Where is Elliot’s mind?
Tyrell Wellick (Martin Wallstrom) stands in the arcade wearing the face of the Monopoly Man.
He is looking through the masks eyeholes; he is looking at us.
Credit: Peter Kramer/USA Network
He removes the plastic thing and gets the first line of the season.
It plays like a knowing, self-effacing joke, the show cracking wise about itself.
Its a bit silly, isnt it?
He either doesnt get irony or never played board games as a kid.
The sick Swede was probably too busy studyingAmerican Psychofor fashion cues and assimilation tips.
Tyrell isnt talking to us.
But hey: F society, anyway.
Bunch of Big Mac-gobbling, Facebook-fake sell-out sleepwalkers.
It makes a sweeping pan, capturing other interesting details, too, like a videogame called Deception.
It stands out like boldfaced text, a red flag in the matrix.
Here be dragons of unreliable narration.
Robot (Christian Slater), the burn-it-all-down anarchist who acts on those anxieties.
Which face is the authentic Elliot?
This is surely the defining question of the series.
Today, the story is about control.
Which one gets to push the buttons and pull the gears of the bluesy-woozy Elliot avatar.
Robot, or he could be himself, or he could be an integration of both.
Hes asking them to accelerate the timetable on detonating their debt-destroying bomb.
Spirit away, spirit away, the ninth of May.
We watch this scene knowing something Elliot does not.
Its happening, says Elliot, inputting the final lines of code.
The revolution is on.
But whos controlling it?
Is it really even a revolution?
Tyrell examines the code.
The beauty of what Elliot has writ and wrought floors him.
Its almost as if somethings come alive.
Elliot also looks awestruck.
Theres even a flutter of a smile.
But then he looks back at Tyrell and moves to the popcorn machine.
And we all know what Darlene put in the popcorn machine.
Something is happening inside his volatile mind, but we dont know what.
Perhaps the first stir ofOh my god what have I done?
!panic that we know will trigger a fugue thatll make him forget the thing that happens next.
A choice is made, and he reaches into the pile of golden kernels.
Is the gun still there?
If so, does he shoot Tyrell?
Or does he shoot
Theres the sound of breaking glass, and Elliot plummets to the ground.
Theres a wound near his right temple and blood is pooling behind his head.
But were not in the arcade anymore, and this is not the adult Elliot of the present.
Thatll leave a mark.
NEXT: Snow Crash
We see Elliot crashed on the snow.
His eyes closed and his arms are outstretched a crucified pose for a crossroads event.
We hear his parents approach and attend to him.
Mom, pissed, gets Biblical.
God says there are no accidents!
God have mercy on him!
Their beseeching and bickering intensifies as the camera continues to rise, floating upward like an untethered soul.
Subtitle: An Interfaith Guide To Spiritual Care.
We see a hand from heaven reaching down to a hand from Earth reaching up.
Its one more conspicuous reference to the sovereignty of a father God.
There will be more.
The camera stops to linger on Elliot.
He sits on an examination table.
His broken arm is in a sling.
The wound on his temple is bandaged.
He shows no emotion as the doctor talks and his parents continue to squabble.
So it didnt leave a mark!
Robot, we know images lie and narrators deceive.
Mom rips into his father anew, this time about the hospital bill.
Edward, recently unemployed, cant afford it, but he tells her not to sweat it.
There wont be any hospital bills, he says.
He tries to comfort her.
Meanwhile, Elliot is staring at something off camera.
Maybe hes listening to his parents.
Maybe hes trying not to.
The good doctor perhaps sensitive to their affect on Elliot shoos them out of the room.
How worthless the boy must feel.
First, his dad pushes him out a window.
Now, hes a costly expense the family cant afford.
What kind of worldview develops from such violence and violation?
One answer is suggested by that pamphlet.
(you might purchase it and read it in its entirety at Amazon.com.)
When she was 17, she became paralyzed from the shoulders down after diving into shallow water.
Affliction itself is like a fire, having a potential for good and bad, she writes.
The fruit that suffering yields in our lives depends on perspective and attitude that must be shaped by God.
Judging from what weve seen so far onMr.
Robot, Elliot broke toward self-centeredness and anger, and possibly even worse.
Elliot, I want you to know youre going to be just fine, the doctor says.
That was quite a spill you took today.
But I promise, youre going to have a long and healthy life ahead of you.
Does Elliot tell the truth?
