Citizen Carl

This week, Carl finds a new purpose in life. While waiting for a bus at night, he has a friendly chat with an old woman. She comments on how long the street lights in the neighborhood have been out and when Carl’s bus comes, he offers to stay with her since the bus stop is in such a sketchy area. She politely declines and as the bus pulls away, Carl witnesses her get mugged. The bus driver won’t stop and Carl can’t do anything to help her. This woman’s death pushes Carl to make a difference. First, he calls the city to get the lights fixed and is told it’ll be fixed in 3 years or so. Dejected he tries the media who shoots him down because no one cares about an old black woman killed in the South Side of Chicago. Incensed, Carl makes a plan to force the public to notice. He finds Kelly and enlists her to get one of her wealthiest softball teammates to that same spot at night. He fakes robbing them (“Is that a real gun?!”) and the live Instagram story Kelly set up goes viral and the city swoops in to fix the streetlights the next day. Watching the change he made unfold on TV gives Carl a sense of pride he hasn’t had in a while.

Deb’s plan to dupe Pepa with a fake hellion daughter works like a charm. Pepa drops the kid off early, along with the rest of the military death money. The rest of the family is rather bewildered by what Deb’s been up to but Deb’s financial problems are over…for now. Megan spooks her by telling her she’s got to set up her next scam so that she never runs out of money. Megan is living the glorious life of child support payments, so she takes Deb to her sugar daddy stomping grounds to snag an old man with money. Deb isn’t feeling it and bails on Megan’s plan by using a woman at the bar as a distraction. The two hit it off and Deb goes up to Claudia’s room. In the morning, Claudia has left an envelope of money (I counted $600) and Deb takes it. She basically sprints out of the room and Deb has inadvertently become a prostitute. Deb’s got a new series of moral questions to ask herself.

Liam doesn’t do too much in this episode. We watch him work his management skills on the phone for a bit and then he’s hanging out with Stella, the older psychopath sister of Bella, Frannie’s evil stand-in for Deb’s Pepa grift. Stella acts way above her age and Frank gives Liam some wildly inappropriate advice that thankfully doesn’t pan out.

Lip navigates the RV life with Tami, with stinky results. The main take away from this episode is that the two are managing to work together to solve their problems.

Kev and V get a sudden cash-flow problem at The Alibi when their best customer dies (not a good look when you don’t notice someone sitting at your bar when you close up). This spurs them into bringing in new customers and they get a horrible idea: go to an AA meeting. The two fumble through a pretty blatant promotional pitch and it works when two or three women come to bar. It’s not until they show up that V realizes how trashy their idea is and Kev cuts her protest off by serving their new customers.

Another event at The Alibi unfolds with Frank. He’s quick to pilfer the belongings of the dead man and when he comes back to the bar to drink so more, a rather striking woman walks in. Frank turns on the charm. they start drinking together and he offers to cut off the boot on her car. Her car is a Rolls Royce and Faye is living in it. The story behind this one is going to be good.

Mickey is now working security in the mall and watching him chase down a shoplifter in khaki shorts and a pink polo shirt is hilarious. While not ideal, Mickey has resigned himself to this life while he’s on parole. It is better than prison after all. Ian is going through the motions too until his parole officer–Paula–ganks his entire paycheck to “make up for” the commission she missed out on when Ian actually helped someone in need last week. This infuriates Ian who floats the idea of killing her to Mickey. Mickey tells him to calm down…until Paula shows up with the news that she is now Mickey’s PO. She immediately puts Mickey on a manhunt for one of her other parolees whos been MIA. Mickey ends up throwing the guy out of a window by her request (demand? She really liked it). As the guy is carted away in an ambulance, Mickey agrees that they have a serious problem on their backs. This plotline just got a whole lot more interesting.

Probably the best episode of the season. Really funny and a lot of stories took fun turns that I didn’t see coming. Plus, a new Milkovich has been introduced! Sandy, a cousin. Probably not too distant? Deb catches her eye so I’m sure she’ll be back next week to stir the pot. So far the baby kidnapping plot has disappeared, which isn’t unusual for Shameless. They do something crazy and then never mention it again when they don’t know what to do with it any longer. Realistically, Randy will have to show up again for anything to happen as that trade-off to Frank was far from official in any way. I’m excited for the next episode to see what happens.

