This article contains spoilers for Severance Season 2 so far, including its penultimate episode Sweet Vitriol. Season 2 of Severance has delivered up to this point, with the series firing on all cylinders since its long-awaited return back in February. However, theres been a distinct lack of Patricia Arquettes Harmony Cobel. The shows lead-in to the Season 2 finale changes all of that, giving us a Cobel-centric episode that rearranges everything we knew about the severance procedure up to this point. The episode brings an end to Cobels road trip, finding her in a sleepy coastal town long past its heyday. Everything we see is decrepit, up to and including the Lumon factory that saved the town before slowly killing it. We get a glimpse at the former leader of Macrodata Refinements childhood, confirming that Lumon was into child labor well before the introduction of the severed floors Miss Huang (Sarah Bock). Cobels mother died a tragic death in this town, while her fellow child laborers grew to adulthood addicted to ether and with nowhere to go once the work dried up. Those left remain loyal to Kier, with the exception of James Le Gross character Hampton, who seems to have grown to hate Lumon long before Cobel joined the party. Hampton helps Cobel make it to her childhood home undiscovered Kier is always watching, after all and its here that she finds what she was looking for: a notebook that blows the lid off the entire damn series. PlayEarlier this season, when she was staring down Helena Eagan (Britt Lower), Cobel implied that Lumon owed her. She was, in fact, quite adamant about it, willing to let go of decades of work and spit in the face of the non-offer for her to take a position outside of the severed floor. In Sweet Vitriol we learn why: it wasnt an Eagan who created the severance procedure, but Harmony Cobel herself. Turns out that her adamance was justified after all. This also means that Devons (Jen Tullock) instincts were right when it came to calling Cobel about her concerns about Mark (Adam Scott), even if it was ill-advised due to Cobels previous allegiances. There is, in fact, no one more suited to ensure Mark survives re-integration than Harmony Cobel. But the real question remains: whose side is she actually on? On the one hand, hell hath no fury like a longtime loyal laborer who realizes how exploited theyve been over the years. On the other, Cobel has been indoctrinated in the Kier cult her whole life. Was her lifes work being stolen from her enough to actually bring her to help Mark?What to Watch on Apple TV+Moreover, what does this revelation mean for the mystery surrounding Gemma? Lumon operates on a need to know basis, with each of their departments being distinctly siloed from one another, but Mark and Gemmas fates seem intrinsically intertwined in a way that extends beyond their love for one another. It stands to reason that Cobel doesnt just know what happened to Gemma and where she is now, but that she spearheaded the whole thing from the beginning. Marks illness seems likely to delay Cold Harbors completion, but will that matter if the other macrodata refiners are showing up for work? That doesnt seem to be the case, considering Lumons insistence on keeping him around, but hes going to have to return to work eventually either way, if only to bust Gemma out of her cell.Like all revelations in Severance, learning this information about Cobel sparks a number of major questions even beyond what weve already discussed here. For instance, will Cobel make it out of this season alive? Shes got enemies on all sides and Lumon has made it clear that they arent worried about silly things like laws. However, itd be a significant blow to the series to lose her character so soon, especially after weve missed her much of Season 2. Redemption followed by death is a longstanding storytelling trope, but heres hoping the shows writers choose to subvert that in favor of keeping one of the series most interesting characters alive. More from the Severed FloorAt any rate, Severance Season 2s penultimate episode may have shifted gears a bit, but its still servicing the overarching mystery in very meaningful ways. This Cobel revelation could mean major things for all of MDR, and expands the universe significantly by introducing new corners of the globe that Lumon has destroyed. This expansion matters because we won't be stuck on the same mystery forever, and there is enough meat on the bones of the Kier cult story to keep this going and, most importantly, interesting for a very long time. See you back on the severed floor for next weeks Season 2 finale.