Did Clarence ever know who Robocop was?

I think Clarence put 2 and 2 together when RoboCop/Murphy confronted him at the steel mill during the climax (when RoboCop/Murphy tells him he no longer intends to arrest him, that is when Clarence remembers and realises he is a goner).

Good point. It makes sense that Emil would tell the gang about RoboCop's identity. Boddicker doesn't seem to recognize Murphy but I think he must've known.

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I don't really see it as conjecture so much as the writer being clever and not overburdening his script with redundancies. For example, not having TWO "It's YOU... I know you... We killed you!"scenes. From a structural standpoint, it would be superfluous to have yet another sequence like that. Robo discovers who he was, and then 1 of his killers recognizes him. Done deal, everyone knows 'who's who'. You're kind of meant to infer the rest of the gang knows who Robo is once Emil survives and rejoins them. He has that information, why would he not share that with them? Especially since they're literally about to go battle Robo at the steel mill? Ironically, I'd argue that you'd actually need an additional expository scene and another subplot just to explain what reason Emil could possibly have for NOT bringing it up. I find it an easy assumption to make. The fact that there's no line of dialogue hitting the nail on the head doesn't mean the inferences aren't there-- I think it's set up very logically.

To your point of Boddicker not necessarily recognizing Murphy's face-- Maybe he didn't, but if your argument is that "hes killed too many people to remember", then why does Emil recognize him? Emil would have forgotten him just as easily, based on that logic. And hell, Emil recognizes Robo without even seeing his face, just going by a single catchphrase and his voice-- you telling me Emil, a dumb grunt in Clarence's outfit was able to put that together, but Clarence, the brains of the operation, couldn't recognize Murphy seeing him full on, face and all? C'mon... now that, I feel, is a leap in logic.

Again, I think it's interesting to question the idea that maybe Clarence didn't recognize him, but all the signs point to yes, and in truth, it would take more coincidences to explain him NOT recognizing him. Best example I can give you, to sum up my point: Random scene, man goes grocery shopping. Shot of him staring at a Keurig coffee maker, licking his lips. Cut immediately to the next scene-- he's home, savoring and sipping from a fresh cup of hot coffee. Can we assume he made the coffee himself? Yes. Is it also possible his wife came home and made it for him instead between scenes? Also yes, but far less likely. While we don't see him actually make the cup, we can assume he did, based on the inferences.

All this said, I'd be VERY interested in finding out Ed Neumeier's take on it.

I'm with the "Emil would have told him" crew on this.

Robocop's a world famous technological first, and then Emil realises that he is the guy they killed weeks/months previously. Then Robocop almost kills Emil and imprisons him. At some point offscreen, Emil gets out of prison, possibly with Clarence's help. The fact that this new, famous, supposedly invincible supercop who has been cramping their operations and who they now have orders to go and destroy is also a guy they already killed is probably one of those details he would mention.

Also, in an off screen conversation after Jones tells Bodicker OCP practically is the military, I would imagine Clarence might ask, "so, is there anything else we need to know?" to which Jones may well (if he knows this fact) reply "Oh yeah! You already killed him a few months ago! He might be a tad annoyed about it."

That's the reading of it I take, and I take Clarence's "taking this kinda personal" line as very pointed.


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Clarence given all the cops he has killed and his Sociopath/Psychopath psyche he would have blanked out on anything about Murphy. Psychopaths can not understand peoples facial expressions the same way as a non Psychopaths. An angry face means little to them and a scared face and so on. they can recognize an individual on their facial traits; other people they have ties to.

Clarence after his car wreck at the Steel Mill he must have got a case of amnesia but he still walked away unscathed and unloaded on Lewis. He might have made the sick joke in reference to Murphy at Robocop. Could be out of coincidence or confusion.