What TV show did you last watch a season of on DVD/Blu-ray?

The 'Previously on' leads directly into this first episode of the final season, where we get a replay of that scene with Angela and Price/her dad from the end of last season. I think some of it's reused footage/dialogue, but some of it's new. He says Whiterose wanted to get to him, and that's why Angela was manipulated, she wants retribution, he tells her to live with it (which - spoiler alert! - won't be for that long), she then says she’s gonna get Whiterose back, Price tells her to shut-up and as she goes to walk off, she sees something, realises she’s screwed, he tells her he wishes she hadn't said what she said, she tells him she won't run and that he should go, then as he leaves it appears he was wearing a wire (hence why he didn't want her swearing revenge against Whiterose - who it would seem was listening in), which he takes off as he walks away and two masked goons walk over to Angela and one of them shoots her in the head (then again just to make sure she's dead dead and not just mostly dead). I'd known about this scene prior to watching it (spoiled myself), and I'd also read that Rami Malek cheated on Portia Doubleday while he was filming Bohemian Rhapsody (apparently they were together before that), which really sucks, since it obviously affected the show and the writing for her character - in this particular instance, Angela being killed off. I hate when r/l relationships between castmembers of shows ruin the dynamics of the characters that they play. It also majorly sucks that Angela's character got screwed over in the process. Yes, she did a bad thing in helping Whiterose that led to many deaths, but it's also clear she was manipulated/brainwashed into believing Whiterose could bring her mum (and Elliot's dad, as well as all the other dead people) back. Unfortunately, with this abrupt exit from the show, her character won't ever get to seek justice/payback for what Whiterose did to her and also to atone/redeem herself for her part in what happened. The worst part, however, is how her death seems to be more about how it affects the other characters than it is about her. When she's shot, it's from a distance and with the focus being on Price, then straight after we see him angry at Whiterose for killing his daughter and he says how he could've talked her out of seeking revenge, but Whiterose is having none of that. A disappointing end to a character who others didn't appreciate, but who I always thought was more complex than she might've first appeared. This was a major disservice to the character of Angela Moss and Portia Doubleday who portrayed her.

After this^ scene, despite knowing it was coming, I was in kind of a bad mood and not really enjoying much that came after it, including Whiterose having a new female minion (since the last one offed himself in last season's final) who keeps finding ways to say that Elliot sucks, Whiterose telling said minion to send Elliot a message of what will happen if he doesn’t fall into line, then guest-star Jake Busey getting sent a thumb drive with footage of an underage girl he watched and told to do things he shouldn't, Mr. Robot's the one we see is blackmailing him rather than Elliot (I guess to give Christian Slater more screentime/more to do), he gets Jake Busey to bring the thumb drive to the train station, Elliot finally appears and talks with Jake Busey who wants the thumb drive gone and is clearly afraid of the Dark Army, but in the end he realises he's pretty screwed and shoots himself in the head - if only I cared (which I didn't). It's Christmas time, 'The Little Drummer Boy' song plays, then we're treated to the most random cameo ever in the form of Emmy Rossum appearing as one of the carolers (something else I was spoiled for). Other things going on include Tyrell now apparently being seen as a ‘hero’ of sorts, things have seemingly gone back to being good after Elliot undid the big hack, and most annoyingly, we never get to see Elliot’s, Mr. Robot’s or Darlene’s reactions to learning of Angela’s death - they just suddenly know about it, though it appears Darlene’s totally not coping, as she claims she's seen Angela, but Elliot's dismissive/thinks she's on something (pot calling kettle black much?) and he annoys me with his attitude towards Angela's death as he says to Darlene that they tried to help her/her death’s not their fault/she did it to herself. He seems pretty unsympathetic towards how Darlene's feeling and claims they have nothing to feel guilty about, then Darlene points out that she’s not the one who feels guilty. After she leaves, Mr. Robot says Elliot should’ve shown her the pic Whiterose sent of Angela with the gaping bullet wound in her forehead (there's a super-quick one frame shot of dead Angela that appears onscreen), but Elliot says it would've broken Darlene's heart (so, I guess he's not entirely without feeling - like he was appearing to be - after all). Such a shame that we never got to see the characters' reactions to learning of Angela's death, as again it seems her character gets shortchanged. 

Ugh, Dom’s storyline was something I couldn't care less about. Basically, she's not looking well and is paranoid about guys being after her, she thinks her mum's fixing her up with a hefty taxidermist named Janice but she’s only acting nice until she makes vulgar threats to Dom about where she's going to cut her mum's body. Further evidence that Darlene's not handling Angela's death well is shown by her hosting a party of sorts where everyone's doing drugs, including her...that is until she kicks everyone out and hugs the ballet shoes that were on the floor whilst breaking down (in reference to that one scene we saw of them at ballet together back in the first season, I'd wager). The episode ends with guys busting in on Elliot, sticking him with a heroin needle, and the showrunner himself makes a cameo as he says "Goodbye, friend." to Elliot who sees his father, mother and kid self saying they’re going away as he seemingly dies, then the end credits begin...but it's a fake-out! As then we see Elliot get stuck with something else (this time up his nose) that apparently revives him while Price is suddenly there and says in his best Agent Smith-to-Neo voice "Welcome back, Mr. Alderson.", and this time the really real end credits roll. Can't say I was overly fond of this episode considering what was done to Angela. Although it seems inevitable that shows these days will off a few 'regulars' in their final seasons, I could've maybe lived with her character being offed if it hadn't been done in such a flippant manner, but considering the way it happened, Angela Moss/Portia Doubleday (kudos to her for her final performance as well as throughout the series) deserved better.






