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  • The complete first season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. More or less every episode gets a totally different meaning once you know where the hints to Ward's past lead to, what really happened in Bahrain and who Skye's parents are.
    • The second season arc with the Inhumans and the apparent overreaction by some of them to being discovered by SHIELD, especially as it occurs after the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier make it public that they had been infiltrated by HYDRA, take on a different context when season three reveals the true origin of HYDRA and its connection to them.
    • Similarly season three makes it clear why the Second World War Nazi offshoot HYDRA somehow became the multi-ethnic organization it appeared as in the modern day, why HYDRA separated so quickly from the Nazis, and why HYDRA members become annoyed at being called Nazis; HYDRA long predates Nazism and their connection was only a temporary alliance at best.
  • Andor constantly makes casual reference to various things and only later reveals additional layers of significance to them. If a viewer misses this on a first watch, they'll get smacked in the face with the full weight of it a second time around. For example:
    • Luthen mentions Cassian's father being hanged in Episode 3 to get a reaction out of Cassian. Only in Episode 7 do we learn that his father was brutally and unjustly killed in front of Cassian's eyes by a division of clone troopers around the time that the Republic was first converted into the Empire, and then he was left hanging in a public square to Make an Example of Them. Knowing that (and more about Cassian's own backstory that comes to light after this encounter), makes the scene hit harder and it also makes Cassian's response of pulling a gun on Luthen and nearly shooting him on the spot a lot more understandable.
    • In Episode 4, Cassian is asked to choose a fake name to operate under during the course of the Aldhani heist and immediately chooses the name Clem. While there was one quick reference to it, most people won't realize until several episodes later that Clem was his father's name. It's also very appropriate that he chose that name while on an operation to steal from the Empire, considering how his father died.
    • Cassian talks about being conscripted into the Imperial Army straight out of a youth prison. Only later do we learn that he was only in the youth prison for furiously attacking the clone troopers who killed Clem.
    • Lieutenant Gorn shows distaste for the racism that the Imperials in the Aldhani garrison shower the local Aldhani people with before it's explained that he fell in love with a local Adlhani woman, then "lost her", with the implication that she was killed or died due to the Empire's actions.
    • One of the ISB supervisors is revealed as a mole for Luthen's rebel organization in Episode 10 of Season 1. Rewatching the show afterward might cause one to reevaluate some small tidbits from earlier in the season, like that the mole was chastised by his superior for not meeting the arrest quotas the ISB supervisors apparently have in their sectors, or that he mentions the planet Scarif at one point, which is the planet where the Rebel Alliance (including the show's main character Cassian Andor), would steal the Death Star plans in Rogue One several years later in-universe. His potential motive for one suggestion about an operation against a Rebel cell also changes; at first it seems like a slightly risky but shrewd suggestion meant to convince the rebels in question that everything was normal, after the reveal it seems likely that he hoped that the rebels would be spooked by the ISB's presence and delay or cancel an attack they were planning which the ISB had turned into a trap.
    • Speaking of the ISB's arrest quotas, they were mentioned offhandedly in Episode 4, but when Cassian is arrested on trumped up charges in Episode 7 and then sent to what is essentially a torturous slave labor prison in Episode 8, it gives us a bigger idea of the sheer scale of the evil casually being perpetrated in the Empire.
    • In Episode 8, Bix tells Brasso that Maarva injured herself offscreen checking to see if a tunnel under the building which the Imperials took over and converted into their base on Ferrix was still open. In the season finale, Brasso and Cassian make a plan to infiltrate the Imperial base and rescue Bix that works because this tunnel is still open, making both that throwaway line and the fact that it was mentioned specifically to Brasso, Cassian's closest friend, much more important.
    • At the very end of Episode 9, a man dies of a stroke. Rewatching the episode you can pinpoint the exact moment it happens, as he talks about having trouble with his hands, and weakness in the hands/arms is a key early sign of a stroke. If you know (or look up) the symptoms of a stroke, you can see that throughout the episode he's having additional symptoms as time goes on before he ultimately collapses.
  • Arrested Development often has jokes that only make sense after you've seen later episodes. The Rita storyline, in particular, stands out: Who would have thought the behavior of a spy and a Mentally Retarded Female could be so similar?
  • For Babylon 5, this was called Holographic Storytelling, that if you read two scripts, went back and reread the first one, you could see things in it that you hadn't seen before. When you read three, again glanced over the first - and new things had come out.
