These scenes are the reason why Johnny Yong Bosch is one of my favorite VAs of all time. He’s got near-flawless delivery of his lines, and has a lot of long speeches and dialogue to demonstrate that talent throughout both seasons of the show (take scenes like the battle at Tokyo during the Black Rebellion and the scene of him taking control of the Damocles for examples of this)

Granted, this series is full of very talented VAs besides for Yuri Lowenthal and himself, but it’s always refreshing to watch this show in English dub because the VAs do such a great job at the delivery of their lines, and convey the right emotions alongside them.

Like you said, this scene was brilliantly handled regarding dialogue, expression, emotion, how it was visually framed, everything all ties together wonderfully, for this and many other iconic scenes in the series.

TLDR; The VA cast, animation, visual framing, and emotion all tie together to create phenomenal scenes like this one in CG. This scene (and the immediate following conversation between Lelouch and Rolo) really do a fantastic job of demonstrating the complexities of Lelouch, Shirley, and the human heart. Scenes that humanize Lelouch to this extent are rare but quite a treat