They made sure it was very sad. Even the lighting emphasized it—her face was pretty much in shadow.

To me, it added: a foreshadowing of Elliot's reconciliation with Mr Robot at the end of the ep—esp. the bookend action of a hug between the two of them. Also, it suggests something—though I'm not sure what—about the fate of Tyrell. It maybe did go on a little too long though.

You're right. Elliot's dad was a real person. I'm saying that Mr Robot is not exactly Elliot's dad—he's a self-inflicted simulation of his dad, sort of. I think he's not quite even that—he's not an accurate representation of the guy; he's a broken-off, angry shard of Elliot's own personality, in the shape of his dead…

Well MR is a simulation based on someone who might have been a loving person. But it is nice to see MR being caring, and esp. nice to see a reconciliation between Elliot's two warring personas—that *is* a character beat. It would be awesome if Elliot somehow merged himself and his alter back together. (I think. Maybe…

This ep also reminds me that people with dissociative disorders get that way because something happens that their personality just can't cope with and it shatters. So I'm wondering whether it was the guilt about letting MR's secret out, or the fall out the window itself, or (hopefully) something else we haven't seen…

For all the griping about the sitcom, I'm not seeing anyone mentioning how totally creepy it was to have the show's violence set to a laugh track. I think it went on slightly too long, but mostly because I was utterly squicked out by the whole thing. I was losing my mind even before Cisco And The Needle.

Totally voting for Kang.

I don't have strong feelings about the song, but I still admire him in the video for his insistence on walking in a straight line down a city street. I still have days where I feel like that.

Dom dissing Whiterose's clock was the real reason for the attack.

I did notice the 23.

Agreed. So she must not have. She must have just thought that he'd lost his nerve, which he clearly had. He'd become a risk.

it was a surgical mask, but there was a big guy wearing one of those before Dom got on the escalator where she saw the Dark Army masks.

I know a lot of people love the Institutionalized theory, but if he was, he'd be on so much meds he wouldn't be hallucinating anybody.

I knew she was going to have him killed as soon as she told him in the restaurant that everything was going to be alright.

Since everybody lies in this show, Whiterose's parallel universe thing might be more about hir nature as a transperson and wishing for a non-dysphoric world than about wishing for one where 5/9 never happened.

The main thing wrong with the "Institutionalized" theory is that if he was, and was this delusional, they would just medicate the fuck out of him until he wasn't seeing people and hearing voices anymore.

I think that possibly the opener points us to the real origin of Mr Robot: just as he programmed himself to hear and see all references to "E Corp" as "Evil Corp", he programmed himself to forget that he wanted to take down Evil Corp so that he could be a more perfect trojan horse. I'd love it if the MrRobot persona…

I agree with 2/3s of that: pretty sure Leon's not real. Elliot doesn't meet people very easily, or even willingly.

I like how Esmail is visually name-checking (if that's a thing) not just Kubrick — this ep with Eyes Wide Shut and The Shining — but Requiem For A Dream (Elliot bouncing around Coney on speed), A Beautiful Mind (via his abduction by the Men In Black — also a wee bit of Fake William Burroughs added for spice),…

Agree with you about Shutter Island. Not really ready for Slater to be the real person and Elliot to be the dream.