lavenderblue

I thought by "them" he meant Gemma's various innies, given his obsession with her, but it was left ambiguous.

After my complaint last ep about how Dylan's story was handled, I was so gratified by its resolution and his acknowledgement that outie and innie are fundamentally connected. This was obviously intended to contrast starkly with Mark's situation (and I can imagine innie Dylan, who's a serious wife guy and thinks Miss Casey is hot, being baffled by innie Mark's decision), but I also wonder if it's a road map for the future innie/outie conflict. Helly's seemed more Helena-like in the last couple of episodes, from her "Shouldn't that be Helly E?" moment to "I'm her" and the look at the end of the finale, along with Jame admitting that she has more Kier in her than Helena does. We also have Irv's bleed-through of innie memories, which was touched upon again when Cobel was told about his artwork. To me the only way things can actually be resolved -- if resolution is the show's goal -- is if it turns out that severance can't really hold forever; innies will increasingly resemble their outies the longer they're able to mature, and outies can't be shielded forever from innie memories. Natural reintegration, basically, which would fit with the show's psychological and emotional themes about needing to experience life in its fullness, along with not neglecting or abusing certain aspects of one's self or life. Also, while innie Mark's choice was perfectly foreshadowed by the tense conversation between innie and outie, and flows with his rebellious teenage characterization, I really was furious at him. Gemma's so upset! At the very least be more decorous in letting her down for your girlfriend! Plus, as mentioned, while walking out may mean innie suicide, staying inside means an even better risk (as far as he knows) of actual physical death, which would certainly impair outie Mark's opportunity to walk into a birthing cabin or something again for the innie's sake.

I felt like the Dylan storyline was something that could have played out in an interesting way if this season had been paced differently. Instead of the quick introduction of the Gretchen/iDylan romance, two episodes focused on other characters, and then bam, her confession and oDylan's immediate rage, maybe have oDylan react with a confused sense of conflict -- well, it's still me, I guess, maybe it's just weird but not morally wrong? -- that develops, even over the course of just an ep or two, into resentment and anger, like does my wife prefer my innie and why? Then you could still resolve it as played out here. But as presented, both outie and innie Dylan's reactions seemed quite sudden because we've had so little time with this story. iDylan's response did flow more naturally, though, since we also had his reaction in S1 to discovering that he had children, and he's already suffered loss this season. That said, @seank941 may be right that it's also just a way to show how similar iDylan is to oDylan when it comes to quitting a job.

Yeah, Drummond mentions that Gemma had broken Mauer's fingers on another occasion, and I don't recall if it was specified that she was herself or an innie at the time. I can imagine she's made attempts of various sorts and been defeated.

The blurbs for these episodes are starting to remind me of the promos for Mad Men.

No, I think with regard to Helly/Helena, we're to take it that she was sincerely Helly in season 1, up through the OTC. After the OTC, Helena returned to the floor as herself, but undercover as Helly (from episodes 2.1 through the reveal in this ep).

I like this possibility very much, along with a related theory I saw on Reddit that Burt may have been his Dr. Mauer down there, if he was a previous test subject.

This is what made the Chinese restaurant scene a bit curious to me, though I'm sure the show intended that. Outie Mark knows who Helena is, but did he also experience the exact same memory jump that we saw, with the first aid session bleeding into his reintegration session (the way his outie now has memories of seeing Gemma at Lumon, for example)? Or were we supposed to interpret that jump as something more like "Mark essentially blacked out and neither his innie nor outie can remember what happened between those events"? Or a third option, that he saw that Lumon memory from earlier in the day, but it was fuzzier than what we witnessed? Because we weren't given any suggestion that he recognized Helena as the woman who was with his innie at work, which should be quite a revelation. @iMonrey I honestly expected him to start flashing after he got behind the wheel!

I just watched Fringe for the first time last fall, so I squeed to see John Noble show up as Fields. What a fun bit of meta casting, given the themes of duality on both shows (the Mark/Helly/Helena plot is reminiscent of a storyline over there, too). That said, Burt, I suspect, is very much not fun! The theology made me wince a little initially -- in what traditional conception of Christianity, and especially Lutheranism, would Burt messing around in his past mean that he was barred from salvation? -- but on the other hand, if Burt defines "scoundrel" as "actively engaging in vile human experimentation for which I have no remorse," then Fields's concerns might have more of a foundation. I mean..."Attila"....

I rewatched S1 last week and caught up to this episode this week. I admit that after watching the first two eps, it didn't occur to me that Helly was Helena until I read the discussion here. I did, however, find it deeply suspicious when she lied about her OTC experience and assumed that if nothing else, it could point to her being "in league" with her outie, so the theories here made sense. In this episode it couldn't have been more obvious, but the first huge clue was her sexual humor in the campfire story scene; as someone said above, it was like introducing a teenager to a bunch of 10-year-olds who to this point have been quite innocent in that capacity (Irv and Burt's romance was as wholesome as could be). While Mark has yet to fully reintegrate, he was also closer to her wavelength -- obviously! -- which could have been a side effect of that gradual shift. I was glad they had Irv pick up on her cruelty, because that, of course, was the other massive red flag. I sincerely hope the show doesn't go a pregnancy route, but OTOH, there's potential foreshadowing beyond the weird babies in the credit sequence. In one of the early S1 eps, possibly the pilot, there's a scene with a news show touching on a woman who became pregnant while in her innie persona at work...

Omg, me too. I had to mute her immediately because my cats were looking around, alarmed. And she kept doing it.

Going in I was sort of rooting for Joel, but Manny did such lovely work in both rounds that I was pulling for him to get the win and happy he did. His cake was so elegant in contrast to....a lot of the other things we've seen this season (and this episode). I don't think Hollie or the producers quite got the memo on the werewolf theme. First, I think the idea of the werewolf in history as a pop culture concept is more popularly associated with the early modern period, so while this is not the sort of show that's going to use terminology like that, you could still ask for "17th century werewolf" or "European village werewolf" or something. But that nitpick aside, Hollie also realllllllly missed the brief on making something that resembled an ancient village...

To be fair, she did have that with Jason Mraz last season and I still think they should've won. But I probably would have paired her with Stephen this season. He'd be more of a challenge than Jason was, but the height difference would be favorable and with her experience, she'd probably have a better idea of how to balance his athletic ability and willingness to learn with his actual current capabilities week by week as a dancer. He and Rylee are very cute on a personality level, but some of the issues the judges have noted don't seem to be improving.

Oh Gleb, I really appreciated that comic relief after the tears from Derek and Hayley's story and dance. Thanks!

If people are looking for this show, it's on Netflix in the US now; I just watched it there. It wasn't the greatest thing ever but I have no familiarity with the books, so found it an entertaining enough diversion for a few weeks. I like Matthew Goode and have a soft spot for Teresa Palmer because of Warm Bodies so decided to give it a go though I don't tend to watch much in the vampire/witch media realm. I liked the twists on some of the genre tropes (grounding creatures' existence in genetics, vampires being Catholic, etc.) and the supporting cast was pretty solid. Also the scenery was lovely and I enjoyed Diana's 1590s wardrobe. That said, I so hoped someone here would say that the books went into great detail on what daemons are and I am very disappointed to learn that the ball was dropped on that everywhere! It did sort of work as a meta-commentary on their perceived insignificance next to vampires and witches, but it's kind of a terrible choice narratively since the daemon characters, while nice, were never presented as having any unique skills or abilities (aside from Sophie's visions, would could also relate to her being the descendant of witches, and TJ Watson's musical skill and eccentricities, I....guess).