S02.E10: eps2.8_h1dden-pr0cess.axx

[atlantaloves]

Could it be Price's house that the call from Tyrell is coming from and maybe Price is behind the Tyrell calls.  Hey man, I am as lost as everybody else...I really want Tyrell to be alive. The bodyguard would know Price's address and would hate him.

[greenbean]

20 minutes ago, atlantaloves said:

Could it be Price's house that the call from Tyrell is coming from and maybe Price is behind the Tyrell calls.  Hey man, I am as lost as everybody else...I really want Tyrell to be alive. The bodyguard would know Price's address and would hate him.

When Elliot called Tyrell from the prison phone, Tyrell said he's not yet where he's supposed to be. Assuming the call was real, and not Elliot imagining things, it didn't sound like he was being held hostage. It seemed that he was on route to somewhere.

I think he sent the phone to Joanna because he knew she'd have to get Elliot involved, and then he'd be able to communicate with Elliot. 

I'm with the theory that Mr Robot spoke to Tyrell when the call came in the store. And then later Elliot gave the bodyguard a fake address, but it's all up in the air. I assume his whereabouts will be known in the next episode. I too hope he's still alive, but his it's hard to imagine the reveal living up to the suspense of his season long absence.

[Milaxx]

I like the idea of it being inside the Metropolitan Museum. From what I gather the race is between Dark Army and the FBI. It's clear there is a mole inside the FBI with Dom's boss being the most likely suspect. However what about the agents sent to tail Angela.?  Whiterose appears to have her Dark Army spies everywhere.  Elliot goes to jail, Leon is there. Angela goes to the EPA or energy commision and we get that mysterious woman who was leading her down a dark hall. Medium had a post about how Elliot and Angela's kiss was a more a Judas kiss and not so much romantic. I agree. I think the 2 agents may be FBI/Dark Army moles. Dom had Angela running scared so of course they have to intervene. From the back the two who appear to pick up Angela look an awful lot like those 2 agents. Back to where Tyrell is. In September 2015 the Met had an exhibition on the Congo [Kongo]. Since the epilogue in season 1, this appears to have been the end game for Whiterose. I am still not 100% sure why, but phase 2 appears to have something to do with the Congo and if Whiterose and the Dark Army are holding Tyrell, that's where he is.

and yes, I know this all sounds completely insane.

Edited September 10, 2016 by Milaxx

[green]

Well the Congo exhibit may well figure in down the road.  But it would be nearly a month away.  Because someone else somewhere else noted that the date on Elliot's screen at his apt during the Pringles scene read August 6, 2015 at 11:46 PM.

I have to say Esmail has a very exact timeline figured out in the show so far.  But I wonder as we go into the verge of a hiatus awaiting Season 3 next year if he will have to find a way to jump ahead a bit time wise and how he will do it.  Or will the show remain in a now alternate 2015.  Well at least semi-alternate because Trump seems to be running for president in both that hacked world and ours.

Edited September 11, 2016 by green

[Milaxx]

I considered the date, but an exhibit that's in the process of being installed might make a better hiding spot than one already up and running. I do hope Esmail manages to leap forward in time. Even if the show does only go 4 seasons after a while, the lag of being in the past gets a little unwieldy. 

 

ETA: I just realized that Whiterose said he was 2 months away from implementing stage 2 so opening date of the exhibit might be according to schedule.

Edited September 13, 2016 by Milaxx

[possibilities]

Going back to the "92 East 82nd street" speculation:

It just seems like the definitive "he wouldn't be calling from there" reaction from the bodyguard makes it a location that is known but somehow implausible-- so either it's an enemy and the bodyguard concludes Tyrell is not the caller (so someone has his phone and Tyrell is either dead or being held hostage), or it's some other kind of location that is just not practical to call from-- like a place that Tyrell would never go-- the only thing I can think of is an FBI office, or some other place a person wanted by the law would avoid. The location is very close to the Metropolitan Museum (it's within the radius Elliot said the trace would cover), but that seems like a great place to hide (thanks to EL Konigsburg), so it's probably not there-- why would the body guard assume he wouldn't call from there?

