The Orville is undergoing a major overhaul. Even in the safety of port, however, there are tensions aboard the ship that threaten to cause a schism within the crew.
This episode provides examples of:
- Bait-and-Switch: After everyone on the table walked away from Isaac, Burke took a seat with him, apparently to comfort him. Instead, she reveals that her friend died during a Kaylon attack and she has the most hatred towards him.
- Boldly Coming: LaMarr has sex with a spiky alien and jokes that his hips are bleeding after the encounter.
- Call-Back: While talking to Ed and Kelly about the Orville's refit, John mentions the upgrades that they received on Moclus. After Isaac commits suicide, Claire tries to process her complicated feelings about him by revisiting their past interactions, including the time he brought her a banana and their first date in the simulator.
- Catapult Nightmare: Marcus sits up when he awakens from his dream about the battle.
- Costume Evolution:
- The crew's uniforms receive an update with the addition of dark-gray patches where the shoulder meets the chest.
- Mark Jackson's costume is completely overhauled with a more-detailed plating and tighter-fitting bodysuit beneath to make him seem more like an android rather than a man in a costume.
- Driven to Suicide: After seeing how so many people find his presence infuriating, Isaac comes to the conclusion that the best solution is for him to shut himself off completely.
- Easily Forgiven:
- Subverted for Isaac, as this episode reveals that a significant portion of the crew hate him for his part in the Kaylon attack on Earth.
- Toyed with for Markus. Ed says that there will be no official punishment for painting grafitti in the science lab, but it is clear that Ed is simply remanding him to whatever punishment Clair feels is appropriate.
- "Eureka!" Moment: While talking with his girlfriend about holding onto memories of those who have died, LaMarr realizes that Isaac likely has a protected backup memory core that may have survived his suicide. And like Archimedes, he is naked when he makes this revelation, but he does have the decency to put on a robe en route to engineering.
- Failsafe Failure: In this episode, we learn that Union escape pods have a manual launch mechanism in the event that the automated system fails. For reasons know only to Avis, this mechanism is on the outside of the pod, necessitating that someone must stay behind to launch the pod in this circumstance.
- Faking the Dead: To trick the Kaylon ship into leaving, Mercer has the entire torpedo complement loaded onto a shuttle and then detonated, making the Kaylon think the Orville destroyed itself trying to hide in the gas giant.
- Foreshadowing: Early in the episode, there's lots of Technobabble about Isaac's improvements to the quantum drive that improve the ship's speed. During the fight with the Kaylon ship, the Orville goes to quantum with the Kaylon following mere moments later. However, when the Orville comes out of quantum, it's nearly five seconds before the Kaylon ship comes out behind her. This suggests that Isaac's improvements have worked.
- Hostile Weather: The upper atmosphere of the gas giant has thunderstorms so intense the Orville will only last five minutes and the Kaylon don't even bother pursuing, having likely concluded as the crew does that the Orville would destroy itself by staying.
- Hyperspeed Ambush: The Kaylon ship drops out of quantum right on top of the Orville and fires with zero warning.
- Impossible Task: Burke tells Mercer that she'll help revive Isaac if he is able to bring back her best friend.
- It Only Works Once: Yaphit can't reboot Isaac as he did last time, as Isaac intentionally damaged himself in such a way that he could not be repaired, whereas the previous EM pulse that disabled him was far less precise.
- Mood Whiplash: After trying to patch things up with Marcus falls flat, Isaac dictates a log in the science lab explaining how to improve various ship systems, capping it by wishing the Finn family his best. Then he plugs himself into a device on the table and zaps himself dead.
- Mourning a Dead Robot: In spite of the crew's hatred of Isaac for his role in the Earth Conflict, his decision to commit suicide did lead to many, particularly the bridge crew, to struggle with the aftermath of his decision. Mercer struggles to reconcile Isaac's legacy in his eulogy and tries to find any possible solution to bring him back. LaMarr struggles with Isaac committing suicide to the point where he has to explain to his girlfriend that it doesn't sit well with him. Dr. Finn struggles the most given her physical relationship with him, initially trying to bury her feelings before reprogramming their first date in the simulator, then breaking down crying. Even Marcus, who explicitly told Isaac he wished he was dead, tearfully confesses to Burke that even though he meant what he said, he did not want Isaac to kill himself and blames himself for driving Isaac to do it.
