Now some moar Critics Choice Award winning Mr. Robot!
Last we saw, Shayla wasn’t in her apartment and Fernando was somehow calling from jail. Elliot ruminates on the nature of human anxiety, fear and the fight or flight instinct while we stare at this picture.
Fine art as? I dunno, but Shayla isn’t gone. She and Elliot sit in a diner and push food around on a plate and OH! Fernando’s crew DOES have her; that was the Proof Of Life visit and they snatch her again while everyone else in the restaurant pretends not to notice. I fear for their relashie.
More Fernando bullshit on the phone and you know how I’m bingewatching because this show is genius and so different and heavy and shite? I don’t know if that’s a good idea. It’s got a lot of trippy writing and layers of meaning and sometimes, sometimes you just want people TO ANSWER A DAMN QUESTION NANDO!! Not monologue about Elliot’s name meaning brave and true, like his, brave traveler. He looked them up!
Fernando lays it on the line: he will release Shayla when Elliot releases him. Tonight. And there will be hugging, but I’d wear something padded, E. Even if Nando says he loves you.
Back at Elliot’s apartment, the clock is ticking but since he doesn’t have a hope in hell of hacking into a huge, secure system like the prison in such a short period of time, he turns his attention to the two goons there to keep an eye on him. Goon 1 is Isaac, and spoofing his phone takes approximately 10 seconds.
Meanwhile, Angela is at work super early reading up on the toxic waste spill that presumably lead to her mother and Elliot’s dad’s deaths; she finds something hinky but can’t find anyone willing to talk to her about it on the phone. Off she sneaks with her highlighted and sticky-noted pages. When’s the last time you saw someone highlight something without a mouse?
Darlene is wandering around outside a police station (or the prison?) scattering flash drives like birdseed; Angela STILL isn’t getting any answers, this time in person from the former Chief of Staff (Sakina Jaffey) on House of Cards!
It’s a reunion! Someone get President Garret / Gideon in here for some beers! ANYWAY, here she is Nayar, the attorney who represented 26 of the families affected by the toxic waste spill, including Angela’s. Angela wants her to refile with the information from the data dumps, usefully highlighted and sticky-noted as above. Underlining even! The lawyer pours herself a shot of scotch (at 8 am no less!) and asks if Angela really wants “to take internet gossip to federal court and throw it at the strongest conglomerate in the history of civilization”. She points out a serial rapist looking at strike three as a more promising case and Angela realises nobody is gonna help. But Nayar did call back…
Darlene’s flash drives, dropped like tiny ticking time bombs, are about to go off. A police officer coming on duty picks one up; it’s just a matter of time until he plugs it somewhere unfortunate. When he clicks on his chance to win an iTunes gift card with it’s extremely detailed musical choice listing, Elliot is in, until he’s blocked when the cop unplugs power to his computer. I once worked for a company where the head of the corporation sunk the network with the Love virus; you remember, the subject line was “I love you” and the link was pure poison? He had that same look on his face, saying “I just wanted to see who loved me!”
I didn’t realise that Darlene was scattering those flash drives for Elliot until just then; how are they helping him if this JUST happened? Anyway, goons be goony and Elliot takes Flipper for a walk. Around the corner is Darlene, he yells at her a bit (ScriptKiddie is an insult?) and she complains that she only had an hour and honestly, I don’t know how she even had that. She stomps off to tell the two aholes what’s arp and is greeted by Goon #2 flashing his pistol.
Back with an increasingly tipsy Nayar, Angela is still there! Nayar spent 8 years rebuilding her career after their case was dismissed and she really WANTS to take down Evil Incarnate Corp, but she’s clearly been best friends with the sippy sippy for awhile now..during reminiscing it comes up what Angela found the other day: her dad is drowning in debt. I am just going to say: that is the best part of the recaps I used to do with VeronicaS, it really helps to have another pair of peepers, especially one attached to a giant lovely brain like hers. Did that sound creepy? My bad. Anyway, Nayar won’t file without a reliable eye witness and that excites Angela and now I’m wondering who she’s Facebook friends with at Evil Corp.
