Apple TV+Severance Season 2 Episode 8 takes Harmony Cobel on a journey to her childhood town: Salt’s Neck, where everyone is addicted to a drug that has a big connection to Kier Eagan.
When Harmony arrives at Salt’s Neck, it has an incredibly eerie vibe; it’s frosty, quiet, and people lurk near derelict homes and rusty cars as they breathe in a mysterious substance.
Later, we see her old friend Hampton give a bottle of something to one of the customers in his cafe, and he sniffs some himself as he drives Harmony to Sissy’s home. “You’re higher than a bearded vulture,” she tells him, and Sissy brands him a “huff peddler.”
There’s clearly a drug epidemic in the town, and the episode peels back the truth of one of Kier’s most famous stories in Severance.
Why ether is so important in Kier’s mythology in Severance
Apple TV+It appears that everyone in Salt’s Neck is addicted to diethyl ether – also known as sweet vitriol, hence Severance Season 2 Episode 8’s title.
As the University of Bristol explains, “the first ether to be discovered was diethyl ether, which was synthesised in 1540 by the German botanist Valerius Cordus by distilling a mixture of ethanol and sulfuric acid (then known as oil of vitriol). He called his discovery ‘sweet oil of vitriol’ (oleum dulce vitriolic).”
Ether was formerly used as a general aesthetic, and it became prominent as a recreational drug in the 19th and 20th century; there were even organised parties known as ether frolics (another big word in Severance), where guests would inhale large amounts of it.
Apple TV+According to legend, Kier Eagan worked at his father’s ether mill, and this is where he met his wife Imogene (as portrayed in the painting, The Courtship of Kier and Imogene).
But Lumon’s romanticism around the ether mill is particularly disturbing after Episode 8, given Lumon started as a pharmaceutical company and Harmony and Hampton were effectively used as child labor to fulfil its needs.
Also, as a result, ether addiction begins at an early age in Salt’s Neck; when Harmony takes some, she says she hasn’t done it since she was eight years old.
Make sure you know when the next episode drops with our guide to the Severance Season 2 release schedule, and check out our guides on Asal Reghabi, the Glasgow Block, and the Lexington Letter. There’s another big theory you should read up on too: Helly might be pregnant.
