I wore out the pause button on my remote from watching this one, y’all. This week’s episode of Severance provides a huge information dump: context for the inner workings of Lumon, the teachings of Kier, and the evolution of the severance process.Hide and Seek Season 1 Download
First off, Harmony Cobel is definitely drunk on Kier Kool-Aid. As the episode opens, we see her perched on a bed, placing a necklace with a severance-chip pendant over her neck. Her bedroom appears to be some sort of hospital-prison hybrid, with white cinder blocks for walls and a harsh fluorescent light illuminating her bed. Why would anyone choose this décor? And furthermore, who is in that chip? It seems unlikely that it’s Petey, so … who is it?The answer to that question might reside in Cobel’s Über-creepy shrine to Kier. Lumon may or may not actually be a cult masquerading as a biotech company (it probably is), but this setup illustrates that Cobel has some very deep and very emotional ties to the Eagan family — and possibly Kier himself. There are all sorts of Easter-egg goodies on the shrine, including a certificate for the Myrtle Eagan School for Girls, a breathing tube and hospital bracelet that reads “Charlotte Cobel, DOB: 3/17/44” (Cobel’s mother, perhaps?), and a punny flyer for the seventh annual Kiernival.But what stands out most are the paper masks standing guard at the four corners of the shrine. Curiously, they appear to be the fool, the goat, the old woman, and the young woman from the painting Burt and Irv admired when they first met. These masks may possibly correspond to the four tempers — woe, frolic, dread, and malice — but which is which I couldn’t tell you; they all creep me out equally.