Elliot’s journey into the dark web turns into a nightmare
The sleeper has awakened.
The dark knight rises again.
Elliot Alderson is hacking again, and damn, if it doesnt feel good.
Credit: Peter Kramer/USA Network
He talks us through it.Identify and target flaws.
Build malware and prepare an attack.
Create a reverse shell for a two-stage exploit.
Hell also control E Corp.s computer web connection, too.
I live for this sh-t, he says.
It might kill him, too.
You know who thinks thoughts like these?
Terrorists, megalomaniacal mad men, and comic book super-villains, thats who.
Believe me, I know…
I mean, Im just guessing.
Or in Elliots case, recovered power.
It usually comes right before learning the lesson that with great power comes great responsibility.
Before episodes end, Elliot will experience that, too.
The work reminds him of his first hack, the Washington Township Library.
Who did it hurt, prying into the checkout records of members, peeking at their literary tastes?
Just a ghost in the machine, haunting the thought life of his town.
He loses himself in his work.
Its just him and the computer in the dark of his mind.
The screen fragments into split screens, Elliot in one, the computer monitor in another.
The objectives: Keep Mr.
Robot boxed up and under control.
Stay narrowly focused on his private mission, saving Darlene and his fsociety friends.
Elliot doesnt want to know.
For now, he models the everyman strategy for living in moral compromise.Keep your head down.
Focus on the survival.
But he could also represent the content of that box, too.
Is he catastrophe or is he hope?
The lights go on.
Elliot is pulled out of his head.
Lonestar Rays thuggish partner, the brutal yin to his gracious yang looms next to the desk.
Elliots supposed to be repairing Rays busted website.
Elliot says something that may or may not be true.
He needs the previous system admin, Rat Tail, to transfer an encrypted database.
Ill talk to Ray, see whats what, fumes the goon, stomping away, trailing pout.
Elliot puts the no-peaky blinders back on and gets back to his clandestine labor.
Sam Esmails camera pulls back and frame starts to shrink toward the bottom of the screen.
NEXT: Was logic-b0mb.hc the bomb?
Boxed-up lives trapped in tight corners.
Performance versus authenticity, deception versus sincerity.
The thin line between heroism and selfishness.
Intimates as corrupting malware.
Moral conscience as logic bomb.
Agent Dom DiPerro and Whiterose, a.k.a.
Mr. Zhang, a.k.a.
Everyone tried to play hero in their own story.
Everyone risked becoming enmeshed in deep, dark webs of conspiracy and madness.
and a hail-of-bullets cliffhanger in China (prayers for Dom, just).
logic-b0mb.hc didnt fry my grid, but it was a solid jolt.
But the storytelling continued to suggest it.
Ray Heyworths computer password?
Elliots dining-room meetings with Darlene and Angela had a visitation-room vibe.
(Im beginning to wonder if were going to get some spookyPsycho-like reveal with her.)
Darlene sided with Ghost Dad.
and leveraged her with the revelation that Elliot had wiped away her tangential involvement in the Five/Nine.
And Darlene whose people skills are seriously degenerating had no problem making Angelafeellike crap.
Unspoken but palpable was the haughty counter-culture revolutionarys disdain for Angelas E Corp. sellout.
Angela didnt deserve her respect.
She deserved her judgment.
Angela wanted to squirm out of it.
(So many of Angelas pivot scenes have taken place at bars this season.
An interesting factoid about this one: it takes place on June 26, 2015.
Angela initiated the meeting lonely again, girl?
but he had his own agenda.
He tried to reminisce about old times, he tried to bond over shared grief.
(We know this theory is actually somewhat true, given Prices alliance with Whiterose.)
But then Ollie betrayed himself.
You think that CD had anything to do with it?
It was like indulging conspiracy thinking triggered an anxiety that subverted his masquerade, his own crisis performance.
Angela checked his phone and saw Ollie was recording their conversation.
The FBI had interrogated him multiple times.
He was certain he was being spied on or tailed.
- (At that moment, dark-suited men entered the bar.)
His lawyer convinced him to trust no one and prove his innocence, however possible.
Angela, pissed, dumped his phone in her Bud Light.
My contract was cleared after the hack!
I cant afford a new phone!
Poor, poor Ollie.
*Remember last week, Darlene learnedthe FBI was executing some kind of surveillance program, codename Berenstain.
It stood in stark contrast to what Angela got from Darlene and Ollie, fraudulent intimacy and anxious manipulation.
