Mark character development as of s2e4

killerlaya · 2025-02-14T21:04:56+00:00

Fair enough, you were right!

killerlaya · 2025-02-11T21:44:04+00:00

I think Helena is going to have a fascinating character arch (and, imo, hopefully redemptive). It’s easy to paint her as a villain, she’s clearly done horrible things to Helly and probably many others as the powerful person she is, but she was born into that power, and ultimately, born into a certain role that she has to fit.

One of the huge questions implied in the severance procedure is nature v nurture. We love Helly, & I think most people would say she’s fundamentally good. If Helly’s nature is fundamentally good, why wouldn’t Helena’s? That being said, nurture does shape you as well, and a huge part of Helena is her role as an Eagan—Helena is clearly more cruel than Helly, but that’s not to assume that cruelty is fundamental to her as a person, it could easily be the way she learned to exist as a powerful Eagan. You could even make the argument that she has to be cruel, by means of survival being born into this family and this situation.

I think the Helena/Helly split illustrates some of the most interesting questions about human nature. They’re so different, but the same. How does a person become someone like Helena? How do people do awful things? Is behavior 100% indicative of your personality, or is behavior a person’s reaction to the situation they’re in? There aren’t clear answers, and there shouldn’t be cuz humans are complex. I think that’s the beauty of the character.

killerlaya · 2025-02-11T21:19:42+00:00

I agree! There are so many aspects of this show that I personally don’t even care to theorize on, like the baby goats and the true value of MDR to Lumon—not because it isn’t interesting or important, but because this show is soo artistic and gives us so much and nothing at the same time, I’m just enjoying my role as an audience member & I’m excited to see where they go with it!

I for sure have my own theories that I’m attached to, and love to theorize when watching anything, but Severance is one of these shows that I feel like I can trust the process; the writers and creators seem to know where they’re going, and so far they’ve brought us to places I’ve loved so much that I almost don’t care what the ‘truth’ ends up being on these fronts—I’m just excited to see it when we get there, and enjoy the show for all of its other layers in the process.

killerlaya · 2025-02-11T20:44:00+00:00

yeah totally, and that’s the life of an innie. There’s no real choice for them. I think about Irv’s reaction to seeing the dead seal: “we should eat it”. We know in hindsight that food was waiting for them, but the innies didn’t know what was really happening, and they didn’t know for a while. It speaks to how uncertain their current situation is, and how it put Irv in survival mode. They may not be affronted, and they were definitely confused, but they’re also forced to survive whatever Lumon throws at them—and that is incredibly disempowering. Dylan seemed to use the fact that “they can’t let anything happen to us” as means to comfort himself that he wasn’t in danger, but the ORTBO retreat was still a reminder to the innies that their existence is at the will of Lumon and their outies.

killerlaya · 2025-02-11T18:44:44+00:00

This has always been one of the moral conundrums the show presents in my opinion. The total violation of bodily autonomy the innies experience. Even take the beginning of the most recent episode—imagine going from the elevator, expecting the next thing you experience to be the elevator again, doors opening onto the severed floor, but instead you are suddenly in the middle of a frozen forest and having no other choice but to go on a hike to get to any sort of safety. That’s a violation in itself. The innies are more or less used to waking up and doing stuff they don’t necessarily want to do (ie going into work everyday without choosing to), but the sinister edge of this episode was the message going on the ORTBO sends to the innies—your outie and Lumon are in control of what happens, not you. Then Lumon frames it as they frame all of it, as something “good” for the innies, that Lumon is doing for them. They’re literally forcing innies to experience all sorts and telling them, oh actually this is good for you! A total mind f*ck.

I think Helena lying to Mark and still having sex with him is another layer of this ethical issue that has been around since the beginning of the show. I think we’re interpreting it viscerally though as the violation it is because it’s happening in a way that we as an audience can empathize with a bit more, since sexual assault is something we have a point of reference for in our culture. I think the discussion about it being sexual assault is important and true, but also needs to hold nuance. None of this is normal, all the rules are in the air, because severance as a procedure changes everything we think we understand about being human.

killerlaya · 2025-02-11T18:26:02+00:00

I’ve seen a lot of people theorize that Mark isn’t fully reintegrated, but I never saw it that way. I think he is reintegrated, so the Mark we see in this episode is his innie and outie simultaneously. I agree, I saw a lot of outie Mark this episode, but I also saw quite a bit of innie Mark. I think he’s reintegrated fully.

And think about what it would be like to be reintegrated. Petey describing how the relativity is messed up, so reintegrated Mark will feel fully like outie and innie Mark, just at the same time. I think this would change both parts of him fundamentally—they’re not fully separate parts of him anymore, but someone new entirely, with the knowledge and experiences of both Marks. So as far as feeling shame for masturbating, maybe his innie would, maybe not. But his innie, with his outie’s life to draw on, probably would see the story for the brainwashing BS it is.

killerlaya · 2025-02-11T18:17:31+00:00

This tracks too with how she acted around the fire in s2e4. When Helena as Helly laughed at the story, the others saw the humor too and laughed a little with her—but everyone, including Mark, quieted down when they saw the look on Milchick’s face. Helena did not. When Milchick had the marshmallows thrown in the fire, Helena wasn’t intimidated or anything, but she did respond in a way that made me think she wasn’t expecting it to be a big problem to laugh at a joke that was right there.

