S02.E09: eps2.7_init5.fve

[kat165]

Thanks, Kalliste.

[Miles]

On 3.9.2016 at 5:16 AM, kat165 said:

I missed the first 5 min of the ep. Did we ever find out what happened to the dog?

The dog would have gone back to it's rightfull owner, even if he was a prick.

[green]

49 minutes ago, Miles said:

The dog would have gone back to it's rightfull owner, even if he was a prick.

Yep.  No one but Elliot saw him treat the dog roughly that one time.  So there is no reason for Animal Control to not return Flipper to him.

How very darkly ironic this show gets I half expect by this season's end to see the owner, now bored or upset Flipper isn't the fastest peeing dog in all NYC, abandoning him at the same animal shelter f.society has been busy destroying it's burnt offerings of evidence at.  Ominous music rises as Flipper enters a cage opposite the door of death as a front and center parable about the unexpected consequences of actions.  The most innocent (an animal) gets destroyed in the end as the result of an honest attempt to help save him.

Yes the show is that dark enough to go there I think.  Not likely.  But possible.

Edited September 4, 2016 by green

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, green said:

Yep.  No one but Elliot saw him treat the dog roughly that one time.  So there is no reason for Animal Control to not return Flipper to him.

How very darkly ironic this show gets I half expect by this season's end to see the owner, now bored or upset Flipper isn't the fastest peeing dog in all NYC, abandoning him at the same animal shelter f.society has been busy destroying it's burnt offerings of evidence at.  Ominous music rises as Flipper enters a cage opposite the door of death as a front and center parable about the unexpected consequences of actions.  The most innocent (an animal) gets destroyed in the end as the result of an honest attempt to help save him.

Yes the show is that dark enough to go there I think.  Not likely.  But possible.

Maybe that would lead to Flipper getting rescued by Elliot again?

[WearyTraveler]

On ‎01‎/‎09‎/‎2016 at 3:40 PM, luna1122 said:

Leon waxing rhapsodic about Paul Reiser's genius and not getting the credit he deserves after watching all of 'Mad about You' was, like, my favorite thing ever.

And then he said he was going to try Seinfeld next! Brilliant!

Edited September 4, 2016 by WearyTraveler

[kat165]

Thank you, Miles and thanks, green. That sucks!

green, I hope they don't go there, bringing Flipper to that animal shelter.  What a gruesome thought.

Thanks, shapeshifter, for the good thought.

[EyesGlazed]

I don't get it:  In the last episode, we see Darlene taking a bat to Cisco because he's informing on her to the Dark Army.  In this episode, it's like that never happened and everything's fine between them.  What?!?

In general, I'm not happy with the plot turn whereby Darlene has become a cold-blooded murderer.  It seems like the show wants us to forgive her for this, because 20 or so years ago, when she was four years old, she saw this woman laugh at the end of the trial??  Sorry, but that's not an excuse.  I'm kind of grossed out by her now.

Agree with those who want more Leon.  Though if he killed a bunch of guys in prison to protect Elliot, he is not going anywhere anytime soon.

I suspected that there was something wrong with the premise that Elliot was "living with his mother" in the first half of the season, because the mother never spoke.  Now we know that in "real life" she doesn't speak at all.  But didn't Darlene say in a past episode that their mother was "always going on about Dad" or something like that?

[greenbean]

15 minutes ago, EyesGlazed said:

I don't get it:  In the last episode, we see Darlene taking a bat to Cisco because he's informing on her to the Dark Army.  In this episode, it's like that never happened and everything's fine between them.  What?!?

In general, I'm not happy with the plot turn whereby Darlene has become a cold-blooded murderer.  It seems like the show wants us to forgive her for this, because 20 or so years ago, when she was four years old, she saw this woman laugh at the end of the trial??  Sorry, but that's not an excuse.  I'm kind of grossed out by her now.

Even before the murder, I was never a fan of Darlene. She bugs imo. The murder is a bit much I agree, and it messes with the tone of the show, because it undermines the significance of Tyrell being a killer. They should have left it as him being the only one capable of such an act. Right now, his killing is actually the lesser of two evils because at least he was out of control when it happened. Darlene's was far more calculated and deliberate. Yet the story goes on as if it's no big deal, after all the woman laughed when Darlene was four.

And yes, her hitting Cisco with a bat is another thing. It's like the show really downplays her violence.

Edited September 5, 2016 by greenbean

[Rinaldo]

2 hours ago, EyesGlazed said:

In general, I'm not happy with the plot turn whereby Darlene has become a cold-blooded murderer.  It seems like the show wants us to forgive her for this

I've never gotten this impression. She's come across as a nasty piece of work from the start, and the show knows it. As with many of the other characters. 

