Mr. Robot season 3 episode 5review: eps3.4_runtime-error.r00

Mr. Robot continues with an episode that’s not just a visual treat to watch, but a game changer for the rest of the season.

This week’s episode of Mr. Robot is both visually groundbreaking and narratively stunning. We’re only five episodes into the season, and yet the series calmly deploys revelations that many similar shows would save almost solely for a season finale.

“eps3.4_runtime-error.r00” is a wonder to watch. The episode, which sees an hour elapse in something close to real time, is edited to look like a single take. Subsequently, it pours on the anxiety and ups the tension as we follow Elliot and then Angela on a single path through an increasingly devastated E-Corp headquarters.

Sure, the “single take” is really several long takes carefully cut together to look like one extended scene. In short, it’s a gimmick. But it’s a gimmick that works like gangbusters, because it enhances what we’re seeing onscreen, rather than detracting from it. The unrelenting tension, the quick cuts, the shifting perspectives -– they all work to help us, as viewers, better understand not only what was happening, but how it was impacting these characters.

The episode’s story is simple. Two people, with two different goals, working toward them at cross purposes with one another. But, of course, that’s not the whole story at all.

Part one: Elliot

The first half of the episode focuses on Elliot, who arrives at work on a seemingly average day only to discover he’s been fired and that the Dark Army plans to immediately launch its Stage 2 attack. On top of that, he can’t remember the last four days. Panicked and reeling, Elliot must race through the building, dodging security guards and suspicious coworkers as he scrambles for a way to thwart the plan Mr. Robot put in motion. This wild ride through halls of E-Corp is breathless and tense, as Elliot climbs between floors and hacks the personalities of his various coworkers to get what he wants. (FYI: Edie the white-out huffing IT genius is an amazing momentary standout.)

Elliot’s eventual defeat — his realization that he can’t stop Stage 2, he can only try and help the people in the building — is a gut punch. But that’s not the only shock this episode has in store for our lead character. Outside E-Corp, Darlene is waiting, and she has several bombshells to drop. In a surprising move, she comes clean to Elliot about her involvement with the FBI. She admits her attempt to pin the entirety of fsociety’s activities on Tyrell Wellick. Finally, she reveals Angela’s ongoing partnership with Mr. Robot. Yes, Mr. Robot pulled back the curtain on its two biggest betrayals in the same moment, and it’s hard not to stagger back along with Elliot at the shock of all this.

The use of sound in “eps3.4_runtime-error.r00” is generally great all around. Throughout the episode, it goes in and out to simulate the glitches in Elliot’s own memory, it highlights elevator news announcements about the United Nations vote over the fate of the Congo. But Darlene’s revelations actually knock the sound out completely. Her words muffle the noise of the protesters around them as an auditory representation of the shock of the moment, and Elliot’s increasing isolation from everything around him.

We all know most shows would have kept at least one of those revelations in its back pocket for later. Five episodes still remain in season 3, after all. That Mr. Robot doesn’t is both brave and remarkable. Where do we go from here, now that the season’s primary conflicts and secrets are out in the open?

Part two: Angela

“eps3.4_runtime-error.r00” smoothly transitions between Elliot and Angela’s missions — and personal perspectives — by way of a protest gone wrong. The revelation that the violence is the result of a planned Dark Army attack on E-Corp only makes thing more terrifying.  as Mr. Robot – finally – tells the story of Stage 2. We’ve been waiting for this all season, and it turns out that the wait was 100% worth it.

Angela’s journey into darkness has been one of season 3’s most complicated subplots. Her decision to align herself with the Dark Army, and to choose Mr. Robot over Elliot, has been confusing and difficult to watch. (Mostly because we don’t yet know what Whiterose has promised her. Or what is behind the belief that’s driven Angela to upend her entire life.)

“Just because we lit the fuse, doesn’t mean we can control the explosion,” Irving tells Angela as she forces herself to hack the hardware security models that will kick off Stage 2. Angela perhaps knows this better than most, as fallout from everything from her mother’s death to her friendship with Elliot to her decision to believe Whiterose plays out around her.

The presentation of Angela’s slow emotional crumble as she still navigates the technical challenges of her mission is masterful. Her hesitance about Stage 2, about whether people will get hurt, about what she’s doing all this for, is palpable. Can anyone still say Angela is cold or unfeeling after this?

Angela must prove herself to her Dark Army bosses by completing a complicated technical task correctly. But she must also fully reckon with the fact that she willingly partnered with thugs and killers. (Because unfortunate bystander Lydia Ripley is dead, and Angela’s face indicates that she knows that as soon as she gives Irving her name.) Her dissolution into quiet sobs as she exists the E-Corp building, a woman technically victorious but who knows what’s she done to herself – and others – to get there, is a moment we’ve been waiting all season to see.

Remember when no one thought Angela could even complete a simple hack last season? How far we’ve all come.

At the end of the episode, Elliot confronts Angela about her alliance with Mr. Robot. Of course, the camera cuts away before the moment plays out. So we’ll have to wait until next week to see what happens. But “eps3.4_runtime-error.r00” has done nothing so much as make crystal clear the depth of the divide between them, their divergent experiences in E-Corp’s hallways clearly illustrating just how far they’ve already journeyed from one another.

Next: Mr. Robot season 3: What’s Angela really after?

Mr. Robot continues next Wednesday on USA Network.