Woah. The entire back half of this episode is a marvel in suspense. All the major story lines are in play, and they finally start to connect. Three parallel narrative streams inter-cut with tense music for a good twenty minutes. I just kept waiting for something to happen. When the big moment came, it somehow managed to be something that I never would have expected. Like pretty much everything in this show, this climax has some degree of ambiguity. When I first watched the scene, I thought it would probably be revealed as a fake-out in future episodes. But then I watched it again. I went frame by frame, paid attention to details, and did some zooming. I still don't think that the scene will turn out to have been exactly what it appeared to be, but there is ample evidence proving that something major happened.
It's hard to think about anything other than the explosive, disturbing conclusion to episode, but there is actually quite a bit of other stuff to it. Pryce, Joanna, and Darlene each have their own long, anecdotal monologue. Each one is powerful in its own way, and very illuminating in terms of character. Pryce's finally begins to show us his motivation, Joanna's demonstrates her ruthlessness and connection with Tyrell, and Dalrene's is surprising to say the least.
I was really hoping for answers on the Tyrell front, and the episode seemed to be setting us up for the big reveal. But then, just like last episode, we didn't get it. This episode did have some pretty big clues, however. Clues that make me reconsider every theory that I've been able to come up with. For the first time, I'm starting to think that Tyrell may actually be dead, that something more sinister and mysterious is going on than we've even been willing to consider. What if all the mysterious messages and strange gifts were set up ahead of time with Tyrell, to execute automatically? What if he and Mr Robot planned the whole thing out on the night of the hack? What if this has something to do with stage 2? What if Tyrell is essentially acting from beyond the grave through a program, as a sort of digital ghost? This is pretty crazy stuff, and probably wrong. But that's how good the show is! It makes me think of things like that.
It's hard to think about anything other than the explosive, disturbing conclusion to episode, but there is actually quite a bit of other stuff to it. Pryce, Joanna, and Darlene each have their own long, anecdotal monologue. Each one is powerful in its own way, and very illuminating in terms of character. Pryce's finally begins to show us his motivation, Joanna's demonstrates her ruthlessness and connection with Tyrell, and Dalrene's is surprising to say the least.
I was really hoping for answers on the Tyrell front, and the episode seemed to be setting us up for the big reveal. But then, just like last episode, we didn't get it. This episode did have some pretty big clues, however. Clues that make me reconsider every theory that I've been able to come up with. For the first time, I'm starting to think that Tyrell may actually be dead, that something more sinister and mysterious is going on than we've even been willing to consider. What if all the mysterious messages and strange gifts were set up ahead of time with Tyrell, to execute automatically? What if he and Mr Robot planned the whole thing out on the night of the hack? What if this has something to do with stage 2? What if Tyrell is essentially acting from beyond the grave through a program, as a sort of digital ghost? This is pretty crazy stuff, and probably wrong. But that's how good the show is! It makes me think of things like that.