The second episode begins with a boring-arse voiceover from Price, while Whiterose is CGI’d into meeting famous figures like Tom Hanks was in Forrest Gump, then came another boring-arse scene with Elliot, Mr. Robot and Price, Mr. Robot voiceovers a bit (I guess they decided to give Rami Malek a break from the voiceovering and gave it to Hobo Christian Slater...though Rami's voiceovering had improved somewhat and wasn't as monotone/sleep-inducing as it was back in Season 1), and Price acknowledges Mr. Robot whilst walking past him (I always wonder about the logistics of Elliot's split personality and how he can be in one place and Mr. Robot be in another place - does Elliot just jump from place to place?). Thankfully, things pick up slightly after Elliot and Darlene get a call that their mum died, the woman talking to them about their mother's passing says how they must’ve felt so blessed to have her as a mum yadda yadda, and Darlene's like "Phfft!" (since we've seen all throughout the series that their mum was an abusive bitch), then she goes through the stuff their mum left, finds a fur coat, sees Star-Lord's Elliot’s Walkman, says that if he doesn’t want it, she'll have it, and she is clearly glad that their mum’s gone after way she treated them. Meanwhile, in Boringville, Dom explains what happened to her boss who was axed to death (but uses a cover story), then has to report back to Janice who is on the phone to her whilst going about her taxidermy business when a woman enters and throws down her dead white fluffball of a dog, saying she wants to be with her forever. Janice ain't happy Dom's only 90-something% sure she was convincing in telling the cover story...and I can't take Janice serious as a threat (Irving was more intimidating than her).

Someone else who ain't happy is Darlene, who's mad when a guy says the safety deposit box that she and Elliot just learned their mum has went missing. This causes her to yell/swear a lot in public, not to mention Elliot's pissing both her and me off because he seemingly doesn't care about Angela being dead (but apparently he’s not over it), they then listen to a tape on the Walkman of the three of them as kids. Price and Whiterose continue to bore me to tears with every scene/conversation they have and the only thing that woke me up during their one in this episode was it ending with a big extravagant Christmas being knocked over/smashed, which left me wondering what caused it/who knocked it over (because I wasn't even paying attention and must've slept through it). There's one amusing moment in the episode involving Darlene and Elliot at the train station and someone in a snowman costume has been waiting for a train next to them, listening into their conversation regarding Angela's passing, then the snowman offers condolences regarding their friend before leaving. The episode ends with a scene of Elliot as a kid and his mum at 'Evil Corp' (I think? I'm not sure it's even still being referred to as that in the show anymore). On the whole, this was a pretty boring-arse episode (and considering there's the revelation that Elliot might have a third personality - that kind of tells you something). 



The third episode wasn't off to a great start with the boring-arse origins of Whiterose. Boo-hoo, your secret lover offed himself - so this is why you built a machine that may or may not make time travel and/or alternate realities possible? *yawn* Also boring/annoying is Vera (the dude we last saw accosting Darlene in the post-credits scene of last season's final), who's stuffing chickens (probably causing cross-contamination, since I don't think he washes his hands) and ends up killing a loyal flunky because some kid observed what Elliot was reacting to with Krista in a photo that was taken of them (she didn't want to have anything to do with him anymore and he was reacting not-well to it) while the flunky didn’t. Oh well, at least the flunky doesn't have to listen to anymore of Vera's monologues anymore, so death for him is probably a blessing. The most interesting parts of the episode involve Elliot and Darlene getting into a verbal fight, him being a dick to her by saying he should've never let her back into his life (back off, Elliot, you jerk!) and then him needing to get a thumb drive from a woman named Olivia at a bar. He wants to use the fact that she's an ex-drug addict against her (since if she's caught using again, she'll lose custody of her kid), but Mr. Robot is actually the voice of reason in this instance who thinks there's a better approach. This leads to Elliot attempting to chat her up...except he just stares at her awkwardly for a while before apologising, saying that her date who stood her up on Christmas sucks and apparently that's enough to win her over, as then they start chatting. She thinks he’s a bit crazy because he matter-of-factly mentions someone made him do heroine and such, her date eventually turns up but because she's surprisingly having a good time with Elliot, she pretends not to be the person the date's there to meet. Clearly she wants to leave with Elliot, but he just sits there, she leaves looking annoyed, but eventually he runs out to snog her so he can go home with her to get the thumb drive. I thought the music playing throughout their interaction was really good.

Naturally, they go back to her place and do it, he wakes up and I guess is looking for the thumb drive or whatever, but ends up knocking over some pills in the bathroom. She catches him, but then instead of her kicking him out, they talk about/bond over wanting to off themselves (how romantic). She says that she thought he was crazy at the bar and admits she is too since she has a razor blade in a pill bottle to remind her to off herself if she hates herself enough to start using drugs again (most romantic date ever?). I thought the actress playing Olivia did a really good job with her performance, selling her tortured character's history, plus she had nice chemistry with Rami Malek. I guess they had to bring someone else in to be a 'love interest' of sorts for Elliot since Angela was no longer around. Speaking of 'love interests', although I'm sure the Tyrelliot shippers were over-the-moon, I personally was annoyed to see his stupid arse turn up to ruin things at the end of the episode, having busted into Elliot’s place (stalker that he is) and blurting out the plan to take down Whiterose while Elliot tried to shut him up and had to resort to writing a note saying that they were listening in before Tyrell finally shut his big fat mouth. So, while the beginning and ending more or less sucked, the middle part of this episode was at least decent (though I noted this episode that Hobo Christian Slater's voiceovering was actually starting to make me miss Rami Malek's voiceover - which I thought would never be possible).





