Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) has returned to Severance after being absent for a few episodes. She gets an entire episode focused on her, and it reveals shocking details about her past.
In Season 2’s episode “Sweet Vitriol,” viewers learn that she was a child prodigy at Lumon Industries, specifically in the ether factory located in Salt’s Neck. This small town, once full of life, now looks abandoned and crumbling. As Cobel tells her old friend Hampton (Jacques Le Gros), the town appears “older and frailer.”
It is hard to believe, but Salt’s Neck was once important to Lumon. Some of the biggest figures in the company left their mark there, but their impact was mostly negative.
Salt’s Neck Was Once a Key Part of Lumon’s Success
Salt’s Neck is first mentioned in Severance during the episode “Who Is Alive?” when Cobel, after leaving Kier, PE, drives past a road sign showing that the town is 238 miles away. This seaside town, though naturally beautiful, is cold and isolated. It is where Cobel grew up, and it once had a Lumon ether factory.
The town was small before Lumon arrived. In fact, Cobel’s aunt Sissy (Jane Alexander) tells her, “There was no town before the factory.” However, Cobel believes that “Lumon destroyed this town.”
It is common for small towns to rely entirely on a single company for jobs and infrastructure. Usually, the smaller the town, the easier it is for a corporation to take over. Lumon did exactly that. It built the ether factory and involved nearly every resident in its operations.
It also funded schools, including the Myrtle Eagan School for Girls, which Cobel attended. This created the illusion that Lumon was helping the community. In reality, the company was shaping young minds to believe that working in the factory was an honor, even though it was actually child labor.
Cobel and Hampton were both factory workers as children, along with many of their relatives. Cobel was even a Wintertide Fellow during her youth, just like Miss Huang (Sarah Bock). Because of this, she was honored by Lumon’s leader, Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry).
Ether production played a major role in Lumon’s rise as a pharmaceutical giant. In the episode “Woe’s Hollow,” it is revealed that Kier Eagan (Marc Geller), the company’s founder, operated an ether mill before launching Lumon. These mills were the foundation of the corporation’s success.
Cobel also tells Hampton that “Kier and Imogene met at the ether mill,” referring to how Kier Eagan met his wife while she was working as a swab girl in a factory. This makes it seem like the same ether mill Cobel and Hampton worked in was where the Eagans’ story began. However, since this information came from Lumon’s teachings, it is unclear if it is actually true.
The Hidden Dangers of Working in Salt’s Neck
Salt’s Neck may have once had an active community, but that did not last. When Cobel tells Hampton that the town looks old and weak, he explains that “with the market readjustment from a few years ago and the fluctuating interest rates, there was a retrenchment from some of the core infrastructure investments.”
This statement sounds like something taken directly from a corporate report. It is likely the exact excuse Lumon gave when it pulled out of the town after decades of control.
When Lumon left, it took everything with it. The residents had spent their lives making ether and had no other job skills. They also had no money to invest in rebuilding the town. On top of that, many of them had serious health problems.
It is immediately obvious that no one in Salt’s Neck is truly healthy. At the Drippy Pot Café, an elderly woman sits hooked up to an oxygen tank, just like Cobel’s mother did after working in the ether mill for years.
Diethyl ether is useful in making medicines such as anesthetics and painkillers, but constant exposure to it can cause serious health problems. It is highly addictive, and inhaling it regularly damages the lungs.
Cobel and Hampton even mention that they got high on ether fumes when they were just eight years old. Lumon’s presence in Salt’s Neck exposed an entire generation to dangerous chemicals from childhood.
This situation is similar to what happened in old mining towns, where large corporations took over, sent residents to work in harsh conditions, and left them with lifelong illnesses.
Lumon’s Role in a Larger Public Health Crisis
The devastation in Salt’s Neck is similar to real-world public health crises. In the 1990s, the United States faced an opioid epidemic caused by large pharmaceutical companies.
These corporations flooded the market with addictive painkillers, leading to widespread addiction. Lumon created a similar situation in Salt’s Neck by producing ether, a substance with addictive properties.
This raises a troubling question: How many other towns suffered the same fate? Lumon is a massive corporation. It is possible that it built other towns just like Salt’s Neck, convincing residents that they were part of something special, only to abandon them when it no longer needed them.
A Beautiful Town with a Tragic Past
Despite its struggles, Salt’s Neck has a unique beauty. Its natural surroundings and coastal scenery make it a picturesque location. This contrast between its stunning environment and its ruined state makes its decline even more heartbreaking. The town had great potential, but corporate greed stripped it of everything.
The beauty of Salt’s Neck seen in Severance is real. According to CBC, the episode “Sweet Vitriol” was filmed in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The filming locations included Bonavista, Keels, and Port Union.
These areas provided the dramatic seaside backdrop and wintery atmosphere seen in the show. Some real infrastructure was also used in the production, such as an old fish plant, which became the abandoned Lumon Ether Mill in the series.
Patricia Arquette and director Ben Stiller both traveled to Newfoundland for filming. Arquette described the location as being “so cut off from the world that it really is its own time warp.” This eerie isolation matches the atmosphere of Severance, even when the show moves away from Lumon’s main headquarters.
Arquette also credited the location for influencing her character’s distinct accent. She noted, “You still have that brogue from the turn of the century when all the Irish fishermen moved over there, which also leads into this Harmony Cobel sound. It starts to come together in this weird way.”
Season 2 of Severance has expanded beyond Lumon’s office environment, showing more of the world outside Branch 501. With such a rich and unsettling history, Salt’s Neck may not be gone from the story just yet.
New episodes of Severance Season 2 air on Fridays on Apple TV+.
