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In all seriousness, a main reason I believe Mark and Gemma will have some semblance of a happy ending is because of the thistles shown right after their fight in the Chikhai Bardo card scene.

Thistles symbolize strength and resilience, especially in the face of adversity. I think (pray) this means that the Mark/Gemma relationship will survive.

Will it be the same as it used to be? Hell no, they are literally different people now!

tyrant, builder, dreamer, killer, mystic, schemer

my "what if they ended up in each other's worlds instead" au call that uhhhh Age swap

Thinking about the scene from Season 1 when Mark rips up this photo of Gemma.

So many layers to that scene but the one I’m most focused on is how it foreshadows what we learn in Season 2: that innie Mark has been unknowingly assisting Lumon in severing Gemma multiple times.

But I think it goes farther than that and teases what’s to come next for Mark and Gemma in Season 3 - namely, reintegration for both of them.

What does Mark do next with the photo? He tapes it back together. His internal monologue ending with the reveal of who his wife is:

I loved all these things about her. Equally.

Reintegration. Dichen Lachman questioning what does it means for someone to have been severed so many times over?

We still don’t know the full extent of Gemma’s severance and how it affects her, especially now that she’s outside Lumon. She’s the only test subject to have survived this long to see completion of the project, as is implied within the show.

Reintegration could be Gemma’s only way of surviving through the trauma of what Lumon put her through. And she will need Mark’s help in pulling all these severed pieces of herself back together.

It has to be Mark. No one else can do it, since he’s the one who helped sever her in the first place but also because Mark loves everything about Gemma - and that would probably extend to her innies. The gentleness and care he expresses towards her Cold Harbor innie (and Mark S towards Ms. Casey) is evidence of that.

They need each other to heal. We’ve seen how love can be self-destructive via Mark’s grief but now that Gemma is alive and free, I think it’s time we see how it can also be this healing and uplifting force.

(Thanks to @gemmafuckingscout for the conversation that led to this observation.)