The fourth episode picks up where the previous one left off, only now it's from the POV of the guy sitting in the van and listening in on Elliot/Tyrell's conversation from the end of the last episode, but Tyrell's already run out, opened up the back of the van and whacks the dude, thinking he's dead (shouldn't Tyrell be a professional at killing people by now and therefore know he should always check for a pulse to make sure the person's dead? Well...I guess he sucks at pretty much everything else, so it should come as no surprise that he sucks at making sure people are dead dead - instead of just mostly dead - too). They eventually wind up in the back-arse of nowhere, go looking for directions, a woman reckons she's seen Tyrell somewhere before, he’s losing patience with her (now he knows how *I* feel whenever his character's onscreen) and she thinks he's from Big Brother. Anyway, they find the van is missing (this is WHY you *always* check for a pulse, Tyrell! Rookie move), the woman continues to blather on, Mr. Robot's had enough and loses it at the woman (I wonder if she gets back at them by purposely giving them incorrect directions?) and they decide to hoof it to wherever. Meanwhile, Darlene's leaving an expletive-laden voice message for Elliot telling him how much he sucks as a brother and that she’s done with him after he told her to eff off during their fight in the previous episode (but then once she's let out all her anger, she calms down and re-records a new, much more civil voice message instead). She then goes to steal a car, but a drunk Santa catches her in the act, she tries to get herself out of this situation by eventually making a deal with drunk Santa to drive him home (since he's clearly in no condition to drive himself) if he doesn't turn her in. At first I thought he kept calling her 'Dalia' by mistake (which was the name of Carly Chaikin's character in Suburgatory), but disappointingly it appears I was mistaken and he was actually calling her 'Dolly' (missed opportunity to use her Suburgatory character's name here, guys!). As usual, Dom's boring and is currently chatting with someone online like they're teenagers until agreeing to meet after the reveal of it being a woman posing as guy who then turns out to be someone in a mask who drowns Dom in a bathtub...but unfortunately, it's only a hallucination. Oh, and how could I forget that at one point Dom's getting herself off by watching Darlene’s interrogation clip?

Back in the only storyline this episode that actually interested me, Darlene and drunk Santa have a heart-to-heart, she talks about Elliot and the way he treated her, when they get to drunk Santa's house she thinks he's depressed and wanting to off himself, she doesn't want to leave him alone, mentioning about his wife being dead - but that’s not it at all, and he clarifies that his wife's on pain medication because she messed up her back putting up Christmas lights or whatever. He also realises the car they drove in isn't even his car. The boring-arse trio (if you count Mr. Robot as separate to Elliot) are trekking through the woods, Tyrell whines about Elliot never caring about him, which he admits to (heh), Elliot makes the baffling claim that Tyrell is the 'only one' who likes him (well, Darlene did like you until you told her to eff off, you jerk!), though at least he admits to Tyrell that he treated Darlene like crap, there are more boring Mr. Robot voiceovers (sorry I dissed your voiceovering back in Season 1, Elliot! Come back!), they stumble across the missing van which has crashed, when they go to check on the driver, Tyrell is so useless that he gets his fool self shot by the guy who first shot at Elliot and then shot himself. When Tyrell turns around to reveal the bullet wound he has no one to blame for but himself, I was amused at Elliot’s half-arsed "I can’t let you die.", Tyrell reckons he’s done (funny...I was done with you back in Season 1, Tyrell) and then says he’s just going to go for a walk and I think they just wanted the image of a figure in the middle of a misty road because it makes for an interesting visual and not because it made much sense at all. He stumbles through the woods and at first I thought the episode would end with him collapsing to the ground dead and an overhead shot of him or something, then I totally thought Darlene would be driving and hit Tyrell walking in middle of street...but no, instead he just frustratingly keeps on keeping on until he hears the sounds of a dying whale or something before coming across a purple/blue glowing light that he looks down at which leads to a white flash and into the end credits (with black text on a white background like the Season 5 final of Lost and Season 4 final of Supernatural both had). So...did Tyrell return to his home planet, disappear into a spaceship or jump into an alternate reality? I never gave two figs about his character, since he just appeared to do random shit/never seemed to have much direction. I feel certain viewers made him out to be this great character that he never actually was (I always found that the most interesting thing about him was actually his wife, who knew how to come across as creepy/intimidating), and it looks like even the showrunner didn't know what to do with his character/got bored of him. While the Tyrelliot shippers were no doubt devastated by this episode, I was glad to finally be rid of his character (which I knew was coming, having spoiled myself that he died - though I didn't know the specifics surrounding his demise). Anyway, hopefully his corpse will feed some hungry wolves or whatever. Have fun becoming wolf shit, Tyrell.




The fifth episode begins with Elliot setting the van (and the Dark Army guy inside it) ablaze, Darlene finally enters Elliot's storyline (which I'd thought would happen at the end of the previous episode) and for a minute she thinks the van has crashed and exploded with Elliot inside it (judging by her reaction) all to the tune of 'Ode to Joy', which plays over the scene until there's almost a record scratch as Elliot appears, revealing himself to not be dead, and enters the car, with the flames reflected on the windows, as she says "It’s cool, dude. We don’t have to talk." before driving off - and that's the last piece of dialogue we hear any character utter until the end of the episode. It took me a while to work out this was going to be a special 'silent' episode without anyone talking and the only dialogue coming from phone ringtones, radios, etc (not even a news reporter on the TV at Dom’s home had sound). Did the Gentlemen from BtVS come to town and steal everyone's voices? I think what finally tipped me off that there was an 'oddness' to this episode was Darlene going for a prolonged period of time without dropping any F-bombs, especially once they got into high-tension situations and she was just panicking silently. Not to mention when Elliot was outdoing Tom Cruise as far as running goes, I would've thought he'd curse/say stuff out of exhaustion, but it especially became strange when the guy who hit him with his car didn't utter a word (almost as odd as Elliot seemingly being totally fine and continuing to evade the police who didn't yell out the usual "Stop! Police!" that happens in every scene I've watched with cops pursuing someone). Boring parts of the episode included Price, Krista, Dom and the taxidermist, Janice. Only the Elliot/Darlene stuff held my interest (I was amused to see Darlene's disguise as 'Dolores Haze', since it was so different to how she usually looked). There was a really neat shot of the two of them running down an orange staircase when they were making good their escape which I thought was pretty impressive, and I particularly appreciated that after having had a fight two episodes ago, it appeared Darlene and Elliot had made up, as the two of them held hands in their escape vehicle (apparently this was a callback to an earlier episode where Elliot reminded Darlene of when they were kids and how she'd have one of her 'episodes'/panic attacks, Elliot would tell her to squeeze his hand and she'd know he was there/everything was okay and real). Too bad Vera had to turn up at the end to ruin everything by accosting Krista and saying how it was time to talk. Ugh. On the whole, while this certainly wasn't on the same level as the BtVS episode 'Hush', it was an admirable effort...though they really should've found other ways around not having dialogue when logically there most definitely should've been in certain situations - they could've just cut to far away shots or something, so talking actually was happening but we just weren't close enough to hear it (I think there may have been one instance of this with Darlene and a security guard. I'm pretty sure they exchanged a few words when we were in Elliot's POV outside the building and weren't listening in, while the rest of the time the two avoided verbal exchanges).



