Mr. Robot season 4, episode 7 recap: Proxy Authentication Required

Mr. Robot presents its best episode–ever.

Mr. Robot gave me chills this week, literal chills. It was a commercial-free hour jam-packed with such a big reveal, that I’m still trying to process it. But before I get too far into my recap, I’d like to add a disclaimer that if you or anyone you know has been a victim of domestic and/or sexual abuse, please be wary of reading this recap or watching the episode. There may be triggers from the content of the episode, so please be mindful.

This week’s episode was split into five acts and each one took us deeper and darker into Elliot’s psyche. The story revolves around Elliot, Vera, and Krista within the confinement of one room–it’s pretty crazy how impactful it still manages to be.

The first act begins with Vera confessing his admiration for Elliot, which is confusing to him and us. But the point here is for Elliot to keep it together and go along with all of this for Krista’s sake. Side note: Whoever plays Vera deserves an award for the best guest actor, he killed it in this Mr. Robot episode.

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With not many choices, Elliot sits there as Vera rehashes details of his life and his ultimate goal–to take over New York City. The camera pans over to the next room where Krista is sitting still bound by restraints. It was an awesome camera shot, might I add.

Long story short, Vera wants Elliot to be his partner in the quest to take over NYC. This is a compelling and riveting moment but at the same time, frightening because of Krista. Which is why Elliot asks to see her before committing to anything this guy wants.

Vera knows more about Elliot than Elliot realizes especially when Vera asks to speak to Mr. Robot. You see, Vera is under the impression that Mr. Robot pulls all the strings and is the puppeteer, but as we’ve come to learn, that’s not always the case. Vera thinks if he reveals his plan to Elliot’s alter ego then he will see it come to fruition. Big mistake there, buddy.

All these ambitions that Vera has convinced Elliot to take a step towards hopeful freedom. The Deus Group hack is going live that night and Elliot promises to give Vera the money they get from that. While Vera and his cronies giggle over how many zeroes this money will bring in, Elliot grabs his gun and attempts to take them down.

Vera is many steps ahead of him, at this point, and as Elliot actually pulls the trigger, he realizes there are no bullets in there. They were all taken out beforehand. This pisses Vera off and so he grabs the gun, heads to the room where Krista is and says her life will be the payment for Elliot’s indiscretions.

This episode is extremely dark and it’s about to get worse.

As Vera threatens to kill Krista, Elliot begs for her life and finally reveals that he needs Krista. Vera takes this to mean that Krista is a sort of shaman for Elliot, and if he wants to get through, Krista is the key.

What’s the next logical step here? According to Vera, it’s for Krista to have a therapy session with Elliot. It’s the only way he thinks he’ll get what he wants. Even though Krista is completely against it, Elliot convinces her to just do it. If it saves their lives, especially hers, then they have to.

And this is the point where things get really, really heavy, so please refer back to the disclaimer at the start of this recap. The session starts off with Elliot talking about his mother and losing her recently, and how that hasn’t really impacted him.

Vera doesn’t care for all of this and just wants to know–when did Mr. Robot come to be? From what Elliot has always remembered, it started the day his father pushed him out the window. But there’s more to this story, there’s more tragedy to this point.

Krista asks him to recall details, and it takes Elliot a bit to really hone in on the details. He remembers playing with Darlene in his room, then hiding her in the closet when they heard his father, and then he remembers the window incident. But Krista knows there more, and so she keeps pushing, much to Mr. Robot’s displeasure.

Details begin to spill out as Elliot remembers holding a baseball bat, so Krista asks why. Vera chimes in to say maybe because of his father, but Elliot refuses to think his father is bad, he was his only friend. And then comes the horrible, tragic reveal as Krista asks, “Did your father sexually molest you?”.

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Rami Malek gives the performance of a lifetime at this moment as we see all the trauma oozing out of Elliot’s face. It’s so heartbreaking to see him realize what happened to him as a child, what horrors he hid away in the dark corners of his mind.

His entire world comes crashing down and Malek portrays that extremely well, we can see him feeling smaller and smaller with each passing moment.

In the fifth and final act, Vera comes forward to be Elliot’s support. He shares his own horrific childhood and what his mother subjected him to. You almost forget that this man is holding Krista and Elliot captive and see how genuine he is in being there for Elliot.

I’m not sure how genuine it could be because Elliot is so vulnerable and weak at that moment then he would go along with anything someone has to say. But before Vera can do much of anything, Krista stabs him from the back. And that’s the end of that story–for now.

That. was. intense. Until next week, guys–we’ll need some days to recover from this.

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