Severance 1.8: Fired, Kissed, Almost Free

Three brilliant elements stand out in this superb next-to-last episode of the first season of Severance on Apple TV+.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

1. Harmony is fired!  A shocker, that comes from the Board learning that Helly tried to commit suicide, and Harmony failed to inform the Board.  As a first example of what Harmony gone from Lumon will do: she advises Mark's outie to get away from Lumon, when he tells her he's thinking of leaving.  This, presumably, is a split second before Dylan manages to ignite the Overtime Contingency, which will allow Mark's innie to escape into his outie (see # 3 below).

2. Helly kisses Mark right before her innie takes the upward elevator to become her outie (which, again, will soon be inhabited by her innie).  The kiss was long overdue and good to see.  The two would make a good couple.  Here's hoping we see that happen.

3. Dylan finds it's harder than he thought to turn three outies into their innies at the same time, aka, switch on the Overtime Contingency for Irving, Mark, and Helly.  I put Irving first, because we also learn tonight that the black guck we see in the opening credits (which, by the way, are excellent) is a take on the paintings he makes with thick black paint as an outie.  I suppose calling them paintings is an exaggeration, but I'm no expert in abstract art.  I'm also assuming here that the Outer Contingency worked -- the episode ended a nanosecond before the Contingency transformation takes effect.

Which brings us to next week's finale.  There's no way we won't see the innies freed, at least for part of that episode.  The big question, of course, is what they and we will discover about their outward lives. The one we know the most about is Mark, and that's not much.  Helly's outie is some rich socialite or businesswoman, or so it seems.  Irving has a lovable dog and is a "painter".  As for Dylan, we learned previously that he has son.

See you back here next week, with my impressions of what we learn in the finale.

See also Severance 1.1-1.2:  Erving Goffman Meets The Prisoner ... Severance 1.3: The History and the Neighbor ... Severance 1.4: Deadly Ambiguity ... Severance 1.5: Second Lives ... Severance 1.6: Lumon on the Outside ... Severance 1.7: Overtime Contingency