RECAP: MR. ROBOT S02EP7 - DIVORCE PAPERS, MOVING UP & A CURVEBALL

Holy shit. 

I know I say this all the time but today’s episode was really, really good.

The episode starts off with my darling dearest, Joanna Wellick in a gorgeous white dress and Tyrell walking down the stairs, soundtracked to something that best belongs in a dreamy soap opera scene.  

For a second, you think that Tyrell is back and he’s gracing our screens in all his insecure, Swedish glory but you’re wrong, and it’s just a flashback of Mr. Robot’s most attractive couple mingling at an E Corp white party. 

Fast forward and Joanna’s pushing her child around in a stroller and some lady throws a bucket of blood/red substance on her, yelling “CAPITALIST PIG” at her. 

Cut to Mr. Robot title overlaid on an image of Joanna muted but screaming into the abyss, while a more subdued, sadder soap opera track plays in the background. 

A great start to a great episode. 

Joanna’s such a neutral evil and it’s the most entertaining thing. Her ups and downs are something, as devious as she might be, that you can’t help watching.

But as you find out later in the episode, she’s divorcing Tyrell.

My favourite power couple might not last and my heart is aching

Angela’s first appearance in this episode is her being GRILLED by Dom on why she was on the restricted level. 

Dom’s hair looks great and Angela is playing her cards pretty well.

Angela kills it in this episode, dealing with the ebbs & flows of the interactions she has with people exceptionally well. She’s definitely getting better at this asserting dominance thing, especially because this episode she didn’t even need to listen to her motivational tapes. Yay Angela!

But her father isn’t liking it. She’s morphing into someone obviously changed by the dangerous environment she’s in because she has to survive and thrive in it, in order to live. The fact that her father isn’t recognising or approving her attitude makes you wonder if Angela is changing in a way that’s just smart or smart and evil. 

She once again tries to go up to Price and demand that promotion she’s been aching for and I guess it works out. But there was a cringeworthy rejection to a birthday party from Price. Pretty ruthless though.

She gets that promotion and the department she’s in looks so dead. But since she still wantsto move up, she tries to make a mark at a board meeting she’s definitely not meant to be in. 

This scene is so hard to watch because you know Angela is still trying to move up, but the other people in the meeting are all super snobby so Angela gets a reality check in the worst way possible. You want to give Angela, a thousand hugs because she doesn’t deserve slander like this. 

Elliot’s story in this episode though. 

WOW. 

Elliot normally messes with the viewer’s mind but this was next level. 

He alerted the authorities when he was forced by Ray to put his Silk Road-like website back up, and among suspicions that he did so, Ray told Elliot about his wife and how Marketplace was a team effort between him and her. #relationshipgoals

When he leaves the house, the FBI have them swarmed and DAMN, I’m so proud of Elliot. He’s messed up but he got Ray in the end. 

A visit at church group continues the more beneficial relationship he has with his father, who tells him that he’s the mastermind of the revolution - a leader. His father no longer controls him but supports and helps him through his problems, where previously he would’ve messed Elliot up even more. He helps lays things on the table for him to absorb, especially the part where apparently Elliot killed Tyrell Wellick.  (We’re not sure if that’s actually the case. And for my heart, previously broken by Joanna’s divorce papers, we’re going to hold off thinking that until official confirmation comes through later in the series.) 

MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER, other than Joanna Wellick IS BACK THOUGH AND I FEEL COMPLETE.

WELCOME BACK LEON!

Like how Elliot always says he missed us, I’ve missed you. 

He is, in the simplest terms, Elliot’s guardian angel. 

After being threatened by some racist skinhead-looking white boys, Leon defends Elliot and later on, when Elliot is getting jumped by the same racist skinhead-looking white boys, Leon comes to his rescue. 

There are some next level slashing noises happening in the background, as Elliot is pressed against a wall fearing for his life. And when he turns around, streams of blood, bodies and Leon are there. 

There are reasons why I love Leon, past the fact that he’s Joey Bada$$, and this is one of them. 

I mean, Leon stabbed this guy’s bare, presumably because he was going to rape Elliot, ass a few times. 

My hero. 

The final scene has Elliot back in his therapist’s office and holy shit, this scene is a GAMECHANGER. 

He’s holding a white envelope that Leon mentioned before, before he told Elliot that he was rooting for him. After Krista says something about how he’s not at his mother’s house, the entire setting changes.

And we’re in a prison.

Elliot’s in an orange jumpsuit and Krista looks very concerned. 

There are reasons as to why Elliot hardly interacted with the other characters and this is it.
All of a sudden, everything starts to make sense.

Elliot’s lack of and/or short interactions with everyone. His very routine structure to life. Not going back home. Meeting so many characters randomly. The journal. Even his less destructive relationship with his father. 

He was in prison.

And this entire charade he’s kept up for the last 6 episodes was his coping mechanism for it all. By becoming more comfortable with his father, who was the one thing that was destroying him from the inside out, he finally found some sort of comfort and decided to tell us what was actually going on. 

There are so many things in this show that are literally so jaw dropping.

Joanna, and sometimes her baby, continuously face repercussions from her husband’s actions even though he hasn’t shown his face in so long. 

E Corp is so no-shits about the Flint water contamination (which is an actual real life thing).
Angela faking it till she makes it.

The fact that we actually had NO IDEA on what was happening in Elliot’s life, until he told us straight out. 

When I thought things were finally starting to defog from last episode, we’ve been thrown this and now we’re completely messed up again.