"Who Is Mr. Robot's Landlord?" Eps3.5.kill-process.inc

Well, I won’t go too crazy, but it was me Sam was talking about last week in the after show, I solved the S3 twist - here is the explanation I wrote a few weeks ago about the 71 facilities. Location Burnt (which is what Santiago texts to the Dark Army) is the perfect way to explain the entire thing.

I spent the day talking to some other really smart people who had other really great theories that might still come true too. What a fun day and night (it doesn’t get better than discussing Mr. Robot all day IMHO).

Short form, in the last episode of Season 2, Elliot told Tyrell his plan to kill Stage 2, so, of course, Tyrell or Mr. Robot would know to change the plan to use Elliot’s plan.

I am sure it will turn out I missed some details in the reveal next week, but I am pretty sure I didn’t see anyone else putting together that it would be the 71 facilities, not the 1.

Anyway, In case you missed last week’s  “Who Is Mr. Robot’s Landlord?” here is my recap of Eps3.4runtimeerror.r00

Oh, I also put together a Spotify playlist of songs that I think could easily fit on Mr. Robot and which speak to some element of a character or the show in general to me,  here is that playlist:

You can also follow me on Spotify, I am ypsifactj

Mr. Robot Eps3.5.kill-process.inc exposed new information about Angela, Tyrell, and announced the Pirce Zhang war. Enjoy!

If you have not watched every episode of Mr. Robot or read Red Wheelbarrow this could contain spoilers *Spoiler Alert*

So That Opening Scene Was Amazing

I spent most of yesterday and this morning  talking theories back and forth with bknapple, the guy who solved last year’s Mr. Robot ARG (because the Mr. Robot community is awesome), and he was talking about the relationship between Angela and her Mom and then the very first scene tonight was the first visual we have ever had of Emily Moss.

I was virtually certain his theory (which I am not going to share) was right and mine was wrong.

Still, there was some important stuff happening there:

* The dialog between young Angela and Edward seems to kill the longstanding “Lolita” theory that suggested Edward and Angela might have had a relationship (there was none of that vibe at all and Edward was totally helpful and not creepy to her). However, there still has to be a reason that both Darlene and Angela have a connection to the Nabokov book.

* The scene did an amazing job of providing the backstory to why Angela now believes in the ‘whiterose’ plan. Her Mom explained it:

“What I believe, what, that this isn't the end, that there is a different world out there for both of us and we'll play and dance and sing, doesn't that sound beautiful, will you believe with me.”

Angela clearly has a ton of guilt about being cynical about ignoring her Mom (and maybe even being mean to her) so, she tries to embrace the faith that they can be together again. You can actually see her face soften and her start to embrace the future where she can be with her Mom again.

Of all people, ‘whiterose’ made her believe again. The entire discussion that follows with Elliot is Angela putting her dream of reconnecting with her Mother between her and Elliot’s anger and frustration. It was actually a pretty wonderfully acted scene from both the girl playing young Angela and the scene with Portia Doubleday (in fact, Portia has killed it the last two weeks).

Make no mistake, this is about faith. When Angela was threatened by the gunman on the subway she makes it clear that she has faith that nobody is going to die (a 'factoid' that she will have to face down in the aftermath of the 71 facilities attack).

Angela and Elliot have been trying to take down E-Corp for similar but not for the same reason. Angela wanted to take down E-Corp to get justice for her Mom while Elliot wanted to get revenge for his Dad.

Angela and Elliot have been trying to take down E-Corp by very different means. Until Angela realized she wasn’t powerful enough, she tried to take to do it through purely legitimate means (even famously going to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission but gets scared away when they appear to be captured by E-Corp. After that, she meets ‘whiterose’ and is convinced she can help usher in the new world where she can see her Mom again. Elliot through Mr. Robot wants to burn E-Corp to the ground using whatever means necessary.

I never really thought about it until this week but Angela was trying to be MLK and Elliot (through Mr. Robot was full on Malcolm X...It was like the opening of the credits in Do The Right Thing).

One of the most painful moments of last week’s episode was when Angela finally realized that she was complicit with the Dark Army’s violence for the very first time (as people were beaten down all around her). Just like Elliot pretends Mr. Robot has nothing to do with him to cope with the violence he has been responsible for since 5/9, Angela is using her Mother’s dream to cover her own fear that she has become corrupted and that she has betrayed and used Elliot.

Oh, and obviously they gave us yet another Back to the Future reference (the Back to the Future Cartoon and Edward talks about the 'Enchantment Under the Sea Dance').

