By Zoe Benjamin OnMilwaukee Reporter Published Jul 21, 2016 at 6:01 PM

"Mr. Robot" has a genius way of telling its overall story in increments, revealing just the right flashback at the perfect time. In the case of episode two, it all comes back to one place: the fsociety arcade.

The arcade was acquired through hacker Jerome Romero, one of the original members of fsociety and convicted felon. Romero brought Mobley to the abandoned Coney Island arcade, filling him in on the soon-to-be headquarters’ history. It all began in 1924, when a husband and wife opened a dwarf sanctuary in the very building. The husband went crazy one day and murdered his family, and himself, for no apparent reason. Then, in the 1960s, a woman bought the property, turned it into an arcade and bar, and then tragically died after a serious fall off a bar stool.

The arcade was abandoned until 2000, when a man named Ned Bolscham bought it up and named it Fun Society LLC. Ned had a set of twin sons, one of which killed Ned and then died of a freak accident shortly after. The other twin was charged with a double homicide and went to prison, where he met Romero. Bolscham gave Romero the keys after his release and asked Romero to burn the place down because he thought of the arcade as "the nexus of all evil in the universe." Romero wanted to, but his mother’s accumulating medical bills for her cataracts forced him to sell the place instead.

Some of the letters on the arcade’s sign went missing after a while, making the sign read "F. Society." It makes sense that a place with such a dark, twisted history would become the birthplace of Mr. Robot’s destruction of control by the invisible hand. The building was filled with good intentions, but always seemed to end with death and destruction — how fitting.

We’re taken from the fsociety arcade flashback to where we left off last episode. Elliot had a very short conversation with the voice on the phone, who we now know is Tyrell Wickens, the most-wanted man in America. Tyrell won’t reveal where he is, but he says that he’s close to where he’s supposed to be. Tyrell also referred to "the night when they became gods." What, Elliot? What kind of deal did he make with Tyrell, and why don’t we know anything about it? It’s obvious that Elliot’s attempt to control Mr. Robot has all been a load of BS. What is real?

Mobley went to Romero’s home to check in with him, only to find Romero clearly assassinated on his back porch. We don’t know how long he’s been dead, but we do know that Jerome’s mother's joint was near finished upon Mobley’s arrival.

The story switches over to Ray, the talkative guy that Elliot met at the basketball game last episode. As Ray sits eating breakfast in his home while hooked up to a dialysis machine, he strikes up conversation ... with a nonexistent person. My first thought was, "No wonder he’s so interested in being friends with Elliot — he’s a crazy tech guy, too."

At the daily basketball game, Leon sits with Elliot and asks what’s up with him. Leon knows that he’s not Elliot’s keeper, but he still wants to know that his boy is okay (as he should). Elliot doesn’t say anything and goes to confront Mr. Robot instead. It turns out that Elliot has began to take Adderall to keep Mr. Robot at bay. He then proceeds to pop a ridiculous amount of pills, triggering an extended burst of energy and absence of Mr. Robot.

Elliot’s mask-free day, however, is interrupted by men in suits who grab him up, tie him to a chair and pour cement down his throat. In reality — since nothing is real anymore — Elliot is in his room forcing himself to vomit his guts out. No matter what, Mr. Robot will always be there to stop Elliot from ridding himself of him. "I burrowed underneath your brain; I nested there; I am the scream in your mind," said Mr. Robot. "You will cooperate my son — I will make you because I own you."

Elliot responded with devouring the least digested Adderall pills from his vomit on the floor. Obviously, he won’t be owned.

Meanwhile, Mobley makes his way to the subway, where he enters a car with a man with the voice of an angel, singing opera as he stands with a cup reading "Lost my money and mind." He may very well exemplify the current state of most people in our society.

Darlene meets up with Mobley, trying to convince him that Romero was always a liability. They meet up with another one of their partners, Trenton. Mobley attempts to warn the two that the Dark Army (the ones who helped with the E Corp hack) is tying up loose ends of the biggest crime of the century. Darlene’s nonchalant attitude towards the current events is disturbing; how could you not be at least a little worried at a time like this? I feel as if she feels so out of control that she’s in denial.

At E Corp, Angela is looking like a very unhappy robot as the company’s PR manager. She met with Phillip Price to discuss PR strategies but just ended up disagreeing with Price and pushing for the strategy she felt was best. Price was pleased with her standing her ground, so he invited her to an intimate dinner at a fancy restaurant on a Saturday night.

