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It actually held together far more than I thought it would, seeing as you never get answers to the whole plot—but that’s not really what this version is about. It’s about Mark starting out in this place of apathy and grief and depression and slowly coming to ask questions about what he’s doing with his life and facing the stuff he’s been trying to hide away all this time. And it ends up feeling far more complete and hopeful of a story than the original cut I think.
Because the taping together Gemma’s picture is no longer a twist, it hits far more emotionally/sweetly too—in the original, there’s definite plot reasons for not having seen her face until the reveal. In this cut, instead it feels very symbolic. Like, Mark’s been saying he’s dealing with his grief but he’s not, he’s hiding it away—in himself when he goes to work, in how he can’t face it—the imagery of Petey’s phone that he hides away in the box, just like all of Gemma’s stuff is packed away in his basement, but the phone keeps calling him (another far more obvious parallel there too with Mrs. Selvig’s weird basement)—the way Mark’s feeling of responsibility for Petey’s death ends up bringing him into an active role in the story of trying to begin to ask questions—and it culminates in him ripping up that picture of Gemma, and then suddenly realizing that’s not what he wants to do, and taping it back together, and then you see her face and *he* sees her face for the first time in the show, it’s like that amorphous grief he’s running from which was so overpowering it even covered the memory of her has suddenly been pulled aside enough for him to remember the details, who she was as a person, and the love he had for her. And so after that when he decides to quit Lumon, as a character arc, it felt really complete. Like, that’s the central plot of this section.
Plus I just liked how much focus this cut put on the Mark & Devon interactions (Devon is one of my favorite characters) and the slightly different view you got on the Mark & Mrs. Selvig (her loneliness and her obsession with Mark on a far more personal level), and even how much Eleanor’s birth becomes a part of the plot? And how symbolically it’s just part of how things start opening up. Like, the first half of the cut was slow and boring and excruciatingly sad, and then to see Mark start to live again in small ways felt so incredible in a way that it just doesn’t come through in the original cut. The relationship between him and Alexa was also much cuter in this cut as well, since there wasn’t so much overshadowing it. And the scene in the alley where they watch June’s band also felt like such a breath of fresh air, partially because it’s like the first time Mark has actually decided to do something, just because he wants to, instead of just being dragged through life. It felt really vibrant and beautiful.
I also loved the conceit of having a completely normal story set in a wacky sci-fi setting where the sci-fi stuff is only vaguely alluded to and never actually touched on. It’s like “we live in evil-company-that-splits-people’s-brains universe! here’s a story about a man coming to terms with his grief after the loss of his wife.”
Because the taping together Gemma’s picture is no longer a twist, it hits far more emotionally/sweetly too—in the original, there’s definite plot reasons for not having seen her face until the reveal. In this cut, instead it feels very symbolic. Like, Mark’s been saying he’s dealing with his grief but he’s not, he’s hiding it away—in himself when he goes to work, in how he can’t face it—the imagery of Petey’s phone that he hides away in the box, just like all of Gemma’s stuff is packed away in his basement, but the phone keeps calling him (another far more obvious parallel there too with Mrs. Selvig’s weird basement)—the way Mark’s feeling of responsibility for Petey’s death ends up bringing him into an active role in the story of trying to begin to ask questions—and it culminates in him ripping up that picture of Gemma, and then suddenly realizing that’s not what he wants to do, and taping it back together, and then you see her face and *he* sees her face for the first time in the show, it’s like that amorphous grief he’s running from which was so overpowering it even covered the memory of her has suddenly been pulled aside enough for him to remember the details, who she was as a person, and the love he had for her. And so after that when he decides to quit Lumon, as a character arc, it felt really complete. Like, that’s the central plot of this section.
Plus I just liked how much focus this cut put on the Mark & Devon interactions (Devon is one of my favorite characters) and the slightly different view you got on the Mark & Mrs. Selvig (her loneliness and her obsession with Mark on a far more personal level), and even how much Eleanor’s birth becomes a part of the plot? And how symbolically it’s just part of how things start opening up. Like, the first half of the cut was slow and boring and excruciatingly sad, and then to see Mark start to live again in small ways felt so incredible in a way that it just doesn’t come through in the original cut. The relationship between him and Alexa was also much cuter in this cut as well, since there wasn’t so much overshadowing it. And the scene in the alley where they watch June’s band also felt like such a breath of fresh air, partially because it’s like the first time Mark has actually decided to do something, just because he wants to, instead of just being dragged through life. It felt really vibrant and beautiful.
I also loved the conceit of having a completely normal story set in a wacky sci-fi setting where the sci-fi stuff is only vaguely alluded to and never actually touched on. It’s like “we live in evil-company-that-splits-people’s-brains universe! here’s a story about a man coming to terms with his grief after the loss of his wife.”
