[Severance] We should get plural about reintegration
I think I mentioned this during one of the watch parties we had, either Innie Supercut or the Cold Harbor live watch or post-watch, but for the longest time, I just assumed Petey's reintegration failed because his innie was turned off by the company, but then you said something entirely correct, which is that Graner mentions there was a complete recoupling in the chip during the tests. Occam's razor: he really did die because he didn't follow Reghabi's treatment plan, or she was not experienced, as they mentioned, which makes me worried sick for Mark (reading fan stuff about Mark getting reintegration literal death, even if it's blatantly for shipping Helly and Gemma, really does make me feel physically ill. I love Mark so much.) A more convoluted alternative that I've been growing fond of since sweet vitriol confirmed Cobel's place in Lumon is assuming that Reghabi doesn't know the chips were her design; she thinks all her company bootlicking is zealotry instead of her having been promised more involvement and more control in the use of the chips and then used like a pawn. I think, now, that Cobel may have heard about Reghabi starting her own reintegration attempts since she had Graner gathering intel and started wondering if it was truly possible. When the tests from the chip came back, Petey had reintegrated; he was also dead.
I suppose Cobel thinks the reintegration was done incorrectly, and it being her design means she could operate the chip herself, which she can't while Lumon has the infrastructure. And suddenly, she has an innie Mark inside, with Helly in a possible mutiny and Gemma outside with Devon, fully aware of Mark's reintegration process and capable of contacting Reghabi. They focused a lot on Gemma getting out, and while I think the romance angle was very significant for Mark Scout, and even though it spread out weirdly into S2, becoming the Season of Romance, the whole point is that Gemma's chip has excised her into pieces so many more times than it was ever intended for. That's a candy store for both Cobel and Reghabi in terms of understanding any modifications Lumon may have done to the original design to allow that. I assume Cobel did not have the knowledge for the security overrides, but we know Graner and Milchick do (Glasgow protocol undoing was a security order, the OTC switches and override list were in the security office). And Milchick is exhausted and in a position to double-agent quite nicely, provided that he mistrusts Cobel less than he mistrusts Lumon higher ups, provided that his resentment towards Helly is big enough to want to take down Helena as an Eagan.
My thoughts on reintegration, then, hinge on the idea that there was an original chip design, and there have been modifications that allow the protocols. The original chip never contemplated reintegration, which is why it's such a shock to Cobel and why she wants to know what they did with her invention. I wonder if she'd be a severance purist now and push for permanent severance with one innie and one outie, advocating for personhood because she intended the chip to be therapeutic, and that's the point of conflict with Reghabi, who wants to push for reintegration because access to all memories is access to evidence and informed agency, or if Cobel has come to believe reintegration is proof of healing of the trauma of severance itself (the disabling aspects, the innies' entire existence, and tempering).
Mark is inside, already slowly reintegrating, which so far mostly seems to be decontextualized re-contextualizing bound to spaces. A doorway that looks like the hallway to wellness in his house prompts a flashback to Ms. Casey; Helena's face over the darkness of the diner's hardwood puts her over the ORTBO pillow; and the position switch from bottom to top during sex at the ORTBO makes Mark see Gemma's face. It's fairly clean, all things considered, in terms of integration of people and memories. The fridge, too! But I don't think that's enough to make reintegration entirely singlet-oriented, because Petey also had these episodes, just oscillating far more frequently, and the difference was that he recognized the place but the person switched. Mark sees Gemma at the ORTBO but knows where he is and whom he's with, doesn't lose Helena in the vision, and recognizes Gemma even in the severed hallways with her wig and outfit. Which makes me think that there are still two distinct Mark consciousnesses, and it would seem that the implication is that it's their bond to Gemma and Helly, respectively, that keeps them separate. I can spin this into a polycule, I can spin this into plurality, I'm ideally spinning it into both, and I can speculate about what the writers might do, which probably isn't polycule or plurality, but I'd rather not do the latter and be surprised by whatever. So I'll play with toys.