  • Blindspot explicitly shows how Jane's apparently trivial and innocuous missions for Oscar over a number of episodes were used to frame Mayfair for murder, but a more subtle one is the reveal that Orion had been a black ops squad working for the CIA, likely under the direction of Carter, and Jane had been a member of the unit. All of a sudden Carter's fixation on killing Jane makes a great deal more sense than simply being an overreaction to her being connected to someone who knew about Operation Daylight.
    • Likewise, many seemingly random and quiet moments in season 4 take a new meaning in the finale as it turns out it's all part of a massive scheme by Madeline Burke to frame the team for terrorist attacks and have them become fugitives while Burke lands a job with the FBI to destroy it from within.
  • In the third season of The Boys (2019), when we first see Mallory's flashback about the super team Payback in the CIA's Nicaragua mission, it certainly seems like an Epic Fail on every possible level. First their carelessness and lack of discipline or military training may have led the Sandanistas and their Russian allies straight to the base, and when fighting starts the supes are worse than useless; Crimson Countess kills several of Mallory's Contra allies, Gunpowder jumps on a machine gun and begins mowing down anything that moves (mostly more Contras), and eventually even targets and nearly kills Mallory herself while Mindstorm and the TNT twins cower near him, and even Black Noir, who has been depicted as lethally efficient assassin and killer in the show's present day, is only seen ambushing a couple of fleeing Contras and slicing them up before disappearing. The only supe who does any good at all is Soldier Boy, who at the least competently fought against several enemy soldiers before Mallory lost track of him. It certainly convinces Mallory that supes are completely unfit for any military purposes and they must be kept away from those roles at all costs. However, when later episodes reveal that the only reason that Payback was there at all was to get rid of Soldier Boy and allow him to be captured by the Russians, a plan that everyone in the group besides Gunpowder signed onto and which was executed by none other than a young Stan Edgar himself, suddenly the whole thing looks less like a tragic fiasco and more like a ruthless plan to not just get rid of Soldier Boy but to also Leave No Witnesses while doing it. So Countess and Noir killing Contras was on purpose, Mindstorm took over Gunpowder and used him to ravage the camp, and when Mallory is knocked out during the fighting she makes the perfect witness who can back up their story about the Russians killing Soldier Boy without ever having actually seen it happen.
  • Though a massive lampshade is hung on it, Breaking Bad season 4 does this in "End Times" post-"Face Off"; watching Walt pleading for his life has a whole new perspective if you know Walt would later lie about poisoning a child to control Jessie.
    • For the series as a whole, getting greater insight into Walter's motivations and psyche later in the show, can put scenes and conversations from earlier in the show, going all the way back to the pilot episode, into a whole new, and much more disturbing, light.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • In "Graduation Day", Buffy has a dream where Faith talks to her and says something about "counting down to 730". 730 means two years or rather two seasons. Foreshadowing Buffy's eventual sacrifice to save her sister in the Season 5 finale.
    • In "Restless", the same thing is referenced. Buffy in a dream sequence sees a clock at 7:30, and Tara says it's slow. In the same scene, she ominously says "be back before dawn". The next episode introduces Buffy's younger sister, named Dawn.
    • In "Doppelgangland", Willow is alarmed that her vampire alter ego is a Depraved Bisexual. Buffy stops Angel from telling her that a vampire's personality may be influenced by their human selves. The next season, Willow enters a relationship with another woman. Word of God is that this was a pure coincidence - as either Xander or Willow was in the cards to turn out to be gay.
  • Charmed retroactively does this with a handful of Season 3 episodes after the abrupt death of Prue at the end of the season.note  Episodes like "Sin Francisco" and "Death Takes A Halliwell" have other characters calling Prue out on her reckless demon hunting behaviour. Other episodes like "Just Harried" have her learn An Aesop about not needing to devote so much time to her witch duties. In her final episode "All Hell Breaks Loose" those very character traits lead to her death.
  • The first season of Community seems to be setting up Jeff up with Britta, but there are multiple hints that he has a stronger, mutual attraction to Annie, which culminates in them sharing a very loving kiss by the end of the season. It's also clear that despite sleeping with her, Britta and Jeff's chemistry and entire dynamic make them Better as Friends.
    • There are also a few Meaningful Background Events, like Abed interacting with a young pregnant couple and Annie's Boobs surreptitiously stealing pens that seem pointless, but are basically their own mini story arcs.
