The final season of USA Network's popular hacker drama Mr. Robot will finally hit TV screens in 2019, bringing the story of Elliot Alderson and anarchist group fsociety full circle. When the series began, Elliot and friends wanted to start a revolution and bring down one of the most powerful and corrupt companies in the world. Now, they'll try to undo the very same 5/9 hack that the series' first season put into motion. Or at least, that's the plan.
At the end of Season 3, Elliot vowed to bring down the uber-corrupt one-percent, the same people who oppress the less fortunate and somehow always end up doing fine, whether the global economy crashes around them or not. This, of course, includes the dangerous Dark Army, a group of Chinese hackers, as well as the villainous E-Corp itself. Whether any of this will be successful, or if this particular genie can be put back into the bottle is anyone's guess. Mr. Robot is the kind of show that isn't afraid to go to dark places, exploring issues of mental health, politics, loss, and friendship. Its final season will inevitably have twists that nobody will see coming, and we'll probably lose a friend or two along the way. But there are certainly a few things that Season 4 needs to address before Elliot shuts down his laptop for good. Let's take a look at some of them.
Mr. Robot And Elliot Need to Work Together
For most of the series’ run, Elliot and his alter ego Mr. Robot have been distinctly at odds with one another. Sometimes one didn’t know about the other’s existence. Occasionally, one actively tried to sabotage the other. Often, the two fought or worked at cross-purposes. In short, their relationship has been kind of rough for most of the show.
But now that the two halves of Elliot’s psyche appear to finally be on the same page, the audience deserves a chance to see them really work together at last. This happened to a small degree in Season 3, as the two swapped control of their shared body to accomplish specific tasks, leaving one another messages along the way. With both of them aiming to reverse the hack and take down Whiterose, we should see a lot more of this type of cooperation in Season 4.
Whiterose Must Face The Music
The proverbial man (or woman in this case) behind the curtain, the mysterious Whiterose is responsible for a lot of terrible crimes from hacking to intimidation. She even helped engineer the election of the current United States President. (Oh, and murdered thousands of innocent people, too.) Before Mr. Robot ends, she has to pay for what she’s done, somehow.
Whether that punishment will come at Elliot or Angela’s hands, or if it will involve arrest by the federal government is anyone’s guess. And, to be honest, any of those options would be fine. It would be incredibly satisfying to watch Whiterose get cuffed by the Feds, sure. But who would complain if an Elliot or Darlene hack took her organization down? As long as someone stops Whiterose from getting through Season 4 unscathed, how it happens is kind of a secondary concern.
Give Us An Answer About Whether Time Travel Is Real
Let’s be real: Mr. Robot got a lot of mileage from teasing its audience about the possibility of time travel. In theory, that’s what Whiterose’s big secret project is all about. Season 3 had a ton of references to things like Back to the Future and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and the series spent a lot of time hinting that alternate realities and parallel universes are possible.
These hints never panned out, of course, and the idea’s strongest proponent, Angela, seems to have finally realized Whiterose is a liar. But Mr. Robot also never fully debunked the idea, either. So, which is it? Season 4 better tell us. If Whiterose’s mysterious project isn’t time travel and/or a particle accelerator, then what’s actually going on at the Washington Township plant that started all this?
Put Angela Back In The Primary Story
Angela Moss spent the bulk of Season 3 estranged from her friends and brainwashed by Whiterose. She committed a few federal crimes and discovered Philip Price was actually her father. So the girl has kind of been through it. Her sudden turn to the Dark (Army) side took Angela away from the central part of Mr. Robot’s narrative. Suddenly she was at odds with Elliot and barely speaking to Darlene. While the end of Mr. Robot Season 3 took steps to bring Angela back into the main narrative, there’s definitely still work to be done.
Angela’s friendship with Elliot and Darlene, as well as her family connection to the Washington Township plant that started all this, mean that she should have a significant role to play in how Mr. Robot wraps up. Plus, she and Elliot need to get their relationship back on track for real—whether that means something romantic happens between them or not.
Darlene Deserves a Happy Ending
Technically, Mr. Robot is the story of a guy with dissociative identity disorder, but his sister Darlene is actually the Alderson who has struggled the most in this story. Over the course of the series’ three seasons, she dealt with many of the same problems as her brother did. (She shares his messed up childhood, don’t forget).