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

Adios Gringos

While Frank has been the mastermind of bad ideas for a very long time, Liam is taking those lessons and taking charge. More so than any of the Gallagher kids, Liam is abiding by the Frank Ethos so well that he’s surprising Frank.

On Operation Sell Baby, Frank brings Liam along for the assist. In working over a Nigerian couple and an old Chinese man (both are loaded), Frank ends up growing attached to the baby (who is technically his grandson) and Liam has had enough of the con and jumps at the offer of 100k from the Chinese man. Frank gets upset that Liam took the offer so fast and Liam repeats the words that Frank once told him, in business don’t become attached. Unfortunately for them, the Nigerian couple do a runner with the baby. With the scam blowing up, the question now is will they report the kidnapping to the police? That’s way more heat than any of them want to deal with but this is nuts. Odds are Frank could turn this into media exposure to get donations he’ll keep no matter what.

Lip and Tami are continuing to figure it out together. Tami’s jealous side comes out to play only for her to get rejected at the bar, bringing her back to earth and back to Lip and Fred. They don’t know what their relationship is after all so I can’t blame her for stirring up some drama in a predictable Tami way. When Lip introduces Tami to the AA mothers group, he refers to her as “Fred’s mother” after hesitating about how to explain their relationship. She didn’t like that and it’s there where they both realize they’re in weird territory that neither one knows how to navigate. “Co-parenting” isn’t going to work with them as they are much more than that. Tami is overwhelmed and finally says so. The Gallagher house is basically a circus tent and Lip, with the help of Deb, gets them their own space: an old RV parked in the driveway. Hey, it’s a start.

Carl helps Anne’s family defend their business from some really aggressive newcomers and the effort brings the two much closer. It’s one of the sweetest couplings in the show’s history.

With Pepa’s demands for custody of Frannie in return for a cut of the death benefits, Deb goes on the offensive after talking Pepa down to partial custody. She wants Frannie to raise hell when she’s with Pepa to scare her away from wanting anything to do with Frannie. But she’s such a good girl that Deb’s plan has no chance. So she finds a little girl with red hair that’s in the foster care system and works out a deal with her older sister to essentially be Frannie’s evil doppelganger. On first impact, it looks like the plan will work. My fear is that it’s going to work too well and Pepa will call child services on Deb for raising a maniac.

Ian is going with the flow at work until his conscious pulls him into doing the right thing by helping a pregnant woman in need. That’s not to his boss’ protocols and she scares him back into line. The good news for Ian is that Mickey is released from prison early for being an effective snitch. This, of course, means Mickey has to watch his back for the rest of his life and gets his own scare when his parole officer rolls up on him in the weirdest of ways. Fan favorites Ian and Mickey are back together on the outside now, something many wondered if we’d ever see again. It’s a great turn for the show.

Kevin continues his stupid ploy for money in the case against his old coach and thankfully his stupidity exposes his lying. He’s quickly and rightfully dismissed. His better half V gets the shocking revelation at the cookout that she’s lost her blackness (“Mom, I forgot how to do the electric slide!”) and so now she’s got her own self-confidence to build back up. Mentoring Liam for a week obviously didn’t do either one of them a lick of good and her mother lets her know how it is in not so gentle terms.

This was a great episode with a lot of meaningful events happening for everyone. It’s an impressive bit of storytelling keeping this many characters in motion. Most of the plots are a lot of fun and the ones that aren’t are ending. I’m a fan of Carl moving on from Kelly and Kevin desperately needs to do something else.

eXit

This is a mind-boggler of an episode.

At the start, we revisit Elliot and Darlene’s goodbye in the motel parking lot. A little more was added to this scene from last week, the most important being Elliot holding on to his sister a little longer and thanking her for not giving up on him for all these years.

