Patricia Arquette Addresses the 'Dawning That Comes Upon' Ms. Cobel About the 'Dangerousness' of Lumon inSeveranceSeason 2 (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Warning: This post contains spoilers from season 2, episode 8 ofSeverance.

Patricia Arquetteis breaking down the shift that occurs with her steelySeverancecharacter.

When audiences first met Arquette’s Harmony Cobel in season 1, the icy severed floor leader at Lumon Industries was a loyal and devoted employee. But after she was fired for violating company protocol in season 2, there’s a new side that emerges.

This season, she’s let go after repeatedly interfering with the personal life of Mark Scout’s (Adam Scott) Outie. She had been posing as his kooky next-door neighbor Mrs. Selvig and attempted to manipulate him, which the Board found to be unethical.

Cobel is offered an opportunity to return to Lumon, with a role on the newly formed Severance Advisory Council, but she (quite literally) walks away from it.

Viewers don’t see much of Cobel again until episode 8’s “Sweet Vitriol,” where Cobel revisits her hometown.

At one point, Cobel boldly declares “Lumon destroyed this town.”

“I think there’s a dawning that comes upon Cobel about the dangerousness of this company and how to them, Cobel is really inconsequential,” Arquette, 56, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “[They have] that kind of entitled personality that these guys have and the way they view everyone, no matter how committed you’ve been to them.”

“So there’s a part of her that’s starting to listen to an instinct, which I don’t know that she’s always done. That kind of throws her off,” she continues.

Throughout episode 8, Cobel receives repeated calls from Mark’s sister Devon Scout-Hale (Jen Tullock), who is trying to help an unconscious Mark after his adverse reaction to the reintegration procedure. Former Lumon employee Asal Reghabi (Karen Aldridge), who performed the surgery on Mark, previously did a reintegration procedure on his co-worker and friend Peter Kilmer (Yul Vazquez), who later died.

Toward the end of episode 8, Cobel finally answers Devon, who informs her about Mark’s reintegration and says they “want to try something else” since the procedure is proving to be too dangerous.

Devon then puts Mark on the phone, and Cobel asks him to “tell me everything.”

The shift Cobel is experiencing is something Arquette, herself, can relate to. In fact, the Academy Award winner tells PEOPLE she also faced a moment where she needed to walk away after realizing her worth.

“Also, suddenly seeing somebody in a whole different light, all of those things all at once, and seeing, ‘Oh, this might actually be a dangerous situation and maybe this isn’t what I want, even though I’m advocating for myself. What is this all about?'” she explains. “I’ve definitely been in that situation before and I wouldn’t want to be in that situation again. But I do think that’s part of maturation.”

Arquette adds, “You hit that wall and then you have to decide in that moment if you’re going to believe in yourself and take good care of yourself, or if you’re going to keep in this pattern,  it doesn’t work.”

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source: people.com