I don't know if I mentioned it here, but I have always been baffled as to why and how Irv's outie painted the grim black hallway to the testing floor last season, and it recently made me wonder if he is a past test/torture subject like Gemma. Early on (largely season 1) as an innnie he is a Kier zealot and extremely obedient--is that from repressed fear of their ability to torture? His detective, military mindset also implies he will not give up on his own goal or search, whatever it is for.
Really kind of agonizing we have only one more episode this season, and while in season 2 we have gotten so many huge answers posed by last season, we still have just as huge questions that we may or may not get resolved with this upcoming finale. I'm going to try to list both, ones at the forefront to me, and others can offer more if they like.
ANSWERS AND QUESTIONS
- We now know the nature of how Gemma is trapped and tortured, her own innie in various ways, and her outie, severed from those memories, and yet also trapped in a kind of experimental setting where she thinks it will be over in time and she will be released.
- What is her full background before teaching at college, and did Lumon in any way arrange for her to meet Mark Scott?
- We know Cobel is, we have to say, “of two minds” about Lumon—devout zealot about Kier, but against the modern Lumon for various big reasons, including giving her no credit for original conceptions of the severance procedure.
- What will Cobel actually do to help Mark Scott in his goal of freeing Gemma, and how does that fit with Cobel's own new goals of fighting back about the modern Lumon?
- As a child Cobel was taught and accepted that “all knowledge is Kier's” In the past she thus accepted no credit for her own innovations that led to the severance procedure. After being fired for spying on Mark Scott's outie life and getting caught, she now aparrently demands credit in some way.
- Does this mean Cobel wants to destroy Lumon, or in some way take it over entirely?
- Dr. Mauer (Robby Benson) is seen passing in the background in the flashback scene of Gemma at the fertility clinic, meaning Lumon had designs on using Gemma against Mark years in the past.
- Dr. Mauer is told point blank by Drummond that the completion of the Cold Harobr file means Gemma will die, and that is in Lumon's terms, the same point at which huamity's greatest achievement happens.
- Dr Mauer is also in some sick and twisted way in love with Gemma. Does his potential for somehow preventing her death play a part in what will happen?
- It seems apparent that Drumond, outie Burt, and the tall driver who looked threateningly at Cobel outside Lumon all were or are “enforcers” of various kinds. Perhaps The Board's version of Mafia hit men.
- Was Burt lying to Irv that he went this far, and if not (if only a driver), why did he and Fields talk of metaphysical redemption?