Ugh. The sixth episode begins with one of the worst things ever - ie. annoying villain monologuing. To make matters worse, Vera has chosen to wear a yellow jumpsuit...intentionally. Actually, the whole frickin' scene seems to be yellow as he tells Krista a long boring story of a bully, a "little bitch" (this has to have set some sort of record for the amount of times the word 'bitch' has been uttered within a single scene) and a baseball bat - which is what Krista is to him, as he wants to break down Elliot and build him up and own him like the 'little bitch' did to the bully who he came to hold the hand of in hospital after knocking all his teeth out. He seems like he's going to lose it at one point when he realises Krista was thinking that the 'little bitch' in the story was him, but all he does is keep. on. talking. Seriously, he NEVER SHUTS UP. This is the WORST kind of villain, as they're so in love with the sound of their own voice and hearing themselves spout philosophical BS as well as drawn-out monologues that could've reached the point in half the time - just as this story could've. Elsewhere, Janice sends Dom to go get Darlene’s phone to find Elliot and then orders her to kill Darlene (which would suck for her, since she and Elliot were back on good terms after he apologised for saying he should’ve never let her back in his life). Carly Chaikin gave an excellent performance, really selling Darlene thinking she was going to get shot whilst stuck in a bath tub. It was actually quite intense (even though I was pretty sure Darlene was going to survive), but Dom just ends up whacking her in the head instead, which causes a gushing head wound.

Meanwhile, Elliot gets a peppermint mocha for Olivia, Mr. Robot says he's crossing a line...and, no, it's not the peppermint mocha he objects to, but rather the fact that Elliot's apparently drugged it - as his plan is to do what he originally intended back in the episode where he met Olivia, which was to threaten her with the loss of custody regarding her kid if she got caught using again. Why is he doing this? Because he needs her to do something for him in regards to his plot for taking down Whiterose (I think). He tells her about 'Evil Corp' (which I'm not sure is even still being referred to as 'Evil Corp' at this point) and what he wants her to do, then admits he drugged her to blackmail her into making the phone call that he requires. Elliot's done some pretty low things previously, but drugging a former drug addict - especially one who he'd gotten to trust him and made her feel like they had a connection - has to be the ABSOLUTE WORST thing he's done yet. It's kind of hard to like him after this, and I knew straight away she was going to use the razor in the pill bottle in her bathroom that she'd mentioned previously. Sure enough, she makes good on her promise to kill herself if she ever used again, but Elliot somehow manages to stop the bleeding, then explains to her how he can take down the company (might've been better to do this first before resorting to drugging and blackmail). In the end, she does what he wants, but is justifiably PISSED at him and rightfully says that although she may work for monsters, he *is* one and the worst kind at that (he doesn’t even know it). Once again, the actress playing Olivia did a really good job. It's a shame Elliot had to mess everything up between them. 

Back with Dom, she frees Darlene and then begs to be shot so that Janice will spare her family (because she thinks Janice is sane for some reason and won't hurt her family if she doesn't think Dom let Darlene go free?), but unfortunately Janice shows up during the middle of this and...just takes the gun away? I mean, sure, she's backed up by a couple of goons, but surely Dom or Darlene could've at least shot/wounded one or two of them before they did anything about it. Luckily, Darlene's wiped her phone before Janice can use it to find where Elliot is, so she can't afford to off her just yet until she gets it working again. How lame/useless must these bad guys be that they can't find a guy who's constantly wandering the streets? And why would the Dark Army be willing to off Darlene instead of use her as leverage against Elliot? Doesn't seem too bright. Krista seemingly caves and directs Vera to a file that will 'break' Elliot, who ends up getting kidnapped by Vera's goons at the end of the episode and thrown in the boot of a car (this seems to happen to Elliot quite a bit). 





The beginning of the seventh episode features the credits that usually appear over the start of each episode appearing just in the boot of the car Elliot was thrown into...so basically it's just boring blackness the whole time until the boot's finally opened and he's pulled out. Clearly this was used so no credits appeared over the rest of the episode. I remember Joss Whedon created an entire opening scene for his episode of BtVS titled 'The Body' just so he could get through the credits that appeared at the start of the episode without them actually distracting from anything important (so the whole scene was just a flashback). It seems that's what was going on here, as...ugh, it's going to be one of those types of episodes - ie. one SO pretentious that it has special 'Act One', 'Act Two', etc title cards for each segment of the episode. And worse than that, it's basically a whole episode of Vera's intolerable monologuing/philosophical BS. WHYYYYY?! Honestly, this episode was a struggle to sit through and the only thing that made it even slightly bearable was Mr. Robot having no time for Vera's BS, calling him out on it and insulting him. Speaking of insults, when one of Vera's cronies insults Mr. Robot's name, all I could think was "Your name's 'Peanut', a-hole. You got no business insulting anyone else's name EVER!". And speaking of 'ever'...it took FOREVER to get to the actual point of this episode, then it felt like ten minutes of going around in circles asking the same questions/saying the same things until FINALLY Krista just came right out and said what she should've said ages ago - which was that Elliot was molested by his dad when he was young and that's why he jumped out the window (to save Darlene, who was hidden in a closet). This was another reveal that I'd accidentally spoiled myself for, so it wasn't that big of a shock. All I could think was....were we supposed to like Vera because he gave Elliot a pep talk after? Because him being part of why this information came to light didn't in any way change my opinion of him and I still wanted him dead. Thankfully, Krista obliged (by knifing him in the back mid-speech, finally shutting the bastard up). It's the single best thing Krista's ever done (too bad she didn't kill his annoying cronies too). While Rami Malek did an excellent job conveying all the emotions Elliot was going through, I can't say this episode impressed me as much as it apparently did most other people (I think its 9.9/10 star rating on the IMDB page for the episode is especially ridiculous, as it's not even the 'best' episode of the season, let alone the show as a whole). It was just too far up its own arse and even verged into the unintentionally hilarious with the overdramatic music playing along with the thunderstorm going on. Then again, I felt the same way about 'The Body' (another 'unpopular' opinion of mine). I guess some people just lap this stuff up, but for me it was an episode focusing on mostly characters I didn't care about and it felt extremely self-indulgent on the showrunner's part. On the plus side, though, at least Vera's finally DEAD. Hallelujah! 

