In the latest ‘Mr. Robot’ recap, Elliot searches for Tyrell, Angela confesses while Darlene and Cisco get caught in a deadly crossfire….
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
Hello friend.
The last time we spoke, ‘Mr. Robot’ ended on a series of cliffhangers including Elliot’s late night encounter with Joanna Wellick, Darlene answering the door to a mystery guest and Cisco retrieving an FSociety tape from the townhouse of a woman who was murdered by his part-time girlfriend before running into some sort of strange noise inside.
If that episode didn’t leave you with enough gut churning anxiety, the latest offering should send you running for the antacid in a hurry.
What started out as a subdued episode with Phillip Price explaining his desire to become the most powerful man in the world while getting his old pal Terry Colby to pass word to the Obama administration in an attempt to allow China to annex the Congo — and what purpose this serves is still largely unknown — quickly erupted into a series of revelations before a tension filled final few minutes.
Joanna Wellick more or less demanding that Elliot help to find her husband — who we are still pretty sure is dead — was just the tip of the iceberg for what eventually unfolded this week. And when the hour was over, we’re not sure that everyone actually survived.
It was an episode steeped in tension, chocked full of jaw dropping cliffhangers that left everybody who watched gasping for air.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘Mr. Robot’ titled ‘eps2.8_h1dden-pr0cess.axx’
Do You Really Want to Say No to Me?
Elliot’s run in with Mrs. Tyrell Wellick wasn’t quite as cloaked in mystery as we once thought, but it’s clear she wants answers about her husband’s disappearance and she’s convinced that his old pal “Ollie” is the one to give them to her. In the midst of Joanna’s subtle intimidation of Elliot, she explains how her first date with Tyrell ended when she told him to go fuck a girl wearing earrings she wanted and the next day he showed up with the cubic-zirconium gems in his hand as a present for her. The point of the story was Tyrell’s willingness to do anything for her and she’s more than willing to do anything to get him back.
She showed him the phone that has been ringing every few days with no one on the other end of the line, but Joanna is convinced that it’s Tyrell reaching out to her. Elliot scans the phone while Mr. Robot screams in his ear that this entire situation is getting too close for comfort considering he put a bullet in Tyrell’s head months ago and any search for him will ultimately come up witih nothing.
Elliot decides to turn down Joanna’s offer until she slyly removes his hoodie, cozies up to his ear and whispers ‘do you really want to say no to me?’.
A few minutes later, Elliot is in the back of the SUV (again) with Joanna’s driver Mr. Sutherland taking him back to his house to hack into the mystery phone to find the location where Tyrell has been calling from. Before they can go to Elliot’s apartment, he says he needs to visit Micro Center — for those unaware, it’s like a Wal-Mart for computers — to pick up some new supplies after the cops took everything he owned after he was arrested.
Inside the store, Elliot is conversing with Mr. Robot about this ill fated plan he’s put together to trace the calls being placed to Joanna Wellick when the phone rings in his back pocket. The caller ID reads “unknown” and when Elliot picks up, he only hears the feint sound of breathing before the line goes dead.
The more worrisome part about the call is that as soon as Elliot answered, Mr. Robot disappeared and never came back for the rest of the episode. We’ve known all season long that Mr. Robot had everything to do with Tyrell’s disappearance, but is he really dead? Was there something more sinister at work?
Back at his apartment, Elliot builds an antenna out of a Pringles can — take that MacGyver — before tracing the phone through the New York Police Department’s emergency system. When he gets a ping back, Elliot looks at the exact location where the calls have originated from and Mr. Sutherland is shocked. He tells Elliot there’s no way Tyrell was calling from there but that’s where the calls were coming from so Sutherland packs up and leaves in a hurry to track down his employer’s husband. Another question left unanswered but that’s not even the biggest inquiry we have after this episode was over.
Internal Bleeding
So that mysterious knock that ended last week’s episode as Darlene cautiously opened the door to Cisco’s apartment wasn’t as nefarious as first suspected but it was still bad news.
Vincent — the member of FSociety that Darlene entrusted to lead the operation in Washington D.C. where they dropped the Wall Street bull’s ball sack through the capital building — showed up on the front doorstep, beaten to a bloody pulp. Cisco actually found him outside muttering Darlene’s name before carrying him upstairs to the apartment.
Vincent had been beaten within an inch of his life and judging by the fact that his midsection looked like a ripened eggplant, his internal organs weren’t doing so well. After a bit of arguing about Vincent talking if he ever woke up again, Darlene agreed to take him to a hospital for treatment.
