Mr. Robot S3E04

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Production went nuts for this episode, delivering a single long take journey through anarchy at E Corp! With some “stitching” to make the episode look like it was done in one take, we are now witnesses to one of the most riveting episodes of the series!

To start, whatever Angela injected Elliot with last week was some potent stuff as he seemingly comes to in the elevator at work. He’s having trouble remembering things. He feels off and his hearing is strange. Angela is standing next to him and it surprises him, he wasn’t expecting her there. Darlene calls him and demands that he meets her outside in 10 minutes.

When Elliot gets to his desk, he suffers through his neighbor’s obnoxious bragging about his weekend. In a message meant for us, Elliot says his real feeling known out loud. Elliot is really feeling off. The guy is at first offended but he turns it around to some self-reflection. Elliot tries to log into his computer and he can’t. He calls the help desk and while he waits, he comes to realize he’s not sure what day it is. What happened to his weekend…what’s the last thing he remembers doing? He starts to panic thinking Mr. Robot must have taken over…for days. He jumps on his neighbor’s PC to check his protections against Stage 2. His work has been found and pushed back.

Then he notices that the HR crew to give employees the boot is on the floor and the help desk says they can’t reinstate his access. He’s been made. We then follow Elliot from room to room, floor to floor as he tries to avoid capture. The only way he can fight back The Dark Army is if he stays in the building. He does his best but ends up pushed out the front door where Darlene is waiting for him.

He anxiously tells her they have to get back in to stop the attack and she blurts out that she’s been informing the FBI since Cisco was killed. He’s stunned into his isolation, the whole world goes on mute. When he gets angry with Darlene for her betrayal she tells him about seeing “him” leave the apartment at 2 am with Angela. It’s Angela who’s been betraying him. The memory of seeing Angela and Tyrell together rushes back to him.

We then zoom around the front of E Corp and go crashing into the building as rioters rush the building leaving Elliot behind. Following a group up, we’re brought to Angela who’s on the phone with her handler Irving.

He tells her to get a package at the front desk of her floor and she doesn’t need to worry much about the anarchy. With package in hand, Irving tells her that the plan has changed and she needs to get Elliot to use its contents to get some work done in the building. I found it weird that he thought she’d be near Elliot at that moment and she seems pretty incredulous about it too. She takes matters into her own hands and in some harrowing navigation and hacking, she does the work herself.

Angela makes a successful drop of the stolen material and Elliot meets her near her office. Standing opposed like two guns slingers Elliot says, “Do you have something you want to tell me?”

This episode was nuts. More great moments than I can write about, they all need to be experienced first hand. It was an amazing storytelling experience with such care put into each scene and transition. A lot happens with secrets coming out and machinations of The Dark Army on display. China annexes the Congo and the man Whiterose told to support Donald Trump for president a few weeks ago is on cable news doing just that.

While Angela has been in with The Dark Army for a while now, she really stuck her neck out for them here. She almost gets hurt in a riot The DA put together but can’t actually control and she was seen by a woman who will probably be killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. How she’s going to handle the confrontation with Elliot is anyone’s guess. I don’t even know what he’s going to do. Major turning point and the clock is ticking for the backup building from being blown up. Angela made a naive attempt to get the target building evacuated beforehand but I think she’s about to get the horrible reality check that she’s complicit in killing a lot of people. She’s going to become the exact person she hates and swore to stop.

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