Summary: Elliot gets a job at E Corp and works on preventing stage 2. He appeals to the management to make digital records and works to sneakily move paper records across multiple facilities. He is successful but finds himself falling into loneliness and he opens up further to Krista. Darlene meets with Elliot and they spend a night together. However, Darlene is working for the FBI and puts something on his monitor. Mr. Robot notices this and harasses Darlene as she leaves. The next day, Elliot brings out Mr. Robot to speak with Krista, and from her he is able to discern some details about what Darlene did. At home, Elliot sends an email on his computer. The FBI notice this but it is a trap and Elliot traces them to Darlene's safehouse and he arrives there with Dom and another agent in the building. Scott has been charged for Sharon's murder and Joanna gets away from Derek now that she's done with him. But Derek isn't happy and he shoots Mr. Sutherland and kills Joanna. Mr. Sutherland kills him and passes out. Price is angry that China hasn't accepted Ecoin as currency and remains fixed on bitcoin. He speaks with Whiterose and tries to threaten her into working with him, but Whiterose reveals he has spoken to Angela and holds control. Whiterose tells one of her men to go through with stage 2 despite the Congo deal likely being a success specifically to get back at Price.
The Good: The opening sequence is everything that I love about this show and its ambitious filmmaking style. It's in times like these that Elliot's narration works wonders. His dialogue allows us to understand what he's doing and why, and with the exposition out of the way, the visuals can focus on showing the story in as aesthetically pleasing of a way as possible and it's glorious. The day-to-day repetition is executed to perfection with the use of visual motifs, and there's a lot of fun to be had as Elliot works and works before finally getting his plan through to management to make digital records of everything. It's a blast to see Elliot hacking regularly again, especially as he hilariously brings down one incompetent manager after the other. This sequence does a great job of showing how Elliot's opinion of E Corp has changed. He knows that there are villains in the company, but the company itself is misunderstood. The development is shown to us magnificently through Elliot no longer referring to it as "Evil Corp", a nice way to show us how he has grown. This sequence is used perfectly as a backdrop to explore Elliot's character in interesting ways. Surprisingly, Elliot's dedication to his new work has resulted in him falling back into the crushing loneliness that was ruling his life back in season 1. And with Mr. Robot gone, he's feeling it worse than ever. This is such a fascinating bit of character exploration. Elliot is working hard and doing big things for the world, but the constant repetition and the lack of socialization compared to when he was working with fsociety has resulted in him struggling to maintain his mental health. There is a lovely idea being explored here that no matter how important your work is, you will still feel that loneliness if you aren't interacting with other people. This leads to Elliot finding that interaction in surprising places. He opens up with Krista essentially for the first time, and tells her about his father shoving him out of the window for the first time. It's a major bit of trust that Elliot is putting into Krista, showing us that he is looking to satiate his loneliness by talking with her. Elliot sharing the snowman story is really sweet, and it's something that we know he would not have done back in season 1. It feels good to see Elliot taking steps to open up and take care of his own mental health, and I can't help but smile. The episode's big conflict comes from Darlene. Elliot's loneliness leads to him meeting with Darlene and inviting her over for the night. Darlene is ready to leave and ditch the FBI, but she gets a final chance here to get information from Elliot. And unfortunately, she has to betray his trust to do so, and it is a sad moment when she realizes that she's preying on him to get what she needs. But the sadness is short-lived and the tension ratchets up when Mr. Robot wakes up and confronts Darlene, threatening her and scaring her. It's a great scene and creates a unique bit of tension as Mr. Robot knows something and can't tell Elliot, and the suspense comes from us wondering if Elliot can somehow find out about what Darlene did. The solution that the show comes up with is genius. Elliot manually brings out Mr. Robot, and he has Krista speak with him to get information to pass on to Elliot. Their scene is fantastic, the sudden change in demeanour to Mr. Robot is unsettling and you can only imagine what Krista is thinking as she interacts with this presence that is in every way the complete opposite of Elliot. The scenes with Price and Whiterose are much better than what we got in season 2 because now we have a clearer idea of who they are and what they are after. They are playing a