Mr Robot season 3 review: eps3.6_Fredrick+Tanya.chk

Mr. Robot season 3 continues with a shocking episode that reminds us all that control is an illusion and we have no idea where we’re headed.

In “eps3.6_Fredrick+Tanya.chk,” Mr. Robot deals with the immediate fallout from last week’s episode, which saw the Dark Army kill thousands in a much more drastic version of its Stage 2 plan. But it also serves up the starkest reminder yet that control in this world is an illusion, and we know much, much less than we think we do.

Last week’s “eps3.5_kill-process.inc” touched on this issue to a certain extent, thanks to the revelation that Whiterose’s Stage 2 efforts far exceeded Elliot’s understanding of them. But this episode brings that lesson home in an extremely immediate way and much more painful way, as the series revisits its past and makes us all question where it will go in the future.

In case anyone’s forgotten, there are still three more episodes left in season 3. When every installment for the past two weeks feels as though it could stand on its own as a finale, what on Earth could we possibly be building to next?

The past returns

Eagle-eyed fans probably already guessed a major element of this episode as soon as they saw the title. “Fredrick+Tanya” is a very specific reference to Trenton and Mobley, two original members of fsociety who hadn’t appeared yet this season. When last we saw the two of them, they had fled New York for new lives in hiding in Arizona. A season 2 cliffhanger questioned what had become of them, but viewers never found out for sure.

Until now.

Mr. Robot picks up Trenton and Mobley’s story where it left off at the end of last season. When we see the duo again, they’re being held hostage by Leon, Elliot’s old prison buddy who also happens to be a very skilled Dark Army assassin. In between Leon’s — admittedly hilarious — riffs on quality ’90s television and the timelessness of the Knight Rider franchise, “Frederick” and “Tanya” alternately beg for their lives and make ultimately fruitless plans to try and escape. That they aren’t ultimately successful in either of these endeavors is heartbreaking, but not entirely unexpected. In fact, if we’re honest, isn’t this where we all thought this story was going? Didn’t we all — kind of — already assume that Trenton and Mobley were probably dead already?

Mr. Robot gives us a modicum of hope by returning these characters to the story, seven episodes and many months after we’d already basically written them off. We clung to Trenton’s offhand comment that maybe they can undo what they did on 5/9 after all. Leon’s quippy and entertaining and fun. So it’s easy to forget that he’s a stone cold murderer with a sizable body count to his credit already. We wanted to believe.

But, much like the original dream of fsociety’s revolution, other factors are in control here. Mobley and Trenton’s dream of a better world disintegrated in front of them, as the pair was brutally murdered to set up an exit strategy that framed them both for all that fsociety had done. Whiterose’s henchman makes a speech about the meaningful nature of dying “in service of a higher cause.”

However, there is no nobility or meaning here. Just two dead young people who gave their lives for a revolution they started, but that was no longer their own. And was it ever, really? How far back does the Dark Army’s control go? (The answer to that, I expect, depends on how depressed you want to be.)

The future haunts us

The aftermath of Stage 2 leaves everyone reeling. Elliot runs to Krista, but his mind starts glitching badly and he disappears for the rest of the episode. Mr. Robot is furious that the Dark Army ditched their agreed upon script. Tyrell Wellick finds out that his wife is dead and his son stuck with a foster family. And he learns this just in time to be blackmailed with the information.

It is, perhaps, understandable, that Angela Moss is in the worst shape of anyone. She has the most to lose, after all. She’s a true believer in whatever Whiterose is selling. Plus she’s somehow convinced herself they can change the world without hurting anyone. Not really. Therefore, the destruction wrought by the real Stage 2 has somehow both broken Angela, and remade her.

In the end, all she can do is retreat to the rewind button on the DVR, and remake the world from its ashes. Over and over again. Her near fanatic insistence that everyone will be fine, that the people who died can come back comes off as both crazy and heartbreaking. Angela is both lost and the truest kind of believer now (because she has to be). It feels impossible to predict where she and her story will go next.

Yet, the best part of the scene in Angela’s apartment is not Portia Doubleday’s acting. (Though her dead-eyed, numb projection of her inner turmoil is phenomenal.) Rather, it’s Darlene’s dogged determination to stay by her friend. No matter how far apart these women are from one another right now, Darlene is still 100% there for her. The women on this show are amazing. And perhaps it’s that kind of human connection — that sees and endures all things — that will show us the way out of this, in the end.

Next: Mr Robot season 3 review: eps3.5_kill-process.inc

Mr. Robot continues next Wednesday on USA Network.