Walking away, Mr. Robot confronts him over Elliot’s plan to go to the Washington Township nuclear power plant to disable Whiterose’s machine for good. Mr. Robot is not a fan of this endless pursuit as it wasn’t part of the deal they had. Break up the Deus Group and redistribute the money to the world…that’s it, mission complete. Elliot is obsessed with Whiterose, convinced that with the data Price gave him, he still has work to do. With all of Mr. Robot’s protesting, Elliot charges forward alone and malware in his pocket.

Elliot arrives at the power plant on the tail end of some kind of upheaval. Three SUVs come flying down the road, the gate is left open, and there is no one in the guard booth. Elliot needs physical access to one of the terminals inside to plant his malware, so this works in his favor. He walks in and installs his software in just a few seconds, only to be surprised by some Dark Army footsoldiers and The Engineer In A Clean Suit Who Is Always Eating. It’s been a while since we’ve seen this guy but that’s the first signal that Whiterose is nearby.

And so we got the long-awaited confrontation between Elliot and Whiterose. In the bowels of the plant in a room the mimics the place where Whiterose brainwashed Angela long ago, Whiterose lays it out. She wants to erase all the pain that people go through. In a scheme that sounds a lot like Rapture without the guest appearance by Jesus and the hand of God to rescue those who are “worthy,” Whiterose sees herself as God. She’s wanted to move the machine to the Congo (the experiments were too limited in this location) but Elliot has ruined that so she’s going to flip the switch and let Elliot figure it out. She departs in a fittingly dramatic fashion for someone so full of themselves.

Since the machine was on before Elliot got there, his malware doesn’t do anything and the plant starts to meltdown. Elliot takes on the challenge that Whiterose leaves him, doing what he can to stop the meltdown. While he seemingly answers Whiterose’s riddle correctly, it doesn’t work–or it was never going to work–and white and red flash take u somewhere else.

Inside Elliot’s mind? Another dimension? Limbo, heaven, hell, purgatory? All could be valid answers to this place where Elliot is…happy. Confused but happy. He’s CEO of Allsafe, he’s going to marry Angela in a day and his happy father is still alive and running his Mr. Robot repair shop. In this place, Elliot is also an only child and Tyrell is the CEO of F Corp, a client that Elliot is trying to land a huge cyber security contract with. The episode ends with another twist of the mind: this new Elliot returning to his nice apartment to reveal the Elliot we know, sitting at the computer in the crummy apartment we’ve seen him in so many times before.

BD Wong crushes it this episode with one hell of a scene with Rami Malik. A clash of wits and life experiences, Whiterose is at the end of her rope just as Elliot has found his and is holding on tighter than ever before. Whiterose says that she and he are the same, driven by anger and hate. In many regards, she is right. But in a beautiful speech about the power of love and other people, Elliot rejects Whiterose’s philosophy (with gusto!) and stands up for the good in the world.

In the ‘other dimension’ as I’ll call it for now, Elliot has another interesting discussion with Tyrell. This Tyrell has clearly lead a different one than the one we know. He’s quite successful, he looks genuinely happier, but he still carries around a sadness. Much like Elliot and Whiterose, Tyrell and Elliot are similar spirits. They’re both in the same cycle of work, life, and responsibility. “I just wanna know you are on my side.” To which Elliot replies, “Always.” Another person who needs to be meaningfully supported, looking for someone they can actually trust.

The only conclusion I can come up with for the end is that this new version of Elliot is his fourth personality. This one has never met the Elliot we know, which is why they are both surprised upon seeing each other. But how did they meet, did the power plant meltdown or…? This Elliot is very spacey and unsure as if he knows this isn’t ‘right.’ There are chunks of the dimension we know that bleed into this one. And what was the deal with the broken glass that Elliot found in Angela’s apartment? Her parents were supposed to be there, but they’re gone. What’s the significance of that?

The last two episodes are airing next week so the answers to this and more aren’t far off.

Sparky

Ian’s parole hearing went well as he is now a free man. Lip picks him up and Tami is all that’s on Lip’s mind. He’s used to taking care of Fred and he’s worried how well Tami will take to being a mom. Ian quickly learns that the Gallagher globe has been spinning without him. No one is home except for Anne’s relatives who he doesn’t know and all the bedrooms are decorated differently (he quickly picks out which one is Carl’s). With family scattered all over, Ian goes to see his parole officer who is running a racket with the local ambulance corps. They’re not doing real work, putting in false insurance claims and the parole officer is getting a cut of it. When Ian objects, his new co-workers tell him to keep his head down. If he makes noise, he will never get off parole…or worse.

