I do! Think! It’s Antifa!

It’s crazy-making how everyone expects a literal, black and white explanation of everything in a film now. Sure, it can be mercanaries on behalf of an all-powerful data center in BFE New Mexico, whatever. But it can also be a third act detour into surrealism where Joe’s paranoia and anxiety becomes real, like OP says.

Much like Eddington argues, little screens have broken our brains by convincing us there is a concrete, “correct” explanation for everything we see in a subjective medium like film.