  • Criminal Minds: In one Season 14 episode, "Chameleon", the team is pursuing a murderous conman who targets middle-aged women with college-aged kids, and flashbacks and interviews show him interacting with said children. However, the scenes with his next target and a young woman take on a whole new meaning when it's revealed that she's his daughter, joining in on the con for the first time, and not the target's daughter, who was actually away at college for the whole event.
  • Doctor Who:
    • The Russell T Davies era means that it can be fun to look out for barely noticeable arc words such as "Bad Wolf", "Torchwood", "Harold Saxon", missing planets and "The bees are disappearing!".
    • "Rose": The music that plays when the inside of the TARDIS is first seen is the same music used in "Doomsday" when the Doctor and Rose are separated.
    • "Utopia": Once you know that Yana is actually the Master, a lot of his more subtle parallels with the Doctor start to become obvious. He admits that he's never taught at a university and that the title "Professor" is just an affectation — just like a Time Lord's title. His relationship with Chantho is deliberately written to evoke the Doctor's relationships with his Companions. He's an excitable Cool Old Guy with a love of science and experimentation, and he wears flamboyant antiquated clothing — just like all of the Doctor's earliest incarnations. And if you remember the Face of Boe's last words from "Gridlock", "You are not alone", take the first letter from each word. What you will get is "YANA". The identity of the other Time Lord was staring you in the face for the whole episode!
    • The Moffat series are good for a re-watch purely because of the extreme amounts of timey-wimey-ness, especially in relation to River Song's arc. There's so much Foreshadowing, Call Backs and Bookends that entire lines and scenes can gain a new meaning.
    • "Vincent and the Doctor": Rewatching the episode with the knowledge that the Krafayis is blind helps explain a fair bit of why the creature behaves the way it does.
    • "Deep Breath":
      • On second viewing of the scene where Clara is recaptured, it's apparent that the head-covering of the "robot" which brings her to the Half-Faced Man isn't fitted quite properly, because the Doctor's wearing it over his hair. There's also a visible seam on the back, although that wouldn't be surprising in a droid either.
      • When the Doctor rips that face off, it looks oddly like Matt Smith's. That's because it is. They took a cast of the mannequin of Matt from the Doctor Who Experience for Peter to pull off. He literally pulls off his old face to show his new one.
      • Peter Capaldi's accent takes a little getting used to. As such, there are sequences (such as the alley scene and the new Doctor meeting Strax and company for the first time) that benefit from being rewatched. Not everyone catches that the Doctor mistakes Strax for one of the Seven Dwarves at the very start.
    • If you watch "Time Heist" again and listen to the Architect, it's blatantly obvious that it's the Doctor. You can still hear parts of Capaldi's accent.
    • "Heaven Sent" rates as serious Rewatch Horror, when you view it again knowing whose skulls those are, and why that bloodied hand pulls the lever at the start.
    • "Spyfall": Part 1 comes off very differently once you know that the Doctor's apparent ally "O" is actually the Master in disguise. Part 2's Reveal about what the Master has done to Gallifrey and why adds further detail.
  • The Senator Perrin story arc in the second season of Dollhouse. Everyone assumes that Cindy is a doll being controlled by Daniel, based on a cryptic comment made by Echo. Later, when Paul triggers a device that will incapacitate anyone with Active architecture, Cindy doesn't react to it — Daniel does. Upon second viewing, this twist suddenly seems blatantly obvious when you notice that the white knight analogy they repeat to each other is actually a form of call-and-response meant to maintain the Active and Handler bond, and it was always initiated by Cindy.
  • Joss Whedon enjoys doing this, pointing out the Blue Sun posters in the backgrounds of the pilot episode of Firefly in his commentary. The Blue Suns logo also has subtle appearances throughout the show, usually when River freaks out on the ship, like when she tears off the labels on the canned food, or when she slashes Jayne (and the Blue Sun shirt he was wearing) across the chest with a kitchen knife.
  • Pretty much everything to do with Harrison Wells in season one of The Flash (2014). Every new revelation about his identity and motives adds new layers to everything that went before. His dialogue is full of clues that may not have been obvious the first time through, and Tom Cavanagh's acting has so many levels to it that repeat viewing is pretty much required to catch all of the nuances.
    • The season finale when he reacts with obvious nervousness as a helmet falls out of the wormhole initially seems to be a Mythology Gag referencing the Jay Garrick Flash. It takes on an entirely different meaning in Season Two when the secret of whose helmet it is is finally revealed, suggesting that Eobard Thawne knew that "Jay Garrick" was really Zoom and didn't want to be anywhere near him.
