What Was Causing the Multiverse Slips?
The universe in which Mae is living with Eric is just the first of many she’s about to travel through. It takes her some time to identify what caused these time cracks, and the answer might be crazier than most viewers anticipate. Every trip to another universe occurs when Mae has sex to the point of completion. That’s right: every orgasm with a different person takes her to another reality in which she’s in a relationship with the last person she slept with the previous day.
In episode 3, as her “new” life spirals out of control, Mae ends up on the street in the middle of a fight between a lesbian couple and gets knocked out. That’s how she meets Sandy (Emily Hampshire), the bartender and owner of the pub where Mae previously met Eric. As things become steamy between the two during a heartfelt conversation, they end up tearing the clothes off of each other in a sex scene in the place’s bathroom. The next day Mae wakes up in a bedroom she can’t recognize and realizes that not only she’s married to Sandy, but they have a daughter, too. Then, as she desperately tries to put the pieces of the puzzle together and find a way back to her original life, she notices that there’s one constant figure in each multiverse: the monk who was present at the exhibit.
What Do the Monk and the Hungry Ghost Represent?
Mae sees the monk in every world she’s transported through. So she starts following him, hoping he could help her comprehend what’s happening and perhaps offer a solution about how she can return “home.” When she finally has a chance to talk to him, she doesn’t get the answer she seeks. Instead, he gives her a spiritual and metaphorical explanation during an eye-opening conversation about why she can’t find comfort in any of these universes. The monk also tells her there’s no going back, only forward, and only now.
Essentially, the mystery points back to the exhibit in the pilot, where Mae tells us about the Hungry Ghost. She says they are beings living in six different realms of existence in a state of chronic deprivation and longing. They crave nourishment (both literally and figuratively), but they’re incapable of digesting it. This perfectly symbolizes Mae’s journey: no matter what alternate reality she’s in (with multiple different versions of who she could be), she’s unequipped to find peace and acceptance without looking for a solution within herself. She has to face and address her own struggles and internal suffering head-on to find the kind of life that can make her happy.
In speaking to Den of Geek at SXSW, Lister-Jones expounded upon her interpretation for The Hungry Ghost, saying: “I don’t identify as a love addict but addiction when it comes to relationships and love and intimacy is something that really interests me. That hungry ghost served as a really helpful through line in terms of exploring that feeling of ‘I can’t be whole without another person or a sexual encounter.’ All the outward facing searching we do when we should be searching inward. Buddhism was a helpful way to explore that.”
Does Mae Find Her Way back to Elijah?
At the end of episode 5, Mae accidentally bumps into Elijah, who doesn’t know her in this reality. He offers to buy her a drink, and the two start hanging out, eventually ending up in Elijah’s apartment. Episode 6 is all about Mae reliving the beginning of their relationship and rediscovering why she fell in love with her husband in the first place. There’s one main difference, though: she asks him to wait before they have sex, afraid that it’ll all go away. They spend the night and the next day together, finding ways to get intimate on a more emotional level. However, it all falls apart when they run into a fuming Gina who ruins everything by spilling the truth about Mae’s dead “husband.” Understandably, Elijah storms off and tells Mae not to ever contact him.
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