Eps1.9 zer0-day.avi/Summary

At a night-time outdoor restaurant, Michael Hansen meets Krista Gordon, they haven't seen each other in a while, and Krista says she doesn't even know Michael's real name. But he called her there saying that he had advanced cancer ... which he says he actually doesn't, it was just to get her to come. She's upset, but he says he wants to talk about one of her patients, Elliot Alderson; he hacked Michael and got him in trouble ("eps1.0\_hellofriend.mov"), and Michael's had the police look into it. He's getting closer; Elliot had taken Michael's dog, and the dog was microchipped, and Elliot had taken the dog to a vet ("eps1.8\_wh1ter0se.m4v"), so that proves it was him.

Anyway, Elliot's hack "made" Michael confess things about his private life, which ruined his marriage, and he's divorced, so now he wants to track down Elliot and get him in trouble too. Michael's tried to track him, but Elliot uses proxies and such, something in Estonia, so he's untraceable. So he wants Krista to give him anything she knows about Elliot from his sessions with her. She doesn't want to go there, no matter how upset Michael is. As she walks away, his last words are, "The asshole stole my dog!"

Michael gets back to his apartment, and starts eating takeout to the TV news. He's paying little attention to the stories about panic in the stock markets, the IMF having no leverage about defaults, seventeen countries are near collapse, such as Lithuania, Croatia, many others, ending with Estonia. That gets his attention. The TV goes on to talk about the "faction" responsible for the hack on E Corp which says it's a chance for worldwide economic reform. Michael stops eating and pays attention, to scenes of mass rallies and rioting in the streets, around the world.

It's morning, and people are lined up to use an ATM, near where Elliot wakes up from a parked car. It's in a parking lot, and the attendant comes over to the car in time for Elliot to get out and ask where he is? The attendant says he's been in this lot for two days, that's how much Elliot paid him before the credit card systems went down. Elliot is still stupefied; he notices the car he just got out of and thinks to himself, "This is Tyrell's. Why were we in there? Seriously, what do you remember? Wait, I don't even trust you." He has no money for the guy, and he walks away as the guy says they're going to tow the car tonight.

Angela is walking into the E Corp building, through its hallways, and into a room filled with people working at computers, there's lots of work going on. She sits at her usual place and gets to work.

At the fsociety hideout, Elliot walks in, and everyone else is there, disassembling the systems, wiping and destroying the disk drives. Many complain that Elliot hasn't been around to do his part, but Darlene says he must have his reasons, and the hack worked, so yay, now we need to clean up and get out. Elliot says just to us: "What did I do? Were you there? Did you see it?" Darlene tries to get his attention, but he's stuck in his own head: "It executed, but how? What happened to Tyrell?" Darlene asks where he went, he disappeared for three days. Now Elliot says out loud, "It went through?" Darlene says, yes, it went like gangbusters, and people are loving it and want to join fsociety.

Elliot sits down a a laptop, and quickly searches for news about the fsociety hack; there are lots of news stories, with titles like "fsociety strikes again, this time, potentially lethal", and "Coordinated attack with China", and "Global system outages." Elliot is mesmerized by the news, as if it's news to him. Darlene sees him transfixed, and asks what is going on, and then asks if Elliot is still seeing Mr. Robot. Elliot thinks, just to us, "No, but I need to." Wordlessly he gets up and starts to leave; Darlene calls after him that they need his help to wipe the systems, but he says, "I told you we shouldn't have done this." Then he leaves.

Gideon and the Allsafe CFO are meeting, and the prospects aren't good: the fixed costs, like rent and utilities, aren't going anywhere, and with the staffing and outstanding loans, the CFO believes that it's time to shut down the company. Gideon argues that they could bounce back, but the CFO says, be real, Allsafe's number one client is in a major crisis, and there's no sign of that ending, so there's no escape. Gideon is hard to convince, but the numbers just aren't there to justify continuing.

