Not Found

This was a ponderous episode. In a final season where every episode is precious, “404 Not Found” was seemingly a side show with very little plot progress. I’m confused about this approach after such a dramatic episode last week.

The show follows two trips: Elliot with Tyrell and Darlene looking for Elliot. We pick up right after the last episode ends. Elliot tells Tyrell they are being listened to by the Dark Army. Tyrell goes outside while Elliot keeps talking in his apartment and Tyrell ambushes the DA guy in the van with a solid bonk on the head. Tyrell thinks he killed the guy and they are pleased to find that the conversation he and Elliot just had wasn’t relayed to the evil powers. So the boys jump into the van and head upstate to get rid of the body. At a pit stop, the DA guy isn’t so dead and takes off in the van, stranding the boys who have to hoof it to the next town to get cell service. Positive that the DA guy has passed on the info that Tyrell is working with Elliot to bring down Whiterose, Elliot is panicked that Darlene is now just hours away from being killed. He has to warn her so he leads the charge into the woods, the so-called short cut to the next town.

Back in the city, Darlene calls Elliot to tell him their plan won’t work. Olivia Cortez doesn’t have the security clearance to get into Whitrerose’s financials. They’re going to have to beak in and enter a business to get access to the correct servers. Elliot is off with Tyrell– with no cell service–so she has to leave a message for him. She rants for three minutes about how awful of a brother he is, and when the voicemail service cuts her off for the time limit, she does it again but much shorter without the diatribe. She hides her feelings.

The information that Darlene gives us, is the only plot progression in this episode. The rest is character confrontation.

Elliot and Tyrell get lost in the woods (big surprise) and are forced to deal with each other because they have no other choice. Elliot is laser-focused, keep moving to that other town. Tyrell laments about his life. How is life focus on doing everything to climb up the enterprise later–stepping on everything and everyone in the way–hasn’t done anything to make his life better. His wife and kid are gone and his new job title, CEO of ECorp is meaningless. It’s one of the biggest companies on the planet but he’s nothing more than a puppet with a guillotine blade hanging over his head. All he has to show is his misery and the $6,000 suit he’s wearing in ankle-deep snow. He goes on to imply that Elliot’s life is much easier because he doesn’t care about anything, wearing the same clothes every day is like his armor to ignore everyone around him.

That statement shows how little Tyrell knows about Elliot. Elliot worries about everyone he knows, he just bottles up everything as a shield to the world. Right now in fact, he’s petrified for his sister and that’s his motivation. Tyrell keeps saying they should quit and Elliot shuts him down every time. He admits–without hearing Darlene’s first voicemail–that he’s a horrible brother and he has to do better. His admission to Tyrell is that his reason to live and keep fighting the hydra of ECorp is Darlene.

Darlene ends up traveling towards Elliot with a drunk Santa Claus named Tobias. While Elliot and Tyrell use each other as a shrink, Darlene opens up to Tobias. She’s mourning the death of basically everyone she knows. Elliot is her only anchor and she’s furious with him and at the same time, she’s petrified that he’s dead. It’s conflicting emotions that she’s having a hard time coming to grips with. As she talks to Tobias, he gets into his personal life and he’s having struggles of his own, so much so that it sounds like he’s suicidal.

Darlene spends just a few hours with Tobias and she comes to care about him. When she drops him off at home, she goes the extra mile to confront him, that his life is worth living despite his problems. It turns out that she misinterpreted most of what he said, he isn’t suicidal. Considering she’s been chased by the grim reaper for the past few months, it’s not surprising how she (and we the audience) turned his words based on her current perspective on the world.

Still, that was a very powerful conversation she had with Tobias. She doesn’t have anyone to talk to and lately, she’s terrified of getting close to anyone (a parallel with Dom’s small story this week). More importantly, as Tobias bobbles into his home, Darlene breaks down in the car and he has his own moment of great concern for someone he barely knows. He goes back to the car and gives her words of encouragement for her own life—another thing she hasn’t heard in a while.

At the very end, Tyrell and Elliot discover the van crashed on the side of the road with a dead deer nearby. The DA guy was well enough to drive away but a surprise road crossing by a stupid deer is a serious danger to everyone. Tyrell ends up getting shot in the stomach by the gravely injured DA guy and tells Elliot to leave him behind. This puts Elliot into a bind and cannot be the way Tyrell goes out. I can’t believe Sam Esmail would write out one of his best characters like this so I’m just going to have wait until Sunday to find out if I should rage about this or not.

Despite being a weird pump of the breaks in story progression, this episode still delivers memorable character moments and fantastic dialog (Darlene and Tobias have a string of highlights).