thinking about how I hope in the end that Severance is a treatise on grief and how you cannot run from it, you cannot bury it, you cannot hide from it, you can only in the end accept it.
It's been two years since Gemma "died," and Mark has tried everything but accepting her loss.
Alcoholism? Check. Getting severed to avoid choking on her ghost? Check. Moving to a new house and keeping her memories boxed in the basement? Check. Not even bothering to unpack her ashes and put her in an urn or a cemetery? Check. "She's not dead, she's just not here."
He shoves her in a box in the basement surrounded by boxes of her hobbies. He tears up her photo in little pieces and tapes it back together with whiskey on his breath. He cries in the car before work until snot runs down his face. He spits on other people's grief and wields his own like a weapon, pretending that he isn't bleeding.
It's a core part of him. It's always been there. Maybe it goes far back, to Fern Scout who's been dead so long Mark can't remember the color of her eyes. It's there in Mark S too, ripping up Petey's photo and his map with grim denial. "Irving isn't dead, he's just not here."
Mark can't bear grief in any form. So when scraps of puzzle pieces scream that she's alive, he runs into the maelstrom of reintegration without thought, without care, without telling Devon, self-destructive to the core. Because if he could kill the grief, that monster stalking him in the dark or at the bottom of a bottle, then maybe he'd finally be okay.
But I don't think we'll ever get to see the Gemma he once knew. I think she's lost, a ghost stalking Lumon's halls, never to escape. Or maybe she does escape -- but only as Ms. Casey, someone who never loved him, a different person altogether.
And maybe Severance will say, you have to accept this, or you'll die. Grief isn't an enemy. It's a part of you, like your innie, like your outie. It breaks you apart.
And you can put yourself back together again, if you only face it.
I thought it was so in Woe's Hollow, when he was sharp with Irving, crass with Helena's laughter about the Dieter tale, and distant on the long snowy hike to the falls. But this episode really drove it home.
Reintegration isn't just memories coming back. It's demeanor, it's personality, it's the way you navigate the world with your other self bleeding through the walls that severance created. It goes both ways.
We see that Mark S is starting to affect Mark Scout. Some of his optimism and eagerness are affecting outie Mark -- outie Mark starts the episode in the morning, lit brightly instead of cast in the dark and lonely shadows that usually define his home. His home looks more Lumon-like than usual. We see outie Mark asking Reghabi hopefully when they can keep going, trying to move forward as quickly as he can. This is a man driven forward by his goal, which is mysterious and important.
But conversely, Mark Scout is hemorrhaging into Mark S.
Mark Scout's cynicism, his bitterness, his jadedness, his casual cruelty are leaking through. His wounds are poisoning the secret rebel, the chipper optimist, the leader who said "we're people, not parts of people." It won't be poison in the end -- hopefully, it'll be a real person, full of optimism and pessimism both, able to see both halves of the whole. But for now it's a shock to the system, percolating under the surface and coloring all of Mark S's interactions.
Yes, Mark S has many reasons to be off right now... he's ashamed of not realizing Helly was Helena, he's suddenly uncertain about the separation between outie and innie at all, he's still not sure if Helena or Helly stands before him, Irving is dead (no he's not, he's just not here), he's confused about that flash of Ms. Casey, the list goes on. He wasn't good at mourning Petey, and he's not good at this. Reintegration isn't the only reason he's closed off and in denial.
But it's definitely a reason why Mark S is turning away from his friends and isolating himself. I just hope that he's able to hold onto those parts of himself that yearn for love and connection, and he's able to restore his bonds with Dylan and Helly as he starts becoming someone new.
With season 2 of Severance wending towards its conclusion, there are doubtless more of my stories to come. Given this inevitability it is imperative that I provide you, cherished readers, with a simple way to access these annals of Lumon Industries and its severed workers. I apologize for the regrettable delay in the penning of this masterpost, but if you harbor grievances regarding my tardiness, kindly devour feculence. Last updated 3/21/2025.
And for my AO3 versions: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2905794
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Canonically Compliant Tales and Scenarios
The News, drabble. Mark Scout answers a knock at the door. He'll never be the same.
The Rewards, 1500 words. Mark Scout gets fired from Ganz University, but a new path presents itself.
New Threads, 1731 words. Lumon requires company clothing for all severed workers. Mark Scout gets fitted.
first day jitters, 1500 words. Mark Scout's first day at Lumon.
The Barrens, ~ 2000 words. Mark Scout goes camping to clear his head. It doesn't work.
