Mr. Robot: pyth0n-pt1.p7z + pyth0n-pt2.p7z Recap

Synopsis: Elliot and Angela make some unexpected new alliances, while Dom gets in over her head, and an old friend makes an appearance. Everything is more than it seems.

Mr. Robot‘s two-part season finale is a study in contrast. From lighting to sets to costumes and character motivations, everything is constantly flipping around. To great effect.

The two strangers who confronted Angela on the subway last week toss her in a minivan and take her to a disturbingly idyllic suburban home. There’s a tennis ball hanging in the garage for the van, nondescript furniture, and a wall of poorly-hung family photos – with all the faces blacked out. She keeps demanding to know what the hell is going on, and insisting that killing her is useless because she has copies of everything hidden away and powerful friends. They don’t say a word.

Instead, they lead her to a room that looks completely removed from the rest of the house. It’s dark and furnished with nothing but a large fish tank, and a desk that contains only a rotary phone, a Commodore 64, and a copy of Lolita. What follows is an Alice In Wonderland-esque sequence that by any standards, should be a dream, but isn’t. As far as we know.

A little girl who looks uncannily like Angela comes in, and asks Angela a series of bizarre questions. Questions like, “Have you ever cried during sex?” and “Are you a giraffe or a seagull?” And Angela must answer every question before the fish tank drains and the koi fish inside dies.

Later on, White Rose herself arrives, and tells Angela that all of this has been a test to see if she can be trusted. Rather than killing Angela for what she knows, White Rose deems her answers worthy, and recruits her into helping with her plan, saying that her mother and Elliot’s father died for an important reason. We don’t see the details of what makes her agree, only a scene where she goes to Antara’s house and severs all ties with her – and subsequently the Washington Township case. Curiouser and curiouser.

For Elliot’s part, he finally experiences what it’s like to be Mr. Robot. After engaging in an exercise meant to stimulate lucid dreaming, Elliot manages to “switch places” with Mr. Robot; watching what he does and hearing what he thinks, without Mr. Robot realizing he’s there. For once, Elliot gets a peek into what’s been going on when Mr. Robot’s on his own.

He watches Mr. Robot find a takeout menu covered in numbers. It’s a complex code that ultimately unveils a phone number, telling him to get in a cab that’s waiting outside. Elliot gets in the cab, and is shortly joined by none other than Tyrell Wellick, who is apparently not dead after all.

He seems very familiar and affectionate with Elliot, and takes him to a warehouse where “Stage 2” of their mysterious plan with the Dark Army is going to kick off. Tyrell doesn’t understand why Elliot – to whom all of this is brand new information – is flipping his lid.

This is what Mr. Robot has been doing when Elliot was unaware – but Tyrell doesn’t know the difference. Elliot insists that all of this – whatever “this” is – is wrong. He argues with Mr. Robot, demanding to know why he’s doing any of this in the first place. Mr. Robot doesn’t have an answer, but Tyrell is not pleased with Elliot’s state of mind.

Elliot tries to shut the whole thing down, and Tyrell threatens to shoot him. He claims the last thing he wants is to hurt Elliot  – they’re partners, they were supposed to be gods together – but he will if Elliot doesn’t stop, because it’s too important. Watching both Tyrell and Mr. Robot standing side by side trying to stop him, Elliot becomes convinced that Tyrell isn’t real, either.

There was even a scene in the cab, where Elliot demands that the driver tell him whether or not he can see Tyrell, but between Elliot’s yelling, Tyrell’s yelling, and the terrified driver’s limited English, Elliot never gets a straight answer. Now, Elliot claims that Tyrell was never real to begin with, and thus can’t shoot him. He goes back to stopping the hack… and Tyrell shoots him, apparently alive and real after all.

Elliot collapses, and in a shocking twist, Tyrell calls Angela. Who is not surprised to hear from him. She calmly tells him to take care of Elliot until she gets there, because she should be the first one he sees when he wakes up. Tyrell says that he loves Elliot. Angela says that she does, too.

Darlene, meanwhile, is having a rougher time of it than anybody. After the shootout in the restaurant the day before, she’s now in FBI custody and being interrogated by Dom and Santiago. It would appear that Cisco died in the firefight, and Darlene is hedging her bets trying not to expose her involvement with fsociety. Frustrated at her lack of cooperation, but sympathetic for her plight and admiring of her intelligence, Dom takes her to the back room of the office and shows her; they knew absolutely everything.

They’ve known all along. Every single member of fsociety and their rank. Every member of the Dark Army, and even Allsafe. With Elliot and Tyrell smack in the middle. The only thing Darlene has to say is: “you’ve gotta be f*cking kidding me.”

As for next season, well. Elliot didn’t manage to stop Tyrell and Mr. Robot’s plan, Joanna convinced her boyfriend Derek to retroactively implicate Scott Knowles for the murder of his wife, Darlene is still in FBI custody, and Angela it seems, has joined the other side.