Whoami and Hello, Elliot
"whoami" and "Hello, Elliot" are the twelfth and thirteenth episodes respectively of the fourth and final season of the American television series "Mr. Robot". The two episodes, originally aired back-to-back on USA Network on December 22, 2019, were both written and directed by series creator Sam Esmail. Its ending, which had been planned from the script's inception, shows Elliot navigating a utopian version of his world with an alternate Elliot. Reviewers praised the show's shift in focus from hacking to emotions and praised the delivery of the show's final twist. Plot . Section::::"whoami". Elliot wakes up in an abandoned lot following the explosion at the Washington Township plant, which is no longer there. He discovers the town is a thriving suburbia, where his mother and father, both alive, live. He finds out that his parents never abused him as a child, and that Darlene does not exist. He returns to the city, where he encounters Angela's parents, Emily and Phillip (the latter still being in Angela's life), who reveal to him that Elliot is marrying Angela the following day. He goes to the alternate Elliot's apartment and hacks his  computer, discovering a hidden drive of sketches of himself, Darlene, and the rest of fsociety. The alternate Elliot returns home to find the original Elliot at his computer (as depicted at the end of the previous episode). Initially alarmed, the alternate Elliot explains that the sketches are of a persona he created that would lead an exciting life as a vigilante hacker, the very life the original Elliot lives. They touch, causing another earthquake, which severely injures the alternate Elliot. Alternate Elliot gets a call from Angela; hearing her for the first time since her death, the original Elliot decides  that he can have the life he always wanted, and kills the alternate Elliot. Section::::"Hello, Elliot". Elliot hides the alternate Elliot's body in a storage container, intent on taking the alternate Elliot's place and marrying Angela. A police officer, Dominique, attempts to arrest Elliot after she discovers the alternate Elliot's body. Elliot escapes to Coney Island, where he discovers that there was no wedding. Mr. Robot explains to Elliot that the world they are in is not the parallel world Whiterose spoke of, but rather an illusion created by Elliot during a morphine withdrawal, with the intention  of keeping "the real Elliot" trapped. Bewildered and confused, Elliot wakes up in Krista's office. Krista (who is a manifestation of Elliot's mind at the moment) explains that the Elliot we have known since the beginning of the series is not the real Elliot, but a persona called "The Mastermind" that the real Elliot (who suffers from dissociative identity disorder) created to deal with his rage and anger at the world. However, this persona decided to take over and trapped the real Elliot in the Utopian world, getting rid of Darlene, who is the real Elliot's strongest  connection to reality, and Krista explains that the Mastermind must give control back to the real Elliot, but he refuses as the world collapses. The Mastermind wakes up in the hospital, where Darlene reveals that Whiterose is dead, her machine is destroyed, and that she knew that the Mastermind had taken over. Accepting his identity, the Mastermind returns to Elliot's mind with the rest of his other personas. The real Elliot wakes up in the hospital, and is greeted by Darlene, reciting the episode's title. Production. Sam Esmail had originally envisioned "Mr. Robot" as a feature film and  had its ending already in mind as he wrote the script. Based on the script's length, he decided to expand the film into a television show, but the series' ending remained that which he originally envisioned. The show's writers forwent the initially planned fifth season after storyboarding the episodes between the third season and the double-episode ending Esmail had planned. They found that they only needed another 11 episodes—a single season—to complete the story. Reception. Critical response. Critics praised what they described as the show's risky and successful choice to reveal Elliot's emotions  and relationships at the show's core, as opposed to the austere focus on cybersecurity heists for which the show was best known. It was fitting, said "The A.V. Club", for a show based on evasive identities to close in contemplation of whether it's possible to know oneself. The finale became reassurance that when trying to live meaningfully in a hostile world, it's okay to be different from one's self-image by trying to be the best version of oneself. Critics thought that the finale handled the last plot twist well without alienating viewers, given how the  show had led viewers to sympathize with the on-screen Elliot as the personality who deserved autonomy over his body. The twist did not feel like "lazy psychodrama", according to "The A.V. Club", because Esmail pre-planned the narrative to be fair to its ending. "Engadget" described it as "an unexpected but riveting twist that felt earned." "Vox" was touched by Darlene's role in the ending and the unexpected reminder of the human capacity to feel and love, in which Elliot's capacity to convince himself of lies borders on farce and is stoppable only by Darlene's love , which elicits Elliot's best self. Reviewers underscored how the show had become less about hacking and rebellion than about Elliot's life and relationships (i.e., caring for each other). Hacks played no part in the final episode. The show ends without its defining negative space cinematography, with direction that matches the earnestness of the show's emotion. "Paste" described the show's use of M83's "Outro" in its closing sequence as "transcendent". Ratings. The two-part series finale aired on USA Network on December 22, 2019. The first episode at 9:00 pm ET received 464,000 viewers, while the  second episode at 10:00 pm ET dropped to 318,000 viewers. The prior episode was also the most-viewed episode of the season, with the season averaging 376,000 live viewers.