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.

Request Timeout

Another episode title that matches well with the events.

The end of the 7th episode threw as all for a loop and much of Request Timeout is Elliot trying to wrap his head around the freshly opened wound of his childhood trauma. He now feels like a victim, guilty that he “let” his father abuse him. With Mr. Robot gone, he feels that much more alone. When he leaves Krista at the police station he asks her what other people do in his situation…he’s completely lost and doesn’t know how to process anything he’s feeling. She tells him they figure out how to continue on.

On his own, Elliot begins to see his younger self, who leads him to the Queens Museum. This is where he and Angela often played as kids and they stop at the panorama exhibit of NYC. Elliot breaks down, apologizing to his younger self for not fighting back. Young Elliot tells Elliot he didn’t bring him here to apologize or feel guilty and leads him to a hiding spot. Elliot digs around and finds his old bedroom door key. Along with creating Mr. Robot to cope with the abuse and shutting off the abuse he went through, Elliot doesn’t remember anything from this time. At first, he’s puzzled at why he would hide the key and realizes he did try to defend himself. By taking his father’s key to his room, it was a plan to keep him out and away from him. Some guilt leaves his conscience and Elliot can now see a sliver of light at the end of the tunnel, going from victim to survivor.

Young Elliot showing up seems like that could be the other personality we’ve been waiting for but looking back, that doesn’t add up. First, why would that personality show up to talk to Vera? Vera is a present-day Elliot problem, so young Elliot has nothing to do with him and would have nothing to say. Plus, going back to episode 2 of this season, we saw a flashback of young Elliot with his mother in a high rise board room. She says he can’t sit in the chair because it’s not his and this strange conversation happens:

“They’re not ready yet. We need to wait…for him.”

Elliot asks, “You mean, Mr. Robot?”

“No.”

“Elliot?”

“No. The other one.”

Clearly we have not met the other main personality yet and judging by that conversation, the Elliot we know might not have been in charge for nearly as long as we’ve thought. The young Elliot in that flashback is referring to an Elliot–not himself (what name does his mother call him, I wonder). It’s unclear if that “Elliot” is the Elliot personality we know. Is it a different one? So are we looking at four personalities that make up the person we’ve been watching? This personality has been around since childhood, the same as Mr. Robot, but Elliot just recalled that Mr. Robot has been around that long. Whoever this personality is, it’s been buried really deep since the beginning (and I have a feeling Whiterose knows this personality).

This mystery personality is tying theories into knots, but I think Young Elliot is just that, the lost childhood in Elliot. In order to protect his mind, Mr. Robot was created. He crafted Elliot’s past and now Elliot doesn’t know who he is at all. The abuse shaped his life entirely without him realizing it and now he doesn’t know what to do. Young Elliot appearing is, I think, the manifestation of his grief. He first comes to grips with the past, acknowledging it happened and going through the steps of grief with himself. This lets Elliot move forward to Mr. Robot.

Elliot stops blocking Mr. Robot as he’s coding for the Deus Group hack at the old AllSafe office. We’re down to an hour before the meeting and Elliot doesn’t know what else do with himself. Even though Elliot is talking to himself, he starts the conversation with a lie, he needs help for getting the hack ready in such a small amount of time. He’s afraid of going through this next mental step. Mr. Robot knows this and says this isn’t the real reason why you let me back in, do you want to talk about it? And they do. Mr. Robot apologizes and they basically make up. Elliot comes to realize that Mr. Robot isn’t a figment of his imagination, he is part of Elliot. He is who he is today because of Mr. Robot. He can’t lock part of himself up and function. He must be whole to continue on.

With the reconstruction of Elliot Alderson going on, Dom and Darlene are in Janice’s clutches. Janice starts turning the screws on them to get Elliot’s location and Darlene holds out as long as she can. Stabbed in the chest, Dom is dieing in front of her but she doesn’t relent until Janice goes after Dom’s family. Janice is not messing around and it turns out Dom has set up a hail mary. When Janice calls her goons at Dom’s mother’s house to start the murder fest, she gets no answer. Deegan “Lucky Irish Bastard” McGuire to the rescue! And who is that? I had the same question and I had to look it up.

