The hits keep coming. This week an entire episode without Elliot. Surprising, daring and arguably the best of the season so far.

Man, did this episode get dark. A lot of great beats for characters and some downright shocking moments.

Mobley and Trenton finally get some significant screen time. The first scene is them meeting for the first time, something I’ve been curious about for awhile now. Mobley’s been worried about being followed and it comes to a head this week. By successfully owning the FBI, fsociety got access to a teleconference that exposes the government surveillance program “Bernstein.” That’s the program that Romaro heard about before he got killed. In the recording, it’s mentioned that they are tailing 16 people. one of them being dead. Mobley thinks they are talking about Romero. fsociety leaks the tape and now that puts the squeeze on the FBI.

They’re all at fsociety HQ when the owner,  Susan Jacobs, comes home. No one was keeping track of her. Nuts, just nuts. This sets off a crazy series of events. She’s seen them all and heard them talking. They tie her up in the room with the pool (!).

Before continuing with that, let’s talk about Angela. She’s at a 4th of July party where she gets called out by one of her dad’s old friends. She yells back at him in anger and does a rather stirring rendition of Everybody Wants To Rule The World. Then she picks up an older man at the bar. We then see that the guy she took home a few episodes ago works for the FBI. Dom assigned this guy to get info out of here (he didn’t get anything out of her) and he says he’s done.

Back to fsociety, things get intense. Susan tries to make a break for it and bonks her head pretty good. With limited options, the team goes ahead with hacking her life to get dirt on her to blackmail her silence. After some work, they find some. Darlene goes down to lay it out to Susan, one of the lawyers that got E Corp off the hook for poisoning her hometown years ago. And then…Darlene kills Susan.

That starts a tailspin. Mobley wants out and Cisco tells him that’s not a good idea for him and Mobley throws some Dark Army shade at him. Mobley and Trenton go home and my favorite directed scene of the episode comes to pass. Mobley and Trenton are both beyond paranoid and the music selection along with the play of darkness and light exemplifies their fear. Mobley pays a pizza delivery guy to go check his apartment. Trenton hears something outside and sees a car creep by and then speed away. Mobley ends up getting picked up by the feds but the surprise there is…they have nothing on him. Dom tracked him down from the End of the World party poster she found at Romero’s but has no idea he’s directly involved with fsociety. She asks him about Tyrell and he asks for a lawyer. Once released, Mobley sends a message to Trenton to meet up but he doesn’t show up. I like Mobley and have no idea (well, I do, but they’re all bad) where he is.

Darlene and Cisco are left to handle Susan back at HQ and Darlene thinks the only choice they have is to get rid of the body. They do and they take the subway to Cisco’s place. The stuff Darlene says is amazing about Susan and her past are amazing. Brilliant writing, I love it. So she spends the night with Cisco and the morning comes. He’s in the shower and Darlene looks at his laptop that he left open. Great Scott, now we know for sure Cisco is under The Dark Army’s thumb. He told them he has Darlene with him. They reply with “Stage 2” is underway. Darlene goes off the deep end in the ending of all episodes.

Amazing episode. A whole new layer of trouble. The main character of the show was absent and it wasn’t any worse off. Darlene has reached an entirely new level and all hell has broken loose. The intensity, the paranoia. It’s just dripping off of every frame now. Come one episode 9!