After the previous episode's giant wank-fest, it was good to finally get back to finding out what was happening with Darlene in this eighth episode. Unfortunately, just as we were rid of Vera, Janice replaced him as the villain who likes monologuing about random shit such as lightning creating the first city or somesuch as she's rolling out the torture tools she intends to use (this comes after the opening sequence which features Dom's family being grabbed as ‘It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’ plays - which is kind of a plus, as it finally shut up the annoying little mouthy shits fighting over cards or whatever). Janice looks like she’s going to stab Darlene, but thankfully doesn't - plus, Darlene gets two great lines (one of which involves the word 'cvnt stick', while the other is a line I feel like saying quite often to people I'm not fond of) - and stabs Dom instead, saying she’ll be dead in 15 mins or so. Oh well. Janice is still wanting Elliot's location (the Dark Army really are bad at tracking people down, it seems...except when they aren't) and needs Darlene to undo the wiping of her phone, she refuses, so Janice is going to calls guys to start offing Dom’s fam (this is after Janice has been told Elliot’s not at the location he was supposed to be, which is due to him and Krista managing to get away after she stabbed Vera in the back. How I wish she'd offed his two cronies too, since they're clearly not very loyal cronies who just steal dead Vera's wallet and leave). Darlene eventually gave Elliot's location, but it's not her fault he isn't there. Janice thinks she's lying, but Dom says she can tell that Darlene’s not lying about not knowing where Elliot now is. When Janice calls her goons at Dom's house, they don’t answer - which Dom knows about, since said goons have been offed by other goons led by an Irish guy who Dom had rescue her family by getting them out of the house before the Dark Army goons showed up (that's what was going on at the start of the episode - a clear misdirect. Though if they were helping Dom's family, why tie them up, etc?). While Janice is preoccupied on the phone, one of her goons stands too close to Dom and she kicks him, he falls down, she grabs his gun, shoots him, then shoots Janice (HURRAY!) and then the goon behind her without looking - this is the MOST I’ve ever liked Dom (she’s doing remarkably well for someone with a knife in their lung). Darlene cuts herself and Dom free and Dom tells her to go to Elliot, though she doesn’t want to leave Dom. While all this has been happening, Elliot and Krista have gone to the police precinct, she wants to keep seeing him/having sessions with him after the big revelation from last episode, Mr. Robot reappears at the end to say he’s not the same as Elliot’s father who abused him, though still apologies and feels guilty, but is there for Elliot who breaks down and is unable to do whatever hack he was planning to do. There was something at the beginning of the episode involving kid Elliot hiding a key or whatever at a place he and kid Angela used to go (it was nice to see adult Angela in the 'Previously on' after her absence following the first episode of this season).




The ninth episode begins with Mr. Robot, Elliot’s mum and Elliot's kid self talking about adult Elliot not knowing stuff till he’s ready and how Darlene can help with something or other. Elliot himself isn't in the first half of the episode, but we get to see quite a bit of Darlene interacting with Mr. Robot instead (which was refreshing). As usual, there's boring stuff with Whiterose and Price that I don't care about, though he had me going for a second when he was on the phone to Mr. Robot, attempting to convince him that Angela was still alive (even though I knew she was dead, I held out hope that maybe there was a chance - which is basically what Whiterose was trying to achieve here with Elliot). I thought there was a really neat transition from Mr. Robot to Elliot, where we hadn't seen Elliot up until this point, but as soon as Whiterose brought up Angela and tried to use her to manipulate him, it brought out Elliot. He's not buying Whiterose's BS, and with Darlene's help, the two of them steal all of Whiterose’s money (as well as other rich people’s money) to give to the poor. They basically pull a Robin Hood (interesting that no one took notice of Darlene doing the hack out in public whilst surrounded by a crowd). This is what Whiterose gets for not only trying to manipulate Elliot with a lie about Angela still being alive, but also he should've listened to his female minion who quit because Whiterose ignored her warnings and was acting stupid. It's good that Elliot and Darlene got revenge for Angela's murder by taking away the one thing Whiterose cared about and it was satisfying seeing Whiterose’s smugness wiped away. Darlene looked happy once the job was done, while Elliot looked relieved. Price gloats about it and gets one final dig in, saying "You didn’t lose, you just ran out of time” – which had to be the ultimate burn to Whiterose, who’s obsessed with time - before being gunned down in public as the price (no pun intended) for his insult. The episode ends with Whiterose's place being shot up by FBI and we just hear the sounds of it happening over the end credits. There was an 80's-style score during parts of this episode, which I liked, but other than that…meh.

