Hello friend...

I have been writing about Mr. Robot for a very long time. You can read all my earlier writing about the show using this guide.

We have finally come down to this one final season, hopefully, we will get answers to many pressing questions (I put together this list of questions in advance of the final season)

You can also follow me on Reddit (I am ypsifactj48, I usually hang around r/Mr.Robot and the Black Mirror and Orange Is the New Black rooms.

If you have not watched every episode of Mr. Robot or read Red Wheelbarrow this could contain spoilers *Spoiler Alert*

My Monster Is Still Alive

Many years ago there was this great video game called Fallout 3 and in that great video game, there was a side quest where you were transported to an alternative reality that seemed, for a few seconds, like the perfect world. It played out like a television show depicting an idealized 1950s sitcom...until gradually, you learned that it was a simulation being controlled by a psychopath.  That side quest was called “Tranquility Lane.”

In essence, the “real” Elliot has been living, throughout the entire duration of Mr. Robot, on Tranquility Lane, held captive by “The Other One” aka “The Mastermind.”

The closest I got to working this out was when I was reflecting on  eps2.2_init_1.asec. Sometime after that, I mentioned in some recap or other that Elliot had an entirely different face during that scene, a face that had no warmth and one which was totally emotionless (this was the scene where he dreamed up the 5/9 hack).

I am pretty sure that is literally the moment when “The Mastermind” started to take Elliot over.

I had a bunch of different times where I wrote that maybe Elliot was bad, but I never put it all together. I wrote about in reference to all the people who were hurt by the five-nine hack when I talked about all the terrible things he had done to Darlene and his other friends. And, of course, his willingness to go full-on vigilante and hack people’s lives to serve his own purposes.

Elliot wasn’t bad but the part of him that was in charge of doing bad things, anger, rage, revenge, became the dominant personality and banished everything loving and sweet that remained imprisoned in a feedback loop inside Elliot’s head. We only saw the real Elliot for mere seconds whenever there was a glitch. Remember all of the glitches when he came back from jail? Well, now they were earthquakes and ultimately when he gave control back, you saw a flicker. 

If we think about it that way, all of Season 2 (and Red Wheelbarrow) make a lot more sense, Mr. Robot was trying to get “The Mastermind” to give control back to E Prime (which explains all the many different tricks he used from shooting him in the head to stabbing him multiple times). If I have a remaining question, it is to simply ask why Mr. Robot didn’t just tell “The Mastermind” that he was not Elliot way back at the beginning when he pulled off the coup. 

It totally makes sense for Mr. Robot to keep the truth about Edward away from him but why not tell the Mastermind the truth about who he was and what he was doing? The only answer I can come up with is his own fear of annihilation. If “The Mastermind” was powerful enough to take over E Prime and banish Elliot to Tranquility Lane, he could theoretically do the same to Mr Robot, Magda, to young Elliot, and to anyone else who decided to make an appearance in Elliot’s brain.  What makes this messy is that Mr. Robot worked hard to protect and help “The Mastermind” just as he was created in order to protect Elliot. I guess it is also confusing as to why Mr. Robot would conflate the protection of “The Mastermind” with the protection of Elliot. In fact, those two things were clearly not, for much of this adventure, consistent with each other. 

It is possible that this could explain why Mr. Robot disappears and reappears. It is possible Mr. Robot only appeared when what “The Mastermind” was doing was consistent with the goal of protecting Elliot (but that hardly explains why he would go along willingly with banishing Elliot to Tranquility Lane. Or, if he did not go along willingly, why would he still try to help “The Mastermind” out while he had trapped Elliot in an endless loop?

I do get that “The Mastermind” originally took over, as alters regularly do because he was needed. But he never left and that should have been problematic to Mr. Robot Iand probably to Magda and young Elliot as well).

And the Mastermind did have some serious ambivalence about crushing other people’s lives, even about crushing other parts of E Prime in the service of eliminating threats to his continued dominance (or acting out all of E Prime’s anger). Not only was he willing to actually exterminate the real Elliot, to throw millions into abject poverty, but he was also willing to sentence the real Elliot to a meaningless forever existence on Tranquility Lane without the one person he truly loved the most beyond all others (Darlene). 

Luckily, when confronted with painful truths, “The Mastermind” does the right thing. He did the right thing when confronted with the truth about Edward and he did the right thing when the rest of the personalities conspire against him to get him to give power back up to the real Elliot.

It has been several years since I did my deep dive into the literature on Dissociative Identity Disorder (I did it in the Summer after Season One) but if I remember correctly primary or dominant personalities can switch around based on need, but I never read about personalities out-competing each other (or annihilating each other). Usually, they work in concert as a fragmented whole. I read about Sam consulting with an expert on DID, so I will guess he knows what he is talking about here.

Anyway, Mr. Robot, Magda, young Elliot, and The Mastermind are all now sitting in the theater of Elliot’s brain watching the movie of their life.

It was a beautiful ending. So appropriate that Darlene was there to see him return, I only wish we had gotten to know him a little bit better before everything ended. I suspect he is a very nice person (with some incredible high-end computer skills).

The power of masks is incredible, sometimes we create protective masks and like their feel so much that we never stop wearing them...not even when it means our true self gets buried.

The Washington Township Community Center

#MrRobot pic.twitter.com/PXdpQ1F3h2

— Mr. Robot (@whoismrrobot) December 23, 2019

I am very glad ultimately that it was not a sci-fi ending.

As you probably remember, I have been screaming since almost the very beginning that the story is more about Occam’s razor than it was about science fiction. 

I do want to give Sam Esmail a lot of credit though. I mean who else could have made all of these things seem both possible and logical at the same time (on a television show no less)? 

There was a tell, as I mentioned last week, in that Darlene was not present in the parallel universe (which would, by definition, make it not a parallel universe).

It was very similar to “Ray’s computer” problem from Season Two. The tell in season two, that proved Elliot was in jail (or something like it) was that he only had access to one computer in the entire world (Ray’s computer). 

I love that Sam was so willing to let us have a taste of so many different endings to the story:

We had ‘whiterose’s’ dream ending (where she ended up with her lover).

There was a possible sci-fi ending that turned out to be a memory loop.

There was the practical ending for both Darlene and Dom where instead of finding their way together they decided to follow different paths. 

And there was the ending where Darlene and Elliot find each other again and they get to be brother and sister the way they both secretly always wished might happen.

Elliot might not be able to sit at the table with all of his friends as he imagined many years ago, but at least he gets to have some family sit at a table with him.

Finally, it seems the question of “friendship” was resolved, Hello Friend was “The Mastermind’ talking with the real Elliot (and/or maybe the other alters too). The process was depicted in the scene where Elliot could hear all of the internal dialogs.

Bon Soir Mr. Robot

Goodbye, friend. That's lame. We're talking to an imaginary person. Just like we always have. #MrRobot pic.twitter.com/wyeh6mNUQb

— Mr. Robot (@whoismrrobot) December 23, 2019

Thanks to Sam Esmail for creating such a beautiful and interesting universe. To Kor Adana for making the hacks real, to Mac Quayle for filling out that universe with music, and one of the best writing rooms and casts ever assembled for bringing his vision to life.

In particular, I give Sam credit for having unlimited courage. What an amazing final season, beautifully executed.

One of the best parts of this adventure for me has been experiencing all of the thousands of theories other people have invested so much time, caring, and love into writing.

I have long believed that art is co-productive and that all of us, and everything that we all wrote and contributed, has become part of a larger Mr. Robot universe. 

In this sense, ‘whiterose’s’ project was successful, many alternative and parallel universes have opened. It is sincerely my hope that one of them ‘whiterose’ is with her lover. As homicidal as she was, you have to admire her commitment to love. 

In the end, it turned out that Elliot was Mr. Robot’s landlord ( and Magda’s landlord and young Elliot’s landlord, and ‘The Mastermind’s” landlord).

Bon Soir to everyone, goodbye Friends.

A Quick Apology

A world without Darlene. Can Elliot exist in this place? #MrRobot pic.twitter.com/WtgB2h1pyi

— Mr. Robot (@whoismrrobot) December 23, 2019

When I started this journey way back in 2015 I was a freelance writer and it was rarely a problem for me to stay up all night writing and sleep late the next day. Now, since I took a job as a full-time policy analyst at Safe and Just Michigan it has been REALLY challenging to get these recaps written after the show ends on Sunday nights at 11 pm and still get up in time to be at work between 5 and 6 am the next morning. 

I have tried my best to keep the quality up, but if I have slipped I want to apologize. I want to believe that I set a pretty high standard during the first three seasons and I am sorry if I have not done as good of a job with the recaps this season.

Luckily, I have tomorrow off. So, I am hoping I can do the final episode of Mr. Robot justice.

Fun Society

Every week, I will write another recap until we finish this journey together.

If you have any interest in criminal justice reform I am also the host of the Decarceration Nation Podcast

If you like Orange Is the New Black, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

If you like  Black Mirror, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

Hello friend...

I have been writing about Mr. Robot for a very long time. You can read all my earlier writing about the show using this guide.

We have finally come down to this one final season, hopefully, we will get answers to many pressing questions (I put together this list of questions in advance of the final season)

You can also follow me on Reddit (I am ypsifactj48, I usually hang around r/Mr.Robot and the Black Mirror and Orange Is the New Black rooms.

If you have not watched every episode of Mr. Robot or read Red Wheelbarrow this could contain spoilers *Spoiler Alert*

Endless War

So, I used to suggest that Mr. Robot was first and foremost Sam Esmail’s response to the last scene in Fight Club. Tonight, As the Washington Township Facility goes into meltdown, Mr. Robot turns to Elliot and says, “It's an exciting time in the world.”

Which seems more or less to be a call and response to the last line on Fight Club (as the world's banks literally collapse):

“You met me at a very strange time in my life.”

Who knows if I was right, but so it is.

The Washington Township Facility melts down, a lot of people (maybe everybody) dies and Elliot wakes up in a parallel universe in the room of Elliot Alderson, if I am understanding the sequencing correctly, Elliot from our story arrived in a different timeline of a different Elliot Alderson and showed up just in time to meet his parallel universe counterpoint.

Of course, prior to Elliot 1 meeting up with Elliot 2, we got to see how things were going in the alternative timeline. Elliot is the CEO of Allsafe, he is marrying Angela 2, and he has just landed the biggest possible client in F-Corp. 

Anyway, way back at the beginning of Season 3, I suggested this was all possible:

One possible solution is parallel universes, and (oddly enough) guess what was mentioned in the first few minutes of Eps 3.0 by a group walking through the WTF? Yup, you guessed it, parallel universes. Anyway, the WTF modified to become a fusion reactor could allow us to visit parallel universes and to time travel backward (in other words, to visit any moment in time, in a parallel and interacting universe). Also, a particle accelerator is also one of the methods that could create fusion power."

I also said Sam probably would not go this direction because to do so would go against Occam’s Razor and turn what has to this point been a human story into an entirely different kind of story.

But, in a sense, Sam told most of the human story first and then unleashed the science fiction.

Also, while ‘whiterose’ is dead, another ‘whiterose’ likely lives in this new universe. One hopes - given her leap of faith to end her life during this episode - that she is the person she should have always been in this new universe. There is also a parallel universe Turell Wellick who is head of F-Corp. Just like our old friend Tyrell, he is asking if Elliot is “with him.”

Another odd twist, in this timeline Edward, is the “Dad of the Year,” literally everything Elliot would have wanted in his father.

It is also possible that his friend has always been Elliot in this other timeline and that now, he is sitting down with his friend and asking him what he wants.

At the very least, Elliot 2 seems to be able to sense disturbances from Elliot 1.

But, oddly enough, and somewhat disturbing, in this parallel universe, Elliot is an only child. Which means it is not precisely a parallel universe. And this matters because Elliot (Elliot 1) said something beautiful about Darlene to ‘whiterose’ before her suicide. Elliot said:

“...but then, there are some people out there, and it doesn't happen a lot, they refuse to let you hate them, they refuse to let you, the really special ones they are relentless, they take your hate and care about you anyway, they don't abandon you no matter how many reasons you give them. You want to know why? Because they feel something that I can't. They love me. and for all the pain I've been through that heals me, Not instantly, but it heals”

The person who was always relentlessly there for him was Darlene and I suspect her absence in this new universe will matter a great deal to Elliot. He will not be able to enjoy his new freedom in a world where Darlene doesn’t exist.

And then there is also the two Elliot problem. Not only did Elliot meet his alternate self, and inserted himself in this new reality, but he does not have an alternative universe to return to (he is dead in the other timeline). I also (try to) explain how this was possible in that same article a few years ago (some people have theorized that it is possible): You could use the particle collider to create the time-travel itself, so, Elliot and ‘whiterose’ were inside the atom smasher. Maybe the meltdown didn’t happen on Elliot’s earth but he was inside the heart of the particle collider (explaining the glow when the door was opened). 

The Past We Have Been Shackled To

"What's the worst thing in your life right now?" #MrRobot pic.twitter.com/QMsGkC6HIR

— Mr. Robot (@whoismrrobot) December 16, 2019

Whatever the method, Elliot 1 was inserted in a parallel timeline.

But, unlike in Infinity War, which had a very novel solution to this problem (putting everything back to the way it was prior to the disruption in the timeline), Elliot has no way back, no infinity stones to replace to heal the rift, and no Delorean (that we know of). 

There is also the problem of perfection being the enemy of the good. 

Apparently, in this parallel universe, both Elliot and Tyrell are trapped in good lives. Both have everything they want, but, for some reason, what they have seems empty. They both feel guilty for feeling trapped in perfection in a way that seems hollow ...I mean for goodness sake they are both CEO’s of successful companies and Elliot is about to be married to the girl of his dreams. 

But it is very clear that he is not happy, he is almost haunted by empty perfection. 

They are all Stepford Robots. Pod-Society. They are living in the first season of “The Good Place”

What ‘whiterose’ never seems to have contemplated was that despite all the drama, our fucked up timeline might be worth all the pain and suffering. While the grass may seem greener on the other side of a parallel universe, it is quite possible that our lives are better because they are not perfect.

Be careful what you wish for...

Oh, I should probably also mention Ollie did a nice take on “Toady Biff” from the end of Back to the Future in Elliot’s parallel universe.

This is going to be one hell of an interesting last two hours of television.

Fun Society

Every week, I will write another recap until we finish this journey together.

If you have any interest in criminal justice reform I am also the host of the Decarceration Nation Podcast

If you like Orange Is the New Black, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

If you like  Black Mirror, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

Hello friend...

