Eps1.8 m1rr0r1ng.qt/Summary

A flashback to a computer and accessories store, owner Edward Alderson sitting at the desk, with a calendar for October 1994 nearby. His jacket says "Mr. Robot", and that's the name of his store. He gets a call from a customer, suggests a few options to upgrade his system, and invites him to bring it in. Then a dissatisfied customer comes in: when he was there earlier, buying something, Alderson's son stole a $20 bill from the money he had on the counter. He wants his money, and an apology, but he is snooty enough about it that Alderson just says "No... I'm gonna have to ask you to leave." The customer sputters for a while, tosses out a few insults, and says he'll take his business to Best Buy. But he leaves.

Alderson sighs, and asks his son, young Elliot, to come out from the back room. Elliot says he didn't do it, but when Alderson puts out his hand, Elliot gives him the $20 bill. So ... Alderson picks up the movies section of the paper, and suggests a movie they could go to together. Elliot goes to get his jacket, and Alderson spends a while coughing. When Elliot comes back, he asks his dad why he's not in trouble. Dad says, "Even though what you did was wrong, you're still a good kid, and that guy was a prick. Sometimes that matters more." They lock up the store and head to the movies.

Today: Mr. Robot has come to Elliot's apartment, and Elliot is beside himself, his dad is alive! And here with him again! Mr. Robot is all casual about it, but then Elliot is enraged: "Why didn't you tell me?" Mr. Robot explains, they had important stuff to get done, and he had to handle Elliot "gently" to finish, and he also needs Elliot to be quiet now. Elliot starts yelling again, this is the right voice to use "20 years after your supposed death", and Mr. Robot gets him to quiet down, we don't want "them" to hear us. Looking outside, Mr. Robot and Elliot do see at the curb a black van, and two men in suits, sort of watching Elliot's apartment.

Mr. Robot explains, the people out there don't want him alive, "they" want Elliot to keep taking his pills, to forget his own sister, to stay under control, and to keep Mr. Robot from existing. Elliot wants answers, about himself, about Darlene, about Mr. Robot, but Mr. Robot says, it's not safe to discuss it here, Elliot needs to follow Mr. Robot to get the answers. They leave.

Gideon Goddard is at home, getting dressed, and his partner, Harry Davis, is trying to calm him down, and to get him to share what's going on. Gideon explains that, as everyone knows, Allsafe got hacked, and for many companies it's a nuisance, but for a security company it's a disaster. He doesn't know how they can survive, if their can keep their customers. Gideon feels like a failure, but Harry says, this relationship they have, that's not what failure looks like.

Antara Nayar is in her office, assigning tasks to her assistants, when Angela walks in. Antara says the research is going great, and Angela says she came to help, since she no longer has a job. Antara says Angela can't work here, it's not Antara's job to give Angela purpose in life, she should go find something else to do.

Outside the office, Angela's phone rings, and it's Darlene, she's looking for Elliot, and she's worried that he's "flipping out again". Angela was the one who helped him the last time he was like this, so they agree to get together.

They meet at the museum with the big map of New York City; it's a place Angela remembers where she and Elliot would always go when he ran away. But he's not there, and Angela has no insight on his whereabouts. Darlene is worried that Elliot's is in serious mental trouble, but Angela wonders, why Darlene should care, it's like the two siblings were never that close, Darlene says she has to help, he's her brother, but Angela feels there's something else "really" going on, and if Darlene won't talk about it, fine, but she doesn't need Angela's help.

Elliot and Mr. Robot are waiting for a train to New Jersey. Elliot says he doesn't know where they are going, but "they" may be after Darlene. There's a man in a black suit nearby, who initially looks suspiciously interested in Elliot ... until we see his interest was in another woman among the passengers. Mr. Robot says they can't see Darlene right now, it's too risky, but he'll show Elliot "exactly where I've been this whole time."

On the train, Elliot thinks: "I'll figure this out. I know you don't trust me. I'm remembering more and more." He hopes that once he gets the answers, he'll be back to normal, except for his dead father not being dead.