Elliot goes to the 23d floor of the E Corp building, and wanders along the busy hallways, filled with near-frantic office workers and executives, many of them looking at papers and tablets and shaking heads. He thinks, "Why did Tyrell let this happen? He was with me. I told him the whole plan. Shouldn't I be enjoying this?" Televisions in open areas are all set to news, reporting on the catastrophe, lots of images of Obama, Yellen, Merkel, Abe, and other officials, headlines like "Countless cabinet meetings yield no solution." He thinks, "This can be fixed. Forcing their techs to work overtime to try to decrypt our data. I have to find him. I have to know what happened." He gets to a desk area at which he finds Tyrell's assistant. He asks her where Tyrell is, and she says Tyrell doesn't work here anymore.

Elliot hears a television start to play an fsociety video; he rushes over to hear the masked figure announce: "Evil Corp, we have delivered on our promise as expected. The people of the world who have been enslaved by you have been freed. Your financial data has been destroyed." We also see the hackers at fsociety watching the video as it plays. "We at fsociety will smile as we watch you and your dark soul die. That means any money you owe these pigs has been forgiven by us, your friends at fsociety." We see groups of workers and executives like Angela standing at the televisions, listening, as well as the workers at Allsafe. "We hope, as a new society rises from the ashes, that you will forge a better world." Huge screens on the streets of New York also show the video, watched by crowds, many of whom wear fsociety masks. "And while you do that, remember to repeat these words: We are fsociety. We are finally free. We are finally awake!" The outdoor crowds cheer and wave signs.

Helpers are getting James Plouffe, the E Corp EVP for Tech, ready for a press interview; Angela is his new PA, and he's anxious about her holding his bag that has all his important papers. Once he has the bag, and the makeup girl is done, the TV director calls out: Four minutes. Plouffe gets into place for the interview.

The members of fsociety (except Elliot) file into a room in the animal shelter; a tech there has let them in since the boss is out, and their money is good enough for him. But the room has cages with a dozen dogs and cats, and next to it is the incinerator room, it's the last stop for unwanted animals. He lets them alone; they are loaded down with boxes full of mostly-broken computer equipment. They toss in all of their disks, desktop computer components, keyboards, and everything burns. They watch for a while, but then Trenton goes to the other room where the animals are, and starts to pick the locks on the cages. Others join her, and soon all of the animals are free.

Somewhere in town, Elliot knocks on the door of a townhouse, but nobody answers. Joanna Wellick, pushing a stroller, comes up to him; he doesn't know her, but he asks if she knows where Tyrell Wellick is. She says she doesn't know, and wonders who he is, and Elliot just says he and Tyrell "work together", and calls himself Ollie. She asks when Elliot last saw Tyrell, and Elliot says, maybe sometime last week. He's sure that she knows something more than she's saying, and she says Tyrell was acting strange when she last saw him. She says something in Danish to him, and Elliot says he doesn't understand. Anyway, they part ways.

The E Corp TV interview is running, and James Plouffe is explaining to the interviewer how E Corp has spent all weekend handling the situation, and are near to "getting to the bottom of this." The interviewer asks about how stocks have taken the situation, and whether E Corp is concerned. Plouffe visibly sweats at this, but says they are focusing on the technical issues and on supporting their customers. The interviewer says that an expert they spoke to earlier said that, if fsociety's claims are true, there is no solution, and the data is gone; is it correct to ask the public not to worry?

Plouffe nods a little, drinks some water, and asks whether he should be honest. When the interviewer says yes, he says, "You're right. The public should be worried. I mean, personally, my life is over." At this, his handlers start to glance at each other and mutter comments. "My pension, savings, everything ... has been in this company since I started here, and that's all gone now.... I've been with the engineering team all weekend. No one knows how to fix it. This will be impossible to fix." An executive tells Angela to go stop this. She walks towards Plouffe, who reaches down into his bag, pulls out a gun, and shoots himself dead, live and on camera.