I have been writing about Mr. Robot for a very long time. You can read all my earlier writing about the show using this guide.

We have finally come down to this one final season, hopefully, we will get answers to many pressing questions (I put together this list of questions in advance of the final season)

You can also follow me on Reddit (I am ypsifactj48, I usually hang around r/Mr.Robot and the Black Mirror and Orange Is the New Black rooms.

If you have not watched every episode of Mr. Robot or read Red Wheelbarrow this could contain spoilers *Spoiler Alert*

Some Additional Thoughts From 409

I wrote something on Reddit about last week’s episode, figured i would share it here too::

Why Is Elliot Still Alive from r/MrRobot

This Isn’t About Budapest

In the traditional romantic comedy, the couple fights break up, and then, always at the last possible minute before one of the two people moves away they reconcile (usually after one of the two people running full speed across an airport terminal or tarmac).

Sam Esmail chose a different, but in its own way, an equally romantic ending for Dom and Darlene.

Dom and Darlene were at an airport and they had been fighting about the ethics of Darlene redistributing the Deus group and Dark Army bitcoin to everyone else in the world. 

They are originally fleeing to avoid the Dark Arny and Darlene gets them alternative identification and tickets to Budapest (where Cisco imagined him and Darlene escaping way back in Season Two).

As they arrive in the airport Dom runs into Irving (whose book, “Beach Towell” has finally been published and is available in the airport bookstore). Irving tells Dom that the Dark Army no longer cares about her, her family, or about Darlene.

And here is the romantic part...As they are talking about leaving together, and Dom is saying she doesn’t want to go to Budapest, Dom tells Darlene that Budapest wasn’t her dream and that she shouldn’t go because Cisco wanted her to go….and Dom was right.

Darlene conversely tells Dom that it might be time for her to stop acting purely out of a sense of duty and that a break might do her good….and Darelene was right.

So Dom runs off from Darlene and decides to follow her duty but turns around and returns to the flight.

And Darlene stays in the terminal, starts to have a panic attack and figures out that she really wants to leave, so she does.

It is a happy ending for both (Dom may in fact be leaving to go work with Leon, as a boss because, as Leon put it “she is a boss”). She also might go work for US Cyber-Command, but that seems a bit far-fetched.

Dom, on the other hand, is going to Budapest to chill out and have fun, away from duty and responsibilities. 

Good times. Totally subverted the traditional RomCom ending but did so in a way that leaves both characters happy.

Oh, and Dom might be in trouble with the FBI anyway, but for once in her life, she doesn’t seem to care too much. She is also reading Irving’s book on the flight from Boston to Budapest

Three Days Of The Condor

Not much more to discuss tonight. Darlene decided she was done with Fsociety and Elliot’s project and took off. They both have gone their separate ways.

Elliot has read the jump drive, and he says he is going to finish the rest of the job.

Also, I haven’t looked at my E-Coin account yet (remember a few years ago when we all signed up for E-coin accounts and could get prizes?). I wonder if we all got some kind of special present in our E-Coin accounts?

Leon is either working with him to finish the job or was just hired to take care of Dom and Darlene getting away, we will find out later I suspect. Leon did suggest everyone watch Three Days of the Condor, which, like Mr. Robot, is on Amazon Prime right now.

Just a few more episodes left.

Fun Society

Every week, I will write another recap until we finish this journey together.

If you have any interest in criminal justice reform I am also the host of the Decarceration Nation Podcast

If you like Orange Is the New Black, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

If you like  Black Mirror, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

Hello friend...

I have been writing about Mr. Robot for a very long time. You can read all my earlier writing about the show using this guide.

We have finally come down to this one final season, hopefully, we will get answers to many pressing questions (I put together this list of questions in advance of the final season)

You can also follow me on Reddit (I am ypsifactj48, I usually hang around r/Mr.Robot and the Black Mirror and Orange Is the New Black rooms.

If you have not watched every episode of Mr. Robot or read Red Wheelbarrow this could contain spoilers *Spoiler Alert*

Winner Winner...Chicken Dinner?

The clock never stops ticking. Everything ends eventually. #MrRobot pic.twitter.com/fjJ3cYjiWU

— Mr. Robot (@whoismrrobot) December 2, 2019

Elliot won.

No really, he took all the money from every member of the Deus group including ‘whiterose.”

‘whiterose,’ as Zhang, was so furious she shot Phillip Price in cold blood right on 2nd Avenue (well, I don’t think it was 2nd Avenue, but you get my point). 

And apparently,  Mr. 2nd Avenue himself was at the party (or at least they strongly implied that he was...personally, I am not sure they would allow him to be a member of their club).

Basically, they created an exploit to get everyone’s phone numbers, an exploit to run those phone numbers  against the bank accounts, an exploit to capture all of the pin numbers necessary to liberate all of those requisite accounts, and the willingness to run a process liberating all of those accounts of all of their money. 

As Mr.Robot put it:

And just like that Rome falls, no more Deus Group, no more top 1% of the top 1%, no more controlling every part of our lives, no more playing God without permission, we took them down, all of them. 

I sure did not predict that Elliot would beat ‘whiterose’ before the last episode, but I guess this was not really a man against man or woman story, it was a man against himself story. 

Also ‘whiterose’ is either about to be dead or in custody for the murder of Price.

I am not sure if our time with ‘whiterose’ is done, but if we are, she has been one of my favorite characters ever (right up there with Omar from ‘The Wire;).

This is all very unexpected (to me).

Also, Darlene was critical to making it all happen. She will also be critical to Elliot coming to grips with the entire “Elliot Picture.”

Full House

Okay, another mystery solved (at least to some extent).

Mr. Robot is an alter

Young Elliot is an alter

Magda is an alter

There is Elliot

And there is at least still a mystery, but possibly another alter that Elliot doesn’t know about. At the very least, there is something Mr. Robot, Magda, and young Elliot know but which Elliot does not know.

So, what is it that Elliot doesn’t know that we don’t know either? 

Usually, I have some theory, but this time I am at a loss.

I also want to take a second for appearing arrogant last week. I do occasionally take victory laps, but I also try to make fun of myself at the same time (I think I called myself an idiot in the same recap). 

I love Mr. Robot, and I do take it very seriously, but I don’t really take my part in any of this particularly seriously. As I have said before, my favorite part of the whole show is that all of us can have our own theories of the show that are equally valid. In this way, our theories function like a show parallel to the show.

All I am saying is that occasionally my theories and my version of events squares with the real version of Mr. Robot. These moments are very satisfying for me, but that doesn’t mean I take them seriously. 

In the end, I don’t really think any of us writing or theorizing about this show are right or wrong, I just think these versions of the show we construct occasionally align with the actual show and those moments are fun (at least they are for me).

As ‘whiterose’ put it once, “the contemplation moves me deeply”

Anyway, I feel bad about sounding arrogant. 

Angela’s Ashes

whiterose will pull any string to get what she wants. #MrRobot pic.twitter.com/4XuxeyCdS3

— Mr. Robot (@whoismrrobot) December 2, 2019

Maybe an even better way to explain this is that I have always thought of Mr. Robot as a game, part of the game is trying to figure out elements of what is going on. Part of the discussion is going through what you got right and what you get wrong.

I honestly am pretty lost right now. I don’t think there is much more point to trying to figure out anything, it is going to be much more fun, from here on in, to just watch the events unfold.

I feel a bit strange saying this after that apology, but I did mention this in my very first recap of this season:

“Although it is also possible that Angela is not dead (notice nobody could find the body and we did not see the entirety of her being shot on screen). There were two references later in the show on this issue, so they have built some scaffolding to suggest that Angela, a true ‘whiterose’ believer, might still be around.”

Okay, here is the reason this might be real, ‘whiterose’ had no reason to lie about Angela, she needed Elliot to join her in order for her plan to come to fruition. In theory, it could have been a last-ditch desperation move, but ‘whiterose’ knew she was taking a perhaps life-altering risk blowing off everyone in the Deus group to take one more swing at bringing Elliot into the fold.

It seems to me, the most likely explanation is that Angela is alive.

Now here is the crazy thing, it is Elliot’s plan that is moving ‘whiterose’ project to the Congo, Elliot also now has Phillip Price’s jump drive with all of the information about what the plan is.

So, Elliot, if he wants to, can now try to make whatever ‘whiterose’ was trying to do into a real thing, it is possible that he can use the infernal machine to go back to a place where he is whole and where everyone can finally sit at that table together like he hoped they could in season two.

Do you think Elliot will try to create a new world?

Going to be an interesting landing for sure.

Fun Society

Every week, I will write another recap until we finish this journey together.

If you have any interest in criminal justice reform I am also the host of the Decarceration Nation Podcast

If you like Orange Is the New Black, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

If you like Black Mirror, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

Hello friend...

I have been writing about Mr. Robot for a very long time. You can read all my earlier writing about the show using this guide.

We have finally come down to this one final season, hopefully, we will get answers to many pressing questions (I put together this list of questions in advance of the final season)

You can also follow me on Reddit (I am ypsifactj48, I usually hang around r/Mr.Robot and the Black Mirror and Orange Is the New Black rooms.

If you have not watched every episode of Mr. Robot or read Red Wheelbarrow this could contain spoilers *Spoiler Alert*

I See You Butthead

Fighting back comes in many forms. #MrRobot pic.twitter.com/SkwBcCv3iO

— Mr. Robot (@whoismrrobot) November 25, 2019

I was so close to being 100% right, but sadly, only 50%

Remember back to my recap of 402 Payment Required:

“Elliot’s friend has never been us, it has been the child version of himself from his surreal dreams, the kid at the desk. There are MANY times where Elliot has said he will need or needs his friend to do things which he will not be able to do alone. The trick is that we see  Elliot with his father, just like we have seen Elliot with his friend (see the trip to the beach). The “trick” was assuming the friend was t ”US.” It was not us.

One final option, his third personality is Magda (his Mom).

I would put the odds:

Mohammed <Young Elliot> 40%

Magda 40%”

So, I was half right, the third alter was young Elliot (not Magda).

I was also right about something else: 

I mentioned that “the other one” was Tyrell and not an alter (which has been proven to be true). I mentioned this on Reddit:

"The Other One" is a classic Sam Esmaill misdirection. "The Other One" is not an alter, it is Tyrell (notice Magda wants young Elliot to get out of Tyrell's chair from the end of S1 E1”.

Of course, I mentioned that in an article going on and on about my Magda theory (and she still has to be an alter or have some reason to be there, since she was in the scene with young Elliot). So, yes, I am kind of an idiot too (they were both hiding in plain sight but I didn’t make the right choice).

It was not a mystery, but I picked wrong, young Elliot was literally sitting in Tyrell’s chair when Magda told him to move (because the chair belonged to someone else).

Okay, anyway, the third alter is Young Elliot. He was hiding in plain sight and the “other one” was most likely Tyrell (as Magda mentioned in the scene).

Elliot also hid a key when he was a kid, that key, which was kept in a Beavis and Butthead wallet, allowed young Elliot to explain to Older Elliot that he was not actually a passive victim and that he had always been fighting back to the best of his ability.

Fifteen Minutes

The Dark Army doesn't take no for an answer. #MrRobot pic.twitter.com/8B8Q8zIrWB

— Mr. Robot (@whoismrrobot) November 25, 2019

Dom figured out a way to beat Janice.

As near as I can piece it together, she knew Deegan McGuire from back in the day and made a deal with him to take out the Dark Army folks watching her family and also to take her family to a safe house.

Unfortunately, her plan came to fruition only after Janice stabbed her in the lung in order to pressure Darlene into telling the Dark Army where Elliot was. Darlene did flip on Elliot (but didn’t know where he was) but that wasn’t good enough for Janice. And this whole scene brutally explained how a ruthlessly efficient and driven “norma;” person like Janice would make this situation nearly impossible to escape from. Incredible work all around during these scenes between Darlene, Dom, and Janice,

I am not sure many people have played a better psychopath or gotten the difference between our perception of ourselves as a society and the reality of who we really mostly are. There is a particular moment when Janice laughs at Dom claiming no desire to be part of killing anyone. Janice mentions she works for the “United States government.” There is always a question of when direct agency begins and indirect agency ends in terms of ethical responsibility but since we are citizens in a democratic society and at some level, we are all complicit in the things our government does in our name.

But there is also something false about all of this, Dom is also heroic, she has always been working to do the right things, and she, like so many other people on this show keeps struggling to make up for her loneliness and pain by doing what she can to make the world a better place. Is it possible we are often both the hero and the villain no matter what we do because we are locked in unjust and often brutal systems where even our heroic actions create great pain and suffering? Even our justice is often corrupted with the injustice that surrounds us. Elliot wanted to liberate the world from debt and ended up hurting millions. Can we change injustice or are all the actions we take corrupted by our dirty hands?

As I mentioned many years ago, it is possible Sam is responding to the end of Fight Club where the towers come crashing down. Was Tyler Durden a hero? Is Dom? Is Elliot? Or is this even the right question, is heroism just a dodge, a set of fictions we engage in to justify making the world more comfortable to us?

Let’s suspend the speculation, Dom did get the best of Janice and that was unexpected and kind of awesome.

The Cradle Of Modern Civilization

#MrRobot only ever wanted to protect Elliot. pic.twitter.com/pqziXvcZWP

— Mr. Robot (@whoismrrobot) November 25, 2019

Mr. Robot and Elliot finally understand and accept each other. 

As I said last week, Mr. Robot is Elliot’s idealized father.

As Elliot put it this week:

“You’re nothing like him that's why I created you you are the father I needed not the father I had”.

Unfortunately, Elliot is also admitting that he just doesn’t have it in him right now to go after the Dark Army and the Deus group (which is going to put quite a crimp in the ability for the series to come to a conclusion). 

But, it is totally understandable, it is amazing Elliot is anything but catatonic right now.

The scene between Mr. Robot and Elliot was pretty perfect. 

To be honest, I almost don’t care about how the rest of this ends or if Elliot stops the Dark Army in time. 

I am mostly just happy he has Krista again, has made peace with Mr. Robot, and can finally start to heal from all of his trauma.

In an odd way, I almost hope ‘whiterose’ can create a magical pathway back to Elliot’s dream of dinner with all the people who he cared about the most.

Okay, that’s all for this week.

Fun Society

Every week, I will write another recap until we finish this journey together.

If you have any interest in criminal justice reform I am also the host of the Decarceration Nation Podcast

If you like Orange Is the New Black, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

If you like  Black Mirror, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

Hello friend...

I have been writing about Mr. Robot for a very long time. You can read all my earlier writing about the show using this guide.