- Never Give the Captain a Straight Answer: Talla calls Ed and Kelly to the astrophysics lab, saying that there's something they need to see. It's the graffiti calling Isaac a murderer. Potentially justified; being security chief, she would want to be cautious about detailing an incident without knowing where Ed and Kelly are and if there are others, potentially dissidents unhappy with Ed keeping Isaac aboard, listening nearby.
- Not Quite Dead: LaMarr has a "Eureka!" Moment and finds that there's a potential backup of Isaac's personality and memories that can be used to bring him back.
- Out of Focus: Bortus gets maybe two lines and mainly appears in the background, which is understandable given that the episode is focused on introducing new cast member Ensign Burke and showing the rising tensions caused by Isaac's continued presence.
- Parting-Words Regret: Isaac's suicide greatly devestated Dr. Finn, since she was still struggling to forgive him for his betrayal.
- Permission to Speak Freely: Ensign Burke asks Captain Mercer for permission to speak freely before laying out her issues with Isaac remaining on the Orville.
- Plot-Demanded Manual Mode: In the flashback of the destruction of the Quimby, Burke and Amanda try to use an escape pod, but the auto-launch sequence fails and it has to be manually jettisoned. After a bit of arguing, Amanda insists on doing it.
- Precision F-Strike: Marcus drops the show's first uncensored profanity in this episode, enabled by the move from network TV to Hulu.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Mercer demonstrates a lot of patience with Burke, letting her vent and hearing her out instead of snapping. When he finally does reach his limit, he uses it as an opportunity to urge Burke to demonstrate the best in humanity.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
- Marcs gives one to both Dr. Finn and Isaac when the latter attempts to apologize for his role in the Kaylon invasion, capped with saying he wish the robot was dead.
- After hearing Burke complaining of Isaac's presence one too many times, Mercer points out that everyone on the ship, including himself, lost friends and loved ones during the Kaylon attack and that she doesn't get to have a monopoly on grief and anger.
- Rejected Apology: Dr. Finn brings Isaac to apologize to Marcus: "I apologize for causing you distress." Marcus is, understandably, less than pleased with this apology, and gives both of them "The Reason You Suck" Speech and storms out after telling Isaac he wishes the robot were dead. He comes to regret what he said later on.
- Shout-Out:
- The episode's title refers to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, a novel by Philip K. Dick that was the basis for the Blade Runner film. In context, it appears to refer to Isaac's continuing efforts to better understand humanity.
- The strategy of diving into a gas giant to escape a superior pursuer previously appeared in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Starship Down",note which also used submarine metaphors like this episode.
- Isaac filing a standard report filled with recommendations for quality-of-life improvements before killing himself, just like a certain character in Les Misérables.
- Sink the Lifeboats: In Burke's flashback, the Kaylon shoot down the escape pods from her ship as they're being launched. Burke only narrowly avoids that fate thanks to the ship exploding and hiding her escape.
- Space Fighter: The Orville takes delivery of a Pteradon fighter. Gordon pilots it in a test flight, shooting down several drones guided by Burke. This introduces her ability to think in higher dimensions.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In the wake of the "Identity" two-parter, it seemed as if the crew simply re-accepted Isaac into the fold. This episode reveals that there was actually a lot of simmering anger that's starting to boil over. Marcus, meanwhile, is shown suffering from post-traumatic nightmares.
- Technobabble: A large amount of technobabble is used to explain the various upgrades made to the Orville during the refit. Among these is that "the quantum core stabilizers had a new inversion threshold of .986" and "dysonium flow rates have been increased by a factor of .28 over preexisting performance standards." The upshot of all this, apparently, is that the Orville is much faster at quantum speeds that it used to be and is also more stable with better shielding among other things.
- That's an Order!: After a Kaylon attack, Mercer orders Burke to go fix Isaac. She still refuses and is promptly relieved of duty.
- Very Special Episode: Much of the episode's focus is on the topic of suicide. Also explored is the topic of hatred and the healthiness or lack thereof of holding onto it.
- Wham Line: "Captain, Isaac commited suicide."
- With Due Respect: When Captain Mercer tells Ensign Burke that Isaac is their only link to the Kaylon, she replies that "with all due respect," she doesn't know what he thinks he's going to get out of Isaac that he hasn't already provided them.
