Eps1.2 d3bug.mkv/Summary

Tyrell Wellick is preparing a speech as he goes about starting his day; he is exercising, dressing, but throughout he is mentally rehearsing and refining a speech to give to the E Corp CEO: The company is doing well, but there are challenges ahead, and we need a good CTO, and I should be that CTO. He practices in front of a mirror, over and over: "You will be the next CTO of this company."

Tyrell is sitting in the CEO's waiting room, mentally repeating over and over, "You will be the next CTO of this company." Finally, the CEO, Philip Price, comes out of his room, but before Tyrell can start his speech, Price says effectively "you'll need to reschedule your appointment, there's a CTO candidate that the board is very excited about, we'll keep you informed, maybe I'll see you in a few weeks." Price hurries off, leaving Tyrell with his promotion speech unsaid.

Tyrell looks dejected as two E Corp security men drive him through town. They stop at a street corner, where there's a homeless man waiting for them. Tyrell meets the man and pays him $300, takes off his coat and tie, puts on rubber gloves... and proceeds to beat the man bloody, the man just taking the hits without any attempt to defend himself. Tyrell's guards just wait by the car until he is done. They drive him home, leaving the homeless man writhing on the ground.

Elliot wakes up in a hospital bed; he muses to us on how debugging is not about fixing a mistake, it's about finding the bug and understanding why it was there to begin with, the bug exists to give you a message. Elliot is bandaged and bruised, but wakes enough to recognize Shayla and Krista; he tells them he was jumped by a bunch of kids. Krista wants to keep him in the hospital for a drug test, and suggests rehab, but Elliot says he's not an addict; Krista says she'll release him if he passes a drug test. Elliot remarks to us that this is no problem, he uses this hospital because it has pitiful network security, he can easily change any of his medical records or test results.

Out of the hospital, Elliot and Shayla stop at a convenience store, where Elliot immediately snorts some morphine. They find that the credit card system at the store is down, due to the fsociety hack on E Corp. Elliot remarks just to us that he, Elliot, was the bug that fsociety found and is taking advantage of.

Shayla asks if Elliot had anything to do with Vera getting busted, Vera was Shayla's income, but Elliot denies any involvement. At home, he finds Darlene there, wanting to talk, but Elliot just tells her to get out. To Shayla's surprise, Elliot gets himself ready to go back to work that day; to us he says, a bug is never just a mistake, it represents something bigger.

Out on the street, Angela is jogging, and a man runs past her, dropping a wallet. She picks up the wallet and runs after him, shouting "Sir! Sir! You dropped your wallet!" He comes back and accepts the wallet from her, and runs off ... just as a young woman comes up saying he stole her purse, that was her wallet that Angela gave back to him.

Ollie is at home, looking at his laptop, and an email, "We own you and you will do what we want"; the mail includes pictures of Stella B. and mail from her. Ollie is on the phone to Stella, saying "he wants me to put the CD on one of the computers at work." But Angela comes home, and Ollie hangs up the phone. Angela talks about running and the wallet, and Ollie is all smiles, this shows how good a person she is. She goes for a shower, and the phone rings for Ollie, a voice saying "You have one hundred hours, after that we'll release everything."

The scene switches to Cisco on the phone. After he hangs up, he goes to his laptop chat window, and adds another line in Chinese: "He'll break soon." Cisco continues to watch Ollie through the laptop camera, as Ollie paces around the apartment.

In Gideon's office at Allsafe, he is giving directions to Elliot, Ollie, Angela, and Lloyd, on things to monitor to track down fsociety, in hope that fsociety makes a mistake. Elliot remarks to us that the world we live in has us relying on other people's mistakes, to manipulate us. Gideon goes on to invite the team to his place for dinner tonight, and all accept except Elliot. Gideon sends everyone else out and tries to talk with Elliot, his injured appearance and irregular attendance cause concern, but Elliot doesn't want to reveal any of his personal life.

Elliot tells us that Mr. Robot may have found the bug at Evil Corp, but hasn't found Elliot's bug, it's the way he protects himself, closing himself off where nobody can find him. He gets to his desk, and there's Mr. Robot, waiting for him. Elliot doesn't want to talk to him, but Mr. Robot gives him the choice of having a scene here at the office, or having a drink at the bar next door.

Mr. Robot has a drink, but Elliot says he wants nothing to do with him. Mr. Robot says he's sorry for what he did to Elliot, and he never wanted to hurt him; he's sure Elliot's dad also wanted to apologize for what he did to Elliot, so Elliot shouldn't stay mad at him too long. Mr. Robot gets up to leave, and Elliot is surprised: what about the plan? Mr. Robot explains, Elliot is the key, without him there is no plan, so it's over. He walks out.

Elliot is elated as he explains to us that, with fsociety done away with, he's free from the "recent glitch in the otherwise neat reality" he had created over the years. He'll strive to be more like a normal person: maybe have Shayla as a girlfriend, see stupid Marvel movies with her, join a gym, like things on Instagram, drink coffee from Starbucks. "I'm gonna lead a bug-free life from now on, anything to protect my perfect maze."

Elliot returns to Gideon's office, carrying a Starbucks latte, and asks: Can I come to the dinner? And bring a girlfriend? Gideon says sure, but he's astonished, as if Elliot acting "normal" is unusual.