Lip is really worried about how Tami will do as a parent. She’s thrown into the deep end just out of the hospital and she’s struggling to handle it. Fred won’t feed from her and he basically cries non-stop. Not unusual for any newborn, but Tami takes it personally convinced that Fred hates her with Lip having bonded with him in the time she’s been in the hospital. Lip calls in some help when he finds out she hasn’t been able to feed Fred all day which crosses a few boundaries. While Tami does take the help from Sara and it makes her life a little easier, she’s mad at Lip for calling another woman in to fix her apparent deficiencies as a mother. Once Tami and Lip are alone they manage to talk about their situation, both their fears, her insecurities, and Lip’s desire to do anything he can to help her. Probably the best scene in the episode.

In other relationship news, Kelly can clearly pick out the growing attraction between Carl and Anne. She’s upset about it but then when it’s revealed that she’s been cheating on Carl, they realize their relationship isn’t what it used to be. With Kelly shipping off soon, it doesn’t look like Kelly and Carl are in it for the long haul.

Carl is Todd’s basketball manager, navigating all the scouting offers that the talented player is getting. With his honed hustling skills, Carl takes care of himself and Todd with perks while setting up everything for Ian’s welcome home party for free.

Deb has moved forward with going after Pepa for her cut of Derek’s insurance money and she’s got more leg work to do than she thought. Pepa is proving to be an expert at dodging court papers so Deb takes matters into her own hands. After some Ninja Warrior level races, she serves Pepa the papers, forcing her into court. And then it takes a turn for the worse when Pepa shows up with legit military lawyers and the woman she’s been listening to isn’t actually a lawyer. Pepa is now on the offensive demanding full custody of Frannie in return for any money.

Our final Gallagher gets two potential piggy banks dropped into his lap when Randy shows up with twins babies in tow. Ingrid has gone AWOL, jumping from a cruise ship, so he no longer wants anything to do with Ingrid and the babies he didn’t father. Frank says no and it comes out that they are genetically Carl’s kids and then gets an idea. He’ll sell them into adoption. He only takes one (the “best one” as scientifically chosen by the one that crawls the fastest) and if it all goes well, he con Randy out of the other baby. This is super gross even by Frank’s standards.

The Balls are on two separate self-discovery journeys. Kev finds out he was the only one on his junior high basketball team not to get molested by their coach and feels left out. Not looking at the obvious benefits of not being traumatized, it goes back to his shallow self-image and confidence issues. When he hears what the coach did to the others, he wisely keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t make anything up to “include” himself.

V is killing it as a pharma rep, leveraging her own lies that Frank would be proud of to sell more doctors on her assigned pill of choice. It’s the biggest career gain she’s ever had and lands an invite to the BBQ, where a lot of doctors and potential commission await her.

I’m happy to see Tami and Lip move forward and Anne and Carl seem like a better match together. I doubt anyone has thought Kelly and Carl would last so this looks like her time is almost up on the show. I can’t see Deb giving up Frannie for any reason so I don’t see what else they can do with her fight with Pepa, so this plot should be over very soon too. Unless Pepa goes all in by claiming Deb is an unfit mother. And what are they going to do to keep Ian interesting, weirder and weirder insurance scams? Will he go the righteous right and take down his parole officer? They said she’s been doing this for years so that could offer him a good challenge.

Gone

Elliot takes a back seat this week and the stage is left for Darlene and Dom.

Dom is the hospital, the surgery for her stab wound to the chest successful. She’s got weeks of recovery ahead of her though and against the wishes of the hospital, she checks herself out to take refuge in her apartment. Darlene finds her here, dresser barricading the door shut. With the Deus Group in shambles, Darlene has come to get Dom so they can hide from the Dark Army.

Dom has given up, she has no desire to try and run. After all, she’s been through–and she doesn’t trust Darlene–she’s content with staying in her safe space and waiting for whatever comes for her.