[juliet73]

I watched this show last year and season 2 has been sitting on my DVR. I finally binged watched the last 9 episodes this weekend.  I agree that this show is easier to follow when you can watch it all at once. For anything I was confused about,  it was cleared up on this message board. So thank you fellow viewers for all of your input. It's been so interesting to read everyone's comments,  theories, programming/hacking explanations, etc.  I really enjoy this show for the main reason of it not dumbing anything down. Excellent writing!

However, I have never been a fan of Angela and I think I finally realized why. She (or the actress) is very stiff. She had no movement in her face and her mouth barely moves when she speaks. Plus she NEVER blinks!! It's very distracting!

[hincandenza]

So, I ranted a bit about the episode a couple of weeks ago (S02E07, when we find out Elliott's been in jail the whole season), but I think the show has returned to form from that little hiccup.  I actually enjoyed last week as a break from Elliot and more focus on the real world plot, and this episode as well.  The story made forward progress, and the characters have a chance to breathe and expand.  I especially liked the glimpses of alterna-Elliot, when he's in control and in charge; you can see how he would have swayed people with charisma and a laser-like focus on "the plan". There's even a part of me that wishes he would just surrender to his Mr. Robot side (I don't think there's a third persona in there; rather, that when he's imagining himself in the bathroom or the next train car, that's the Mr. Robot side keeping him out of the loop), since he's much more competent when that happens- and right now, he needs to be something other than batshit crazy and unfocused.  I'd prefer if they put the mental illness art film on the back burner for a while, and give us a few episodes of in-control Elliot regaining his position on the playing board.

There were lots of juicy acting moments too, such as Phillip Price's sublimated rage when talking to White Rose; that little monologue underscored that whatever Elliot's plan has been- and what cooperation he's had with White Rose/Dark Army, or where Tyrell fit in at whatever point, or how much Price knows about Elliot (as opposed to thinking it's Tyrell behind it all)- that Price is also a real player, and the business of global economies and subterfuge is both in-show and in real life a dirty, ugly, brutal "game".  Not much has changed in this world since the great Smedley Butler warned that war was a racket, where good men are sent to die fighting what is at heart a proxy battle between moneyed interests.

It does make me wonder which came first, the chicken or the egg: we now know Elliot clearly has some master plan beyond just the 5/9 hack, and White Rose/Dark Army are playing along with it.  But did they latch onto his plan (and possibly are trying to ride it, or steer it, toward their interests) or does Elliot have this all mapped out including using the Dark Army to some other end that even White Rose won't see coming- that WR thinks he's using Elliot, but in truth it's the other way around?  These kinds of questions do need to feel like they're getting answered in good time, in between the surrealist film vignettes, and it's why I'd like to see Elliot/Mr. Robot at the top of their game rather than wallowing in puke and pills for the next few weeks.

One weak point for me remains Angela.  Presumably the director is okay with her acting choices, but her character always has this child-caught-in-a-lie frozen reaction that feels both weak and transparent.  Weak, in that she looks constantly like a shivering chihuahua, and transparent in that she seems to think she's playing some 5th-dimensional chess game but really, she's hanging herself out to dry and literally everyone she encounters knows it because it's written all over her face.  Which might ultimately be to the point of her story: I don't know where it's going to end for her, but her short-lived glee in this episode playing at being a real "hacker" in getting those files seems to foreshadow (to me) that Angela may become another casualty in what is in-show the next Cold War, playing way out of her depth and ultimately only useful as a pawn in some small feint or machination by the real powers that be.

[yourmomiseasy]

11 hours ago, EyesGlazed said:

I don't get it:  In the last episode, we see Darlene taking a bat to Cisco because he's informing on her to the Dark Army.  In this episode, it's like that never happened and everything's fine between them.  What?!?

 

When Elliot is in the bathroom you can hear Darlene and Cisco fighting about her hitting him in the head with the bat, so it isn't exactly ignored.  The points I remember from the fight off the top of my head are that he wasn't hit hard enough to need stitches and he was sending the pictures of her sleeping to the Dark Army to show them she was safe.

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

Half A Dozen Things This Mr. Robot Correspondent Chose To Focus On Instead Of The Continuing Jerk-Off That Is Elliot's Fractured Psyche, The Better To Avoid Hurling Her TV Out A Window

Because COME ON MAN.

[EyesGlazed]

8 hours ago, yourmomiseasy said:

When Elliot is in the bathroom you can hear Darlene and Cisco fighting about her hitting him in the head with the bat, so it isn't exactly ignored.  The points I remember from the fight off the top of my head are that he wasn't hit hard enough to need stitches and he was sending the pictures of her sleeping to the Dark Army to show them she was safe.

Thank you yourmomiseasy.  I missed that while I was freaking out along with Elliot.

Still a pointless event though.

