Spoilers for the latest episode of Mr. Robot are ahead, so if you aren’t caught up with “init_5,” feel free to take care of that now. I’m fine waiting – I can use the time to watch some Mad About You reruns.
When we hit the halfway point of Season 2 of Mr. Robot, the “Elliot is in prison” theory was in fevered overdrive on Reddit and across the internet. I was on board with it as soon as I saw the evidence, and as we worked our way up to the big reveal a few weeks ago, I had to wonder: how will Sam Esmail fill us in on the truth of Elliot’s situation, and provide us with some objective context to fill in the blanks.
With “init_5,” we got our answer, and I loved how it was handled. It answered just about every query we’ve had this season – from the ominous door knock that ended last season, to who Ray really was (whoever chose “Ray is the warden” in the office Mr. Robot pool just won a few dollar scratch tickets and a $10 gift card to Starbucks). We watched with Elliot as he transformed his prison surroundings into a world more manageable for his fragile psyche (I mean, he intentionally went to prison to deal with his issues surrounding Mr. Robot), and damn it, we forgave him for lying to us. It was a great payoff to a great mystery, and the best part? It was all addressed before the first commercial break. This proves that even the most complex television shows can be economical in their storytelling, and do it in a satisfying manner while they’re at it.
Now that Elliot is out of jail, you would think that f.society would be able to brush off the feelings of paranoia and distrust that have been fomenting all season and move forward, but his release has only added to the fear and confusion that our core group of characters are going through. In fact, there really isn’t even an f.society for Elliot to come back to at all: Darlene is present, so too is Cisco (but I don’t really consider him a part of f.society, so much as a de-facto honorary member due to his connections to the Dark Army and his emo relationship with Darlene), but our other three members are either dead (RIP Romero) or missing in action (Mobley and Trenton).
Yeah, things are bad. Our main character may be out of the pokey, but there’s no warm reception waiting for him, no intrepid group of hackers ready and eager to pick up where they left off after the 5/9 hack. What we have instead is an out-of-the-frying-pan-and-into-the-fire situation, not just for Elliot, but for literally every character on the show. Everyone is screwed in their own way, and the poetry at work here is that they’ve all brought it upon themselves. There are no victims in Mr. Robot, not really. Sure, you could argue that Elliot, Darlene, and Angela are all victims of circumstance due to the E Corp-caused traumatic losses they faced when they were young, but they each made adult decisions regarding the taking down of E Corp, and now they’re facing the adult consequences of their actions. Same for Mobley and Trenton.
Even big bads like Philip Price and Whiterose are squirming like a worm on a hook. “init_5” did a phenomenal job of not only connecting the dots between E Corp, the Dark Army, the 5/9 hack, and the Washington Township power plant, but it also showed us just how desperate these two financial juggernauts are. Their conversation about Angela makes it clear that she’s in a considerable amount of trouble at this point; she may have played right into their hands by getting the independent review clause removed from the Washington Township suit, but neither of them expected her to take damning evidence to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But even the NCR seems to be in league with Price, or Whiterose, or both – Deputy Director Phelps was a little too eager to get Angela into that meeting with the board. In this, Angela is the most-wanted character on the show at this point; she’s in deep shit with E Corp, the Dark Army, and the FBI. She should take this as a hint to stop looking so damn guilty every time she does something illegal.
But back to Price and Whiterose. It seems that Price still has one trick up his sleeve to save E Corp after Congress denied a corporate bail out (proof positive that Mr. Robot takes place in a fictional world). He wants Whiterose, in her capacity as the Chinese Minister of State Security, to have China loan E Corp the funds it needs (at zero interest, because Price can haggle like a boss). In return, Price will allow the Washington Township plant to continue operating without interference from the federal government. I have no idea why Whiterose needs that plant so badly, but it’s clear that the location is of profound importance – important enough for her to have orchestrated the untimely death of Price’s E Corp CEO predecessor, some 20 years ago. This is a long-running operation, and one loaded with potentially dire implications: Price threatens that if the E Corp/China bailout deal doesn’t go down, the only way to solve his problem is to bring on World War III, and I think it’s pretty clear he isn’t talking in flowery poetics.
And then we have Elliot himself. I don’t want to rock the boat or anything, but am I the only one who thinks he was probably better off staying in jail? I suppose the crux of this argument rests in one’s belief that Mr. Robot is either good or not good for Elliot. He did everything he could to fast-track his way into incarceration, and though he was locked up for 86 days, they were as healthy a three-month stint Elliot has ever had, jailed or otherwise. If nothing else, Elliot had a routine to get him through each day.
But now Elliot is out, and he’s learning first-hand what it means to lose that routine. His ability to transition between his own psyche and that of Mr. Robot has broken down, and he can no longer control the internal mechanism that does the switching. After being shocked to see Mr. Robot trying to calm Darlene and Cisco (which is a very Mr. Robot thing to do), Elliot realizes something is very wrong. So does Mr. Robot; Elliot asks him what happened, and Mr. Robot tells him that “everything was normal, then you stopped responding. I had to say something.”
So, if neither Elliot or Mr. Robot are in control, who is? I’m no expert on Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), but one of the hallmarks of the affliction is having two or more personalities that exist beneath the alpha identity. I might guess that the extreme shock to Elliot’s psyche after going from his strict, structured routine in prison, to the frenzied, unmitigated chaos of the outside world created a sort of psychological short circuit – one that has booted both Elliot and Mr. Robot out of their respective pilot and co-pilot chairs. There may very well be another personality – or personalities – that is now calling the shots for f.society, and it’s anyone’s guess as to how it will all go down. Or maybe it’s not a wholly internal issue with Elliot – could it be that perhaps someone close to him is manipulating him in some way? Someone like Darlene?
I don’t want to be the guy to say that Darlene is actually a Svengali-like character that manipulates her brilliant brother into doing her bidding, but there’s some stuff going on that has me wondering. First, what the hell did she whisper to him when he walked out of jail – was she just catching him up on what was going on, or was she activating some kind Manchurian Candidate directive buried in Elliot’s brain? Later, when she hears the Dark Army communique that Elliot is the architect of the mysterious Stage II of the 5/9 hack, she looks absolutely unsurprised. Perhaps she’s doing it for her own gain, but I’d like to think that, since Darlene is really the only person who knows Elliot deeply, she is manipulating him to help him. Elliot clearly has a problem with authority, with people telling him what to do, so maybe Darlene is bypassing all that in an effort to guide him in the right direction – a direction he himself can’t clearly see. But now that it appears that both Elliot and Mr. Robot are losing control, it’s hard to say how long Darlene can continue to help, if indeed this is the case.
5/5 stars: I’d never call myself a sadist, but Mr. Robot is definitely at its best when its characters are absolutely miserable. That, plus some great info dumps courtesy of Price and Whiterose, makes “init_5” one of the best episodes of Mr. Robot to date.