We have finally come down to this one final season, hopefully, we will get answers to many pressing questions (I put together this list of questions in advance of the final season)

You can also follow me on Reddit (I am ypsifactj48, I usually hang around r/Mr.Robot and the Black Mirror and Orange Is the New Black rooms.

If you have not watched every episode of Mr. Robot or read Red Wheelbarrow this could contain spoilers *Spoiler Alert*

Ex Machina

"Yes." #MrRobot pic.twitter.com/QX8ryU3iBf

— Mr. Robot (@whoismrrobot) November 18, 2019

So, as I suspected, we learned some really important information in the most disturbing way possible.

Elliot Alderson jumped out the window because Edward Alderson had been sexually molesting him and he tried to escape by jumping out of the window.

There were two tells most everyone missed, one was a little moment I have commented about several times but misread, during the Word Up Wednesday episode way back in Season 2, During the fantasy sequence (happening while Elliot was getting beaten up) Edward made some nasty comments about Magda that seemed out of character for Mr. Robot but this was one of the only times we were seeing Edward and not Mr. Robot.

Mr. Robot was always the idealized Edward, the Edward Elliot wished existed and not the real Eliot.

The second tell was when Elliot was in the store with Edward when Edward didn’t punish Elliot for stealing $20 from one of his customers (in what was ultimately a failing business and a business Edward could not afford to lose money from). Edward was grooming Elliot throughout that scene and you could already see Elliot’s anger.

Later, when we see them at the movies, and Edward collapses from his cancer, Elliot leaves him on the ground and chooses to go watch the movie by himself which at the time seemed cruel and maybe even to suggest that Elliot was cruel, but he was actually so traumatized and angry that he was glad his father collapsed.

So, to recap…

Elliot was abused by Edward which explains the titanic anger and need for revenge.

Mr. Robot is the father he wished he had and who protects him from the realities of the world (including his real father). 

The abuse created the break that created the dissociative identity disorder. 

This also explains all of the Lolita references, I think I even suggested at an earlier point that Edward might have been an abuser (just not of Elliot).

I was right that there had to be a reason for the dissociative break, I was wrong about what the instigating trauma was about.

This also explains why almost all of the targets of Elliot’s attacks abused children and why he protects people he thinks have been abused. It is also why what he did to Olivia was a sign that something very bad is going on with him.

No Fan Boy Shit

Elliot's changed since last time, but Vera isn't done with him yet. #MrRobot pic.twitter.com/J3Uk76y6KQ

— Mr. Robot (@whoismrrobot) November 18, 2019

Vera actually beat Elliot and he had Elliot where he wanted him, Elliot was about to break and join him but then Kirsta killed Vera. 

Vera was so obsessed with Elliot he totally forgot about Krista.

More important, what this show is really about is one simple truth...that has been born out in real and terrible way in my own life:

Hurt People Hurt People

Elliot and Vera were brothers, they were both abused as kids and both of them - in their rage - hurt a large number of other innocent people (not their abusers or the abusers of others). 

Elliot hurt millions of people by collapsing the global economy.

Vera hurt almost every person he met after he was old enough to take care of himself.

But in the end, they really were brothers. Vera saw it almost from the beginning. This wasn’t about the bitch and the bat, it was about connecting with the only person who could possibly understand him in the entire world. And they did connect, for about five minutes they had a moment where they really saw each other for the first time, and Vera persuaded Elliot (look at his face right before Krista stabs him).

The entire night was a tour de force by two incredible actors. I have rarely seen two actors better across a full hour of screen time. This was powerful, painful, world-altering stuff. If one word of it had read false the entire thing would fall apart.

And this was brutal too...In the end, you feel sorry for Vera after watching him be horrible over several seasons and even during this episode. Vera had one of the most beloved characters on the show killed and still, this actor (Elliot Villar) was so good that by the end you understood why he was who he was and cared about him as a human being.

Nickolodeon Bullshit

Let’s face it, Elliot was falling apart.

He got snookered at the hotel honey pot.

He got snookered again by the Dark Army surveillance and then got lost in the woods (and got Tyrell killed).

He got captured by Vera without even much effort being put forward, he walked directly into Vera’s trap.

He had the lame attempt at shooting Vera with blanks.

Something drastic had to happen or else Elliot was going to be no match for ‘whiterose’ and the endgame.

Let us hope to know the truth allows him to put back together what must be put back together because otherwise only blind luck is going to propel him to victory.

And we are entering the endgame now. After over three and a half seasons we finally know why Elliot is who he is and more important Elliot knows why Elliot is who he is.

Very few pieces are left on the board, the Deus group is meeting (although they seem to be patiently waiting for Elliot to finish up all of his drama), and ‘whiterose’ wants Elliot to see her vision of the future.

I have finally reached beyond the “trying to figure it out” game and am ready to just make some popcorn, sit back, and see where this is all going to lead us.

Fun Society

Every week, I will write another recap until we finish this journey together.

If you have any interest in criminal justice reform I am also the host of the Decarceration Nation Podcast

If you like Orange Is the New Black, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

If you like  Black Mirror, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

Hello friend...

I have been writing about Mr. Robot for a very long time. You can read all my earlier writing about the show using this guide.

We have finally come down to this one final season, hopefully, we will get answers to many pressing questions (I put together this list of questions in advance of the final season)

You can also follow me on Reddit (I am ypsifactj48, I usually hang around r/Mr.Robot and the Black Mirror and Orange Is the New Black rooms.

If you have not watched every episode of Mr. Robot or read Red Wheelbarrow this could contain spoilers *Spoiler Alert*

“Two Large Peppermint Mochas”

This episode puts major characters in the position of doing something unacceptable:

• Elliot threatening Olivia

• Dom threatening Darlene

• Vera threatening Krista (and ultimately Elliot)

Only in Elliot’s case, this isn’t the first time he has put other human beings in dire peril to serve his purposes.

If you have read my recaps and breakdowns over the last several years, you know I have often hypothesized that Elliot might actually be a terrible human being.

The first time I suggested this as an option it was after watching the episode where he and Darlene were watching “Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie” on Halloween. If you watch that episode again watch Elliot’s face throughout the discussion when he comes up with FSociety. 

There is nothing warm in his face, quite the opposite, he looks like there is not an ounce of human compassion in his entire body.”

And let us not forget, he spends a great deal of the series playing Robin Hood, which is another way of saying being a vigilante. When he is not ruining the lives of people who have done bad things, he hacks his friends, often ruining their lives in the process.

He also literally took down the entire world economy crushing millions of lives in the process. Sure, he did it to erase the debt, but everyone who did not have debt most likely lost everything they had accumulated when the economy cratered.

At the very least, his narcissism is unprecedented, Imagine the amount of who required to think they could ethically and effectively redistribute all of the wealth of the world in a fair manner.

Turns out he was wrong about that regardless, so wrong that he actually only increased the power of the Deus group and the super-wealthy.

Anyway, Elliot - or at least one part of Elliot - is a ruthless SOB.

When Olivia says:

“I may work for monsters, but you are one. And you’re the worst kind because you don’t even know it.”

"And you're the worst kind because you don't even know it." #MrRobot pic.twitter.com/6a52QtKpyE

— Mr. Robot (@whoismrrobot) November 11, 2019

She was not lying.

My continuing theory is that BAD Elliot is Magda (because Elliot’s memory of his mother is that she was brutally effective and capable of great cruelty). But it is certainly possible that Tyrell was right and Elliot (or at least most of Elliot) really doesn’t care about anyone but himself and his anger.

Remember, even as a kid, Elliot was doing things that were right in our face, go back and watch the episode when he tells his dad - who is dying - to basically go to hell before going and watching a movie after Edward collapses on the floor.

But, at the same time, there is the Elliot who is tortured and alone. The last episode one of the most powerful moments in the entire “silent” episode was when Elliot was falling apart in the corner until Darlene showed up, which forced him to put on his social mask and quickly pretended that everything was perfectly okay.

We have even recently heard Sam talk about how his own loneliness had something to do with the creation of Elliot.

I am sure at the end of the day, we will see the whole Elliot, and I suspect it will answer a lot of questions. I suspect knowing the instigating incident, the thing that caused his personality to become fragmented, would help.

I do think and have for a long time theory that Elliot was not all good (or bad), but that there was something really dark working within Elliot Prime.

It is sad to see that Olivia was a real and regular citizen of the world and not a Dark Army operative. Her story seemed too perfectly tailored to what would work to draw Elliot in. I did think setting the razor blade up several episodes ago was a nice (sad) payoff. There was a lot of good writing in this episode (even if I said to myself as it happens, don’t let her go into the bathroom alone Elliot).

It is heartbreaking that Elliot has both potentially gotten her back on drugs (remember addiction to Oxy is such a national crisis that overdoses have become one of the biggest causes of death in the United States). As you look back on Elliot, remember she was a really nice person. 

I particularly like that she called out Elliot’s ethics, he believes that if you have done anything wrong, you deserve what is coming to him. Elliot himself has hurt countless thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of lives. Tyrell more or less chose to commit suicide rather than live in a world knowing that Elliot didn’t love him back.

Olivia had a kid, and 8 years sober, everything could be okay for her, but Elliot risked everything in her life to serve his plan.

And, it is a little cheap to suggest guilt through the transitive process of having “worked for monsters” as an acceptable response. Given Elliot’s view of capitalist entities, virtually everyone has transitive guilt to pay down and his logic fully whitewashes his vigilanteism. Having her acknowledge her small part in the chain of agency in whatever her employers did seems a cheap excuse for the things Elliot did to her and has always done to others.

I should also probably mention that the coffee shop is familiar because it is the same location from the beginning of the first episode (the more things change…)

“We All Have A Purpose In This World”

Before Vera called out Krista for calling him a little bitch, he called himself a little bitch by implying Elliot was “his bully” and that Krista was going to be the baseball bat with which he was going to break Elliot’s head open.

Two problems here;

One, Mr. Robot might have scared Krista, but he is the nicest personality that Elliot has inside him. 

Mr. Robot can play mean, maybe even do mean things, but he is not the real deep dark secret. Mr. Robot represents the Edward in Elliot and Edward was a sweetheart. He will try to protect Elliot through whatever means are necessary but he is not the brutal personality.

Alter Three is the real badass (I am guessing) and I am still predicting that is Magda (because we already saw her...Occam’s razor).

Two, and I am hoping this is not the case, but Leon is back in play. 

I say I am hoping this is not the case because it would be too easy for Leon to show up, announce he is a free agent, and then show up to save him from Vera.

It would go down like this when Elliot told Mr. Robot he had to go save Krista at Washington Square Park, he also told Leon who had told him he would help him out if needed.

Okay, one side note here. 

It is theoretically possible but unlikely Leon is the third alter. I don't think he is because he has been in the same room with Angela and Elliot at the same time and both of them spoke to him. In addition, I find it hard to believe that Elliot would play a direct role in the death of Trenton and Mobley (although my mind might be changed a bit more after what Elliot did to Olivia).

Anyway, Vera is a psychopath and dangerous, but I have a feeling he is still about to be going down hard. Either through Leon or through whoever the third alter is (who is Elliot at his most brutal). A final option is the Dark Army somehow finds Elliot in time and saves him from Vera.

Elliot is too smart to just run right into an obvious trap. Except that he has done so time and time again this season. The legend of Elliot’s competence is starting to come up against some hard limits of his repeated incompetence (remember when he trapped himself in the apartment honey pot?).

“Working On The Same Side”

Wang Shu, like the former assistant to ‘whiterose’ is really hot to kill Elliot but ‘whiterose’ stops her by telling her Elliot had yet to see the full picture and that once he sees the full picture he will know that they are, ‘working on the same side.’

There is some sense to this. 

Remember a few episodes ago when we saw Zhang’s lover take his own life? The powers that be were what drove him to kill himself. It is very possible that this is both a love and revenge story, a way for ‘whiterose’ to reunite with her lover and a way for her to get revenge on the powers who caused their separation.

Of course, I have mentioned that it could still be possible this is about cobalt bombs. I haven’t thought about it in a while. But when ‘whiterose’ says they are both on the same side, this could be about watching the world burn.

On the other hand, ‘whiterose’ could just be working to bring down the rest of the companies that made it impossible for her to be forever together with her lover and that means the Deus group. 

And maybe something to do with time travel or parallel universes.

“I Was Not Expecting This”

Dom caught Darlene at Angela’s apartment.

Janice ordered Dom to kill Darlene and bring her Darlene’s phone so that she can use it to find Elliot.

Dom tried very hard to comply and was fully made aware that the consequences of not playing along would be the death of all the people whom she held most dear. But Dom could not pull it off (although she was able to club Darlene pretty hard in her noggin) and even worse, in not pulling it off, she allowed Dom to erase the phone which they needed to hack in order to track Elliot’s whereabouts.

Dom thought of a third way, having Darlene kill her, but Darlene was not able to pull it off before Janice had entered Dom’s house and taken control of the situation.

It is a good thing that Darlene erased the phone, If Darlene had not erased the phone, they would have no need for Darlene’s continued existence and would have killed Darlene and punished Dom. Now, they may need Darlene’s assistance, which could potentially keep them from going after Dom’s family (to appease Darlene). In addition, she thinks she saved Elliot’s butt (although we now know ‘whiterose’ wants Elliot alive).

Darlene deserves credit for quick thinking either way.

Okay, kind of a crazy episode, almost too much information to process, we will see what happens next week.

Fun Society

Every week, I will write another recap until we finish this journey together.

If you have any interest in criminal justice reform I am also the host of the Decarceration Nation Podcast

If you like Orange Is the New Black, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

If you like Black Mirror, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

Hello friend...

I have been writing about Mr. Robot for a very long time. You can read all my earlier writing about the show using this guide.

We have finally come down to this one final season, hopefully, we will get answers to many pressing questions (I put together this list of questions in advance of the final season)

You can also follow me on Reddit (I am ypsifactj48, I usually hang around r/Mr.Robot and the Black Mirror and Orange Is the New Black rooms.

If you have not watched every episode of Mr. Robot or read Red Wheelbarrow this could contain spoilers *Spoiler Alert*

“It’s Christmas Theo, it’s the time of miracles”

This was one of the best episodes of Mr. Robot, terse, tense, and really well-designed.

But….

So, why is Elliot alive again?

Ostensibly, ‘whiterose’ was trying to wait until her “project” was shipped to the Congo (I suspect ‘whiterose’ was afraid Elliot might have a fail-safe set for if he meets with an untimely or unfortunate end), but then a week later we find out that the Dark Army have Elliot under surveillance, that gets shot all to hell by Tyrell, but the Dark Army is a step behind (despite literally knowing Elliot is the ONLY thing standing between themselves and total victory).

