But what the hell do I know?
init_5.fve captured Elliots discombobulating and fatiguing first day out of the slammer.
It also put him on a familiar path that could send him back to jail if he isnt careful.
Credit: Peter Kramer/USA Network
His new union with Mr.
He would have moments in which he would be outside himself, looking at Mr.
Robot interacting with others in his place; he became unstuck from himself.
(The episodes title evokedSlaughterhouse-Fivefor me.
Elliots dilemma evoked the bookss famous line:Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.)
First, though, director Sam Esmail and his writers fclarified the hallucinatory haze of Elliots 86-day incarceration.
Yep, that was the fuzz pounding on his door at the end of season 1.
Yep, they were busting him for hacking Kristas sleazy ex and swiping his dog.
And yep, Ray was actually the (corrupt?)
warden and Lone Star was actually a (corrupt?)
guard and Hot Carla was actually a fellow inmate, burning books on a grate.
The Ray and Lone Star clear-ups were handled with a minimum of detail.
Can you get me a notebook?
Leon gave him with that, and more, protection.
We now know that Leon was secretly working for the Dark Army.
Leon was making his way through a bin of 90s pop.
Hed just finished aMad About Youbox set.
(You know, my man Paul Reiser, he just doesnt get the credit he deserves.
The man is spectacular.)
Next on his What To Watch list:Seinfeld.
(Waitaminute.TheShawshankRedemptioncame out in 1994.
In one of the seasons funniest moments, Mr.
Robot went all kinds of Hell No!
Robot didnt have to serve the entirety of the 18-month sentence.
We learned the cash-strapped penal system was giving scores of non-violent offenders early outs.
In a way, Elliot helped engineer his parole and short-changed his self-exile redemption project.
You got lucky, said a guard.
Unfortunately, Monsieur Self-Sabotage might be wired to do nothing but.
NEXT: A visit with mother.
It was essential to setting up the remainder of Elliots arc, a slow spiral into disorientation.
Sometimes he was in control.
Sometimes he was outside himself, watching Mr.
Robot launch the show.
Robot was also surprised by Elliots malfunction or at least acted the part.
Now that Elliot is back in the wild, Mr. (Is she mentally ill, too?
Or am I misreading her silence?
She may not be broken.
Mom may simply resent and hate Elliot that much.)
Her room, ironically, was not dissimilar to Elliots hallucinatory bedroom, a soulless cell.
Might he feel some guilt for keeping her here, exiled from the world?
Could his prison delusion be understood as an empathetic imagining of her experience?
Curious detail: the clock on her wall was broken.
MaybeWhiterosecan loan her a spare.
But you know who else has a broken clock in her room?
You dont think the show is trying to intimate a connection between the two characters… do you?
Robot part) continues to withhold info from him.
The second stage of the Dark Armys plan?
Elliot was the one who authored it.
Why doesnt he remember it?
Why doesnt he want to remember it?
But init_5.fve suggested that Elliot remains as conflicted as ever about his plan for saving civilization from its discontents.
Elliots final movement in the episode was a summary metaphor for his post-prison backsliding.
It was a full circle move: the episode began here, with a flashback to his arrest.
But he never made it inside at the end.
Waiting for him in a hearse-black SUV was fellow psychotic Joanna Wellick and her death-dealing No Problemo!
goon, Mr. Sutherland.
They had come to take him away, perhaps to greater danger and more disintegration.
Does a date with Tyrell await?
Would a rendezvous with the wannabe Rama bring enlightenment or more madness for Elliot?
Darlenes storymirrored Elliots move from coherence to incoherence, strength to bugginess.
(That was three weeks ago, per an argument.)
Lets Dance poster.)
Had the cops found her?
Had they come to arrest her for Susans murder?
The scene was intercut with Ciscos retrieval mission.
We left him distracted by the sound of labored breathing.
There was someone in the house someone in distress, maybe dying.
The camera denied us the reveal.My very grim theory?Tyrell isnt dead.
And honestly, Im thinking Elliot never shot him at all.
Whats Tyrell been doing all season?
How about shadowing fsociety and cleaning up messes or neutralizing loose ends.
And I think hes left someone to die at Susans house to take the fall for Susans death.
Its either Trenton or Mobley or both.
