Eps1.4 3xpl0its.wmv/Summary

In a prison cell, Fernando Vera is pacing back and forth.

Vera meets his brother Isaac, and attorney Carol, in a prison visiting room. Carol says he is facing years in prison for murder, no chance for a plea bargain. The DA has a strong case against him, starting from an anonymous tip, with lots of good evidence which she shows him; he had all of his business on social media, even tweeted about every illegal transaction his group took part in, because Isaac had said it would save money. Vera isn't taking this very seriously, with comments like "men can't sentence me, that's a cosmic responsibility." But he agrees with Isaac, somebody is going to get hurt for this, that's how we get square with the universe. He looks at the collection of evidence, printouts and pictures, and seems to have an idea.

Back in his cell Vera continues pacing and thanking, until he stops and says out loud, "So that's you. That's who you are. I know you." And he smiles.

Mr. Robot, Elliot, Mobley, and Romero are sitting in a busy coffee shop; Mobley and Mr. Robot check some devices they are carrying, and Mr. Robot gets up and goes through the crowd, intentionally brushing against someone with a Steel Mountain employee ID badge. He walks back to their table, and they leave.

Now the four are in their car, and Mobley uses his laptop to read the data they captured from the RFID chip in the employee's badge. He makes up a new employee badge from a blank, with the real employee's data, and gives it to Romero. They drive up to the Steel Mountain entry gate, and Romero uses the card to get through the gate. They park in an out of the way area on campus.

Elliot remarks to us on his skills at detecting the flaws in people, flaws that can be exploited: on how Mobley is a glutton, lacking discipline, while Romero is a know-it-all, and Mr. Robot is clinically insane. Mobley has researched a Steel Mountain employee, Bill Harper, Sales Associate, and his boss Wendy Gallagher. Elliot is hooked up with a microphone and speaker in his ear so the guys in the car can advise him; he will first go to Bill, then from him get to Wendy, who would have access to Level 2. Mobley has researched Wendy through her social media, her wife is pregnant and about to give birth very soon, they can use that to get her away from Elliot. Then Elliot can hack the climate control system. Elliot says he's all ready.

Elliot (going by the name "Sam Sepiol") is in the Steel Mountain waiting room when Bill Harper approaches him; the guys in the car have to prod Elliot a bit in getting the conversation started. Elliot asks for a tour, and Bill explains he needs an appointment for a tour, it's company policy, Bill just can't do it. Elliot asks Bill to look him up, but Bill walks away. (Over the radio, Mr. Robot tries to feed Elliot some bombastic demand to make to Bill, but Elliot ignores him.) Elliot just waits, almost ready to leave, but Bill stops; he's used his tablet to look up the Wikipedia page on "Sam Sepiol" (which Mobley is feverishly typing in: Sam Sepiol, programmer and businessman, Elliot's picture, founder of frightfully valuable company; Elliot remarks to us how Wikipedia is never accurate, "Nerds like Mobley built a lot of credit over the years with his 20,000 edits."), and calls out "Mr. Sepiol? Good news!"

Angela is packing to leave, while Ollie complains that she should stay. She says she may be ruining her life, but she already ruined his: She gives him the CD and his Allsafe ID card, and says she used his computer to load the CD. She takes her bag and leaves.

In the hallways of Steel Mountain, Bill Harper is giving Elliot a tour, Bill describing how well Steel Mountain is made, Elliot just sort of tagging along. (In the car, Mr. Robot says they need to figure out a way to psychologically tear Bill down, so he gives up and calls a supervisor. Bill's social media suggests a stalled career, no friends other than his cat.) Elliot stalls in the hallway, and Bill waits for him. (Elliot has sort of a vision: down the hallway he sees his mother, and his eight-year-old self being slapped and accused by her: "I hate you, you're nothing." Elliot is inspired: project his own problems onto Bill.) Elliot says, "Think about it, if you died, would anyone care? They'd cry for a day, but let's be honest. No one would give a shit." Bill is mesmerized, as if this is striking a chord; Elliot expands on this theme for a while, totally not business talk but personal. "... That's who you are. That's what you are. You're nothing to anyone, to everyone ... so instead of wasting my time, I need you to go call someone that matters, because, Bill, you don't." Bill is almost crying. (Elliot remarks to us, that's why Bill is the perfect exploit, desperate enough for the business to break protocol and let me in.)

Bill calls for a supervisor, and Elliot is expecting Wendy Gallagher, but it's another woman, Trudy Davis. The guys in the car go into a panic: they have no plan to deal with Trudy. Trudy asks what's going on here, and ELliot asks for Wendy, but Trudy says Wendy is off today (perhaps her wife already went into labor?), and anyway, Elliot is not on her list of visitors for today, so she will escort him to the front door.