Also, it seems like they were implying that the calls always came from the same location, which would indicate that if they're from Tyrell, he is not mobile (or he's staying in the same neighborhood, within the radius of 12 blocks that Elliot specified). You'd think that if he was on the lam, he'd move around and call from more than one place.

Furthermore, if it's Knowles's home, why would he keep a hostage there? Wouldn't he stash him somewhere less incriminating? It's not like he doesn't have resources, and underlings to do his dirty work. So that again implies the caller is not Tyrell and T is either dead or being stashed elsewhere (or he's alive but not making the calls).

But again-- if it's not Tyrell, but Knowles, why would Knowles call from his home, knowing these things can be traced? It just doesn't make sense.

Also, why would Knowles torment Johanna like that? Does he want to get caught? Is his beef really with her rather than Tyrell? It doesn't seem like the kind of thing he would do. Kill Tyrell, yes. But make those calls? I don't think so.

So I don't know what I think anymore.

Tyrell is a wanted man. Maybe the FBI is behind the calls, trying to bait Johanna in some way. I don't know.

Or maybe it's the possible 3rd personality Elliot might have. He's been trying to figure out what happened to Tyrell all season. I don't know how he'd call himself while in the store, though.

I want answers! And I wish that there were more episodes left to get them. It just doesn't seem like everything can be explained in the time remaining.

The reason I think Tyrell is alive is that someone sent a present (anonymously) for the baby. But I suppose that could have been an Elliot personality, too.

Edited September 11, 2016 by possibilities

[green]

2 minutes ago, possibilities said:

...

But again-- if it's not Tyrell, but Knowles, why would Knowles call from his home, knowing these things can be traced? It just doesn't make sense.

...

Jonanna said no one could trace the phone.  That they tried using their experts.  That was why she went after Elliot.  And even Elliot didn't trace it per se as much as socially engineered the police into unknowingly helping him get it's location by having them ping the number for him.

I am intrigued by the museum's location being in this 12 block radius.  Esmail didn't show us that location early on for nothing.  Was it where Elliot escaped to when younger or was it where Darlene did or was it both of them.  I forget that part.

[Milaxx]

The museum that Elliot ran away to was The Queens Museum.  The Met is the museum that the character Claudia Kincaid ran away to. When they had diner at Gideon's, Angela talked about how she used to wish she was Claudia Kincaid and how they wanted to run away together as kids.

Edited September 11, 2016 by Milaxx

[tiramisue]

Wasn't the radius 12 meters instead of 12 blocks though? That's only about 40 feet, and while the address is close to the Met it isn't that close...

That said in the shot where Elliot looks at the GPS coordinates the location of the Met is actually in frame, so there could still be something in all that speculation, especially with the Claudia Kincaid character and the Congo exhibit, but I doubt the call came from there.

[hincandenza]

First, I finally watched this episode tonight, and it was great!  I've been showering this thread with likes, because you guys are just so smart about these things.  There was a lot to digest, and some great comments to ponder.  Also, you guys totally Zapruder-film-ed the death of Cisco, which is cool as well. :)  The fact that the pacing has picked up this latter half of the season, and that all these little details are littered throughout, does wonders to rebuild my confidence in the show and the overall multi-season story.

I would applaud this show if they do kill off both Darlene and Cisco; certainly Cisco is gone, but if they got Darlene as well it would feel organic and earned.  If there's one theme underlying all the individual character's stories this season that I can see, it's "out of their depth".  Everyone is realizing how out of control things are, and how they're just one step ahead of disaster... so it's not just a cheap gimmick if they kill off Darlene, because this has been building all season. It fits the modern style of TV for a major character death to occur not in some music-laden, drawn-out death scene but rather abruptly with a "pop-pop" when some past transgression finally catches up to them.