Does he inform on his father and risk the consequences that could result from that?
Whatreallyhappened to Edward Alderson and his family after this changing, shaping moment?
But we dont hear the doctors questions, nor do we hear Elliots responses.
The doctors voice becomes warped, like were listening to him from underwater.
A crackle of a phonograph fills the soundtrack.
Violins play as we zoom toward the picture of stressed-out Elliots lit-up gray matter, a Rorschach of mystery.
The orchestrations build to a crescendo, to a breaking point, and then we hear the word Daydream!
I Monster takes its name from the 1971 British horror flickI, Monster, an adaptation ofDr.
Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.
NEXT: Into the Cuckoos Nest
Season 1 ofMr.
Robotended with someone banging on Elliots apartment door.
Would he open it and submit to whoever or whatever had come for him?
The season 2 premiere leaves the identity of Elliots pounding visitor a mystery.
(Ditto: the whereabouts of MIA, maybe-dead Tyrell.)
If youre the kind ofMr.
Hes not trying to take him over.
He wants Elliot to re-engage the world and further the fsociety revolution, or maybe just get helathy.
Or, we can just take the series at face value.
Theres another idea I want to throw in your hopper.
A few hundred words ago or so, I dropped a reference to Neal StephensonsSnow Crash.
One of his inspirations was psychologist Julian Jaynes bookThe Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.
To modern eyes, it could look like schizophrenia.
This theory suggests that people are wired to be led and need to be led.
It would also explain religious experience and the belief in gods and their current vestiges.
(Im reminded of the season 1 finale, when we finally saw what the Elliot-Mr.
Robot relationship looks like to the outside world, a man talking to/fighting with himself; and what Mr.
Robot said to Elliot: Youre losing it, kiddo.
Im only supposed to be your prophet.
Youre supposed to be my God.)
Did Elliots fall at age 8 bonk his brain back 4,000 years?
Master of his Domain
In which there is a contest, an intermission, and Phil Collins.
Id think, That aint me, that aint my face.
It wasnt even me when I was trying to be that face.
His choice of safe house is a dubious one: Hes living with his mother.
The premiere is The Summer Man episode ofMad Men, Mr. Robot-syle.
This episode models the old school practice of separation and isolation.)
His bedroom is drab, clean, and ordered, like a cell or a soldiers quarters.
He doesnt trust himself with one.
He doesnt even own a cell phone anymore.
Unplugged and disarmed, Elliots gone analog.
His media, old school.
So… its a fat Elliot rant in Russian?
The plot concerns the protagonists attempt to atone for a sin that doomed a woman to a downward spiral.
Elliot knows that shame.
He might have other guilt hes denying or forgetting, too.Where the hell is Tyrell?
Is he
Elliot is in bed, blue covers up to his collarbone.
Hes all head and shoulders, a disembodied mind floating with pillowy clouds in a blue sky.
)He resides in the center of the screen a corrective variation onMr.
Last season, these shots were clues to the mystery staring us in the face, that Mr.
Robot wasnt there, that he was all negative space.
Here, the image speaks to Elliots confidence in his current orientation.
NEXT: Elliots strategy for breaking up with Mr.
Robot: ghosting
The blinds behind him are red.
The illuminated curtain and pillow are white.
Combined with the blue comforter, we get a color scheme that paints Elliot with American everyman symbolism.
But the curtains caught my eye first.
They evoked the image that opened the episode: Tyrell, framed by red curtains and illuminated.
Pulling from the modern playbook of passive-aggressive break-ups, Elliots strategy for exorcizing the spirit of Mr.
Robot is pure ghosting denying his entreaties, ignoring him into non-existence.
Elliot narrates this tour of my beautifully constructed loop.
But hes not speaking to us, his friend.
Right now, as well soon learn, hes trying to ghost us, too.
Roused by his mother, his drill sergeant/nurse/orderly/guard, Elliot starts his program by dressing and making his bed.
The folds are military precise.
(Its really fing with him, notes Elliot.)
Leon wrestles with aesthetics and meanings of the show like an obsessive TV recapper.
Entire episodes set in a Chinese restaurant?
In a parking garage?
It just makes no sense!
And Kramer just bugs him.
Id knock his ass out.
Maybe I need to make peace with it, says Leon.
He shakes his head.
I tell ya, the human condition is a straight up tragedy.
Someone get the young man a Joni Eareckson Tada pamphlet.
