S04.E12: Series Finale Part 1/S04.E13: Series Finale Part 2

[Prower]

This was a very good finale. All the personal stuff around the characters was pretty much perfect. The story was also wrapped up pretty nicely in most regards.

I also still love that we are treated as a part of Elliot and get called out from time to time. Especially this time by head-christa.

The only thing I do not like is everything around White Rose's machine. As Sam Esmail always said, Mr. Robot is not Scifi. So the only machine that would have made sense (and would have fit into the themes of the show) would have been virtual reality. So in physical terms, a massive server farm, that needs so much power, it needs a nuclear power plant to run it.

I still think that was the original intend. But it doesn't fit with White Rose's actions at the end. You wouldn't cause a meltdown, if you want to run servers. I think Esmail wrote himself into a corner and threw out the original plan for something cryptic, he himself doesn't know the answer to, and something like this always irks me a bit.

I guess you could fanwank this as a women completely off her rocker, but white rose, while clearly somewhat unhinged, never seemed particularly delusional. But the main thing that doesn't fit here is that she showed Angela something that made her believe in White Rose's plan and Angela never seemed particularly gullible before. So I think there must have been something tangible planned at some point and the ending we got was not it.

Still, I'd say as far as wrapping up a show with a show-spanning story arc goes: 9/10

 

PS:

- Tyrell was never an alter of Elliot, That was shown in multiple instances. A lot of people just need to get over that theory already.

- Alters don't have to look different from the core personality. We saw core Elliot in the loop looking like the mastermind, so Elliot probably just looks like the mastermind. That we didn't see his face in the last scene wasn't to obscure anything. There are two reasons. First and foremost, we are part of Elliot again. We got integrated like the other personalities in the cinema. We can't just walk around outisde of him and take different perspectives anymore. We can only see through his eyes. Second, Darlene's reaction was the important part here, nothing else.

 

On 12/24/2019 at 11:55 PM, VinylGuy said:

guy can we talk about how good Carly Chaikin was all season?

I think she has been killing it since season one. Only knowing her from suburgatory before, I was blown away by what she can actually do.

Edited December 27, 2019 by Prower

[truthaboutluv]

19 minutes ago, Prower said:

But the main thing that doesn't fit here is that she showed Angela something that made her believe in White Rose's plan and Angela never seemed particularly gullible before.

YMMV, see I actually always thought Angela did seem vulnerable to manipulation right from the start. I said this in another thread, but while Elliot's crazy was on full display, I always felt Angela had this tentative hold on reality that under the right circumstances, could be exploited.

It could have just been me reading too much into Portia Doubleday's dead eyed acting/expressions but Angela never screamed completely sane and immune to manipulation, to me. And as we saw when Elliot walked into the room to meet Whiterose, she had set it up with many things from his past, clearly as a means of breaking him down and making him susceptible to whatever manipulations she would do. 

My guess is the same was done with Angela. They locked her in a room filled with memories of her life, likely a lot of it to do with her mother, kept her there for days, she was likely sleep deprived, hungry, etc. It's akin to hypnotism in my opinion. May be fanwanking on my part, but that's what I always assumed happened to Angela. Whiterose preyed on her weakness while having in a very vulnerable position - locked up, no food, sleep, etc. - until she bought into the delusional bag of magic beans Whiterose was selling. 

 

25 minutes ago, Prower said:

Alters don't have to look different from the core personality. We saw core Elliot in the loop looking like the mastermind, so Elliot probably just looks like the mastermind.

Also, I thought it was clearly inferred and maybe even stated that Elliot was recreating his family through his alters, sans Darlene of course. Hence Mr. Robot who was the physical replica of his actual father, the mother personality who was the physical replica of his mother, the young version of himself and finally the Mastermind/Hacker alter that was a version of adult/present him. So yeah, by that theory, it would stand to reason that the Mastermind we saw for four seasons is a physical replica of the real Elliot. 

[Anela]

2 hours ago, Prower said:

This was a very good finale. All the personal stuff around the characters was pretty much perfect. The story was also wrapped up pretty nicely in most regards.

I also still love that we are treated as a part of Elliot and get called out from time to time. Especially this time by head-christa.

The only thing I do not like is everything around White Rose's machine. As Sam Esmail always said, Mr. Robot is not Scifi. So the only machine that would have made sense (and would have fit into the themes of the show) would have been virtual reality. So in physical terms, a massive server farm, that needs so much power, it needs a nuclear power plant to run it.

