As a Fridge page, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Fridge Brilliance:
- Dr. James Mantleray's opening monologue creates the narrative arc for the series: the unmarked historical event of an amoeba and a bacterium co-operating is what sparks the emergence of all life on Earth. Similarly, we see the newfound potential for stories and opportunities opening up by some intensely lonely and traumatised people — Annie and Owen/James and Azumi — co-operating together. Thus, the monologue is also the end coda to the series in its mid-credits scene.
- Why does Owen hate Balderdash? Per series creator Cary Joji Fukunaga, it's because the game rewards lying, and Owen hates lying. As Owen puts it, Balderdash is bullshit. (Bullshit is bad.)
- When Robert introduces the trial to the test subjects, he points notably at Owen and says "You don't fuck this up, I won't fuck this up!". He has no idea how disturbing this must be to Owen, who had just the day before hallucinated his imaginary brother Grimsson, also telling him "Don't fuck this up" regarding his "secret mission".
- Annie is seen thumbing through a copy of Don Quixote in her earliest appearances. It's a thematically appropriate book that becomes significant as the show goes on: episode 2 is titled "Windmills", referencing the most popular image of the titular "Knight" charging his horse at "Giants" who turn out to be windmills, and episode 5, "Exactly Like You", centres around a Macguffin in the form of the 'lost chapter' of Quixote that Cervantes never published. However, there's more subtle connections:
- A major component of Cervantes' novels is how Alonso Quijano's community, particularly his next-door neighbour Sancho Panza, begin to play along with his madness in order to shepherd him to safety. Sancho becomes Quixote's squire, and other friends and neighbours take on fanciful identities such as "Knight of the White Moon". Annie herself unconsciously plays into this methodology when Owen asks her for instructions, playing along in order to keep him from blowing her cover.
- This informs her journey through the rest of the series — "Windmills" demonstrates that her refusal to play along with Ellie's ideas for a fun trip together is what got Ellie killed, and Annie 'buying in' to the fantasies that she and Owen go through is what helps her navigate them. The show then ends with them going on a Quixote-like journey, in a rickety vehicle (analogous to Quixote's fleabitten horse Rocinante) and pursued by people who'd prefer Owen/Alonso be kept under lock and key.
- Notably, during his sexual harassment trial, we see in CCTV footage that Jed (Owen's brother and nemesis) followed up his non-consensual sex act by strutting with his arms straight out to the side — not unlike a windmill...
- Another recurring trope of Quixote is a subversion of the Damsel in Distress — Quixote can't help but run to save any woman he meets from a potential villain, only to find that this is not necessary. Similarly, in all of their fantasies, shared or solitary, Annie is far from hapless and Owen is barely able to protect anyone.
- Annie's addiction to the "A" pills is demonstrated in her hallucinating a row of A's forming a much bigger letter "A" in the train timetables at the station — silently implying the idea of a stutter, or a repressed scream.
- During many shots in Robert Muramoto's office, a photo of his son Calvin can be seen. We don't get much detail of Robert's relationship to his son, but it can't be good if Calvin is scamming experimental drugs from Robert's high-stakes trial.
- The photo serves as a subconscious reminder of how Annie contacted Calvin through a chess game — and how Robert himself is playing a high-stakes chess game, of a sort, with both her and Owen. The netsuke on his desk are also reminiscent of chess pieces, as well as resembling a father and son figure.
- Not to mention the angry, bullying way Robert forces Owen to take the 'A' pill might be reflective of the way he raised Calvin, indicating that there's a good reason there's no love lost between them.
- When James and Azumi go to get in their cars at the end of the story, their respective vehicles — bizarrely — are exactly the same as those which appeared in Owen and Annie's dreams, perhaps implying that they were more than dreams.
- In episode 2, "Windmills", Robert quotes "The Angel", a poem by William Blake
, to GRTA. The poem's narrator dreams of a visit from a guardian angel who offers comfort and companionship, which the fear-laden narrator rejects ("[I] hid from him my heart's delight"). When the angel returns, the narrator has created an army out of her fears (not unlike defence mechanisms), and it is too late to save her, as she has grown old in fear. This analogy can apply to both Annie, the episode's focus, and her sister; or to Owen and his imaginary brother Grimsson. - Gimlet cocktails play a role in Owen's backstory and his dream sequences. Merriam-Webster defines the phrase "Gimlet-Eyed": sharp-sighted, from the word 'gimlet', a small drill used to make holes in wood.
- Owen's arc is drawn around his powers of observation, both in terms of his trial testimony and his ability to distinguish fact from fiction;
- In the second episode, Owen is pointedly served a Gimlet right before his elder brother launches into a cringey rendition of Sting's Every Breath You Take (i.e. "I'll be watching you");
- A later episode is titled "Ceci n'est pas un drill", and features a version of his father who executes people with a power drill;
- A synonym of Gimlet-Eyed is "Hawk-Eyed".
- Azumi's mug says "I can read your mind, and you should be ashamed of yourself". A fun little joke around the office, except that her job is literally to read people's minds and find out what they're ashamed of.
Fridge Horror:
- Annie puts all blame on the truck driver (that's when her score during the proximity test stops going up, indicating that that is not totally honest). She unconsciously likely feels guilt of not having watched the road herself. This is her largest problem, but apparently is never addressed.
- Maybe this incompleteness of the treatment has to do with the fact that she circumvented the entry test. Or with her abuse of the pills prior to the study. Muramoto (who "studied" the consequences of abusing the pills) is about to kick her out for that, but she manipulates the paperwork.
- Muramoto's son says that when he stole the pills, Muramoto had a mini-stroke. Muramoto later dies in similar circumstances: Annie denies abusing the pills, but she glances at his son's photo, and Muramoto understands and tries to warn her.