    • The second season itself has this sort of thing when you know Zoom's secret. In one specific case, it makes it blatantly obvious why Zoom didn't fall for Linda impersonating Dr. Light; Jay had been present when the idea was conceived.
    • Of course Zoom knew how to catch and return Barry's lightning!! When he was the one who taught it to Barry in the first place.
  • An episode-contained example in the Flashpoint episode "One Wrong Move". Watching Spike and Lou chat and banter back and forth and recount the tropical vacation they just took feels much more significant when you realize that by the end of the day, Lou is going to be dead, leaving Spike absolutely devastated.
    • Also adds another layer to Parker's loving "review" at the end of the episode right before. While Ed is the focus of that moment, it's probably the last chance Parker had to tell Lou how important he was to all of them.
  • Fleabag takes a second viewing to reveal all the ways that the central character uses her Fourth-Wall Observer status to lie to us and herself.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • "The Kingsroad" and Robert's conversation with Ned, asking about Jon Snow's birth mother and then talking about his deceased love Lyanna Stark dying at the hands of Rhaegar Targaryen takes on new meaning when Season 6 reveals Lyanna was Jon's mother, she eloped with Rhaegar and Ned raised Jon as his own.
    • "Lord Snow" has a scene where Jaime talks to Ned about how he assassinated the Mad King. On the first watch, Jaime comes across as a Smug Snake who betrayed his king (even if he was insane) because it was going to benefit him. Come Season 3 we learn that Jaime assassinated the Mad King to stop him from destroying the whole city with wildfire, saving thousands of innocent lives and the scene becomes Jaime pleading to be seen as anything but a treacherous backstabber.
  • The entire first season of The Good Place becomes this after the reveal that the "Good Place" is actually the Bad Place. Rewatching it allows you to realize just how many clues there were leading to the reveal, especially how Michael's efforts to help the four humans were actually him mercilessly preying on their deep insecurities — telling Chidi that his life's work is worthless and forcing him to make multiple decisions under great pressure, asking Tahani to help him with parties that he knows in advance will fail and make her feel miserable, having Eleanor become his assistant and bonding with her to make her feel even guiltier about pretending to be someone else, etc.
  • The Season 1 Gotham episode "The Blind Fortune-Teller", in which Jerome Valeska is introduced, takes on a whole new aspect if you've seen Season 4. Jerome's meek, socially-anxious, and even cute conduct isn't just something he adopts to deceive the police, it's him mimicking his brother Jeremiah.
  • Homicide: Life on the Street: A major plot of the first season is rookie detective Bayliss investigating the rape and murder of a teenage girl which causes him to behave quite irritably, and ultimately failing to capture the suspect. While this is already deeply tragic, it takes on an infinitely sadder context when it's revealed Bayliss took the case so personally because he was abused and molested as a child and projected himself onto the murder victim.
  • How I Met Your Mother makes extensive use of flashbacks and flash-forwards, some of which give away major story elements if you know where to look. For example, Robin's last line in "Single Stamina" gives away the ending of "Something Blue" three months later.
  • The fifth season of House has House's Survivor's Guilt (over Amber and the bus) running in the background until an hallucination of her pops up after Kutner's suicide. Of particular note is "Emancipation", where he looks like he's going to cry over the patient revealing that she accidentally killed her little brother, and even before she tells him, his Break Them by Talking sum-up is basically a gender-swapped version of himself.
    House: You need people to see how independent you are, how well you're coping. So they won't see the lost, hurt little girl. Because that's not what you see. You see someone who did something terrible... who deserves to suffer. Who doesn't deserve to live.
    House: [after] You want someone to tell you it was just an accident. That it's not that bad, well, it is that bad. And you know it. There's nothing you can do to change that.
  • In Jericho (2006), the first few exchanges between Robert and Darcy gain a lot more meaning once you find out that Robert kidnapped Darcy and her children just days before these conversations take place.
  • Kamen Rider Build: It will go unnoticed when first watching the first episode, but since Sento points it out at the end of the episode, there are moments where you can see that, yes, Banjou's fly is down the whole time.
