What I’m Watching: Mr. Robot (Season Finale)

Mr. Robot: Season 2, Episode 12 “eps2.9_pyth0n-pt2.p7z” (B+)

It’s a reassuring feeling to watch this finale after Rami Malek took home a very well-deserved Emmy last Sunday for his performance in season one and has done extremely consistent work this season that should and could earn him a second Emmy next year. This episode in particular positioned Elliot in a fascinating lens as he struggled to come to terms with the revelation that Tyrell is still alive and sought to take control of what he was seeing and convince himself that he was a projection just like Mr. Robot. It’s difficult to grasp how Elliot comes off to the rest of the world since he’s such a brilliant hacker with an incredibly fractured personality, so skilled at his craft when Elliot is in charge and so maniacally destructive when Mr. Robot is at the wheel. It turns out that the FBI is well aware of what’s going on even if they see Tyrell and not Elliot as the ringleader, and Darlene stonewalling Dom didn’t work so well since she wasn’t actually fishing for information, just trying to convey to her that she had been cornered. The other major development was that Scott was the one who sent Joanna all the gifts because he had found out that Sharon was pregnant the morning before she was murdered, and he wanted to give Joanna hope that he could step on. Baiting him so that he would start choking her seemed like just the latest indulgence of her fantasies, but it turns out she has much more sinister aims in mind. The question is whether she knows Tyrell is alive and if almost everyone we know is involved, since Angela picking up the phone when a panicked Tyrell called at the end of the episode was a shock. I still feel like I need a lot of help decoding every episode’s events, but this continues to be almost inarguably the most interesting show on television. Bring on season three!

Season grade: B+
Season MVP: Rami Malek