The movie Dark City was somewhat overshadowed by a film exploring related themes and even using some of the same urban sets that came out the following year, namely The Matrix. While The Matrix is the greater presence in pop cultural memory (and one whose concept or the Red Pill and Blue Pill has been appropriated, most ironically, by misogynists, cribbing from a movie that could easily be read as a queer allegory).
In Dark City, a strange, noir-infused city where it is always night is actually a research station run by aliens, who wipe the memories of all the captured humans there and upload new memories (this premise is explained to us in the opening narration, an executive-mandated addition that robs the movie of the chance to let its bonkers premise slowly reveal itself). The protagonist, waking up with his old memories gone and nothing to replace them, goes on a journey to discover who he is and what power is being held at bay by this constant effort to rob him of a core identity.
Memory and identity are deeply linked - after all, it is in my memory where my name, my history, my knowledge of the people who are important to me, even the works of art that have touched me, all reside. Without that memory, is it truly me? Would my continual experience of consciousness matter if my memory were severed, my brain partitioned and a blank "virtual hard drive" created within it?
The Lutheran Church, it seems, has an answer, which is: no, it's not the same person. And we discover that the motivation for Burt's severance was a prayer for redemption.
Irving follows up on Burt's invitation to have dinner at his place with his husband, Fields, played by John Noble (you need only read my posts on this blog about Fringe to know how much I adore Noble as an actor, who is probably most famous for his role as the mad Steward of Gondor, Denethor, in the Lord of the Rings films, but I'll always associate him most with Walter Bishop). If you were looking for a "Baxter"-like rival to Burt and Irving's love in Fields, who can be easily disliked, boy are you in for a disappointment. Fields, it seems, is actually a lovely person who has a totally understandable anxiety about who Irving is and what kind of relationship he had with Burt.
Indeed, he's quite enlightened: he actually expresses approval of the hypothetical scenario in which Burt and Irving had sex down there, feeling that Innie Burt deserves to experience all the good things in life, including romance and intimacy.
Strangely, it's Burt who raises a few hairs on the back of my neck. Innie Burt was profoundly gentle and sweet, but as we've seen with other people, one's Innie and one's Outie need not be equally moral people (we'll get to Helena/Helly - don't you fret.) Burt and Fields are Christians, members of a local Lutheran church, but based on Burt's youthful life as a "scoundrel," they are both convinced, despite their love for one another, that Burt is hellbound while Fields is likely to be saved. (I don't know much about Lutheranism, but my father's brief time attending a Lutheran school when he was in Austria waiting to immigrate to America (which he did to help sell the family was Lutheran so that they could get help from a Lutheran charity, given that the Jewish ones were overwhelmed) seem to suggest that there's a lot of hellfire involved. Forgive me my ignorance if your mileage varies).
Notably, Fields mentions Burt working at Lumon 20 years ago, but Burt corrects him, saying that Severance has only been around for 12 years (which is actually longer than I had thought). Here, my hackles raise a little because I'm wondering if Burt was actually at Lumon prior to being a Severed, and what implications that might have for his Outie's agenda. (Burt also floats the idea of getting together again, with our without Fields present, which Irving agrees to.)
Helly continues to be a hero worth rooting for. Mark confesses to Helly that he and Helena had sex during the ORTBO, apologizing for being fooled. Helly, who has such a strong will and unbreakable spirit, takes some time to reflect on this, and her solution is: well, it's her turn. She leads Mark into an abandoned office, where they have sex under the plastic sheeting keeping the desks dust-free, creating the tent that should have been their to share. Helly had this experience robbed from her by her outie, and it's an oddly practical solution, helping to mend and affirm the romantic bond she has been forming with Mark and reclaiming her own body autonomy.
But this, of course, makes it all the more chilling when Helena tracks down Mark at a Chinese restaurant.
Helly is at the very least the secondary protagonist of this show after Mark, and I could imagine over time seeing her taking a more central position, but her own other half is emerging as one of the most chilling villains.
Helena tracks him down at this restaurant, and her motivations are likely more personal than corporate. Mark is sitting there unaware that he, or at least his body, had sex with this woman recently. It's a deeply uneven interaction. Mark, understandably, thinks this is just Lumon keeping an eye on him, perhaps suspecting his attempts at re-integration.