This episode is all about Darlene trying to redeem herself. The hack is over, her mission is complete but the toll has been great. Dom is the one living person aside from Elliot who’s been through what Darlene has, and Darlene used Dom to get to this point. She has tremendous guilt for hurting someone she truly likes (loves?) and wants Dom to run away with her to keep her safe. Darlene wants to do something to help Dom and keep the Dark Army from hurting one more person. Dom puts up a fight, but when Darlene breaks Dom’s Amazon Alexa–her best friend–she manages to extract Dom from her nest. In their exit of the country, Dom gets a few scares.

The girls meet up with Elliot first, who plans are taking him to Washington Township. The origin of a lot of misery, it’s safe to say Elliot isn’t finished with Whiterose. The Aldersons agree to split up for this, Darlene has thrown in the towel on getting more revenge, happy to have taken the Deus Group’s money. Darlene offers Elliot the opportunity to do the last salvo against the Deus Group, distributing the money, and he declines to say she deserves it (and I agree with him).

Darlene has hired Leon to help them get to the airport on the sly, much to Dom’s shock when seeing him. Her experience with him in the barn was not pleasant so she has reason to fear him. But Leon is a mercenary at this point, so with Darlene hiring him, he’s their friend now. On the way to the airport, they make a pit stop and Darlene lets the money flow to the people. Shocked by how much everyone gets, Dom ever the officer of the law, questions Darlene’s morals. “This is stealing.” To which Darlene fires back, I’m giving everyone their money back from a system that was made and leveraged by the worst people in the world. There’s nothing wrong going on here by this Robin Hood’s standards. Her job done, Darlene is set to leave all of this behind her.

The second scare for Dom comes in the form of Irving. He’s in the airport Hudson News selling his book and it’s quite the emotional juxtaposition. He’s jovial and calm while Dom’s reaction is more fitting upon being next to a complete psychopath. Irving bears good news for them both at least. He’s very excited about his book and the Dark Army has moved on. They don’t care about Dom, Darlene, or Elliot and are doing something else now. A bewildered Dom isn’t sure what to make of it as this crushing threat from the shadows has apparently done a 180. Irving doesn’t offer any reasoning for this but logic suggests that with the Deus Group done, Dark Army’s services for them have come to a halt. There’s no Deus member to direct them and more importantly, no more money. The contract is done and it was the 100 Deus Group members doxxed, not the Dark Army so they’re fine.

With this news, Dom has no reason to run. Now Darlene, the one afraid of moving on alone is back to trying to convince Dom to go to Europe. The two have always been at odds like this. Dom hunkers down and surrounds herself with everything that comforts her in order to suppress her problems. Darlene freaks out and runs. The cycle continues until the very end of “Gone.” Dom doesn’t want to upend her life further, wanting to go back to her mother. She walks away from Darlene. This abandonment sends Darlene into a panic attack and she runs to the bathroom.

When Dom reaches the sign that says Point of No Return, meaning the security checkpoint where you can’t get back to the gates, she stops. She’s heading back to her solitary world, to go behind the walls she’s put up in her life. She turns around and gets onto the plane. Darlene meanwhile has a death grip on the sink counter in the bathroom. A woman voices her concern, asking her if she needs help, needs someone called for her. Darlene manages to stop the attack on her own. Wrestling with her insecurities she’s for the first time made the move to build herself up. She can be independent, she can make her own choices, she doesn’t need anyone by her side to keep herself moving. It’s a fantastic realization to watch her go through as this season has proved, without her Elliot would never have taken the Deus Group down. She did all the work when Elliot failed to show up every time.

With their new look on life, Darlene doesn’t get on the plane and Dom stays on. Dom looks at the empty seat next to her and gets comfortable. She too is deciding to move on in the way that’s best for her.

I think it’s safe to say that this is the last we’ll see of Dom. Her story his done. Darlene, I’m convinced she’s going to find Elliot to help him. Their goodbye was so brief in this episode that it feels incomplete to leave them apart like that. I’m sure she wants to know what Elliot is doing and knows he’s going to need her. Darlene has lost so many people and with her need to protect who is left, she can’t let Elliot go.