In a hospital room, Joanna Wellick is in bed, with the newborn baby in a carrier next to it, and Tyrell there also. She talks about how much she loves the new baby, and also how she loved her first, a girl, born when she was fifteen years old. Tyrell is surprised, it's news to him, but she talks about filling out lots of forms, and passing the baby off to new parents. Tyrell says she should have told him, he loves her, but she says, "You are not a man I want to be married to any longer.... If you want to remain in this family you'll fix this."

Gideon Goddard approaches Blank's Disk, and discovers it to be a burned-out shell, surrounded by fire fighters and police tape. He talks to the owner, who was away for one day, and came back to find everything gone. Gideon is there for some drives, but everything was burned up.

Tyrell gets to his office, to find Phillip Price waiting for him. Price asks, and Tyrell says, it was a boy. Anyway, Price says E Corp is in a delicate state, and the situation with Sharon Knowles is horrific, Scott is understandably devastated. But the police have indicated that Tyrell is a person of interest. Price understands, Scott and Tyrell had competitive frictions, and that Scott nabbed the CTO position away from Tyrell, and it's natural for Scott to lash out at Tyrell. But, Scott will remain at E Corp, and Tyrell can not. Tyrell is enraged, saying how he's killed himself for the company, how he was promoted faster than any, and such. Price is frankly disappointed by Tyrell's response, it could have gone a different way, but it didn't. His advice to Tyrell is to look back at his recent past, find "a mistake, a compulsion, decision, something, that led you to this point right now," and go recognize it and deal with this failure.

Tyrell is walking along the E Corp hallways, and is approached again by police detectives, they still want answers. He tells them to talk to his lawyers, and walks out.

Elliot and Mr. Robot have broken into the old house the family once had, Elliot has led them to his old bedroom upstairs. He goes to the window to the back yard, and comments that that was where "it" happened. Mr. Robot doesn't get it, so Elliot grabs him and pushes him through the window, breaking it, and leaving Mr. Robot suspended, half out the window. Elliot says, that's what Mr. Robot did: "you pushed me out this window; you pushed me off the boardwalk." Mr. Robot says to calm down, it was an accident, but Elliot is having none of that, he was eight years old, and his dad thought he deserved it. Mr. Robot says no, it was Elliot who thought he deserved to fall, Elliot felt guilty for revealing his dad's secret; he pleads with Elliot to stop being angry with himself. Elliot says, "You're right. I was angry, at myself. I'm ready to let go." He lets go of Mr. Robot, who falls to the concrete below.

Angela is at her dad's home, and Dad comes home. He mentions that Darlene is back in town. Angela asks where.

Gideon is in his office at Allsafe, on the phone to the Dulles data center. They are saying that they have an order to remove server CS30 from the honeypot, and Gideon says it needs to stay on. Allsafe got hacked yesterday, someone unauthorized must have made the request, but Dulles needs to keep CS30 off the real network, or "something's gonna happen." But the Dulles staff says there is an order from Tyrell Wellick to put CS30 back on the network, they have to follow that.

Angela goes to their family's old house, the new family seems to be out, and she finds Darlene there, still searching for Elliot, Angela's old house was a possibility. Then they hear the dad of the new family arriving, and rush out the back door, and down the alley away from the house. They look down, and notice that they are walking through broken glass. They look up, and see a broken window on the house next door. "Wasn't that Elliot's room?"

Elliot assists Mr. Robot, who is limping and has cuts and bruises on him, as they arrive at a cemetery; Elliot doesn't know why, but that's where Mr. Robot is leading them. Mr. Robot stops and rests against a headstone, when Angela and Darlene appear, running towards them. Mr. Robot tells Elliot, he wanted to tell Elliot earlier, but things got "too accelerated" at the end, but now, he needs Elliot to understand that Mr. Robot will always be right here for him. "They" are going to try to get rid of Mr. Robot again, but they won't succeed, and he needs Elliot to keep them from succeeding. Mr. Robot sits down on a grave.

