As I said last week, SPOLIERS AHEAD, so don’t keep reading if it’s going to ruin it for you. Instead I’ll start you off with this fun fact that I just discovered. While the titles of all of season 4’s episodes are not in the usual tech-garb with dots and dashes, they are in representative of error codes, hence, “Payment Required.” Nifty!
You know what else is nifty? The number of bombs that Sam Esmail keeps dropping, and it’s only been two episodes! Yes, last week we thought Elliot was dead and gone (along with Angela, R.I.P.), but Phillip Price spared him. This episode, we also learn that Price isn’t going to turn him into the Dark Army either. Instead, Price takes us on a little jaunt through history, where we learn of the origins of the Deus Group, but also that Zheng/Whiterose has been pulling the strings the entire time and playing all the members of the Deus group, including Phillip. With a dead daughter, Elliot is right in trying to persuade him to join their team.
He seemingly succeeds when we see Price tell Zhang/Whiterose that he’s retiring as CEO of E-Corp immediately. That means all of Deus Group needs to convene in person to choose his successor, and this is exactly what Elliot wants and needs if he wants to see a life past eight days from now.
Elsewhere, remember Elliot and Darlene’s abusive mother? Well, turns out she’s dead, and the two start to go through her things, coming across Elliot’s old Walkman and information about a safe deposit box their mother opened…BUT, she lapsed on her payments and the bank tossed it. So much for that. But that little jaunt was just the catalyst of a much-needed conversation between brother and sister. Darlene yells at Elliot for not being there, not fully any ways.
She also mentions that Vera (season 1’s crazy drug dealer) has nothing to do with Whiterose’s plans. This confuses Elliot because what does he have to do with anything? This is where we learn that besides Mr. Robot, there is a third personality living within Elliot, and apparently causing some havoc. Or at least keeping some information at bay from the others.
All of this seems to be confirmed by a memory showing a young boy talking to his mother. She tells him that he isn’t ready to sit in that seat yet. Nor is Mr. Robot, nor is Elliot. So who is ready? And we can’t ignore the fact that this scene is happening in the same room where Tyrell and Elliot first meet, and the boy is sitting in Tyrell’s chair. Does Tyrell fit into this somehow? Also, there are four chairs in that room, so are there four personalities? Do we count as one of those four?
All these new questions that the first two episodes have presented literally have me squirming in my chair, anxiously awaiting next week’s episode. Who do you think this new personality is? Is Elliot really dead, and just an unreliable narrator like he was in season 1? I guess we’ve got eleven more episodes to get all our answers!