I still think that was the original intend. But it doesn't fit with White Rose's actions at the end. You wouldn't cause a meltdown, if you want to run servers. I think Esmail wrote himself into a corner and threw out the original plan for something cryptic, he himself doesn't know the answer to, and something like this always irks me a bit.

I guess you could fanwank this as a women completely off her rocker, but white rose, while clearly somewhat unhinged, never seemed particularly delusional. But the main thing that doesn't fit here is that she showed Angela something that made her believe in White Rose's plan and Angela never seemed particularly gullible before. So I think there must have been something tangible planned at some point and the ending we got was not it.

Still, I'd say as far as wrapping up a show with a show-spanning story arc goes: 9/10

 

PS:

- Tyrell was never an alter of Elliot, That was shown in multiple instances. A lot of people just need to get over that theory already.

- Alters don't have to look different from the core personality. We saw core Elliot in the loop looking like the mastermind, so Elliot probably just looks like the mastermind. That we didn't see his face in the last scene wasn't to obscure anything. There are two reasons. First and foremost, we are part of Elliot again. We got integrated like the other personalities in the cinema. We can't just walk around outisde of him and take different perspectives anymore. We can only see through his eyes. Second, Darlene's reaction was the important part here, nothing else.

 

I think she has been killing it since season one. Only knowing her from suburgatory before, I was blown away by what she can actually do.

I didn't say that Tyrell was an alter, when I talked about this. Some people thought he might be the actual Elliot, and they don't need to be told to get over anything, unless they're demanding something more that they won't get from the show's creator. 

They may have shown Dom saying, "you don't look anything like him" to just throw him off and get him to the point of letting go. I can see a troubled guy making himself the hero of a story, so maybe they could have shown us Rami's face again. I don't really care. 

Edited December 27, 2019 by Anela

[shapeshifter]

20 hours ago, Anela said:

 Some people thought he might be the actual Elliot, and they don't need to be told to get over anything, unless they're demanding something more that they won't get from the show's creator.

Thank you. ❤️

20 hours ago, Anela said:

They may have shown Dom saying, "you don't look anything like him" to just throw him off and get him to the point of letting go.

Yes, this was my first thought too --that cop Dom was just messing with the Elliot-with-the-drop-of-blood-on-his-sleeve to detain him
  --perhaps because I've watched a lot of L&O, and also because I've had a cop insist that my valid parking sticker was somehow fake.
But since the viewers do not get to see the ID, we can be free to imagine it being anyone's visage.
And even if I get a chance to re-watch that bit, I can't imagine how Grace Gummer's read and facial expressions would tell us for sure if she was faking it or not, because she might have just been noticing that the ID-Elliot was just a happier/different-personalitied guy than the Elliot before her (rather than it looking like Tyrell, or Darlene, or whomever).

Presently I would like to read/listen to anything else Sam Esmail might say about his intentions for interpretations of the series, but likely as time goes on, my interest will wain. I respect the show, but it's not something I plan to watch again. Too dark for me.

[VinylGuy]

Im thinking of watching at least S1 again.

[ava111]

44 minutes ago, VinylGuy said:

Im thinking of watching at least S1 again.

I really recommend to watch the whole thing. I rewatched it this week. Started on Sunday with season 1 and finished last night with finally watching the finale (with Wednesday off for Christmas). Its even better that way. Now I have to finish reading the Red wheel barrow I'm half through. Wish there was another book like this from this last season.

Edited December 28, 2019 by ava111

[truthaboutluv]

54 minutes ago, VinylGuy said:

Im thinking of watching at least S1 again.

Definitely re-watch Episode 4 in Season 1. Any doubt one might have that the ending we got wasn't somewhat planned from the start, will be dispelled with that episode.

[Prower]

On 12/27/2019 at 8:46 PM, Anela said:

I didn't say that Tyrell was an alter, when I talked about this. Some people thought he might be the actual Elliot, and they don't need to be told to get over anything, unless they're demanding something more that they won't get from the show's creator. 

The only thing people need to get told is if the building they are in is on fire. They still get told lots of other things. As I'm telling you: Tyrell is a completely different person from Elliot. He doesn't look like him, he's not an alter, he's just another character on this show.

