Things get even deadlier on the set of Deadly Velvet when someone turns up, you guessed it, dead.
The episode provides examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Malory asks if the Turing Test is something from Star War [sic].
- Ambiguous Ending: The story behind the fake Veronica Deane from the first episode of the season and why she wanted the Longwater disc is never fully explained. Somewhat averted, though, as Veronica, while explaining her motive, hints that another party found out about her and Ellis' plan and was trying to blackmail them.
- Batman Gambit: Archer uses his cyborg copy that Krieger made in order to prove Veronica’s guilt of murdering Ellis Crane, at the cost of her shooting him.
- Bittersweet Ending/Downer Ending: Archer manages to use his bionic doppelganger to freeze Veronica's assets and she will most likely be hunted down and arrested, but Archer had to let himself get shot first in order for the robot to record her confession.
- Book Ends: The start of the season shows Archer in the pool with gunshot wounds and presumably dead. This season finale reveals how that came to be.
- Butt-Monkey: Cyril's own robotic double is mistreated by Archer's robotic double by getting a fart in his stasis chamber.
- Disappointed by the Motive: Archer, being Archer, is more than a little disappointed to learn that Longwater was just a series of insurance scams rather than something sexual or outrageous. Considering the complexity of it all and the sheer amount of money the scheme would have made her, Veronica is incredulous of his reaction.
- Heroic Sacrifice: In order to prove Veronica's guilt and get his companions off of suspicion of murder, Archer lets himself get shot in order for his robot double to record Veronica's confession.
- Insane Troll Logic: Archer used a Krieger bot in his own image to expose Veronica's plot. However, it boggles the mind that he was the one shot first and end up in the pool before his double... though maybe it was because the android could record Veronica Deane's confessions of criminal activity... including literal murder just minutes prior.
- Insurance Fraud: Suspected by Cyril in the last episode, Veronica reveals that Longwater is a series of multiple insurance frauds. When Archer suspected it to be a sex tape, she responds that actually exists along with the disk.
- Manipulative Bitch: Veronica is revealed to be the murderer of Ellis Crane and goes to great lengths to ensure Lana takes the fall. This includes getting Shapiro to place Lana's fingerprints on the gun that shot Crane and establishing a time-based alibi with Archer.
- Moment Killer: What started as a possible marriage proposal at the end was interrupted with Archer going haywire, revealing him to be a robot.
- Red Herring Mole: Lana ends up being a victim of this, framed as a prime suspect of Crane's murder, no thanks to Cheryl, Archer, or Shapiro. She was previously arrested on stalking charges, and fighting Archer didn't help matters at all.
- Rejected Apology: The cops dropped the charges on Lana near the end of the episode. Because she suspected heavy implications of racial profiling even after news of another suspect came to light (Malory "killing" a Krieger Bot, and then Archer getting shot), she didn't accept their apology.
- The Reveal: And a surprisingly complex one. The Longwater case introduced and discussed heavily since the start of the season was actually an insurance scam. Both Veronica and Ellis were working together to sabotage the production of Deadly Velvet, as the amount of money put into making the film would have ultimately been double of what its expected box office revenue would be. So, they organized the accidents on the set in an effort to sabotage the film and collect the money. Ellis' murder was a retaliation on Veronica's part, as Ellis had earlier tried to have Veronica killed in one of the accidents so he could collect her share. As Cyril first suggests and Veronica later confirms, the scheme was far longer reaching, and comprised multiple other insurance scams. Stratton and Whitney, Archer's old schoolyard bullies, helped by manipulating stock markets to work in Veronica and Ellis' favor, and by the end of it all, Longwater would have produced millions of dollars.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: When Archer talks about Veronica fleeing to Mexico and mentions flinging coconuts at John Huston's house, Detective Harris says that he, like Archer, has always wanted to do that.
- Turing Test: Lampshaded and discussed throughout the episode with Krieger's androids. They actually work and act like normal human beings... until they try to understand, and fail, any concept of love, including Archer's double.Krieger: Woo! Suck it, Alan Turing!