At Ollie's desk at Allsafe, he's almost ready to put the CD into his system... and sees Angela coming over; he pulls the disk out, they get their bags and leave.

Tyrell is at home, and is using his phone to investigate the Kiss and Fly Club, which looks like a gay hangout, and finds the club's page for Anwar, Philip Price's secretary. His wife Joanna, heavily pregnant, comes in; Tyrell says he's going out, to the Kiss and Fly Club. She's concerned, but he says it's for work, and necessary. She's still not sure, but he leaves anyway.

Elliot visits Shayla and invites her to the dinner party, and this actually gets her upset: first Vera used her and now Elliot is going to use her to look better in a social situation. She complains that he scarcely knows her (he remarks to us that he knows her very well, he hacked her email long ago and knows all about her). Then she goes and starts showing her the artwork she's been working on, fabric and wall-art, all of it expressive in a way Elliot never knew. Elliot realizes he never actually knew her, she has her own maze, her own way of being at the fringe of society, like Elliot but in a different way. He explains to us, that "when a bug finally makes itself known, it can be exhilarating, like you just unlocked something."

Outside the Kiss and Fly Club, Anwar and some others exit, talking, when Anwar notices Tyrell waiting around outside. Tyrell starts the conversation, as if he doesn't even know Anwar's name, but quickly gets to his being there: it's just to meet Anwar, because he's beautiful, and grabs him for a kiss. (Elliot tells us: Because, after all, a bug's only purpose, its only reason for existence, is to be a mistake that needs fixing, to help you right a wrong, and what feels better than that?)

Elliot, Shayla, and the other workers arrive at Gideon's apartment, and stand around awkwardly until they are admitted. Gideon takes Elliot aside for a private chat, he says he had checked with Dulles again, and again there was nothing, he wants to make sure Elliot understands how valued he is. He even hugs Elliot (an awkward thing for Elliot), to reinforce in Elliot how he shouldn't doubt his skills and keep going, no matter the pressure Gideon puts on him.

After dinner, there is small talk going on around the living room. Angela and Elliot are sharing stories of their childhood together; with Angela, Elliot isn't awkward at all. But then the phone rings, and they turn on the TV to discover reporting of a new data dump of emails from inside E Corp, revealing that the company knew everything about the 1993 toxic waste leak in Washington Township (that killed Elliot's father and Angela's mother). The company, and Terry Colby in particular, were aware of the leaks, and decided not to spend money reducing them as it would not be cost-effective. Elliot tells us: "My perfect maze crumbling before my eyes; there's nothing to hide behind;" it's clear that fsociety orchestrated this leak to get Elliot back with them: "Mr. Robot finally found my bug." Elliot walks out of the apartment, quickly followed by a tearful Angela.

In a flashback, we see eight-year-old Elliot, and his mother, both sitting at a bus stop. Elliot is sad about the death of his father, but his mother is nothing but dismissive of him, "he did this to himself; he gave in; he was a coward." When Elliot says he misses his father, his mother says there's no reason to, it just means Elliot is weak like his father. A bus comes by and stops. The voice of Elliot tells us, "The bug forces the software to adapt, evolve into something new because of it. Work around it or work through it. No matter what, it changes. It becomes something new. The next version. The inevitable upgrade." The bus drives off, and now we see the same bus stop, but sitting there is only adult Elliot.

Tyrell and Anwar finish a violent session of anal sex together; Tyrell cleans Anwar off some and tells him to go get a shower. Once Anwar is in the shower, Tyrell goes and finds his pants, gets an SD card, and gets Anwar's phone. He boots the phone from the SD card and installs a superuser, connected to a web account. He puts the phone back into Anwar's pants, and goes to join him in the shower.

Ollie is pacing around his apartment, worried, when Angela arrives. Ollie is bothered that Angela will talk about things with Elliot but not with him; Angela says she will, but not right now. After some thought, Ollie says he has a problem, and shows her his laptop. She examines the blackmail message, and the pictures and screenshots attached to it; it details not only Ollie's relationship with Stella, but also information the hacker gleaned about Angela's bank accounts, and from that Angela's father's bank accounts. For a while Angela says they need to break up: this threatens her father's finances, and she can't handle that. But she pulls back from that, and the figure they have to come up with something to do about this, but they don't know what.

Gideon is in his office, looking yet again at the report from the data center about the fsociety dat file, and the IP address highlighted on it, Terry Colby's IP address. He glances at a news report on his laptop, titled "Did Colby implicate himself?" It's 9:40 PM, it's late, but he picks up the phone and calls Dulles, and says he wants to talk to Sean Skyler about server CS30 again.

Tyrell gets home and finds Joanna in bed, with a mask over her eyes; they talk, and she's asking for some bondage sex tonight, even after Tyrell's night with Anwar. She is clearly in control of the situation, telling him what she wants tied up, and in what way. Her concern seems to be Tyrell's progress towards becoming the new CTO, and the obstacle of the potential new CTO, Scott Knowles; she says they should have dinner with Scott and his wife. Tyrell is concerned that that would be "too obvious", but Joanna says this no time to "play coy". Tyrell finishes binding and gagging her.

Elliot walks into the fsociety hideout; all of the other members are there, and silently watch to see what he does. He walks over to a table, gets out his laptop, and opens it up; the others gather around, like students watching a master prepare; they look expectant and ready to assist him. Elliot says, "Here's the plan."