Elliot enjoys Leons blathering the way many people enjoy TV.
(Wait til Leon gets tothatepisode.)
Its perfect for me, Elliot muses.
I dont have to say anything.
I can just listen.
Is this Elliots way of saying he has the hots for her?
(I immediately thought/worried:Oh, no, shes the newShayla.)
Or maybe this is a nod to another famous anti-social hacktivist in pop culture, Lisbeth Salander, a.k.a.
The Girl Who Played With Fire.
We see her torchWaiting forGodotin a kids red wagon.
Whats next on Hot Carlas burn list Fahrenheit 451?
Elliots other major daily activity is journaling.
Hes Dostoevskys note-jotting Underground Man, spliced with some Raskolnikov fromCrime and Punishment, guilt-wracked and on the run.
Hes making sure his brain is Allsafe.
The college-ruled notebook is actually the first thing we see after we cut from young Elliot to the present.
Confictura Industries.Conficturais a derivation of the Latinconficturas,to fabricate, invent, pretend.
The word speaks to plasticity, and yes, darker possibilities, as well.
Can we trust the notebook?
Hes become one of his own dark knight cases.
Elliot has scribbled a title on the line offered for one: Red Wheel Barrow.
This could be a reference to the poem by The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams.
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
Put another way: Elliot has quit cybersecurity to become… a Mr. NEXT: Less poetry analysis.
The presidents words stops him cold.
Its foreshadowing for another arresting moment involving Elliot and Wellick at episodes end.
Eat, Sleep, Behave, Recap, Eat, Sleep, Recap, Repeat.
A philosophical zombie, a life indistinguishable from an undead one.
You might not think its a way to live, but why not?
Repeating the same tasks each day, without ever having to think about them.
But as well soon learn, Elliot hasnt been all that successful at that.
Isnt that what everybody does?
he tells his psychiatrist, Krista (Gloria Reuben).
Keep things on repeat?
To go along with theirNCISes and Lexapro?
Isnt that where its comfortable?
But Elliot makes Krista nervous.
She hasnt forgotten or forgiven.
No more running away; no more masks.
I wonder if something else drives her, too.
Does she wonder if Elliot is fsociety?
Krista gets all tell me about your mother with Elliot.
Why seek safe harbor with her?
Shes the strictest person I know.
Elliots Mom really hasnt come off all that well inMr.
Robot tampering with his regard for her?
Krista lets the cryptic devil you know comment sink in, then moves on.
Does he feel alone?
Darlene comes back sometimes, he says.
Does he miss anything about his old life?
Elliots response would it matter if I did?
causes Krista to lean in; shes really interested in this.
Because I cant trust myself back there.
Krista presses him to elaborate.
He tries to dodge.
She pushes harder, with attitude.You promised me youd be more open.Elliot takes a chance.
Its not that I dont trust me, he says.
Theres more to their session, but we dont see it.
Acknowledging us, his imaginary friend, for the first time (Hello, friend.
Yes, Im talking to you…), Elliot blames us for his recent travails.
Im not ready to trust you yet.
Not after what you did.
You kept things from me.
I dont know if I can tell you secrets like I did before.
This gambit makes me question Krista even more.
Does this repeated motif have significance?
Up until this point, Elliots narration would seem to suggest that hes been unmolested by Mr.
But a fleeting image reveals that this is not true.
You have to freeze the frame to read it, and of course, I did.
Note the business about betrayal.
I mean, for asci-fibook.
Theres some mad vengeance God takes out on people.
Dude doesnt like to get betrayed and Im down with that.
The plagues and the locust shit and that heathen woman Lots wife turning to salt prettyfingfunny.
Cant deny hes got a sense of humor.
And a real flare for drama.Gonnago to sleep.
NEXT: The Contest
So Elliot is getting hacked at night by Mr. And Elliot knows it.
While you cant make out the entries on the following pages, the visible phrases make it clear.
Well, hes back… Cut lunch short… Mr.
Robot being… lose my appetite… Talking to your friend again, says Mr.
Robot, shutting down Elliots internal monologue.
Hes lying on the bed like he owns it, the master of the domain.
Hes reading the Cyberpet issue ofPenthouse.On the cover, a model in lingerie is wearing a Monopoly Man mask.
Its a measure of how quickly and how deeply the fsociety has, uh, penetrated the culture.
He throws it at Elliot, encourages him to enjoy the friends he might find in there.
