What I’m Watching: Mr. Robot

Mr. Robot: Season 4, Episode 9 “409 Conflict” (B+)

I keep wondering to myself whether I’ve looked at this show’s episode count wrong and it’s actually slated to end next week since the storyline feels like it’s very closed to wrapped. After Dom and Darlene were held hostage last week and Elliot and Krista were the week before that, this was an hour that was filled with wins, not to mention some pretty monumental deaths. Not since the first episode where Elliot successfully executed his big hack did he manage to achieve the same kind of electronic takedown, even if this one took a bit longer and didn’t look like it was going to work for a while. Philip was a good ally to have because he was fearless, aware that his death was imminent no matter how it was going to happen and ready to bask in his unexpected victory over Whiterose while he still could (the expression “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em” comes to mind, even if it’s not totally applicable in this case). I like that Darlene is able to differentiate between Elliot and Mr. Robot, who she doesn’t like at all, and that Mr. Robot had to steer the ship with Elliot out of commission until he finally showed up towards the end. They engineered a pretty incredible attack against Deus, exposing them and sending hordes of onlookers to swarm where they were gathered while they cleverly kept all the drivers trapped in the parking garage. After Whiterose shot Philip in a fit of rage, it looks like she’s going to meet her end, unless it’s only those FBI agents who took the brunt of those bullets we heard over the end credits. I genuinely have no idea what comes next.