The Mr. Robot season two finale is here and everyone is screwed. The fallout from the hack in the first season has claimed a few lives and sent the survivors scrambling, to the degree that just about everyone who still has a pulse is in real danger of losing his or her life or freedom by the end of the final hour. Some characters are in more trouble than others, though, so what I’m going to do here is attempt to rank them from least to most in trouble at this very moment. The key word here is “attempt,” because if we’ve all learned anything from two seasons of this show, it’s that, usually, your assumptions are about as useful as a used napkin.
But let’s try anyway!
10. Joanna
Joanna will be fine.
9. Whiterose
Nothing that has happened or been implied so far indicates that Whiterose is anything other than a brilliant tactician who will go to staggering lengths to see a plan through. It is my firm belief that a nuclear bomb could go off in Manhattan and when all the smoke and debris clears, Whiterose will be sitting in a chair amid the rubble, suit or dress still immaculate save a small fleck of dust that gets casually brushed off, with a facial expression that registers somewhere between “mildly annoyed” and “somewhat inconvenienced.”
8. Elliot/Mr. Robot
Elliot is off on some strange mission of his own creation that he does not remember or know anything about, and his guide through New York to set it all in motion is the FBI’s most wanted man, who may or may not be a figment of his imagination. And the best part about Mr. Robot is that I’m now at the point where I just watch all that happen and I’m like, “Fair enough.” What a delightful television program.
And Mr. Robot, who presumably has all the answers to the questions Elliot has, went ahead and made himself scarce as Elliot started getting closer to them. Mr. Robot has not scared easily to this point in the series. If he’s off cowering in some hidden corner of Elliot’s brain, that’s not a great sign.
7. Angela
Let’s go ahead and run down Angela’s last few days, shall we? She discovered a bunch of incriminating information about a secret project that is being organized by the largest business conglomerate in the world and an underworld network of hackers and assassins led by a high-ranking security official in the Chinese government. She found out her ex-boyfriend was recording their conversations and probably talking to the FBI. An FBI agent showed up at her apartment and told her she was totally hosed and that her ex-boyfriend had definitely been talking to the FBI. On her way to work out a confession to a number of serious crimes, including hacking the FBI, she was picked up on the subway and taken to a suburban home, where she was asked a series of creepy cryptic questions by a child interrogator who was wearing makeup in the shape of horrifying bruises to imply that Angela’s lack of compliance would result in violent consequences for a young girl. And then Whiterose came in and lectured her about doors for a while, and the next time we saw her, she had gone full dead-eyed body-snatcher and was telling her lawyer to buzz off.
Not a great week!
6. Tyrell
We know precious little about what’s going on with Tyrell right now. So little, in fact, that we don’t even know if that was really him or just another hallucination Elliot’s brain cranked up. There is still a very real chance that he is dead in a river somewhere, which would leave him only in danger of little critters nibbling on his corpse and such.
But if he is alive, then he is the most wanted man in America and he’s just galavanting all over New York. So far this season we’ve heard the president call him out by name during a press conference, and we’ve seen a tabloid with his wife’s picture on the cover. Combining those two things would seem to indicate there is a lot of political and public interest in one Tyrell Wellick. If he gets recognized on the street, he’s one phone call and a team of FBI agents away from SuperMax.
5. Agent Dom
Dom has now been at the scene of two separate Dark Army mass shootings and appears to be closing in on an organization that very much does not like being closed in on. Also, she has started having philosophical conversations with her answer robot as though it is some combination of her closest friend and therapist. Dom ain’t doing great right now.
4. Darlene
Darlene is in trouble two different ways, and possibly three. One, because we still don’t know her status after the shootout. The safe assumption, based on Dom’s line about interviewing “her,” is that she’s in the hospital with some sort of injury ranging from multiple gunshot wounds to plain old shock. But even if it’s just the latter, do you realize how dangerous it is to be in the hospital? Google “C. diff.” (Do not Google “C. Diff.”)
The second reason she’s in trouble is the thing I just mentioned about the FBI wanting to interview her, presumably. She was eating food with a man they were looking for at the time unknown assassins opened fire on a restaurant. That will raise a few red flags. Add in the thing about the FBI already knowing about her longtime ballet crony Angela’s role in the hack, and the thing about the unaccounted-for VHS tape that features her taking off the fsociety mask and revealing her face, and the fact that she just, like, murdered a lady, it could be bad times for Darlene.
Unrelated: I would watch a show titled Ballet Cronies.
3. Phillip Price
We don’t know exactly what Phase 2 is or how it will play out, but we do know that Price has been getting mighty chesty about his $2 trillion Chinese loan and fancy new digital cryptocurrency, and that he just strongarmed Whiterose into getting it, and that Whiterose and Elliot are working together on something, and that they are both computer savvy types who have an interest in sticking it to Price and the ability to screw with things like fancy new digital cryptocurrencies. Dude’s teetering on a highwire and thinks he can override gravity by force of will. Splat comin’.
2. Miscellaneous dark army foot soldiers
Here’s what we know about these guys: They are sent on dangerous missions that involve gunplay and they commit suicide rather than get caught. That’s just an unsafe existence. Hell, even the one guy who did get away did so by speeding through the streets of New York on a motorcycle. That’s dangerous, too. I mean, less so than a kamikaze assassination attempt, but still. Maybe think about using a nice, safe sedan next time. Like a Volvo. A getaway Volvo.
Also, I really enjoy calling these guys Foot Soldiers because it makes me picture Whiterose as Shredder, and then things start spiraling out of control. I won’t bore you with the rest of my TMNT/Mr. Robot analogies, but let’s just s-… no, I changed my mind. I am going to do it.
- Splinter = Mr. Robot
- Leonardo = Elliot
- Raphael = Darlene
- Donatello = Angela
- Michelangelo = There is no good Michelangelo counterpart, so I just picture the actual ninja turtle inside the show, like as a fun-loving fsociety member who repeatedly compromises their location by getting pizza delivered to wherever they’re hiding out
I feel great about this.
1. Whoever or whatever is at the address that Elliot gave Joanna that made her curl her lips into a sinister smile, kind of like if the Grinch was a fashionable Manhattan woman who had a disquieting sexual reaction to violence and icy shark eyes that could probably stop your heart if you looked into them for more than five seconds at a time
Dead.