[green]

17 hours ago, hincandenza said:

So, I ranted a bit about the episode a couple of weeks ago (S02E07, when we find out Elliott's been in jail the whole season), but I think the show has returned to form from that little hiccup.  I actually enjoyed last week as a break from Elliot and more focus on the real world plot, and this episode as well.  ...

One weak point for me remains Angela.  Presumably the director is okay with her acting choices, but her character always has this child-caught-in-a-lie frozen reaction that feels both weak and transparent.  Weak, in that she looks constantly like a shivering chihuahua, and transparent in that she seems to think she's playing some 5th-dimensional chess game but really, she's hanging herself out to dry and literally everyone she encounters knows it because it's written all over her face.  Which might ultimately be to the point of her story: I don't know where it's going to end for her, but her short-lived glee in this episode playing at being a real "hacker" in getting those files seems to foreshadow (to me) that Angela may become another casualty in what is in-show the next Cold War, playing way out of her depth and ultimately only useful as a pawn in some small feint or machination by the real powers that be.

Excellent all around post.  I think most of us are more focused in the Post Hack world because why shouldn't we be?  We want to know what happens to us, the unwashed masses, when this new type of warfare flares up to a very major global battle.  Not the artsy fartsy Elliot's dead daddy and scary mommy issues.  It may be that the showrunner created the latter psycho stuff in his head as the focus of the show but the viewers seem far more invested in the former post-hack new world order and who is behind what stuff.  Are the corps using Elliot unknowingly or is he really one step ahead.  Bring on the freaky paranoia!

I mean I don't mind if Elliot is crazy.  It makes the creating of this new world post-hack order even more interesting that one crazy guy can find Archimedes' old fulcrum point and shift the whole world with one hack.  Fragile us.  And he probably isn't any more crazy in a way then most world leaders currently or in the past.  But wasting over half of this season on Elliot's Most Excellent Head Version of His Prison Adventure is way way too skewed.  That whole bit could have been handled in one fast paced episode.  Two max.

And I wonder it the actor playing Angela is being directed to look like such a transparent idiot.  Talk about over the top poor acting otherwise.  I re-watched the second episode of the show in part yesterday and she seemed pretty "normal" in her acting choices back then. 

But now?  Her robot doll Stepford Wives meets Bambi caught in the car headlights is really really REALLY annoying and takes me out of the show every time I see her on the screen.  I loose any absorption into the show at that point and silently rant inside my head at the stupidly acted scene.

No real human, however inept, would act so poorly in front of people as to just freeze up for seconds at every (and I mean EVERY) simple question, gaze a thousand yards out to the horizon and basically look as guilty as if she had a neon sign over her head flashing "I DID IT!" all the time.  Flipper looked more innocent when peeing on pillows.

Since she is billed so high in the credits she will probably, like I said before, end up in some sort of heroic role in the end.  But I'm already past being able to accept that redemption from poor acting arc and just wish the show would kill her off.  Her scenes are like watching paint dry and bring the show to a crashing halt every time she appears.

Edited September 6, 2016 by green

[Hecate7]

On 9/5/2016 at 2:48 PM, EyesGlazed said:

I don't get it:  In the last episode, we see Darlene taking a bat to Cisco because he's informing on her to the Dark Army.  In this episode, it's like that never happened and everything's fine between them.  What?!?

 

It's not fine. We hear him complaining about it, but Elliot can't hear the whole conversation.

[shapeshifter]

43 minutes ago, Hecate7 said:

It's not fine. We hear him complaining about it, but Elliot can't hear the whole conversation.

Maybe he successfully ducked? He seems unscathed in this episode. Plus, I've seen too many crime shows where a bat to the head was lethal.

[Anela]

I wondered why Angela just sat and stared straight ahead, at her desk, as people walked past the window. It made her look more suspicious (when she was checking the files on the computer, she looked like she was working). 

[shapeshifter]

30 minutes ago, Anela said:

I wondered why Angela just sat and stared straight ahead, at her desk, as people walked past the window. It made her look more suspicious (when she was checking the files on the computer, she looked like she was working). 

Only suspicous to people who aren't used to it by now since she's in so much sh!t that that has become her default look. ;-)

[Slovenly Muse]

I kind of hate myself for how damn invested I am in this season. I can't help it, I am really enjoying it! Even Angela's weird acting choices, I don't mind. And as much as I am totally along for the ride, I keep thinking of Orphan Black's endless loop... each season is dedicated to figuring out who the shadowy conspiracy group is, only to find out that there is an even MORE shadowy group even higher up, and the next season is dedicated to investigating THEM, and so on. Is Mr. Robot going to do that same thing, only the answer is "Elliot was the secret puppetmaster all along" every time? Because that twist is going to get old fast! At the moment, though, I don't even care. I'm into it!

