Tropes
- Ambiguous Situation: The closing shot is Elliot glancing at the popcorn machine where Darlene's gun is hidden as Tyrell confronts him in the arcade. Do the math. However, nothing else is shown about what happened next... until season three. Season two practically relishes in this plot point, but finally throws us a long-awaited bone when Tyrell is revealed to be alive at the very least.
- Big "NO!": Elliot lets out a few of these once he begins to realize that Mr. Robot never truly existed and that his father is still dead.
- Chekhov's Gun: The gun that Darlene hid in the popcorn machine at the arcade. Elliot leers at it briefly before the episode ends, heavily implying that he plans to shoot Tyrell. He doesn't; Mr. Robot instead makes the choice, but the gun jams.
- Chemically-Induced Insanity: Subverted. Mr. Robot states that the medications prescribed to Elliot by Krista are responsible for his psychogenic amnesia. This turns out to be a big, fat lie that Mr. Robot uses to keep Elliot on track.
- Drama Bomb: The implication that Mr. Robot is Elliot's father in the flesh is actually child's play compared to what we learn in this episode.
- Ironic Birthday: Elliot's father was born on the ninth of May: the same day that the hack is launched.
- Lonely Piano Piece: Maxence Cyrin's cover of Pixies' "Where Is My Mind?", which plays as Elliot leads Tyrell into the arcade. While not exactly a melancholy moment, it nonetheless reflects Elliot's fractured emotional state at this juncture.
- Reluctant Psycho: Elliot is quite disturbed by his identity crisis, lamenting that he can no longer discern reality from illusion since he not only hallucinated Mr. Robot as a separate person, but that he himself has been Mr. Robot the whole time, and that he somehow forgot about his own sister in the interim.
- Unreliable Narrator: Because Elliot is Mr. Robot, the injuries he sustained after falling out of his old bedroom window appear only after the aforementioned revelation is brought to light. Darlene ultimately has to point this out to him:Darlene: Elliot... you're bleeding.
- Wham Line: "Elliot, who are you talking to?"
