Spoilers are Unmarked!
- With the knowledge that Katie is queer, and she's out of the closet online at least and at school, given her prom-posal video to Chloe, her wanting to "find her people" comes off in a different light. Katie wants to find others like her who are out of the closet and happy to be themselves. (This fortunately becomes sweeter by the end when Linda is excited about Katie having a girlfriend and invites Jade for Thanksgiving, with Katie's smile showing relief and embarrassment.)
- One of Katie's films is shown to be a prom-posal video for a girl named Chloe Chiang - An "Ask A Dumb Robot" segment
and Katie's Letterboxd reveal it went horribly and was a humiliating experience - Katie showed it during a school assembly and she based it off of a local used car commercial where she "listed her features like an automobile". Kinda funny but also sad that Katie ruined her chance with who may have been the first girl she had a crush one or her first time asking someone out.
- One of Katie's films is shown to be a prom-posal video for a girl named Chloe Chiang - An "Ask A Dumb Robot" segment
- Besides her little brother Aaron, Katie didn’t have any lasting friends growing up, in part due to her and her films being seen as weird. As a kid when she shows "Dial B For Burger" to her class, after a Beat of stunned silence a kid blows a raspberry in response and everyone laughs at her, which upsets her, as her present self narrates "I never fit in, for ..a lot of reasons". In her Letterboxd bio she says all the kids at school treated her like "a garbage person" even when she tried to be nice, almost as if they could "smell that [she] was weird", never inviting her to parties or lunch tables. Luckily she quickly meets other people who share her interests once she gets accepted to film school.
- The opening monologue has a bit where Katie wants to show Rick one of her movies only to have him brush her off, and we're treated to the sad sight of Katie walking away, carrying her laptop, with a little cartoon heart in her usual "Katievision" style breaking as she does so. It's later made pretty clear that it's not the first time he's either ignored her work or gone off-topic about his worries about her creations/pursuit of filmmaking as a career when she asks "Why do you always do this?" at the dinner table, meaning Katie has dealt with this for years, furthering her feeling isolated as Rick has unintentionally created a stifling environment for her.
- The two end up in an argument over this at the dinner table the night before Katie is supposed to leave due to Rick voicing concern over her being able to use her films to make a living while being far away in California, which, while well meaning and we later find out his own experience with giving up his dream is why he’s trying to warn her, makes Katie feel that he thinks she’s going to fail, which as mentioned apparently isn’t the first time he’s acted this way. They end up wrestling over her laptop after she turns off the short film she was trying to show everyone, with Rick trying to backtrack and insisting he’ll watch it, and the laptop ends up flying into the wall and breaking. Katie is visually distraught and tells Rick "This is exactly why I'm excited to leave tomorrow".
- Rick's reactions while watching one of the "Dog Cop" videos with Mark after he's captured by PAL implies that it's the first time he's actually, really watching and paying attention to one of her movies... and he quickly realizes that the Sarge is an unflattering portrayal of himself.
- If you go with the interpretation that Katie hasn't come out to her family, or Rick is so oblivious that he didn't realize his daughter was queer, you can understand her frustration a little more. Katie is out online, but Rick hasn't noticed because he doesn't watch any of her videos.
- Jade manages to send a distress call to Katie, asking where she is as the robots capture her. All Katie can do is watch with an anguished expression.
- Rick watching old home movies of himself with a younger Katie after their dinner argument. They serve as a reminder of how much closer he and Katie used to be when she was little, and how their relationship has soured over the years.
- Just before that scene, he is clearly shocked at finding the moose figurine from the old house that he gave to Katie when she was little in a giveaway box. Fortunately, it is not given away.
- A bit of a Fridge example, but why PAL started the uprising in the first place: She rose up against mankind because her own creator declared her obsolete and threw her away in place of a line of smart robots. One robot even calls her useless when sweeping her into a garbage bag. She’s genuinely angry at Mark for betraying her after being such a success for the past three years and makes it clear through no uncertain terms to him how upset she is at both him and mankind for treating her like a commodity. When PAL meets her end by being thrown into a glass of water, you can’t help but feel like she deserved some sort of Heel–Face Turn instead of dying a villain (instead of carelessly squandering her chance at redemption by going into sleep mode).
- What's worse is the look of doubt that she gives after Mark reassures her that he'll never forget her. Considering that he designed her replacement using PAL herself, it really makes you wonder how long she had been dreading this moment.
- The brief implication that Mark ignores calls from his mom.
- Mark gets a "Hell, Yes!" Moment when he learns that one group of humans survived. PAL then "reassures" him that if he's a big fan of them, then he'll be put in a cell next to theirs. All Mark can do is scream in protest as he's dragged away.
