There seem to be multiple agendas in collision here. I think the "Delaying Tactic" was about Caitlyn and Hitomi keeping Adrian busy while Danielle was brainwashing students at the clinic. Caitlyn roped her into that and I don't think Adrian knew.
That is what I was thinking when we got the Delaying Tactic title. And we
have been given the impression, I think, that Dani's processing of Amaltheia is significant.
But on the other hand, having decided independently to stop off at Caitlyn's on his way home, Adrian's justification for staying was that Dani was running late anyway. And it appears that Dani
was running late, although not late enough to miss her only appointment. That didn't appear to be a ruse (she didn't need to pretend to Amy). So if he'd just gone home, we've no reason to think that he would have questioned Dani turning up late. And after all, he has correctly assessed that Dani is probably home by now.
So the apparent deliberate delaying of Adrian doesn't appear to have been at all necessary from the point of view of the Doctor Dani plan, but it has become significant because of the emergence of the BE perfume. So I had pretty much come to the conclusion that they were simply delaying him for purely selfish reasons. After all, it seems as though everyone else who might do something about this is being delayed.
The unknown card here of course is Astrid. The whole Doctor Dani plan was her idea. Maybe
she does know why Adrian needed to be delayed this evening.
I don't see how you return to the status quo ante after that.
I'm not a fan of the removing-every-thought-from-your-mind thing in the first place. But the most annoying thing about it is that it generally just gets miraculously reversed, which is understandable because where else do you go from there? But I'd generally rather we just didn't go there in the first place.