Nine Hundred and Seventeen, 1500 words. Leaving the Break Room isn't easy.
ghosts, 2400 words. Sometimes it feels like Devon's grieving two deaths.
Another and Another, 1375 words. Mostly, Mark tries not to think about his drinking. Mostly.
Session 7.2, drabble. Mark S. attends a particularly punitive Wellness session.
Perks, drabble. Dylan G. examines his rewards.
the way we get by, 4000 words. Mark S. suffers from a mysterious illness, and his terminal only shows the sort of numbers that make him feel like crying.
the empty desk, 2250 words. Focus on 1x05/1x06. Mark S. grapples with Helly's empty desk.
The World in Kodachrome, 1200 words. Irving and Burt explore a world of countless colors.
what's in a name? Drabble. Helly R. reflects on her own.
All Glory Be in Service to the Nine, drabble. Harmony Cobel returns home.
unsteady, ~1100 words. Devon is there for Mark. Every Mark. Spoilers up to 2x09.
ten minutes, an hour, tomorrow, ~1700 words. Helly and Mark catch their breath after Cold Harbor. Helly x iMark.
Verbal Meta-Analysis and Graphical Interpretation of Kier's Word:
Food and its absence: a long-form essay on food as connection throughout the show. Season 2 update.
Severance and facing grief - hopes for the ultimate narrative goal of the show.
Mark S. is fading away - thoughts on reintegration.
All my Severance fanart can be found at @doodlingfoolishness.
Helly and Mark catch their breath after Cold Harbor, and take stock of their current situation. Mark whump, Helly x iMark, ~1700 words. Spoilers for Cold Harbor!
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Her heart beat frantically in the gaps between the siren’s blare. Flash. Flash. Flash. Waves of red and white rolled over them. They ran on, her bare feet slapping the floor, her hand clinging to his. His hand was sweaty, sticky, clammy. She didn’t care.
It was Mark’s hand, her Mark, no one else’s.
She didn’t know how long they ran, how far and deep they traveled into the hidden reaches of the severed floor. A building so big that it became a continent. The sirens felt more distant, less piercing. She knew they had gone farther than they ever had before.
But they couldn’t keep up this pace forever. Her breaths came ragged and sharp. Beside her she felt Mark flagging, a stumble in his step.
”Hey,” she yelled, just as the siren shut off. The sound lingered in the pulse of her ears for a dizzying moment. They both stopped, staring at the ceiling above them, wondering what would happen next.
The red and white lights vanished and they were left alone in the dark.
She took a nervous step forward, still holding his hand. The overhead lights flickered on in cool, dim tones.
”It stopped,” he said hoarsely, trying to catch his breath. “Why did it stop? They still have to be looking for us.” He coughed, grimacing.
”Maybe,” Helly said, reaching out and touching his face. She was careful not to touch the red puffy skin of his cheekbone, the purplish area around his eyes. It looked like it hurt. “Maybe not. Dylan came back. As far as I know he’s still back there with the marching band department, and Milchick would have had to go through all of them.” Her heart blazed with the memory. “They listened to me, they’re gonna help us, Mark. We’re fighting back.”
He stared at her, then leaned in to kiss her, wobbling on his feet.
”Hey, hey hey hey,” she whispered, taking him by the shoulders, keeping him steady. She swallowed, looking him up and down. She’d seen the blood, of course, but in the moment they had had to run. But now he stood before her, pale even in the dim light, and she could finally see the full extent of the blood drenching his shirt and jacket. “Jesus, Mark. What happened to you?”
”I don’t know,” he said, then shook his head, wincing. “No. I know part of it. There was a man — he was huge — he caught me near the testing floor elevator. Beat the shit out of me. He didn’t even ask me what I was doing. Just attacked me. He would have killed me…” His voice trailed off. “Lorne saved me.”
”Lorne?” Helly asked.
He flinched. “I forgot. She was with me when we met Mammalians Nurturable. The goat department.”
For a moment she didn’t understand. Then she realized — Helena. She swallowed down her anger. Another memory stolen from her. Well look what I’ve stolen now. “She helped you?”
Mark let out a long breath. “Lorne’s the department head. She got a gun… they were going to use it on a baby goat…. She gave it to me and I made him come down the elevator. I don’t know what happened after that.”
”A gun? Shit, are you shot?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Everything… hurts… but I don’t think like that? I just —“ He got a strange look on his face, then suddenly sagged against the wall and slid down to the floor, hitting it with a thump. “Fuck,” he whispered.
