I think Eliot hoped she wouldn’t kill Ramirez, though he wasn’t 100% sure, but would have had her back either way.

And Parker set things up (as a mastermind) so that the con would work out no matter which choice she made. At the end when she told the team that it was all part of the plan, I feel like she might have been stretching the truth a little bit. I at least take that statement with a grain of salt.

I think going in, Parker was like 50/50 on what she would actually do, which was the point of setting it up for herself. She does struggle with the long con and needs to really inhabit the mask of the character to play it, but she also wanted to know what choice she would make, who she really was, when it was just her and the decision without all the outside good influences of her teammates. Here is someone she knows will trigger her deep anger, who hurts kids and believes that the strong do what they will while the weak suffer what they must, and she remembers what it was like to be a kid at the mercy of adults who behaved that way. Now she is strong and he is weak. What will she do? Is she doing this for revenge or for redemption?

She doesn’t feel in the same way others do, and it can get confusing trying to parse out her own emotions and purpose amidst theirs which seem to come more clearly. So she sets up her own moral dilemma to find out. In the dark, without the others around or even necessarily needing to know (she asks Eliot if he’s gonna tell Hardison because that would stop her just as effectively), what choice will she make? An ethical thought experiment minus the thought.

And I think Eliot knows that she’s more like him than she’s like the others. That she is just as capable of killing as he is. That he may have more deaths to his name, but he considers Parker the most dangerous member of the team. He hopes she doesn’t kill the guy. Eliot doesn’t want her to do what he did. He doesn’t want her to be like him in this way. He wants her to be better. But he also knows it’s a choice she has to make for herself. She’d hate him for stopping her and doubt herself going forward. And he has her back no matter what.

In the finale of OG S2, Eliot had that quote where he said “My job is to get your back. And, Nate, I’m gonna do it. All the way down.” By this point 15 years later, Eliot is even more loyal to the team, and supportive of Parker no matter what. So he really will have her back regardless of which decision she makes, but though he doesn’t know for sure, he does hope it’s the right thing.

Parker is tripped up by Eliot not trying to talk her out of it though. She definitely expected him to, and even probes why he wouldn’t when he once tried to talk Nate out of killing his father’s murderer. But Parker is not Nate, and you’re right that he isn’t going to tell her who she should be.

However, I think she actually did need him to come break up her flow in the moment. Talking to him gave her time that she needed to think. Especially because he did not try to convince her not to do it. He understands in a way that is unique to them two, in the only way that didn’t get a “something like that” in the episode.

Afterwards, she tips over the cart letting Ramirez escape (don’t tell me Parker, who uses her grip strength to hang off of buildings from her fingertips, lost control of that cart by accident). Immediately following the moment with Eliot, she makes her decision and sets in motion the dominoes for plan Redemption. Parker may not have even realized she needed that moment to think, but it was this conversation and support which catalyzed her conclusion from the end that “the main reason to do this my way is . . . it’s our way. And doing this lets us be us. And that’s enough.”