But she also held everything together while Elliot went to prison. She managed him during his various “Mr. Robot” episodes. She watched her boyfriend get killed by the Dark Army. Along the way, Darlene also murdered someone, got arrested, was forced to turn informant for the FBI, and was held hostage by psychopaths. Can this girl please catch a break? If a proper happy ending for Darlene is too much to ask for, could she at least perhaps take a vacation? See a therapist? Get a puppy? Season 4 has got to give her something, doesn’t it?
Penance Or Punishment For Tyrell?
Most Mr. Robot viewers likely have complicated feelings about Tyrell Wellick. And if we’re honest, he’s not the greatest person. The former VP turned CEO of E-Corp has done some pretty terrible things. He manipulates everyone. Everyone. He murdered the wife of a man who took a job he wanted. He helped the Dark Army organize the series of bombings that killed thousands of innocent people. Heck, he used to even pay homeless people to beat them up. Tyrell is a mess, morally speaking.
Yet, he’s also a strangely sympathetic figure at the same time, in spite of his many—and honestly extremely varied—failings. He believed in an Elliot that never existed, and, as a result, lost everything about himself that mattered. His wife was brutally murdered, and he seems to be permanently separated from the son he clearly loves. Also, his entire life is now a lie, even though he ostensibly got the one thing he always wanted. Is there some sort of redemption in the cards for Wellick? Or does his future hold real punishment for all his wrongs at last? Either way, it certainly feels as though his story isn’t over, and Season 4 will have to deal with that as it goes along.
Answers About Fernando Vera's Return
In the post-credits scene of the Season 3 finale, a familiar face from Mr. Robot’s first season returned. It’s unlikely many (or any) of us gave much thought to drug kingpin Fernando Vera after he blackmailed Elliot into getting him out of prison. After all, he murdered Shayla and was clearly a bad dude.
He is still a bad dude, for the record. Only, now he might be one with a bigger part to play. He’s the only person who ever really “beat” Elliot, so to speak. So perhaps he has some greater role in this story’s endgame. Will his presence motivate Elliot? Enrage him? Is he the proverbial final boss Elliot must somehow conquer? Is this a chance to get real justice for Shayla at last?
Free Dom!
The end of Mr. Robot Season 3 was certainly a bit difficult for our favorite FBI agent. Not only did she find out that her boss was a Dark Army double agent, but she also watched him die in front of her. Oh, and she was forced to take over his job after his death, becoming the very thing she’s spent her entire run on the series hunting. Sheesh.
Doubtless, Dom’s new status as a Dark Army operative means plenty of inner conflict for her character to both battle and explore in Season 4. But before the credits roll on Mr. Robot for good, she deserves to get her life back. And maybe to also arrest some of the garbage people who forced her to do terrible things to protect her loved ones.
A Real Future for Elliot
However Elliot manages to work with or alongside Mr. Robot in Season 4, that can’t be his entire story. Yes, saving the world and stopping the Dark Army are both important plot goals, but so much of this show has been about this man discovering the broken pieces of his psyche and trying to fuse them back into a functional whole. Whether that’s through something like therapy or via simply allowing Mr. Robot to take over in the face of responsibilities and problems he can’t face.
But these are Mr. Robot's final set of episodes. Sure, we as viewers deserve to—finally—see Elliot make some kind of strides towards integrating his two personalities. (If that's even possible?) Perhaps this story ends with Elliot dead or in jail, but if it doesn't, we should get the chance to see what a normal life for him could look like. Maybe he won't be successful at fully accepting his Mr. Robot side, but doesn't he deserve the chance to live as a whole person after all this?
Make It All Worth It
Season 4 appears set to undo much of Mr. Robot’s narrative... well, sort of. By the time the series ends, fsociety and friends will have both brought down the global economy, realized that was a bad idea, and restored it. (Or so we think/hope, anyway.) But if Elliot has truly undone the hack that started all this, what was the point of it all? We—and the show itself—can’t just go back to the status quo. We can’t pretend the events of the show never happened. So, somehow, Mr. Robot has to let us know that this was all worth it, that our heroes actions mattered.
The series’ original premise involved Elliot and fsociety changing the world via hacking. They certainly did that, for both good and ill, but it’s not clear what exactly undoing the original 5/9 hack means or how it will benefit or harm those fsociety most wished to help. It’s not like the world can be put back as it was. So what will—and should—it look like going forward? Both Elliot and Mr. Robot need to decide on a concrete answer to that question before we reach the end of this story.