“You’re not okay,” Helly snapped, sinking to her knees beside him. She blinked back tears. “Let me look at you. Please, Mark.”
He looked ashen beneath the blood on his cheeks. He shivered. She threw her arm around his shoulders protectively.
”I don’t feel so good,” he whispered. “Dizzy.”
“No shit,” she tried to laugh. It didn’t come out right. She kissed him instead, drinking in every part of the kiss: the softness of his lips and tongue, the swelling on his bottom lip that she knew wasn’t there before, the warmth of his mouth, his face, his body close to hers.
How long do we have? Before they end all of us?
He chuckled weakly, resting his forehead against hers. “Huh. I never had a medical exam like that.”
She snorted. “Sorry. You distracted me. You’re kind of a mess right now, and it —“ She hesitated. But what was there to hesitate about? They only had now. They only had here. “It makes me want to take care of you, all right?”
He smiled crookedly. ”Helly,” he said softly. “Helly, I love you.”
He didn’t need to say it. She knew it down deep, in a part of her that could never be shut off or replaced. She’d known it in their quiet, beautiful moments together; she’d known it in their hushed talks this morning.
She’d known it just now, when he looked at her down the hall and took her hand.
But it was important for him to say it to her. She knew what that felt like. That need. Saying it made it real.
”I love you, Mark.” She gave him a watery smile. He laughed, that little laugh that always tugged his mouth to one side. Shit. There he was, distracting her again. “Now come on. I mean it. Let me take a look.”
He frowned. “What if they come? We should try to hide first.” He attempted to get to his feet, then sank back against the wall, groaning. “Fuck!”
”See? Just let me look. We need to know how bad it is before we keep going.”
”All right. But hurry.”
He was right; at least he wasn’t shot. But it was bad.
Her hands came away bloody as she worked with him to ease his sodden jacket off, to pull off the blood-soaked tie and toss it to the ground, to unbutton his shirt. A few days ago she’d helped him unbutton it eagerly, fingers dancing on the buttons, fluttery and excited. Now her fingers shook and his hands fumbled as he tried to help. She finished with the last button and slipped the shirt down his shoulders.
Red blotches marked his chest and back. “Punches? Or kicks, maybe,” Mark said hoarsely as she traced around their borders with her fingertips. “It all happened so fast.”
Her fingers stopped, frozen, at purple-red bruises around his throat. Handprints.
He swallowed painfully, ducking his head to avoid looking at her.
”Do you think he’s dead?” Helly asked evenly. “Because if he’s not, I’ll find him and kill him myself.”
”He’s twice your size,” Mark mumbled. “But I think my outie got him. I think that’s where all the blood came from.”
”Good,” she said, her voice poisonous. She’d kill that man. She’d kill Jame Eagan. She’d kill every fucking cog in the machine that she could. “Because I’m never letting them fuck with you again.” She brushed his hair away from his face, and her fingers came away sticky with more blood. She felt cold. “How’s your head? Does it hurt anywhere?”
“I think it’s… bad,” he admitted. He reached up clumsily, reaching for the back of his head, then the top. She had him lean forward and she brushed through his hair, finding only small cuts — one on the very top of his head, one at the back. That didn’t seem so awful, considering. But she still felt cold. Anxious.
She wished she knew anything about medical shit. Her whole experience with it had been seeing Mark get taken care of by Ms. Huang and Milchick bandaging her cut arm. Her gut ached, looking at him.
Something was wrong about his face, and it wasn’t just the blood or the darkening bruises.
She searched his eyes. There were specks of blood in the whites of his eyes. Shit. Was that it? But then she realized that one brown eye had a huge dark pupil, and the other was a tiny pinprick.
That was bad, right?
“Your pupils are different sizes,” Helly said softly. “And there’s blood in your eyes. I don’t know what that means, but… yeah, it’s pretty bad.”
He shrugged. Another crooked smile. “Well, crap.”
”Right,” she said with a shaky laugh. “Crap. So what do we do?”
”We keep going,” Mark said. He took her hands, folded them tightly in his own. He stared at them for a moment as if trying to find the right words. “This is ours, Helly. This life. I don’t know if we have ten minutes or an hour or tomorrow. I don’t care if I’m hurt. I just care that I’m with you.”
Helly closed her eyes. Even with C&M and Dylan slowing them down, even with Milchick subdued, they would be coming. She knew that. Mark knew that. And he’d chosen her anyway.