However, I think Darlene is alive because since last week I'm operating under the assumption that Elliot's plot armor is rooted in his Mr. Robot persona having likely worked with WR quite since quite a while ago and having a perfect jewel of a plan all laid in motion.  It fits the first season's overt "Fight Club" allusion, if Elliot is secretly the great global alpha hacker mastermind but just didn't know it all this time.  In any case, whatever phase 2 is, he must have made himself irreplaceable to the plan and thus must be protected.  Either WR/MR share a common unknown end goal, or at least a major signpost along the way in destabilizing the US and seizing control of the world economy.  If that's true, then Darlene and Angela would be covered under the plot-umbrella as "off-limits" for killing, if not abducting/hiding.  It's weird to say, but for all the power that the Dark Army and WR possess... they seem to genuinely both respect and fear Elliot- enough to keep him alive at all costs, and yet to be wary of how powerful his 133+ h4x0r s|<i|_|_5 are.

Re: why the dark army guys are willing to die.  I think it's possible they are zealots; we don't know much about the Dark Army in-show (I don't even know if there is a similarly-named real world analogue in China).  But given that White Rose is their apparent leader, who is also publicly a major figure in government, it could be that there is a subsection of the Dark Army that are some doomsday/revolutionary cult not too dissimilar to Elliot's own ideals about changing how the world works.  Theirs is some grand vision of the new world with China at the heart of it, and themselves furtively ruling China at the center of it all- for the greater good, of course.  It would explain their fanaticism, and color (ha!) White Rose as more than just a nakedly power-for-power's-sake type like Price.  Speaking of whom, I'm wide open to find out almost any variation of Price's own long con; he's such a deliciously, scenery-chomping brand of corporate evil, and I can't believe he wasn't or isn't now co-opting 5/9 for his own purposes as well.

I do like the theorizing here that Tyrell is not only alive, but at a meaningful location (to us, the audience).  It could be almost anything, and make sense: Price's home, Tyrell's, Scott's, E-Corp headquarters, the apartment of the parking lot guy that was killed earlier, etc.  If it were the last one, it would make the goon's reaction plausible while also hinting that there was an underlying reason Elliot was found in that parking lot 3 days after the hack.  But ultimately, I love Milaxx's theory that it's the Met Museum, especially with that shout-out to Basil E. Frankweiler (great catch!).  It's so... perfect, I now desperately want that to be true.

[Cardie]

I can certainly buy that Mr. Robot has told the Dark Army to lay off Darlene and Angela but there seems no way that you could guarantee who lives and who dies in that drive-by massacre. Dom's surviving two of them makes me very curious if there's more to her and her alliances than meets the eye.

[Milaxx]

I think Darlene still has story to tell. I think there's a lot to unpack about that story she told Cisco. It's little details like saying Elliot rode the roller coaster with their dad, when the show has shown that their ride of choice is the ferris wheel., the age Darlene said she was when this event occurred; something doesn't add up. I think that story is like Elliot saying he was staying with his mother when he was really in jail. There's a glimmer of truth in there, but we can't accept it at face value.

I also wonder if after meeting Dom in China, White Rose has decided to spare her.  It's as if she instructed her Dark Army minions to thwart her efforts but not kill her. 

I think Price was referring to White Rose when he talked about there only be 1 or 2 rooms he can be in where he's not the most powerful man in the room. It all reminds me of those old Hollywood movies like Jason and the Argonauts where the gods are all fighting and toying with earth for who can be the most powerful. I think Prince thinks that Tyrell was the one working to bring down ECorp with WhiteRose and not Elliot.

Edited September 12, 2016 by Milaxx

[Hecate7]

On 9/9/2016 at 8:49 PM, Miles said:

I really didn't read it that way. Her home life sucked, because her father was dying and her mother was abusive. The only saving grace of that whole situation was and is that she loves her brother very much and thinks the world of him. I don't think she felt overshadowed by him.

