All spoilers here are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
Zombie Drones, a JCJenson training video on how to properly disassemble Worker Drones, tape mentions that Drones which are not properly disassembled may end up rebooting themselves, with their AI becoming corrupted. Under a massive pile of decommissioned Drones, one of the Drones suddenly reboots.
Inside Elliot Manor's closed off library, N is reading to himself amidst several malfunctioning Worker Drones, including V. Several books fall down cryptically telling N to go into the mansion's basement, but he ignores it. Entering a bar, N is greeted by Cyn, an odd-behaving Worker Drone maid. Cyn asks N if she can attend the upcoming gala with him. Though N knows Tessa's parents would disapprove of it, he decides to ask Tessa if it would be alright for Cyn to attend.
N and Cyn enter the dining hall, where Tessa is prepping herself for the gala with J's help. Before N can ask Tessa to let Cyn attend the gala, Tessa's mother, Louisa, arrives and berates her daughter for bringing her Drones with her, especially Cyn, and demands that she get rid of the broken Drones in the library. When Cyn retorts that the Drones in the library are not broken and won't be thrown out, N covers for her by claiming that he was the one who told her to say that.
As punishment, N is chained to a tree outside, where he is attacked by crows. One of the crows begins to violently contort before sprouting a purple iris, now controlled by Uzi. Uzi explains to N, who doesn't recognize her, that she is accessing his memories because something inside him is attempting to delete them, and instructs him to enter the basement. At the mansion, Tessa has been grounded and chained in her room along with J and Cyn. Cyn breaks free and ominously tells Tessa that she won't have to discard her Drones as she makes her way to the gala, warning Tessa not to follow her.
N and Uzi enter the library, now in disarray, and move V's body to access the basement, only to discover that a key is needed. Meanwhile, J and Tessa break free from their chains and arm themselves to stop Cyn from massacring the humans at the gala. N and Uzi meet up with them to obtain the key from J, only to be attacked by a transformed V. J gives N the key while she battles V.
N and Uzi open the basement door, where they are attacked by an Eldritch Cyn. Eldritch Cyn destroys Uzi's crow body and begins dragging N into the basement when Uzi manages to take control of her. Spotting V behind N, Uzi quickly drags N into the basement and locks the door. Uzi and N come across a grizzly sight of N and several other Worker Drones being turned into Disassembly Drones. Uzi and N prepare to leave when Uzi is interrupted by Doll appearing in her room, causing Eldritch Cyn to re-awaken and strap N to a chair, preparing to remove his memories.
At the dining hall, Tessa's father James is about to do a speech when he is interrupted by Cyn. Tessa and J barge in to stop Cyn, but Cyn, telling Tessa that she didn't have to witness this, uses her Absolute Solver powers to take control of all the Drones in the dining hall, including J. As the guests are massacred, Eldritch Cyn is having trouble picking up a scalpel, so she brings in V to help. In the present, Uzi and Doll are fighting over the keybug Uzi found at Camp 98.7. Noticing that N and V are malfunctioning, she gives Doll the bug.
Back in the basement, V is also having trouble picking up the scalpel. N gives V her glasses, which helps her regain control. Frustrated, Eldritch Cyn pins V to the ceiling and decides to delete their OS's. Just as she's about to kill N, Uzi regains control over Eldritch Cyn. N and V now recognize Uzi, and re-awaken in the present with their memories restored. Outside, Doll gives Tessa and J the robot bug and asks to go with them, which Tessa allows. As Tessa turns around, she's greeted by Uzi, N, and V. The three groups express confusion as the episode ends.
This episode contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Tessa is verbally demeaned by her mother for enjoying the company of Drones, and she's also chained up in her bedroom as punishment.
- Action Girl: Double Subverted with Tessa. As a younger girl in N's memories, she fearlessly faces Cyn to shoot her, but after her first shot gets deflected, she resorts to just chucking the gun and several glasses instead. In the present day, however, Tessa has become such a good shot that she can curve her bullets in impossible ways.
- Back from the Dead: The tape at the beginning reveals that Worker Drones that aren't properly disassembled can recover from software death about 5 years later... shortly followed up by a shot revealing a Worker Drone buried in a pile of corpses, waking up despite having a hole in her visor.
- Bait-and-Switch: At first we thought N was chained and getting tortured as punishment, but it turned out he was just laughing because the crows are pecking him which tickles him. Even playing fetch with them. Unfortunately, they actually start trying to kill him when another crow steals the stick meant for them.
- Berserk Button: Turns out J's is speaking ill of JCJenson. Tessa exploits this by using J's literal biting retorts to cut through her chains.
