I think the whole hiatus was a small flashback about what happened with the world being laid waste, the mutations, etc. Holly was just remembering her small part of it. It almost seems like the government messed with something they shouldn’t have (the Reality Dept), and caused this to happen to THIS reality. Maybe the mostly unknown Marx was the guy who started the whole thing, like the lead scientist at Apex and that’s how he can manipulate things so easily.
Having tried (and failed astoundingly) painting, it’s easy to see that he picked the better of two options.