The Final, Refined Numbers

I’ll update this as I have more time, including links to the sources. But I wanted to quickly share something I’ve just found.

I’ve taken screenshots of all the times the MDR team refines numbers, where those numbers are present on-screen. About 40 percent of those numbers can be successfully base64 decoded. For even one of these numbers to successfully decode to something is very unlikely. For 40 percent to do so is nearly impossible. Therefore, these numbers have been, where they do decode, intentionally placed there by the show’s creators.

The final numbers Mark refines appear on-screen during 210 around the 37:09 and 37:14, and are 854370527. These base64 decode to 㟯乶:

• 㟯 means a (variant of 峉) lofty and steep (a mountain), or high
• ‘乶’ is pronounced fǔ and comes in part from another character that means father.

Helly says “at least it’s a happy one,” speaking of the numbers.

This final set of refined memories is most likely Gemma’s memory of learning she was pregnant. She and Mark (but especially her) had to climb a mountain to become pregnant. And the excitement and joy learning she was pregnant would have been incredible.

This also explains why Cold Harbor had to be 100% complete, unlike other files we’ve seen refined. Because Lumon needed all of her memories of her fertility/pregnancy journey to ensure that the severance barrier would hold. And this makes what they’ve done to Gemma even more disgusting.

Helly being next to Mark when he finished refining the happy moment is symbolic and may be foreshadowing a moment in S3 when Helly and Mark learn that Helly is pregnant (as it’s likely Helly is pregnant - but more on that another time).