Spoilers Unmarked!
Cliff Stanfield
- Portrayed by: Aaron Paul
- Abusive Parent: He believes in disciplining his son physically and sees no problem with David doing the same while in his body. It's also implied he is as emotionally distant with him as he is with Lana.
- Alone with the Psycho: When David butchers his whole family, leaving him stranded with David for four more years.
- Character Development: When he has an explosive argument with Lana over her alleged affair with David, once Lana finally admits that she's missed him emotionally since they moved to the countryside, he breaks down and promises to treat her better. Sadly, David sabotages this healing process before it really blossoms.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: When he finds David's collection of pornographic drawings of Lana, he immediately assumes they had an affair and assaults David. When he visits Lana again, he trashes David's painting and starts accusing Lana of sleeping with him. To be fair to him, David is clearly obsessively in love with Lana.
- Sexless Marriage: Him and Lana's marriage has been rather cold recently and being away on a space expedition with the closest form of contact being in the form of a Ridiculously Human Robot (who may or may not have genitalia) on a time limit hasn't helped matters.
- Standard '50s Father: Deconstructed. Cliff is uptight, never shows emotions or simple affection, treats his own son like a stranger (and has him address accordingly), ignores his wife and even in the end, after seemingly learning his lesson, still treats Lana as property to defend from David, rather than a soulmate or even simply a partner. None of this is portrayed in a positive light and cause all sorts of issues for the Stanfields.
David Ross
- Portrayed by: Josh Hartnett
- Beard of Sorrow: After the cult murders his family, he neglects his personal grooming to the point where he grows out a bushy beard, in total contrast to the professional, babyfaced family man he used to be.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: When Cliff and Lana make it clear that they're married and do not want David to visit again, he goes insane, duping Cliff into a false report so he can get into his replica and kill Lana.
- Driven to Suicide: Eventually, his mental state degrades so badly that he would've thrown himself into space had Cliff not intervened.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Started to envy Cliff and his wife’s relationship, to the point of murdering his family out of spite.
- If I Can't Have You…: When Lana makes it apparent that she is not attracted to him, he finds a way into Cliff's replica so he can murder her, so neither he nor Cliff can have her.
- Morality Chain: He has one in the form of his family. After they are killed, he begins to become mentally unstable and later outright psychotic.
- Protagonist Journey to Villain: He starts out as an innocent figure who lost his family (and replica) in a tragic massacre and grows into a more morally ambiguous but still sympathetic person as his feelings for Cliff's wife and life in general stem from the tragic loss of his own family's death. It explodes into full blown psychopathy as he kills everyone in Cliff's family after being refused a chance to see his wife one last time.
- Room Full of Crazy: After some time spent in Cliff's replica, he starts drawing a lot of the surroundings by memory, namely Lana in the nude, that making up most of said drawings.
- Sanity Slippage: After his family is brutally murdered by the hippie cultists and his replica is destroyed, leaving him unable to re-experience Earth life.
- Smug Snake: Has the nastiest smirk on his face when Cliff returns from finding out what he did to his family.
- Ungrateful Bastard: David expresses gratitude every time Cliff allows him to use his replica. However, as time passes and he continues to visit Earth, he begins to take advantage of the kindness both Cliff and Lana have shown him, going behind Cliff's back and attempting to seduce his wife, even becoming forceful when she initially rejects him. Around this time, he also stops shaking Cliff's hand, showing a change in his priorities and feelings toward Cliff.
- Would Hurt a Child: He hit Cliff's son for messing up his painting. He also may have killed Cliff's son at the end of the episode.
Lana Stanfield
- Portrayed by: Kate Mara
- Seduction-Proof Marriage: Zigzagged. David in Cliff's body initially does manage to enamour her, but when he starts getting too physical with her, she realizes she loves her husband and pushes him away, to make it clear she wants Cliff's affection, not his, as she's merely lonely but not in love with David. After that, she acts cold and distant towards him and tries to avoid him at all costs. Too bad it didn't save her...
- Sexless Marriage: Her marriage to Cliff has been rather cold recently and his being away on a space expedition with the closest form of contact being in the form of a Ridiculously Human Robot (which may or may not have genitalia) on a time limit hasn't helped matters. This is what initially gets her attracted to David in Cliff's body, as he treated her gently and made her feel desired, although she realized in the end that she only loved her husband and wanted his affection, leading her to reject him.
- Targeted to Hurt the Hero: Brutally murdered by David-Cliff toward the end of the episode to make Cliff realize that he took what he had for granted.
Kappa
- Portrayed by: Rory Culkin
- Fantastic Racism: Doesn't take kindly to a Ridiculously Human Robot having a relationship with a human woman, with a clear parallel to real-life racism befitting the 1960's setting and Charles Manson's political views.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Not at all evocative of Charles Manson. Nope.
- Offscreen Karma: Downplayed Trope. It's said in a news report that he and his cult turned themselves into the police after committing the crime, although it was likely because they've already proven the point they wanted to make and not because they feel they should be punished for what they did.
- Small Role, Big Impact: He shows up with his cult of loonies to slaughter David's replica and his family for about two scenes but that's more than enough time to completely shift David's personality for the worst.
- Would Hurt a Child: Killed David's wife and children in front of him to make a point.