power game with each other, and while they are technically working together, each man is operating with the intent of besting the other and gaining more power. Their dealings are gripping to watch in this episode, and I enjoyed the veiled threats that they threw at each other in an attempt to get what they want. Right now it appears that Whiterose has the advantage as Price needs her more than she needs Price. Price tried his best to turn the tables on her, but it was never going to work and it resulted in Whiterose revealing that she has taken Angela to her own side as a bit of extra leverage. It's a terrific moment that puts Price in his place. He has much more work to do if he is to be the more powerful person in the room with Whiterose. Unfortunately it seems that Price's play in this episode completely backfired, as Whiterose's pride was wounded and she now wants to teach him a lesson through stage 2. I'm excited to see where this power struggle goes next. I enjoyed some little things in this episode. The ending cliffhanger is really good, and the twist that Elliot tracked down the FBI makes perfect sense and is a terrific dramatic reveal. I always like seeing the FBI be competent, so I was happy that they tapped into Elliot's phone call with Tyrell from early in season 2. Flipper's return was welcome. I'm happy to see her and I'm sure that she's going to play a role in helping Elliot with his loneliness. I was also pleased to see Michael's frustration at Elliot somehow managing to get out of jail, which is in character. The Bad: Joanna's death was a total disappointment and a misuse of one of the show's most intriguing characters. Joanna grabbed my interest in season 1 with her chilling ability to stay calm and read people, but we never saw her do much after that, and we did not learn much about her. This made her storyline in season 2 quite tedious and uninteresting, and I never got into it. But surely there was a plan in place for her right? Nope. She returns this just to be given perhaps the most underwhelming and stupid deaths of a main character in a TV show, cementing that all of the time spent on this character was useless. Derek was always meant to be a stepping stone for her; the characters never took her seriously and neither did I. It sends a cool message that he is the one to kill her, but it's also one of the most anticlimactic and underwhelming ways to conclude this character's story. Surely he knew too much to be left alive. Mr. Sutherland should have killed him on the spot, and it's ridiculous that they would not think that he would try to go after Joanna. Furthermore, it's hard to understand why Joanna's major role in the story was so necessary. She got Scott fired from his position and immediately died. Was that her only purpose? To remove Scott who is not an important character? It's not like Tyrell, the most wanted man on the planet, is going to be going for Scott's position. So what was the point of it all? I can't seem to think of any reason that we needed this Joanna storyline, so I have to look back on her entire arc as a waste of time that failed to capitalize on any of the potential it had. What a waste of a character who I was looking forward to seeing more of. Darlene says that she only ever did fsociety to be closer with Elliot, which is clearly a major retcon. If she was only doing this for Elliot, why has she been so fanatical about fsociety's goals in previous seasons? Why did she keep the group going last season with such passion when Elliot was in prison? Nothing adds up when the explanation is that she only did everything to be close to Elliot. I get what the writers are trying to do in building up this relationship, but this statement from Darlene is outright untrue, a rare piece of sloppy writing. The Unknown: What made Elliot think of the snowman story and tell it to Krista? Was it his underlying loneliness or something else? Who made the new fsociety video? Is it real or is it misleading in some way? Did Elliot make it? Why is the Congo vote so important for Whiterose? What does she get out of it? Why would its success be sufficient for her to back out of the attack on E Corp? How will this currency war be resolved? Will Whiterose wait to help Price until after she succeeds? Or will she allow things to get worse for him? What is Elliot going to find by reverse tracing the FBI? Will the FBI meet with him or bring him in? Will he meet Dom? How will this change things going forwards? How will Tyrell react to Joanna's death? What will happen with his son? Best Moment: The opening montage was masterful. I was delighted watching the whole thing. Character of the Episode: Elliot. Conclusion: Season 3 is picking up the pace and the drama and I'm loving it. Much of this episode continued what I liked about the season premiere, with the only thing holding it back being the awful ending to Joanna's storyline. That hurts the score, but otherwise this was another great episode. Score: 67
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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