I also still think that that story was true.

Me, too. And having known several people who died of cancer, I have no trouble believing that he could be riding a rollercoaster one day, and a week or a month later be gone. It works that way sometimes.

I think if Darlene were going to have a fantasy she'd come up with something better than that. She appears to be drawing a very dark portrait of what it was like to be 5 and have an abusive, ambivalent mother and a dying father at the same time. It could easily happen. The fantasy of being taken away does occur to kids all the time, true, and especially if their parents are absent and/or unavailable and/or abusive. I have no trouble buying the idea of an abused kid being forcibly returned home by the police, nor with it taking one full day for Darlene's mother in particular to actually contact the authorities, especially if the parents were separated by then.

[shapeshifter]

Have Elliot or Darlene actually said their mother was abusive? I only recall it from the episode with the old timey sitcom, in which their mother was really the female prison warden.

[Milaxx]

Other than the sitcom the show doesn't really show her interacting with Darlene. What little we have seen wasn't exactly warm & fuzzy. I wonder about the extent to which Darlene is excluded in those flashbacks. Even the one picture Elliot has of all 4 of them, mom & dad frame Elliot with a each having a hand on his shoulder & Darlene is just there kinda in front of mom. 

Edited September 12, 2016 by Milaxx

[Cosmosgravitation]

A few posters on reddit isolated some audio from the final scene.  Here it is.

I'm guessing the first scene of the next episode will be be the PoV from inside the diner.

Edited September 12, 2016 by Cosmosgravitation

[Milaxx]

7 minutes ago, Cosmosgravitation said:

A few posters on reddit isolated some audio from the final scene.  Here it is.

I'm guessing the first scene of the next episode will be be the PoV from inside the diner.

Just realized that the diner sign reads LIES after the shoot out.

[Hanahope]

So, I don't think Knowles has Tyler.  There was a scene where Joanna confronted Knowles about the severence package, where Knowles says he wants the man who killed his wife.  I don't think he would have said that had he been torturing Tyler.  

Tyler has now been "missing" for about 3 months (Elliott was in jail 86 days).  The only "evidence" we have that he might be alive rather than dead was that one phone call, but given that only Elliott heard his voice, we can't rely on it.  If Tyler isn't dead, then where has he been all this time?  And if he is dead, then who is calling Joanna and sending gifts?  And what exactly was that carpark guy not telling the feds that Joanna was paying for?  That Tyler's car had been parked in his lot for 3 days and "Ollie" was there?  There's something more there that we haven't been told.

I love how the gang always gets empty subway cars when they need to talk.  How do they do that?  Was Angela going to confess everything she did?  She could claim some ignorance over the All Safe thing contributing to 5/9, and there was some duress, but she knew full well what she was doing with the femtocell, and it was to cover her up (at least in part).  She'd be looking at significant jail time unless she gave up names, her only real bargaining chip, and it didn't seem like she wants to do that to Elliott.

And what is so special about the Washington Township plant?  Love the irony that the plant, owned/controlled by White Rose is what killed Elliott/Darlene's dad (and Angela's mom) and then they end up working with White Rose to punish Evil Corp. which only kept the plant running, radiation and all, because of White Rose.

So the "DC" plan was only the Wall Street Bull's balls?  That was it?  I kindof expected more than a frat-boy prank.

[greenbean]

3 hours ago, Hanahope said:

I love how the gang always gets empty subway cars when they need to talk.  How do they do that?  

I wondered this too, it can't be normal to have empty carriages in NY. They should have had one or two extras, but maybe it highlights how that scene was some sort of setup. 

[yourmomiseasy]

On 9/9/2016 at 0:01 PM, Milaxx said:

Could a dying man ride a roller coaster? Something doesn't add up. I can't put my finger on it, but I don't think that kidnapping story is true. Also apropos of nothing I think Mr.Robot was looking for the pizza box in Elliot's apartment. I know it sounds wacky, but I think they Fsociety may have used it as a low tech way to send messages.