Okay, I’ll play along, but why is Elliot alive?

Tamir Rice, a 13-year-old kid, was in a playground with a toy gun and he is now dead because two police officers thought he had a gun.

Elliot Alderson endangered citizens all over New York City, literally running through traffic and knocking people and even, at one point, a baby carriage over.  Eric Garner gets choked out for selling loose cigarettes in the same city but Elliot Alderson somehow got a pass? I know he didn’t have a weapon, but he was putting people at risk and police have done worse with “fleeing felons” even in New York City.

Thank goodness, it was a MONSTER chase scene but hard not to think about the last ten years of police stories across the United States (and especially in NYC).

But why is Elliot alive?

I mean he managed to get hit by a car, jump off a fence down a cliff, and beyond that got the holy hell beaten out of him sacrificing himself to ensure that Darlene escapes with the data on the Dark Army bank.

Oh well, Elliot is alive, which I suspect is a good thing in terms of us being able to get to the bottom of the large list of mysteries I suggested remained to be solved at the beginning of this season.

I get that Elliot has to stay alive to move the story along, I am just saying that - at points - it strains credulity.

Maurneau’s Dry cleaners

The Dark Army doesn’t just invite people to the meetings of the Deus Group. Apparently, you will have to pay a saxaphone player, get a ticket to pick up a suit at a particular dry cleaners, and use that ticket to find out where you are meeting at 

Of course now that Tyrell is deceased (or at least Sam Esmail has suggested in writing that he will not be returning any time soon) this is going to cause some serious problems with the plan to hack the meeting of the Deus group. 

Also, now that Elliot is persona non grata, he can’t really show up, and given Darlene is only alive because Elliot convinced ‘whiiterose’ that he could move the superconducting super collider (or whatever the hell was in the Washington Township Facility) to the Congo for ‘whiterose.’ she can’t really show up either (even with a great wig).

The meeting will be at somewhere called “The Brentano”

Mayhem in Central Park

I won’t lie, it is kinda hard to write a recap of an episode dominated by a long-hack followed by a massive chase sequence. To put it in terms Black Mirror fans might understand “405 Method Not Allowed” was the “Metalhead” episode in this season of Mr. Robot.

Don’t get me wrong, turning a fingerprint lift into a digitally printed fingerprint was cool and the sequence with the security guard walking through the servers was intense, and the ensuing chase was riveting. But none of it leaves me much to talk about. This was not a “thought piece” episode, it was one of the few pure action episodes and, as such, leaves me with only literal details to share.

Also, it is interesting to consider that the entire caper was 100% dependant on making sure a particular security guard touched a camera enough to provide a clear fingerprint.

Dom is coming apart at the seams as she tries to follow Janice’s orders. She pulls off a nifty hack of a local police station so that Janice can identify her missing van driver and she manages to get some information about Deegan McGuire being released (the mobster she interviewed a few episodes ago with a specialty in disappearing people).

Right at the end of the episode, during Christmas time with the family who has made her a hostage of the Dark Army, she gets the message that she is supposed to find and kill Darlene and Elliot. We already knew ‘whiterose’s’ patience had run out, but I guess she is no longer worried about Elliot sabotaging the Congo plan.

Which brings me back to the original question. Why in the world is Elliot still alive?

Oh, before I forget entirely, Vera has kidnapped Krista in order to interrogate her about Elliot. I mean the problem here is that Elliot has much bigger problems than Vera. Don’t get me wrong, Vera could still stumble into Elliot’s problem and cause one of his many plans to go awry. My point is only that, as dastardly as Vera is, and he is very dastardly, the Dark Army has now put a full on hit on Elliot. I guess it is theoretically possible that Vera actually stumbles in and saves Elliot accidentally...who knows? 

We are still stuck in a lot of sound and fury as we hate for the tumblers to actually fall into place. I guess the biggest thing we have learned so far is that ‘whiterose’ is motivated by love. I am still not entirely sure I ever saw her plan as being part of a love story prior to this season.

Of course, with all of the Die Hard references throughout this episode, Sam is either letting us know that Die Hard is a Christmas Movie or that the real Dark Army plan is a heist. Just let’s hope the show isn’t going to end in Nakamura Towers. 

This was actually an amazing episode, but it was mostly taken up with a series of hacks and with a chase.

Thanks for reading, see you again next week at an earlier special time.

Fun Society

Every week, I will write another recap until we finish this journey together.

If you have any interest in criminal justice reform I am also the host of the Decarceration Nation Podcast

If you like Orange Is the New Black, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

If you like Black Mirror, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

Hello friend...

I have been writing about Mr. Robot for a very long time. You can read all my earlier writing about the show using this guide.

We have finally come down to this one final season, hopefully, we will get answers to many pressing questions (I put together this list of questions in advance of the final season)

Watchmen is fantastic.

— Sam Esmail (@samesmail) October 25, 2019

You can also follow me on Reddit (I am ypsifactj48, I usually hang around r/Mr.Robot and the Black Mirror and Orange Is the New Black rooms.

If you have not watched every episode of Mr. Robot or read Red Wheelbarrow this could contain spoilers *Spoiler Alert*

“Were you on Big Brother?”

Merry Christmas Eve?

Okay, not to jump to the very end but so far Elliot has lost:

Mobley, Trenton, Edward, Magda, Romero, Shayla, Angela and now Tyrell Wellick

I guess it is a good thing he still has at least two friends who live inside his head because he is pretty much down to just Darlene and whoever is left on his imaginary friend tree.

In case you missed the incredibly thick fog of despair throughout this episode, Elliot has almost lost whatever is left of the war entirely.

Perhaps you remember a scene during season two where Elliot dreamed that he was having dinner with all of his friends, Sam Esmail presented this dinner as Elliot’s ultimate outcome, his perfect endpoint. Now, sad to say, with one exception, the only place where he could attend that perfect dinner is in the afterlife.

And, I hate to do this, but I have to ask WHY? What has all of this been for?

First Elliot destroyed the economy to eliminate everyone’s debt, then he found out blowing up the economy made everything worse and E-corp and the Dark Army even more powerful, so then he reversed the hack...which made E-Corp and the Dark Army more powerful.

So, now, for some reason, he thinks the answer is to destroy ‘whiterose,’ and so far he has managed to get trapped once and probably twice (I still believe Olivia is a plant or handler).

At least we learned one thing for sure, somewhere under all the depression, bullshit, defense mechanisms, and nonsense, Elliot does care about the people in his life and despite all of his prodigious talents, almost all of the people that he cares about are now dead 

What happens now? What was the point? Why did we do all of this?

And also, why in the world did they attack the truck in the first place? If disrupting the Dark Army surveillance meant they would be dead men walking…why not just let the surveillance go on while you use it to your advantage or subvert the information Dark Army gets from the surveillance? Yes, I get that Tyrell messed up and tipped the strategy, but it is not like it seemed like a particularly great plan and ‘whiterose’ has made clear she gets that Price’s ploy is likely really Elliot’s ploy.

My personal guess is that Wellick, facing a very similar conundrum as Dom is, decided to go on a suicide mission. I think Dom is deciding deep down if she still has any faith in the world left and Tyrell has decided for certain that he does not have any such faith left.

And yes, I get that some will suggest he is not dead…But lately, the suggestion of death has meant death on Mr. Robot.

RIP Tyrell Wellick. Sorry, you never actually got to become either CTO or CEO of E-corp.

“My Preference, You Are Hanging From a Rope”

Darlene is trying to find Elliot, and work out a lot of issues, but instead, she finds Tobias.

Tobias is a random guy she runs into on her end of this somewhat bizarre episode. He is a guy who dresses up as Santa to visit children's cancer wards for Christmas and then gets drunk with friends after. He sees Darlene trying to steal what he thinks was his car and tries to stop her. Darlene offers to drive him home if he will subsequently loan her his car to “fun an errand.”

Because he is drunk, he agrees, and they begin the adventure along to the song Joey by Concrete Blonde, which, unless I am totally crazy, is a band that was made popular for a short time after a cover they played of a Leonard Cohen  song appeared in the Christian Slater movie “Pump Up The Volume.”

Oh, by the way, Darlene needs Elliot to help break into a place called Virtual Reality because Olivia’s clearance isn’t good enough for what they need her clearance to accomplish. Sidenote, way back many summers ago, there was a Mr. Robot VR experience game involving Darlene (does anyone remember anything relevant from that experience?).

It is also very clear from this episode that Darlene loves Elliot and that Elliot finally realizes he not only loves Darlene but that he has been terrible to her recently (true).

“Everybody Knows”

“Pump Up the Volume” was about a young pirate radio deejay named Mark Hunter, but his on-air radio name was “Happy Harry Hard-On.”

Mark was played by Christian Slater.

Dom’s partner in her IRC chat was named:

Happyhardonhenry806

Mark gets arrested at the end of the film but only after he tells all his followers that the world belongs to them and that they should “make their own future.”

Everybody Knows, the Leonard Cohen version was also featured in Pump Up the Volume...and as you may remember, Sam used the Leonard Cohen song Democracy in a trailer for Season 3.

What does it all mean? 

I once hypothesized that Mr. Robot would be Sam Esmail’s answer to the cop-out at the end of Fight Club, in other words, where Fight Club ended with the bank's collapsing (literally), Mr. Robot wants to deal with the ethical consequences of collapsing the world economy? 

Perhaps the point is that we don’t need saviors, revolutionaries, people in fsociety masks, or superheroes. At the end of the day, what we need is to all be at a table together, connected through our caring for each other and knowing that together we are responsible for our own future.

Or maybe it is that each of the remaining characters needs to stop and decide what they can do to make the world a better place (with diminishing time and resources).

Anyway, Dom has a long sex-chat with Happyhardonhenry806 (after first getting off thinking about Darlene). While Dom gets propositioned for an IRL meet by Harry (after a lot of really over-the-top sex chat), Dom fantasizes (at the time we think it is real) that the person she is chatting with is actually a woman and that they hook up. Right before they get from messing around to sex, Dom goes in the bathroom only to find out that her date is Dark Army and that she can never escape.

Her reality is her nightmare, and she knows no way out.

All she has at the end of the episode is herself in the mirror.

“Pike’s Hollow”

This was very much a Sam Esmail David Lynch homage episode, heavy doses of both “Lost Highway” and Twin Peaks (a town nobody can find, a gas station attendant who sends them on a wild goose chase, everything in shadows and fog). 

There was only one other time I remember Elliot being stuck somewhere off the grid and that was when he chose to allow himself to be sent to jail for stealing Flipper from Lenny. 

In both cases, it was nearly fatal.

But for intervention by Leon, Elliot would have been attacked and killed in jail (Leon literally saved his life).

But for intervention by Tyrell, Elliot would have been shot by the Dark Army soldier who was watching him from the van.

It is not even entirely clear why they decided to intervene to interrupt the surveillance, what was the plan? Motivations are getting murkier and murkier and things are getting desperate. 

Anyway, somehow Tyrell took care of the Dark Army soldier and now Elliot has to burn the van, but Tyrell is gone.

Team Fsociety is down to one dissociative hacker, his sister, and Philip Price. 

Okay, I think this was mostly an episode addressing character motivations and conveying that our team of plucky revolutionaries has hit rock bottom. They have very little hope left and have to take stock and figure out if there is anything left to fight for or any hope left that a fight could be successful.

That is all I have got tonight, have a great week.

Fun Society

Every week, I will write another recap until we finish this journey together.

If you have any interest in criminal justice reform I am also the host of the Decarceration Nation Podcast

If you like Orange Is the New Black, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

If you like Black Mirror, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

Hello friend...

I have been writing about Mr. Robot for a very long time. You can read all my earlier writing about the show using this guide.

We have finally come down to this one final season, hopefully, we will get answers to many pressing questions (I put together this list of questions in advance of the final season)

Only time will tell, friend. #MrRobot

— Mr. Robot (@whoismrrobot) October 21, 2019

You can also follow me on Reddit (I am ypsifactj48, I usually hang around r/Mr.Robot and the Black Mirror and Orange Is the New Black rooms.

If you have not watched every episode of Mr. Robot or read Red Wheelbarrow this could contain spoilers *Spoiler Alert*

“The Martian”

65% chance Olivia is Dark Army.

First of all, if you wanted to socially engineer someone, what would be the absolute best way to do it? Especially if you know they are desperate...You would set them up so that they think they are socially engineering YOU.

We know ‘whiterose’ is having Elliot followed, we also know - for some dumb reason - that USA Network included the line “Elliot gets owned by his own hack” in the episode byline. Finally, her story was way too perfect for his situation...she lost a mom, she treated her dad poorly as a result of her mom, she struggled with addiction but is no longer an active addict. Everything she had to share was perfect for what he needed to hear (given where he is emotionally right now).

Most importantly, she gives up the ghost, she basically admits that she replaced her addiction with something “darker.” I am almost 100% sure she actually said that. Also, what is the chance her date would show up just late enough to allow them to meet and connect but not too late to miss the date entirely? 

This is a work, and because Elliot is desperate, upset, and not thinking clearly, he got owned. Right now, Darlene is likely getting owned by Elliot’s login. Let us not forget, Elliot is not exactly on the top of his game...Remember, it was just two weeks ago he found himself trapped in the honey pot. He is rushing and not thinking things through.

Oh, also ‘whiterose’ decided to move the timeline of the Deus group meeting up to 24 hours. In hopes that moving it forward will make Elliot desperate...coincidence? As Zhang has been known to say, “there is no such thing as a coincidence.”

It’s possible I am just cynical or paranoid. Of course, there is still the question of why they don’t just kill him. I had a theory about that (see below).

But this begs the question of who is in the van, I suspect it is not the Dark Army (Olivia is his Dark Army handler).

“Tidings Of Joy”

Okay, Fernando Vera has an army of kids distributing drugs for him in chickens.

Post-modern Oliver Twist?

Now we know why Vera has not made his move, he is still totally insane but he wants Elliot to come to him and help him OWN New York City. 

I am not sure he is Chris Waken, but he wants to be King of New York and he wants Elliot to make it possible.

I don’t have much insight here, Vera is a hand grenade just waiting to go off. That is really his only purpose right now. 

He is still a psychopath, he is still a megalomaniac, and at some point, probably a critical point, he is going to insert himself in the game in a way both Elliot and the Dark Army were not ready for.

“It Will Require Patience”

So now we have a little bit more of an idea of why ‘whiterose’ is trying to change time or open an alternative timeline. When he was younger, the man he loved was forced to marry another woman and rather than go along with the arranged marriage, he killed himself right in front of a young Minister Zhang.

