This week’s episode of Mr. Robot was not only the best of the year, it also left viewers searching for more answers than any other episode this season. However, as Kor Adona, — the co-writer of this week’s episode– notes, the series wants viewers “to be able to ‘hack’ the show” and find those answers before the series spells them out.
There are clues hidden underneath the surface, but it takes some digging to unearth them. That’s exactly what the internet has done, hacking its way to evidence offering clues and answers to many of the most pressing questions from “eps2.8_h1dden-pr0cess.axx.”
Who died in the final seconds?
The biggest question of the night is who died in the final seconds of the episode, if anyone? Redditor krysvac provided a close-up GIF of the final seconds of the episode that seems to answer that question definitively.
Cisco’s head explodes. It appears as though the blood splashed onto Darlene, and a ketchup bottle might have caught some of the crossfire, as well. Darlene seems to be safe, although it will be next to impossible for her to escape FBI custody.
Two other interesting notes about this scene: The motorcyclist didn’t shoot until the walk sign counted down to exactly zero, and the shooter clearly wasn’t targeting Darlene. He shot only at Cisco, which may lend some credibility to theories that Mr. Robot is one of the masterminds of the Dark Army.
What is in Elliot’s room?
During the episode, Elliot made a big show of having the viewer look around his room for a clue as to what Mr. Robot wanted from his apartment. Personally, I think this was less about the object and more about promoting the show’s online VR experience . With that said, THR interviewed the episode co-writer Kor Adana, who provided an easy-to-decipher clue:
I’ll do my Best tO be helpful here. There is definiTely a hinT in this scene. I dOn’t know if I should tell you what Main corner to look in, oR if the hInt is even in the corner of the frame, but Go aHead and study that scene to see whaT you can find.
BOTTOM RIGHT.
But bottom right from what angle? I’m not sure it matters, because it seems like what Mr. Robot is after is the letter that Leon told Elliot to find on the Tuesday after his prison release. In a preview for next week’s episode, Mr. Robot is clearly kneeling in the area where the mail resides.
What’s in the letter? I’m not sure, but I would guess that it contains information from White Rose about Phase 2.
Speaking of “Phase 2”
A lot of people online believe, based on the poster, that the clue in that scene is audio related based on the ears, but no one has yet been able to decipher anything definite from the episode’s audio track. However, one Redditor, Screwhead, isolated a piece of audio, reversed it and sped it up, and it potentially says “Phase 2.”
Who picked up Angela?
All we know now is what the back of the heads of Angela’s kidnappers look like.
Here’s a blurry shot of their faces in a preview for next week’s episode.
What we know is that it’s a white woman and a black man. Redditor filmschlubspodcast (who I am fairly certain is Brian D.) points out that they’re billed as “Inauspicious Man” and “Inauspicious Woman” on IMDb, and the actors playing them — Deshane Granger and Anne Tolpegin — have been listed in multiple episodes this season. In all their appearances, they can be spotted near Angela. These two characters have been tailing Angela all season long right under our noses. That either makes them members of the Dark Army or, more likely, people following Angela on Dom’s behalf (recall that Dom told Angela the first time that she meet her that she’d been keeping tabs on her for a while).
Who is Claudia Kincaid?
The phone calls from Angela that Elliot received were labeled as from “Claudia Kincaid.”
What’s interesting here, as Redditor JeffreyBruner points out, is that Claudia Kincaid is a character in the movie From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, which is a 1967 novel (adapted to film a few times) about a 12-year-old girl who — feeling unappreciated — runs away from home and hides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which mirrors the story that Darlene told Cisco in the hospital about her own childhood.
Where were the telephone calls coming from?
We don’t know if Tyrell is alive. We don’t know who was making the calls to Joanna, but we do know where the phone calls were coming from.
Those coordinates on a Google Map bring up this:
It’s right near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is exactly where the character Claudia Kincaid — Angela’s codename — ran away in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.
Does that mean Angela was making the calls? That would be a huge shock.
Zoom in, however, and the exact location for those coordinates is the Smart PC Repair, which is a place that doesn’t exist in reality, at least not in that location (there is one at another location, but bad reviews may have run it out of business). Sam Esmail and the Mr. Robot producers clearly convinced Google to help them out with this clue.
The likely suggestion is that Smart PC Repair may have formerly been Mr. Robot’s computer store. However, it couldn’t have been Mr. Robot making the calls, because he was obviously with Elliot in a Micro Center when Elliot received the last call.
Who made the call, then, is anyone’s guess. All we know is that Joanna’s bodyguard doesn’t believe Tyrell would be calling from that location.
