‘Mr Robot’ Episode 9 sees Darlene and Elliot outmaneuver Whiterose with Deus Group hack leaving 1% broke, Mr Price is casualty
Spoilers ahead for 'Mr. Robot' Season 4 Episode 9 'Conflict'
What a Christmas it has been on 'Mr. Robot', ending in the events of this week's episode 'Conflict'. From the soundless hack of the Cypress National Bank servers to Elliot Alderson's (Rami Malek) trojan coffee delivery to Olivia Cortez (Dominik Garcia-Lorido), to Vera (Elliot Villar) kidnapping Elliot and his therapist Krista Gordon (Gloria Rueben) to that final, terrible revelation that leaves Elliot too broken to continue with the hack.
At the beginning of this week's episode, Mr. Robot (Christian Slater) walks into what we now know as the boardroom of Elliot's fractured psyche where his alters meet and talk without the OG Elliot listening in. Three of the four seats are occupied by Magda Alderson (Vaishnavi Sharma), an alter based on Elliot's mother, the child version of Elliot, and finally, Mr. Robot, modeled on Elliot's father.
The fourth seat is empty, reserved for the "Other One", that Magda and the child worry is going to sleep forever until Mr. Robot reminds them "He" woke up for Darlene. But he also stresses how Elliot is not in a state to handle anything else. Mr. Robot says he will tell him about the "Other One" after the hack.
Elliot, who has tagged out entirely, leaves Mr. Robot fully in charge. Darlene, who is already in the hotel room near the Deus Group meeting venue (a ballroom), rails at Mr. Robot/Elliot for disappearing again when he strides into the room.
Mr. Robot snaps at her and calls her "sweetheart" sarcastically, alerting Darlene to the fact that it is not OG Elliot she is talking to. She asks if Elliot is OK and Mr. Robot says he will be but for now they just have to focus on the hack.
The scene shifts to the empty ballroom venue with no one in attendance except Whiterose and his Dark Army agents. When Phillip Price (Michael Cristofer) walks in, he is greeted by Whiterose (B. D. Wong) seated at a table set for two.
Whiterose tells him to spill what Elliot has planned and die peacefully or crack under torture a few hours later. He also tells Mr. Price, smugly, the Deus Group was meeting somewhere else to welcome Tyrell Wellick as the new CEO.
Mr. Price lays down the first jolt of the evening (the first of many) when he tells Whiterose Tyrell was dead and wasn't going to make it. In the meantime, Mr. Robot and Darlene figure out Whiterose was on to them and hack Tyrell Wellick's phone to get details of the new venue.
Only Mr. Robot knows something is not right since so many Dark Army agents are still surrounding the building. He correctly surmises Whiterose and his phone have not left the building and is not at the new venue.
He urges Darlene to make her way to the new venue and get the phone details of all the other Deus members for the bank transfer hack while he gets Whiterose's phone number. Darlene is reluctant but goes anyways.
Once she gets there, she traps the Deus Group members in the building by jamming the parking lot's stop-go mechanism. She then cleverly initiates a doxxing attack, revealing the Deus Group's meeting location and outs them as the 1 percent who manipulates the 99 percent.
As F-society fans and hackers crowd the venue, the Deus Group members are unable to leave. As they frantically call their underlings to get them out of there, Darlene hacks them all. All she needs is Whiterose's phone number to initiate the bank transfer.
Mr. Robot calls Price's phone only to have Whiterose answer it. Whiterose tells Mr. Robot Angela is alive. He wants to "reset the past" so Elliot doesn't have to live with pain or regrets. Elliot emerges finally and tells Whiterose the one who needs help is not him, but Whiterose and cuts the call.
When Darlene's doxxing attack goes live, several Deus Group members call Whiterose who is livid but scoffs, saying doxxing wasn't going change a thing. A few tense minutes later, while Whiterose talks on his phone trying to calm the situation, Elliot finally sends a bunch of possible Whiterose numbers to Darlene, gleaned by targetting the cell phone tower above the building.
One of them finally clicks and the hack is completed by Darlene. All the money drains out of the Deus Group members' bank accounts, and Mr. Price laughs, telling Whiterose they were "all broke".
Furious, Whiterose kills Mr. Price on the steps of the building. With Deus Group's and Whiterose's fortunes taken away by the hack, Elliot has accomplished what he set out to do at the start of this season. He has turned the tables on the 1 percent.
'Mr. Robot' airs on the USA Network Sundays at 10/9c.
