Age of The Nerd
I would not want to be the episode that had to follow last week’s intense reveal that Elliot has been in prison this whole time and that Leon is an assassin for the Dark Army, but we didn’t want Mr. Robot to end did we? Which means we got this week’s “succ3ss0r.p12.” I was still reeling from seeing Leon eviscerate nazis that I didn’t think anything would shock me this episode, but c’mon, this show never stops. A few major things happened with Darlene this week so I’ll just start at the beginning.
Darlene, Trenton and Mobley hack into an FBI conference call and discover that because of 5/9, millions of Americans are being illegally watched and the FBI has 16 suspects for the event… one of which is dead. My first thought was, “Well, that’s Romero. Obviously.” Mobley has the same exact thought and now believes they’re all on the watch list. The only thing worse than actually being guilty for the crime of the century, is being extremely paranoid about getting caught for said crime. The upside to this conference call was that they were able to release it to the masses which does cause quite a stir in the FBI.
Then, Susan Jacobs finally comes home (remember her? The E-Corp exec whose smart house went rogue so she moved out and f society moved in?) to find f society shacking up in her house. What’s a terrorist organization to do when one of their targets walks into their HQ? If you said, “Take her hostage!” you would be correct. They go through the typical back and forth about what to do with their new captive until Darlene has a private moment with her and monologues about watching Susan on TV when E-Corp got off for poisoning everyone and seeing her laugh about it. We’re then treated to solid proof that Elliot and Darlene are related – Darlene (knowing that Susan has a heart condition) tazes her and leaves her for dead facedown in the pool.
Mobley and Trenton decide they’ve had enough and bail on Darlene, and honestly there’s more from them this episode, but they’re so boring and I think they’re floundering without Elliot. Mobley sort of outsmarts Dom by just “being the DJ” at the end of the world party, Trenton decides to abandon her family and skip town, and there could be a betrayal within f society when Mobley tells Trenton to meet him at a coffee shop and doesn’t show. It’s the least interesting part of this episode in my opinion so I’m going to glaze over it.
Darlene has been spiraling out of control as the leader of f society and it looks like Cisco is the only one sticking with her. They burn Susan’s body and Darlene admits that she has no remorse for killing her. This is one of the weakest storylines for me this season. We’re expected to believe that Susan hasn’t stopped by her house once since she was forcibly evicted? Please. Why hasn’t she been back to check on the status of the rogue smart house? Why would she prefer to live in a crappier apartment?
The biggest surprise including Darlene this episode was her discovery of Cisco’s involvement with keepings tabs on her for the Dark Army. I assumed Cisco was team f society, but it appears that the Dark Army needed the femtocell planted as well and they have a “phase 2” up their sleeve. Darlene doesn’t take kindly to this – smashing Cisco’s computer and clocking him with a baseball bat to end the episode. We’re led to believe the worst about Cisco, but since we know that the Dark Army is also keeping tabs on Elliot in prison, they could just want to reconnect the two once Elliot is released. That could just be plain old optimism and realistically not really how the Dark Army plays the game, but either way, Darlene knows now and she’s going to be gunning for the Dark Army and Whiterose.
Oh and Angela is in this episode too, I guess. She sings some karaoke and hits on an old guy; it was even more boring than Mobley and Trenton’s storyline. She’s been doing so good lately I’ll give her a pass.
Mr. Robot returns next Wednesday at 10PM/EST on USA.
