Don’t swing by the coastal — and fictional — town of Salt’s Neck if you’re not current on season 2 of “Severance,” because this article contains spoilers!
In the eighth episode of its second season, Dan Erickson’s critically adored series “Severance” took audiences far, far away from the severed floor at Lumon Industries — where we usually spend time with Mark S. (Adam Scott), Helly R. (Britt Lower), Dylan G. (Zach Cherry), and, until his recent “firing,” Irving B. (John Turturro) — so that viewers could finally reunite with Harmony Cobel, the pivotal yet mysterious character played by Oscar winner Patricia Arquette. In the episode, titled “Sweet Vitriol,” Harmony goes back to what we learn is her hometown, a chilly and run-down coastal hamlet called Salt’s Neck. So where is Salt’s Neck in real life, considering that no such town exists in the United States?
According to the Canadian Broadcasting Company, or CBC, the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador served as the filming location for “Sweet Vitriol” — and specifically, the “Severance” team shot in the small town of Bonavista. Yahoo! also reported on the episode’s filming location and said that the show’s creative team sought advice from Edith Sampson, director of the Sir William Ford Coaker Heritage Foundation in Canada, for specific filming locations. The outlet also reported that The Drippy Pot, a cafe where Harmony meets up with her old friend Hampton (James Le Gros), is a real café called the Bicycle Picnics Café in Bonavista.
Ben Stiller, who produces the series and often directs episodes — including “Sweet Vitriol” — also explained his decision to shoot in Bonavista on the show’s accompanying podcast “The Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller & Adam Scott.” As Stiller explained, “The thing about the terrain in Newfoundland is it’s rugged and beautiful, but it’s not the scale, it is not like somewhere like Iceland or Greenland or something like that where it’s gigantic mountains. It’s a little bit smaller, but it’s still as beautiful in its own way.”
Salt’s Neck gives us information about Lumon’s past — and shows how evil the company really is
There’s no question that Bonavista is an incredibly striking and gorgeous location for Salt’s Neck, but unfortunately, the fictional version of this seaside town has a troubled history — which we learn all about in “Sweet Vitriol.” Since season 1 of “Severance,” we’ve known that Harmony Cobel has a deep commitment to Lumon Industries and to Kier Eagan, the company’s founder regarded as a god by all of the acolytes of Lumon (she had an altar to Kier in her home, for God’s sake). Back in Salt’s Neck, we start to see why Harmony was so invested in Lumon and Kier, and it’s because Harmony’s hometown was built around both Kier and Lumon.
Harmony did leave Salt’s Neck to attend The Myrtle Eagan School For Girls (named for Lumon’s first female leader), meaning that she left her mother Charlotte Cobel and her sister Celestine “Sissy” Cobel (played by Jane Alexander in “Sweet Vitriol”) to fend for themselves in the town. As we discover in the episode, Harmony and Hampton, the latter of whom now runs The Drippy Pot and distributes an addictive substance called ether to residents (while also using himself), worked at the ether factory in Salt’s Neck as children, often working for shifts that lasted for 10 full hours. (Harmony also says she hasn’t used either since she was eight years old, providing yet another disturbing factoid about Salt’s Neck.) Ultimately, we learn that the factory closed when Lumon abandoned the ether business, leaving Salt’s Neck to suffer … and the fact that Lumon Industries abandoned an entire town apparently run by them shows just how evil the company really is.
Sweet Vitriol was a huge episode for Harmony Cobel, one of Severance’s most mysterious characters
Residents of Bonavista who also happen to be fans of “Severance” should be proud that their town represents Salt’s Neck, though — because after this episode, we know that the information found in Salt’s Neck is some of the most important in the show’s entire lore. That’s because, throughout the episode, Harmony is hunting for something at her family home (where you can still see marks on the wall from young Harmony measuring her height changes as a child), ferociously tearing through Charlotte and Sissy’s rooms to find some mysterious item. Finally, in a bust of what appears to be Kier Eagan hidden in an underground shed, Harmony finds what she’s looking for, and she storms back into the house to show Sissy.
What Harmony shows to her sister is absolutely stunning, because it’s a school notebook filled with instructions on how to perform the severance procedure. That’s right: Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry), father of Helena Eagan (also played by Britt Lower) and head of the company, didn’t invent it, but simply stole Harmony’s work. This definitely explains why, ever since the start of season 2, Harmony has seemed downright hostile as far as Lumon is concerned, and it also means that the location of Salt’s Neck is now one of the most important spots in the show’s geography (what else might be hidden there?) We still have a lot to learn about Harmony — and some could argue that this episode gave us the wrong character’s backstory — but the fact is that this reveal, courtesy of Salt’s Neck, will be a huge part of “Severance” going forward.
“Severance” airs new episodes on Thursdays on Apple TV+ at 9 P.M. EST.