I know someone that died from cancer in August.  He had 3 young boys.  He did what he could to give them good memories and even up to the week before he died was trying to do fun things with them.  Riding a roller coaster, especially one like you'd find at the boardwalk in the 80s with just some big dips and no loops and crazy Six Flags style shit, is totally something he would have done if that's what his boys wanted.  He was dying but not an invalid up until a few days before he passed.

On 9/9/2016 at 6:29 PM, Miles said:

Why not? A battle with cancer can take years. What else are you supposed to do? Sit in a dark room all day?

He also opened and ran a computer shop while he was sick. I think a rollercoaster ride is cake compared to that.

He escaped an FBI raid. It was implied that he got his injuries in the process of escaping. Maybe jumped out a window or something

The f.society crew involved in the DC op were in a car accident while trying to evade capture.  I assumed the accident was fairly bad and that's where his injuries came from.

On 9/10/2016 at 5:39 PM, possibilities said:

Also, it seems like they were implying that the calls always came from the same location, which would indicate that if they're from Tyrell, he is not mobile (or he's staying in the same neighborhood, within the radius of 12 blocks that Elliot specified). You'd think that if he was on the lam, he'd move around and call from more than one place.

 

I didn't get that implication.  I thought Elliot specifically asked "can you ping the phone to let me know where he is now?" when talking to the cellular provider to get info.

18 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Have Elliot or Darlene actually said their mother was abusive? I only recall it from the episode with the old timey sitcom, in which their mother was really the female prison warden.

There have been several flashbacks of her being abusive to at least a young Elliot (I can't remember if Darlene was in the flashbacks).  However, since I think the flashbacks are always Elliot's memories, I don't know if they are true.

[green]

1 hour ago, yourmomiseasy said:

I know someone that died from cancer in August.  He had 3 young boys.  He did what he could to give them good memories and even up to the week before he died was trying to do fun things with them.  Riding a roller coaster, especially one like you'd find at the boardwalk in the 80s with just some big dips and no loops and crazy Six Flags style shit, is totally something he would have done if that's what his boys wanted.  He was dying but not an invalid up until a few days before he passed.

The f.society crew involved in the DC op were in a car accident while trying to evade capture.  I assumed the accident was fairly bad and that's where his injuries came from.

I didn't get that implication.  I thought Elliot specifically asked "can you ping the phone to let me know where he is now?" when talking to the cellular provider to get info.

There have been several flashbacks of her being abusive to at least a young Elliot (I can't remember if Darlene was in the flashbacks).  However, since I think the flashbacks are always Elliot's memories, I don't know if they are true.

Not all cancers are the same and leukemia is very very debilitating and painful type and spread throughout the body being a blood cancer so sorry I don't buy he would be well enough to be riding a roller coaster at all.  Granted this is a fiction but I mean a real leukemia patient wouldn't be able to do any of this anyway.

Darlene seems to have a negative view of their mother too in that scene where Eliot visits her in that assisted living facility or whatever it was suppose to be.  She wouldn't even go into the room with Elliot to visit her.  But yeah something is fishy about the whole evil mother storyline to me.  And what was with her in that home with the white hair and looking more like she was 80 or something.

[Cardie]

Their Mom is probably in her late 50s or early 60s--Elliot was 8 when their dad died 20 years ago. If a woman is ill and not going to the salon for a dye job, there could be plenty of white hair at that age. Mine had all turned in my 40s.

[Milaxx]

On 9/10/2016 at 8:39 PM, possibilities said:

But again-- if it's not Tyrell, but Knowles, why would Knowles call from his home, knowing these things can be traced? It just doesn't make sense.

The calls weren't traced. Even Elliot couldn't trace it. Joanna & her minions weren't able to trace the calls until Elliot hacked the police and had them unblock the calls.