  • The Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Raw": All of the scenes with Star Morrison have elements of this when you know that "Star" is an undercover FBI agent. Also, one scene has Casey and the defense attorney discuss the case, while in the background a plainclothes cop avoids the metal detector in the courtroom. In repeat viewings, the man is recognizable as one of the two men who shoot up the courtroom a few scenes later.
    • The episode "The Long Arm of the Witness'' comes back from a commercial to ADA Holmes in the restroom. When he hears Judge Gallagher's (the defendant) voice through the door, he quickly dries his hands and touches his phone. He turned on the recorder, and caught the judge's homophobic and racist rant. This is used to ensure his conviction.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: With the reveal Halbrand is Sauron, there is suddenly a copious amount of reinterpretations of his character. Everything he said or done has a Double Meaning now. Is worth trying to rewatch all of his scenes only to try and pick all the clues and foreshadowing, and funny as hell to watch Galadriel talk about how Sauron killed her brother, and him apologizing to her with tears in his eyes.
  • Motive tells the audience who the killer is off the bat with the episode littered with flashbacks building up to the crime. But quite often, a last minute twist puts the entire case in a new light and makes the audience want to rewatch to see the clues.
    • A man is killed by another man who kidnapped his daughter. It turns out the killer is the girl's real father and the "victim" kidnapped her years ago. So viewers can see the hints from how the victim didn't seem to know much of the girl's childhood and the real father's intensity now justified.
    • A man seems to have killed his mistress when she wanted to tell his fiancee about them. When arrested, he reveals this "mistress" was just a woman who sat next to on a flight and then stalked him. Looking back, it's clear the woman's behavior, her lack of actual contact with her "boyfriend" and the fact several of their photos together looked odd (they were photoshopped) were tip-offs.
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000. In too many episodes to name, it's impossible to catch all the jokes in the first viewing, because you're too busy laughing at the jokes that came immediately before them. Or simply didn't laugh because you didn't get the reference, but laughed hard once later when you did.
  • The fourth season of NCIS. After the season finale Reveal, the entire Tony gets a girlfriend plotline becomes much more interesting.
    • A different example in that season is in the episode "Grace Period"; two colleagues of a suspected suicide bomber are at the crime scene when Ziva finds the man's head in the ceiling and it falls onto the floor. One reacts by crying out with obvious horror, while another holds himself together and identifies the head as belonging to his co-worker. Viewers re-watching the episode might notice that it's the calm one who turns out to be the real terrorist, having killed his co-worker, made a mold of his throat (also part of the frame-up), and strapped a bomb to his corpse, so the sight of the head wouldn't be much of an issue for him.
  • The NUMB3RS episode "The Mole" seems, the first time around, like a simple story of Colby Granger getting caught between his friend and his job, but takes on a whole new layer of meaning when you know what's really going on behind the scenes with Colby and his friend (as revealed in the "Janus List"/"Trust Metric" two-parter).
  • Once Upon a Time, created by two of the main writers of Lost, certainly doesn't lack in this department either, given that it explores the backstories of over a dozen characters within at least three different timelines in its first season alone.
    • The first few episodes of season 2 with the knowledge that Mulan is in love with Aurora. You realize why Mulan spent so long searching with Philip. Her attempted sacrifice in "Broken" becomes an obvious I Want My Beloved to Be Happy moment. It adds another layer onto how protective Mulan is of Aurora - especially when it comes to trading the compass for her heart.
    • The friendship between Red and Snow in season 1 takes on a new light with the season 2 reveal that Red killed her own mother to save Snow's life.
    • "The Price of Gold" and "True North" has Mr. Gold giving Pet the Dog moments where children and their parents are concerned. When you discover he lost his own son through a portal it takes on a new light. Especially the look Rumpel gives Cinderella when she says "we can always have more children".
    • Cora's actions in "The Stable Boy" are also added to with episodes that show her younger self - giving a new explanation for how desperate she is to rise in social status.
  • One Piece (2023):
    • Zeff's initial appearances has him be harsh and authoritative towards Sanji, trying to do everything to get Sanji to quit Baratie. But after Sanji's flashback in episode 6, it's actually revealed Zeff was very supportive of Sanji's dream of finding the All Blue and his main conflict with Sanji is that he wants Sanji to follow his dreams rather than spend his life as a chef at Baratie out of an obligation towards Zeff.
    • In episode three, Buggy's right ear appears to be missing or hidden. The audience would find out later that Buggy placed his right ear on Luffy's hat to spy on him.
  • One Tree Hill had a few moments in the first few seasons that were clearly planned out.
