The one who switches off

You only leave if somebody gives you theirs.

Synopsis

Whoever says somebody else's name out loud switches off, like an appliance, mid sentence, and the conversation carries on.

Plot

How to undo it is shown before it matters: the one who is off is switched back on by the owner of that name saying it himself, and saying it switches him off. It is a trade, not a cure. What he wants, out loud before the forty eighth second: for somebody to tell him how you get out of here. The answer, which he learns at beat six, is what holds up the whole season.

Tag

After the credits, a secondary character from this episode, later and somewhere else.

The young cat, alone on the stairs at night, sits on a step in front of the neighbour's closed door. He knocks twice, then once, then twice again, and nothing knocks back. He does the whole knock again slower and puts his ear flat against the wood. On the wall beside it, covered floor to ceiling in marks, there is one new short mark under the last of them.

Trivia and continuity

The price is paid by the neighbour, who has not spoken for three years so as not to slip. She speaks once.