I don't think the Marks would do full switches; they seem too similar to me, with their anger and their care and the way their emotions were "tamed" in the same way, by shame. I don't think there would be amnesia; I don't think there would be clean fronting either because I don't think either of them would realize it. I think Mark's plural experience would have states where one Mark's experiences and demeanor would be more prominent, but Mark would lack the self-awareness to identify them, so the result would be that people around her would be a little bit baffled because there is a visible memory continuity, but the voice and the tastes are somehow different. Internally, it would feel natural, simply following those state switches—and I think it would make for a very interesting dynamic with Gemma and Helly both in the reintegration positions I shared earlier, which are my personal canon until stated otherwise: Gemma is unable to attempt reintegration, sometimes switching under duress into an innie, with amnesic episodes and Helly fronting with Helena's memories trickling back circumstantially, integrated or discarded to the best of Helly's ability until the end result is still Helly, with some neuroses, but genuinely close to what Helena would have been without the coercion into certain habits and choices pushed upon her. I don't think Helly would incur into traditionally understood plurality, I imagine it to be kind of like my own experience, except my parts are identifiable to me due to memory-based continuity and to her it would simply be a habit that she doesn't remember forming, so it must be Helena's, and then conscious engagement with it out of fear or even curiosity or compassion towards Helena.
I think outie Gemma might find Innie Mark sweet but lacking the sarcastic edges that Mark has that I think she enjoys. I think she would be very didactic towards showing Innie Mark knowledge of all sorts. Innie Mark would get along swimmingly with Devon and get to be an earnest dork with Ricken, but I think sometimes the edge of sarcasm would shine through in defense. Maybe they'd help that mark shape her bite into something intellectually incisive; she definitely has the makings. I keep thinking about why we are still in the dark. speech and the quest to find Ms. Casey. I think reintegrated Mark could go back to teaching if it was safe and gently switch towards Innie Mark states the same way having Gemma in her life again might push pre-grief Outie Mark states more towards being playful, thoughtful, and romantic. Outie marks state would feel a little strange to Helly—too rough around the edges—but their sense of humor is the same. I think once they got past the awkwardness of you're not quite how I remember you, they'd get along like a house on fire. Helly and gemma, too, who are both assertive and inquisitive and so incredibly dogged when it comes to their goals and values. I think Helly would absolutely join the hiking team and come to regard Ricken with the same long-suffering fondness as Gemma and take the torch of "how can you be married to this guy" from Outie Mark, except in the Innie state, Mark is so unabashedly delighted in her friendship with Ricken and his knowledge and verbosity that she doesn't quite mean it. Gemma Innies as trauma responses are important meeting points for Helly and Innie Mark states, but I think Outie Mark states would be very amenable to taking care of Gemma innies. I wonder if Outie Mark State would pull on memories and mannerisms of Innie Mark to comfort her if she could do that without fully switching states.
My polyhedron mostly looks like this (quasiromantic, meaning that they're more overtly romantic in the other Mark state in terms of types of affection, but they still are close emotionally and intellectually in these):
- Romantic iMark and Helly
- Romantic oMark and oGemma
- Romantic Helly and oGemma
- Quasiromantic iMark and oGemma
- Quasiromantic oMark and Helly
- Didactic iMark and the Gemma innies
- Friendship between Helly and the Gemma innies
- Caretaking oMark and the Gemma innies, at first with some confusion as to how much of Gemma they are, then in an effort to encourage their individuality; I'm thinking a lot about trench warfare trauma care.
And then there's Irving, which I've been struggling to word for hours now because there's a strong component of self-indulgence, and I always feel guilty about that. I'm trying to keep it rooted in canon as much as I can, but my brain is like, "Wow, you like a silly idea you came up with that you know isn't how it will be handled because it's hard to visually convey, and also it's on a Turturro character? Guilt for a million years," but I'm going to try anyway.
I will assume here that Innie Irving is not fully erased from existence, just locked away, and I will put aside my thoughts that MDR Irving is not Irving Bailiff's first excision because the more I think about Petey, the less I'm into the theory (Petey knows about exports, he could've shared elevator info, and I like the idea that Irving and Petey's outies were friends or at least in the same political group, however scattered. Also, Judy Baca-isms in Irving, my beloved.)
