The Agent of Year Zero

"Year Zero" in the title refers to an idea put into practice by Pol Pot in Democratic Kampuchea that all culture and traditions within a society must be completely destroyed or discarded and that a new revolutionary culture must replace it starting from scratch. In this sense, all of the history of a nation or a people before Year Zero would be largely deemed irrelevant, because it would ideally be purged and replaced from the ground up. Year Zero was effectually an attempt by the Khmer Rouge to erase history and reset Cambodian society to a zeroth year, removing any vestiges of the past. The new rulers of Cambodia called 1975 "Year Zero". So-called New People - members of the old governments and intellectuals in general, including lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers, clergy, and qualified professionals in all fields - were thought to be a threat to the new regime and were therefore especially singled out and executed during the purges accompanying Year Zero.

About 8 minutes into the episode there is a meeting scene between Mr. Lyle and Ki Mok where Mok rips the glove off Lyle's thumb-less hand. We see the thumb stump at that moment, but in every other shot until Lyle puts the glove back on, we see his thumb "tucked" into his hand.