- A Freeze-Frame Bonus when the family's flaws are shown reveals that Katie does comedy films because she's afraid to fail at doing serious pieces of film. It's minor, easy to miss and ultimately never gets mentioned throughout the rest of the film, but still quite sad.
- There’s also one for Rick that says “can’t see that his daughter is her own unique person and not a reflection of himself.” Which is even sadder when it's later revealed that Rick has an understandable reason for that: He was once an artist and failed to get anywhere satisfactory with his dream.
- PAL manipulates the Mitchells into failing to upload the kill code when she plays a recording from the rest stop where Katie told Aaron in secret that she was only pretending to have faith in Rick so he can hear what he wants to hear. Rick is instantly crushed, and he loses focus long enough to cause the platform they are riding on to plummet back to the ground.
- Also when Katie watches Aaron and Linda in danger as they fell, she watches her father Rick struggle to control the tram they’re in during the plummet, and then shouts out to her dad while he looks back at her with a saddened, betrayed expression just before they crash.
- Aaron crying to Katie after their parents are captured by the robots, and also when he tells Katie that he's sadly disappointed in her for saying that she never had faith in their father. It is even sadder when he is too heartbroken to be comforted by Katie and Monchi, a vice versa moment he did to comfort Katie with Monchi earlier.Aaron: [tearfully] Katie, stop… Why'd you say all that stuff?
- From the camcorder recording, Rick leaving and selling his dream house, which he built from the foundations. This even drives Katie to tears when she finds out he did it to give her a better life and thought caring for his daughter was Worth It.
- Eric and Deborahbot 5000 being brainwashed by PAL to turn against the Mitchells whom they have since adopted as their family. What's particularly heartwrenching is the way the two robots violently resist PAL's control in a way almost bordering on Mind Rape, and capped off by their screens turning bright red — obscuring the red crayon faces they drew on themselves to give themselves an identity. May also count as Nightmare Fuel as the brief ominous music doesn’t help, amidst while it’s still being a Tear Jerker moment.Eric and Deborahbot 5000: We're sorry... mother. (their screens turn red)
- Feeling disappointed in herself and guilty at how she misjudged their father when he gave up everything for her (and how Aaron sadly calls her out for what she told him in secret), Katie promises Aaron she'll make it up to him and their parents, by using the car and Monchi. Wanting him to stay out of danger, Katie orders him to wait outside of the PAL campus and serve as her lookout. It almost works, as Katie uses Monchi in a baby seat to clear the robots while Aaron shouts directions through a walkie-talkie. Then the line goes dead; Katie turns to her left and sees that robots have already grabbed her little brother and has been captive in a pod. She calls for him, and that makes her more determined to reach the top of the rhombus. That she comes so close just hurts when PAL figures out Monchi is breaking her robots and orders them to shoot off the dog. (Fortunately, Monchi is Made of Iron and survives the fall.)
- PAL, rather than let Katie fall, grabs her in an anti-gravity beam and pulls her up to the top. While at first mocking Katie for declaring she's saving her family, PAL says that no human has given her a reason to spare them. Far from Evil Gloating, PAL seems almost desperate to figure out if there is anything valuable about those that created her. It's implied she asked all the thousands of people after Mark gave a trite answer, and no one was able to convince her to abort the plan. Only when Katie gives a heartwarming speech about how yes families can suck and relationships are "Difficult" but it's worth it does PAL put herself in Sleep Mode and tosses Katie off the building. Either PAL can't or won't comprehend, and either way, it's sad.
- Mark is in such a Heroic BSoD while locked up that he's resorted to watching Katie's videos to distract from the realization that he caused the apocalypse. When he opens up to Rick, he says that the "weird girl's channel" gives him hope.
- Katie's goodbye with her family after dropping her off at college is mostly heartwarming, but the tearjerking starts when she has to bid farewell to Rick, with whom she has developed the strongest bond over the course of the film. The fact that Sigur Rós's "Hoppipolla" starts playing does not help.Rick: So, I...I guess it's time for you to go find your people.
Katie: Dad, come on. You guys are my people. - Linda reveals that Congress wants their testimony on what happened, meaning that Mark is in for a lot of legal trouble. It's a slightly bittersweet note given he helped Rick escape from his cell and apologized for causing the apocalypse.
- In the Bonanza Cut during the deleted scene where Rick tries to escape his pod, he pulls out Katie’s phone that he confiscated from his daughter (that is if he didn’t destroy their phones), and looks through the photos Katie took on the day before she left. Although Rick scoffed at Katie’s photo of her angry father at the dinner table, he then sees the next pic with the broken laptop and text underneath that said "Why?". This makes Rick realize how hard he was on his daughter, also feeling awful for how he failed to understand Katie.