But she told Elliot she missed him and asked why he had routinely rejected her bids at reaching out.
- He explained that at their last meeting, she told him to take care of himself.
I wanted to be okay Elliot said.
I wanted to stop seeing him.
And… my dead fathers standing behind you right now.
Angela turned to look.Was she actually expecting to see something?
Regardless, I found that to be a rather sweet gesture.
Her next words were even sweeter.
I can be a friend.
Someone to talk to.
Who cares about you, she said.
Maybe that will help.
We all need companionship, care, and feeding.
We all need love, care, and feeding.
Just ask Fat Qwerty.
With that, Angela fell into the dark web of fsociety.
One more disorientation for a season of full of disorientation.
Can Angela be trusted?
Shes with Team Elliot today.
Will she be there tomorrow?
Joanna.Angela wasnt the only woman who had to deal with a buggy former workmate in this episode.
His conscience was getting the best of him.
He had lied to the FBI.
He was convinced they knew it.
He was also convinced they were following him, spying on him, tapping him.
He could hear the static on the phone, he could hear their voices ghosts in the machine.
Kareem couldnt handle that kind of haunt, that kind of heat.
He couldnt keep Joannas secrets anymore, couldnt keep accepting her hush money.
Especially for reasons his cracking mind couldnt fathom.
Who are we protecting?
Some scrawny kid in a hoodie?
He wanted out of her web.
NEXT: No problemo.
She, like Angela, wasnt going to let circumstances or flaky men subvert or rob her agency.
She flipped a switch inside her mind labeled Basic Humanity and executed a performance of reaching out.
She allowed her perturbed demeanor to soften.
She took his hand and said with a comforting smile, Thank you for sharing this with me.
I promise you, everything will be okay.
Joannas solution for Kareems existential misery was sicking Mr. Sutherland on him.
The assassin staged Kareems body, then shot his helpless victim in the chest and head.
Talk about crisis performance.
All of this was done at the very specific direction of the very controlling Joanna.
He has no time to process his final moments.
Better to let him die with answers.
Otherwise, were just ruthless murderers.
You keep telling yourself that, lady.
You keep telling yourself that.
Then that phone rang.
Exactly like the sirens screaming past Joannas house.
Because whoever was on the phone was out there, too.Zoinks!Tyrell?!
Joanna raced outside and stopped in the street.
She saw a fire truck turn the corner, but she didnt see anyone with a phone.
Or Men in Black.
Maybe her phantom caller left.
Maybe he or she or it was always somewhere else.
Or maybe Joanna is going crazy.
I mean, crazier than she already is.
The company was now calling itself Steel Valley.
What did Dom think of that?
Honestly, she said, its pretty terrible.
Dom was more impressed with the hack job her quarry had done on the data-storage facilitys security system.
Geez louise, would you look at that!
She wasnt crazy about this trip.
Flying makes her sick.
I throw up on airplanes, she told a colleague, so bring a raincoat and nose plugs.
She caught site of two strange men wearing Dark Army masks riding an escalator.
Was Dom seeing clearly, or was her busy but laggy brain projecting things?
Not that Dom knew that.
In this episode, Whiterose wore her public persona: Mr. Zhang, Chinas minister of state security.
Which certainly explains Dark Armys considerable power and capability.
Note this recurring theme of inside men sabotaging/subverting the institutions theyre employed to serve and protect.
Note they also struggle with identity crisis.)
You could interpret this as Zhang reacting as Whiterose, fretting Doms interest in her business.
If Dom becomes a member of The Dark Army before seasons end, well say the seduction began here.
Naturally, Zhang discovered Dom in this secret place before she could exit.
Youve wandered very far from the party, said Zhang.
His tone communicated a scold, an accusation, and a bemused observation all at once.
They discussed a point of connection, a certain wooden (cuckoo?)
Dom said her parents had one just like that in the family room when she was growing up.
Zhang said he purchased his for a steep price in Germany.
The seller had said it was one of a kind.
My parents bought theirs at a Kmart in Teaneck, said Dom.
Zhang gave her a look that either said My, god, youre such a rube!
or I think I love you!
Dom a little drunk kept up the gumption and asked Zhang to explain the clocks.
Dom translated this poetry into pop psych.
Youve surrounded yourself with a constant reminder of mortality.
Zhangs response: There is much work to be done, great work.
