Fridge pages are Spoilers Off. You have been warned.
Fridge Brilliance
- Why does the Investigator agree to help Pat even though they're there to kill him? They're investigating his family to figure out who called in the hit, so they know where to send their bill once the job's done.
- This also completely explains the Golden Ending. Only by meeting and interrogating everyone can you conclude that nobody would deliberately hire you, prompting your last-second change of heart. However, Pat is still spooked enough to clean the jelly off his newspaper, read the rest of your ad, and realize his mistake.
- It's also a great cover story. If you have Pat's entire family saying you were trying to protect him by figuring out who was trying to kill him, it would probably at the very least divert police attention long enough to make your escape.
- How could the protagonist possibly have figured out that Pat accidentally put a hit out on himself? The answer: Danny. He mentions in his note that he needed somebody - anybody - to talk to so he contacted the number he found in the paper, although he was unable to read the actual ad. This and this alone was an indication that whoever took out the hit might not have actually read the damn ad properly.
- Given the implication that Mandy somehow knows everything about what's going on, knowing the whole story oneself puts his dramatic playing in the intro in a whole new light: Mandy is wordlessly pleading with you to spare Pat's life.
- And how did Mandy figure it out? He's Pat's roommate; he could easily have overheard him talking about the ad, then read the ad both partly obscured and not, and realized what Pat had done.
- A subtle gag in the ending: The partly-obscured ad appears to read, with punctuation added, "I AM ILL, GUYS NEED ME, HELP. LEAVE A DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF WHO YOU IS." But Pat reads the first sentence as the even more stilted, "I AM ILL GUYS, NEED ME HELP." And he STILL doesn't think it's weird.
Fridge Horror
- The Investigator has several opportunities to kill Pat well before they could have had a change of heart, and the only reason they don't is due to circumstance:
- John Jonny's is too public, and Bub is standing right behind them.
- Pat's room is more private, but going by how the place is decked out, he must go there a LOT, and Bub would have seen the Investigator and Pat leave together, making them an obvious suspect if Pat turned up dead.
- During the Hotel's black-out, the halls may be dark, but they're far from empty, and there would be too many potential witnesses; the black-out would also make escaping much more difficult.
- The Balcony is the opportune time and place to do it. Pat is alone, and nobody has noticed he's stepped out yet; after shoving him off, the Investigator could mingle with the party again and act surprised when everyone realizes Pat is missing - in the absence of any obvious foul play, his death could well be ruled a suicide or an accident.
