I have no idea how much thought went into the line “The white hat really doesn’t suit you, but I love the hair” but it feels SO calculated to hit Eliot exactly where it hurts.
If the first bit were subjective—“Not a fan of the white hat”—it’d be easy to dismiss as yeah, of course you’re not. If Moreau doesn’t like what you’re doing, that can only be a positive, especially if you’ve worked to be something other than what Moreau made you. There’s a kind of closure, even, in Moreau saying he personally doesn’t like Eliot’s choices—it suggests Eliot’s succeeded in changing himself such that he no longer has the qualities Moreau appreciated and that Eliot’s so ashamed of. It suggests Moreau no longer understands him.
But by presenting it as objective fact, Moreau does the complete opposite: he targets any sense of peace Eliot’s managed to find. It’s “That’s cute that you’re playing at being a decent person but you’re fundamentally built to do harm and you can’t change that no matter how much you pretend.” And he says this as he’s setting Eliot up to either die or be forced into causing the kind of bloodshed he’s been avoiding. “The white hat really doesn’t suit you, and either this is going to be the last thing you ever hear or you’re about to prove me right.”
And then the total reverse with “but I love the hair.” Obviously there’s been a significant change for Moreau to comment on it, but it’s only a step further to imagine that change was a direct reaction to leaving Moreau. Whether that reaction was Eliot’s attempt to further distance himself from the person he was with Moreau or to make himself less recognisable (or both), any practical or emotional security it gave him is taken away immediately by the knowledge that Moreau has seen it and assessed it and likes it. But while I think that would be true no matter how Moreau said it, the phrasing he uses creates an intimacy that wouldn’t be there if he was objective about it. “The hair looks good” is uncomfortable; “I love the hair” is skin-crawlingly personal. It treats what may be interpreted as Eliot trying to create distance between them as something for Moreau specifically to enjoy.
It’s such an offhand remark but it feels like the intended meaning is “I know you and understand you and what I think of you is always going to matter”, and I can’t think of a way to say it that would have allowed Moreau to more effectively plant that idea in Eliot’s head. He’s getting under Eliot’s skin right before trapping him in a situation where he stands little chance of surviving, but even less so if he’s off his game. Again, I have no idea if the writers were going for this but it demonstrates so neatly Moreau’s ability to casually manipulate people and it’s brilliant and it’s awful.