Angela and Darlene arrive, and Elliot asks them what Mr. Robot was talking about, he's very agitated: "I want to know!" Darlene gently asks, "Elliot, who are you talking to?" Elliot looks down at the grave, and there's nobody there, it's the grave of Edward Alderson, 1949-1995. Also, we now notice that the cuts that Mr. Robot had before, Elliot now has. He's looking dazed and confused. He and the girls also notice that he's bleeding, but he says, "You didn't see him?" He thinks, "This can't be happening. ... This is happening, isn't it." Now he isn't looking so confused, he's confident as he thinks, "You knew all along, didn't you? You're gonna make me say it, aren't you? I'm Mr. Robot."

Elliot, Angela, and Darlene are at a train stop for the train to New York. Angela assures Elliot he'll be all right, but he says he's very far from all right. The train arrives, and Elliot and Darlene get on board. As they ride, Darlene says, though Elliot doesn't want to talk about, she has to ask if Elliot remembers what "they" were doing, when they first started fsociety.

Gideon Goddard arrives at Tyrell's office, to discover his assistant packing up. She says that Tyrell was let go today. She doesn't really know why, but he was hard to deal with. Gideon asks if he can get in to see Scott Knowles, and she says, "Oh no, definitely not now. You haven't heard?"

It's night, and Angela arrives home, and finds Dad sitting with Terry Colby and some lawyers. As she arrives, Dad excuses himself, and Colby sends his lawyers outside. Angela asks if this is about the case, and it isn't, Colby has lawyers to deal with that. This is about Angela. Colby is impressed with what Angela did, she played a good "short game", and got what she wanted. Angela is relentless and smart, and Colby says he knows someplace someone like that could go places: the people he knows can get her into E Corp. Angela's surprised, she is suing E Corp, and Colby will be testifying against them; Colby explains, in business, grudges aren't a thing, the people he knows recognize her true value. She rejects the idea of working there, "They killed my mother." He says, if she wants to change things, try from within, and let them know by tomorrow. She looks thoughtful.

Darlene and Elliot are at his apartment, he's slouching on the couch while she goes through his meds, lots of empty bottles, he says he fills the prescriptions and dumps the pills. He's bothered about "what's real", but she wants to go get his meds so he can feel better. He's rather run down, not the vibrant figure who thought "I'm Mr. Robot." He suggests maybe they should stop it, the entire plan, the hack, all that stuff; Darlene says hey, it's all ready to run once the infected server gets back on the network. Anyway, it was all really his idea from the start, the reasons and the goal, and they are all worthwhile. She leaves to go get his meds.

Then the apartment door slowly opens.... It's Tyrell Wellick! Elliot jumps up, astonished, but Tyrell comes in, he's not being dominant or aggressive, he's furtive, ready to be spooked. He says he's been waiting outside the apartment until Darlene left, but he wants to talk to Elliot, he knows he's the one behind "all of it", fsociety, the server, Colby, Allsafe, all of it is Elliot's doing. Calmed down now, Tyrell takes off his coat, and says he doesn't know Elliot's grand plan, but Elliot is going to tell him. He sits down and pulls latex gloves over his hands, as he says that, two days ago, he strangled a woman to death with just his hands, it was strange, at first uncomfortable, but then she struggled, and he felt absolute power, and that moment has stayed with him. At that he gets up and into Elliot's personal space, and smiles. Elliot just stares at him.

The lights come on at the fsociety hideout, as Tyrell and Elliot walk in. It's now a calm and gentle moment they're having together, no threats or bombast. Tyrell is full of wonder as he wanders among the gaming machines and then the work tables with their computers. He asks what is going on; Elliot explains they are encrypting all of Evil Corp's financial files, and the encryption key will self-delete when it's done, and all the backups too. Tyrell asks who was involved, and Elliot says, "Just me." Tyrell says, "now it's you and me. I've always told you we'd end up working together, Elliot. But still, I have to know: Why did you do it?" Elliot looks around: "I don't know. I wanted to save the world."