[Severance] The "Mark is impulsive" show
Anonymous (on Tumblr) asked: not to be a hater but innie mark is stupid only bc gemma could have absolutely been recaptured on her way out lol. and lumon is gonna beat his ass
Regarding Gemma being recaptured: not off the table, although I doubt that Cobel and Devon aren’t prowling around the building. But it’s a fair enough concern; his ass did not consider logistics. Admittedly, Mark S. has never been outside a building for more than 3 seconds, ORTBO hike notwithstanding. Still, impulsive plans will continue to be poorly thought out, because that’s the Mark special.
Regarding Lumon beating Mark’s ass: he knows. He knows because when he asked to be sent to the severed floor, she asked Devon if she loved her brother, and she said yes. because Devon said that if Gemma got out, they would use any dirt she had on them to destroy Lumon. because when he asked, “So what happens to us innies?” he got an “I don’t know” from Devon, an “I’m already reintegrating” from Mark Scout, and a whole lot of nothing from Cobel and realized that whether he leaves and Mark Scout reintegrates or he stays and burns with Lumon, he believes himself to be on borrowed time.
Mark S. goes back because he assumes Mark Scout will make it out, but chances are Mark S. probably won’t, not as he is now. He wishes he had more time; he knows his outie will live on in either scenario, so he makes a selfish (seemingly, although I don’t see it that way) decision to get what looks to be an impossibly short amount of time with Helly and Dylan and whoever may remain on the floor that could help or kill them, including Jame Eagan and Dr. Mauer. When Mark S. is forced to let go, Mark Scout can get out, go to Gemma, go to Devon, and go to all the people he has that love him. But these are his loves, right here in a building that became a continent, a whole world, that they cannot leave without dying in some way. a life not only “to be had,” a life that they have. Present. Whole and alive and dying like any living being that’s been born, ever, and cannot cease to exist unless it’s through death.
I don’t think this reads as a carefree honeymoon; I think this is innie Mark’s moment of marching to his death with his head held high, like Irving B. did for them all, and hoping he won’t have regrets, whatever may happen to him, or to Helly, or to Dylan, wherever Irving B. and Burt G. are, where Ms. Casey and all the rest of Gemma’s innies are, or where Petey K. went after reintegration and death, whatever happens to their gone. He stood in a hallway that lit up the same red the first time Helly was sent to the break room and took her hand, and they both turned their backs to the world and ran headfirst into hell, whose flames can be a hearth too, and I don’t believe it was out of naivety.