On 12/27/2019 at 8:46 PM, Anela said:

They may have shown Dom saying, "you don't look anything like him" to just throw him off and get him to the point of letting go. I can see a troubled guy making himself the hero of a story, so maybe they could have shown us Rami's face again. I don't really care. 

Cop-Dom didn't say that. She said "this person is nothing like you". She specifically didn't reference looks, but personality.

Edited December 28, 2019 by Prower

[DoctorAtomic]

On 12/22/2019 at 9:17 PM, truthaboutluv said:

Yes, it wasn't a surprise and kudos to the poster who figured the twist out a few weeks ago, that we the viewers had never met real Elliot. The twist worked perfectly and made absolute sense rather than some out of left field shit that would have been completely stupid.

Yeah, great call whomever pulled that one out over here. I can roll with that. I also liked that the 'machine' was really a red herring, which I did suggest a while back. I think that was the right call.

I found this season to be ponderous and it was really hard to get through the episodes because I just wasn't engaged anymore. I think this could have been wrapped up in 4 hours tbh. I think TPTB was more into playing around with filmmaking because he just didn't have enough story to fill the time.

 

 

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I found this season to be ponderous and it was really hard to get through the episodes because I just wasn't engaged anymore. I think this could have been wrapped up in 4 hours tbh. I think TPTB was more into playing around with filmmaking because he just didn't have enough story to fill the time.

Yes. “Ponderous” is the word.  But I think it would have been more acceptable if there hadn’t been such a huge gap between seasons. 

[qtpye]

On 12/26/2019 at 1:13 PM, benteen said:

I thought the first half was good but the last half was a circle jerk.  Was the real Elliot supposed to look like Tyrell?  Of course Esmail wasn't going to answer it.  Just a disappointing ending to a disappointing season.  It's sad to see how great this show was in Season 1 and what it became in the end.

About the only thing as silly as Whiterose's "terrorist attack" is Elliot being found and not being held by the government afterwards.

Continue to find it funny that Rami and Portia can barely be in the same scene together anymore...

 

11 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Yeah, great call whomever pulled that one out over here. I can roll with that. I also liked that the 'machine' was really a red herring, which I did suggest a while back. I think that was the right call.

I found this season to be ponderous and it was really hard to get through the episodes because I just wasn't engaged anymore. I think this could have been wrapped up in 4 hours tbh. I think TPTB was more into playing around with filmmaking because he just didn't have enough story to fill the time.

 

 

i loved the finale episode but thought we could have easily cut at least 7 episodes this season in order for it to be tighter.

A lot of the episodes were very indulgent and really the Dark Army thing almost felt secondary. Elliot saving the world also kind of felt a little silly.

I actually thought that the whole f-society and White Rose stuff might have been made up in Mastermind's head. He might of been the alter with delusions of grandeur.

However, the Dom/Darlene episode confirmed that at least some of the stuff happened when she returned money to everyone's bank account.

[DoctorAtomic]

19 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Yes. “Ponderous” is the word.  But I think it would have been more acceptable if there hadn’t been such a huge gap between seasons. 

That's entirely possible, but I still say there wasn't 13 hours of story left to tell either. 

9 hours ago, qtpye said:

i loved the finale episode but thought we could have easily cut at least 7 episodes this season in order for it to be tighter.

A lot of this also was Dom. 95% of those scenes weren't necessary. Especially running around the airport. Clearly, she wasn't of much importance since Darlene wasn't in Europe and didn't even mention Dom in these final scenes. 

I think by putting too much of a face on the dark army (the woman that kept threatening to kill Dom's family whose name I don't know which goes to show you how invested I was) weakened them as a villain because 1 - the woman was comically ineffective, 2 - Dom outwitted her in about 45 seconds. 

[pfk505]

As note-perfect a finale as I've ever seen.

This show just got better and better for me, I know others have had their issues but I loved every second of it. I had long gaps between watching S1 - S2, and S2 - S3 but I watched the last two seasons back to back and it does help with the pacing/continuity. Definitely a show I plan on re-watching.

[DoctorAtomic]

A lot of people don't have the time to rewatch or binge though. So while I won't argue that the show holds up better viewed closer in time, it's also not my problem that it was. 

[spritz]

It was a really good final season, except for the finale.

 

I was extremely disappointed with the finale. The finale was, what is the word I'm looking for, too esoteric. It was all pyscho drama, psychobabble.