The tenth episode starts with Dom in hospital, recovering from having been stabbed by Janice, she doesn’t want to stay there and somehow manages to be allowed to go home, where she proceeds to listen to Faith Hill and eat a sad grilled cheese sandwich until Darlene finds her there, says she wants her to go away with her (since Dom's family is safe now), but Dom's just in permanent sad sack mode until Darlene loses it and finally kills Amazon Alexa after telling her off. It was a cheer-worthy moment, as I couldn't take another second of the most boring relationship on the show - ie. Dom & Alexa (Domlexa?). After getting the kick up the butt that she so desperately needed, Dom reluctantly agrees to go with Darlene, who shares a tearful goodbye with Elliot because he's not joining her, but he tells her that their hack they did is her win and she should be the one to distribute the money they stole from the rich to give to the poor (it shows what progress he's made when he's the one to instigate the hug between them), which is exactly what she does and it's the most happy I think we've seen Darlene, since she's got Dom with her as she does her Robin Hood thing. Once again I get bored by Leon who turns up with his tiresome movie critiques/recommendations. He freaks Dom out, since he doesn't really care that the last time they saw each other he offed several people in the barn where she was being held (she even has to remind him of it). She later runs into Irving and is scared shitless of him too, begging him not to hurt her and Darlene, but according to him, he and the Dark Army couldn't give two shits about them (nor Dom's family) anymore...but he does insist that she pay for a new book of his that he autographs for her. It felt like both he and Leon were just in this episode because the showrunner wanted to have them make one final appearance before the series was over (whether it really made sense/was necessary for them to show up or not). 

Darlene and Dom are going to go to Budapest until Dom changes her mind at the last second and wants to stay because of 'responsibilities' or whatever, this understandably upsets Darlene, who says she doesn’t do well alone, but Dom offers some half-hearted words of encouragement and this is the most emotional we’ve seen Darlene, I think (damn you, Dom, for breaking Darlene's heart! She deserves better than you!). Darlene’s about to hand over her plane ticket at the door but has a panic attack and leaves just as Dom (who's also changed her mind) runs to the line for the plane that Darlene was just standing in seconds ago. In the bathroom, a woman checks Darlene's okay and after recomposing herself, she says she's going to be fine. Meanwhile, Dom's on the plane, alone, and has fallen asleep with Irving's book and an empty chair next to her. I was surprised to see some people speculate that Dom was either dead or about to be dead (like Irving was a Bond villain and gave her an exploding book). Not quite as surprising was the fact that there were those who really crapped on this episode because *GASP* it focused on two women and their relationship with each other! I myself was fine with it and would take this episode over the one seemingly everybody loved/praised (ie. the seventh episode) ANY day. So this episode featured a Carly Rae Jepson song and was all about two women - big deal! It was a nice one and I appreciated how it flipped the usual cliché of two lovers running to meet up at the airport by having them NOT actual wind up together in the end (though my sympathies to the 'Domlene' shippers who didn't get what they'd hoped for...but, hey, neither did the Tyrelliot shippers, so take comfort in that). 







The eleventh episode picks up right where the ninth episode left off (so I guess this was happening whilst Darlene and Dom were doing their thing last episode) with Whiterose putting on lipstick for what feels like forever while the FBI are storming the place, guns ablazing, but then it appears Whiterose's goons have turned up and been victorious against the FBI dudes, all of whom are dead...except one...who’s then dead a minute later. We get a replay of the Elliot/Darlene goodbye scene from the tenth episode, he hugs her for longer than she'd planned to, I think, (she even says goodbye to Mr. Robot as she passes him when leaving) and then it's just music playing with slow-mo walking - firstly The Beach Boys' ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ and then some other song I wasn't familiar with - before Elliot finally has a big chat with Whiterose which seems to take up the majority of the episode. It seems Whiterose's shtick is to surround people with familiar things from their childhood, which was done previously with Angela and is also the case here with Elliot. There’s his old computer and even his fish Shayla gave him (I was mildly amused when he just casually mentioned Whiterose somehow managing to acquire Qwerty the fish, since one wonders just how that was accomplished), and basically their big convo boils down to Elliot thinking that Whiterose hates the world/blames it for everything, but then Whiterose gives a big speech about how that isn't the case at all and goes totally OTT with the shouting/yelling, turns the accusation around on Elliot and declares that he's the one who hates society (I mean, it's right there in the name 'fsociety', which Elliot did come up with, so Whiterose has a point). Elliot admits that he does think society sucks, but then says some people love him, so he’ll fight for them/the world or whatever.

Honestly, I kind of zoned out during this drawn-out/seemingly neverending scene since it was pretty damn boring. I mean, really?? The big confrontation between the show's 'hero' and its 'Big Bad' is them just having a somewhat heated conversation? Lame! Whiterose says Elliot has to make a choice...and then commits suicide, the place starts shaking since the machine’s in use, Mr. Robot’s freaking out, Elliot plays a game on the old-timey computer which is asking a bunch of scenario questions about moving a barrel, going through a tunnel, a friend handing over a note that there's not enough lighting to read, leaving said friend behind and then the world ends/a new world is created...or something? Anyway, Elliot gets a do-over with the game, playing it again and this time lighting a match after receiving the note from the friend that asks him to stay and he does - this seems to work, but then the place keeps shaking and everything goes red for a while, then Elliot wakes up in seemingly an alternate reality where he's going to marry Angela (though they only talk over the computer because obviously the actors in r/l apparently couldn't stand to be in the same room as each other), he keeps talking about Angela finding out something, his dad’s alive (with subtle old age makeup on Hobo Christian Slater), Tyrell is too...but he resembles Hobo Christian Slater now with the facial hair, glasses and dressing like someone who's unemployed. 'Evil Corp' (which hasn't actually been called that pretty much this whole season, I don't think, and has just been called 'E Corp' like it was supposed to be all this time) is now 'F Corp' in this new reality, the hazmat suit-wearing hamburger-eating guy who's randomly appeared at various times shows up again at one point (he really doesn't seem to have much variance in his diet) and Alt-reality Elliot returns home to find his other self (from the normal reality) at his computer and asks him who he is.

