: It follows a seemingly ordinary man, Tommy Peterson, as he descends into a spiral of paranoia fueled by right-wing media and Stormfront's xenophobic rhetoric.

: Misinterpreting a "glimmer" in a local grocery clerk's eye as a sign of a "supe terrorist," Tommy shoots the innocent man point-blank.

The title's nod to the nursery rhyme "Rub-a-dub-dub" highlights the theme of formative influences—specifically the "makers" who built the monsters we see on screen.

The episode's cold open is widely considered one of the most chilling sequences in the series.