I dont want this to be true.
NEXT: Seeing red or not.
Robot, and his continued practice of self-deception.
According to Elliot, init_5.fve means return to normal.
Its the stage of a reboot that brings in color and sound.
You could see it as a representation of the dim-light browout culture taking hold in post-Five/Nine society.
Robot was colluding with Cisco in another.
And there were bold splashes of color amid the bland and blah, too.
Red emergency EXIT signs in hallways.
Red emergency LED displays on the subway.
The red hat on Ciscos head.
The three characters were framed within that door, against a window in the deep background.
Red is also the color that connects Elliot to Tyrell.
That doorway also served as the backdrop for foscietys Monopoly Man videos.
Red: the color of Elliots sins.
They speak of the secrets hes keeping from himself and the sins that still weigh on his conscience.
Here There Be Dragons!
The episodes other major story focused on the seasons other chaotic personality and divided mind.
to the Flint, Michigan water contamination scandal).
Like Elliot, Angela was chasing the future with blinders on, ignoring the colorful warnings around her.
It was positioned over her head, looming over her, mocking her enterprise, screaming:Hello?
Do you have any idea what youre doing?
What are you setting in motion?
NEXT:Whiterosewill piss on your grave!
Angela took her info to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
She wanted them to act quickly on the scoop and keep her name out of it.
The feds appreciated the dirt, but asked her to stick around.
You know, just in case they had questions.
They kept her cooling her heels for hours.
Angelas started to tweak.
She tried to appear friendly, but she reeked of creepy disingenuousness.
She led Angela down a long hallway lined with surveillance cameras, ratcheting the paranoua.
She wanted Angela to meet with her colleagues in a room at the shadowy end of the hall.
There was a sign down there EXIT, glowing red.
Angela took the hint.
She ran away before she could find herself railroaded into a deal with a devil.
Alas, Angela might be trapped, anyway.
She came with gifts of gyros, but Angela wasnt hungry.
She barged in, she started eating, and she told Angela the score.
Shed been following her for months.
She knew about her trip to the NRC.
She positioned herself to Angela as her only hope.
Next person isnt going to offer you food.
Theyre going to grab you off the street and throw you in a dark cell.
We left Angela in her skyrise apartment-cum-cell, a prisoner of her own blundering conscience.
What will she do next?
Whiterose found herself feeling snared, too, victimized by her blinkered arrogance.
She had two high-impact scenes.
In the first, she visited the grave of former E Corp. CEO Lester Moore.
It was punishment for his betrayal and for threatening the thing most precious to her, time.
She wasnt there to pay him some respect to Moore, but remember how he had disrespected her.
Ladies and gentlemen, you do NOT want to piss of Whiterose…
…Unless youre Phillip Price.
They walked with umbrellas across the beautiful grounds of a rolling estate toward a panoramic vista.
All seemed well between these two powerful souls.
It was a picture of Price leading Zhang down a road to a proverbial dead end.
At the viewpoint, Price sandbagged Whiterose and trapped her within his perspective of the world and their relationship.
Whiterose was most displeased with this blackmail.
(That facility, it seems, is key to her master plan.
She kept referring to this place as my plant.
What, exactly, is she trying to accomplish at this top secret radioactive hotspot?
Tear a hole in the fabric of reality and access an alternate universes?
Duplicate The Philadelphia Experiment?
Trick the planet into world peace by faking an alien invasion with a teleporting psychic squid?
Robot actually takes place in the future ofStranger Thingsand Whiterose is trying to reach the Upside-Down world?)
Anyway, it was a new version of a familiar story Whiterose getting hosed by an E Corp. CEO.
Price didnt give a s. Because he, too, was all boxed in.
He also, quite clearly, hated Whiteroses guts.
He struck at her want for decorum and control.
Order will not protect you anymore, my friend, said Phillip.
I will rain chaos even if it hurts me.
I would rather see you lose than win myself.
In their conflict, I wondered if Esmail was presenting us a comment on Elliot and Mr. Price left Whiterose fuming in the rain.
Now, more than ever, she is a prisoner to circumstances and identities she yearned to transcend.
Now, more than ever, she finds herself tethered to a bad man and dependent on his flourishing.
Perhaps Elliot can relate to this, too.
