In which everything you once knew about Grace Monroe is flipped on its head, and a visit is paid to the good doctor.
- Achievements in Ignorance: Grace managed to avoid becoming Ogami's pawn by selling the metal butterfly out of desperation to have something to eat.
- Armor-Piercing Response:
- When Amelia tries to justify her anger by claiming it was hard to wrap her head around the fact she saw a child die in front of her, Hazel blatantly tells her that she knows, because she saw it too.
- Once Amelia tries to kickstart another Blame Game with Guide-Grace over everything Grace did, Goh and Hazel shut her down by matter-of-factly saying that they already know.
- Armor-Piercing Question: When Amelia begins to call out Grace for everything she did, Goh and Hazel quickly shut her down by blatantly asking if it really needs to be brought up again.
- And Then What?: This chapter has Amelia finally confess that the reason she didn't dismantle or destroy the Apex was so she could focus on what they did wrong, and not what she did wrong. With the group disbanded, she's left with no choice but to take a deep, hard look at herself.
- Beneath Suspicion: Wallace and Gromit are chosen to smuggle Megatron's device into the Signal Car since Ben can't see these goofballs being any sort of threat.
- Breaking Old Trends: Every other chapter prior to this one had the secondary title named after the Car being visited. In here, it's instead named for the mental plane Goh, Hazel, and Amelia enter to see Grace's backstory.
- Cerebus Retcon:
- This chapter makes Amelia's previous desire to keep the Apex alive in a darker light, as rather than because she's worried for them, it's because without them around Amelia would have no way to avoid having to confront her issues.
- This entire chapter does this for Grace's backstory, particularly how she knew about how denizens were reincarnated passengers, but kept quiet to protect the innocence and sanity of herself and her peers.
- Romsca's reaction to the death of the Demon of the Depths back in the Pirate Car; she died to that monster when she was a human.
- Continuity Nod: When Amelia dresses Guide-Grace for her excuses, one question she asks is if all that Grace did justified slamming a sledgehammer to someone's eye because "they don't see what she sees"? This refers to Trip's backstory when he encountered the Apex, as Simon slammed him in the face with a sledgehammer.
- Description Cut: Guide-Grace thinks that her parents don't love her or would even care to hear from her...just as it cuts to her funeral service and her parents are sobbing wrecks.
- Dramatic Irony:
- Guide-Grace believes that her parents don't love her. It was shown in "The Hazbin Car" that they suffered for eight years trying to figure out what happened to their daughter, regretted their neglectfulness, and are sobbing wrecks upon learning that she's dead. The narration even cuts to the funeral service and the parents mourning the lost chances they had with their daughter.
- Once the audience is made aware of the UnSub's history and motivations, the Serial Killer is shown having a quiet moment to convince himself that his actions, while regrettable, will allow everyone on the Train to live their "best lives." In particular, he recalls his friend Horace, the first soul he had ever "saved." Obviously, that first murder occurred long before the UnSub developed his methods for controlling where a soul will go after death, but still, Ogami is convinced that whatever happened to Horace, he must be far better off than he was in his first life. His soul is somewhere on the Train, free to spread its wings, help people, and live its best life! As it turns out, "Horace" did end up helping people in his new life as Tomas, the Denizen in charge of the Signal Car- until, as a direct consequence of Ogami's plan, he is chained up while his work is misused and Mad Ben forces him to use his talents for the warlord's own needs.
- The Dreaded Pretend Tea-Party: Lusamine hosts one to try out the interdimensional berries with Lillie.
- Eviler than Thou: Amelia admits that she struggles with wrapping her head around the fact that, according to the train's rankings, she's a billion times worse than a group of outright murderous hellions trying to raise their numbers.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Everyone goes through a variant of this when discussing Ogami bumping into Simon and Grace before the Fog Car.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Grace's beliefs get a bit more dimension here, as it's shown that she witnessed another passenger (Ariana) die early on in her adventure due to a moment of weakness, and suffered a traumatic event that made her instinctively associate the gold tornadoes with death and refuse to seriously consider denizens as anything other than NPCs. That said, she admits that they're explanations to everything she inflicted onto everyone, passenger and denizen, for the next decade, not excuses. Not that this stops Amelia from trying to call her out on it.
- Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: The gist of Tomas' assessment of the White Gestalt's attempt to override his Infinet for their scheme but he tells London to just move on and not make any more mistkaes like this ever again.
- Hourglass Plot: Through most of Blossoming Trail, Goh was left feeling helpless and powerless once he realized Chloe was intent on dealing with the Apex and the Cage of Flauros while he could do nothing about it. Now it's Chloe who's left feeling helpless and powerless once she realizes Goh is getting ready to tackle the Unsub's Crew and she can do nothing about it.
- History Repeats: Just like in the last story, a Vermillion City kid despairs over how their friend is about to face horrible odds and they can do nothing to help. In Blossoming Trail, it was Goh, while in here, it's Chloe.
- Internal Reveal:
- Goh reveals Grace's new form to her former crewmates, who are now Romsca and Tomas.
- Alain brings everyone up to speed on the Infinet hijacking.
- Chloe is finally informed about how Ogami wants her soul and what the true purpose of the metal butterflies actually is.
- Irony:
- After all the encounters with Pokémon trainers, Grace was defeated by the sole girl who didn't want her life to be defined by those creatures and got everything that Grace herself wanted. Even she admits that she misjudged Chloe as a princess way out of her league.
- Lexi was told to sit out the literal trip down memory lane so his anger and spite against Grace wouldn't cause him to try to call her out over stuff people already know about. Once inside memory lane, this happens anyway... By Amelia, who was all about pragmatism and keeping the idea on the backburner to focus on more important things.
- Off with His Head!: Mark Kessler did it on himself with a giant pair of shears. Thankfully everyone watching the memory decide to skip the aftermath.
- The Reveal: There's a lot in this car.
- Romsca is the reincarnation of Ariana, Oleana's sister, who was devoured by the Demon of the Depths. This explains why Romsca is so happy to see Goh kill it once and for all.
- Horace with his St. Peregrine medal is killed by Mark Kessler, and Horace is reincarnated into Tomas. Mark Kessler becomes Ogami.
- Grace avoided becoming reincarnated by Ogami's means because she sold the metal butterfly in her bag for food in the Blinking Metropolis Car.
- Simon's soul is in the hands of Ogami.
- Amelia's beef with the Apex was born out of a desire to keep them around so she wouldn't have a reason to believe she was the worst.
- White Gestalt's plan to make the Apex see their tapes unintentionally made every single passenger on the Train at the time stuck in their own memory tapes.
- The Wisteria group learns how Mark Kessler developed his immortality...and how to end it once and for all.
- Selective Obliviousness: One of the things Amelia calld out Guide-Grace on before Hazel and Goh tell her to shut up is about the one time she slammed a sledgehammer against someone's eyes 'cause they "didn't see what she did". One problem, though; Grace wasn't the one responsible for that event, Simon was, making Amelia look like she's grasping at straws just to shit on Grace some more.
- Secretly Selfish: Amelia's desire to keep the Apex alive and not have them killed or disbanded earlier? Turns out, she was using them as scapegoats because she couldn't wrap her head around the idea that she was worse than them.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: A mild one, but Goh makes a point of leaving before he has to hear Lexi and Amelia's discussion about what she learned in Grace's memories.
- Spanner in the Works: By selling the metal butterfly in her bag, Grace avoids being a pawn in Ogami's schemes and becomes Warbler the Music Note who helps Goh become a better person.
- Start of Darkness: We witness Mark Kessler's first kill and the beginnings of the Unsub.
- Tempting Fate: Trey and Troy doubt the chances of something unbelievable happening three times in a row, even with Ash leaving.
- The Television Talks Back: How Dr. Killjoy reveals himself.
- Wham Episode: Grace's backstory is witnessed in full and everything that we knew about the Pirate Car is put into a different light.
- Wham Line: From Ogami: "I think the Soul of Destruction Incarnate will be more than enough."
