InSeveranceSeason 2 Episode 8 Sweet Vitriol we get a lot of references to Ether, which has also been referenced throughout both Season 1 and Season 2. Here is what we know about Ether and what it is inSeveranceand its importance in Season 2 Episode 8.
What is Ether?
InSeverance, Ether more than likely refers to an actual organic chemical compound called Diethyl Ether, or simply Ether for short. It’s a colourless and “sickly sweet” smelling liquid that is incredibly volatile and flammable. It was first synthesized in 1540 but became the main general anesthetic in the 1840s until the 1960s when it was replaced by safer and more effective anesthetics like Halothane and Sevoflurane.
Diethyl Ether also has both anesthetic and euphoric effects, which can lead to addiction, which we see from Harmony Cobel’s childhood friend inSeveranceSeason 2 Episode 8 Sweet Vitriol, who appears to be addicted to it.
In the world ofSeverance, Ether is also commonly referenced, as it’s said that Lumon founder Kier Eagan met his wife Imogene Eagan at an Ether Factory where Kier was a stewman and Imogene was a swab girl.
As for in the episode Sweet Vitriol, Harmony Cobel talks about working at an Ether Factory at the age of 8 before she left for aWintertide Fellowshipat the age of 12. It’s also the drug that both Harmony Cobel and her childhood friend take a huff of while sitting in her mother’s room inSeveranceSeason 2 Episode 8.
How does Ether tie into Severance?
In a way, the use of Ether before the Severance program existed was an early form of Severance. Lumon has clearly long been an industrious company, but we now know they also heavily used child labor. It’s quite possible that Ether was used to dissociate people from their reality, which is one of the most common uses of Severance.
Interestingly, there might even be a deeper connection of Ether to what’s going on with Lumon and the world ofSeverance. In Season 2 Episode 4 titled ORTBO, Milchick leads the MDR innies to find Kier’s diary, which talks about Kier Eagan’s twin brother Dieter Eagan, which until that time has never been referenced and isn’t listed in the official Eagan lineage that Lumon employees are told about.
In the diary it talks about Dieter doing an outlandish act in front of his brother, Kier, and “spilling his lineage upon the soil.” Afterward, Kier claims that his brother melted grotesquely in front of him after this act, seemingly punished for his “wantonness”.
The relation here comes from the name Dieter, which could come from a hybridized version of Diethyl Ether. If so, that could mean that Dieter wasn’t actually a twin brother of Kier Eagan, but rather a form of himself when under the anesthetic and euphoric effects of using the substance.