Seeing Irving was a major surprise and where he meets Dom feels like Dark Army plant. At the very least it’s a narrative coincidence written in to pull the threat of the Dark Army off the table so they can focus on other stuff. But with 3 episodes left, is it possible to stay on just Elliot and Whiterose? Is there that much story left to go with them? It is hard to imagine Whiterose will simply give up on his large hydron collider, so who knows what insanity he can pull. Irving clearly stated the Dark Army was doing something so maybe they are finishing up with Whiterose. Their hunt for our white hat hackers may be over but that doesn’t mean Elliot (and now Darlene possibly) won’t be walking into their business again.

A Little Gallagher Goes A Long Way

Wow, did Liam take a turn.

In typical Shameless get in and bail out writing fashion, Liam’s plotline has come to a screeching halt. He suddenly comes to think that MaVar is lame and weird. His mentor is now a loser in his eyes so he doesn’t believe what he says and rejects him. He pulls a money scam at Great Auntie’s wake and when MaVar confronts him, Liam lets him know his world views. “They need the money they gave you.” “So do I.” When MaVar says stealing is wrong, Liam doesn’t care. In the time since they gave the Liam character a speaking part, we saw Liam with Frank a lot and everything Frank told him took root. He’s become a grifter, the worst part of the Gallagher name. MaVar recognizes the evil and gets mad, yelling that the Gallagher’s are awful and can’t be trusted. In a very telling line, Liam says, “There it is. You are from South Side.” MaVar is the nicest person from South Side Liam has ever met, he goes out of his way to help people. That’s foreign to Liam, he doesn’t know why you wouldn’t take advantage of someone given the opportunity. He equates his home with being a shady person. Unfortunately, we’re left with Liam saying he now knows “who I am.”

With Frank’s spawn mucking things up, Frank spends his time with Mikey. Last week I mentioned that you can’t trust any of Frank’s friends and I realize this week that Mikey might be the only friend Frank has ever had. Sure he’s scammed with other people, but no one trusts him and spends any more time with him than they have to. Mikey has really been there for him and Frank has grown to like Mikey a lot. With Mikey sick, Frank wants to cheer his friend up so they go on a scamming adventure, one that starts with them getting a free meal and ends with fun day picking up free swag at a marketing expo. By the end of the day, Mikey realizes he physically can’t keep this up anymore. His kidneys are failing, the port infected; he needs professional (re: human) medical attention. So Mikey tells Frank he’s getting off the ride. He’ll get arrested and go to prison so he can get medical care. “The best healthcare the country provides for us poor people.” Frank is heartbroken as he watches his only friend punch a cop.

Deb needs money so she hits the pavement for a new job while the welder’s union is on strike. She runs into a high school friend (I guess) who has four kids and tells Deb the only way to go is to get child support. Deb tells her she told Derek to take a hike because he wanted partial custody for child support (Deb has pride) and this girl is dumbfounded at the idea and tells her to basically go get paid, stupid. This brings Deb to Derek’s house where his wife answers the door and we find out that Derek is dead, he was killed serving overseas in the military. Deb is shocked and finds out from Carl that widow’s get a life insurance payout in such cases, so that means Deb is looking at a potential fat check in her (really, Frannie’s) name. She makes b-line to the local Army office and gets a series of shocks. First, Derek basically killed himself in a tank. Derek was never written as a smart character but they wrote him off as a blithering idiot (which Deb didn’t seem too surprised at). The worst part for her is that Frannie is not a beneficiary of the life insurance, only Derek’s current wife. Now Debbie has a clear mission: lawyer up and get paid.

Carl is doing pretty well. He spends more time with Anne and is at her house to witness a visit from ICE which he isn’ too keen on. With the heat on her house, he offers for them to crash at his house and the whole freaking family rolls up. The good news is that they clean up the house from the disaster Frank left behind with his house party. While having an impromptu party, Tami and Kelly stop by. It gets super weird for Carl as Kelly walks in as he’s dancing with Anne.