In the car, quick research comes up with nothing to use; Trudy has little on the web, no social media, no pictures, the name of her husband but nothing they can use to make a story, like the one they planned to use to lure Wendy away. Then Mobley comes up with an idea: everyone has vulnerabilities, we only have to adapt the way to access the vulnerability. He uses a tool to spoof a text message into Trudy's phone, from her husband: "I'm at the hospital. It's what we always feared." Trudy looks at the text and is visibly shaken; she supports herself against a wall, and announces "I have to go, I'm sorry, need to go to the office," and she leaves Elliot alone in the hallway.

There is an elevator; Elliot gets into it, but the Level 2 button won't work, there's a palmprint scanner, and Elliot gets out. Over the radio, Romero tells him the map says there's a manual door down the hall, he can pick its lock. Elliot hurries to the door, luckily none of the employees notice him, and the door is easily picked. But once inside the stairwell, Elliot sees the stairs don't go down, only up: Romero says that he's on the wrong side of the building, he should go out and run. Elliot comes out of the stairwell, and right in front of him is Tyrell Wellick: "I thought I saw you. What are you doing here?" Elliot looks blank.

In town, Shayla is learning her new job as a server in a restaurant.

Elliot stands nearby as Tyrell has an animated conversation with two other well-dressed worthies; leaving them, Tyrell remarks that they were the financiers of Hezbollah and ISIS. (Elliot is thinking: Did he know I was here? why I'm here? He'll kill me!) And Tyrell asks, so, why are you here? Elliot fumbles a bit, says he's here for a routine data process check, all the Allsafe engineers take their turns doing it. They are walking along the halls as if they belong there and nobody is bothering them. Tyrell asks Elliot to join him for lunch.

In the car, the other guys are listening, and aghast, Elliot's been picked up by the effective IT boss of E-Corp, they're on to us, we have to get out of here. But Mr. Robot says they stay, nothing's changed.

Tyrell and Elliot have gotten to the employee cafeteria, and Tyrell is spouting on and on about the stuff he could buy Elliot; as this is happening, Mr. Robot is telling Elliot over the radio that Tyrell's vulnerability is being an arrogant prick and bring proud of it, he cares what you think of him. Elliot is so busy listening to Mr. Robot that he fails to notice that Tyrell has stopped talking and is looking at him. Elliot stares for a little, then says, "This place?" (In the car, Romero says, what, is the plan to piss him off? But Mobley smiles and points to their map: On Level 2 is the Executive Lounge.)

Elliot and Tyrell are walking through the hallways of Level 2, much more industrial-looking and less pretty than the other floors, and again everyone behaves as if they belong there. Over the radio, Mr. Robot warns Elliot that the radio signal will soon fail... and it does.

Seated in the elegant executive restaurant, Tyrell remarks to Elliot how he's impressed that Elliot is still plugging away for Allsafe, the company's finished but Elliot is still doing his best for them, Tyrell says that he and Elliot are the same, both perfectonists. He directs Elliot's attention to their waiter, he's served Tyrell at this restaurant for maybe seven years, in his 50's, kids, divorced, and his life has been at its peak for decades, $30,000 a year salary, 2-bedroom apartment, debts, child support, using coupons, "the life of an ordinary cockroach whose biggest value is to serve me salad."

Elliot looks up, and towards them are walking two uniformed security people! Elliot has thoughts of handcuffs clicking! The security people come up to Tyrell and ... hand him a clipboard. Tyrell signs a document, and the security people take it and go away. Elliot says he has to go to the bathroom. Tyrell looks after him, thoughtfully chewing.

Elliot gets to the restroom and vomits into a sink, thinking whether this is withdrawal, or maybe about Tyrell and what game they are playing. He looks around and discovers a door into a maintenance room! with a thermostat! He pries it open, cuts a cable, and starts wiring the cables into the Raspberry Pi's inputs. Almost done, he hears someone outside about to enter the restroom; he goes out into the restroom as Tyrell enters. Tyrell, at the urinal, remarks "I know you framed Terry Colby". Elliot stares. "Your father worked at Evil Corp before he died. That's a matter of public record. I'm not turning you in, if that's what you're thinking. I don't care. Just wanted to know your weakness. Now I do. Revenge. How ordinary. Just like our waiter." He takes a little more time to remind Elliot of his ordinariness, and of Tyrell's specialness: Elliot will be driving back to New York, while Tyrell will go by helicopter. With a final "You take care, Elliot," he leaves. Elliot composes himself, goes back to the maintenance room, finishes wiring the Raspberry Pi, replaces the thermostat cover, and leaves.

Darlene is at fsociety, using her system to chat with someone at the Dark Army. She says she's ready to "sync our payload with yours", but they say, no, it's not happening. She insists, we can run the scripts in 30 seconds, but Dark Army kicks her from the chat. She tries to reconnect, and finds she is banned. She complains to Trenton for a while on how Dark Army are "dickless assholes", but she's going to go fix it.

