Art Evolution: Jean's character model is tweaked to account for the haircut Electra gives him.
Cliffhanger: Gargoyle has dispatched his full military might to crush the Nautilus once and for all.
Death Glare: As shown in the screenshot, Jean ends up on the receiving end of multiple Death Glares for the rocketry fiasco.
Dress Hits Floor: Electra in her first scene. Remember, kids: It is a Studio Gainax production, after all!
Early-Bird Cameo: A variation. While Gargoyle has already appeared, we get the first glimpse of his true unmasked, Tartessos-era appearance when Nemo is looking at his old Family holographic photo.
Easily Forgiven: Downplayed, but it's implied Jean forgave Nadia off-screen after her conversation with Electra (as they're seated together in the non-combat personnel shelter and aren't angry at one another).
Electra's dissent towards Nemo and questioning his orders is getting worse.
Gargoyle's working on a new Tower of Bablel. However, this ultimately won't prove necessary...
Gilligan Cut: Marie and Sanson think Jean and Nadia are spending time together for romantic reasons. We then cut to them in the middle of not romantic flirtations, but instead Nadia's chewing out Jean for not standing up to Nemo earlier.
Green-Eyed Monster: Nadia's long-brewing jealousy of Electra's friendship with Jean finally comes to a head here. It's also settled for good, as Nadia finally comes to understand that there isn't any romantic interest and that Jean simply reminds Electra of her deceased younger brother.
Here We Go Again!: At this point, Nadia isn't even fazed anymore by the instant-success-to-instant-failure cycle of Jean's inventions.
Inelegant Blubbering: Marie amusingly pretends to do this to get Nadia to admit that she wants to visit Jean.
Mid-Season Upgrade: Gargoyle trades in his dirigible from the Cape Verde episodes for a new Neo-Atlantean flying battleship.
My God, What Have I Done?: Nadia has this kind of look on her face after she learns from Electra in the bath scene that Nautilus is merely fighting to destroy Gargoyle and that she is not in danger of losing Jean to Electra as Grandis had suggested. She's also remorseful for taking out her anger on Jean.
Never Found the Body: The Neo-Atlantis forces have not been able to physically verify the Nautilus was sunk during Episode 15. Gargoyle thus correctly concludes Nemo's still alive and out there.
Never My Fault: An interesting variation. Nadia is angry Jean didn't invoke this Trope after getting chewed out by Nemo and felt he would've been justified. However, Jean didn't because he agrees with Nemo's argument and has to own up to his mistake (which pisses off Nadia even more as, in her mind, he's defending Nemo).
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Jean's rocketry experiment accidentally alerts a nearby Garfish that the Nautilus is still intact and operational after Neo-Atlantis believed it had sunk during Episode 15. Nemo and company destroy it, but not before it gets off a transmission to Gargoyle. This gives the Neo-Atlanteans the submarine's approximate location and leads to the battle in the next episode.
Nadia's inability to simply admit her jealousy over Jean's friendship with Electra nearly ruins her own relationship with Jean, even when he awkwardly attempts to compliment her (as advised by Electra, which he nervously admits after Nadia questions him about it). Nonetheless, it leaves him very baffled. (Nadia finally realizes her error when she speaks with Electra.)
Jean not telling the Senior Staff he was doing a rocketry experiment on the main deck. If he had checked in with them, they could've alerted him to hold off until at least the Garfish had left the area.
Psychological Projection: Played for laughs initially when Grandis tries to give Nadia advice about Electra and Jean. Grandis being Grandis, she ends up projecting her own romantic rivalry with the XO over Nemo onto it. However, it then backfires, as this is what plants the idea in Nadia's head that Electra is trying to steal Jean from her (and leads to her blow-up with him and the confrontation with Electra).
Sensor Suspense: In the closing moments, Hanson cites this as an indication that they're in for it now. The Nautilus is getting bombarded with an increasing number of Sonar pings from inbound Garfish.
Gargoyle's briefing at the beginning of the episode reveals one of the purposes of disrupting Atlantic shipping: To allow Neo-Atlantis to seize control of key global industries and divert their profits into the organization's budget. The Neo-Atlanteans may be a global secret society, but even they need cash to pay the bills. This was, again, also previously acknowledged in Episode 07 when Gargoyle invited financial backers to witness the first test firing of the artificial Tower of Babel.
It's also mentioned during this meeting that Neo-Atlantean engineers are developing a second burner for a new Tower of Babel. Just like the Death Star and Alderaan, the events on Cape Verde proved their Tower of Babel works. It just failed due to sabotage and compromised components. As the linchpin of Gargoyle's plans, it is unsurprisingly he's authorized and funded a second Tower project.
The Nautilus was never going to be able to keep up Faking the Dead after the events of Episode 15 for long. It was inevitable that sooner or later, Gargoyle and his forces would realize the False Flag Operation hadn't worked. As it is, Gargoyle already had suspicions from his people being unable to locate any physical evidence of the submarine's destruction.
