding).

Apple TV+

As said by one Redditor, “So Mark is refining data for Gemma/Ms. Casey. Is this Lumon’s codename for their project to bring Gemma back? Is he unknowingly rebuilding her consciousness and feeding this data into the chip? Or is this data something else – maybe they’re feeding her instructions?

“What if every member of MDR is refining data for a different person? What if there’s multiple Cold Harbors and, say, Helly is refining consciousness data for a dead Eagan?”

Another said, “I think he’s real-time neural mapping her tissue and refining the sensory pathways of memories, five senses = five bins, and each bin has four tempers to categorize memories.”

Adding to this, a third wrote, “I think it’s possibly the five regions of her brain. Frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, temporal lobe, and cerebellum. And like you say each has the four tempers as seen by the two-letter boxes in each region.”

One Severance viewer said this has been their theory since Season 1. “I think he’s refining her memories, broken up into the five classical senses (as would have been understood in Kier’s day perhaps?), to achieve the correct ratio of tempers,” they commented.

“His Freshman Fluke was probably Gemma’s first build. This also suggests the Board did know/sanction what Cobel was up to, but the official line is that reintegration is not possible, as that would deter clients.”

But there are a few issues with this theory, the biggest being that Adam Scott shut down the clone idea. This doesn’t rule out resurrection, but at least the idea of an artificial copy seems unlikely (unless it’s a bluff). 

There’s also the mystery of what the other departments are up to. If the clone theory isn’t true, then how do you explain the goats? Same goes for Optics and Design. 

There could also be clues in dark real-life history, as highlighted by another Redditor. “Cold Spring Harbor, NY is the birthplace of the eugenics movement and human hereditary research in the early-ish 20th century. 

“It was really rocking and rolling in the 1920s especially. They were committed to ‘race betterment.’ So I think there is something going on with perfecting Gemma for some broader ideal or betterment of a human being – is it the Innie? Outie? 

“I think Mark and Gemma are part of a specific experiment. This is why Cobel was so interested in them.”

Whatever the answer turns out to be, one thing we know for sure is that the work at Lumon is “mysterious and important”… and almost certainly sinister.

Severance Season 2 Episodes 1-2 are streaming on Apple TV+ now. To find out when to tune in next, make sure you’ve got our Severance Season 2 release schedule bookmarked. You can also read about Charlotte Cobel, when Severance takes place, and other great Apple TV+ shows to watch.