Police are interviewing employees, and are done talking with Angela. Phillip Price is there, and he says what she went through was traumatic, she should just go home and recover. He turns away from her, but then turns back and asks, she was the one sponsored by Terry Colby, wasn't she? Price says he's impressed with how well Angela has fitted in, and wants her to be around this afternoon, if she can be, to come to the press conference, she could pick up some lessons for PR. But she needs new shoes, her old ones have Plouffe's blood on them.

Elliot has returned to Tyrell's car, and searches it, front to back, looking for something, but he doesn't seem to find it. He says to us, "I know this looks bad, but I'm sure there's an explanation. We'll find him. He's gotta be somewhere." His dad, or Mr. Robot, must have left Elliot a clue. He pulls open the sunroof, and a USB drive falls down. Elliot catches it, and yells, "All right, come out! I need to know what happened! Come on out! I'm waiting for you! Come out!" Nothing happens.

At the fsociety hideout, everyone is setting things up for a party, lights and banners. One of them has made flyers, announcing an "End of the World" party there at the Coney Island arcade, tonight; they all take some and go out to put them up. Romero complains that, they got the job done, the world is changed, and their fearless leader has vanished, again.

Elliot walks into an internet cafe and snack bar, goes to a computer and sticks in the USB drive. It asks for the password; Elliot thinks, "He knows the password, which means I know the password." It has one file, a video of the boardwalk where Elliot and Mr. Robot sat on the railing to talk ("eps1.1\_ones-and-zer0es.mpeg"), taken from across the boardwalk. It clearly shows Elliot sitting there, then falling off the railing, and there's nobody else there with him, no Mr. Robot talking, no Mr. Robot pushing Elliot off. Elliot looks at this, slow and fast, forward and backward, over and over again. Elliot thinks, "What's he trying to say? I'm on the hook for everything? He won't come out to play if I ask. So maybe I gotta force his hand. I gotta get myself arrested."

Elliot gets up and asks to use the snack counter's landline, dials 911, and starts saying, "I have a confession to make." At that moment, Mr. Robot is there with him, pushing down the phone switch, and saying, "All right, you got me."

Angela is getting new shoes at a store, and the salesman realizes that she was one of the people in the room when "the guy" shot himself. He's dismayed, she just saw someone kill himself, and now she's calmly buying shoes, he's surprised she could work for E Corp and the type of people there. She says, some there are bad, and some aren't; but he isn't taking any of that, he says she sounds just like the rest of the E Corp types. She puts an end to the personal talk, she just wants to buy shoes.

Elliot is nearly enraged that Mr. Robot is back with him, yelling at Mr. Robot: "Where's Tyrell?" Elliot grabs Mr. Robot and slams him against the wall, choking him. (We, and the others in the place, can see it how it "really" is: Elliot with his back against the wall, nobody pressing him there, choking himself with one hand.) Elliot wants to know where Tyrell disappeared to, and Mr. Robot must know; Mr. Robot insists, Elliot knows just as much as Mr. Robot: "You forget, kiddo, I am you." Mr. Robot breaks away and goes to insult someone else in the place, and gets himself punched; we can see, half-way across the cafe, Elliot fall to the floor. As others there try to help Elliot, Mr. Robot stands over him: "I'm only supposed to be your prophet. You're supposed to be my god." Mr. Robot leans down and grabs Elliot off the floor.

Angela arrives at the anteroom to an E Corp assembly hall, executives are discussing the crisis, and Phillip Price notices her, he's glad that she came. She stares at him for a bit, and he says, come on, you have questions, and he has answers. She asks why is it that Price seems so confident, unlike the others. He says, this problem was made by people, not gods or aliens, but ordinary people. He has the power of the biggest conglomerate in the world, and with that, anything made by people can be overcome. She asks, why was she invited, why is the E Corp CEO even spending time answering a new-hire's questions? He says that he finds her refreshingly young and bold, exactly what E Corp needs now.