In one of the biggest reaches of the show to get out of a pickle, Deegan first showed up in episode 2 of this season. The feds bust this guy (he’s gets criminals out of the country) and Dom is called in to interview him. Then in episode 5, in an email from one of Dom’ co-workers, we find out that Deegan has been released. So that means this guy is out and about for Dom to call on, and it’s this episode that she seemingly calls in a favor.

Janice talks to Deegan on Dom’s cell phone and is told why her people aren’t answering their phone. Deegan and his crew went to Dom’s mom’s house and rescued her family, killing all the Dark Army guys in the process. Apparently Dom did him a solid (getting released in episode 5?) and this makes them even. Using the shock of the situation, Dom yanks the knife out of her chest and pulls off a Jason Bourne level fight, killing Janice and her goons.

This is a paper-thin set up for sure and Dom contacting Deegan (I assume in the time after she knocked out Darlene and before Janice showed up) wasn’t put on camera to crank up the suspense and relief of this scene. So it comes out of nowhere but I’m not too upset because the set up is there (it’s not deus ex machina) and the pay off is awesome. It’s also a plot miracle that Dom made it through this scene with a punctured lung so let’s just keep moving.

And now we are left with Darlene able to get back to Elliot. We are literally looking at the deadline for this make it or break it hack to take down Whiterose. I am more than ready to see this finally happen. I think all the side travels are done (aside from where Tyrell is) and we’ll stick to the main plot points. Elliot needs to be unified with Mr. Robot for this…the big question is when will the mystery personality show up. That’ll be the major wrinkle.

Sleep Well My Prince for Tomorrow You Shall Be King

We check in with Ian in prison and things are a little rough with Mickey. They’re together so much that they aren’t driving each other crazy along with everyone near them who can hear their nonstop arguments. The start of this storyline is all laughs, the mayonnaise in particular, and it makes me wonder if we’ll get anything more out of these two in jail together. Ian and Mickey are fan favorites so it’ll be interesting to see where this goes. The audience has expectations.

Tami is recovering from surgery so that leaves Lip alone to take care of baby Freddy (“It’s the first name that came to me. I hope Tami likes it”). And when he turns to everyone for help, he gets a polite smile and a “welcome to parenthood” line of encouragement. Another funny line is from Liam who asks him why he’s so stressed out about Freddy since he has so much experience with raising kids. “I guess I wasn’t so worried if any of you died.”

Liam continues to struggle with his lack of identity. Since he’s the only dark-skinned person in the family, he feels like an other. His siblings say his skin color isn’t important, he’s a Gallagher, and he rightfully says I’m only seen as a Gallagher in this house, anywhere else I’m black and treated differently. He wants to get a DNA test to find out his ancestry and at the end of the episode, he asks Frank about the family history, how could he be born black and no one else? Frank says that one of Monica’s grandfathers had a mistress. “And she was black?” “She is black.” “What?” “She lives down the street.” They go to the house and when a man sees Frank, they are scared away with a gun. Liam has found his roots, he just needs to figure out how to get close to them.

Mikey is none too pleased with the fact that Deb is calling the shots in Frank’s home and works to shift the power levels. He follows her to her secret stash and extorts her to give up control. She gets the boys ATM cards, effectively giving them a $100 a week allowance (she’s not about to let what money they have disappear in 2 weeks) and tells Frank he can “take over” if she wants. Expect the house to turn into a toilet by the end of the weekend and Deb being asked to take the reins again.

Deb also hits her first “return the merch!” problem. She gets caught in the “I didn’t wear these $800 shoes” and the guy blackmails her to return the shoes. She ends up not doing the favor (which I didn’t find believable at all) but he end result is that she has to be way more careful with the merch. One thing is to not wait until the 30th return day as that is the first red flag.

Frank’s not the only one trying to make moves for himself. With a wrap on his military career, Carl has to go back to the rat race and heads right back to the shrimp joint where he’s welcomed back with open arms by his boss who loves him. While he was gone, a young woman (Hello, Anne!) was hired to take his place. It doesn’t take long for him to notice her drug side hustle. She’s selling vape pens with meals and Carl swoops in, bringing Liam in for the action. She pulls in the Hispanic kids, Carl the white kids, and Liam the black kids. By expanding the product and market place, they’ll make a ton of money.

