Summary: Angela says she will go after Whiterose to Price's dismay. The Dark Army executes her. A several month timeskip happens. Elliot hacks Freddie, who is an attorney for the Dark Army and he learns about the bank that funds them. He investigates John Garcin, Fred's contact, but it's a honeypot. Elliot is captured by the Dark Army and left for dead but Price saves him. Darlene has turned to cocaine to process her grief over Angela, but she is in denial about her death. Dom is a mess living with her mother. Dom is set up with Janice but it turns out that Janice works for the Dark Army and threatens Dom to finish the Santiago case or she will kill her mother. Tyrell works as E Corp's CTO but gets no joy out of it.
The Good: I enjoyed everything involving Elliot in this episode. We got a neat reference to "eps1.0_hellofriend.mov" as we open with Elliot hacking someone who has done some very bad things, and hangs the threat over them while getting them to cooperate. But where Elliot was simply following his internal justice in the series pilot, now he is actively working to bring down the Dark Army. Elliot's hack of Freddie is dramatic and exciting to watch, since we know the stakes are high and that Elliot needs whatever victory he can. The sequence is tense and reminiscent of season 1, only this time it ends with Elliot slipping up by allowing Freddie to realize that he has literally no reason to help Elliot and so he kills himself. It's a bleak ending, highlighting the darkness that has taken over this how. The rest of Elliot's story is solid. He's revenge-driven now, and he has stopped talking to us and Mr. Robot to push forwards in his revenge. But he's so driven that he's no longer listening to common sense. Mr. Robot warns him time and time again of the risks, but Elliot no longer cares about them, and his recklessness leads him into a honeypot and almost to his death. The scenes at the hotel were very engaging. From the lobby alone, something doesn't feel right, and the episode wonderfully builds that tension when Mr. Robot points out the quiet. Except for us it isn't quiet; there's a noticeable ticking noise that goes and goes, telling us that something is about to happen. The whole sequence masterfully builds tension up until the honeypot reveal, and the pay-off is brilliant as Elliot gets kidnapped to Bob Marley. It works surprisingly well. Dom has some good scenes too. She has moved in with her mother and is terrified and paranoid that the Dark Army may be coming for her and her family. It's a shock to see Dom like this when she was so cool and collected in previous seasons. The scene with Janice is superb. She seemed so innocuous that I was completely caught off guard when she ended up being a Dark Army worker. Dom is not just paranoid, the walls really are closing in around her. I'm excited to see what's next for her. Darlene is another character who is falling apart. Following Dom's brutal speech to her and Angela's death, she is a total mess. It's painful to see Darlene like this, and her inability to process Angela's death is very sad. Elliot trying to protect her in his own misguided way is sad, and it hurts to see so many of the main characters starting this season in such a place of pain. Tyrell gets the short end of the stick here, but his scene does well to convey how empty his lifestyle is. I'm curious to find out how he's working with Elliot and what their plan is. The Bad: This episode had one enormous misstep and that was killing Angela off in the opening scene. First off, what the hell was that? This is one of the main characters of the whole series, someone we have followed for 3 seasons through good and bad storylines, someone who had important relationships with other characters, and someone who had an engaging character arc going on. And she just dies in an incredibly unceremonious way, her death only serving to further the character arcs of other characters. Hell, the moment where she dies doesn't even belong to her, it's focused on Price. So again I have to say, what the hell was that? That was incredibly underwhelming and it feels like Joanna's death come again, only far worse because we have spent far more time with Angela, and there have been multiple seasons of somewhat frustrating storytelling with her character to get to this point. I was curious to see what the pay-off was to justify all of the time we have spent with her, and we get absolutely nothing. What a disappointment. Not only was her death completely flat and lacking emotion and finality, but it was an anticlimax that made me question her entire existence. Was she even necessary? I struggle to believe that killing Angela here was the plan. If it was, why not do it in the previous episode? It's so abrupt to have her die at the start of this episode, and it was clearly retconned. Price's conversation with her was never motivated by trying to save her from Whiterose, it was from a father intervening to help her daughter recover, changing the dynamics of a key relationship. There wasn't a hint of finality to it! What's worse is that Angela and Elliot's relationship never went anywhere in the end. I can't believe that after their terrific scene in "eps3.7_dont-delete-me.ko", there was nothing planned to follow up on it. I have so many reasons to despise Angela's death, and I find it appalling that a main character was given such a sloppy send-off. I do wonder if there was some backstage trouble that led to Portia Doubleday leaving the show, because there's no way that this was part of the main plan. I'll miss Angela, and I'm disheartened by how terrible her conclusion was. I've always been vocal that I do not like timeskips. They feel like a cheap way to avoid showing us the consequences of major events, and that makes the ensuing story less enjoyable to catch up with. That was very much the case here. All of the events that ended last season had exciting potential to have some interesting after-effects. This includes Angela recovering with Price (so much for that), Elliot undoing the hack causing huge changes in society, and Dom returning to her job and covering up what happened to her and Santiago. None of these stories were addressed adequately in this episode, and that was very disappointing. The Unknown: Why wasn't Price able to save Angela? Couldn't he have intervened further to prevent Whiterose from killing her? Why did Price save Elliot? Why was he with the three men who left Elliot for dead? Was this all planned in advance? Why drug Elliot if they were just going to save him immediately afterwards? Is Price here on Whiterose's terms or is he here on his own to ally with Elliot? Why is he here? Where is Darlene's story heading? What will be the result of her meltdowns? What happened when she met Vera last season? We don't get any follow-up to that. Who is Janice? How will Dom contend with her? What does Dom have to do to resolve the Santiago case? Best Moment: Not too much stands out. I'll give it to the reveal that Janice was Dark Army, and her chilling threats to Dom. It caught me entirely off guard. Character of the Episode: Elliot. Conclusion: For the most part, this was a decent premiere that set the stage for season 4. It's just that there was one huge problem in the handling of Angela's character, which was the same thing that was done with Joanna in the last season, only way, way worse. This one problem hurts this episode significantly. Hopefully this is just a single mistake, and the rest of the season won't make any other big mistakes. Score: 57
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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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