 

We already knew that Elliot had mental issues and that he had an alter ego, the Christian Slater character. The whole Mastermind element didn't add anything to the narrative for me. It just jumbled things up.

 

Anyway, I was impressed with the performance of Carly Chaikin the entire final season.

[AudienceofOne]

That was perfect.

Completely, beautifully, transcendentally, powerfully perfect. 

That's all I got for now.

[moonorchid]

I cheated and only watched the last three eps of the fourth season. My husband and I watched this show together in its first and second season and just kind of lost touch with it afterward. I knew this was the last season and have always thought of it in the back of my mind as “the show I really need to catch up on”. 
 

For a show that comes off very cerebral it packs a lot of emotion. I cried through 11,12, and 13! (Mastermind) Eliots heartbreak is so palpable and you just feel so much for him, Rami Malek is such an amazing actor, I can’t wait to follow what he does for the rest of my life. 
 

This show is such a breath of fresh air! It knows exactly what it is, what it’s trying to say, and where it wants to go. Sam Esmail may not be a genius as much as he just knows what he wants and is incredibly detail oriented, which doesn’t take away from his talent at all. 
 

Im prob in the minority, but Eliot and Angela were always a big draw in for me. I’m a sucker for pairings like this on tv. I know there was some BTS drama behind the scenes between Rami and Portia and that’s a large reason why Angela was killed off in the first five minutes of the season. While I def don’t think that part was planned, I think Angela dying was always going to happen. I just wish things between Portia and Rami weren’t so bad that they could have at least done a final scene together in the finale, but Rami was phenomenal in his scene on the phone with (fantasy) Angela. I rewound it about five times to feel his feelings again because it was so deep, so sorrowful, so hopeful. Angela was a big presence for Eliot and coming to terms with his feelings for her and her death, it was done so perfectly writing wise and acting wise that I’d find it hard to believe Angela’s death wasn’t always in the cards. Just the timing got affected by real life. 
 

This finale may be as close to perfect as a viewer will ever get. It’s kind of happy but very bittersweet. The mastermind is who we’ve gotten to know, who we rooted for, who we cried for. There’s a moment where we are just as stubborn as he is in his desperation to stay in control, and then both of us come back and realize the only happy ending is for the real Eliot to come back. The Mastermind is not equipped for the happy ending. The quickness with which he knew that once the happy ending was being laid before him was heart twisting. 
 

I tend to find the emotion in the shows I watch and when that part clicks for me I consider a show/finale a success. It’s why the LOST finale works for me, except Esmail didn’t completely dick over his audience to keep the show going before they could start the end game. 
 

Just these last three episodes alone have made my heart heavy and has left a huge impression on me. This show is a MASTERCLASS of television imo. 
 

There is so much to unpack with this show and it’s finale, I’ll prob be coming up with different aspects about it for a long time. Brava!

Edited January 8, 2020 by moonorchid

[DoctorAtomic]

I'm not privy to the bts drama because I frankly don't care, but how egregious does it have to be that an actor refuses to be in a scene for another actor? I mean, you're a professional. It seems like you're making more trouble for yourself in your future work. 

Now, given I have no clue what happened, if one physically attacked the other, or issued threats, or stalked them; there's plenty of reasons why I could understand why an actor would have to put their foot down. 

Regardless, I think the death was a good narrative choice. She was involved with both Eliot and Darlene (in the sense that Darlene considered her in a sisterly way), and was kind of 'in on it' with Mr. Robot et al. outside of Eliot. I thought that was rather sinister. She kind of bought into Whiterose's bs and paid for it. 

So I wonder if she knew Real!Eliot or only MM!Eliot? 

[Cranberry]

I just watched the entire series in about a week. I liked it, although some episodes were so slow that I wonder if I would have lost interest if I'd watched over the years like most people here did. I feel like the gimmicky episodes (the '80s sitcom one, the no-dialogue one, and the five-act play full of monologues) and the episodes that basically rewound the plot to show us another character's perspective were less frustrating than they would have been "live" because I knew I didn't have to wait a week or more for the story to get moving again.

I didn't read much about the show before starting. I briefly thought Tyrell could be an alter, but that idea made less and less sense as the show went on. The guy had a full, separate life with a wife and child. He and Elliot had full-time day jobs at different companies. He was interacting with people at the same time Elliot was in a completely different place interacting with different people. His picture and Elliot's were both on Dom's whiteboard. When Tyrell was in hiding because he was the world's most wanted man, Elliot could walk around, while the one time Tyrell tried to enter society, a cop recognized and nabbed him. Tyrell was just a Patrick Bateman-esque character that Esmail ultimately didn't seem to know what to do with. The only unanswered question I have about him regards that light he discovered before dying.