In the conversation that preceded Zhang’s lover committing suicide, Zhang promised she would find a way to make it all work out so that they could be together. 

His lover was the first person to see and accept him as ‘whiterose’ and the dress we later see that 'she wants to wear when his project gets off the ground is the dress he first wore when she showed him who she really was.

Now, none of this explains why the Dark Army believes in the plan, or why they are as invested in it as she is. It does make more sense of why they are all willing to kill themselves for love of the cause (because that is how the Dark Army apparently started, with the death of Zhang’s lover).

One subtle touch during the flashback scene was the use of the song “Time (Clock Of The Heart) by Culture Club which sums the whole ‘whiterose’ story up...I have to admit it is hard to accept that our supervillain has no time because she feels like any second of delay is more time away from her lover.

But I guess, it humanizes her a little more?

“You’re Hurting Me”

Okay, I know not everyone is with me on the Magda theory, especially because imaginary Magda said “HIM” in her soliloquy at the end of 402. Here is how I explained it all earlier today on Reddit <please note I address the gender problem at the very beginning of the post>.

Breaking down the Magda theory again from r/MrRobot

I am becoming more and more convinced this is a real thing 

I believe we saw Magda in 403.

When Elliot grabs Darlene and Darlene says “you’re hurting me,” Elliot responds, “I know.”

Elliot would never hurt Darlene, not even to protect her, but Madga would.

In fact, Magda was so abusive to Darlene that Darlene was happy to be kidnapped when she was a kid. 

If you watch the scene again, you will notice Elliot’s manner and tone change, he sounds like a different person, like the person he was on Halloween the night the entire plot was hatched.

That personality is Magda.

As always, I could be wrong, but we did see the other personality (whoever it is).

I hope everyone has a great week! Until next time.

Fun Society

Every week, I will write another recap until we finish this journey together.

If you have any interest in criminal justice reform I am also the host of the Decarceration Nation Podcast

If you like Orange Is the New Black, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

If you like  Black Mirror, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

Several years ago, I decided to do a deep-dive into the Netflix show Orange Is The New Black and today, after 91 recaps, it comes to an end (although I am planning to do one last post discussing the book).

I am not a woman, which is a huge weakness in my coverage. I do consult with friends who did time in women’s facilities and try to ensure accuracy.

I did time in a state and not a federal facility, another huge weakness.  I try to consult with friends who did time in federal facilities and try to ensure accuracy.

If you haven’t been listening to the Decarceration Nation Podcast my most recent guest was Rachael Rollins the progressive prosecutor from Suffolk County Massachusetts (including Boston). We discussed everything from solitary confinement to justice reinvestment and how to reduce mass incarceration. 

Here we go folks, my very last recap of the television show Orange Is the New Black.

If you have not watched OITNB before *Spoiler Alert*

5. “Breakfast for Dinner” (Part 2)

Tiffany Doggett is perhaps the best example ever of what could be called the Orange Is the Balck Empathy effect. She is the perfect example of how, when you get to know someone’s whole story, even a person who committed horrific crimes is worthy of being treated with dignity and humanity. 

She was the villain in season one, she is literally in prison for murdering someone who insulted her, and she has a long history of drug abuse.

Still, I bet a lot of people reading this right now teared up when Taystee found her lying dead in the laundry room (some of you will remember she was in charge of the crew that ran the laundry room back when everyone was still at the camp).

We have gotten to know Doggett well over the years, we have seen the whole story of her life and if you are like me you probably thought about cheering when you saw the posthumous evidence that Doggett passed her GED.

Doggett is also one of those people who deserved a better fate. She had a very hard life, and never really found much happiness (despite her generally sunny disposition in the later years of the show). 

Suzanne’s quiet recognition of Doggett’s passing shows how far she has come in her journey on this show, and Taystee was right to say that she was proud of her. As the show goes off the air we see Suzanne working with Taystee in a classroom, working on moving the microloans program forward, and looking happy.

I am very glad Taystee makes peace, like so many real people are forced to do, with walking down her long sentence despite full knowledge she is in prison for a crime she did not commit (and somewhere, in some alternative universe, there are a bunch of fictional correctional officers who know the truth and will have this on their consciences forever). But Taystee represents real people in real prisons, we know from the success of organizations like the Innocence Project that we convict a large-number of innocent people and sentence them for long periods (even to death). 

It also makes an odd kind of sense that Judy King works with Taystee to create the Poussey fund. Judy King started as a stand-in for Martha Stewart but she ended up more like a Kim Kardashian, using her influence to help out.

• Taystee is a stand-in for a statistically significant number of people in prison who are innocent.

• Taystee is a stand-in for a large number of people sentenced to a new crime for something that happened while they were in prison but convicted on evidence from a jailhouse informant. 

• Suzanne, Lolly,  and Morello are stand-ins for a large number of women (and men) in prison who suffer from or incarcerated primarily because of mental health issues.

• Doggett is a stand-in for a large number of women in prison who need trauma-informed care and meaningful addiction treatment including a harm-reduction approach. 

• Red is a stand-in for a large number of women (and men) in prison who need compassionate release. It is especially cruel to make someone with memory-loss to serve out a sentence for crimes they mostly can’t remember having committed. One thing is for sure, dealing with serious medical issues in prison is much more costly than dealing with them taking advantage of compassionate release.

At the beginning of the show every week, we see a bunch of faces, each character on the show represents real people who are currently incarcerated and have real, and often traumatic, stories to share themselves.

Way too often, people like myself (impacted activists on the outside) say we are “voices for the voiceless,” but people inside have voices, we just have to get better at caring enough to listen. Currently, our prisons and jails are black boxes but we can insist they become more transparent, we can write or email incarcerated people, we can visit incarcerated people, we can even interview incarcerated people.

What we should not do is to pretend the show is over and what we saw was entirely fictional. If you connected with characters on this show, connect with real people suffering many of these same issues. Get involved with activists in your area, visit a prisoner, meet some of the families from your church or neighborhood meetings who have a family member who is incarcerated. Get involved in the legislative battles around criminal justice reform in your state. Trust me, once you get involved, and meet some incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, you will be hooked.

Most exciting, criminal justice reform is one of the only places in our society where large numbers of people from both parties work together to make real change happen. We have made a lot of changes over the last five years and, hopefully, a lot more change is coming.

4. “It’s Hard to Sing With No Teeth”

So, Hellman, who was the guy smuggling the drugs in is the new warden at Litchfield I guess that is how bureaucracies often function (elevating the least deserving and most effectively corrupt). 

Warden Ward was trying to make Litchfield a better place, but none of these officers had the training or experience to be a particularly effective warden. Ward, in many ways, did not have any idea what she was doing (she wasn’t even a particularly experienced or good correctional officer), but she did care and she got to the core of one of the most annoying issues in prisons. Lack of programming.

Even a simple back of the envelope calculations would show how much money could be saved by ensuring people have access to recidivism-reducing programming. There are several kinds of programming and ways to incentivize progress throughout incarceration (early diversion, good-time credit, special housing units,  earned credits, etc.) but they all reduce violence and save money long-term. What frequently happens, as we see on the show, is short-term budget concerns (and old-school thinking) frustrating or destroying programming.

If you think about it, this was a pretty sad and fatalistic final episode:

• Ward has been fired

• Hellman, arguably the worst or the remaining correctional officers, becomes the warden.

• Linda is still thriving and large and in charge.

• Taystee is stuck in prison.

• Daya had her windpipe crushed by her mom, not that it was undeserved, but what happens to Aleida’s family now? Aleida will now be in prison for much longer and we get no redemption arc for Daya who is either dead or seriously injured (I guess Dasha Polanco said her character did not die in a post-finale interview).

• Red and Morello are lost in Florida (but at least have each other).

• McCullough is still a mess and looks even more miserable because she knows she intentionally uprooted Vause.

• Doggett is dead.

• Flaca in prison (fighting the good fight).

• Nicky’s girlfriend was deported and she is still incarcerated.

• Maritza was deported.

• Lolly is still incarcerated.

• Carla is dying in the desert after being abandoned when she broke her ankle (I assume trying to get back to her kids).

As much as I celebrate all the successes of the people I see come home from prison successfully, prison doesn’t often have very good outcomes. Still, sad to see the whole thing end with corruption winning (as it often does).

3. “Because You Giggle When You Fart”

Okay, I guess I will spend a few seconds on Vause and Piper.

We spent almost the entire run of the show with the “will they or won’t they” storyline. So the final answer was (drumroll please)...They end up together.

At least I will no longer have to deal with this repetitive and annoying storyline anymore.

I like both characters but I could not have been more tired of their storyline never changing. I liked Zelda, but part of the reason this was all annoying is that it was always obvious they would end up together (it made it seem like teen drama whenever they battled back and forth and broke up and got back together, etc.).

We do find out that Vause was not the only person who got transferred to Ohio, we get a brief view of the following former Litchfield residents:

• Big Boo (missed badly during the last two seasons)

• Janae Watson (still running).

• Leanne Taylor (sorry, didn’t miss her, mostly found the meth-heads annoying)

• Angie Rice (see above)

• Yoga Jones (should give Judy King a call)

• Gina Murphy 

• Norma Romano (sad she didn’t get to reconnect with Red before Red lost her memory)

• Anita DeMarco

• Brook Soso (Sankey???)

• Allison Abdullah 

• Kasey Sankey (second-chances? It was a nice haiku I guess)

• George Mendez (see Hellman, although at least Mendez paid a price)

• We also see Taslitz (one of the Golden Girls)  and Mei Chang back at Litchfield during the final episode.

I guess I wish we had seen Miss Claudette (she was mentioned during an earlier final season episode) and Sister Ingalls but I guess you can’t have everything 

Good to see everyone one last time, and glad we also got to say goodbye to Sophia a few episodes ago.

2. “Eye Hug”

The final episode had better news for some folks:

• Caputo and Fig are happy together and adopt a precocious young girl they meet at an adoption agency.

• Gloria goes home and finds her kids, grandkids, and her Mi Burro book 

• Maria gets to read Mi Burro to her kid (after coming to an agreement with Yadriel about his new girlfriend...Maria).

• Piper is working at Starbucks and going to, I think, law school (Starbucks does hire formerly incarcerated people on a case-by-case basis). 

• Blanca earns her release, gets back her green card, and decides to leave the United States and self-deport to be with Diablo in Honduras.

• Cindy reconnects with her mother and daughter and starts trying to get her life back together. They start meeting at McDonald's (some McDonalds hire formerly incarcerated people, others don’t).

• Nicky, while still incarcerated, becomes a prison mom and a head chef, following in Red’s footsteps and trying to help new girls struggling with addiction and recovery in prison.

Glad to see some happy endings for some great characters at the end of a great series.

1, Thank You

I was unsure from the beginning if I should write this series of recaps. I am so happy that I did. I want to thank everyone for being so supportive and for being consistent readers of this recap for seven seasons. 

A Special shout out to the Orange Is the New Black Reddit. I have had thousands of good discussions about the show there.

I have learned a lot from all of you, learned a lot from all the women I talked with about the show and about what it is like to be in a women’s prison. I remain committed to ensuring that criminal justice reform includes women and for women’s prisons (and jails).

Thank you again, and thank you to Piper Kerman and Jenji Kohan and all the writers and incredible actors on the show. 

Last thought, I would put Uzo Aduba’s performance as Suzanne right up there with Omar on The Wire as one of the best and most memorable performances of all time on television. Suzanne was almost always the heart of the show, and I will probably remember Aduba’s portrayal, of  Suzanne’s grace and ceaseless optimism in the face of almost unimaginable injustice.

Okay, in a few weeks I will have one last post (discussing Piper Kerman’s book).

Unlocking The Gates

New recaps will come out once a week (usually on Sunday mornings).

Lots has happened since last season, I am now a policy analyst at Safe and Just Michigan, a consultant with #cut50, and still the host of a podcast. I am still a member of a Criminal Justice Reform organization called Nation Outside (The Voice of the Formerly Incarcerated) but I am not speaking for Nation Outside in any official capacity.

Leave comments, let us know what you thought! We will answer any questions you have (that are civil).

Hello friend...

I have been writing about Mr. Robot for a very long time. You can read all my earlier writing about the show using this guide.

We have finally come down to this one final season, hopefully, we will get answers to many pressing questions (I put together this list of questions in advance of the final season)

@whoismrrobot #mrrobotseason4 TONIGHT (Sundays) 10PM @USA_Network https://t.co/HEoSSqi0Us pic.twitter.com/0JZvIfZvK0

— BD WONG (@BD_WONG) October 13, 2019

You can also follow me on Reddit (I am ypsifactj48, I usually hang around r/Mr.Robot and the Black Mirror and Orange Is the New Black rooms.

If you have not watched every episode of Mr. Robot or read Red Wheelbarrow this could contain spoilers *Spoiler Alert*

“Trying to Stop a Speeding Train By Standing In Front Of It”

Well, it wasn’t exactly rocket science, but I was right Phillip Price is working with Elliot (and his now larger crew) to take down ‘whiterose.’

I do, however, like the idea of social media and online life being the silent coup, the great in the open conspiracy, that corporations used to supplant governments and subjugate the public. To a great extent, this theory is functionally correct. 

Usually, when you have a debate about privacy, some wiseass will inevitably say, “if you have nothing to hide, who cares about invasions of privacy.” The truth is that it is of no matter at all if what you do in your private time is illegal or not, influencers with information can use what they find to leverage your cooperation at critical moments. In essence, we have spent a little over three seasons watching Elliot socially engineer people using their online information which he compiled in a matter of minutes. Imagine what corporations do, without you even knowing it, every single day using all of the information we have allowed them to compile every single day of our lives since the invention of the smartphone. 

Look at what we have learned from the Russian troll farms, people can be moved and hyper-targeted using data freely available online, it can change economies, it can crush lives, it can change governments. The first political campaign to truly effectively use this information to “manufacture consent” was President Obama but Cambridge Analytica and President Trump (with the help of Russia) took it to an entirely different level in 2016 and just like Koch Industries largely funded and informed the Tea Party movement, who is to say that corporations or sub-national actors are not generating Trump-leaning conspiracy theories? 

But that is really just the short con, the long con is moving people to work, buy, and sell. Our entire informational and entertainment infrastructures are entirely embedded in and made up of advertising specifically created for our tastes. Everything we connect with pushes us in subtle and unsubtle ways towards commerce, politics, activism, and community. There is not that much functional difference between the fields of human batteries suggested in the Matrix (bodies used to provide energy for an ascendant robot civilization) and our society full of human consumers powering corporate profits suggested by the show Mr. Robot. Putin wants his piece of the Deus Group...The Deus Group, in a sense, “owns” everyone who is connected to a networked set of devices. And the Deus group, is like Janice, always listening. 

