Thank Kier, after literal years of waiting, my other favorite prestige drama is finally coming back. If you forgot just how twisted season 1 of Severance was, I highly suggest you brush up on life at Lumon before the January 17, 2025, return. One major thread that definitely needs answering is WTF happened to Gemma, or, as the Severed Floor knows her, Ms. Casey. In the final moments of season 1, Mark’s innie runs out and screams “SHE’S ALIVE!” While I loved the energy, I do wish Mark S. could’ve tried to be a little more articulate in his delivery, but let’s hope the message hit home with Devon and Ricken. Regardless of what Mark’s outie and his family realize from his declaration, the truth is we know a lot more. At the end of the first season, Ms. Casey is essentially fired from her job as the wellness therapist, and relegated down the elevator. But unlike the rest of the severed employees, she doesn’t leave the building, begging the question: Is Gemma actually alive? I’m obsessed with these Severance theories on Gemma.

Theories About What Happened To Gemma In Severance

1. Gemma never died in a car crash

Now, this feels pretty obvious but it has to be said: Gemma didn’t die in a car crash like Mark thinks. She either willingly gave up her life to Lumon or somehow became a full-time test subject against her will. Why do I think this? Um, because how the fuck else would she have ended up at Lumon HQ looking like a total baddie with zero accident or surgery scars? Plus, I refuse to believe Lumon hired Mark and Gemma as a total coincidence. Perhaps she made a deal with the devil (Lumon) that she didn’t realize would go so left, and they used a car crash to cover it up. Then, they hired Mark to make sure they could keep an eye on both of them. Now, the non-severed version of Gemma is either a) completely dormant b) being held captive by Lumon after she leaves the Severed Floor or c) hiding from Mark and/or Lumon out in the real world because maybeeeee Ms. Casey does NOT share the same body with Gemma at all… wild, I know, but stay with me and I’ll explain.

2. Gemma is in a coma or sick, and Lumon is keeping her alive with a severed chip

Okay, fine, it’s possible Gemma did get into some kind of fatal accident (still don’t think it was a regular ol’ car accident that did it, but whatevs) that left her in a vulnerable state, like a coma, and her body ended up in Lumon’s care. From there, they couldn’t quite revive her outer version but used her body as a shell to erect to a severed employee named Ms. Casey in the meantime (come on, capitalism). Every day when Ms. Casey leaves the office she goes back to a lab where they work on trying to bring the real Gemma back to life. Or, you know, since Lumon’s evil and all, they’re perfectly happy letting outie Gemma wither away. Either way, in this theory, Gemma is not quite alive but not quite dead either.

3. Ms. Casey is a Lumon experiment who is biologically related but not the same Gemma

As this Redditor thoroughly details, though Ms. Casey assumes she has a normal outie life outside Lumon like every other severed employee, the truth is her elevator ride ends at the test floor. This implies that she, herself, is a test. This theory latches onto the fact that Gemma acts weird, like weirder than other severed people who are clearly limited but still full of a human personality. Dylan is a snarky nerd, Irv is an uptight introvert, and Mark is a chill-at-all-costs people-pleaser. When Helly R. enters the mix, though she is pissed AF about her severed existence, she does have the wit and emotion of a normal human being. But Ms. Casey is “strange” and she attributes that to being “107 hours old.” The math there implies she’s only been alive for the hours when she’s on the severed floor.

The whole goat situation has made many fans think that Lumon is into some version of cloning and/or rebirth. What if Gemma is the first subject, who is a genetic derivative of Gemma but not OG Gemma herself? If Gemma did fully die before being severed, maybe the chip in her head is different than for the rest of the MDR because it’s the only thing providing this regenerated body’s consciousness.

I personally don’t subscribe to the clone theory, since Mr. Milchik and Harmony Cobel say how pleased they are that Ms. Casey doesn’t remember her outie life when watching the footage of her therapy session on Mark. If Ms. Casey was a 100% reboot, why would they be worried about the memories from her dead brain being triggered in a 2.0 version? It’s def possible Ms. Casey is not quite a clone, but more like a replica, that Lumon did their best to wipe all memories from (but wasn’t sure how successful the procedure was). Only season 2 can (hopefully) tell us, but I’m hoping, wishing, and praying the real Gemma is still in there, somewhere.