Kev has given up his basketball dreams and packs up his new shoes to return them. A delivery guy comes in to pick it up and asks for a beer and a shot before running into the bathroom. A little later a patron finds the guy dead on the floor of the bathroom, due to some sort of stroke emergency. Miffed by the driver’s attitude of drinking on the (driving) job and doing something stupid in her bar, V agrees with everyone to raid his truck. They have a great time of going through the trucks and Kev takes it one step further, driving around the truck to pick up the returns on his route and selling that stuff on their own. When times are tough the people will take any advantage they can.

Of the plot lines going on, I’m the most interested in Liam and Lip. Lip’s stuff I’m sure won’t break any new ground but he’s one of my favorite characters. Liam’s story is just starting and they could go anywhere with it, so that’s the most exciting.

Proxy Authentication Required

In this daring episode, Vera digs into Elliot with the help of Krista. Layed out like a 5 act play, this entire episode takes place in Krista’s apartment with no movement on any other plot of the show. Once again, Sam Esmail pumps the breaks to focus on one single piece of the puzzle.

It’s safe to say that Vera is obsessed with Elliot, convinced that they can be and should be partners in taking over Manhatten. Vera has grand plans and he needs Elliot to do it. Now that he knows about Mr. Robot, he pivots that thought to Mr. Robot instead. By threatening Krista, he’s able to talk to Mr. Robot.

And Mr. Robot isn’t impressed. Vera, high on meth, doesn’t really have a plan. It’s very basic, just wanting to take things over and have everyone come to him for…drugs? He doesn’t offer up any scheme to do this, seemingly under the impression that Elliot can come up with the how to get what he wants. Mr. Robot scoffs at him for many good reasons (shades of Breaking Bad’s Walter White as Heisenberg) and pivots to the plan that’s already in motion–the one with the death clock ticking down. Help with Deus Group hack and I’ll hook you up with all the money you want to get your enterprise going.

While the hook does sink in (“Look at all those zeros!”) Elliot tries to get out of this with force only discover that Vera isn’t that stupid. He had his guys remove the bullets from his gun before they got to the apartment. So Vera goes back to his original plan and uses Krista to crack Elliot. What’s he hiding in there? Why does Mr. Robot exist?

And through deconstruction, we finally find out why Mr. Robot came into existence. Elliot and Darlene’s dad was not a “friend” as Elliot has always referred to him. Mr. Robot is Elliot’s protector from childhood sexual abuse. It’s a devastating realization for Elliot and it’s one that Vera can relate to. Vera sees his opening and begins to start his friendship with Elliot. He did say he’d never be able to work with Elliot with threats or fear, he’d rebel against that. They had do be on the same level for it to work. So as Elliot listens, Krista jumps at the opening and stabs Vera in the back.

A visual and acting tour de force, this was another riveting episode. Totally unexpected, I didn’t know where it was going and while a major plot for the show has been answered, there are still a ton of questions.

Elliot now has another dead body to deal with and he has to figure out what to do about it, and the 2 thugs Vera has with him wandering around somewhere outside. So the two of them have physical threats to deal with.

Next, Mr. Robot has seemingly left. He pleaded with Krista not to lead Elliot to the truth and his last words are “I can’t protect you anymore” and walks off the screen. Is Mr. Robot really gone? Will Elliot be forced to tap into that part of himself again to take out Whiterose’s empire? And how is Elliot going to even function after this?

A few hours have passed in the apartment. It’s night time at the end of the episode and since it’s the end of the year it’s somewhere around 4-5 pm. There is very little time left before the Desu Group meeting that Price forced to happen. Plus we have no idea what’s happened to Dom and Darlene with Janice and the Dark Army. That must be what we’re going to see next week.

And there wasn’t a single word about Elliot having another personality. I thought for sure we’d see that, and nothing. There’s no way Mr. Robot could have know what Vera wanted, that he’d find Krista and use her. So why would he lie about not being the one that talked to Darlene about Vera sniffing around two months ago? I’m completely lost on this thread.

This episode, for as good as it was, kept me feeling like we’re in limbo. There have been a lot of diversions with a few moments of world plot progress. While Elliot is on a severe time limit, and the show is too with only 6 episodes left, it’s like the show doesn’t know it’s on a time limit. I think this is the 3rd episode on Christmas Day, we’re hours away from ‘make it or break’ it time and it always feels like Esmail doesn’t think that’s important. Is he trying to cram too much into the final season?