- Blind Without 'Em: When Cyn calls down a controlled V to help lobotomize N (because her pincers are unable to grab the tools), she can't pick up the tools not only because she has a claw for a hand, but also because she isn't wearing her glasses. When N puts the glasses back on V, she's suddenly able to pick up the tool with no problem while also recognizing N.
- Chekhov's Gag: The device Uzi uses to interact with N and V's memories is the same she used to hijack Braidon's sentience for a gag in "Heartbeat".
- Cliffhanger: A rather abruptly large one at that. Soon after it's revealed that Doll made an alliance with J and Tessa, they turn around to set off only to see Uzi, N, and V. A Beat later, everyone freaks out at the same time and- Smash Cut to credits.
- Creepy Basement: Inside the basement Uzi tries to get N to go into is where Cyn has been converting the Worker Drones in the mansion into Disassembly Drones.
- Deal with the Devil: Implied by a freeze-frame bonus in the opening to have happened between the Absolute Solver and the improperly-disposed of Cyn before Tessa brought the latter back to the mansion, with the Solver promising to aid Cyn out of their predicament and never discard them as their previous masters did.
- Death of Personality: Attempted by Cyn on N and V and the cause of the events of the episode. She initially tries to wipe their memories again, which Uzi tries to stop via hacking. Near the end where Cyn realizes that simply deleting the memories isn't within her capabilities, she instead opts to outright delete their OSes instead. Thanks to Uzi managing to interfere, however, she fails, and N and V's memories are fully restored.
- Discovering Your Own Dead Body: When Uzi and N's memory self make it into the basement, they discover that N and his friends were brutally disassembled before being converted to Disassembly Drones.
- Eyepatch of Power: Doll has a button over one of her eyes when she reappears, and she proves to be a problem as soon as her presence is made known.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus:
- The Drone that reboots at the start has a marked for disassembly tag with a PIN starting with "CYN".
- When Uzi first has to go offline to get her dad out of her room, she's putting aside what appears to be either a fuel or oil tank as a drink, possibly to keep her overheating maintained.
- Foreshadowing: When Tessa tries clanking a wine glass with J, her wrist ends up in pain despite the action supposedly being unpainful. Later in the episode, Tessa is locked in a room by her mother for disobeying her and her wrist for the hand she used to clank a glass is the one that is chained up and implying that this has happened to her before.
- Friend-or-Idol Decision: Doll really picked the worst time to fight Uzi for the bug, as the latter was busy hacking N and V to save their memories and OSes from being deleted by Cyn. She had to surrender the bug fast and even then, it was a very, very close call.
- Guns Do Not Work That Way: Lampshaded. The pedestal holding the handgun J picks up is engraved, "IT'S A REVOLVER IDK (SHUT UP, GUN NERDS)".
- Hate Sink: Both of Tessa's parents are entitled, abusive assholes who don't see Worker Drones as people, but rather things. Her mother gets special mention for making the viewer feel bad for J of all people as she's verbally abusing her daughter and her daughter's Drone friends.
- Logo Joke: The Glitch Productions logo becomes static-y and is shown to be on an old TV screen as it transitions into the Zombie Drones video.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: About a third into the episode, it's revealed that N and V are actually in a simulation of their memories thanks to Uzi, who wants to save the memories from being deleted.
- Plot Armor: Doll doesn't kill Khan, despite having no qualms about murdering Worker Drones in the past. Possibly justified by Doll's empathy towards Uzi being stuck with Absolute Solver powers and her own primary motivation for killing V for her role in murdering Doll's parents.
- The Reveal: Cyn manifesting her Absolute Solver powers means that it already existed on Earth in the past and isn't from Copper 9.
- Self-Deprecation: When Doll genuinely complements Khan on being a good father, Khan remarks Uzi got the way she did in spite of him.
- Sinister Silhouettes: All of the humans shown in the memories are depicted like this, though it seems to serve more as the lack of memory of their appearances than malice, as young Tessa is quite friendly despite her appearance being shadowed as well.
- Tempting Fate: In his toast, James states the Elliots are renowned for many things, among which, "currently being alive." Cue Cyn with murderous intent entering the room.
- Tradesnark™: When Cyn displays a puppy giving puppy eyes on her face-screen, the image used has watermarks akin to those used on actual stock images.
- Ungrateful Bastard: After Uzi successfully helps N and V to restore their memories, when they wake up and see her again N is ecstatic to see her... and V pulls out a chainsaw hand, clearly irritated that the purple kid invaded her mind.
- You Will Be Spared: Cyn seems to care about Tessa, or at least not hate her enough to want her dead, so before heading to the Gala Cyn stops by Tessa's room to tell her to stay away, because she seems squeamish.
