Evie hiding out in a silver airstream trailer still doesn’t explain the empty lake. Unless, Meg’s Guilty Remnant faction possesses state of the art geotechnology. Even if, it’s still easier to plan the demolition of a bridge—eliminating a symbolic path to righteousness or bridge to eternal life. Ten Thirteen is a well-cued turn of events and much-needed stage time for the nihilistic saints, which so far have motivated only turncoats and provided a reason to get all the main characters into Texas. The GR’s staging Evie’s disappearance reinforces their agenda “reminding” society of life’s absurdity that trying to connect Evie’s departure to the missing water is a futile rational exercise once they expose her.

And why did Evie join the GRs? Her wonkiness, satire, and teenage rebellion aren’t thorough enough explanations for this world. Like her parent’s, she’s tired of Miracle-hype, as her and family experience the same weltschmerz as every other full-time and non-inhabitant—perhaps the same desensitization as living in Vegas. Jarden is a spiritual theme park, propaganda the only extraordinary thing, a symbolic, biblical false idol worship—ironically, in a place that’s supposed to be filled with spirituality is devoid of it. And a way to deal with the apparent nothing is to become it, to embrace it. In other words, the GR is a cult of personality, an expression of those who are members as if suggesting that life isn’t meaningless but us who feel meaningless.

Evie is a lead-in to Meg’s (Liv Tyler) descent into the organization. Looking back, her place within it is a natural progression. In the first season, she appealed to their aggressive tactics, joined after Glady’s  stoning, and felt empowered by her beating in the finale, viewing it as an irony and a new source of self-power. Reaching back further at her cocaine addiction in the scene with her mom, we can tell she’s not somebody who lives in the moment. And the highlight of Meg’s earlier visit to Miracle with her husband was to see Isaac, full of “mysterious bullshit.” His prognostication was more than a letdown, it crystallized her developing nihilism, which found a final singularity in the Remnants. The group exists for those who want to escape but don’t know how. Violence is now their warrant, the only thing  people listen to Meg feels. Leaving us with the only “living reminder” that we can choose to embrace absurdity or deny it.