I know outie irving would contemplate reintegration to get the memories of loving and being loved by Burt back, but he'd probably consider it a technical impossibility. i don't think he'd seek out Reghabi for reintegration, just for intel, and I imagine him to be central to the Burn Lumon alliance, perhaps Burt too, due to the information that they have and because it's kill the company or die themselves, and it's both an attack and a defense (the Irving special, the axe and the pen). my Outie Irving meets the innies scenario usually happens in this context, where they're trying to learn more about the chip blockages and splits and the innies, upon learning that Irving is alive, demand contact both as proof of life and trust, and because they miss him and there's this hope that there will be a degree of recognition. Irving agrees, surprised by the demand, willing to engage for the cause, and mostly curious because he only knows about Burt; he doesn't know the rest of his coworkers—names on a list, names without faces. And he's suddenly in contact with these strangers that are so affectionate, so worried about him, like actual children, like a family that asks how you are after they know you've been through something difficult. I don't think Irving would expect that, and I don't think the rest of MDR would truly expect recognition, but in that visceral surprise, I think there would be a gap for a spark of emotion that isn't familiar to outie Irving, a longing that he'd chalk up to that loneliness but that would be coming from an echo of innie Irving.
He'd feel it with the negotiations, he'd feel it around Burt, he'd feel it around Radar, but it's only when he starts feeling it around his own art, or movies, or music that he'd recognize a certain foreign quality to the emotion, because those are part of his routine; they don't have a shine of longing to them, and he has them whenever he wants. And I think he's smart enough to notice a pattern, smart enough to see a loose thread of Innie Irving hanging and pull. What happened to Innie Irving? Why did they sound so worried about him? He'd find out about his innie outliving Burt's. He'd find out about being suicidal. He'd find out about having tortured Helena into giving Helly back. He'd find out about being executed, erased, and mocked even at his funeral by Lumon. Innie Irving is not resting in peace; Innie Irving is haunting him. he made him, he had a life, he now knows what that life was, and outie irving is angry about what was taken from them both.
We know that Irving trusts expressionist beliefs in the subconscious enough to plot his whole informational strategy around them. there's ways to use lucid dreaming and stream of consciousness exercises that are meant to put these parts of the self in conversation, usually with the intent to integrate them. It's actually one of the trench trauma therapies that I was alluding to, and a lot of modern DBT for war vets even now uses similar techniques to manage cPTSD.
In my dream scenarios, Irving is helping Gemma with panic-induced switches (I would like the therapeutic dynamic inversion, and I really love the "your outie is a friend to children, the elderly, and the insane" for textual and metatextual reasons) and decides to use the therapy tools himself. Maybe he grabs a canvas or a piece of paper, he thinks of the events that the innies told him. He imagines a snowy landscape, the feeling of paranoia, of disbelief, of grief (those he knows, for different people, in different places), and he comes back to a drawing of a campfire and Mark and Helena's lit-up faces. Dylan's worried face. Burt standing there, almost covered by the doorway to O&D.
Memories that are proof that those lived experiences are still there, that Innie Irving is still there. But what about the present? Is he still there? He could track responses to different media. What music has begun to feel jarring, and what movies suddenly sound exciting despite having watched them a million times before? And there is a ghost, a haunting, that doesn't think it's all okay, that wants as much as Irving has wanted all his life, that only had life in a regiment to enjoy and still found love and meaning, that deserves those experiences he fought to get himself after Vietnam, that he fights to give children, the elderly, and the insane, to give them voice when they have none.
I like to think Irving learns to trigger switches, at first just with himself. Write a note, emotionally position himself, and see if you come to and find a response. Outie Irving draws a lot, and Innie Irving writes in return. Outie Irving asks why words and not images; Innie Irving talks about the handbook and not being sure how to do it. But they both share skills. Outie Irving teaches Innie Irving enough to have artistic training wheels, an expressive outlet. They have different art styles. It's a delightful and reassuring surprise. He eventually manages to trigger a switch for the innies. They both remember things in simultaneous first and third person, but it's Innie Irving talking and moving; it's their shared body.
I think he'd be the only one of the four to both be incapable of a clean integration (unlike Dylan) and self-aware enough to have a conscious sense of cohabitation (unlike Mark). They're very different people, the Irvings, but their joining points are very porous and very flexible, and they are both extremely respectful of others' autonomy at the point where we are. a little knock, a little sign that either of them wants to front, or that they don't or can't do something, teaching and learning from each other into their own expressions and loves.
There's a block that can't be mechanically lifted because it's still Lumon's chip, and they don't know what could happen to Irving if he was "technically" erased with his memories. But as long as the chip is keeping them separate, the memories can be shared as a recounting, and the life can be lived as a voluntarily triggered severing where there's no spatial amnesia, just executive separation.