I thought nothing of the nurse scene. SAO as usual in my books. One could ask the question why neither Asuna nor Klein suffer from the guild-hunt trauma. Surely they would have taken some players down.

Real-life Sugu getting some screen-time was the only real energising thing that happened in this episode. If we're talking about avatars however, Scilica takes the cake with her fluffy ears.

I'm not aware of what kind of behaviours cause you to become friend-zoned besides being "nice" in general without being forceful. That is, you're not overtly friendly, but you're not silent/mysterious/hard-to-get either.

He's obviously insecure now that Sinon is moving on and changing without him. It's not exactly "Misery loves company", but something like that. His only friend may have found a better/another one. The biggest thing that made it unsightly was how he approached her a second time in GGO when he knows she's got a tournament right there. Of all the things that show he's more concerned about not letting her go than Sinon's actual well-being, that would be it. He mentioned this episode that he had some form of trauma as well. Trauma as in... SAO trauma? He doesn't fit the kind of character that'd be in Laughing Coffin. Could Death Gun even be some form of subconscious manifestation whenever someone logs in?

I explore this, but Death Gun having Sinon on his hit-list all but rules out this beta-guy.