So ... about last night's episode.
"Mr. Robot" started out with a complete mind f*ck. The whole USA Network, including the show, was blasted into the '90s, obnoxious fashion and all! They even had an '90s Bud Light commercial and a trailer for "The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie" (man, does this movie pop up!). The Word Up Wednesday sitcom began with Elliot, Darlene and their parents taking a road trip in their blue convertible. Elliot was freaked out by this blast from the past – and so was I.
The great part about the show being portrayed as a sitcom was that we finally got some comic relief out of the situation. A man banged on the trunk as Mr. Robot drove on, seemingly unbothered by what was going on. Elliot’s thoughts were no longer shared with just us; his family was able to gauge what Elliot was thinking as well. Elliot’s family saw what was going on as perfectly normal, and maybe that was the beauty of this 90s-inspired world; the unusual quirks of Elliot’s normal life were now mere happenings that distracted from their happy family.
Even as Elliot started to see himself getting beaten to a bloody pulp in the car’s side mirror or on Darlene’s Nintendo, his father urged him to keep looking forward as if nothing happened. Is this what it would be like if Mr. Robot completely took over? If it is, I picture Elliot offing himself due to his affliction to perky happiness, leaving Mr. Robot to do what he pleases.
The sitcom ended with Mr. Robot dropping Elliot off at the hospital, where he now resided in the real world. As we suspected, Elliot is in pretty critical condition after being dragged out of bed and beaten by Ray’s men. After freshly being ripped from his hunky dory sitcom, Elliot is faced with Ray’s story about how his dog Maxine came to respect him as a master. Ray had him thrown into a basement with only a water heater as his companion – other than Mr. Robot, of course. For the first time, Elliot welcomed Mr. Robot into his existence, for he’s the only friendly face he’ll see for a while. It’s now obvious that Elliot is forever Ray’s forever servant, and frankly, I don’t know how the hell Elliot is going to get out of this one.
Meanwhile, Darlene and fsociety are trying to deal with the fallout of the Dark Army attacking the FBI. Now that that’s happened, the FBI is surely going to be on high alert, making their upcoming hack a lot riskier. Angela took her hacking training very seriously – something she had no choice but to. If they fail at hacking the FBI and deleting the files, Angela is going to jail for a very long time.
As everything is set, she sees Cisco, the slimey hacker that blackmailed her into infecting AllSafe, dropping off the supplies needed for the FBI hack. Turns out that Cisco is in cahoots with the Dark Army; the guy is fluent is Chinese and everything! Naturally, he’s just a painfully drugged up foot soldier for the Dark Army. Everything is connected, and the Dark Army is turning out to be an even darker force than imagined.
The day came for Angela to step up and hack the FBI, and as you probably suspected, it came with some surprises. It seems that Angela is too attractive to go unnoticed on the FBI floor, since one of the agents stopped her to ask for a date. Why is it that the most persistent men happen to ask for dates at the most inconvenient times? Like the one day Angela needed the guy to be half-assing is the day she gets a dedicated one?
To make matters worse, the Wi-Fi went out just as Angela was leaving, so she now has a date with a potential douche and is forced to troubleshoot at her cubicle. Just as we all thought she was almost in the clear, Angela was approached by Agent DiPierro *GASP*. Has Dominique already caught wind of Angela’s whereabouts? Will Angela take the fall for everything and leave fsociety to finish their work if she is caught? We all know that snitches get stitches, no matter if it’s a federal penitentiary or not. We’ll have to see how this tense moment plays out next week.
The last scene we witnessed was that of the day Elliot's dad told him that he lost his job. The irony was that he was fired because of the days he took off to go to the doctor for the illness caused by his employers! I think this is the moment where we saw Elliot truly connect with his dad in a way they never did before. His dad even trusted Elliot enough to name his new bookstore after being fired. No matter what happened from that moment forward, the two would forever be connected in their present and future.
This week’s episode was pretty straight forward, but the switch up at the beginning of the episode kind of tweaked me out. I feel absolutely terrible about Elliot, especially since I don’t see him getting out of that situation easily. Maybe this is where Tyrell Wellick comes into play? Let’s just hope that Mr. Robot planned for a situation like this and has a trick up his sleeve.
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.
