" We're Apples To The Core! "

And after Mephone went away with 3GS, Fan ended up doing exactly what Mephone4 had done all those years back. Stepping up from being an enthusiast to being a host.

And then there's Fan's near death experience. It has some concerning parallels to Mephone's first death.

The cliff. The Meeple product that caused it all. Everything down to the inclusion of Bot as a parallel to Bow, both hurt from their prior experiences.

The recurring electrocution in the water.

You can even draw interesting conclusions as to how this suggests that Poppy is the stand-in for the suitcase, a prize or treasure being sought after? Either way, they're set up to be eerily similar.

Now - Let's look at Fan's dream:

"I see you were a fan too."

I've wondered about this screen, and exactly what its supposed to represent. First guess would have been that It's Inanimate Insanity, but Fan doesn't talk about it like they're watching II, but later lines make more sense if that was the case. With the fact that he uses the pronoun 'this' instead of 'the', it sounds more likely to be an unrelated show. Its possible that the mystery screen is meant to represent whatever shows either of them we're interested in, both II and whatever Mephone enjoyed simultaneously. That still brings up two equally concerning possibilities:

Either Mephone is here sitting in Fan's shoes, or Fan remembers a show we know only Mephone has actually seen.

Either way, there's a connection being drawn here.

This whole scene is even more confusing but there's some stuff to pick out here.

First is that when Mephone questions him on the use of 'were', Fan automatically assumes that he was asking why Mephone isn't a fan anymore, as opposed to assuming hes scared something might have happened to him.

Fan saying "You were a fan too" would make sense in the context of him not knowing Mephone anymore after the events of season 2, but it's immedietely made strange by the fact that he backs up this claim by saying that the show he was watching got worse over time when pushed. That, and Fan seems to just know that Mephone isn't a fan of this show anymore. Mephone's reaction immedietely after is even more jarring.

Somehow, this causes him to genuinely fear that something happened to him. Whether you think that it was the past tense usage alone or fan's small explanation that sets him off, this is still an either an incredibly irrational conclusion to get to considering Mephone's perspective of this conversation.

Fan immedietely catches onto this and reassures him that they stopped him. Cobs name is not said, but its implied.

Him accusing Fan here is even weirder. We can definetely say that Fan has to feel some sort of guilt with what happened to Mephone for this to come up in his dream. You could also say this connects back to Fan's insecurities and conflicting feelings towards the show, especially now that hes in charge of it.

I think theres a 2nd interpretation you could see in all of this, that Mephone is Fan and 'him' is referring to Mephone4 himself. 'You stopped me, so where am I? What did you do?' Admittedly thats a stretch but I think its worth considering.

And in the final scene, Mephone seems to do a sudden 180 on him. Leaving Fan with the same problem that he had to go through. That Meeple was coming for him. That he had to leave. That Fan had to run away from it all.

And Fan falls down.

And whats the first thing he does when he wakes up? When he leaves this dream and falls out of the building window? Pretend to have lost his memories.

After that, he seems to unknowingly take what Mephone told him to heart, too. In the hospital, he panicks and says that they are coming for them, that everyone needs to run away and get off of the island. He ends up making that specific person a little clearer afterwards, sure, but the unspoken threat here is Meeple. And even when he is asked what makes him so sure of that threat, all he can say is that its just a feeling.

And thats a paranoia we've only quite seen in one other person before.

Another minor thing in this episode that I want to mention is the fact that when Fan opens his phone, it opens on II episode 1, but specifically the scene in which Mephone first introduces himself to the audience. What an interesting choice for the first episode of this season we see him again.

Overall, I think this show is going to play a lot with the idea of Fan going from being a fan to being a host, and in that same way, paralleling Mephone's journey along the way. Like some sort of... how did Cammy put it, ...a second coming of him?