‘Severance’ Season 2 Episode 9 review: “The After Hours”

Severance Season 2 Episode 9, titled “The After Hours” has probably the worst episode placing of the entire show. Not only is it the first time the audience gets to check in with the rest of the cast after the past two episodes focused heavily on Gemma and Cobel, it’s also the penultimate episode. These things wouldn’t necessarily make this a problem, but the episode lacks in many areas.

Shows that deal in mystery must walk a tight line between revelations and intrigue. When the intrigue starts to tip over into withholding, there’s a problem. That’s what the past two Severance episodes have felt like. The Cobel-focused episode was 37-minutes of never getting to the point while Severance Season 2 Episode 9 involves a lot of waiting around that feels an awful lot like just filling the time.

Devon’s idea to call Cobel for access to the birthing cabins comes back around a whole two episodes later yet they wait around all episode to even enter the cabin. Instead, Devon, Mark, and Cobel wait along a cliffside all episode, arguing about who to trust. Getting answers from Cobel is like pulling teeth, especially with Patricia Arquette’s frustratingly slow speaking cadence and stoic features. Even with the Cobel-focused previous episode, it’s still difficult to determine what Cobel’s motivations are.

A lot of Severance Season 2 Episode 9 is like picking up in the middle of a conversation you don’t remember having. Especially with Irving and Burt, who’s last interaction was the dinner between them and Fields, Burt’s husband. Things were left on a weird note there, and a hint that Burt’s time at Lumon may have started much earlier than the six years Burt G. was on the severed floor.

But their time together in this episode is a lot of vague mysteries with no satisfying conclusion. Burt sends Irving off with a mysterious “I can’t see where you get off at,” perhaps a confirmation that he does work for Lumon in another capacity. What that capacity is, it’s not really clear.

But the most frustrating part of this is Irving, who gets another send off this season, but this time as his outtie. Burt sends Irving and his dog off on a train after a heartfelt goodbye between the two, and Irving stares out a window, seemingly done in his role to right Lumon. But what was his role? There were no answers provided, no explanations as to who he’s been talking to or how he got the information he did. The show is dancing around their most interesting set ups but keeping too tight a hold on them.

The best part of the episode, as has been the case all season, is Mr. Milchick. Tramell Tillman has gone above and beyond in his role as the new manager of the severed floor. His quiet yet strong rebellion against Mr. Drummond and Lumon’s corporate racism was one of the best moments from the season, stemming from a satisfying build up since he first got his performance review.

Severance Season 2 Episode 9 does little to remind the audience of where it last left off after taking a couple of detours. As a penultimate episode, it’s a misstep, a journey that feels finished too early in some respects.

A lot of things remain unanswered heading into the Severance Season 2 finale. While answers aren’t the be all, end all of a show like Severance, a show like Severance can turn grating when at a stand still. Despite the way the season started at a literal full sprint, it slowly lost momentum the past couple of episodes, lost in its own mysteries.

Severance season 2 finale drops on Apple TV+ on Friday

Katey Stoetzel

Katey is co-founder and tv editor for InBetweenDrafts. She hosts the “House of the Dragon After Show” and “Between TV” podcasts and can be read in various other places like Inverse and Screen Speck. She wishes desperately the binge model of tv watching would die, but still gets mad when she runs out of episodes of tv to watch.