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.