It is all good fun till the FBI and the Dark Army put you on their hit list. In Mr. Robot this week, Darlene goes on the offensive. She releases her inner Kraken and takes out one, if not two, people who get in the way.
The episode opens with Mobley and Trent meeting hacker cute in Ron’s Coffee House. Darlene arrives, instead of Elliot, and begins reading the fsociety mission statement to the newest members. The dialogue is muted by jazzy music evocative of a noir detective film or maybe a nod to “Peter Gunn.”
A change of venue and time means a change in music. As the fsociety survivors monitor the FBI communications Dance Macabre, originally composed by Camille Saint-Saëns plays over the scene. (Known to a plethora of fans as the theme to Brit mystery series Jonathan Creek, it is a brilliant bit of music that sets the scene beautifully.)
Operation Berenstain is alive and well. It also illegally surveilling around three million Americans. Darlene makes a tape with the assistance of Trent. In a signposting of things to come, the video tape unspools while recording. This insignificant event is forewarning that all is about to come unravelled for fsociety.
The first step in this downward spiral is when Susan Jacobs returns home. She finds it full of fsociety members. She is tied to the railing in her swimming pool room. Jacobs will not shut up Trent is told to sort her out.
Susan says she needs the toilet and Trent cuts the ties. Jacobs tries to attack Trent and knocks herself out cold by slamming her head agains the wall. The group panic. They hack her files to find something to use as leverage.
Darlene notices an email referencing pacemakers. She goes to speak with Susan. She has a taser and tells the captive to keep it cool. Darlene offers her a cigarette, which Jacobs takes, and they talk.
Elliot’s sister recalls seeing Jacobs when she was four, laughing as E Corp was cleared of any wrong doing in her father’s case. She lets Susan go and then zaps her with the taser. With her heart stopped, Jacobs falls into the pool.
Fsociety scatter.
Darlene ends up with Cisco and they talk about Susan’s death at her hands. She tells Cisco that she feels nothing. Darlene admits to having a dark side that she always wanted to let loose.
Mobley is picked up by the FBI and held for 12 hours. Dom finally questions him and he asks for a lawyer. Agent DiPerro has to let him go. The fsociety tape, released by Darlene and Trent has created a sh*storm for the FBI and the bad press is killing them.
Trent heads home and nervously suggests to her father that they move. Mobley texts her, telling her to meet him at Ron’s. She arrives and waits.
Angela has had an agent from the FBI planted on her. She dumps him at a bar. He is not pleased and complains to Dom. Angela also ranks a plumber friend of her father’s who attacked her verbally. “Who do you think you are,” he asks. Her reply silences the older man.
At the end the episode, Darlene wakes up in Cisco’s bed and he is in the shower. His laptop is open and she reads correspondence from the Dark Army and Cisco. He has sold them out.
When Cisco comes into the bedroom he sees his laptop destroyed. Darlene hits him in the head with a baseball bat. At the same time Mobley has disappeared and Trent sees someone enter the coffee shop. Her eyes widen…
Fsociety are smack in the middle of everything. The feds and the Dark Army want to shut them down. It was obviously Whiterose who ordered the death of Romero and it seems that they are racing to take out the rest of fsociety before the FBI can get to them.
Dom has, quite rightly, zeroed in on Mobley as the weak link in the group. It is almost a certainty that it was not he who Trent saw entering the coffee shop.
Darlene has become homicidal. First Susan Jacobs and now, it seems, Cisco has been taken out. Both were dispatched by her hand. Release the Kraken indeed.
Mr. Robot airs Wednesdays on USA.
CAST:
- Rami Malek – Elliot Alderson
- Christian Slater – Mr. Robot
- Carly Chaikin – Darlene
- Portia Doubleday – Angela Moss
- Stephanie Corneliussen – Joanna Wellick
- Martin Wallström – Tyrell Wellick
- Michael Cristofer – Phillip Price
- Grace Gummer – Dominique “Dom” DiPierro
- Joey Bada$$ – Leon
- BD Wong – Whiterose/Mr. Zhang
Guest starring Sandrine Holt as Susan Jacobs and Michael Drayer as Cisco
Mikes Film Talk 