While waiting for his diagnosis, Darlene begins lamenting about her failed leadership at FSociety and how she was really just a placeholder for her brother Elliot, who was truly the special child in their family. She then tells a story about a day spent at Coney Island with her family when Elliot was allowed to ride the Ferris wheel while she was too short to be allowed on board.
What happened next was the most disturbing part, however, as Darlene was kidnapped by an older woman and taken to her house where she had her own room already set up inside. Darlene never cried or made a fuss about being kidnapped but instead reveled in the attention that was finally being paid to her as the special child in someone’s life.
As her story ended, the nurse informed Darlene and Cisco that Vincent was being taken in for a CT scan and they would have the results in about an hour. With some time to wait, Cisco and Darlene head out to get some food, which ends with disastrous consequences.
Strangers on a Train
As Elliot searches for Tyrell Wellick — or at least the person calling his wife — he gets a series of messages on his phone begging him to meet to discuss an emergency. Following Mr. Sutherland’s exit to finish the search, Elliot goes to the subway where he runs into the mysterious message sender — his old friend Angela.
As the two of them sit across from each other on the subway, Angela hits Elliot with a bombshell question almost immediately — ‘why did you start FSociety?’.
Elliot looks around as if there had to be someone watching because why would Angela ask that question right now? Add to that, Elliot is already feeling largely inadequate about the work he did with FSociety considering the world seems worse off now and Evil Corp has even more power than before the Five/Nine hack took place.
So Elliot comes clean and Angela does the same in return.
She’s decided to confess to her part in the hack and placing the Femtocell in the FBI offices at Evil Corp. The FBI is already closing in and she wants to cop a plea deal before it’s too late. Angela promises that she won’t mention Elliot in any of her testimony as a final way to protect him. At the next stop, Angela tells Elliot it’s probably best for him to leave and before he exits, they embrace one last time. Elliot even seals his goodbye with a passionate kiss that he shares with Angela before leaving the train.
A moment later after Elliot is gone, Angela turns around to face two men in suits — who we don’t see outside of the back of their heads and some shoulders — and we have to wonder if perhaps she was already working with the FBI and this was a sting to get the notorious leader of FSociety? Or perhaps these were members of the Dark Army sent to quiet another rat?
Get Down
Cisco’s visit to Susan Jacobs’ house to retrieve the FSociety tape left behind may have saved Darlene from being discovered, but it didn’t stop a nosey neighbor from spotting the hacktivist breaking into the place and giving a description to the cops. When Agent Dom DiPierro sees the sketch of the perpetrator she recognizes this as the same guy who Ollie — Angela’s idiot ex-boyfriend — described when he was first brought in for questioning by the FBI.
She goes to her boss with the photos in a mad scramble to rededicate resources to the case, but he’s more interested in dropping a BOLO (be on the lookout) while releasing the photos to the press. Dom is convinced that plastering his image all over the television is a guaranteed way to alert the Dark Army that they have another target to eliminate.
Before long the FBI tracks down Cisco’s apartment and they quickly ransack the place, but he’s not home. A few minutes later the BOLO alert is seen in the hospital — the same one where Vincent is being treated — and a nurse calls into the hotline to let them know she’s seen the man they’re looking for.
Dom arrives at the hospital and through some slick deduction, she realizes that Cisco and his female accomplice didn’t scram after seeing the BOLO alert. They left with every intention to return and check on their friend so she goes on a quick hunt to find out where they would have gone while waiting for Vincent’s scans to finish.
Dom searches the surrounding area around the hospital and finds a local who tells her about an area with restaurants just a few blocks away. When Dom arrives, she spots Cisco inside sitting with his female partner aka Darlene and she rushes across the street to the restaurant. Of course this entire sequence is haunted by the rolling brownouts that continue to make waves throughout the city.
When Dom gets inside, we can see from a distance that she confronts Cisco and Darlene but we’re too far away to tell if she’s arresting them or just talking to them. Either way, a moment later a motorcycle pulls up to the restaurant and the passenger gets off the bike, approaches the building and opens fire with a machine gun. Dom’s voice could be heard screaming ‘get down’ just as the restaurant was ripped apart in a hail of gunfire.
Dom was able to get a round or two off in return, wounding the assailant and just like what happened in China — the gunman turned the weapon on him/herself while the driver sped off into the night. The building stood torn apart from bullets ripping through the structure and there’s little chance everyone inside made it out alive.
Cisco might be dead and even worse, Darlene might be gone as well. Talk about cliffhangers.
Only two episodes remain in this season of ‘Mr. Robot’ with the penultimate episode airing next Wednesday night at 10pm ET on USA.
