5 things we need to see in Mr. Robot’s final season

It’s sad, but true: USA Network’s popular hacker drama Mr. Robot will end after its fourth season. But there are a few things we need to see before Elliot logs off for good.

The darkest timeline continues: According toThe Hollywood Reporter, USA Network hit drama Mr. Robot will officially conclude after its fourth season, which is slated to start filming this winter.

But while news of Mr. Robot’s impending end is (extremely) sad, as it always is when a great television show comes to an end, it’s also not completely surprising. After a third season which saw Elliot and friends pretty much undo the hack around which the bulk of the series has revolved around to date, it’s not clear how much story there really is left to tell. (It’s also always better when a television series gets the chance to go out on its own terms, even if you, as a viewer, still might wish for more.)

Mr. Robot season 4 will likely see Elliot taking on the 1 percenters who help keep the downtrodden oppressed. And, if last season’s arc is any indication, it may see him further integrating the two sides of his own psyche. Maybe there won’t even be a Mr. Robot, so to speak, by the end of the season.

By the time Mr. Robot ends, we’ll have watched four seasons of a merry band of hackers attempting to unmake the world and rebuild it again. Though we don’t yet know how the series will ultimately conclude – and past history indicates we’d probably never guess it anyway – there are a few things that really need to happen to end the show on an ultimately satisfying note.

A Mr. Robot/Elliot alliance

For the first time, possibly since the series started, Elliot and his dark alter ego Mr. Robot are on the same page. Neither thinks the other is real when they aren’t. Neither is gaslighting the other. They aren’t working at cross purposes or trying to destroy each other. They are both, together, fully aware of what’s going on, and working toward the same goal. So, that’s kind of amazing, yeah?

Out of everything that’s been set up to lead into season 4, this is perhaps the most organic development of all. Which, you know, seems kind of weird to say when we’re talking about two usually warring personalities. But, for once, Elliot seems to have accepted that Mr. Robot isn’t an enemy or a friend or a rival. He himself is Mr. Robot, whether he likes it or not. Does that mean the two will end the series in a more integrated place? Not necessarily. But maybe it means that Elliot can at least start to heal.

Plus, it sure should be fun to watch them really work together for once.

The reintegration of Angela

Angela and Elliot’s friendship was pretty much a casualty of season 3. Angela not only took advantage of her best friend’s mental illness for her own ends, she drugged him, sabotaged him professionally and basically worked with his evil alter ego to help bring about a massive terrorist attack. (No one really knew that would happen, at least not on the scale it did, but that seems a poor excuse.) Afterward, Angela had a nervous breakdown, pretty much went crazy and discovered the evil Phillip Price is her real father. Even though we got to see she and Elliot take tentative steps toward fixing things, there simply wasn’t a lot of time for that at the end of last season.

So, before the show ends, we need to see these two BFFs fix themselves. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the two of them must finally act on their long-simmering romantic attraction. (Though, personally, I’d be into that.) But it does mean that we need to actually see the two of them work on forgiving one another, and take concrete, real steps toward rebuilding their friendship.

A comeuppance for Whiterose

Throughout this series, Whiterose has basically managed to commit all sorts of terrible crimes – even and up to engineering the political candidacy of Donald Trump. She’s a monster who’s murdered thousands of innocent people and, as such, needs to pay for those actions. What that looks like, it may still be too early to say. But after watching Whiterose be the cause of so much suffering, it seems impossible to think that she and her Dark Army might somehow make it out of season 4 unscathed. Go get her, Elliot.

Darlene gets to be happy for once

Even though Elliot has a dissociative identity disorder, Darlene is probably the Alderson that has suffered the most throughout the course of this show. She’s experienced virtually every loss that her brother has – they share the same awful childhood and messed up parents – but she’s also been tasked with cleaning up Elliot’s messes. It was Darlene who kept society running while Elliot fell apart and went to prison. She’s the one who lost her boyfriend to Dark Army violence. And she’s the Alderson who’s been arrested and forced to turn informant for the FBI.

Can Darlene catch some kind of break before this show is over? Please?

A sense that this all actually mattered

At the end of the day, we need to feel that the story of Mr. Robot meant something. By the time the show’s over, we’ll have watched Elliot and friends bring down the global economy, restore it, and stand up against the oppressors of the poor. Which means that when the final credits roll, something has to have fundamentally changed within the world of the show. We can’t just go back to the status quo. The ending can’t be a basic mirror of the world we all live in now, with relentless oppression, income inequality, and a whole slew of have-nots toiling for the benefit of the haves.

Now, that doesn’t mean the ending has to be a happy one. But it does mean that the proverbial blinders – of both the show’s characters and the people watching it at home – have been removed. That means Mr. Robot needs to make a choice, and needs to have an ending that sticks. No takebacks. Real stakes. Actual consequences. Whatever the final ending looks like, it needs to matter.

Mr. Robot will return for its final season on USA Network in 2019.