We’re back with part two of the season two opener on Mr. Robot, let’s meet the rest of the gang, shall we? Rolling after the break

A terrified looking Scott Knowles is dropping off the 5.9 million ransom in two heavy bags while bad music plays and the night swirls around him. Crackheads be crackin’, oldsters be getting night air, no sign of any nefarious masked revolutionary activities. Scott stares hard at a scruffy young man walking a dog; the music changes to Phil Collins (yay!Take Me Home). Scott’s committed to the glare now and neither can seem to break eye contact. Scruffy  passes and is gone into the night.

A bicycle delivery man pulls up, is he from ECorp? Sign here. It’s a rucksack? Which Scott opens veerry carefully to find… an fsociety mask with instructions written inside and a small flask. His phone rings, he has 10 seconds or every bank in the 10 block radius will be destroyed.

Frantic now, he puts on the mask and starts dumping the money onto the street. People walking by start to slow down, forming a circle around him as he sprays liquid from the flask over the money then sets it on fire. THIS is what revolution looks like.

I’m only surprised that none of the people rush the burning pile of money; they just stand by and film it with their phones. Scott removes the mask and watches in horror as the money is going, going gone. Darlene watches from the back and walks away, satisfied as Phil Collins continues to yodel in the background.

Where Is Tyrell Wellick?

Phillip is meeting with two people, they’ve already committed 900 billion to something or other, and that number makes me realize how little that 5.9 million would have affected this corporation in reality. Like: Shaq is rich, the man who owns the Miami Heat is WEALTHY kinda difference.

Janet, Mary and Jack are not accepting that ECorp needs a teeny tiny bailout right now. The President can’t do anything without the bare minimum request. Phillip has to resign. Phillip just thinks they need to rebuild EvilCorp’s database, though, and all will be fine. And launches into a speech about the Great Depression, FDR closed all the banks and reopened them in stages, anyway, the point is that the citizenship needs to believe that the Government has everything under control. The whole point of a capitalist society is to CONSUME and the businesses are running the Long Con. In order for that to work, the public has to buy what they’re selling, has to have confidence in the system. And him resigning will remove the confidence so key to the Con. TL;DR: he’s not resigning. Also, consumerism is an endless masturbatory way to pass the time while searching for meaning in one’s life.

One more thing: if this is the best this brain trust could come up with in a week, he doesn’t think HE should be the one resigning. Lock up those votes, hooligans

We’re with Joanna Wellick (Stephanie Corneliussen – so amazingly fecking beautiful), who’s tied spread-eagle to the bed and enjoying some consensual torture at the hands of a very attractive naked man who is not her husband, the missing Tyrell Wellick.

This is a new one on me. She’s having a giant iced chef’s knife being drawn along her naked skin; a slight movement cuts her leg, well? He looks shocked (I’m guessing he’s not a real Dom), she moved! And? Now he has to punish her but I don’t think he wants to. He slaps her gorgeous face over and over. In case you were wondering, what she’s doing is called Topping From The Bottom.

Dominique DiPierro (Grace Gummer) is taking half an hour to chit chat at the coffee shop with Ahmed (Rasik Ohal – stone cold silver fox, y’all), pissing off the huge line behind her. She speaks Iranian, hmm, which makes her more interesting than her small talk would indicate. I do get a little bored at how the 0s on this show are always completely zeros, no personality and banality personified.

Domnique is a Fibbie, working over poor Gideon with Olivia Washington (who gets no role name in IMdB. ??)

Elliot is pondering the nature of the masks we all wear, glimpsing at the small slices of truth in between. Or are we really what we are when we put on the masks? Why are we hiding? What are we afraid of? Are we all afraid? Not him, he’s different. I’ll just say that I only LOOK like a soccermom

A ball rolls over to Leon while he and Elliot are watching their daily basketball game, well, kind of watching, since Leon doesn’t notice until yelled at by a player. He throws the ball far away and they get in each other’s faces just as Ray (Craig Robinson – Hot Tub Time Machine, whut whut!!) rolls up with it under his arm, he’s got it, no need for this. We’re all just here to have a good time, right?

