Nothing is true. Everything is permitted. All of the actions are not real, only the relationships are real. How Maxx appears, what Mr. Gone does and everything else is a psychological projection of how people feel about each other. Mr. Gone says as much after the time skip. Sarah's disturbed adolescent projection of him was of a total monster who abused and destroyed. None of those things happened. There was no real world/outback dichotomy. All of it was fantasy. Like a David Lynch movie, where people will argue over which part was real and which part was a dream. The answer was that all parts were a dream. Only the emotions were real, and then, only for the audience.