Summary
- The Season 2 title sequence of Severance delves deeper into symbolism and may offer clues about Lumon Industries and Mark S.
- The imagery of the balloon heads and brain in the title sequence hints at Mark’s journey, potential cloning theories, and connections to Lumon technology.
- Visual connections in the title sequence suggest a link between Mark, Lumon’s mysterious Goat Department, Harmony Cobel, and the ultimate goal of research and technology.
The Severance Season 2 title sequence is filled with surreal animation, rich symbolism, and seemingly small details that could offer big insights. Created by Dan Erickson and directed by Ben Stiller, Apple TV+’s Severance is known for captivating audiences with its intricately woven mystery. The title sequences, designed by Oliver Latta, are just as intriguing.
The Season 2 sequence, which first appeared in the second episode, expands on the scope of Season 1’s Emmy-winning title animation. It introduces unsettling new imagery and delves deeper into the psychological trenches of Mark S., played by Adam Scott. According to Latta, the Season 2 sequence is designed to evolve with the audience’s understanding of the show. However, when examined closely, it’s clear that the title sequence may also provide some clues of its own, offering up hints about Lumon Industries.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for Severance Season 2
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The Exports Hall
The title sequence begins with Outie Mark S. sitting on his bed, dressed in red pajamas. The second image depicts an elevator with a red arrow above it. It resembles the elevator in the dark hallway Irving B. (John Turturro) has been painting. Fans believe an Episode 2 detail could be foreshadowing Irving’s death. However, in Episode 3, Irving lives to show Felicia (Claudia Robinson) from Optics & Design a sketch of the elevator. She asks:
How do you know about the Exports Hall?
However, the elevator in the title sequence has just one slight difference from the one in the Exports Hall: the red arrow points up instead of down. It’s possible the title sequence depicts the entrance to the elevator on the Testing Floor, below the Severed Floor, where Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman) was sent after being fired.
Additionally, Severance set decorator Andrew Baseman has stated that the color red and warm tones represent the outside world, while blue and cool tones represent Lumon and the severed world. The red pajamas on Mark in the title sequence signal that he is Outie Mark. The red arrow above the elevator in the export hall may signify a link between the two worlds.
It’s possible the data that Mark and MDR (Macrodata Refinement) are processing is being imported or exported to the mysterious project Cold Harbor via this elevator. Regardless, it seems to be an important next clue in Mark’s journey to finding his wife, Gemma, aka Ms. Casey, who some believe to be related to the formidable Miss Huang.
The Balloon Heads
Our first encounter with balloons was during the Season 2 premiere, when Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) gifts Mark a bundle of blue balloons upon his return to work at Lumon. The details surrounding Mark’s rehire remain shrouded in mystery. Balloons appeared once again in the title sequence, this time in the form of swollen balloon heads. When Mark’s balloon head floated out of the enigmatic elevator, a recurring motif was born.
The balloon head imagery occurs several times throughout the sequence, with one particularly striking image of Outie Mark jumping up to try to catch his own head. The balloon head itself is entirely untethered, just like Mark’s Innie — severed from the real world, drifting through the halls of Lumon.
This balloon head moment strangely takes place on an ice floe, with Gemma’s car in the background partially submerged — perhaps another nod to Cold Harbor. If Gemma literally died in a car accident in a frozen body of water, it’s possible (as some fans have speculated) that her body or brain was somehow preserved in a cryogenic capacity.
Another detail to note is that when Mark’s balloon head first sails out of the elevator, the red arrow turns green. Green is another cool-tone color used throughout the Lumon offices, most notably in the MDR department, where Mark is employed. This could be another hint that the elevator is an essential travel route for data or people in the Cold Harbor project.
The Severed Brain of Mark S.
Speaking of green, the giant brain is one of the more unsettling images in the title sequence. In one image, Mark’s Innie is physically pulling his Outie out of the brain, yet another example of Mark’s two sides trying to save or hang on to each other. While hunting the brain with a flashlight, Outie Mark briefly sees a reflection of two figures. Upon closer inspection, the clothes tell us they are Ms. Casey and Brit Lower’s iconic Helly R., the two women near and dear to either side of Mark’s mind.
Red pajama Mark is also depicted lying in his bed once again, but this time, he appears to be on top of the green brain. Strangely, in this part of the sequence, he is surrounded by faceless babies. While the cast has debunked the popular theory that Lumon is making clones, some fans still speculate that these babies provide proof of some kind of cloning theory. Given the babies are wearing suits, it is possible they might serve as a metaphor for the Lumon workers in their freshly severed states.
The Goat Department
In Episode 3, titled “Who Is Alive?,” more was revealed about the mystifying goat department, or Mammalians Nurturable, which some believe to be a reference to Resident Evil 4. When Mark and Helly discover a tunnel leading to a grassy indoor hillside filled with goats, they encounter a group of menacing coworkers, including Game of Thrones actor Gwendoline Christie.
There is a moment in the title sequence when the iconic Season 1 poster image of Mark sitting at a desk inside his head begins to morph into a painting…of a goat. In fact, the opening makes several deliberate visual connections linking Mark to the goats. Perhaps the goats are test subjects for the increasingly terrifying Lumon technology, or maybe the goats are vessels for the microchips of retired Lumon workers. Some even believe the goats to be hinting towards larger beasts behind Lumon Industries.
The grassy hillside from Episode 3 is also recreated in the title sequence. However, instead of goats, the hill is covered in what appears to be deflated Helly and Ms. Casey balloon heads, a bunch of Marks crawling around without heads, and Innie and Outie Mark carrying each other in front of two doors. It’s a bizarre diorama that transitions into one of the most memorable images of the entire sequence.
The Looming Cobel
Patricia Arquette’s Harmony Cobel, or Ms. Selvig, is one of the most fascinating characters in Severance. Her appearance in the title sequence is especially disturbing.
A broader view of the grassy hill reveals it to be inside an open red book resembling The You You Are by Michael Chernus’ Ricken. What’s more jarring is the book being held by a massive, towering Cobel. Instead of a face, Cobel’s head possesses a cavernous opening through which we can see Outie Mark searching the halls of Lumon with a flashlight. It’s a fantastic visual metaphor for Mark being deep in the belly (or brain) of the beast. The sheer scale of this Cobel figure, along with her observation of the grassy hill from above, leads us to believe she may be more important than Lumon’s Helena Eagan (Helly’s Outie) is currently suggesting. Perhaps she is the one pulling the strings.
Alternatively, given Cobel’s creepy shrine to Lumon’s Founder Kier Eagan in a stellar Season 1 episode, she may be the person closest to the ultimate goal of Lumon’s research and technology. An image of baby Kier, the only baby with a face, is seen briefly at the end of the title sequence. It could suggest an attempted reincarnation of Cobel’s beloved leader.
The image inside Cobel’s giant head transitions into the infamous dark hallway, with Mark running after Ms. Casey, who stands in the elevator. Ms. Casey then flickers into Helly. Several shots throughout the title sequence present both women as fixtures in Mark’s mind. If Mark really is trying to become whole again, perhaps the emotional climax of the season will involve him being forced to choose between his two love interests.
Severance is now streaming on Apple TV+.
Severance
- Release Date
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February 18, 2022
- Showrunner
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Dan Erickson, Mark Friedman
- Directors
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Ben Stiller
- Writers
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Dan Erickson
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Tramell Tillman
Seth Milchick