As each second passes, I constantly push myself to keep moving.
Perhaps that was Zhangs way of confirming her conclusion; perhaps it was a clarification.
He pivoted the conversation.Enough about me, Dom.
But at the same time, I am utterly fascinated by it.
The FBI is the perfect place for that kind of contradiction.
Joseph Conrad, author ofHeart of Darkness, would say Dom has the fascination of the abomination.
Thats not the whole story, and Zhang knew it.
But something about Doms half-truth clearly speoke to him.
The embrace of duality, perhaps.
The idealism implicit in her worldview, too.
I have something in my office that I think you might appreciate.
(Or so I have gathered from, like, 10 minutes of web searching.)
The artist strives to create the sensation of ones loss of identity, said Zhang of1998.11.15.
(There are those who might use those same words to describeMr.
Robot, including, apparently,Mr.
Dom puzzled over the idea that periods of revolution can create beautiful art.
So wheres the beautiful art of the Five/Nine world?
You and I are tracking revolutionaries that have created nothing but turmoil.
Theres more to the story about why she joined the FBI, isnt there?
In law school, Don explained, there was a man who loved her.
One day, in a restaurant, he proposed.
She realized she couldnt accept.
Did she know why?
What she did know was she couldnt stand to tell him.
She excused herself to the bathroom, found the exit, and kept walking.
Fast forward several years, and Dom is a field agent for the FBI.
It was collection of vintage and antique dresses.
(They belong to my sister, said Zhang, a lie.
Did he think Dom wouldnt find that out?)
Have you ever wondered how the world would look if the Five/Nine hack never happened?
How the world would look right now?
In fact, some believe there are alternate realities* playing out that very scenario.
That there are other lives were leading.
Other people that weve become.
The contemplation moves me very deeply.
The idea of parallel lives, lived concurrently, makes Zhang/Whiterose akin to Elliot/Mr.
Was he also expressing regret for the way Five/Nine played out?
But why share this with Dom?
Or did he simply want to be known and connect, one budding butterfly reaching out to another?
Before Dom could respond, the many clocks in Zhangs time palace struck 12.
The next morning, a groggy, hungover Dom joined her FBI colleagues in the hotel lobby for breakfast.
As Dom made her way to the buffet to grab some coffee, we were served a jolting shocker.
Masked men, at least two, stormed the lobby, machine guns blazing.
Everyone went down in hail bullets except for Dom.
She took cover, grabbed a gun, and returned fire.
She put one bad guy down with a shot to the knee.
She had a chance to finish him off with a headshot.
Instead, the injured rogue did the job for her, blowing his brains out with a pistol.
As reminders of mortality go, my guess is Dom would prefer a watch.
That part of his brain itchy with Ray suspicion?
He couldnt keep it compartmentalized.
He just had to scratch it.
And he needed Rat Tail to help him do it.
He dropped his opposition and decided to trust Elliot.
You say you need him, lets need him.
Elliots scrutiny made R.T. uncomfortable.
He divulged it was a hidden site, located on a Tor server.
Elliot surely knew the implication, that they were dealing with some black-market business on the deep web.
But he wanted to see it.
Would Elliot do it?
Would he punch the site?
Would he peek inside Pandoras Box?
Do we want him to?
Of course we do.
Elliot whom we met in the pilot busting a kid-porn web connection clicked on that folder.
And with that, the logic bomb that is Elliots conscience went kablooey.
Elliot couldnt ignore the injustice right in front of him, the suffering calling out for a Good Samaritan.
Did their conflict resonate with you?
Elliot and the show seemed to think it should.
A logic bomb explodes at a specific time or when a specific condition is met.
And now youve met Rays black market of evil.
Robot can deny it all he wants, but I cant.
yo, take a moment to make like Zhang and give it some deep contemplation.
So anyway, high-and-mighty Elliot resolved to take down Ray… right after he got a good nights rest.
(Sorry, Natchaya.
Thinking about saving you is just so exhausting!)
Talk about falling asleep on the job.
(How did they sneak in without being detected by She-Devil mom?
Maybe they attended Darlenes seminar on DIY effortless home invasion.)
With a nod, Elliots beatdown makeover began.
Now he and R.T. can compare shiners, provided R.T. is still alive.
Elliot wanted to be hope for a world plagued with evil.
Instead, his curiosity had unleashed more woe and purchased a world of pain for himself.
Kid, this aint the Washington Township Library anymore.