“We keep going,” she echoed, opening her eyes. She kissed him on the forehead, then the lips. She buttoned his shirt buttons back up, carefully tucked in his untucked shirt, fixed his jacket back over his shoulders. “If you’re dizzy, just lean on me. I’ll be with you. Every step of the way.”
“I know,” Mark said. He grinned at her. He looked exhausted. He looked like everything hurt.
He looked happy.
She got to her feet and bent over, holding out her arms. He groaned, using her help to pull himself up. He straightened up but wobbled slightly.
“Here.” She put her arm around him, and he draped his over her shoulders. She held onto him, hope flaring once more within her. “Come on. Let’s keep going.” She led him forward into the shadowed hall, her heart beating strong and true.
This was real. They were real.
And no matter what Lumon did to them in ten minutes, an hour, tomorrow —
Helly had started a fire with Dylan and the C&M workers. Mark had saved an innocent person from Lumon at the moment they would have killed her. And then he and Helly had both said fuck you, our lives are own.
They mattered.
Helly smiled with each step into the looming dark. She didn’t know what lay ahead. Did she need to?
Devon is there for Mark. Every Mark. No matter what. Spoilers for the ending of Severance 2x09, The After Hours. 1195 words.
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“You ready to do this?” Devon asks. Her breath puffs out in a hazy cloud between them, a burst of white in the dark.
Mark stares back at her, haggard and drooping, eyes bloodshot to hell. He’s pale, somehow sweaty despite the chill. He looks like shit.
She feels like shit. It’s been two long, awful days and everything, everything, hurts.
Gemma’s alive.
It still makes her head feel like it’s going to explode. She can’t think about it for more than a second at a time or she’ll lose it, like she’s staring at the sun. It’s too much. Too painful. Gemma’s dead and then she isn’t, and she’s not an amnesiac in some TV movie living a lovely ignorant life somewhere else, she’s trapped deep in the bowels of an evil corporate hellscape five miles from home. They cremated her. Had a funeral. Mark tried and failed to move on, and Gemma’s still a little black hole in Devon’s chest that won’t heal… except she’s alive.
Devon blinks back tears. This has to be something. It can’t be for nothing. She shivers in the cold. She wants nothing more than to step inside this warm, well-lit cabin instead of staying on the freezing porch with Mark, but she can’t leave him. Not until he’s ready to come with her.
She reaches out a hand to gently squeeze his arm. He leans into the touch, shaking his head as if coming back from somewhere far away.
“You really think it’ll work?” he mutters, eyes darting everywhere except at her.
“I don’t know, man. I don’t know how any of this works.”
“This was your idea,” he says, with only half the venom she’d expected. His face twists, the bitter mask falling into something vulnerable and scared. “I have to try for her, don’t I?’
“You do. ‘Course you do,” Devon says.
Mark nods, plasters on a smile that comes out wrong. “Okay. Just… give me a minute.”
“Sure. I’ll be waiting, ‘k?”
He tilts his head to the side, and for a moment, he almost looks like the old Mark. Almost whole. “I know you will,” he says quietly. “Thanks.”
Crap. There’s those tears again. She nods, throat tight, unable to speak, and she steps through the door.
The airy warmth of the cabin envelops her. It’s a shock after the barely functional heat of Mrs. Selvig’s crappy truck and the day spent outside in the freaking woods. She lets out a long breath, willing the tears to knock it off, shivering in the sudden warmth.
But there’s so much. She rubs at her eyes irritably, tries to shove the feelings back down. She can deal with them later. When they get Gemma back. Right?
It’s just, there’s the whole Mark trying to die on her thing -- watching her only brother seize and choke on the floor and drift off in some kind of coma -- not knowing if he’ll live or die, afraid to call the hospital, afraid to not --
There’s her own shit, too. She misses Eleanor so goddamn much. Barely two days apart and Devon can hardly think straight, missing how Eleanor’s hair smells, the softness of her perfect little pudgy cheeks, her tiny hands with her somehow incredibly sharp fingernails curling around her finger. She wants to hold her daughter so badly, wants to get her as far away from Lumon and Kier as she can.
She winces, her chest aching. She’ll have to hand express again soon. Two days of lost milk, two days away from her baby, two days of lying to Ricken about going on a spur of the moment “sibling retreat,” two days of Eleanor having to live off frozen milk or Lumon formula, and the guilt’s eating her alive.
But Gemma --
The door opens. She squares herself in front of it, holding her head high. Gotta be the first thing he sees. Something familiar. She said he’s gonna be freaked out.
Mark steps over the threshold. His face contorts, ripples, like something’s trying to fight its way out. Is it always like this?
