Oregairu 1.3

Now that the group dynamic is settling in (Hachiman, Yukino, and Yui, occasionally visited by help-seeking outsiders), the trio will start to change. And in this episode, most of that change has one source: Yui. She's the one who bridges the gap between Hachiman and Yukino, referring to their mutual inside jokes (a bit of an odd way of describing their vicious banter, but Hachiman does not object. After all, Yukino is the only real social interaction he has at school), she is the one who brings Saika to the clubroom, she is the one who initially helps Hachiman in the tennis match, and when she's incapacitated, she's the one who fetches Yukino to help finish the job - in addition to unleashing the latter's humorous, competitive fury. 

The banter between Hachiman and Yukino is always well-done, always funny, but it does more than amuse - it reveals. Yukino's experience with jealous competition (the passive-aggressive, envy-inspired female sort, primarily) has taught her that rivals, when they team up to take another down, generally confine themselves to sabotaging that person, pulling them down; not by making themselves more excellent human beings and surpassing them that way. Now I'm not a girl, nor do I have much experience in that sort of catfight, but everything I've heard about the way girls are nasty to each other in competition just got elegantly, if bitterly, distilled by the Ice Queen. Pure, if brutal, social enlightenment.

Yukino has been consistently revealed as extremely competitive. She possesses an intense desire for victory, which even leads her into voicing sentiments of camaraderie with Hachiman during the tennis match - and in the hearing of others, no less. Granted, she would have endless dirt to throw on him if they lost (e.g. "You made me lie. Disgusting"), but I still can't imagine her putting any confidence in another in the pilot. Her expression of confidence is likely to increasingly win Hachiman's respect ("I may spew insults and gaffes, but never once have I spewed a lie"), though squaring her identity on  avoiding a ubiquitous vice is a bad idea. If she ever does lie to Hachiman, he won't take it well. 

Further, Yukino is - or used to be - solitary as an oyster, as her opening frame suggested. But that is beginning to change, now that Yui's here. It is Yui who first calls Yukino a friend, which surprises - even shocks - the latter (although Yui doesn't think anything of it, or if she does, does not indicate it), who is so flustered she can't even repeat it yet. Yui is almost certainly going to be the one who gets Yukino and Hachiman to make interior progress.

Speaking of Yui, her letter of intent is adorable. I have seen girls do exactly that before, and it's (surprise) hilarious, mostly because it would never occur to me to do that in a thousand years. Heart of gold.

Hayama's character is also getting more fleshed out, and his identity as a nice guy seeking social reconciliation - "let's all get along" seems to be increasingly solid. Thus Hachiman and Yukino's resentment towards him (though to be honest, hers is more directed at Yumiko, who has much less to recommend), is strange. After all, he's smart (like them), attractive (like them), and has friends (not like them). They seem to resent his apparent superiority in precisely the same way they criticize the inferiors who resent their own superiority. Neither seem to be aware of this inconsistency.

Now that the initial dynamics of the trio have been fleshed out, both Hachiman and Yukino are depicted as having intelligent, if immature, highly articulate views of the world. Both see themselves as internally consistent, but both have been revealed as inconsistent in rather significant ways, and neither one recognizes it. The only one who is consistent like that is Yui, the airhead with the heart of gold. In a way, that's refreshing. Who would honestly expect an intelligent, bitter, and solitary 15-year-old to be completely consistent? The surest way to know more of who you are is to experience life with others, since they expose your flaws and the lies you tell yourself and other people. Neither Hachiman nor Yukino do this, so it is unsurprising that they exemplify many of the behaviors they condemn in other people.