Mr. Robot – eps2.0_unm4sk-pt1.tc

By Jessica Wolff

The long awaited second season of the critically acclaimed hacker drama “Mr. Robot” returned for the summer. The two-part premiere doesn’t answer the pressing questions of last season: namely where is Tyrell Wellick and what happened in the three days after the hack that Elliot blacked out on, but is an entertaining ride regardless. The season premiere opens with a flashback to the night of the Five/Nine hack that bookended last season and threw Evil Corp as well as the US economy into chaos. In the arcade that served as fsociety’s lair last season, Tyrell Wellick (Martin Wallstrom) and Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek) execute the hack and Tyrell puts on the infamous fsociety mask to record a video message for the public. Another flashback shows young Elliot end up in the hospital with a concussion and his parents arguing over the cost of treatment.

A month after the hack, Elliot wakes up in his mother’s house. He has been hiding in seclusion as he watches coverage of the Five/Nine hack featuring President Obama. Elliot has gotten into a strict routine as he deals with the fallout. Every day, he meets his new “Seinfeld” loving friend Leon (Joey Bada$$) for breakfast, cleans the house, meets Leon again for lunch, watches a local pickup basketball game despite his disinterest in sports, cleans the house again, has dinner with Leon and goes to a church group two days a week. Elliot keeps a journal to help him remember everything that goes on in his life, to prevent loss of memories in any additional blackouts. Elliot meets with his therapist Krista Gordon (Gloria Reuben) and she asks Elliot why he thinks he can’t trust himself. Elliot doesn’t answer the question right away and Krista presses the issue, reminding him that he promised to be honest with her as a term for continuing to see her after his hack of her last season. Elliot responds that he doesn’t trust them. Elliot then addresses the audience on his walk home, telling them that he doesn’t trust them because he believes that they kept secrets from him.

Elliot returns home and finds Mr. Robot (Christian Slater), a manifestation of Elliot’s father that exists solely in his mind, lying in his bed. Mr. Robot tries to get Elliot to resume their work on their mission to save the world. He gets angry when Elliot refuses and throws Elliot’s journal across the room. He then tells him that he won’t be able to get rid of him and points a gun at him. Elliot asks him to tell him where Tyrell is and Mr. Robot shoots Elliot in the head, which only temporarily knocks him out. After Mr. Robot leaves, Elliot writes and underlines “Control is an Illusion” in his journal.

Meanwhile, a group of masked fsociety members take a blowtorch to a statue of a bull, removing its steel balls. An employee of Evil Corp, Susan Jacobs (Sandrine Holt), is haunted by a hack of her home systems manipulating the functions of her high tech system. It is merely a ploy to get her out of the house as Darlene (Carly Chaikin) breaks into the empty house. Gideon Goddard (Michel Gill) visits Elliot while Mr. Robot watches on the side. Gideon informs Elliot that AllSafe is no more and the FBI suspects him of being a part of the hack. Elliot starts bleeding from Mr. Robot’s gunshot wound and Mr. Robot continues to remind him that he can’t avoid him or anything else forever. Gideon threatens to go to the FBI with evidence that implicates Elliot if he doesn’t help clear his name. Mr. Robot slits Gideon’s throat, which freaks Elliot out. Later on, Mr. Robot appears during Elliot’s meeting with Leon, emphasizing the point that he will be unable avoid him and stay in this reality forever. Elliot addresses the audience once more, asking them to not give up on him.

Back at the evacuated house, Darlene sits on the floor of the vacated house crying while other members of fsociety celebrate the removal of the statue’s balls. Darlene demands that a member of fsociety hand over their phone and smashes it in front of the group. Darlene addresses the new recruits of fsociety, telling them that they are losing the war and that they need to stand up and fight back. Mobley (Azhar Khan) tries to calm Darlene down, but she says that it feels like they are losing despite their successful hack. Darlene is determined to do even more damage to change the world. There is chaos at an Evil Corp Bank where people are trying to cancel their accounts and lessen their personal losses. Darlene’s hack appears on the Evil Corp computers, demanding 5.9 million dollars in 24 hours unless their entire system will be destroyed. Susan Jacobs meets with Phillip Price (Michael Cristopher) and Scott Knowles (Brian Stokes Mitchell), CEO and CTO of Evil Corp to discuss what to do about the threat. They decide to give into the hacker’s demands. Scott Knowles volunteers to bring the money, saying that he wants to be the one to face them.