He blinks, barely-constrained panic setting in. And it’s Mark’s innie looking back at her. She’s sure of it.
She smiles, a sudden wave of fond protectiveness coming over her. She’s going to keep him safe. “Hi, Mark!” she says brightly, her heart pounding. Stay calm. He’ll be disoriented.
He shivers, panting, trembling. He looks down at his clothes. Duh. He’ll expect a suit. He looks back up at her frantically. “Wait, what?”
Her heart goes out to him. Oh, buddy. I’m so sorry. “You’re okay. You’re fine!” She wants to hug him. Wants to tell him everything all at once, to let him know they’re trying to help, but she knows it’ll only freak him out more.
Instead he turns and grabs the door by the handle, and she leaps forward. “No no no no no. If you walk out that door, he’s just gonna come right back in again.”
Innie-Mark stops, slowly turns back to face her, that rabbity look still in his eyes. “What is this?” he asks, voice shaking.
“It’s gonna be okay.” And it really is going to be okay, she has to believe that, because if it isn’t, what will they do? Lumon might kill them all. Gemma might never escape. Mark’s brain might melt right out through his ears. But she’s not going to think about that. She’s got a job to do, and it’s to take care of Mark, every Mark, no matter what.
“Can I --” She keeps her bright smile on, because it keeps the tears from sliding in, and she closes the distance between them to reach out for his arm. “You wanna walk with me?” He flinches, and she drops her hand instantly. Okay, he’s not used to that. “Ooh -- sorry, just -- come with me?”
Devon steps forward, showing the way. Hesitantly he follows. He reminds her of something with these halting footsteps, the wary eyes.
“You’re good. Yeah.”
She leads him up the stairs, following behind him in case he stumbles. He’s slow, clumsy, wobbly, still out of breath. Why is he out of breath? He acts like he’s never used stairs before.
“Where --” He tries again, turning back to glance at her. “Are you my --”
She knows what he looks like now, and it hurts. A fawn, all gangling and new, no fucking idea how to navigate the world but he’s stuck here anyway. She swallows past the lump in her throat.
The scraggly little locks of hair at the back of his neck curl like Eleanor’s.
There’s only a few more steps to go before they reach the top. Before innie-Mark sees the woman waiting for them. Before they try and tear Mark’s brain apart to put it back together, before they do whatever it takes to bring Gemma back.
Please keep him safe, she prays to no one in particular. He takes the last step, the gangling fawn. She stands beside him, a hand brushing against his arm to keep his balance. Got you, buddy. Even if you don’t know it.
If Kier’s winters were cold, the winters of Salt’s Neck were brutal.
Her nose wrinkled, taking in air so frigid that it burned. Ocean spray stung on the cutting wind, carrying faint familiar scents of brine and granite. Ice-crusted snow crunched beneath her boots.
She remembered vapor rising from the factory to spiral into bone-white skies. Remembered blisters cracked and swollen on her small hands. Remembered the taste of the Nine in her eager mouth, her high voice piping like a gull’s.
This town had once known a guiding hand. She had reached to it in supplication, her devoted heart shining in its shadow. She had scrawled theory and science and innovation on exercise book pages, sharing knowledge as Kier had intended. Her vision lived on in workers and test-floor subjects and senator’s wives, and not a one of them knew the truth of her contribution to the world.
She had made herself smaller in Lumon’s service, dimming her own light for the glory of Kier.
Harmony bit her lip and tasted blood.
Salt’s Neck rattled around her, death-knells echoing through an oxygen circuit, lungs fibrotic and failing. The very walls of the buildings peeled and warped and collapsed upon themselves, scarred with Lumon’s letters. The people, what she glimpsed of them, were ghosts who had not yet realized they had died. The corpses stank of ether.
All was decay. Weakness. Woe. Her mouth twisted. She was better than this ruined, shattered land; better than its shriveled specters. She was stronger than they knew.
And she would prove it to the fucking Eagans if it killed her.
As you all know I've been rabid for Severance the past few weeks, and I've been mulling over various theories, ideas and character arcs. But I did notice that food is a running theme on the show: food, its absence, its uses, its meaning.
Severance is a show about connections, what happens when we lose or lack them, and how we can grow by developing these connections and relationships to other. Food is often used as shorthand for community and togetherness, and Severance uses food -- or the lack of it -- to help underscore these bonds, whether broken or whole.
Mark, a grieving, alcoholic widower, is rarely shown to eat. His normal post-work routine is beer or whiskey or wine on the couch. There's no montage of him even making a lonely bachelor dinner. He typically eschews food entirely outside of his interactions with others.