Carl is going to single parent AA meetings and he’s surrounded by more than a few interesting women. He’s the only man in the group and the level of thirst surrounding him is nearly overwhelming. He hits it off with the leader of the group and she’s a really smart woman. She’s got her stuff together and Tami getting out of the hospital will now dictate where that relationship goes. Tami seems very tired and wary but she holds Fred fine…after not recognizing him at first. This is going to be interesting.

V and Mimi are getting along swimmingly and V manages to give her meaningful work advice. Mimi is a pharmaceutical rep and she’s having a hard time making any headway with her black doctors. She’s Asian and cites racial bias as the problem. With V’s advice working so well and with her nursing background, Mimi wants her to take over her African American clients so she can cater to her Asian clients. It’s basically an above the board business deal that Anne, Carl, and Liam are doing. V has the potential to bring in some serious money. What are the odds that V flourishes and Kev becomes jealous of not being the main breadwinner?

Conflict

The event is here! The wait for the Deus Group hack is over!

Any episode with hacking is always fun and this week was no different. Elliot and Darlene camp out across the street from the Deus Group meeting and get ready to steal 100 phone numbers and more money than the GDP of almost every industrial nation on earth combined.

First, Darlene and Mr. Robot have a rough start as she quickly notices that Elliot isn’t talking to her and he won’t tell her why Elliot is taking a “rest.” He wants to leave it up to Elliot to tell her about what happened with Vera. Darlene keeps her own secret as well, for some reason not saying a word about Dom and the Dark Army experience that ended like, a half-hour ago. Darlene hides her own trauma well.

Price makes a surprise visit and hands them data about Whiterose’s Congo plan. He wants to cover every angle to make sure Whiterose is destroyed. He brings up Angela, much to Darlene’s confusion and Elliot tells her about Price being Angela’s father.

So the hack starts and the Alderson’s have to navigate a lot of sudden hurdles to complete the hack. Darlene runs to the new secret location of the meeting and brilliantly publishes a new fsociety video doxxing the Deus Group members to flush them out of the meeting so they can hack their phones.

Price keeps Whiterose busy and he proves that a man with nothing to lose is the most dangerous kind. It’s not a good idea to tell a guy you need information from that no matter what, you are going to kill him. Whiterose knows Elliot is up to something but doesn’t know what and as each stage of the hack comes out, she becomes more bewildered. At the start of this, her right hand woman walks out in disgust, unable to talk sense into her boss’s Elliot obsession for the final time. As Whiterose loses control, she gets desperate.

In a brazen attempt to manipulate Elliot, Whiterose claims that Angela is still alive and if they join forces, she’ll reunite them. Price even believes him at first utterance of this nonsense. This is a two-folded ploy. One, classic Whiterose manipulation. She did convince Angela to work for her, promising to bring things back the way they used to be (bring back her mother). Whiterose will say anything to get what she wants. The other side is that Whiterose believes she’s telling the truth. I’m convinced that the Congo project is some kind of time travel scheme. Whiterose is obsessed with the past and for her, the event that’s killing her is her lover’s suicide 30 years ago.

Elliot sees through the lie quickly. At first, he wants to believe. Then he considers the source. The person who not only killed Angela but the one who first twisted her mind into a person he didn’t recognize. She hurt Angela for her own gain long before ordering her death. It all comes together for Price and Elliot: Justice for Angela. Whiterose has gotten her way for so long she knows no boundaries. Elliot and Darlene are the final lines of resistance.

With the 1% essentially wiped out, Price gloats, happy he could finally hurt Whiterose. She snaps and shoots him in public.

With three episodes left, it’s a big mystery as to what’s next. The main goal has been accomplished. Whiterose is trapped, the final scene is the feds raiding her mansion while she puts on makeup. What happens to her? Suicide? Darlene has put the entire Deus Group on blast so Whiterose doesn’t have any friends or favors to call in. Her network is destroyed. Anything that isn’t a liquid asset is presumably gone, I don’t think she could afford a lawyer at this point.

