For the benefit of Mr Kite, there will be a show tonight
Elliot is back in. A return to hacking was inevitable, of course, but here creator Sam Esmail lays out why it has to be so. First, there is the communion with pastor Ray (not a pastor, more like a crypto-currency gangster, though he does talk like a cleric), in which Elliot is challenged to confess his sins and start afresh. Then there is another lunch date with Leon in which Elliot is forced to confront a deeper dilemma; does he really want to be here (ie in reality) at all. This leads Elliot to sleep and, perchance, he dreams; of a happier life, a life of basic humanity, albeit with the demolition of giant corporate skyscrapers in the background.
Everything about Elliot’s demeanour would suggest that he’s far too nihilistic to be motivated by such an emotion as, urgh, love. But we know from his relationship with Shayla that he is capable of forming deep bonds and that he takes his responsibilities to people seriously. In his dream sequence, Elliot watches Cisco propose to Darlene, meets the fat security bloke he humiliated on Steel Mountain and embraces him, then has a street party with Ray and the f.soc gang. It’s reminiscent of the passage in season one where, apparently having given f.soc the brush-off, he embraces consumer society to the tune of Len’s Steal My Sunshine. But, while that sequence was not only shot in the saturated light of a mirage but obviously antithetical to everything we knew about Elliot, this feels real. Yes he wants to smash capitalist society, to see Evil Corp go up in flames. But he does so not out of a desire for anarchy, but a belief that these structures stop him and those closest to him from existing in the way they would wish.
At least, that’s what Elliot thinks. Mr Robot, it’s fair to say, would feel differently, having a destructive streak a mile long and, more relevantly, having shuffled off this mortal coil some time ago. But in another wonderful scene, Mr Robot and Elliot face off at chess. “Three stalemates in a row,” says Elliot. “The odds of that are impossible.” He’s right and the reason is clear – Mr Robot and Elliot need each other. And so Elliot returns to Ray, and under the auspices of helping Darlene, logs on to the IRC channel once more.
When Mr K performs his tricks without a sound
Darlene needs help. A meeting with Cisco leads to a series of revelations, the most important being the murder of Romero, of which Darlene was unaware. Romero died in possession of a list of FBI agents, and had been on the trail of something known as Operation Berenstein, which was looking to expose f.soc (and quite possibly may have done so) from the inside. To use the lingo, f.soc had been pwned. Darlene considers doing a runner, but Cisco assures her this would only lead to the Dark Army identifying her as the snitch and knocking her off. And so, frustrated, the pair go and have sex in the toilets.
Darlene calls her brother and asks for help. She also believes that the f.soc mission is not yet complete (after all, Evil Corp still stands). But Elliot accepts, with a condition: it has to be him (not Mr Robot) that she requests. Darlene agrees.
In this way Mr K, will challenge the world
This second season has, for some, been lacking in narrative oomph. After bringing down Evil Corp (and western civilisation) what is left by way of an encore? Are we just set for a prolonged anticlimax?
Well, first it must be pointed out that the hack was completed before the end of season one (in fact we never see it, occurring as it does between episode nine and 10). Furthermore we knew then that Whiterose and Phillip Price were familiar with each other, both being members of the same saturnine members group. This gave us a strong signal that the Evil Corp hack was not the be all and end all, that it might not have been anything more than a distraction. A Macguffin, say, a false flag.
This week, Whiterose and Price are in conversation again. They don’t seem in a panic. Price’s intervention in Washington the previous week appears to have been accompanied by a piece of diplomacy with the UN. There is mention of an “ecoin strategy” (hmmm, crypto-currency), but more tellingly the pair agree “the plant must stay open”. Which plant is this then? It couldn’t be the Washington Plant could it? The plant whose poisonous leaks killed Elliot’s father, Angela’s mother and is the cause, Angela believes, of Price’s fascination with her? I reckon it just might be.
Along the way we get to see the inside of Whiterose’s dressing room. The first transgender supervillain in a serial drama lives like a robber baron in a 19th-century Manhattan townhouse. The look of ennui on her face is like something in a Edith Wharton novel. She’s intriguing alright.
Notes and observations
The visual aesthetic of Mr Robot is one of the things that makes it truly stand out as a drama. The chess game is one such example. It’s shot almost like a Kubrick scene, with the everyday acquiring a sense of the supernatural just by the framing of the image and the light allowed to flood it. But on top of that, there’s the dappled shadow rippling behind Elliot’s head. It’s a shadow cast by the trees in the park, but goddamit if it doesn’t start to look like a glitch as the scene goes on. The way this visual gesture acts as a reminder of one of Mr Robot’s key themes is wonderfully done.
Order v chaos rating: 4
There is absolutely no sign of insurrection on the streets, business and police operations are functional and Philip Price is speaking calmly about taking six months to achieve his objectives. The revolution has been put on hold.
Self-assault index: Green
Again, it’s suspiciously calm out there. Not only do Elliot and Mr Robot come to an accord over their mutual needs, but they do it without strangling each other first.
Questions: just what is going on in that plant? Ray: good guy or bad? Who (and thanks to Amazon’s X-ray feature you get to see these details) and what is the Inconspicuous Man?
