Summary
Elisa tells Giles about Strickland's plans to kill the creature as Giles is on the way out of his apartment with an illustration in hand. Giles tries to dismiss her, but she won't let him go without hearing him out. She even gives him a little slap, which catches him off guard. Making Giles repeat out loud what she signs, Elisa tells him that the creatures doesn't know how she's different or what she lacks, that he just sees her for what she is. She feels an affinity with the creature, who also can not talk. She is sure that if she doesn't help him, he will die. Giles tries to write her off by saying the thing isn't even human, but Elisa tells her they aren't either if they don't help it. But Giles is a defeatist, and says that they can't do anything, and that he never wants to talk about the creature again.
Giles goes to meet his former boss to show him the updated Jello illustration. But the boss meets him out in the rainy promenade of an office park, and tells him it's not a good time, not even inviting Giles inside. To deal with his rejection, Giles goes to the pie shop, where he shows his illustration to the clerk he likes to flirt with and, after the clerk shows enthusiasm, hits on him. In a snap of homophobia, the clerk is disgusted. Right then, a black couple walks in and the clerk denies them service, telling them all the seating is taken even though the restaurant is clearly empty. Giles says the clerk shouldn't treat them like that, and the clerk tells Giles he should leave and not come back, since this is a family restaurant. Giles returns home and knocks on Elisa's and says that she's all he has, and that he'll help her. They embrace.
Hoffstetler meets with his Russian contact in the restaurant. The contact tells him that the directorate will not approve the plan to extract the creature, and that Hoffstetler should instead kill the creature preemptively before the Americans can perform their procedure. He gives Hoffstetler an explosive that will disable all of the electrical systems in the facility for 10 minutes and a serum that he can inject into the creature to kill it. Hoffstetler expresses his disappointment, saying he came to America both as a Russian patriot and as a scientist seeking to learn. We can tell by the way that the muscular man lurks behind Hoffstetler that he's putting himself in hot water with these remarks.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Strickland is at a Cadillac dealership and gets sweet–talked into buying one. He looks disgusted by the salesman, but buys the exact car the salesman is pushing on him nonetheless. With another ironic juxtaposition, we see Giles painting the side of a van to look like a laundry truck. Strickland drives the Cadillac to the lab facility, where a hapless Fleming tries to compliment Strickland on the car. He gets a cold rebuke instead. While this is happening, Elisa is plotting an escape route from the room where the creature is raised to the loading bay, and Zelda seems to catch wind of the fact that something is up.
At Giles' apartment, Elisa catches Giles up on the timing of heist, and Giles nervously demonstrates a couple of outfits that he could wear for his role as the laundry truck driver. Ever the artist, Giles shows Elisa the forged identification card that he's made. He's proud of the fact that Elisa isn't afraid, but when Elisa informs him that she is, Giles gets even more nervous, saying he didn't need to hear that.
We get a creepy shot of Strickland watching Elisa clean over closed-circuit television. He intentionally spills a glass of water in his office and tells his secretary to call Elisa to clean it up. When Elisa is there, on the floor scrubbing, Strickland bends down and asks if she can't make any sounds or if she can squawk. He proceeds to tell her that he's turned on by her scars and muteness, and when he reaches to touch her face, Elisa bolts up and runs towards the door. On her way out, Strickland says he can make her squawk.
In the men's bathroom, Hoffstetler fills a syringe with the brown liquid his Russian contact gave him. Elisa, put off by Strickland's advance, hangs back in the women's locker room after work, and then starts sneaking around the facility to prepare it for the heist. She adjusts the security camera in the loading bay. While Hoffstetler is in Strickland's office pleading with him to not kill the creature—after a very demeaning episode when Strickland makes Hoffstetler go back outside and knock to enter his office—Hoffstetler notices the security camera moving. He goes down to the loading bay and sees that the camera has been adjusted. As Elisa is stuffing a laundry cart with towels, Zelda notices that Elisa has not clocked out yet. As the other women leave, Zelda hangs behind.
Analysis
Through Giles work as an advertising illustrator, we are shown a funny contrast between the image of the post-World War II status quo and its reality. Giles draws Norman Rockwell-style depictions of family life to show off the products being advertised, but he himself doesn't fit into that American ideal of what a family looks like. Instead of having a family, he lives alone as a closeted gay man and mainly enjoys the company of his next-door neighbor Elisa. In a way, his illustration getting rejected from the firm that contracted it sets the stage for Giles accepting Elisa's plea to help steal the creature away. A realization is spurred that if Giles wants that happy little picture of himself surrounded by people, he's going to have to include the people around him who he cares about.
The advertising and image-making motif reappears as Strickland is buying a Cadillac. The salesman at the dealership talks him into buying the premium version of the car in a color that Strickland doesn't even like very much by calling Strickland "the man of the future." It's interesting that the salesman doesn't stroke Strickland's ego by appealing to his financial success or masculinity, but instead makes Strickland believes that there's some better version of himself he can realize by purchasing the car.
When it's smashed just a couple of scenes later by Giles—who has made his own fraudulent image as a laundry truck driver—Strickland gets the ugly reminder that he's not a man of the future, but a man with a very difficult and complicated present. del Toro seems to be suggesting that these people in the early 1960s were trying to live up to images that were little more than delusions.
Yet we do see another post-WWII image-making apparatus affect lives and drive the plot line: television. Early on we get a sense of the characters' unease with television's power when Giles commands Elisa to change the channel so that he doesn't have to see footage of race riots. Elisa changes the channel to a musical and the pair share a whimsical moment tap dancing while sitting down. In that scene, television gives the characters the option of excluding parts of their reality that they find difficult while adopting the fantasies that fit their lives.
Elisa similarly manipulates the closed-circuit television in the laboratory facility, redirecting the security camera in the loading bay so that whoever is watching the feed won't see her smuggling the creature out in a laundry cart. But she doesn't go unnoticed. Hoffstetler, while sitting in Strickland's office trying to make his case for saving the creature's life, watches the direction of the security camera change while watching that television over Strickland's shoulder. This tips him off that something is going on, and when he finds Elisa preparing to help the creature escape, he knows exactly what she's up to. Thanks to a few seconds of television, Hoffstetler is able to align himself with Elisa, helping both the heist and the creature's survival outside of the facility.