The executives all move to assembly hall; on the way, there is a new portrait of James Plouffe, and Angela notices it, and Price notices her noticing it. She says she can't forget that image from the morning. Price says, he was glad Plouffe killed himself, he was not a good person, problems with gambling, drinking, and overall a weak person, with poor instincts. And his family will benefit from this in the long run. They move to the assembly hall, where there are hundreds of people waiting, and Price goes to the rostrum, to ask for a moment of silence for their friend, James Plouffe.

At the fsociety hideout, it's clogged with partygoers, waving signs, wearing masks, with music and dancing. The "real" fsociety members are off to the side, remarking on how there are now lots of fingerprints everywhere. They're subdued, but Darlene isn't, she wants to party, and congratulate each other for all of their hard work. But Mobley wonders, well, this hack got done, fine, good, but now what? Darlene doesn't care about tomorrow, just to celebrate what they did today: they freed the people.

The night streets are filled with marchers, wearing masks and carrying fsociety signs, chanting "Our streets!" In their midst is Elliot, being helped by Mr. Robot. Elliot says he's sure Mr. Robot killed Tyrell, but that gets Mr. Robot angry and he slams Elliot against a wall. Elliot thinks, "Please, you have to do something. Say something. Make him tell me." Mr. Robot responds: "Stop talking to them! They can't help us. We have to do this together, just us."

Now we see, standing behind Mr. Robot are Elliot's mom and his younger self; they encourage Elliot to believe Mr. Robot and follow him. Elliot complains, this isn't his family, they aren't real, but Mr. Robot says, neither is the one Elliot keeps talking to. He points to the crowd, and says none of this is real either, the whole world is built on fantasy, nobody has been living in a "real" world in decades. Everything is artificial, built that way by corporations for their profit. But, Mr. Robot says, as far as Elliot is concerned, Mr. Robot is very real, and they are together.

Elliot bursts out: "No! I want to be alone. I need to be alone." He closes his eyes, lowers his head ... and then there's silence. The noisy crowd has vanished, as has Mr. Robot, it's midnight on the street in New York and there are no people around. He's alone. Now one of the big screens on the boulevard lights up, showing Mr. Robot, Mom, and Young Elliot. Mr. Robot reminds Elliot, he was miserable being alone, all those lonely nights crying in his apartment. He begged "us" to come, and he needed "us" to come. Young Elliot says, the three of them are deep inside Elliot, they can't leave him and he can't leave them. Elliot is weakened, and asks what to do, and Mr. Robot says, just start listening to "us", the world is a better place from what they did. Now he needs to go get the subway, and go home.

We see Elliot making his way through the no-longer-empty streets, past the vendors and crowds, through the subway station; Elliot is trying not to cry, as he gets home. The voice of Mr. Robot tells him, now, to sit at his computer, bring up the news, and enjoy the "beautiful carnage" that they created together. Elliot watches news reports of crowds, marchers, riot police, financial traders, and politicians.

There's a knock at the apartment door. Elliot goes to the door. Black screen. Credits.

Post-credit scene:

A limousine delivers Minister Zhang to a mansion, what looks like a club of the 1% of the 1%; nodding to the hostess and to various frightfully rich men in the club, he sits down by the fire with Phillip Price, who is listening to the harpist. They are clearly quite familiar with each other. Zhang says he knows Price has his troubles, but they need to discuss the coltan mines. Price says it's early for that, first he wants to enjoy the music a bit, and besides, there are other items on E Corp's agenda, the mines can wait. Zhang can see E Corp's troubles weighing on Price, and asks why, Price surely knows the person responsible. Price indeed does, and will handle that person as usual. Zhang recalls, "The infamous Emperor Nero merrily played a lyre as he watched..." At that moment, Minister Zhang's watch beeps, the same once-a-minute beep that Whiterose's watch gave. ("eps1.7\_wh1ter0se.m4v"). Zhang pauses, then finishes his sentence: "as he watched Rome burn." The episode ends with a closeup of Minister Zhang.