When Devon tries to pull him out of his house and away from himself, knowing the anniversary of his wife's death is approaching, they find themselves in a dinnerless dinner party, a pretentious, masturbatory bit of nonsense. The participants describe food as mere fuel for higher things, and not worthy of weight in and of itself. But these are hollow people, tactless and empty. Their relationships are plastic. There is nothing real about them, and thus, nothing real about their "dinner party."
The only real relationship that is explored here is Mark and Devon's.
Which is where we see the healthiest, freshest, and most filling meal of the show, lit with golden warmth, made by Devon and given to Mark. Their relationship is real, their connections are real. Their food is real. Devon asks Mark about therapy (he's not going) and Mark drinks from a hip flask (he's ill, but doesn't feel a need to hide it from Devon). The food in this scene underlines the strength of their bond.
Mark's other attempts at meals go less well. Mrs. Selvig/Cobel nearly force feeds him cookies; he eats them out of politeness, but the batch of burned ones in her kitchen shows that the effort to connect in this way is doomed. He goes to Pip's VIP area and is accosted by Petey before his food ever arrives. Later he and Petey share a pizza, but we don't see Mark eating, and the pizza looks sad and listless. Petey is trying to form a connection with him, but Mark is unable or unwilling to reciprocate.
A relationship that Mark does truly try to cultivate is that with Alexa. However, it doesn’t go well. His first date with Alexa is entirely foodless, though he orders a second whiskey while they sit with empty plates. He ruins the date later by aggressively arguing with people downtown, his defensiveness fueled by whiskey, and heads home alone for a beer.
The best he manages to do with Alexa is to decline alcohol at his second dinner with her and enjoy some fries -- and this is their healthiest interaction, where they mutually extend the date and Alexa comes home with him. Food as connection.
Contrast ordering whiskey number 2 in an empty restaurant on their first date, with being good with only water and having at least fries in a restaurant that shows more warmth, more liveliness, other couples. It's a healthier step, and one that almost gets Mark to a better place, until he runs out on Alexa in the middle of the night.
His worst meal, and the only time we see himself having his own food in his house, is when he scours the news for information on Graner's murder, makes an ass of himself to Alexa, tears up Gemma's photo, and grieves her more than ever. This is not sustaining. This is not healthy. It's a fucking bag of potato chips and a bottle of whiskey for dinner.
In contrast, innie Mark doesn't fare much better. The food at Lumon is doled out purely as soulless rewards for work the innies must perform. The food is precisely regulated, either with tokens or with Milchick's falsely cheerful deliveries of bizarrely regimented melons and eggs. Lunches are provided and noted on the list of the senior refiner's duties, but we never see the innies get to enjoy them, if they are indeed enjoyable. Food is fuel. Food is incentive. Food is out of their control.
Even the vaunted waffle party, lauded all season, requires taking a refiner away from their team so they can eat alone, where they then put on a mask and watch other people in masks. Food as separation. Food that encourages distance rather than fostering closeness.
But slowly, the innies begin to band together. They realize their prison is cold and cruel, that they have been deprived of basic, vital, precious relationships. Helly realizes that her own escape is not enough, and she wants the others to find freedom too. Dylan realizes corporate incentives mean nothing in the face of his son’s embrace — and he insists the others deserve the same chance to experience their own lives. Mark begins to realize through Ricken’s book and their new experiences that self-worth and community are vital goals. And Irving realizes his love for Burt is beautiful, Kier be damned.
The egg bar, coveted as fuck, is actually good. So is their teamwork. Their friendship. Their connections, finally recognized by all of them as more important than punishment or toeing the line or making it through another day.
So they plan their rebellion, their chance to break through to the outside world, to honor their mutual struggle and their bond. Dylan gazes upon his reward, a glass cube of all of them united; and Irving, excited, determined, triumphant, says:
Something something about the parallels between innie Mark reading Ricken’s manifesto but also outie Mark getting the panicked voicemails from Ricken. Something about the fact that severance creates multiple versions of every person known by both an innie and outie; Mark’s not only severed but so is Ricken now, for he exists as Ricken-the-visionary but also Ricken-the-annoying, two wholly separate people in terms of how Mark sees him but also in how Ricken interacts with both Marks. Something about Devon my sister vs. Devon his sister, Cobel and Mrs. Selvig, Milchick the severed manager vs. Milchick the outie mediator, Gemma lost and found as herself, Ms. Casey, an outie’s wife