Angela arrives at the house of Donald Moss, her father, and announces that she has broken up with Ollie. Donald is not surprised, he's just gotten off the phone with Ollie, and never liked him anyway. Angela says it's because of money issues, and him cheating. Donald wants to lend her money, and she can stay at home until she has her own apartment.

Tyrell and Joanna Wellick wait for Scott and Sharon Knowles to let them in for dinner. Tyrell says that Joanna had met Scott earlier; he had talked of nothing but wine, so Joanna had tuned him out. They are concerned: The Knowles' seem happy and content with things as they are, and the Wellicks want a way to influence them. Joanna says, "Even if they don't want anything, they will, you have to take away what they already have."

Darlene storms in to a library where Cisco is working, and demands to know why the Dark Army is backing out, and has even banned her from communicating with them. But now that fsociety has done what it planned, the Dark Army has called of their part "like it was nothing." Cisco says, that's her answer. Darlene complains that the "Whiterose" had better get going and find some courage, but at the name "Whiterose", Cisco rushes to her and stops her from talking further: "don't you care who hears you?" She really wants to know why Dark Army is out of the deal, and Cisco says, really, they were out before fsociety even got to Steel Mountain. His advice to her is to just let it go. He walks away, leaving her stunned.

The Wellicks have had dinner at the house of the Knowles', and are having after-dinner conversation. Scott seems to talk of nothing but wine, but Sharon seems to have a variety of interests, working in various in- and out-of-government agencies, and always looking for something else. (Aside, Tyrell tells Scott that they've picked him for CTO, which surprises Scott, Tyrell shouldn't be able to know that. Scott: "Would you trust you as your right hand?" Tyrell: "I wouldn't let me in the house.") (Aside, Joanna asks if the house is babyproof, and Sharon glances at Scott and says, it's a consideration.)

The four fsociety guys are in the car driving back to New York. Shayla calls Elliot and says she's getting used to her new job. Elliot tells her he "did what he had to today", and they should get together tonight.

The after-dinner talk has rearranged. While Joanna and Scott are talking about wine, Tyrell quietly asks Sharon, "How did you not blow your brains out being married to him?" She looks at him: "You're a guest in our house. I'll mistake that as a joke in bad taste." She says she's going to the bathroom, and leaves. Joanna nods to Tyrell, who also leaves.

In the bathroom, Sharon is on the toilet with her panties down. Tyrell knocks and enters. Sharon asks "Can I help you?" as she crosses her arms to cover herself. He comes and just stands in front of her, and they look seriously at each other. She uncrosses her arms and shifts back a bit, perhaps so he can see better. Tyrell thanks her for a lovely evening, and leaves. She sighs.

At the fsociety hideout, the guys in the car arrive, filled with success, but Darlene says, well, the Raspberry Pi is online, they could deliver the payload if we wanted ... but they lost China, the Dark Army bailed. Mr. Robot asks why, and Darlene says they don't answer why's. He's sure they can be coaxed back in, but Darlene says, no, they're gone. (Elliot's phone rings, it's Shayla, he dithers for a moment and she hangs up.) Darlene says, let's do it, and hope that the Dark Army follows. She hurries to a laptop and types in the command, but Mr. Robot stops her: it's pointless to take down the backups, E Corp will just recover, and we want to kill it, not just hurt it for a while. Darlene is not taking this for an answer, until Elliot comes over and just stands with her, silently, until she closes the laptop. Elliot says they'll rework something, just not tonight. Everyone has been frozen while Darlene ranted, and now they unfreeze, continuing to unpack the car. Elliot invites Darlene to crash at his place.

Elliot remarks to us that, one day, he and his father played hooky from school and went to the beach. When they got home, he dumped the sand out of his shoes. His mother was angry about the mess, but his father talked about the sand, millions of years ago the world moved the sand there, and here today Elliot took it away, he changed the world. In enough trips, Elliot could move all the sand and there would be no beach. Dad said that every day we change the world, but to change the world in a way that matters, takes more time than most people have. It's slow, methodical, exhausting, and we don't all have the stomach for it.

As we listen that remark from Elliot, we see Angela unpacking her stuff at her Dad's house. She comes across papers on a desk, glances through them, and finds a past due hospital bill. More looking, an E-Corp Insurance bill for $25,654. She goes into the closet and finds more papers, armloads, which she dumps on the bed and quickly examines.

Angela goes downstairs, where her dad is reading something; she has a handful of papers in her hand, but she hides them behind her when he notices her. She says she's going out for a run.

Elliot and Darlene have gotten to Elliot's apartment building, and the door to Shayla's apartment is open, the dog is barking. They go in, and only find Shayla's phone lying on the floor, ringing. Elliot picks it up, and it's Vera, saying "Sometimes the universe aligns perfectly. Here I am, locked away. Still, it brings you right to me."

Angela is out running at night. She pauses at a fork in the road.