Mr. Robot season 3, episode 2 review: eps3.1_undo.gz

Mr. Robot season 3 continues with an episode that reminds us that sometimes, the system doesn’t come with a reset button.

“Ever wish you could hit undo?” That’s the question Mr. Robot poses in the second episode of its third season, to both Elliot and to us, as viewers.  And, of course, all have. While we may not have bad days on the same scale that Elliot does, as few of us have likely kickstarted the crash of the global economy, they’re still something we understand. We all have things we wish we could take back.

But though Elliot tries his best to convince himself — and us — believe that things can be different, simply because he wants them to be, the episode itself seems to contradict him. In fact, the real lesson of “eps3.1_undo.gz” seems to be that, at the end of the day, you can’t erase what you are.

There are some things you can’t undo, and it’s possible that by trying to manage the chaos you initially created, you make everything worse than it was when you started. Chaos is a ladder, as a character on another famous recent television show once said. But you can’t always control where it goes.

like a god into our room all perfect light and promises

“eps3.1_undo.gz” opens with one of the most creatively handled montages in Mr. Robot’s existence. (And if you watch this show regularly, you know that’s saying something.) Set to the tune of INXS’s pop classic “New Sensation,” Elliot begins his new job at E-Corp. As he does so, he vows to fix all that he and Mr. Robot broke. And, it would seem, also creates a new version of himself, one who joins Trunk Club and signs up for the company HMO and gets a Zoloft prescription. This Elliot rejects the anarchy of fsociety for the safety of corporate hierarchy, and at first, he is successful.

Elliot not only thwarts Mr. Robot’s Stage 2 planning at every turn — messing with shipping routes, hiding documents — he also takes down multiple bad folks along the way, exposing the corruption of subprime lenders, thwarting attempts to sell private data and reporting falsified emissions testing. In some ways, it’s season 1 all over again.  Elliot uses his hacking skills for good, but not in a way that hurts anyone beyond the bad guys that he’s swiftly depositing on the doorstep of the FBI. However, no matter how much of a reboot this experience feels like…it’s not.

Not only does the rot inside E-Corp still exists, the things that are broken inside Elliot are still there too. As he wrestles with increasing loneliness, anxiety and the empty void where Mr. Robot used to be, Elliot’s struggles neatly mirror his attempt to rebuild the world of the post 5/9 hack into something that looks like it once did. But even as Elliot tells Krista that he — and the world — are better off if Mr. Robot is absent, we all know that’s not true. Mr. Robot isn’t gone, he’s simply gone dark. And in that space he has become angrier, more caustic and more menacing than ever before. What will that rot look like, when it finally sees the light of day?

you will find out in the end there really is no difference

Joanna Wellick makes her first appearance of season 3 this week. Her final season 2 goal — to frame Scott Knowles for the murder that her husband Tyrell committed — seems as though it’s successful. But as Joanna works to undo her husband’s murder charges, one has to wonder what the point is. Tyrell is still the most wanted man in the world because of his supposed involvement with the 5/9 hack. After all of that, a simple murder sort of looks like chump change.  Does Joanna actually think this will get her husband back?

Unfortunately, before we can find any of that out, the aforementioned boyfriend shoots Joanna dead in her own car, furious over her TV interview which revealed she no longer planned to divorce Tyrell.  Her unceremonious murder probably deserves more attention than it gets within this episode. Yes, it’s shocking. But the moment Joanna dies, she becomes nothing more than an elaborate prop that will eventually provide emotional pain for Tyrell. And she deserves a better fate than that.

While Joanna has generally been an intriguing and mysterious figure in the world of Mr. Robot, the show has never been particularly interested in her inner life. (A particularly glaring weakness given how well it generally handles ever other female character.) Sure, the narrative initially positioned her as a sort of Lady Macbeth to Tyrell’s ambitious businessman. But despite being generally the more interesting of the pair, Joanna never got much screentime dedicated to what she wanted. So much of her story, looking back now, feels wasted and unexplained.

Mr. Robot has occasionally given us flashes of what Joanna’s thinking — her reaction to the birth of her son, her late night chat with Derek about why the ambitionless bartender fit perfectly with what she wanted from a life post-Tyrell.  But those moments are few and far between, even at the moment of her death. Yes, her gruesome autopsy literally gave us a look into her skull. Yet the end of Joanna’s story did little to illuminate what was actually inside her head.

there’s nothing better we could do than live forever

As for Darlene, she’s busy looking for a way out. As many of us likely suspected from the season previews, she’s turned informant for the FBI. Chasing immunity and freedom from a life she doesn’t appear at all sure she wants anymore, Darlene looks more lost than ever.

Unlike her brother, Darlene doesn’t have many illusions left about how much control she has, whether over her own life or the world at large. She’s ostensibly gone through more than any other character on this series (save possibly Angela), serving as Elliot’s second in command at fsociety, watching her boyfriend die in front of her, and even committing a murder of her own at one point. Is it any wonder she no longer seems to know what to believe in?

At one point, Darlene tells her brother that the only reason she joined fsociety was so they could be close again. Which makes the haunted, defeated look on her face when Agent Dom reveals yet another part of his life that Elliot’s kept from her so affecting. Her choice to betray her brother isn’t made in a vacuum, but how much of it is driven by her fear of Mr. Robot versus her anger at Elliot shutting her out again? Possibly, it’s both. Darlene rightly points out that Elliot isn’t the only Alderson affected by their shared history. But of the two of them, she’s the one who seems to realize that sometimes there is no undo button. And, no matter how much we might wish otherwise, we’re going to have to live with the things we break.

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Mr. Robot continues next Wednesday on USA Network.