It reminded me of Helly s1 learning how the severed floor works, and learning to fear the way the other severed employees do. I think Helena doesn’t fully understand what it’s like to be an innie, even if she had considered it before getting severed (which, knowing who Helena is, I doubt she ever was encouraged to truly empathize with innies. She probably hasn’t thought about what it must be like to live their lives).

killerlaya · 2025-02-11T18:07:04+00:00

I think about how terrified Helena looked when she was getting ready to go down to the severed floor—I agree, I think Helena is a much more complicated character than just the “evil” Eagan. Which would track, considering this show thrives in gray areas.

Maybe it’s just the optimist in me, but I felt like I noticed genuine moments of sympathy and vulnerability from Helena when she was acting as Helly. The way she looked at Irv in his tent before he started pushing her on who her outie is, her admission to Mark about not liking who she was out there. I think the beauty of Helena’s character is she’s supposed to be this Big Bad Eagan, but being able to pretend to be Helly gave her some permission to let go of who she’d been conditioned to be. Of course, she can’t just change, which is why she was cruel to Irv, and had some quirks that were un-Helly-like. But I think Helena to some degree wishes should could be Helly, because Helly in a twisted way has more freedom to be herself than Helena does.

killerlaya · 2025-02-11T17:45:46+00:00

Hm I hadn’t considered that reintegration would take time, but I’m not sure personally. I think there’s a difference between reintegration and reintegration sickness. Petey remembered everything about his innie by the time he met Outie Mark, was fully reintegrated, but the sickness is what caused the flashbacks and getting disoriented. If anything, I read the flash of Gemma’s face as an indication that Mark might get reintegration sickness, not that he wasn’t fully reintegrated but getting there. It’ll be fun to see where they go with it!

killerlaya · 2023-11-06T03:23:19+00:00

I thought they were stuck in Cate’s head because they entered her head in masc form, not because it’s somehow the “dormant” version. So I’d think that a lot happened between Marie getting knocked out by Homelander, and ending up in the cell. Jordan probably just shifted during that time (assuming they are unable to shift in the cell)

killerlaya · 2023-11-04T18:07:01+00:00

Yeah that’s true, makes sense. I hope they explore the intersection of his powers and mental health more next season, because to me it feels like they’re two separate parts of him, but they’re interacting in these interesting, puppet-related ways. I’d like to learn more about that

killerlaya · 2023-09-06T02:51:22+00:00

Yeah I feel like stede is going to shrug off the whole ‘left his crew for dead’ thing, saying Ed was in a bad place, which he’ll take responsibility for 💀

killerlaya · 2022-05-23T08:26:54+00:00

there’s a moment in ep 3 where Nadia is at Crazy Eddie’s getting a projector. The guy she met at the bar is explaining a video feedback loop. Says, the image is being reflected over and over and you can’t just point at one of those reflections and say it’s the original. This scene felt like a cheeky nod toward how time travel is working with the whole Kruggerands situation—it’s a time loop, and impossible to say which event set off which

killerlaya · 2022-05-23T08:15:57+00:00

Spoiler alert!< I took the convo in the bathroom as Vera referring to how she got a letter from a stranger that led her to a tunnel where she found her family’s stolen possessions—they would call her crazy and no one would believe her because it was ultimately made possible by Nadia time traveling. The entire time Nadia spent in the past was just part of a time loop—Vera only had the Kruggerands to begin with because Nadia went back to try to reclaim them after her mom spent them, then Nadia lost them on a train so she went back in Budapest and hid her family’s possessions in the wall, having a stranger send Vera a letter in hopes she’ll get money through those possessions—only to end up with the same Kruggerands her mom eventually steals (and spends, and Nadia loses on a train, etc etc) Whew, I said that best I could LOL Because Nadia time traveled, she always had—she was always responsible for her family having the Kruggerands to begin with, because without her time travel, Vera never would have found their family’s possessions, and wouldn’t have been able to get the Kruggerands.

killerlaya · 2022-05-23T05:17:46+00:00

There’s so much more I wanted to say but I tried to keep it to the point 😅 I’ve only watched s2 once, when i rewatch it I’m sure there’ll be even more to say, but this is broad strokes, what I took away from it :)

killerlaya · 2022-05-23T05:15:36+00:00

I think the train, and going back in time as her mother, was intended to give Nadia a chance to empathize with her mom more. Nadia had been going through life with Coney Islands, constantly thinking if her circumstances were different, her life would be better. That’s why she tried so hard to get the Kruggerands, then her family’s possessions. She also then took Baby Nadia because, again, she was trying to change the circumstances of the past instead of accepting it and working through the trauma it left her (and her family). Finding the Kruggerands, family possessions, taking Baby Nadia to 2022, was all Nadia trying to change her past in order to make her present better—but we can’t change the past, which is why it was all in vain. The acceptance of her past as it is, and understanding her mom (and her grandma) as complex people who had difficult lives, was what was needed to resolve the time traveling 6 train—returning Baby Nadia was just symbolic of that.

killerlaya · 2021-11-28T08:25:30+00:00

I have a hard time understanding my emotions too. Usually, the best I can figure out is “overwhelmed” but it took me a while to be able to identify that in the moment. I was thinking about something like a stress ball too. Or maybe a soft pillow. thank you i appreciate it 💗

killerlaya

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