Still, it feels like Esmail has a very clear vision of what he wants to accomplish this season. He puts incredible planning into this, I just can’t figure out what road he has us on. The reveal of Elliot’s father is huge. It also means we’re going to get an intense scene with Darlene about it. Was she abused too? I have so many questions, I hope most of them get answered.

We Few, We Lucky Few, We Band of Gallaghers!

We’re back with the Gallaghers a few months since Fiona left town and the new normal (which is never normal) has been established: Deb is in charge of the finances since Fiona left her the 50k. It seems like the most logical and safest bet considering Deb is currently the most trustworthy with finances. Or at least she acts like it. Everyone is pretty spread out at the start, so the opening episode establishes what everyone is up to now.

Ian is in prison and we don’t get to see him but the family is planning to go see him very soon. Fiona is shown calling Deb’s phone at the very start and they talk later so we know that the character hasn’t been sucked into a void. She’s not on the show for us to see and hear, but she’s still part of the universe. I’m sure this will fall to the wayside quickly (and they don’t need to show her on caller ID all the time) but I appreciate the recognition.

Deb managed to bring Liam back home by agreeing to some of his culture demands. He’s all about the black power education, growing his hair out naturally, wearing a dashiki to school, picking a new culturally appropriate name and going to classes with V about African heritage. You have to give the kid credit as he endures a beating at school for wearing the dashiki and otherwise not fitting in (which isn’t out of Liam’s life experiences so far in his young life). It’s great to see V travel with him on this journey and she cooks traditional African meals for them which seems to be the first real roadblock to his new lifestyle. Pig intestines aren’t high up on the tasty scale, apparently. Being a 10-year-old American has its limitations as one of the last things he says to V is about getting pizza.

Deb has everything charted on for the Gallagher finances. That 50k from Fiona is a major advantage for the family, something they’ve never had. She’s being careful to keep the household afloat, ahead of the bills for once and making repairs. Frank is offended Deb won’t give him any money and he’s incensed that she’s docked him $600 for a new couch. Frank’s leg has healed but living on the couch for 5 months destroyed it. So while Deb has put up a responsible front to everyone, she’s secretly bought a ton of expensive clothes. She’s rented a storage facility to house it all, she basically has her own secret bedroom in this thing. She’s keeping all the tags on it, has an elaborate system to return everything on time so technically she’s not spending money on all of this. It’s more of a loan. This is Shameless so there is no way this is going to work out. I’d say she has 10k worth of merchandise.

Frank, broke as he’s ever been and now without pain meds for his leg, kicks off his next hustle. He has a really funny argument with Deb about not giving him money, essentially saying every irresponsible thing about money and being an adult to her, and storms off. He can’t scam any more pills from the doctor so he figures out a way to steal some. On the run from his bait and switch, he runs into Mikey, his partner in crime from last season. He’s also working the scam scene and they end up hanging out for the day, stealing nice couch cushions from a hotel and doing some drugs. Frank now has a sympathetic ear to complain about his family to.

Kevin has air balled himself into a midlife crisis. He embarrasses himself at a pickup game of basketball and he’s mortified that his status as an athlete–as a man–has fallen into the trash. So Kev is on the hunt to get his mojo back. He doing weird diet stuff to get into better shape for basketball and he blames his old sneakers for holding him back. V shoots down buying $250 shoes because they are on a budget so he goes back to an old job to make some quick money: a dancer at a gay bar. He makes a quick pile of cash and gets the shoes he wants. Of course that does nothing since shoes don’t help your jump shot or make you run faster, or give you the knees you had 15 years ago.

Finally, Lip is navigating the very pregnant Tami. She’s super happy which is not Tami. Lip is thrown off by her sunny deposition and Brad assures him that once the baby is born, she’ll swing back to normal in no time. At work, Tami suddenly goes into labor, Lip gets her to the hospital and complications arise. She has to have an emergency C-section and while the baby boy comes through fine, Tami takes a sudden turn and is rushed away to surgery. Last season Lip went all-in on being a parent with Tami. She tried to run from him (literally) so many times that he wanted her to know that she wasn’t going to be a single mother. Her fear of that shouldn’t be what makes her determine what to do with the baby (adoption or otherwise). So on this momentus day of their future together, it’s possible that Lip will be a single father instead. I’m not sure if they are going to go through with killing Tami off the show and I’m not sure if I want them to. Either path leads to a lot of story possibilities and I don’t think they need to do something so dramatic just to be dramatic (of course this scenario is, unfortunately, a real one).