One, I think intentional, take throughout the entire episode is people entering their security codes into Apple devices. In essence, this could be the ultimate insult, we have created a security infrastructure, complicated barriers between us and our systems. The corporations have us so on a leash, if this is correct, that we set up security to protect our ability to be manipulated.

Anyway, for those who don’t remember, Darlene “accidentally” killed Susan Jacobs because she did not know that Jacobs had a heart condition. Apparently, in order to take down ‘whiterose’ Elliot will have to recreate the long-deceased memory of Ms. Jacobs and use it to break into the Deus group when they all meet to decide Phillip Price’s successor.

“It’s Mom, She Died”

Darlene hated her Mom so much that once she, more or less, allowed herself to be kidnapped without much of a struggle. Darlene was so happy to have been kidnapped that you would almost have to believe she had “pre-Stockholm syndrome” (that she was just dreaming of the day she might be kidnapped).

In Red Wheelbarrow, at one point, Darlene ran away because her Mom wanted to kill a cat (I think it was a stray) she loved. What is worse, if I remember correctly, her Mom made her face it in a particularly cruel way once she showed back up.

One of my running theories, since Edward did not push Elliot out of the window, is that Elliot’s Mom was responsible for the traumatic break which resulted in Elliot becoming dissociative. I have nothing beyond anecdotal evidence for that theory yet, but it certainly seems possible.

It would be hard to imagine all of the complicated dynamics in this family, but one of the true remaining mysteries of the show is how Elliot became Elliot, Mr. Robot, and apparently Tyrell Wellick (more on this in a second).

Most of this episode is about Darlene and Elliot reconnecting and coming to grips, at least a little, with the death and internment of their mother’s remains. Elliot is less openly upset despite Darlene literally hating her mom. In some ways, I am almost more interested in how this all really started than I am in what ‘whiterose’ is actually up to.

I assume we will be finding out more soon, but for Elliot to dissociate, there has to have been a traumatic break (and one serious enough so that he needed to use multiple figments of his personality as buffers between himself and the world). Knowing the origin of Elliot’s rage, and what made him so radically vulnerable that he needed to dissociate into a semi-unified set of personalities is the real key to everything else.

Hopefully, we will get more clues soon.

Oh, also, Dom tried to be honest with her superior at work and it caused his death (Janice is always listening).

“I Got Mom’s Ashes”

Okay, so Elliot is a trio, and the third personality could be Tyrell Wellick.

Let me rephrase, it could have been a literal reveal, and the third personality could be the child Elliot (who hangs out with his Mother instead of Mr. Robot…which would mean a fourth personality). But, I am fairly sure that was a placeholder, and the actual identity is supposed to be Tyrell.

I say this because in the reveal scene, young Elliot, who I guess is theoretically an adoptee named Muhammad (if I remember correctly from last year’s surreal flashback episode...in other words, the flashback was Elliot trying to reconnect with his actual family...or at least that is my current operating theory) is sitting at the seat in the conference room which was occupied by Tyrell Wellick at the end of episode one and at the beginning of episode two of the first season

Now, I will be totally honest, this seems like total nonsense to me. 

Why? Because there are way too many scenes where people interact with Elliot and Tyrell as separate people throughout the series. Now, this could be a dodge, there are certainly times where, for instance, people seem to be talking to either Elliot or Mr. Robot while the other is present...but they never refer to them as Elliot and Mr. Robot. People have referred to Elliot and to Tyrell Wellick in the same room. In point of fact, after Elliot disabled the first Fsociety hack on Allsafe, Tyrell was asking Elliot questions in front of Ecorp and the entire Allsafe staff (Tyrell, in fact, dismissed Angela so that he could talk with Elliot). 

In addition, “where’s Tyrell Wellick” was a huge game throughout the second season and Wellick sightings happened while Elliot was in prison (although, in a sense, it makes sense that Tyrell would disappear at the same time Elliot disappeared). Tyrell Wellick was all over the news and is referenced as a hero by multiple secondary characters, how in the world could he both be Elliot from Allsafe to Angela, Darlene, and the entire staff there and also be Tyrell at Ecorp with nobody the wiser?

Also, and in addition, how could Elliot be married and speaking Swedish with Joanna with nobody knowing? Regardless, this does solve one serious problem, Elliot has done a TON of bad things despite his desire never to do bad things (see 71 buildings, the 5/9 hack, the jailbreak, and much more). Elliot needs a personality that could do the dirty work, apparently, that could be Tyrell. 

All I have to say is that the explanation after the full reveal had better make a whole lot of sense, there is a TON of contradictory data to work through. I had this discussion MANY times with people on Reddit over the last few years and we always decided it couldn’t be true based on other people reacting to both Elliot and Wellick separately in the same scenes.

Okay, if I am totally wrong, I will apologize in advance, but there is no doubt that was literally the chair Tyrell was in (surrounded by lawyers) in episode two of the first season.

There is the question of why Elliot sees himself as a well-dressed crazy Swedish man. I am going with Occam’s razor, just like Edward was his beloved step-dad, Tyrell was the infamous father who he didn’t like but who taught him the Red Wheelbarrow poem.

Okay, I woke up this morning and have decided the Tyrell story doesn’t make sense…I have decided there is an answer and it comes from an article I wrote in June of 2017 called “Understanding Friendship.” - here is a quote from that article:

“In fairness, we don’t really know that “we” (the television audience) are the object of his dialog. In fact, it is possibly just narcissism to assume that he is talking to us when he makes aside (he could easily, in fact, be talking to another alter or with another entity or spirit residing in his own head or slightly outside of the camera’s coverage of the filmed scenes). It is certainly worth considering that it could only be our own collective narcissism that leads us to believe that Elliot is actually talking to each of us directly (Let us not forget, this is a show full of manipulation and misdirection).”

Elliot’s friend has never been us, it has been the child version of himself from his surreal dreams, the kid at the desk. There are MANY times where Elliot has said he will need or needs his friend to do things which he will not be able to do alone. The trick is that we see Elliot with his father, just like we have seen Elliot with his friend (see the trip to the beach). The “trick” was assuming the friend was t ”US.” It was not us.

One final option, his third personality is Magda (his Mom).

I would put the odds:

Mohammed 40%

Magda 40%

Tyrell 20%

That is just my guess for now. Totally riffing off of Darlene talking about adoption papers.

That is all I have for tonight, it was a lot, and Janice is still terrifying.

Fun Society

Every week, I will write another recap until we finish this journey together.

If you have any interest in criminal justice reform I am also the host of the Decarceration Nation Podcast

If you like Orange Is the New Black, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

If you like  Black Mirror, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

Several years ago, I decided to do a deep-dive into the Netflix show Orange Is The New Black to help explain things that folks watching the show who don’t have a background including incarceration might not catch. Seven seasons later, I am still rolling.

I am not a woman, which is a huge weakness of the coverage. I do consult with friends who did time in women’s facilities and try to ensure accuracy.

I did time in a state and not a federal facility, another huge weakness.  I try to consult with friends who did time in federal facilities and try to ensure accuracy.

If you haven’t been listening to the Decarceration Nation Podcast my most recent guest was Marc Levin from the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Right On Crime. We discussed everything from solitary confinement to justice reinvestment and how to reduce mass incarceration. 

If you have not watched OITNB before *Spoiler Alert*

5. “Your Presence Has Been Requested in the Attorney Visitation Room”

Taystee pinned all of her hopes on Suzanne’s recollection of events, recorded in her notebook. Obviously, this was not a strong legal strategy, and it should come as no surprise that the ACLU attorneys could not use this evidence alone to get Taystee a new trial. 

On the other hand, as I detailed last season, the ACLU would have had many tools to deploy in the original trial (including but not limited to indicting the testimony of multiple people’s motives for testifying and indicting the characterization of Desi Piscatella as victim based on the public evidence that he was literally torturing the women incarcerated at Litchfield. There would also have been an incredible amount of physical evidence complicating the prosecutor’s narrative (given how Desi actually died). 

But okay, there are tens of thousands of people in prison who received ineffective counsel and maybe even more who are doing long sentences at least partially for crimes they likely never committed. Taystee did not have a public defender or a shady attorney, she was represented by good attorneys. I very much get that they are trying to get us to the end of this show with multiple characters facing life (or near life) despite being largely innocent (Taystee, Suzanne) but the story arc that got us to that point left something to be desired IMHO.

Anyway, I love Taystee and hope that she can find new reasons to live and, of course, it was amazing to see Poussey “conversating” with Taystee again. 

I am one of the few people who felt it made sense, given the environment Piscatella created at the camp, for Poussey to become a casualty of that situation. That said, it is still great to see her back on the show for a few minutes. Poussey as a character represented, without a doubt, the very best of Orange Is the New Black.

One of the themes of this season has been detailing the ‘unintended consequences’ of the characters' actions (karma?). Taystee’s letter to Cindy’s daughter, for instance, was, to some extent, responsible for the ACLU attorney’s inability to find Cindy. 

Also sad to see Caputo giving up on the microloan project after just a few weeks of trying (sigh).

There wasn’t a lot to be happy about for Taystee this week, and we are running out of time, I guess it was good that Taystee got to eat some Storky’s?

4. “Breakfast For Dinner”

RIP Tiffany Doggett.

Doggett was probably the number one example of a character who we empathize deeply with despite her crime. Doggett literally marched into a faux abortion clinic and killed a nurse (and maybe others) simply because the nurse was <incredibly> rude to her.

But Doggett was so much more than her crime. We even learn why, when combined with a drug problem, she was a disaster waiting to happen (dynamite waiting to be exploded).

It is even easy to forget that Doggett started out as the number one villain on the show.

As much as I hated to see it, Tiffany's death was a microcosm of her life. 

After finally finding out why she had problems learning, and working her butt off to pass her GED test, another man let her down and forgot to get her special accommodations set up before the test. Of course, that man was Joel Luschek, who has specialized throughout the entire show in letting people down and living down to expectations. Luschek is the textbook example of a correctional officer in authority over people in prison despite the fact that he commits prosecutable crimes almost every day he comes to work.

Anyway, addicts turn to substance use when they are depressed or emotionally devastated. Prison does NOTHING to address addiction or trauma. OITNB did a great job this season of depicting the reality of prison programming (it is rare, haphazard, and rarely sustained over long periods of time). Drugs are very available in prison, and even when substances are not available, drying someone out inside does not address the underlying addiction. 

I guess what I am saying is that as sad as it was to watch, it is not surprising at all that an emotionally devastated Doggett would turn back to drugs. It is also no surprise that Daya’s stuff was not great. 

All of that said, it was incredibly sad. Doggett was, by far, the most interesting of the original meth-head clique on the show and she had become one of the most central characters, going all the way from villain to favorite. 

I knew many people in prison who were a lot like Doggett, this was a hard watch for me.

3. “It Doesn't Last Forever”

One of the real messages from this episode, explained from multiple perspectives, was that the stigma of your crime or of incarceration is temporal. 

As I continue to live down my own crime and incarceration, I would suggest that people do earn opportunities again, but at any moment the shaming and naming can return. In other words, the social stigma never fully goes away but it does change. The all-encompassing nature of the shaming certainly doesn’t last forever but it does come ebb and flow.

One small anecdote, a few years ago an organization chose literally to have anything to do with my work but just a few weeks ago they invited me to a huge event and prominently featured my work. Beth is right, it does change, but the stigma can also be really unpredictable and ever-changing.

I have grown very fond of the interactions between Fig and Caputo. If you had told me six seasons ago that Fig would become one of my favorite characters, I would never have believed it...but, she absolutely has become one of my favorite characters. 

I am not sure if she ever was fully accountable or paid an appropriate price for all of the terrible things she did in the first several seasons (although she has been working pretty hard to make up for things this season) but she is still a hoot and I am so glad the writer’s filled out her character and made her into a human being (instead of a caricature).

2. “You Made Me Look Forward to Coming to this Horrible Place”

Has anyone else noticed that the writers have managed to make “will Alex and Piper stay together’ question central to yet another season of Orange Is the New Black. Is there really no other storyline possible for Piper and Alex? 

I guess we just have to roll with it.

Frankly, after what Alex did to McCullough I am not sure I care that much anymore (if I ever did). Obviously, what McCullough is doing to Vause is equally gross and vindictive, but in a sense, it is just desserts (hard to argue Alex didn’t bring this one herself). 

I do feel awful for McCullough who is a deeply traumatized and broken character who seems incapable of processing her pain. In my experience, this is exactly how people become toxic. I am impressed by how the show has built her character to becoming fully believable. I can only hope something good happens in her fictional future (she needs a really good therapist at the very least).

On the other hand, I think the writers did a really bad job on Daya's set up of Aleida. Aleida has always been savvier than Daya, there is just no way that Aleida would fall right into such an obvious trap, especially when she totally knows Daya was looking for opportunities to take her drug operation down.

Sure, it is possible that they had Hopper assigned to supervise Aleida as she cleaned SHU, but that just makes the play seem more obvious and Aleida isn’t stupid (she has always been a hustler, and clever).

It just doesn’t make sense for Aleida to fall for a ploy this obvious.

1. “We Are Giving All Three Of You Five Extra Years”

Gloria might have ended up being the moral center of the show.

I love that despite the looming and real consequences, she took responsibility for bringing the cell phone to the kitchen. 

As annoying, obvious, and emotionally manipulative as Maria is, it would have been wrong to make Maria and Flacca take the fall for her phone. 

And yes, there all kinds of crazy penalties for having cell phones in prison (in South Carolina, for instance, you can get two years in solitary for being found with a cell phone). I have explained at length why I think this is crazy but it is also a very real thing. This is part of why I have suggested all year that it is INSANE to have almost every single incarcerated character walking around using cell phones like they were walking around in New York City. 

Yes, there are cell phones in prison but people in prison are incredibly protective of them. People do not just hand them around or use them carelessly. Two years in SHU or a five-year sentencing enhancement is no joke and people in prison are not stupid. 

I will talk more about Nicky and Red next week, but I do want to tip my cap to several of the women on the show for amazing acting performances in this episode (watch Lorna’s face when she goes from trying to process what Nicky is saying to dissociation to anger, for example).

Okay, next week is the last recap.

Holy cow, this has been a long journey...I think I might use a different format for the last recap. 