Ray’s with giant bloodhound puppy Maxine, who perked right up when she saw Elliot. He must be a dog person. What happened to his purloined puppy? Ah he knows Elliot’s name, he a Fibbie too? Elliot and I have our ears all the way up. Ray discusses the different perspectives of the players on the court, maybe there is no such thing as truth. Maybe all we got is what we think, which would make me very sad for Elliot. He never knows what he’s thinking for sure.

Ray likes to talk (like me!) but mentions Elliot being good at computers, which throws Elliot and I into fight or flight mode. This little chat couldn’t be more targeted if he had painted Elliot with a bullseye.  Elliot panics and actually speaks; he doesn’t do that anymore, but Mr. Robot as Evil Angel is sitting just behind Elliot, right over his right shoulder even. Maybe just give it a shot, just one drag, one hit, one teensy little lick. You’ll barely taste it, Elliot. Ray’s wife told him to make a friend today, is it okay if they continue to talk? No, thank you and Ray’s gonna have to go home and listen to Adele on repeat after that cold as ice shut down. Dayum.

Joanna’s side piece Derek (Chris Conroy) is watching Nancy Grace, ah, they’ve pinned Sharon Knowles’s murder on fsociety I see, instead of on Tyrell who strangled her instead of having sex with her like his wife told him to. This is what happens when you don’t listen to your wife! He switches to Vanderpump Rules and I’d sooner eat live anchovies.

Was he okay that time? Which just ruins it for her. Shhhh, if you’re going to be the Dom in the bedroom, you can’t be going around asking for approval after, pfft. How about going out for drinkies? No, she chides from the tub, they can’t be seen together, remember? A knock at the door, “it’s him, isn’t it? Can’t he wait downstairs?” He’s just doing his job, and we meet Mr. Sutherland (Jeremy Holm) whose job includes handing Joanna a towel as she gets out of the tub. He’s a much more realistic Dom, gotta have the arrogance and confidence for it. Derek is just purty.

Angela (Portia Doubleday) has made PR Manager at ECorp already, causing gossip and hey, all the catty-woman stereotypes in the office hate her but seem mostly intimidated. Angela is juggling phone calls between news shows. ECorp is demanding that nobody ask about Scott burning all the monays, nobody is going for that. Bitchy Female Office Worker Stereotype Number One Ruth (Kaitlin Large) argues with Angela, shouldn’t she just let Melissa (who reportedly hates Angela too) handle this?

Angela gets shut down by Bloomberg, nobody will take that question off the table and then she hangs up on him. Ruth can’t believe it, is she trying to get fired? “Leave” Angela spits out, leave and go tell Melissa or do whatever she has to do and until then: get the fcuk out of her cubicle. Putting on headphones, she stares at her phone. Just as the sweat beads on her glacial forehead (this is her career on the line), her phone rings and fine, they’ll take it. But they wanna talk about Plouff’s suicide. She acts as though she’s conceding, just the one question and then boom: DONE. Closed and done just as a triumphant petty Ruth returns with Melissa, to be told of the deal. Angela (pronounced ANE-Gel by Bloomberg, odd) is off to get some coffee before the staff meeting.

A present sits on the doorstep of the Wellick abode, yay baby screen time!! Inside is a music box, with nothing inside it, but a cell phone taped underneath.