Instead, Elliot picks up his pencil and writes.
Their contest has begun.
It suddenly hits me thatMr.
Robotis the most high concept allegory about masturbation guilt in television history.
Robot berates Elliot for his lack of balls.
We cant stay here.
Theres more work to be done.
Our revolution needs a leader, and what are we doing instead?
Che Guevara is throwing up in his grave right now.
Making like Glenn Close inFatal Attraction, Mr.
Robot tells Elliot that he willnotbe ignored.
You think this is going to get rid of me?
I amnotto be gotten rid of!
He tosses the notebook across the room.
This zombie act, it dont work on us.
This control you think you have?
Robot pulls a gun and holds to Elliots head.
Esmail frames Slater in such a way that those red curtains are behind him.
Impending Tyrell reference in 3, 2, 1… You want my attention?
asks Elliot, keeping cool.
Tell me what I want to know?
He means Tyrell.What happened to Tyrell?Mr.
Robot tells him he cant.
Elliot tells him to go f himself.
Robot pulls the trigger.
But after a seemingly lifeless beat, Elliot rises up, a revenant resurrection.
You want my attention?
Advantage: Zombie Elliot.
Apparently, this isnt the first time theyve played this chicken contest.
He shot me in the head again, Elliot writes in Red Wheel Barrow.
I didnt panic like last time.
Elliot, too, can say he is a master of his domain.
But the wound is still there on his forehead.
Something about this encounter has gotten under his skin, into his head.
Blood drips on the paper, the dollop like a wax seal.
Theory time a widely held one, probably.
Call it the You want the truth about Tyrell?
You cant handle the truth about Tyrell!
Robot, then, could be seen as Elliots denial mechanism in action.
Also, Lynch, like Esmail, is a big fan of red curtains and corded phones.)
We get two scenes that gild the theme of control, both of them concerning the activities of fsociety.
A piece of guerilla street art, Charging Bull wasLemonadebeforeLemonade, a surprise album drop.
It has come to be seen as a romantic glorification of Wall Street.
What fsociety has also done unintentionally is create a metaphor for the current state of Mr.
Robot, their volatile, bullying leader, now rendered temporarily impotent thanks to Elliots psychic neutering.
The second major endeavor undertaken by fsociety in this episode is securing a new base of operations.
Which means it can be hacked.
The water runs scalding hot.
The air turns freezing cold.
The McIntosh stereo blares.
Ultimately, she makes like Elliot and retreats from a life she can no longer control.
She moves out, and fsociety led in Elliot/Mr.
Robots absence by Darlene (Carly Chaikin) moves in.
Susans fight with her A.I.
(In fact, all the different stories in this episode echo into each other in various ways.)
Does her failure foreshadow Elliots?
Basically:The Singing DetectivemeetsSuckerPunchand maybeJacobs Ladder, depending if said brain is dying and/or a war veteran.
Seriously, the Eels could be this shows house band.
Well get to her.
NEXT: The Golden Spiral
Elliot is having a difficult time focusing on his guest.
Could you live with yourself knowing that you framed Gideon?
This ploy, this manipulation of his conscience, has an impact on Elliot.
The bullet wound on his head has returned.
Tells him youre slowly descending into madness!
But Elliot resists telling Gideon anything, except to say he wont help him.
Robot cant believe it.
Youre really going to let him take the fall for this?!
Gideon cant hear the phantom, but he agrees.
He threatens to tell the feds everything he knows or suspects about Elliot.
Robot now feigns a turnabout, faux concerned about Gideon exposing them.
Like, say, slicing Gideons throat, which he does here, by means of demonstration.
Blood splashes on the camera lens (groan; enough of this unit, TV).
You could see it as a metaphor for his frustration with Elliot, their infinite loop of insanity.
I saw it as a symbol of a solution for Elliots existential dilemma.
Thats a faraway hope for now.
He goes to the diner and tries to lose himself in Leons latest rant aboutSeinfeld.
You know, not that its just pointless, but, maybe it just means nothing.
LikeCostanzasays, a cold, random universe.
Robot, materializing in the diner, an unholy ghost seated at the left hand of Leon.
Gideons going to rat you out.
He probably already has, he says.
You cant ignore them.
They have eyes on you.
This is how they work you.
Elliot holds firm on sticking to the regimen.
Robot pounds the table.
Hes not a tumor to be excised hes the organ vital to his existence.
Facebooks involved, so you know its bleak.