At first, you might think that Price gave the invitation for the sole purpose of sleeping with Angela, but his reasons for doing so were quite the contrary. Price brought Angela to a dinner with two other colleagues involved with E Corp. Mr. Price even introduced himself as the "master of the universe." How charming. She hasn’t been there that long, yet she’s already meeting and eating dinner with some of the bigger players in the con of capitalism.

Before he leaves, Price notifies Angela that the two men were in the room when the decision was made to cover up the toxic leak that caused her and Elliot’s parents to die. How cruel of him! He points out that they’re ordinary men, capable of extraordinary things. He also points out that he knows the two men are involved in some forbidden insider training. Mr. Price leaves Angela with this information to exploit and assures her that anything can be done if you disconnect emotion. This is some deep-seated stuff, people. These are how the heartless controllers of society are born – through vulnerability and the thirst for power.

Back in Elliot’s twisted world, he has a secret: Mr. Robot is gone, but he hasn’t slept for days. His elongated high and absence of Mr. Robot allowed him to carry on conversations and even cheer at the daily basketball game. His newfound freedom is short-lived, however; the adderall is wearing off, causing the overwhelming fear, burrowing, nesting and screams of Mr. Robot to start to build again. In fact, he now seems to be worse than he was before; he’s writing only codes into his journal and spewing his thoughts out loud. He even went on a rant about God and the endless control that organized religion provides. "Mr. Robot has become my god, and like all gods, their madness takes you prisoner," said Elliot, adding, "I don’t listen to my imaginary friend; why the f*ck should I listen to yours?" Touche, Elliot. Touche.

Elliot takes himself to a diner where he meets up with Ray, who seems to be aware of Elliot’s interesting night. Ray revealed that his wife died five years ago; after he was done grieving, he now finds comfort in talking to her out loud even though she’s not there. It all makes sense; Ray understands the difficulty of having detach from a vital part of your life. Despite his happy life with his wife, and her caution when it came to driving, she was involved in a fatal car crash and he was left alone with kidney failure. "Control is about as real as a one-legged unicorn taking a leak at the end of a double rainbow," said Ray.

Ray seems to be filling in as Elliot’s new therapist because he has Elliot being completely honest with himself. Ray reminds Elliot that it’s about stumbling in the right direction in order to move forward; that’s the only way to move on from adversity. Elliot may finally have found someone to share his secrets – and that of Mr. Robot’s. The only problem is Ray seems to be some type of important player in the hacking world. I don’t know exactly what Ray does, but he can either help or hurt Elliot tremendously.

Let’s circle back around to Romero’s murder, shall we? At his home, a list of FBI personnel names is found which include the name of Dominique DiPierro, the FBI agent that originally questioned Gideon before his murder. Dominique seems to be a pretty wired, interesting person. She went back to visit Mrs. Romero, offering to roll her joints since Jerome is no longer around to do so. Mrs. Romero was in the process of moving and conveniently wrapped her things in Romero’s scrap paper. Dominique begins to dig through the different papers (since Mrs. Romero can’t see due to her cataracts) and comes across an "end of the world party" flyer featuring DJ Mobley. They’re busted!

Naturally, Dominique makes a trip to Coney Island and stumbles across the fsociety arcade. It seems as if Agent DiPierro is coming closer to destroying the adversity that is Mr. Robot and fsociety.

Zoe Benjamin OnMilwaukee Reporter

Zoe Benjamin, currently a senior at UW-Milwaukee, was raised in the South suburbs of Chicago. She is a foodie, an avid traveler and music junkie, with just the right amount of nerdiness to top it all off.

Growing up in a large Jamaican family exposed her to a lifestyle full of food, laughter and pride. Zoe’s appreciation for her family’s eclectic nature led her to celebrate the differences in others. She just so happens to especially enjoy the study of food, seeing that eating is her favorite pastime.

Ever since she was able to get on a plane by herself, Zoe has taken the liberty of traveling to every place within her reach -- whether that be the next state over, or across the seas. Her wanderlust has taken her to 10 different countries, with France being her favorite. Nothing excites her more than French food and wine. Zoe hopes to absorb and share as much culture as she can so that the world may become that much more accepting of all the bountiful diversity in the world.