A solid start to the season.

Not Acceptable

This is an episode of moral quandaries and boy does it get rough. Elliot has always been an anti-hero. While he’s held the moral ground in most cases, a lot of his hacking is “for the greater good.” He’ll extort/blackmail people to get what he wants and now that he’s on an intense time table with no room for error, he’s never been more aggressive.

He needs more from Olivia so he goes to visit her again. Getting access at Virtual Realty wasn’t enough, he still needs the digital key to the door to get in so he needs Olvia’s boss to log into work so he can steal his password.

He left Olivia on good terms, she didn’t know what he stole from her so she has no reason to be wary of him. When we last left her, I even wrote that he met a kindred spirit. She’s been through things that Elliot can relate to and I came away from it noting that he made a personal connection with her (I’m ignoring the sex in this btw) which is rare for him. When he shows up at her apartment, coffee in hand, he cuts to the chase. He tells her what he did and what he needs her to do and in order to force her to do it ASAP, he’s spiked her drink with an opiate. If she doesn’t call her boss and get him to log in, he’ll rat her out and her kid will be taken away from her for good.

The fallout is intense, to say the least. Elliot tries to make himself feel better–justify his actions–my slandering her job. ‘What do you think offshore bank accounts for megacorps are for? You know you work for an evil company, you’re complicit.’ In many cases he Elliot doesn’t see what he happens to the people he leverages, but here he’s face to face with it and he now has to walk around with that guilt. This scene is one of Elliot’s worst.

As I said last week, the threads are coming together. First, Dom goes straight for Darlene and we’re in another horrific scenario of blackmail. Janice tells Dom to take Darlene’s phone to find Elliot (who they really need) and kill Darlene. She has until 3:30 to do it (a little more than an hour iirc) and Dom understandably freaks out at the thought, as does Darlene. This scene was the most intense of the night for me with some of the best acting on the show. At the end of it, we’re probably in an even worse scenario. Let’s just say Janice is very punctual.

Finally, we’re with Vera and Krista and this goes pretty much as I expected it to. There’s a ton of menace going on here as Vera simply wants the goods on Elliot. At one point she tries to switch the tables and use her profession on him but it doesn’t work at all. She had a glimmer of hope for about 3 seconds that she could get the upper hand on him but she was grasping at straws trying to get into his childhood. Vera is also wrong too but to a lesser extent. He thinks the two were a couple, which is completely wrong and at first he doesn’t believe it. It doesn’t take too long for her to figure out she has no leverage and gives up her files on Elliot. Vera is about to find out about Mr. Robot.

Out of everything that is going on, this plot seems the most like a tangent to the entire Mr. Robot universe. The big question is, how important is this really? If this wasn’t happening, would we miss it? There would be fewer episodes, that’s for sure. The only answer is where is this going and that’s tough to nail down. What’s Sam Esmail’s point with this?

The main point I can think of goes along with what Elliot just did to Olivia. Fallout and consequences. Now Vera is 100% a piece of garbage and I’m totally on Elliot’s side with what he did to Vera to get rid of him. Until now, just about everyone Elliot dealt with in this way, Elliot didn’t have to worry about. They were done. They were gone. Vera is now the opposite of that. Vera knows he can use Elliot as a tool for his own power gain now he’s forcing himself back into Elliot’s life. Vera is now the consequence of Elliot’s actions. In life, things don’t always have a clean end.

Plus, we have the plotline of Elliot having a third personality that was snuck in a few weeks ago in the episode where Mama Aldersonr dies. The personality that kept the news that Vera was back from Elliot. Clearly this plotline was made to give Sam Esmail something to explore with of Vera. He put that (complicated) seed in there for a reason. But what is it? Where is he going with this? Some kind of message about power struggles? The scourge of criminal violence and drugs? At this point, I think it’s impossible to say. We have to go with, In Esmail We Trust on this one.