Oh wow.
Almost all of my questions were answered in these final two hours. I had no idea how Mr. Robot was going to end after a season as wild as this one and it came together brilliantly. There’s a lot of personal, emotional payoff in the end with a lot of elements coming full circle.
The big reveal of the fourth personality is the “Mastermind.” And he’s been with us the whole time. Created just before the show starts, the Elliot we’ve been watching isn’t Elliot, the brother that Darlene grew up with, but the final dissociative personality that Elliot made to seek vengeance on abusers and revenge on those that take for their own profit and leave pain in its place. Mastermind took over, shoving Elliot into a “safe world” in the mind and doesn’t remember he isn’t the original until confronted by the other 3 personalities after being knocked out in the power plant explosion.
Episode 12 is a complete mind trip as Mastermind navigates the safe world that he created for Elliot to stay in. A world where everything was good and he could be happy, a life Mastermind thought was perfect for Elliot. Except it didn’t have Darlene in it. A trade-off, having Angela alive and his sister non-existent so Elliot wouldn’t think to escape through wanting more. Mastermind chose the fantasy of the love of his life being resurrected over the love of his only family member who is still alive and very much with him.
This final arc puts a lot of this season–and the whole series of course–into a greater context. Darlene coming back in Elliot’s life to start fsociety to her ultimate confrontation with herself to stop running away from the things she feels that she can’t handle. This deep sibling relationship that fought off Whiterose one last time is ultimately what makes Mastermind give control back to Elliot. The final 10-15 minutes or so has some of the most remarkable writing. The twisting of the lense as the fantasy world blurs and collapses. This brings into focus the reality of what the trauma to young Elliot truly did to his mind. All of these seemingly random or unimportant seeds through the seasons came together into one of the most satisfying series endings I can remember.
What was thought to be a story of an angry young hacker trying to change the world by ripping apart the elite turned out to be a much more poignant and meaningful story of internal struggles to change yourself. We are a culmination of the choices that we make. Mastermind was successful in his mission, he did change the world, he stopped an awful person. He did so by standing up for others in a quest to do the right thing.
Mastermind also struggled to face the worst part of himself. The horrible realization that he’s a selfish entity. He’s lead and motivated entirely by rage. He goes forward with attempting to steal Elliot’s life, that happiness is his alone, that he did it all by himself even though he didn’t. He would take by any means necessary, something he was created to fight against.
The way this all unfolded was daring in its execution and stunning in its visual realization. I can’t say enough good things about the amazing direction, cinematography, and soundtrack. Few TV shows can match this kind of vision in production, it’s really next level stuff.
I also loved this because of the closure it gave me. Darlene and Elliot were the most important characters in this and they were each explored. This story started in their childhood and ends here.
There’s a striking admission from Darlene at the end when she admits that she knew the Elliot she grew up with was gone when they started fsociety. That she kept it to herself is weird and alarming. But I think her reasoning stands up pretty well. Her greatest regret has been that she didn’t know how to help Elliot when they were kids and she ran because of that. She came back to town to see if she could make amends for and despite noticing a profound change in his personality (there was no way for her to know the depth of it) just being with him and helping on his mission felt like it was enough. This intense journey resulted in changes in herself. She comes to realize that it wasn’t enough to actually bridge the gap and help her brother heal. Sure they were spending time together again but they never talked to each other. They never knew how to because of the trauma of their childhood. It stunted and changed them both. But she did come back for him and that made all the difference in the world. This relationship is one of the most dynamic and interesting to me in the series.
The ending is also exciting because it is also a new beginning. While we voyeurs never met the real Elliot, we know what he’s been through. Now he is released from his bindings and he can finally heal and start to move on with his life. Happiness is possible. For the first time in the series, I’m left with a feeling of hope. The beautiful final line once Elliot opens his eyes:
“Hello, Elliot.”
Darlene Alderson