As bizarre as it is, I actually am feeling nostalgia and sadness.

Don’t forget, after I finish the last recap, I am going to write a final piece about Piper Kerman’s book Orange Is the New Black, and then, I will be done.

Thanks so much for sticking with me for 90 episodes (so far). 

Unlocking The Gates

New recaps will come out once a week (usually on Sunday mornings).

I am a policy analyst at Safe and Just Michigan, a consultant with #cut50, and still the host of a podcast. I am still a member of a Criminal Justice Reform organization called Nation Outside (The Voice of the Formerly Incarcerated) but I am not speaking for Nation Outside in any official capacity.

Leave comments, let us know what you thought! We will answer any questions you have (that are civil).

Hello friend...

I have been writing about Mr. Robot for a very long time. You can read all my earlier writing about the show using this guide.

We have finally come down to this one final season, hopefully, we will get answers to many pressing questions (I put together this list of questions in advance of the final season)

You can also follow me on Reddit (I am ypsifactj48, I usually hang around r/Mr.Robot and the Black Mirror and Orange Is the New Black rooms.

The time for answers is near, friend. Welcome back to our revolution. #MrRobot pic.twitter.com/64gXrUfI6u

— Mr. Robot (@whoismrrobot) October 7, 2019

I will use better pictures once USA Network puts the episode pictures up on the site.

If you have not watched every episode of Mr. Robot or read Red Wheelbarrow this could contain spoilers *Spoiler Alert*

“You’ve Been Conned”

Lots of crazy to get to here, but let’s take a second to mention to special appearances. Emmy Rossum shows up as a caroler while Mr. Robot is talking to us, Elliot’s friends and Sam Esmail shows up to shoot Elliot up with a near-fatal dose of heroin at the end.

Okay, RIP Angela Moss.

Although it is also possible that Angela is not dead (notice nobody could find the body and we did not see the entirety of her being shot on screen). There were two references later in the show on this issue, so they have built some scaffolding to suggest that Angela, a true ‘whiterose’ believer, might still be around.

Anyway, this happened once before, I do not think anyone assumed Joanna was going to die when she did. I think if we have learned anything it is that Sam Esmail is no more precious about his major characters than George R.R. Martin is about his.

Okay, as near as I can put things together, the Lolita references were to Angela being seduced by ‘whiterose’ and there was also an element of Alice and Wonderland present in her descent into madness. In a sense, if you are really willing to go ‘through the looking glass,’ in a sense, ‘whiterose’ sent Angela to meet her mother as promised (if you believe in meeting people after death, and yes, I suspect ‘whiterose’ would look at it like this...and might even see such an ending as less petty than romantic).

I am still not entirely convinced Price wasn’t planning to fight back against ‘whiterose’ and the Dark Army (I think that is part of why Wellick is back at Ecorp as the figurehead CTO)...but, if he wasn’t planning for a long-term coup before, he certainly will be now. Price is a terrible person, but he has sacrificed for Angela before. 

He did not have a play now, so he just had to take it, but I am pretty sure he will attempt retribution (she spoke it into existence before she was shot).

The craziest thing is that even at the end, Angela still had faith in ‘whiterose’s’ plan. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe the Dar Army plot is likely similar to the plot of Die Hard in that it is really about a heist (although in this case either a heist for power or destructive power).  All of that said, Angela really, even in her last moments, still believes ‘whiterose’ is opening a door to parallel universes or time travel and maybe he is.

Let us not forget, Mr. Robot and Elliot are in 2015 and talking directly to us in 2019. Somehow, our timeline and their timeline are connected but not the same.

“I Hope You Enjoy Your Last Christmas My Dear Elliot”

One theme of this episode is how far ahead of the game ‘whiterose’ has become, with one brutal move, she took everyone off of their game.

Darlene has become a full-on druggie, doing enough coke (and other random drugs) to have her hallucinating sightings of Angela while also literally hosting wild parties in Angela's apartment.

Elliot has become so lost in his grief that all he can do is fall into the traps ‘whiterose’ had set for him. Just think of the juxtaposition of the first scene of season one with the third scene of season four. In both scenes he has set a trap for someone using information about them digitally doing something wildly inappropriate with kids but in this version, he loses his quarry (who shoots himself once realizing Elliot can’t protect him from the Dark Army) and ultimately the entire chain of events was really him being socially engineered by the Dark Army.

Elliot has turned to darkness (he doesn’t care anymore that non-central people got killed, going so far as to claim it was deserved)), he has gotten sloppy (so sloppy that the Dark Army is socially engineering him), and he has become so obsessed he can’t even see what is happening right in front of him (the old Elliot would never have fallen for an open door or the doorman who sent him right up).

Right now, ‘whiterose’ is winning, and winning by a large margin.

There was a nice bit at the end where Elliot’s mom tells Mr. Robot that he was supposed to protect them all and that she didn’t see it ending like this.

Luckily Phillip Price walks in at the last minute (after Sam Esmail shoots Elliot up with an overdose batch of heroin) and Sam gives Elliot Narcan.

Message sent.

Also, nice guest appearance by Jake Busey. I also thought it was a nice twist to have Mr. Robot appear as the visual manifestation of Elliot’s surveillance through the cameras at Grand Central Station. Not exactly an homage to the Grand Central Station dancing scene in Fisher King, but well-choreographed nonetheless.

“Sometimes the Good Guys Really Do Come Out On Top”

Wellick is getting all of the credit for turning Ecorp around but, as we know, he is really just a miserable puppet of the Dark Army. A different character would just go through the motions and then enjoy the trappings of the job whenever he got an opportunity...But for Wellick, this situation is a lot like Vic Mackey being assigned to desk duty for the rest of his career as a cop in the last episode of “The Shield.”

The economy is growing, E-Coin is thriving, no more troops on the streets and Christmas decorations are everywhere.

Don is hiding out in her Mom’s house (for what reason it is hard to fathom). My best guess is she, like everyone else on the show, is trapped in trauma. While we have not seen Irving during this episode, we do see an interesting and terrifying Dark Army lackey named Janice.

Janice showed up for dinner at Dom’s mom’s house and right before she leaves, Janice tells Dom that if she doesn’t go back to work and clean up the Santiago affair she will have to slit Dom’s mom from, “neck to cunt.”

When Dom tells threatens her, Janice mentions that no matter what Dom does to her, she won’t be able to stop the other Dark Army trolls who will take over when she dies. 

Dom is going to have to snap out of this and get to work.

I am starting to see a scenario where Darkene, Dom, Tyrell, Elliot, and Phillip Price come together to take out ‘whiterose.” 

I am not sure they will all be singing kumbaya, but that is how the board is set up.

In an odd way, Phillip Price, in this scenario, is playing the role of Vader (only Luke appears to have died).

While everything is spinning out of control, and all of our heroes are losing, one thing did happen that gives me a small bit of hope...when Elliot mentioned Cypress Bank, the main heavy looked up...in order to get Elliot to the honey pot, it is possible they set the trap using real and live bait.

It may not be much, but it is something, it is a start.

Don’t worry, be happy.

Welcome back, Mr. Alderson.

Fun Society

Every week, I will write another recap until we finish this journey together.

If you have any interest in criminal justice reform I am also the host of the Decarceration Nation Podcast

If you like Orange Is the New Black, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

If you like Black Mirror, you can read my recaps of that series using this guide.

Several years ago, I decided to do a deep-dive into the Netflix show Orange Is The New Black to help explain things that folks watching the show who don’t have a background including incarceration might not catch. Seven seasons later, I am still rolling.

I am not a woman, which is a huge weakness of the coverage. I do consult with friends who did time in women’s facilities and try to ensure accuracy.

I did time in a state and not a federal facility, another huge weakness.  I try to consult with friends who did time in federal facilities and try to ensure accuracy.

If you haven’t been listening to the Decarceration Nation Podcast my most recent guest was Alec Karikitsanis from Civil Right Corps. We discussed everything from his work in Ferguson to his work to end cash bail. We met up at the Smart on Crime Innovations Conference in New York City a little over a week ago.

Only a few episodes left….sigh

Oh, and if you have enjoyed this journey with me, one of the other shows that I write about, Mr. Robot, is starting it’s final season on Sunday night. Check back here for my recap on Monday.

If you have not watched OITNB before *Spoiler Alert*

5. “Her hair needs an ambulance”

Welcome back Sophia!

It is really sad to me that one of the best, and most important, characters in the history of Orange Is the New Black has been reduced to guest spots but I was still damn glad to see her walk into the “parole” office. 

Not sure what I think of her advice here...Sophia says, “I did my time, you and your hair should do the same” but that is not the way I live at all. I think about the people I left behind in prison every single day. For me, and I can only speak for myself here, I cannot unsee the things I saw or forget the people I met. 

I certainly get the desire to move on, and her right to do so, but while I have become a much better person since incarceration, the folks inside will always be my brothers and sisters and I cannot forget all the ways in which our criminal justice systems are broken.

Piper Kerman, the real Piper Chapman, is the same way. She now works in a prison and goes around the country talking about criminal justice reform. Sophia is one of my all-time favorite characters, but I do not agree with her at all this time.

I do agree with Piper’s parole officer that she needs to decide what she wants to do with her life, I think they teased that she might become a writer and we know that is what really happened but nothing ever developed from that storyline.

Did I mention how great it was to see Sophia again?

4. “That’s not a loan it’s a redneck kickstarter”

Kudos to Orange Is the New Black for creating the Poussey Washington fund which is set up to grant microloans much like what Taystee is starting to cook up on the show:

The fund that launched Thursday features eight nonprofit organizations that focus on a range of issues surrounding prison and criminal justice reform. The hope is that viewers who are impacted by the Emmy-winning series — and the timely but shocking death of Poussey Washington, will be motivated to show their support. The seventh season ends with a title card that prompts viewers to visit crowdrise.com/PWF.

The question is not IF people come back, 96% or more of all people in prison are coming home. The question should be HOW people come back from incarceration. We need to create better off-ramps from prison back into society and we MUST give people the resources and tools necessary to return successfully.

Caputo is right, it is great to see Taystee back being her excellent, optimistic, and forward-imagining self. But, we can all make a difference in ensuring this show continues to matter to real folks coming home from real prisons.

3. “I can’t work with children, remember”

Piper is right, staying away from where kids are is a pretty normal condition of parole or probation. Parole conditions are variable based on your offense, but there are a ton of them that are applied pretty generally. For instance, almost every formerly incarcerated person on supervision is prevented from having any contact with other people with felony backgrounds.

Anyway, it is really hard to like Vause much after this episode. McCullough, who seems always about five-seconds from a total nervous breakdown, asked Vause explicitly about if she was serious about their new relationship. For Vause, who one-thousand percent knew how fragile McCullough was, to totally emotionally abandon her makes her anything but lovable IMHO. 

Many people will focus on McCullough stalking Piper as she returns home from the ball as the real issue here. Sure, McCullough is all kinds of melting down, but Alex knew this and went after her anyway. Alex was the priming pin, the trigger, and the grenade in this scenario. 

I am not sure what I think about Piper, Alex, and Zelda yet, but I am fairly certain after this betrayal, that I have way fewer positive feelings about what happens to Vause at the end of the show. 

On the other hand, I have certainly done terrible things like this in my earlier life, I suppose it will have to do with if she takes responsibility for what she has done and tries to become a better person. Regardless, what she did to McCullough was brutal.

2. “The big slot is for the noodle casserole”

I have already written a great deal about the national tragedy being reproduced during the last few seasons of Orange Is the New Black. Frankly, I can’t even remotely understand how judges, much less ordinary citizens, can continue to allow children to be treated in such a cruel and callous manner (much less adult immigrants and asylees.

We are all going to look back and be ashamed we did not do more once this shameful period of our nation’s history concludes (if it ever concludes).

In other news, Gloria’s phone gets exposed by Karla Cardova, Blanca pulls off a miracle and gets to challenge her previous case, and Karla and Shani get deported (terrible for all).

1. “Ice cares about the baby so much they want her to keep it until they deport her”

Fig has really turned into one of the best characters on the show. Yes, she was ultimately responsible for most of the awfulness of several seasons but between the demotion, her rehire and hooking up with Caputo she has grown a conscience and become, in her own way, a crusader for justice.

Hard to imagine making a bigger sacrifice than taking an abortion pill in order to smuggle another pill to one of the ICE detainees who had gotten pregnant as the result of rape during her journey to the United States.

She also unfailingly gives Caputo great advice that he almost always ignores. In a sense, he is right to ignore it, since it is critical for him to take responsibility for the many bad things that he has done but at the same time, from a strategic perspective, she is almost always right.

Let us not also forget that being in a relationship with Fig has made Caputo a much better person...the Season 4 crisis was, to some extent, precipitated by him being an absentee warden in pursuit of power at MCC and it was in the transition from Linda to Fig that he actually started to become a decent human being. In fairness, it also seems to be Caputo who changed Fig for the better, she has actually started to care about people too.

Unfortunately, the world mostly runs on Linda’s. But it would probably be better if the world were run by more FigPutos.

Unlocking The Gates

New recaps will come out once a week (usually on Sunday mornings).

Lots of things have happened since last season, I am now a policy analyst at Safe and Just Michigan, a consultant with #cut50, and still the host of a podcast. I am still a member of a Criminal Justice Reform organization called Nation Outside (The Voice of the Formerly Incarcerated) but I am not speaking for Nation Outside in any official capacity.

Leave comments, let us know what you thought! We will answer any questions you have (that are civil).

Several years ago, I decided to do a deep-dive into the Netflix show Orange Is The New Black to help explain things that folks watching the show who don’t have a background including incarceration might not catch. Seven seasons later, I am still rolling.

I am not a woman, which is a huge weakness of the coverage. I do consult with friends who did time in women’s facilities and try to ensure accuracy.

I did time in a state and not a federal facility, another huge weakness.  I try to consult with friends who did time in federal facilities and try to ensure accuracy.

If you haven’t been listening to the Decarceration Nation Podcast my last guest was Somil Trivedi, a Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU, and we discussed the recently concluded Supreme Court Term.

We just got back from New York City, there will be a series of special podcast episodes coming from the Smart On Crime Conference starting next week.

If you have not watched OITNB before *Spoiler Alert*

5. “Red, you Wanted To Prep The Potatoes For Tomorrow…Remember?”

Poor Red.

Not only does one of the best and strongest characters in the history of the show get relegated to a bit player over the last two seasons, but now she also has early-onset dementia and will, according to the prison doctor:

“eventually...need assistance with all the elements of daily life“

Sad. 