Edited September 12, 2016 by Milaxx

[Pamellaland]

Okay, so if the exhibit at the Met is about the Congo, and we think Tyrell is being held at or near the Met, when Price talks about handing "the Congo" over to "China", does he really mean handing Tyrell over to Whiterose? And at the same time, he's setting up Colby to look like an idiot for trying to convince the President to turn the actual Congo over to actual China?

[Milaxx]

2 hours ago, Pamellaland said:

Okay, so if the exhibit at the Met is about the Congo, and we think Tyrell is being held at or near the Met, when Price talks about handing "the Congo" over to "China", does he really mean handing Tyrell over to Whiterose? And at the same time, he's setting up Colby to look like an idiot for trying to convince the President to turn the actual Congo over to actual China?

Could be. NIce theory.

[Milaxx]

Just noticed at the end Darlene is listening in on Zhun's phone. She not only finds out that stage 2 is Elliot's plan, whoever zhun is talking to asks if he knows about the "man and the girl." Who might that be? Angela and Tyrell or someone else? 

 

I also just just realized that the bodyguard specifically says, "No way he's at that house." So now I'm back to thinking maybe Tyrell or at least the phone calls we think are Tyrell are coming from the Knowles house.

Ugh! I need Wednesday to get here faster!

Edited September 13, 2016 by Milaxx

[queenanne]

On 9/11/2016 at 5:51 AM, hincandenza said:

However, I think Darlene is alive because since last week I'm operating under the assumption that Elliot's plot armor is rooted in his Mr. Robot persona having likely worked with WR quite since quite a while ago and having a perfect jewel of a plan all laid in motion.  It fits the first season's overt "Fight Club" allusion, if Elliot is secretly the great global alpha hacker mastermind but just didn't know it all this time.  In any case, whatever phase 2 is, he must have made himself irreplaceable to the plan and thus must be protected.  Either WR/MR share a common unknown end goal, or at least a major signpost along the way in destabilizing the US and seizing control of the world economy.  If that's true, then Darlene and Angela would be covered under the plot-umbrella as "off-limits" for killing, if not abducting/hiding.  It's weird to say, but for all the power that the Dark Army and WR possess... they seem to genuinely both respect and fear Elliot- enough to keep him alive at all costs, and yet to be wary of how powerful his 133+ h4x0r s|<i|_|_5 are.

But, if that's the true setup and eventual reveal then I think Esmail has a credibility problem (noting here I don't know what happens subsequent yet as I'm still catching up); because I don't know why White Rose or, in fact, anyone, would ally with someone so clearly as mentally ill and potentially loose-cannon as Elliot, as the Great Mastermind.  Unless the answer to that is that White Rose (who blithely lied about having a sister to a random low level FBI agent when it was well and immediately known that anyone to whom she reported it, would know he is instead randomly and openly outing himself since there is no sister), is crazier than Elliot himself thus sees no problem.  Generally it's not a good idea to have elaborate mastermind plans rely upon those suffering from alter egos, etc.

[Milaxx]

I think that whole encounter & subsequent lie was Whiterose testing Dom.  To what end? I have no idea but I get the sense that Don intrigued Whiterose and so she needed to speak with her to try & figure out her threat level against  her project

[KaleyFirefly]

Agent Dom has been through 2 shootings now and come out completely unscathed. Plot armor? And she is apparently the only FBI agent with a brain in her head? The agents at the hospital didn't think that Cisco could still be nearby?

That last scene was so suspenseful!

Why didn't they just drop the guy off at the ER like Cisco had suggested?

I wonder when we are going to get an idea of what trauma happened to Elliot in between the scene where Darlene visits him on Halloween night (when he first gets the idea to hack Evil Corp), and the time when he forgot he even had a sister, and did not recognize her when he saw her. Also what made him forget what his father looked like.

And where is Tyrell? They are really dragging out that reveal.