Speaking of Evil Incarnate! Scott Knowles is wiped oot after all the interviews he’s conducting in his new role as CTO; Tyrell suggests they go golfing instead and I’m pretty sure Scott would rather swallow his Patek Phillipe Tourbillion watch whole instead.
Scott calls BS on his solicitude but Tyrell’s departure is halted by a hilarious exchange about watching Sharon pee. ”You want me to fly my brother out from Miami? He has the bladder of a small child” and I call Sharon covering her bases. Or maybe they’re even BIGGER sharks, I don’t know why Tyrell and Joanna were thinking they were running a new game on this successful couple. Scott rubs it in, then he grinds it, then he gets his elbows involved and takes off the 1.4 million dollar watch and offers it to Tyrell. You know, since he has a kiddo on the way and needs all the help he can get. In that neat little two bedroom walk-up in Chelsea…Tyrell crumbles.
Angela shows up at Elliot’s apartment half in the bag while Tyrell trashes his neat little two bedroom walk-up in Chelsea. Joanna isn’t worried, she didn’t underestimate Scott as Tyrell did: she knew he was dangerous. When Tyrell exclaims that he has Sharon! She opened her legs for him!, Joanna points out that clearly, not quite open enough…They’re yakkin’, blah blah LOOKIT THAT KITCHEN!!!
Joanna counsels patience instead of retreat; her takeaway from PeeGate is that Sharon wants to be wanted. So. Maybe next time he doesn’t walk away?
Angela is demanding where Elliot went after Gideon’s party and he just can’t take all this right now. He tells her to trust herself and I call GIANT shenanigans on her smiling and hugging him like that. Mr. Robot is lurking on the stairwell and he’s willing to sacrifice Shayla to the cause: Zero Sum game, yo! If Mr. Robot really thinks Elliot is going to accept allowing Shayla to become a memory when he didn’t even want to kill a bunch of people he didn’t know near the Natural Gas Plant, he’s lost whatever is left of his hooge but tiny mind. Always wanting to break the eggs, this one.
Elliot has a plan! They’re heading to the prison for visiting hours with Fernando. Elliot’s cell phone is merrily taking over the network while he and Nando chat. The plan is to open ALLS the doors and set the whole prison free, but Elliot has a backup plan. When he hacked Isaac’s phone earlier, he got every single thing on Fernando, including access to his bank accounts. There’s a high-tech version of a “Read In Case of My Death” letter set up and yeah. Vera is not happy, but he still wants that hug!
Angela is doing recon at Terry Colby’s house; he doesn’t recognise her and that oughtta teach him.
Elliot’s phone hasn’t given him as good of news as he was hoping; but he thinks he can do it. Isaac (Goon #1) is Fernando’s brother and he takes Elliot for a scary ride that ends in a gun to the back of the neck. Ohhhhhhhhh Isaac doesn’t want Fernando out of jail, he knows that he will be killed for getting Nando sent there in the first place with all of his social media advertising. Isaac’s been trying to have his brother killed in prison, and thinks getting shut of Elliot will accomplish that. Elliot steals Mr. Robot’s zero sum game verbiage and convinces Isaac that his best chance for survival is to kill Fernando himself after he’s released tonight. IS ANYONE ELSE CONCERNED ABOUT THE HUNDREDS OF OTHER VIOLENT CRIMMINALS ABOUT TO BE RELEASED INTO THE GENERAL PUBLIC? NO? Right then, as you were.
Outside the prison, Elliot hacks whilst Darlene distracts and everything is as it ever was. *Computer hacking stuff montage**tense decision making time with music* off they go!
10:00 pm and it’s the Moment of Truth! Whoops, all the doors opening caused a power surge and there’s Nando! And he brings up p#ssy, which immediately reminds us all of Shayla’s rape and then Goon #2 shoots Isaac. Damn. We were all hoping that Isaac would kill Fernando, especially Elliot. Now Fernando is out, Isaac is dead so all Elliot’s leverage is gone oh nooooooooooo. Shayla’s been in the trunk the whole time. Please be alive. Oh fcuk. She is not alive. Oh man. Come on. His face.
What do we do now? Fernando is alive and dangerous, Angela is on a mission from Gawd, Mr. Robot is thinking small, Darlene seems sympathetic and Elliot is devastated. See you next time, ScriptKiddies, deuces
