Did A Classic Sci-Fi TV Easter Egg Just Unlock Severance’s Biggest Secret?
Severance left the Severed Floor and entered... The Twilight Zone.
Severance exists in an alternate world, a world where Kier Eagan apparently founded a town named after himself, along with Lumon Industries, a massive conglomerate that often seems more like a religion or a cult than a corporation. In order to keep the series feeling like it exists in a world outside our own, there are barely any pop culture references, and there is nothing that makes it seem like these characters exist in the one we know. There are only a few exceptions, like the dentist we saw whistling “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” in Season 2, Episode 5.
Severance Season 2’s latest episode, “The After Hours,” delivered another big pop culture reference at a key moment, and it could reveal a devastating Lumon secret the company is desperate to hide.
Warning: Spoilers for Severance Season 2, Episode 9, “The After Hours,” follow!
Ms. Cobel swaps some cryptic words with the guard in Severance Season 2 Episode 9, “The After Hours.”
After a nostalgic visit to her hometown last week, Ms. Cobel rushes to the aid of Devon and Mark as they try to visit the Damona Birthing Retreat to re-awaken Mark’s Innie. They get stopped at the gate, but Ms. Cobel talks her way into the facility by giving a cryptic message to the guard.
“She’s one of Jame’s,” she says, referring to Devon with a false baby bump. “No one’s to know.” This implies that Jame Eagan has an established pattern of affairs and illegitimate children, but that’s not the biggest reveal. “Miss Marsha White,” Ms. Cobel says. “Ninth floor.” The guard seems to understand, responding with “specialties department.” Finally, Ms. Cobel says “I’m looking for a gold thimble,” a seemingly nonsensical sentence.
But it all makes sense when you factor in the title of the episode: “The After Hours,” the same title as an iconic 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone. The episode follows a young woman named Marsha White as she visits a department store looking for a gold thimble. She boards an empty elevator and is sent to the “Specialties Department” on the ninth floor, where a saleswoman gives her the only item on sale: a gold thimble.
But when Marsha tries to revisit the floor, she finds it full of mannequins, including one that looks just like the saleswoman. Slowly, the sentient mannequins convince her of the shocking truth: she herself is a mannequin who was granted a month of living among humans and forgot her true identity. In the last moments of the episode, we see Marsha in her true form, modeling clothes on the sales floor.
Anne Francis as Marsha White in The Twilight Zone episode “The After Hours.”
Ms. Cobel mentioning so many elements from this episode goes beyond just a sneaky Easter egg. It’s likely she had this cryptic pop culture reference-filled conversation with the guard as a code phrase, communicating she was operating on Lumon business and shouldn’t be questioned. The guard let them through, so it clearly worked.
But why this episode in particular? So much of this Twilight Zone episode echoes Severance: the creepy elevator ride, the disconnect between real life and working for a company, and the secret twist that lurks on a mysterious floor. But the one element that’s missing is the month where the mannequins are allowed to live among the humans. Could there be a part of Lumon that allows Innies to live among the outside world, and that’s what Ms. Cobel is referring to?
There’s only one episode left in the season, so we may not realize the true meaning of this conversation until next season. Maybe, like “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” it’s just there because someone in the writers’ room just really liked The Twilight Zone. But this feels way too specific for just a sly wink at the fans. Hopefully, we’ll get an explanation soon, even if it’s in Season 3.
