Mr. Robot
Season 2 Episode 12 “eps2.9pyth0n-pt2.p7z”
Written & Directed by Sam Esmail
Created by Sam Esmail
Starring Rami Malek, Portia Doubleday, Carly Chaikin, Christian Slater, Michael Cristofer, Stephanie Corneliussen, Grace Gummer, BD Wong, Joey Bada$$, Sandrine Holt, Azhar Khan, Michael Drayer
USA Network
Air date: Wednesday, September 21, 2016, 10pm

Spoilers for Mr. Robot below…

“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide”¦” — “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Queen

After last week’s penultimate episode of Season 2 of Mr. Robot, that song was all I could think in relation to creator Sam Esmail‘s cyber drama. I feel just like Elliot (newly crowned Emmy winner for Best Actor, Rami Malek). I don’t know what to believe, I don’t know what is real anymore. Last week was a surreal nightmare. After spending the majority of the season thinking Tyrell Wellick (Martin Wallstrom) was dead from a gunshot wound he delivered personally, Wellick joins Elliot for a bizarre cab ride, leaving us desperately searching for clues as to who and what is real. Is Tyrell another manifestation of Elliot’s subconscious like the Mr. Robot himself (Christian Slater)? In the Season 2 finale, Episode 2.12 “eps2.9pyth0n-pt2.p7z,” all of fsociety’s paranoia, as well as the craziness caused by the 5/9 hack come home to roost.

Elliot is led to Tyrell’s stowaway zone provided by the Dark Army. He has no clue how Wellick’s been there, even though they’ve been making plans all along through Mr. Robot. Darlene (Carly Chaikin) IS alive after the diner shootout, but Cisco didn’t make it. She tries to plead the fifth with Agent DiPierro (Grace Gummer) but she’s not getting off that easy.

Joanna Wellick follows the trace of the phone calls she thought were Tyrells, but instead it’s Scott Knowles (Brian Stokes Mitchell), the E-Corp higher up whose wife was murdered by Tyrell last season. Turns out his wife was pregnant and he felt like torturing Joanna with the same pains of loss he felt. This leads to unbelievably brutal sequence where first she mocks his dead wife and her “fetus corpse” leading to his beating her to a bloody pulp. In a season of shocking moments, that may have been the most cringeworthy.

Elliot meanwhile is thought to be the big kahuna in a masterplan involving Mr. Robot, Wellick, Whiterose (BD Wong) and the Dark Army but has no clue what it is other than it involving blueprints to a building. I, the viewer refuse to trust that Wellick is even real yet. We get a taste of the plan”¦ After the hack, Evil Corp backed up all their digital files onto paper and are storing the paper files for all their holdings in one centralized building”¦ They are going to destroy the building, a hack that triggers an explosion to level the building.

DiPierro gets through to Darlene by inviting her to see the research the FBI has done on the 5/9 case. They have everyone, Wellick, Elliot, all of fsociety. Meanwhile Elliot has lost all sense of reality. He knows Mr. Robot isn’t real, but has no clue about Wellick. There is a final confrontation that reveals finally who is and isn’t a figment of Elliot’s imagination.

And like that, the season’s over. The battle against E-Corp will continue on hopefully next season. This season was an absolute rollercoaster ride for 12 episodes. The first part was in Elliot’s head as he soend the early parts of the season in jail. I loved the paranoia fueled panic and the frenetic energy it caused throughout. The Dark Army, the Feds moving in, Darlene murdering an E-Corp lawyer, Angela’s descent into madness. This is the first show I have ever watched where I felt the walls closing in around me as if I were a character involved. By the last two episodes I was doubting literally everything on screen. I told a friend at work I was convinced Elliot himself wasn’t real and everyone was a living in Wellick’s mind like Herman’s Head.

We need to discuss the two main details that elevate this show above most on television: the writing by Sam Esmail and the acting. Esmail manages to continually have me on edge, guessing and challenging myself. Several times this season I yelled obscenities at the screen, in the best way possible. Rami Malek won a well deserved Emmy Award this past weekend for his tortured performance as Elliot, but he is not alone amongst quality performances. Portia Doubleday was fantastic, looking at the same time vulnerable and determined. Grace Gummer was excellent as the lonely yet quirky FBI agent. But the breakout star this season was Stephanie Corneliussen as Joanna Wellick. She was a cold, calculating, manipulative psychopath, who proved in tonight’s finale she was literally willing to endure anything to get what she wanted.

This is one of the most binge-worthy shows on TV and I cannot wait until Season 3 rolls arounds.

Video

Mr. Robot: On the Next: Season 2 Finale

fsociety is in too deep rn. an old friend reveals all to elliot. sh*t gets real af.