Elliot and Darlene certainly have a lot to talk about. What are they going to do with Dom? Tyrell was talked about but no one knows if he’s alive. Elliot’s mystery personality was talked about at the start so we’re guaranteed to see that (and we better. Good luck on making this satisfying after all of this build-up). I overlooked a major clue on this front. Last post I mentioned the scene with Young Elliot and his mother in the skyrise meeting room from Episode 2. That isn’t reality, it’s Elliot’s mind. it’s some kind of meeting place for his personalities. Through the window, you can see the Freedom Tower and that wasn’t built when Elliot was that young. In this episode, Mr. Robot meets mom and Young Elliot there. So his mother is one of his personalities, one of the parts that make Elliot. She is an awful entity–his anger. Young Elliot is his stolen youth–his innocence and Mr. Robot is his ideal father–the figure made to hide the sexual abuse. The other personalities know about the fourth, the mother says in this episode that he hasn’t been awake in a long time. Mr. Robot corrects her, saying he woke up to talk to Vera and Darlene. None of the personalities knew about that, so this personality can move entirely undetected. So what part of Elliot does this personality represent, why was it created, and what will he look like? Mr. Robot thinks Darlene could be key to get him to come out.

Which America?

How dumb is Debbie? This entire episode is a mudslide for her. She thinks she got away with Mikey blackmailing her. Giving the family ATM cards and giving up control of the house was never going to be enough. All of Frank’s friends are dirtbags so why she thought she could trust Mikey is her biggest mistake. By making bank accounts for everyone, it gave The Man financial access to most of the family. Frank owes the entire planet money, Lip student loans, and Carl I think owes money for boot camp. So the 100 bucks on the cards get taken immediately and the IRS is on to Lip so they garnish his paycheck by 50% as well. Mikey sees that as Debbie screwing with Frank again, so he takes Frank to her secret stash. She should have moved it to another spot in the facility just to protect herself.

Frank is impressed at her con and takes some stuff just to make up for the $100 and “interest.” Of course, they go back and take everything. They fence the stuff for pennies on the dollar and now Deb is on the hunt for Frank.

Deb also gets involved with a welders union. Once she sees all the benefits her peers in other cities get (child care!) she’s all about it. She gets her entire crew to sign up and the very next day, the union is on strike. Deb is financially screwed. This could last for months and she now has no income and her scam being robbed by Frank is going to take all of the money Fiona gave her.

For Carl, the ATM hit isn’t too bad. His hustle at the shrimp joint with Anne is starting to take off so he’s going to have cash. He’s also getting to know Anne and with his girlfriend out of town to her next stage of military service (and his disdain for that world) we’re looking at Carl getting into some relationship drama.

Speaking of relationship drama, Ian and Mickey. They’re stuck in limbo. Annoyed at being together all the time in prison gives way to uncertainty when Ian gets a notification he’s got a parole hearing soon. It’s possible that his sentence will get shut years short and Mickey’s certainly won’t. They’re a monogamous couple in jail but they’ve never talked about the future. Something all the other guys tell him they should have done a while ago. Does Mickey want Ian to wait for him to get out? Will Mickey wait? Or is the relationship over? Mickey wants Ian to stay in prison with him and Ian comes up with a plan to shank someone to spike the parole hearing. Mickey, knowing Ian has a life and opportunities on the outside, manages to stop him. Good for Mickey.

While I was hoping Liam would come up with a neat idea to talk to his black relatives down the street, he ends up just walking in. So we cut out some potential drama and comedy to get to the point. He meets MaVar, the grand-nephew of Great Aunt Addie, one of the living links to Liam’s existence. The Gallagher’s are person non grata in that house for a laundry list of shenanigans but MaVar recognizes Liam’s struggles and he becomes Liam’s mentor.

Meeting MaVar leads to bringing him around The Alibi and V goes to a baseball game with the two. Kevin feels threatened by MaVar’s physical prowess and goes on a mission to find V a new–female–friend. He ropes a few women to show up to the bar via Tinder and actually manages to find someone cool: Mimi.

That leaves us with Lip. He’s out and about by himself and with Tami on the mend, he’s able to visit her with baby Fred. Something’s wrong with Tami though. She’s still got a long way to go in the healing process but clearing a mental issue has developed. Based on how she reacts to seeing and eventually holding Fred, I think she has postpartum depression. When Tami does get out of the hospital, it’s likely that he’ll still be a single parent.