Angel-a is sitting alone in a pub. She looks like one long cool icicle next to Antara Nayar (Sakina Jaffrey – I LOVE her!! House of Cards alum whut whut!) who’s melting in the heat. Angela’s decided to stay at ECorp, have we mentioned this week that ECorp killed both Elliot’s dad Mr. Robot AND Angela’s mom? Angela was suing ECorp with Mrs. Nayar for the toxic dumping that led to those deaths when she received a job offer at ECorp and now we have it: money and approval from the established pillars trumps all. Even the murder of one’s mother. Mrs. Nayar drains her wine glass and braces Angela; she was never going to leave, was she? Angela thinks Mrs. Nayar doesn’t see any value in her, but ECorp does and I would be very cautious of projecting that onto those “barbarians in ten thousand dollar suits” as Mrs. Nayar calls them.

She leaves after calling Angela a whore through storytelling and hey, just then a man sits down next to her, like from the story! It’s that parable where a man asks a woman if she’d sleep with him for a million dollars, you know the one.

Angela decided to sleep with him for free, though; someone had a point to make! Or was just lonely and he IS pretty cute. Let’s see if he gets a name! She gets out of bed in the middle of the night to listen to positive affirmations: she’s forming new neural pathways! Ah poor Angela, she wants to be acknowledged so badly.

Ray’s at the basketball game again; Maxine wanted to come over and say hi. He blathers on a bit, finally Elliot’s had enough. He doesn’t mean to be an ahole, but he’s good, really. Ray laughs, confused, he thought after last night they were all good, on the same page even. Elliot doesn’t remember talking to Ray last night and here’s a classic Mr. Robot conundrum. Did Elliot see Ray last night as Mr. Robot and make some promises he doesn’t remember or is Ray fcuking with him, aware of his tendency to blackout and assume other personas? Or is Ray HIMSELF one of Elliot’s manifests, leading him in one direction or another? OR, finally, is Ray from the FBI and being sent to mess with Elliot while researching fsociety? So many options. Once Elliot starts to doubt himself, the paranoia takes over and so does Mr. Robot.

Elliot runs home to check his journal; has the regimen let him down? He can’t find anything between 10:34 and 6 am, what happened? Why did you talk to him, he asks Mr. Robot, who wants to know what he thinks everyone sees? They see him, Mr. Robot when they look at Elliot. Elliot LOSES it, laughing and almost crying and laughing maniacally and he doesn’t care about Mr. Robot pressing a gun against his forehead: shoot him or tell him what he wants to know. Where is Tyrell Wellick? Mr. Robot backs down and Elliot leaves, he’s late for his church group. Peace.

Gideon is watching the news of Scott’s public moola bonfire in a pub; he’s approached by creepy-voiced Brock (Chris Kipiniak) who monologues about the change of society as a result of the attacks. He’s flirting a bit, aw, Gid’s boyfriend left him, that makes me sad. He knows that, AND that Gideon’s being used as a sacrificial lamb, which is absolutely true. He calls our Gid a patsy though, I don’t like that, but I like him being shot in the neck even less. WHAT??? How is Gideon an important patsy and who would want sweet, honest Gid dead? This show.

Joanna misses a call on that mysterious cell phone as she tends to the wee bebeh, was that Tyrell? Elliot slumbers in his church group, looking safe and content for the first time as someone reads the bible aloud.

Elliot comes to on the phone; he’s dialing someone but clearly doesn’t remember who or why. A man answers, TOTALLY Tyrell! Elliot’s not as sure, until Tyrell says “bonsoir Elliot” as he did so many days ago at the end of one of their meetings. And we’re out.

So. Mr. Robot’s been up to shenanigans again, and if I tried really hard, I could probably make some kind of comparison between what Joanna’s doing with her Baby-Dom and what Phillip’s doing to society at large, but I don’t want to strain myself. Suffice to say: perhaps we’re all just looking for someone to choke us properly with a dead cat (from Her!), in a sexual and / or getting through life way. The point of the show was masks, however, who wears one, who wants to wear one, who only exists with one. I had a former friend tell me I should embrace masked people, meet them on their level and enjoy the performance, but I never could relax around the false.  Until next time, Script Kiddies, I’m off to pour one out for poor Gideon. Deuces.