Severance star Patricia Arquette says Harmony Cobel’s loyalty to Lumon will be tested in season 2: ‘There’s a desire to be loved by them and also to punish them’

On January 17, 2025By Littum

Resignation star Patricia Arquette reveals what’s in store for Harmony Cobel in Season 2
Harmony will “seize” with its longtime loyalty to Lumon Industries, Arquette teases
She will also be caught in a “teenage vortex of emotional growth” this season

Resignation star Patricia Arquette has teased what fans can expect to see as part of Harmony Cobel’s character arc in Season 2.

Chatting with TechRadar ahead of the highly-rated Apple TV Plus show’s return on January 17, Arquette suggested that Cobel will embark on a sort of coming-of-age journey. Not only that, but she’ll also spend much of this season questioning her allegiance to Lumon Industries, the secret biotech mega-corporation she’s served loyally for her entire adult life.

Major spoilers immediately follow Resignation season 1’s last two episodes. Come back now if you haven’t seen them.

Harmony Cobel sits alone in a conference room in Severance Season 2 — Harmony Cobel is metaphorically lost at sea after being fired by Lumon (Image credit: Apple TV Plus)

IN Resignation season 1 episode 8, titled ‘What’s for Dinner?’, Cobel was suspended as Lumon’s Severed Floor manager. This is because she withheld information about Helly R’s (Helena Egan’s ‘innie’ persona) suicide attempts and her leisure activities using the alias Mrs Selvig from the Lumon board. The latter included Cobel spying on Mark Scout by posing as his absent neighbor and being hired as a nanny for Mark’s newborn nephew.

Last season’s finale, however, saw Cobel spare Lumon the blushes – and some might spare it some devastating press coverage – when its Macrodata Refiners, including Helly and Mark’s ‘innie’ (known simply as Mark S) temporarily escaped into the real world. It almost led them to blow the whistle on Lumon’s shady working methods, and they would have succeeded had it not been for Cobel’s last-minute intervention. It is actually Cobel who realizes that the ‘innies’ have used Lumon’s Overtime Contingency program to break out, and at a Lumon gala he tries to stop Helly from revealing what is going on in the nefarious organization.

Resignation — inside the Grand Central Terminal Pop-up | Apple TV+ – YouTube

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You’d expect Cobel’s shady employers to thank her for saving their skins and potentially reinstate her as Severed Floor manager, right? Not so. I won’t spoil what happens in this season’s early episodes—min Resignation however, the season 2 review contains some very light spoilers for the first four episodes if you’re interested. Arquette was similarly keen not to spoil anything substantial about Cobel’s character arc in Apple’s mystery-thriller series’ second outing, but she did tease where Cobel’s mindset is heading into Resignation season 2.

“I think she doesn’t like the direction (that) the company is going,” Arquette told me. “She’s an old-fashioned devotee, and I feel that even though she’s done things that were outside of the company’s purview, her agenda was to do it for Lumon (and) for the great care, and she’s very frustrated that Companies does not value it at all, or values her at all.

It’s like a child who has a parent who will never really acknowledge or love them
Patricia Arquette, Severance actress

“She sees how much she’s done and how critical she’s been to the growth and trajectory of that company,” Arquette added. “It’s like a child who has a parent who will never really acknowledge or love them, so she’s always trying to get that kind of approval. At the same time, in this kind of teenage vortex of her emotional growth, she also hates kind of them, so there’s a desire to be loved by them and also punish them that she’s fighting.”

For more on one of the best Apple TV Plus shows’ next installment, including details on its cast, plot and trailers, read my Resignation season 2 hub. Alternatively, you can read more about my exclusive coverage of the show’s next post in the section below.