I know we havent talked for a while.
Maybe you only trust me as much as I trust you right now.
But I am going to ask you to have hope for me, anyway.
It might sound like hes back to addressing us, his friend.
Theyre drinking and laughing and taking selfies with the Charging Bulls severed testes.
Its like a rager at Phi Beta Berniebros.
Darlene is on the floor, half-dressed and breathing hard and weeping.
The contents of her purse are dumped on the tile next to her.
Is drug stuff in the mess?
The score mixes maudlin piano with what sounds like a gentle, tuneful version of an air raid siren.
fsociety, your brand is in crisis.
NEXT: Willfsocietygo the way ofAnimal Farm?
She asks for the dick pic-taking phone and smashes it with the heel of her boot and screams.
Its time for fsociety to stop fing around and get back to being revolting.
Its a rousing speech.
It certainly proves Mr.
Robot right: His revolution needs a leader.
Why the frantic need to keep pushing?
Didnt they accomplish something by slaying the Evil Corp. dragon?
This rankles Darlene more than the low comparison to George Bush.
Then why does it feel like theyre still winning?
she says, adding that as she sees it, Five/Nine only made everything worse.
And worse of all, denial.
The people need to know fsociety hasnt given up, she says.
They need more war.
They need more of their dark-of-the-night Joker shock and awe.
First, fsociety freezes Evil Corp.s entire computerized banking system.
(Dig the joker-jester heads that appeared on every screen.)
One caveat: You have to send one of your chiefs.
fsociety doesnt just want the money.
They want to publicly humiliate their leadership.
They want the optics.
After all, the revolution must be televised.
Evil Corp. decides to comply.
Their chief technology officer, Scott Knowles (Brian Stokes Mitchell), volunteers to be the mule.
(Darlene was probably hoping for Susan Madame Executioner Jacobs.
Maybe next time.)
We are reminded of the 9/11 attacks.
But we are also reminded of how weve moved on and built up from 9/11.
Part of the murky provocation, I think.
Knowles brings the money.
A courier, hired by fsociety, delivers him a satchel.
Inside is a Monopoly Man mask, lighter fluid, and matches.
Knowles looks around, anxiously scanning for the phantoms the invisible hand messing with him.
They could be everywhere.
Put a bandage on his head and he could be threatened, paranoid Elliot.
Fueling this idea are Esmails shots of Knowles.
Then, he takes off the mask and tosses it into the flames.
As the fireworks attract a crowd, many of them record the stunt with their phones.
(In footage not seen, Hot Carla catches the coverage on the news and burns with envy.)
Darlene cruises by ground zero to clock her handiwork, then struts off.
The misfits control the asylum, at least for one more night.
Through this entire sequence, weve heard a Phil Collins song in almost its entirety: Take Me Home.
NEXT: Chief
At face value, Take Me Home fits the themes ofMr.
But like a Russian nesting doll, the song contains another reference relevant toMr.
Its a story about insanity, nonconformity, and social control set inside a psychiatric prison.
But Keseys novel is really about someone else, its unreliable narrator, a man named… Chief.
Sound like someone we know?)
Chief the narrator, not his father is virulently anti-technology, a result of many formative experiences.
Its his invisible hand, his Evil Corp.
He can always hear its ominous, degrading gears churning and churning.
Elliot would call this a hack.
At the basketball courts ofMr.
Or is that cynical?
Itll be interesting to see if such assumptions are part of the point of his character.
Which is the truth?
Maybe all of them.
Maybe none of them.
Maybe truth dont even exist.
Maybe what we think is all we got, he says.
Elliot actively ignores him, though you wonder if some of Rays ideas are pushing some buttons.
The fog of truth?
Thats something hes been trying to clear and keep away.
Eat, Sleep, Behave, Repeat?
Pretty much how hes been living life.
Like a creature of habit; like a dog.
(Interesting in their two encounters, Ray claims and emphasizes that Maxine likes Elliot.)
I can talk all the time.
But I guess you picked up on that.
Its cool, though.
Ts good for my line of work.
Takes a lot of it to run a good business.
Whatever you heard, its not true, I dont do that anymore.
Robot, sitting behind him on a higher bleacher, exhorts him to get in the game.
Tell him youll help.
Let that old feeling come back.
Its like Ray and Mr.
Robot are McMurphy-esque tag-team, trying to activate their withdrawn, dormant Chief.Try it.