The 'Previously on' at the start of the twelfth episode showed things in a weird order, I noted, like Alt-reality Elliot (Alt-Realliot?) meeting normal Elliot before showing the machine causing everything to go all red (when actually it happened the other way around). Do your 'Previously on' clips in chronological order, show! Where we pick up this episode is with normal reality Elliot (Normal Realliot?) waking up in the middle of an empty place which is where the nuclear power plant was before the machine went off. I can't quite remember the order some of the events of this episode happen in (I blame the 'Previously on' for throwing me off with it's non-chronological order!), but I know that at one point he pays a visit to his dad's Mr. Robot store (but leaves, accidentally dropping his phone, before his dad comes out to see who his customer is), then he goes searching in his old neighbourhood, meets a girl on a bike (who I think was in the hallucination episode from the first season...except the actress has obviously aged since then, assuming it's the same one), he asks about his sister, Darlene, but Bike Girl says he doesn't have a sister, then his very much alive mum - who's over the other side of the street - calls out to him after he's done some lame hiding behind a bush (as if she wouldn't have been able to spot the obvious black-hoodied figure lurking there), tells him to come over, she notices he’s acting weird, he wonders where his bedroom is, finds that it's in a different part of his house (he wanted to check the window he jumped out of - that’s why he went searching for his room), he learns Angela’s also alive and he’s getting married to her, and I was amazed that his mum was able to hear things he said about Darlene, considering he was whispering and she's a fair distance away from him when he's muttering these things (she must have super-hearing). He has an awkward conversation with his mum where he asks if she or his dad ever hurt him, but she says 'no'.

After he learns where Angela is, he goes to visit, a not-dead Price/her dad answers the door all "Mr. Anderson Mr. Alderson" like he's Agent Smith in The Matrix, then Angela's not-dead mum appears also, they notice he’s acting weird too, then for some reason they think he’s playing a game with their phone, but it’s the other Elliot on the line (making the phone call that he did to Angela’s mum last episode). Two Elliots talking apparently causes the alt-reality to shake, Elliot breaks something in the process, Angela's mum cuts her hand whilst picking up the pieces, neither Elliot nor Price seem that concerned or try to help her, he leaves and goes to the other Elliot’s place, uses his computer, finds sketches of himself, Darlene and other characters, then the camera goes weird, making a repetitive move over and over, shifting between Elliot, the keyboard and the computer screen. Then the soundtrack goes even weirder (it's actually quite bizarre and pretty annoying). Alt-Realliot enters, asking who Normal Realliot is and thus we’re back to where the last episode ended. Alt-Realliot wonders why Normal Reallliot looks like him, they talk about making up a comic book hacker vigilante character, Normal Realliot asks the other one if he wants to *be* him (since he has drawings of him), he answers 'no' because that Elliot is angry, alone and weird...then, amusingly, he apologises for just having kind of insulted him right to his face. Anyway, they get into fight, Alt-Realliot accidentally whacks his head on something hard in the most awkward-looking way possible, there's blood everywhere on the floor, Normal Realliot says he’s gonna call someone, then the phone rings and it's Angela’s saying thanks for a book or whatever that he was secretly planning to give her, he obviously misses her, the not-quite-dead-yet Alt-Realliot manages to remind Normal Realliot that he was going to call medical assistance, but talking to Angela has given him the brilliant idea to assume Alt-Realliot's identity, which he does after offing him so he can be with Angela. As if we hadn't already gotten enough of the weird/annoying music on the soundtrack in the actual episode, we're then subjected to it again over the end credits (which have a red background). GAH! Make it stop! 

It feels like it's taken twice as long as it probably should have to get here, but we're FINALLY at the thirteenth/series final episode, which picks up with Normal Realliot having offed Alt-Reallliot...and hopefully this is the last time I'll need to refer to them that way, as it was getting annoying. Also annoying is the weird music that apparently the showrunner fell in love with last episode, because it wasn't enough that we got it in that episode, but we get it again here too. It's like the most annoying background music he could've chosen to use. Mr. Robot has a talk with murderous Elliot, pointing out that he’s stealing dead Elliot’s life by marrying Angela, but murderous Elliot reckons he had no choice because the two of them apparently couldn't co-exist in the same reality (hence all the shaking/earthquakes that had occurred). Not content with murdering his alt-self and stealing his life/bride, Elliot then steals a wheelie thing for unpacking boxes from trucks, sticks the Elliot corpse in a box, tapes it up, wheels it out to the truck, but Officer Dom (who's in a police uniform instead of normal clothes, so apparently she's been demoted in this alt-reality) catches him having been parked for too long, turns out he's a crap liar, she's gonna give him ticket, she asks for his license, but when he gives it to her she says that's not who he is, she then notices the blood on the white cuff of the tuxedo he's wearing for the wedding, there's also blood seeping out the bottom of the box, so she pulls her gun and he immediately runs away, with her in pursuit...but I guess she's not really cut out for chasing perps, as he manages to lose her by running down to the subway and getting on a train - which is, of course, the familiar place he and Mr. Robot used to chat during Season 1. Speaking of, Mr. Robot's there, and no matter how much Elliot tries to leave him behind, he’s still there telling him Angela’s dead, his plan to steal other Elliot's life isn't going to work, etc. Elliot's final insult to Mr. Robot is telling him that all he ever wanted from him was to be left alone.