I liked the finale. I hadn't read any Esmail interviews, so I had no idea whether or not he'd swing for sci-fi at the end. I'm glad he didn't. I enjoyed watching the Mastermind explore the "alternate reality" he'd built for the real Elliot and have it crumble around him. I liked that Darlene's exclusion from the fake world meant not that she was unimportant, but that she was so important to the real Elliot that she had to be erased, despite them being estranged in real life. I liked that, for a series that's been fairly dark and hard to watch at times, it had a hopeful ending.

[DoctorAtomic]

Could you tell that "Eliot" wasn't actually Eliot?

[Cranberry]

That wasn't a theory I had. I figured there was another personality, but I assumed it was some monstrous/rage-filled one that only came out a few times, like when Elliot blacked out and smashed up his room with a bat as a child and when he again blacked out, destroyed the server room and first got sent to therapy. What they did made more sense, though, especially remembering how back in season one, dream-sequence Angela told "Elliot" he'd only been born a month ago (and flat-out said, "You're not Elliot. You're the m-"). I didn't have much time for theorizing with a week-long binge-watch, though... I just kinda went along for the ride.

[truthaboutluv]

Someone edited the dream scenes with Elliot and Angela in the arcade from Season 1 Episode 4 and the series finale, together. It looks a lot like they simply replayed the exact scene in the finale because Portia and Rami both look far too similar to the Season 1 scene. 

This is the clip that many believe strongly supports the belief that Esmail really did have the overall series finale planned from the start. Note especially Angela's reference in the dream that Elliot had only been born a month ago, likely when the alter first took over. 

 

Edited January 17, 2020 by truthaboutluv

[DoctorAtomic]

Why is it a 'theory'? I find it perfectly reasonable that he had the 'mastermind' concept all along. I don't think every minute of the show was planned out, but it's not unreasonable to think he worked the show narrative to that end. 

Are people saying he just made up the end or something? 

[truthaboutluv]

4 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Why is it a 'theory'? I find it perfectly reasonable that he had the 'mastermind' concept all along. I don't think every minute of the show was planned out, but it's not unreasonable to think he worked the show narrative to that end. 

Are people saying he just made up the end or something? 

There are some who don't believe the ending was planned from the start - as in the whole reveal of the Elliot we the viewers knew, was really an alter the whole time. I guess I should not used the word theory. 

Edited January 17, 2020 by truthaboutluv

[DoctorAtomic]

I wouldn't go so far as to say he knew how to end the show from the start; i.e., ending on Darlene welcoming the real Elliot. Clearly, he had no idea what to do with the final season beyond a few key scenes, but it doesn't seem a huge stretch that the alter was basically the pitch for the show. Otherwise, it's just a show about a bitchy hacker that talks to himself. 

[Cranberry]

Considering he originally meant for the story to be a feature film, it makes perfect sense that he'd know the beginning and ending from the start but might struggle to fill time in between, especially as he approached the end of the show's run.

[DoctorAtomic]

I didn't know anything about that. I don't know if it would have worked as a movie.

[Cranberry]

Here's an article about it! He decided pretty early on that it was too long to be a movie. He confirms in that interview that he already knew the ending, too.

[mrspidey]

On 12/25/2019 at 8:03 PM, Tachi Rocinante said:

It was a cheap cop out not to show the real Elliot.

No, it makes perfect sense. We are another alt the needs to go away so the real Elliot can wake up. So we were never gonna see him because we ceased to exist. 

[Schweedie]

I watched season one of this as it aired, then just kind of lost touch with it after the first few episodes of season two and now finally binged the last three seasons over the past week. What a finale.

I actually did figure out our Elliot likely not being the 'real' Elliot a few episodes before when they the rest of them mentioned "the other one" (I was quite proud of that) - I'd thought a few times during the flashbacks how different young Elliot seemed from the current, too, which makes sense with how Darlene said in the finale that Elliot was different than who she grew up with when she came back into his life.

 I do wish we could've met real Elliot, but it makes sense that we didn't. Really glad that she show went out on a high, and really glad I picked it back up.