Fight Club 2: Electric Boogaloo

I am no expert but I think a kill command with an “inc” means something like it kill the identified process and all of its relatives (which are running). Sounds like a panic move to me (I am sure some of the hackers who read this will correct and educate me).

So, Elliot spends most of the rest of the episode trying to get to an E-Corp terminal so that he can sabotage the reboot of Stage 2 (which also means that Mr. Robot is trying to do a Kill order on all of his own related processes). This ends up functionally looking like the scenes at the end of Fight Club where Tyler (Brad Pitt) is beating up Tyler (Ed Norton).

Well at first it is more like Mr. Robot is taking over and removing Elliot fro whatever terminal he finds, but as Elliot gets better at fighting him off, he has to go to more and more direct means. The whole thing goes down in the building where the Stage 2 data is supposed to be destroyed

In the end, Elliot tells him that he doesn’t even understand why they are fighting since he moved all the files anyway. Mr. Robot didn’t know (this was my one error, I assumed it was both Tyrell and Mr, Robot but it was just Tyrell who knew the plan). Finding out that Tyrrell played him pisses Mr. Robot off, so he helps Elliot get into the room where the data is stored and hit the extinguishers...world saved.

Except, as we all know now, Tyrell blew up the 71 buildings, not the one.

Elliot thought he saved the world (after killing it) and now it is all his fault. Poor Elliot. Betrayed on all sides and outfoxed by Tyrell and ‘whiterose’ <sigh>.

"Oh, It Will Be Done By End Of Day, You Have My Word…"

So, if there ever was a bromance between Price and Zhang, it is over. 

Price and Zhang meet up for drinks at Donald Trump's Mara Lago estate in what has to be one of the most awkward cocktail parties in the history of television.  

After Phillip Price says he wants his preferential E-Coin agreement with China signed by the end of the day Zhang was like, “don’t worry buddy, it will be done” (he is obviously referring to the 71 facilities).

Brutal.

The question now is how will Price strike back, he isn’t going down quietly.

Make no mistake, E-Corp has been beaten down (notice no E-Coin commercial tonight) but Price and Zhang are at war now. The only difference is the war is no longer an open secret between them. Zhang has said, I don’t care if you know.

Also, Santiago and Dom are now openly at war, Dom is betting that Santiago has fucked up his job so badly trying to stop her progress that he can’t call her out for violating the chain of command.

In other words, despite being ordered to stand down while Santiago said a bunch of ridiculous nonsense, she just decided it was time to call his bluff.

Anyway, Dom exposes Tyrell’s hideout (underneath Red Wheelbarrow BBQ).

But not before Irving reveals that the Dark Army has betrayed Tyrell.

Irving hands Tyrell a page of instructions, tells him there won’t be a trip to meet his wife, and tells him to follow the instructions and then Irving leaves.

So, what was on the note?

I don’t know for sure (but I will think about it over the next few days).

My original guess was that the note told him the truth about his wife, which is why he decided to run out screaming Stop Stage 2 because it might speak to his motivation for being involved in trying to stop the plan (if he is no longer in love with Mr. Robot and his wife and kid are dead, maybe you try to save the world?).

Even that doesn’t make much sense.

And during the aftershow, Martin Wallstrom said that Tyrell still doesn’t know about his wife and kid.

So, who the heck knows, but part of the instructions included Tyrell turning himself in and screaming for them to end Stage 2.

Maybe the Dark Army threatened that they would kill his wife and kid if he didn’t fall on his sword for them and take the fall for Stage 1 and Stage 2? That actually makes sense to me now that I think about it. It would probably tell him Joanna is dead but that they have his child and if he doesn’t take the fall, they will kill his kid.

Just a guess, but a good one.

Darlene, No More Budapest. Elliot No More Mr. Nice Guy.

Apparently, Darlene has decided to get back in the game. She is back to her snappy place (calling out Angela for having a big eye).

I am not sure what it means, but Darlene is clearly not going to just sit by and do what the FBI wants her to do anymore.

Probably more important, I am not sure Elliot and Mr. Robot will be working at cross purposes anymore. Elliot is pissed that he didn’t save the world and reclaim his goodness and Mr. Robot is furious (you could see it on his face) that he was played by the Dark Army.

It is possible that they will be, at least for a time, working together.

I am not sure I am willing to go so far as to suggest that they are going to reintegrate, but I think there will be cooperation now.

Mr. Robot is going to be really pissed that they hijacked his revolution for their own purposes (although why he didn't see that coming is beyond me).

Okay, that’s all the damage I can do tonight. I will get up early and put the photos in (it takes USA Network forever to upload the new photos every week).

Until next week!