Mr. Robot season 4, episode 2 recap: Payment Required

Who is Whiterose? Where did she come from? Don’t worry old friends, Mr. Robot explains.

Mr. Robot spends a bit more time on explaining the enigma that is Whiterose. Which is why it prefaces this episode with a flashback to 1989, when the world was in a state of chaos. There are glimpses of the Berlin Wall and all sorts of powerful images that set the backdrop of how Whiterose, aka Zhi Zhang came into power. As she rose to power and accumulated wealth, it eventually led to the creation of the Deus Group.

Whiterose has essentially completed her mission and is now ready to unleash it. Not if Elliot has anything to do with it though! The only issue is, he has eight days to bring a stop to it hence why Phillip Prince is suddenly in the picture.

There’s a lot of focus on Susan Jacobs (from last season), and how she’s the connecting factor to Cyprus Bank. Elliot has no idea what’s happened to her, and as the viewer, it puts you on the edge of your seat as he’s trying to sort through everything. It’s almost like you wish you could reach out to him and just let him know!

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In order for Elliot to pull off another one of his infamous hacks, he needs Price to gather the Deus Group together in the same place. It’s the only way he’ll be able to do it. So what does Price do? Go against Whiterose. Dun. Dun. Dun.

I don’t know about all of you, but in Mr. Robot’s world, that is a scary move. He tells Whiterose he’s resigning as CEO of ECorp, and that Whiterose needs to get everyone from Deus Group together so they can select a new one. That Phillip Price is a clever one, isn’t he?

At the heart of this Mr. Robot episode is a tragedy for the Alderson family–the death of Elliott and Darlene’s mother. There isn’t much tragedy about it, however.

There’s more of an indifference considering they had a strained relationship with her. In fact, there is more sadness about Angela’s death than their mother’s, which leads to Darlene’s emotional breakdown.

My favorite part of the episode is when Elliot and Darlene sit together and listen to an old tape they found amongst their mom’s stuff. A tape that has their and Angela’s voices recorded as kids. It’s such a heartstring-pulling moment, which is very, very rare on Mr. Robot.

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In Dom’s world, she’s now being pressured by the Dark Army mole, Janice to do her bidding. Hence, why Dom tells the FBI that Santiago was a double agent working for a drug cartel. Janice is pretty aggressive about whether or not they actually believed Dom, because she was only 99.9% sure. Janice’s solution? Kill the agent–you know, just in case.

Mr. Robot continues with the plot twists in this episode, with the biggest one involving Vera. Apparently, she came to Darlene’s apartment and afterward, Darlene told Elliot as much. The problem is he doesn’t recall that at all. Was it Mr. Robot that she told? Apparently not.

Ready for the biggest mindf**k Mr. Robot has given us in a while? The final scene is a flashback to young Elliot sitting in a chair and his mother walking in saying, “They’re not ready yet. We need to wait”. Uh, wait for what? Young Elliot responds, “Mr. Robot?, Elliot?”

“No, the other one”.

What other one?! There’s someone else in there?! What the what?! Oh boy, this season just took off in the most unexpected way.

Mr. Robot airs every Sunday on USA at 10 PM EST!