He then goes to Coney Island for the wedding and the guests are dressed the same on each side (ie. the guys in suits, the women in identical red dresses), all wearing fsociety masks, Mr. Robot now seems to want to be helpful and tells Elliot some stuff that I can't recall, then Elliot sees Angela in the distance wearing her wedding dress, she runs away, he runs after her, and eventually when he catches up with her she talks to him from a distance (due to split screen, possibly? It seems Rami Malek and Portia Doubleday were SO on the outs with each other at this point that the show had to resort to going the same route as The Good Wife did when Julianna Margulies and Archie Panjabi could no longer tolerate being in the same scene, which is a shame. This final episode could've given us some closure with their characters if the actors could've actually acted with each other, but instead it looks like they may have filmed separately and that was spliced together along with footage from back in the first season which had to be used - though at least this proved one thing, which was that the showrunner must've had this scene in mind back when he started the show, since there was the two characters in wedding garb all the way back in that Season 1 hallucination episode). I'm not sure when exactly it happened, but at one point Elliot was seeing Mr. Robot everywhere (his face was on every other person - including kids and women, which just made for nightmare fuel) and then one ended up being Tyrell, who shot Elliot (and that's the last we see of him, thankfully). I can't remember how exactly, but Elliot eventually winds up in a therapy session with Krista, she tells him he’s not the 'real' Elliot, that he’s another persona (along with Mr. Robot, his mother and his kid self - all of whom served a different role/purpose) and that this Elliot we've been following all this time is actually the 'mastermind' persona who was created to help the 'real' Elliot deal with what happened to him as a kid (I think) and he got stuck in this 'prison' of sorts to keep him safe whilst the other personas dealt with shit - at least that's my understanding of what Krista was saying. While I mightn't have fully comprehended everything she said, I think I got the gist of it. 

She also mentions how everyone in this alt-reality are people who are dead in the actual really real reality (does this mean Dom did in fact die on that plane?), we learn the reason Darlene's not in this alt-reality was not because she was unimportant, but because she was THE MOST important one in his life, Elliot says he wants real Elliot's life, he wakes up in hospital (he was brought there after the machine had a meltdown or whatever), talks to Darlene, she knew he wasn’t the 'real' him all this time, he ends up going back into his mind prison or wherever, joins up with his other three family member personas, gives a big speech, they go to a movie theatre (presumably to watch Back to the Future Part II?), there's a tunnel of images speeding by (characters/moments from the show, I'm guessing, though I can hardly make any of them out), the theme song from the TV series Versailles plays as we exit through Elliot's eyeball and the last shot (which I was VERY happy about, as I'd been worried we were going to end the show before that with the persona fam in the movie theatre) is Darlene walking into frame, as we look at her from Elliot's perspective, and she finally gets to greet the 'real' Elliot for the first time in forever by saying, "Hello, Elliot." with the hint of a smile (which is clearly intended as a callback to the show beginning with Elliot's greeting of "Hello, friend." when he first spoke to us, the audience. It was funny how he still claimed that was a lame name to give us, the audience, and it was kind of neat how even Krista acknowledged us earlier when she was giving Elliot the big exposition dump). I liked one comment I read about how Darlene's signature heart-shaped glasses were a sort of representation of her love for Elliot. Carly Chaikin's praises must definitely be sung regarding not only her scenes in this episode, but also for her performance throughout this final season and basically the series as a whole. When watching Suburgatory, I had no idea she was capable of showing so much depth and raw emotion, but she really impressed me. I'm not sure I would've been able to stick with the show if not for her/Darlene.







While I didn't know the details of how the show ended, I'd actually been somewhat spoiled (mostly unintentional) for things including the Elliot we'd been following all this time not being the 'real' Elliot. However, I didn't find it really 'ruined' things that much. I think if I'd been completely unspoiled, I would've been left wondering "WTF??" after this episode, but from reading comments and the odd vague spoiler, I was more or less able to figure out what was being said/revealed. I'd probably have to rewatch the show to double-check that everything that was said/revealed in this episode held up under scrutiny and didn't clash with anything we'd seen previously/there was no 'retconning'. I think it pretty much all fine/checked out, and I even found it fairly satisfying (I think Darlene being the final shot/getting the final line of the show helped a lot with that, since she'd become probably my favourite character in the show over the course of the four seasons). I wasn't even mad, like some people apparently were, that we didn't actually get to see nor hear from the 'real' Elliot. I didn't feel it was a 'cop-out' like some claimed. I figured he was basically like the 'Alt-Realliot' we'd seen in the past two episodes, personality-wise (ie. just basically 'normal'). While I'm sure this final episode probably wasn't what everyone was hoping for (I think a series final that pleases everyone is kind of impossible), I was fairly happy with it.

This season as a whole, though, I was less fond of. I'd say the fourth/final season was a bit of a slog to get through, and part of the reason for that was because there were more episodes this season and that felt like just an excuse for some self-indulgence on the showrunner's part (though I didn't actually mind the 'silent' episode or the 'Domlene' episode like most seemed to, though I could've done without the Vera-monologuing-for-what-felt-like-forever episode - but clearly that one was 'important' given the revelation that came from it). I've seen some describe this show as 'depressing', though I personally never found it super-depressing (I've watched other shows that I've found more depressing than this one). Still, it's been an interesting journey, the show explored multiple personas in a really interesting way, and was pretty interesting - which I was grateful for, especially considering that I didn't know what I was getting into when I took a chance on the show by buying the first two seasons on Blu-ray and started watching them. It's certainly 'different'. I'd say the first Season was easily the best and the fourth was the 'worst' (though still better than certain other shows' final seasons), while I'm not sure what order I'd rank the second and third seasons. I'm inclined to say I liked Season 3 a bit more than Season 2. Anyway, I'm glad I took that chance on this show, which allowed me to see Rami Malek's acting that everyone was raving about (catch you in No Time to Die soon enough, Malek!) and, most importantly, I gained a newfound respect for Carly Chaikin as an actress. Even when I was bored during certain episodes, I had her character to keep me interested/entertained (especially since she had some of the best lines in the series) as well as the visual style of the show (which other shows could take notes from in how to compose visually interesting shots). This was quite a ride I went on, and I'm glad that it ended in a (mostly) satisfying/fulfilling way (which is something else other shows could take notes from). Considering I was hesitant to give it a go at first because people made out it was so 'confusing' and I thought I wouldn't be smart enough to understand it, in the end it really wasn't that hard to follow (most of the time) and the payoff for taking a chance on it proved rewarding. I think I'll miss this show. Goodbye, friend.