Season 2, Episode 10:
The Attic
Echo is deemed too dangerous and is sent into her worst nightmare, along with Victor and Sierra. Topher and Ivy work on reviving Paul Ballard, rendered braindead by Alpha.
Tropes present in this episode:
- After the End: Clyde's dreamworld.
- The Atoner: Clyde is attempting to keep the Bad Future from coming to pass after he originally created the imprinting technology.
- Deadpan Snarker: Dominic.Dominic: [to Dream!Victor] You're in the Attic, none of this is real.[Dream!Victor vanishes]Dominic: Oh, okay, fine.
- The Dreaded: Arcane, the black, hulking figure that stalks between dreamworlds and murders people it finds. Somewhat undermined when he is revealed to be Clyde, a not-very-intimidating man.
- Dream Land: The Attic, although it's a massive biological supercomputer. Anyone who is aware of the fact they're in the attic can move between individual dreamscapes.
- Good All Along: It turns out Adelle was faking her Face–Heel Turn and is working with Echo to undermine Rossum.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: The Attic. Anyone trapped inside is forced to constantly loop through their worst nightmares while Rossum uses their brains for processing power.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Arcane. Invoked when Clyde says he chose the name because it "sounded badass".
- Noodle Incident: As Echo points out dream elements from her various personalities, she sees a man in a white shirt, petting a rabbit while his head warps all over the place.Echo: And that... well, that's a long story.
- Once More, with Clarity: The end of the episode flashes back to Adelle's conversation with Echo before she sent her and her friends to the Attic, where she said, "but I think it's something much worse"... but this time includes her giving Echo instructions to discover what Rossum is hiding there and then escape.
- Psychological Torment Zone: The Attic forces its inhabitants to relive their worst nightmares over and over. Echo's is a failed escape attempt where Victor and Sierra are killed. Sierra's involves being with Victor, who then turns into a dead, zombified Nolan. Victor's is a battle in Afghanistan where he is forced to fight himself. Clyde's is the future, the world after the imprinting technology gets out.
- The Reveal: After a season and a half of foreshadowing, the true nature of the Attic is finally revealed. People sent there have their brains constantly pushed to an adrenaline-induced fear state, which Rossum leverages as processing power.
- Shout-Out: Echo doesn't want to ruin Dominic's Highlander vibe.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Arcane/Clyde is attempting to hamper Rossum's designs by killing off the components of their biological supercomputer.
- Wetware CPU: The Attic is a biological supercomputer, a network of individuals with their brains hooked together to be used as processing power. This has the side effect of causing people in the Attic to relive their worst nightmares over and over.
- What Have I Become?: Although Topher and Ivy manage to revive Ballard by imprinting him with a copy of his own personality, he struggles with the fact that he's now technically an Active, with Active architecture in his brain.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Arcane murdering the dream-selves of the Attic inhabitants kills them in real life, and causes the dreamworlds running in their brains to collapse.