But it's odd, because Helena is, in this instance, more of a kind of stalker. It's interesting that she talks about "more or less running the company," which seems to be maybe one or two steps away from the truth.
Helena has given us a lot of reasons to dislike her, but I think that her actions must reflect some deep deficiency in the life she was allowed to lead. I think she really... maybe doesn't love Mark, or maybe doesn't even like him so much as she sees the glimmer of what it is to relate to another human being in a normal way, and is obsessed with having that. She even has some fun banter with Mark, as if trying to speed-run flirtation and rapport. But the power dynamic makes this interaction messed up in multiple ways - not just the whole "we had sex and you don't remember" way, but also in the sense that she is an executive at the company where he works.
Though it's interesting how outie Mark, having an entire life outside of the gospel of Kier, is able to maintain some boundaries, not fawning over her, worshipful. (The kind of fawning that Lumon, and indeed any modern major corporation, would like to see normal people treat them with, like some medieval liege lord.)
Mark, of course, has his own thing going on.
Innie Mark is beset by headaches and nosebleeds, unaware of the dangerous process that his Outie is undergoing to try to re-integrate his memories. Outie Mark has been getting flashes of his life inside, while now, Innie Mark is starting to get flashes of his outside life.
If, as the Lutherans evidently believe, the Innie and Outie have different souls, what does Reintegration actually mean?
I don't know how long this show will go, but I do wonder sometimes about its endgame. I want all the best for Helly, but what does that leave for Helena? Would Helly's full control of her body be just, or is that too horrid a punishment for Helena, no matter what she did? Reintegrating Mark seems like a good thing, but what does that mean for his relationships? Outie Mark has reason to believe that his wife is still alive, and can be saved, and ideally he would be reunited with her. But does that relationship have a higher value than the one between Innie Mark and Helly?
That's setting aside, even, the question of what health consequences Mark faces for his attempts at Reintegration. As we saw with Petey last season, Mark could die from this process. Mark Scout has made a decision that will impact Mark S without his knowledge or consent - not that he would be able to attain it without undergoing the process in the first place.
There are a few other notes this episode:
Mr. Drummond finds a list of severed employees in what appears to be Irving's apartment while the latter is at dinner with Burt and Fields. Dylan shares a kiss with his Outie's wife Gretchen, and we continue to get the impression that Dylan G. represents closer the man she fell in love with than the one outside, whom she seems to need to manage like an irresponsible child (boy does Dylan's home life bum me out, even if he seems to deeply love his family).
Milchick, meanwhile, is feeling broken and vulnerable after his harsh performance evaluation. Likely having figured out that Ms. Huang was the one to criticize him to his higher-ups, he tells her to go work at her own desk while he is busy, a kind of admonishment and act of office passive aggression. But he realizes that the manner in which he spoke to her was overly verbose, one of the three criticisms that he received during his evaluation.
We get a, frankly, heartbreaking scene in which he takes the phrase "You must eradicate from your essence childish folly," which he said to Ms. Huang, gradually replacing and removing words from the sentence until it becomes nothing more than "grow up," and then just, repeated, "grow." As someone who loves finding novel ways to express an idea through word choice, it feels, in this scene, like Milchick is actively trying to suppress some core part of his identity in order to better match the shape in which his supposed betters feel he should be able to fit. Milchick is such a fascinating character - so sinister, and yet we can feel this deep sympathy with him, given his position as both oppressor and also, in a way, oppressed. Bust those unions all you want, but the man is not going to thank you for it. They make you a sheepdog, but you're still an animal to them.
We're now over halfway through this long-awaited second season of the show. I hope that the break between seasons two and three is shorter than that between one and two, but I really have to say that I'm still fully on board. Even if every mystery is not given a satisfying solution, the surrealness and the thematic nuance has really been such a ride.
We still don't know what the hell Ms. Cobel is up to - I might have guessed that Patricia Arquette was stepping away from the show, except that she's there in the opening titles (albeit ominously faceless). Anyway, can't wait to see the next one!
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