gmanca

Ok so he's in prison yet he's interacting with people from the outside world who would be instantly tagged for their association with him? That makes the twist so obvious?

There was too much grey for it to be so obvious; I mean if you think about your own life and how repetitious it is, you could question whether you are institutionalized as well. I give credit to those who thought of it and were right but let's not pretend it was so completely obvious. People were still thinking he was Tyrell while this was playing out!

dex14

It was obvious from the get go, IMO.

Tom Banjo

So is Craig Robinson's character an employee of the jail that has a side business on the dark net? Surely he's not also an inmate?

bunkaroo

I know I've complained before, but god damn the character framing is fucking awful. There was one shot where you just saw two heads at the bottom of the frame. There's a difference between artfully composed shots and just weird for the sake of weird.

Pointyskull

Didn't we all ready find out it was Darlene? That was when we first learned of the slasher flick that inspired the use of the mask...

Breakfast with Girls

It's not. It conveys how off-kilter and uncomfortable things are for every character. It's not an uncommon approach.

Breakfast with Girls

No, that took place before s1e1. Esmail was trolling the audience.

Breakfast with Girls

It seems like he's a guard.

philo

I really got a kick out of how they handled the big reveal with the seamless transitions especially the bump in the corridor. Then the cherry on top with his "Mom" saying "See in the morning" in the same emotionless way and slamming the cell door.

I'm still loving every minute of the show. Angela's detached turn this season has made her story way more interesting for me. Telling her Dad "This was just a courtesy" got a big laugh out of me just for how cold and blunt she's become.

Gonna miss Craig Robinson. I thought he was equally menacing and ingratiating in a way that reminded me of Gus Fring.

Loved the opening with it's use of music from Blowout and also the closing music during Elliot's tour through prison. Overall the season might be slower paced in plot but still so many great flourishes and characters.

hdnmickey

I was sure it was a prison the second time they had Elliot watching those basketball games for no reason. I've probably watched far too man prison movies where basketball is the main focal point in the yard.

I suspect that what we were seeing with Crain Robinson is evidence of some major corruption within that prison. One that really took hold after the big hack. Probably will come up again in some way giving us more answers now that the viewer misdirection is over.

PhantomStranger

It was obvious to me all season that Elliot wasn't in his mother's home. I was thinking it was a mental ward but prison works.

This is a twist that shouldn't have been held back more than an episode or two.

slop101

Yeah, the twist would've had a much bigger impact had they revealed it sooner - dragging it this far out, everyone guessed it long before they revealed it.

gmanca

Ok if it was so obvious what were the telltale signs? Many significant characters saw him in the mother's house setting but that wasn't the only setting that he saw other characters in, he "saw" the therapist at her office, he wrote firmware for his sister that was part of a storyline that existed outside his purview, we see Ray carry on a conversation by himself.

You can say there were clues but it's not as if he was confined to one location for the entire season or that he only met interacted with a handful of characters, things that would make it obvious that he was isolated.

Breakfast with Girls

It was obvious to many of us. The routine, the basketball, the tiny bedroom with sliding door, the group therapy, etc.

The more interesting question is why he's there, how he's going to get out, and what his legal status will be when he is out. He's made peace with Mr. Robot at this point, so this chapter of the story can end.

Raul3

It was hinted, but it could go either way, that he was in a hospital/jail.

Most of Elliott scenes, if you looked at the background, the stage, they looked incomplete. So it could be that that was the style they were looking for, or that Elliott was creating that in his head.

I think most here, including me, wished it wasn't another twist.

PhantomStranger

The frequent basketball court meetings stuck out to me. Why would Elliot repeatedly watch street basketball? Craig Robinson's character also seemed more fit for a prison than anything else.

Breakfast with Girls

Agreed. I had hoped Esmail was trolling the audience with red herrings.

slop101

Kinda sad that the best episode of the season doesn't have the lead in it at all.

wirefan

^ It's also telling what the need to "trick" (or to try to trick) the audience did to the lead character. He spent half a season setting up a twist which wasn't actually needed, or could have been done in a couple of episodes, and in the process basically made him inconsequential to the season thus far. And now Ismail will have to build a story back up just to make the lead of the show somewhat necessary.

If Elliot was killed in the opening scene of the next episode, would it even impact the season at this point?

mdc3000

I liked the premiere, hated almost every other episode until last week, which was a piss off and a relief all at the same time. This week's was a great episode and didn't feel as FORCED as so much of the rest of the season felt... I'm not sure if 2 good eps can right a season with so many things I've hated, but at least I'm looking forward to this again instead of just suffering through it.

bunkaroo

This week almost didn't have anything annoying...and then the blonde chick's karaoke scene happened.

Pointyskull

I'm in the minority, but I'm liking this season.

PhantomStranger

I completely skipped past that scene. This season is more watchable if you bypass any scene that looks like extra fluff by Esmail.

bunkaroo

I was fast forwarding too but saw there was stuff happening besides that at the same time so I went with the mute instead.

slop101

Why did they stay inside that house without having a clue when/if that lawyer was coming back? They're usually more thoughtful than that - well, unless the script needs them to be dumb.