[justmehere]

On 9/5/2016 at 8:56 PM, hincandenza said:

There's even a part of me that wishes he would just surrender to his Mr. Robot side (I don't think there's a third persona in there; rather, that when he's imagining himself in the bathroom or the next train car, that's the Mr. Robot side keeping him out of the loop), since he's much more competent when that happens- and right now, he needs to be something other than batshit crazy and unfocused.

I really like this idea about Elliot's disorientation. If true, however, it might mean that Elliot is becoming more in control because he's aware of Mr. Robot's actions now, whereas before, he would lose time. Mr. Robot's worry about the incidents would then be about losing control because he can't fully keep Elliot unaware when he wants to. Intriguing.

[Milaxx]

On 9/1/2016 at 3:09 AM, AliShibaz said:

 

On 9/1/2016 at 0:09 PM, cali1981 said:

.....

 

If Elliot is the force behind Stage 2, he in some way shape of form is in cahoots with the Dark Army which explains his early release from County.  Like others have said, maybe Elliot has a third personality.  Mr Robot probably knows nothing about this and "real" Elliot may not either.  Mr. Robot and Elliot seem to be breaking apart at this point.  I do like how the show drops a bomb at the end of one episode and then, at the beginning of the following episode goes back in time to explain what we saw the previous week.  It doesn't always work for shows but for Mr. Robot it does.  I loved the scene between BD Wong and Michael Christofer, two excellent actors at top of their game.  Mr. Green sure has as set of cajones speaking to aka White Rose in the way that he did.  I hope that they don't kill him off. He's just so deliciously evil.

 

On 9/1/2016 at 5:32 PM, green said:

Well something radioactive might not be a nuke.  And the plant would have been pretty obvious if it was building a nuke there I would think.  Weapons grade uranium and heavy water being brought in and a huge facility would be pretty hard to disguise.  The radiation wouldn't have stayed hidden at that level for years either.  And there were too many regular people like Elliot's father and Angela's mother working there to hide stuff going on to that degree.

Besides  White Rose seems too subtle to go that route.  And Elliot's father was a hardware engineer there or a "computer engineer" I think they termed it.  Can't put bombs inside computers. The mystery deepens.

 

On 9/2/2016 at 10:01 PM, Giant Misfit said:

Random thoughts about this episode:

* I think Stage 2 might have been created during Elliot's missing three-days and that's why he doesn't remember it.

 

I think it all blends together. Mr.Robot has been shown to take over. I think Mr. Robot planned all of this, possibly with WhiteRose and is shielding Elliot from know the truth. 

On 9/6/2016 at 11:55 AM, EyesGlazed said:

Thank you yourmomiseasy.  I missed that while I was freaking out along with Elliot.

Still a pointless event though.

I don't think it's pointless, I think we are seeing that Darlene is just as unhinged as Elliot.

[KaleyFirefly]

On 9/1/2016 at 11:01 AM, PreviouslyTV said:

Because COME ON MAN.

View the full article

It sounds like the reviewer doesn't even like the show. I wish they'd get a different reviewer who is actually a fan of the show.

 

On 9/5/2016 at 10:56 PM, hincandenza said:

I'd prefer if they put the mental illness art film on the back burner for a while, and give us a few episodes of in-control Elliot regaining his position on the playing board.

One weak point for me remains Angela.  Presumably the director is okay with her acting choices, but her character always has this child-caught-in-a-lie frozen reaction that feels both weak and transparent.  Weak, in that she looks constantly like a shivering chihuahua, and transparent in that she seems to think she's playing some 5th-dimensional chess game but really, she's hanging herself out to dry and literally everyone she encounters knows it because it's written all over her face.

I agree wholeheartedly on both these points (plus the "shivering chihuahua" part made me laugh out loud, it describes her so perfectly).

BTW, I just realized that your screen name is a shout-out to "Infinite Jest." Cool.

 

Upset that Flipper the dog went back to her abusive owner, and that the jerk won. I want Elliot to have a "win" that's more permanent, not just unraveled several episodes later (Drug dealer; dog owner)

Didn't the cops find Elliot's special collection of CDs when they arrested him for hacking? Wouldn't that have brought even more charges?

As for FSociety, why ARE they using VHS tapes again? A bunch of tech-savvy hackers using tapes? And not even erasing them? If they're that sloppy they deserve to get caught. (Although I don't want Elliot, Trenton or Mobley to get caught. Darlene, though, I don't care too much about. She's a psycho).

Why is White Rose/Chinese Minister of Security so interested in the Washington Township plant? Was there something in that conversation I just didn't get? I didn't really know what they were talking about. I think that Price is stupid to be brushing off the death threat so lightly. White Rose/Chinese Minister will kill him and piss on his grave, in a heartbeat, if it suited his purposes.