Operation Urðr - Steins;Gate Re-watch - Episode 19

This is one of the darkest episodes of the series, both literally and figuratively, and it lets us know that form the start. Okabe is clearly reaching some sort of breaking point: his mood is so gloomy everyone in the room can feel it and even when talking to Kurisu for help he can't avoid being frustrated at the amount of times he's had to repeat himself to her.

The encounter with Moeka is in my opinion a particularly interesting moment. Ever since Mayuri's first death, both us and Okabe have seen Moeka as nothing more than a killer and a traitor. She is in a way the culprit behind all we've been through these last episodes. However, as soon as we first meet her again she has the clear appearance of a victim.

In spite of this Okabe, who has always been a rather nice and empathetic person, acts unlike himself and resorts to aggression to retrieve her phone. At this moment we're seeing that he isn't just filled with grief, there is also a lot of pent up anger in there that he had never revealed before, and his repeated failures at getting this d-mail to work only make it worse.

Then at the darkest moment of the whole episode we see just how terrible Okabe is being - even if it is for the sake of saving Mayuri - and how terribly broken Moeka is: she submits and begs for her phone, offering to do anything in way that clearly alludes to sexual abuse. No matter how much of a villain she might have seemed like before, she is the greatest of victims at this point.

Okabe's empathy has been catching up, but he's still ruthless and forces Moeka to face the hard truth of her abandonment by FB. Still determined to save change the world against all odds, he decides he'll have to find FB. Surprisingly, Moeka decides to help him. I can never tell if she made this choice because she wants to find FB to quell her fears or perhaps because Okabe's extreme determination to change things motivated her to fight a little for change herself. Whatever it was, Okabe somehow helped her move away from suicide, but that does not change the fact that for a moment there he almost lost himself in anger.

/r/steinsgate Thread