Possibly crack and definitely cliche, but I’m seeing a lot of complaints about the beginning and the end of the episode - i.e., where did Prompto get the new clothes at the beginning? How did he go from snowmobiling off to meet his friends at the end, to being chained up in Zegnautus? You could explain the beginning as, Prompto just had cold weather gear on him - the boys do keep several changes of clothes, though why he’d’ve brought cold-weather gear with a tactical harness to his friend’s wedding is a mystery. And the ending as, Ardyn (re-)captured him offscreen after Prompto drove away, once Aranea was safely out of sight.

Or….

The whole thing was a dream/vision inside Prompto’s head, and he was chained up in Zegnautus the whole time.

Cracky and cliche, I know, right?

But Pryna shows up in the episode, guiding Prompto around for a bit, despite having died weeks earlier in Altissia (yes I know she’s a messenger, but we don’t see this kind of ghost/spirit/whatever at any other point). Plus, there are several dream-like sequences throughout the episode, especially the one where “Noctis” attacks Prompto. And Aranea’s presence is more than a little curious - according to Noctis’s discussion with her in Tenebrae, she should be off getting refugees to safety, not running around the tundra conveniently dropping iron giants through ceilings in Imperial research facilities.

It’d certainly explain the fuzzy beginning and ending, as well as why Prompto was wearing different clothes during the episode proper than what he fell off the train and was rescued in. And it would also explain Pryna and Aranea’s canon-questionable presence.

So then, if it was a dream/vision, who sent it to Prompto? Most likely Ardyn, trying to break Prompto before Noctis could rescue him. But someone - Luna? Gentiana/Shiva? Another of the Astrals, determined to make sure the Chosen King has all three of his companions by his side? - interferes with Ardyn’s vision enough to insert Pryna and Aranea, giving Prompto a chance to save himself. Or perhaps Ardyn inserted Aranea himself, since he does want Noctis to ascend the throne, and Noct can’t do that without his retainers. Which would mean, in Ardyn’s eyes, that Prompto needed a kick in the pants - as Aranea says near the end, “The boy becomes a man.” Pryna would’ve been from Prompto himself, in that case, his subconscious guiding him to where he needed to be.

Either way, though, the idea that the whole thing was a vision crafted by Ardyn to either break or forge Prompto is more fitting than I expected it to be, and now I kinda think it’s going to be my headcanon.