    • In the second season finale, series villain Dan Scott is caught in a fire at his car dealership with the identity of the culprit remaining a mystery throughout the first half of the following season and eventually being revealed as Dan’s estranged wife Deb. However, rewatching the second season finale with that information, you notice that when Dan and Deb’s son Nathan returns home, Deb immediately makes sure to establish her alibi by telling Nathan that she’s been at home all night.
    • During Season 4, Peyton discovers that she has a stalker using the online pseudonym "WATCHMEWATCHYOU". Her stalker is actually shown making contact with her at the end of Season 2.
      • Additionally, once the identity of the stalker is known to the viewer, they can be seen lurking in the background of at least one scene before the show draws attention to their presence.
  • Our Mutual Friend: In the 1998 miniseries Mrs. Boffin smiles at her husband right after he very rudely dismissed John Rokesmith. Rewatching the series with the knowledge Mr. Boffin is only pretending to be a miser and both Mrs. Boffin and Rokesmith are in on the act casts lights on her reactions.
  • Seinfeld is much more entertaining when you know how the characters got to be the way they are. The first season doesn't explain much backstory, but once you find out how the characters' families and their experiences growing up have caused their personalities to form, it makes their jerkass behavior more excusable.
  • Stargate SG-1: Note the way Samantha Carter reacts every time Jack O'Neill tells a joke. It's clear that, even very early, actress Amanda Tapping was building toward the revelation that Carter and O'Neill are crazy about one another.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
    • After watching "Doctor Bashir, I Presume", every scene with Doctor Bashir in every prior episode takes on a whole new light, with The Reveal that he's been hiding his illegal genetic enhancements.
    • "In Purgatory's Shadow" has the major twist that Bashir has been held prisoner for a month and it's been a Changeling impersonating him for at least the previous four episodes. Fans can thus watch those episodes for any clues. Notable is "The Begotten" when "Bashir" seems upset over not being able to save an infant Changeling. The realization he's a Changeling himself explains how bad he feels not able to save one of his own.
  • The Star Trek: Discovery episode "Vaulting Ambition" reveals that Captain Lorca is actually an imposter from the Mirror Universe, casting a new light on his previous interactions with Burnham and his desire to get the spore drive operational.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation: In "Star Trek: The Next Generation S5E9 "A Matter of Time"," a time traveling historian from the future arrives on the Enterprise to study the crew and collect a handful of artefacts for anthropological study. The episode deals a lot with whether it is right to use future knowledge to change the past. However, at the end it is revealed that the "historian" is actually a guy from the 22nd Century, who stole the time machine from a real time traveler, to come to the future and steal advanced tech. Knowing this, rewatches of the episode hit different, as the viewer is now aware they are watching a con-artist in a future he knows nothing about, improvising everything as he goes along in his attempt to dupe everyone.
  • The final episode of Squid Game reveals that Oh Il-nam, aka Player #001, was the man who created the Deadly Game to begin with. With this crucial piece of info, the subtle hints that the games were being rigged in his favor, such as the sensors taking longer to track him in "Red Light, Green Light", a few hairline cracks in his honeycomb shape, him not being handcuffed to the rope used for tug-of-war, and especially his apparent Sound-Only Death after losing the game of marbles become much easier to spot.
  • The Twilight Zone (1959): "The Invaders" is, on first viewing, a story about a frightened human woman who lives alone being terrorized by tiny aliens from outer space, armed with laser guns. It turns out that it's the woman who is an "alien" (and about sixty feet tall), and the titular invaders are actually Earthling astronauts. This explains many of the episode's background elements — for instance, the woman in the story doesn't speak because she wouldn't speak any language known to humanity, and her rustic farmhouse lacks electricity and other conveniences because her race doesn't have them.
  • Literally every episode of Westworld has a deeper meaning once you know the truth about Bernard or about the Man in Black. Bernard and Ford's conversation in episode 4 is a doozy.
  • In Wizards of Waverly Place, Mason painting only dogs at first appears to be a simple joke. After The Reveal that Mason is a werewolf, it becomes Foreshadowing of his true nature.
  • In Yellowjackets, Coach Bill Martinez does not survive the flight crash but his two sons do. Travis blames his father for his and his brother's situation and calls him a "dick". In the pilot episode, when Coach Martinez and his two sons are leaving for the airport, he kisses his wife goodbye but she makes a dour face, hinting that Travis's assessment may have some substance.

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