Itll be good for you!But Elliot sticks with his non-engagement policy.
Ray says that at breakfast, his wife predicted hed make a friend today.
He wants to think he found one.
Okay, we continue talking?
Elliot: No thanks.
Ray pretends to be stung.
Thats some cold, brutal s there.
Im going to have to go and listen to some Adele on repeat when I get home.
This is a joke.
How long are you going to keep us in this analog nightmare?
As long as it takes, Elliot muses as he walks home.
He coaches himself up.
Without a computer, Mr.
Robot is unplugged, powerless.
As long as Elliot sticks with the regimen, Mr.
Robot cant take control, no matter how much of an illusion he thinks this is.
Its a storefront church with awnings emblazoned with evangelism.
One message is all fire and brimstone.
Repent and believe in the gospel.
A flick at Elliots Tyrell guilt?
Theres also a Bible verse, Isaiah 41:10.
I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
But Elliot cant trust benevolent spirits.
Hes done that before, and look where its got him.
The dismaying truth is that hes all alone.
Once again, Ray engages, and once again, Elliot resists.
(What doesthatmean?)
Finally, Elliot speaks.
I thought we were on the same page.
About what, Elliot asks, semi-friendly.
When we spoke last night, says Ray.
Oh yes you did see me, and boy, are you one seriously messed up individual.
You really dont remember, he says matter-of-factly.
Things start happening in Elliots head.
He seems to go paler than usual and hes super pale in this scene.
The black hoodie and white bandage only accentuate it.
You okay, Chief?
No, our Chief is not okay.
He blasts off as if shot from a canon.
He sprints to his mothers house and flips through the journal.
Theres no entry for the previous night a gap in his consciousness he cant account for.
And thats how Im different.
Sometimes, my mask takes over.
His alter ego materializes to put a finer, scarier point on it.
When people see Elliot coming, says Mr.
Robot, they seeme.
Elliot turns away from his walking, talking other face and starts to laugh.
; a Dracula-esque mmmwahahaha!
and in the process, works himself back into a cool, defiant posture.
Robot points the gun at Elliots head.
Robot lowers the gun, defeated.
Elliot grabs his journal.
Im late for my church group, he tells Mr.
Robot, and then, with casual cockiness: Peace.
But he certainly does seem to get a reward for his achievement.
We see Elliot at his church group, listening to the chaplain read from Revelations 21: 6-7.
And he said unto me, It is done.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.
I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
Its unclear if The Word is ministering to Elliots soul, but its certainly putting him to sleep.
The next thing he knows, Elliots back at Moms house.
The bandage that had been around his head all episode long including the last scene is missing.
Hes standing with the red phone to his ear.
He doesnt know whom.
The voice recognizes Elliot from his greeting.
Is it really you?
This could be the beginning of the revelation Elliots been seeking.
But knowing the whole truth could be the end of him, too.
Is that really Tyrell on the phone?
Or is Tyrell now just one more voice inside Elliots head, one more mask competing for his face?
NEXT: In other news…
TheMr.
Without them in relationship, the show loses emotional resonance and requisite grounding.
She likes sandwiches and lollipops and has a very suspicious mind.
Tyrells wife, Joanna (Stephanie Corneliussen), continues to be a cut-up.
In truth, she dominates him.
(And he might not have the guts or heart for their games, either.
He was insecure about his performance and chased compliments.
She received a mysterious gift of a ballerina music box and burner phone.
She missed a call while she was tending to her child.
We also visited with Elliots former Allsafe colleague and childhood best friend, Angela (Portia Doubleday).
She likes her work, the money, the energy, the status, and the affirmation.
She let a hunky guy at a bar hit on her, took him home, humped him.
Like Elliot, she, too, is trying to program her head with self-improving code.
My confidence is powerful.
I recognize myself as exceptional.
I will follow my dreams, no matter what…
Finally, we got one more scene with Gideon.
We found him drowning his troubles with a drink at a bar.
A guy comes up, makes conversation.
Gideon doesnt want his attention, tries to scare him off by flashing his wedding ring.
I cant believe Im a tabloid sensation, says Gideon, his statement sounding like a humblebrag.
Im more of a die hard fan, says the guy.
Hes a walking red flag, but Gideon cant see it.
Thank you, he says.
Tomorrow, Im going to be a hero.
Then he pulls a gun and shoots Gideon in the neck.
Your thoughts and theories?