I mean I guess it happens in real life too, but there is just nothing good about Red going out like a mouse instead of with a ferocious roar. 

It also makes sense that Red’s time in SHU accelerated her dementia, there is literally no doubt solitary is torture.

Depressing.

4. “You humiliated me, you tortured me”

Maria needed to be woken up until she was forced to face CO Dixon she has never really come to grips with what she did during the riot. What she did to Dixon, McCullough and several of the other officers was awful.

It is great that through the restorative justice process she has finally been forced to realize her complicity in everything she did.

Of course at the same time, CO Dixon straight-up tasered Morello when she was clearly in a dissociative state and sends her into a near coma...but I guess that is okay because she was hiding a chicken. 

Lorna might weigh like one-third of what Dixon weighs and he has backup and absolute worst-case she might have a shiv. 

At the same time, I suppose that could be why Dixon has such an itchy trigger finger in the first place, but come on, he is afraid of Lorna?

The writers used restorative justice to help Maria realize why what she had done was wrong, to later help Caputo realize that what he has done was wrong, and for Dixon to get some healing. 

It is also meaningful that Caputo tells Ward about his complicity in what happened with Susan Fischer. Caputo needs to have a reckoning, but there is a lot he was responsible for that he still has yet to reckon with.

Only one small issue, restorative justice is usually not done one on one without a moderator. Caputo would likely not be doing the exercise without someone simulating the moderator.

Also, Luschek really is the absolute worst, no amount of restorative justice could address all of the bad things he has done (“if I don’t bring it in some other asshole will”).

3. “New Cluck City”

So, the season started out with Suzanne finally discovering that there is no logical or justifiable reason for her to be incarcerated and now she is putting chickens in SHU for disciplinary reasons?

It sort of makes sense that Suzanne would respond to a problem with violence in her chicken prison in the same way that prisons respond but at the same time, there is nobody who should know better (from experience) what is wrong with our prison system and should desire to replicate them the least.

I can only imagine that what the writers were trying to convey is that we all struggle to come up with effective answers to the problem of violence, and it is no surprise Suzanne’s efforts to fix chickens through segregation and discipline fail.

2. “Fear Takes Over My Whole Body’

A few ongoing nags:

1. I am so tired of seeing Vause and others freely use cellphones at all hours around the unit. These would be treated like GOLD and hoarded carefully.

2. There is no way Vause and McCullough could just keep disappearing for long periods of time when McCullough is on duty. It is also highly unlikely they would be able to just hang out in the closet (no pun intended). This was true back when Porn Stache was doing it too (but that was at the camp not in Max).

3. The shower scene was just baffling to me (for some of the same reasons)

Anyway, I find it astounding, even with the background flashback about Vause’s Dad leaving, that Vause would be so misleading to McCullough. I have a really hard time believing she is being genuine and she knows how vulnerable and broken McCullough seems here. 

I have not normally thought of Vause as cruel, but this seems really cruel to me. Yes, I get that McCullough was using her position to extort Vause, but since then they have learned a lot about each other and McCullough could not have been more vulnerable when she asks Vause if what is happening between them is “real.”

Anyway, not Alex’s best moment on the show (especially since we know Piper and Alex ALWAYS end up back together).

1. “The GED Is Not Worth Sh*t”

Aleida’s ethics sure are interesting. She seems to only have one ethical line, making sure her kids are (more or less) taken care of. 

I do think she would likely not have walked in on that GED prep and put on that show because it would have been seen as disrespectful to Taystee. Honestly, kind of surprised Taystee just let her performance go. 

Aleida and Daya have become two of the most unlikable characters on the entire show. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Aleida is more likable than Daya at this point but it is a tight race.

Okay, just a few episodes left. Also, just a little over a week until my recaps of the final season of Mr. Robot start back up.

Unlocking The Gates

New recaps will come out once a week (usually on Sunday mornings).

Lots of things have been happening since last season, I am now a policy analyst at Safe and Just Michigan, a consultant with #cut50, and still the host of a podcast. I am still a member of a Criminal Justice Reform organization called Nation Outside (The Voice of the Formerly Incarcerated) but I am not speaking for Nation Outside in any official capacity.

Leave comments, let us know what you thought! We will answer any questions you have (that are civil).

Several years ago, I decided to do a deep-dive into the Netflix show Orange Is The New Black to help explain things that folks watching the show who don’t have a background including incarceration might not catch. Seven seasons later, I am still rolling.

I am not a woman, which is a huge weakness in the coverage. I do consult with friends who did time in women’s facilities and try to ensure accuracy.

I did time in a state and not a federal facility, another huge weakness.  I try to consult with friends who did time in federal facilities and try to ensure accuracy.

If you haven’t been listening to the Decarceration Nation Podcast my last guest was Somil Trivedi, a Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU, and we discussed the recently concluded Supreme Court Term.

I am taking the podcast on the road next week, we were invited to be one of the official podcasts at the Smart On Crime conference in NYC. For those that don’t know, I am originally from NYC and have not been back in like 20 years.

If you have not watched OITNB before *Spoiler Alert*

5. “You Are A Shitty Pool Player”

Poor Lorna.

So we finally get the backstory on her psychotic break and why she is the way she is.

Short-form...Lorna was at a bar, talked to a couple who had just gotten engaged and who told her their entire romantic engagement story. Lorna and her date broke up because she wanted him to be more romantic but he just wanted sex...a few seconds later she threw a bottle at the windshield of what she thought was her former boyfriend’s passing car causing the car to swerve and violently crash. When she walked over to see what had happened she sees that the now deceased passengers were the couple she had met in the bar.

This event caused her to have a psychotic break, and it is why she lives almost entirely in fantasy because the alternative is having to face the horror that she was responsible for. In addition, it also explains why whenever she has to face something painful the dissociation repeats itself.

She comes out of the psychotic break and finds herself at the Pelican Hotel, the place where the couple she met at the bar got engaged to each other. She had left the bar and walked all the way to this seaside resort all while totally functionally unconscious.

Okay, flashback to the present...Vinnie forces Lorna to confront the loss of Stewart and instead of accepting it she continues to dissociate. Vinnie tells her if she doesn’t accept the truth they will have to get a divorce so Lorna dissociates and somehow escapes to the yard alone causing a lockdown.

Side note: I am not always sure how things work in Federal prisons but usually the way officers know people are “attempting to escape” (are missing) is that you have counts throughout the day (it has been a while but they have shown count time on the show before). You have multiple counts throughout the day where you have to stand at your bunk until count clears. Anyway, they probably would have figured it out during count.

4. “What About Your Promise To Own All The Parts Of Yourself”

Maybe for the first time in the history of the show, I agree with Piper Chapman.

I live by the same rule, only I learned it in recovery where there is a saying:

“You are only as sick as your secrets”

It may not be for everyone, but I live my life that way now and my life has been better and better ever since I started living intentionally and with total honesty.

Keeping secrets and living lies eats you away inside until all that is left are the miserable parts of you. I also deeply believe that shame is a trigger for almost every bad thing people do. I am not at all saying that you should just live without shame, shame can be productive, but living trapped in shame is crippling and life-negating.

Once I learned to correctly process secrets and shame, everything about my life’s trajectory changed.

3. “Put Some Of That Energy Into Your Job Hunt”

I have sat for employment interviews where the person I talked with looked at me like I was an insect or literally a pile of human excrement. When you look at someone who is formerly incarcerated and has a job, you know they are an incredibly strong person because in order to get that job they had to crawl through a pile of rejection and shame so tall that if we were standing on each other's shoulders we would still never be able to see over it.

So, while I know it is a fictional show, I almost cheered out loud in my room when Cindy got hired at the seniors home (not least because formerly incarcerated folks are generally excluded from health care jobs).

The celebration was short-lived since Taystee’s letter showed up just after Cindy got hired and Cindy, being Cindy, bailed on her daughter and family. 

Oh well, at least I got to celebrate for a few minutes.

I do want to celebrate a few Cindy quotes (because I don’t know how much more time we will get with her).

“You can't change people but what you can change is your attitude,”

“Funny is like duct tape, it fixes everything”

2. “Kind of Redundant Don’t You Think”

Okay, I want to take a second to talk about cell phones.

Yes, they can be both a blessing and a curse and people in prison can use them to do evil or good. 

But here is the thing, all of that same stuff can happen with calls to the outside on regular phones. All of the same stuff can happen in letters and emails.

Yes, correctional officers can read or listen to the calls but people inside have sophisticated codes that allow them to communicate everything they need to say or find out all of the information they need without literally saying anything incriminating.

In addition, maybe the biggest problem with prison (and there are many problems) is that prisons are 100% opaque. Thousands of horrible things happen every single day and nobody knows about them because prisons are a black box. 

I believe the old saying that “sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

I agree with my friend historian Heather Ann Thompson, that we should just allow people in prison regulated cell phones just like they have tablets and other forms of limited technology. We have jails that have tablets that allow for-pay video visitation now. How in the world are cell phones not the same thing? 

We just need to stop making up fake limits in order to maintain the secrecy that keeps prisons torture chambers. 

Why are these things ONLY okay when profit is involved? Why is the only thing that greases the wheels dollar bills? Why don’t we make prisons more transparent and monitor the phones < just like we do now>.  Who knows, maybe correctional officers in Alabama, for instance, won’t be able to torture incarcerated people as easily? 

Dare to dream.

1. “Female Genital Mutilation”

Poor Nicky.

Red is losing her memory rapidly, Lorna is even farther gone, and now her new girlfriend is dealing with substantial trauma.

You really have to hope some good endings come soon for some of these ladies.

Okay, sorry I am a bit late this week. Got caught up in work.

Unlocking The Gates

New recaps will come out once a week (usually on Sunday mornings).

Lots has happened since last season, I am now a policy analyst at Safe and Just Michigan, a consultant with #cut50, and still the host of a podcast. I am still a member of a Criminal Justice Reform organization called Nation Outside (The Voice of the Formerly Incarcerated) but I am not speaking for Nation Outside in any official capacity.

Leave comments, let us know what you thought! We will answer any questions you have (that are civil).

Several years ago, I decided to do a deep-dive into the Netflix show Orange Is The New Black to help explain things that folks watching the show who don’t have a background including incarceration might not catch. Seven seasons later, I am still rolling.

I am not a woman, which is a huge weakness of the coverage. I do consult with friends who did time in women’s facilities and try to ensure accuracy.

I did time in a state and not a federal facility, another huge weakness.  I try to consult with friends who did time in federal facilities and try to ensure accuracy.

If you haven’t been listening to the Decarceration Nation Podcast my guest last week was Somil Trivedi, a Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU, and we discussed the recently concluded Supreme Court Term.

Also, apologies, I missed something obvious last week, sorry for the sloppiness.

If you have not watched OITNB before *Spoiler Alert*

5. “Some History There?”

If you are wondering why Aleida is back at Litchfield, my guess is that she was still on federal supervision and while she might also be facing new state charges, she would also be returned to finish out her federal sentence (her supervision was revoked). 

This, of course, begs the question of how Hopper could possibly be dating her. But, okay, we have to suspend some disbelief.

This will likely cause huge problems for Daya who is a barely competent drug boss. Aleida is a real live hustler and there is no way Daya will be able to maintain the illusion that she is in charge or a boss. In fact, Aleida’s first comment to Daya’s crew is to come in and disrespect her (not good, and Aleida would know this). 

At the same time, Aleida is not wrong about Daya needing to get clean. 

Anyway, Copeland is right, not to say these kinds of relationships don’t happen between correctional officers and incarcerated people (at least I have heard that they do). And of course, it is totally accurate that most contraband comes into prisons through correctional officers (not the only vector but the major vector). I dunno, I guess it is not as crazy as some of the things that happen on this show.

4. “You A Top Or Bottom?”

Nothing about Piper’s parole officer suggested to me that she would be okay with Piper going on a weekend hunting trip out in the woods with the girls.

Don’t get me wrong, this whole arc gets confused by the fact that federal supervision is different than parole and that the officer on the show represents as a traditional parole officer. However, if she is under the supervision of a traditional parole officer, any trip like this would have to be cleared by Piper with her parole officer.

Being on parole is not like being free except when you meet your officer. For instance, in my area, people have to literally submit every single place they want to go outside of their house in advance. If someone is found in a place that they did not submit in advance, it can mean you get violated and returned to prison or jail. 

As I have mentioned before, when I was on parole I had to be in my house all but five pre-determined hours a day Monday through Friday unless I was working. In addition, I was not allowed to be out of my house at all on the weekends (unless I was working). Parole isn’t much like freedom. You don’t get to go do sister bonding and you certainly do not get to use weapons.

True story, if you are even in a car or a house with someone else who has a firearm when you are on parole in Michigan it is a mandatory four-year new felony charge. I have no idea what the penalty for using a bow is, but I suspect the use of any weapon is a serious no-no.

I agree with Piper when she said you have to live your incarceration publicly. One of the most important lessons I learned from my own recover was that you are “only as sick as your secrets.” Living in shame makes nothing better and living in lies makes nothing better. Honestly, I grew tired of being around people who constantly expected me to hide who I was. We are what we are and, to remain healthy, we have to live who we are out loud.

Also, it is frustratingly easy at the Litchfield max facility for correctional officers to just disappear into people’s cells (Vause and McCullough), believe it or not, correctional officers have to do rounds and there are cameras and logbooks and usually another officer. Also, if an officer is supposed to be tossing a cell, they don’t do it in the dark with the cell door closed (as a general rule).

That said, it does happen from what I have heard, but I suspect it is not this blatant and haphazard.

Good Little Mermaid joke by Vause though.

3. “Like A Low-Rent Ricky Jay”

In case you were wondering, Ricky Jay was one of the best card magicians in the world and, to some extent, the last of the great card manipulators. You may have seen him in David Mamet movies like “House of Games,” and he was the narrator for the Paul Thomas Anderson movie “Magnolia.” He did a legendary one-man show on Broadway that later became an HBO special (which is hard to find now). 

There is a mythology around a particular art of card cheating, the ability to center-deal cards, that Ricky Jay was one of the last people alive who had learned the secret of. 

Anyway, he is, as Linda mentioned, currently dead (Rest In Peace).

Side note. One of the consistent arguments put forth by Orange Is the New Black is that private prisons skimp on programs. If you read Lauren Brooke Eisen’s book “Inside Private Prisons,” you will learn that while privates are generally worse for security they are better for programming. 

I know it is a popular thing to oppose private prisons, but it is not like public prisons are some kind of Nirvana. If we closed private prisons tomorrow, all the people incarcerated in those prisons would simply be transferred to public facilities. Getting rid of private prisons is not a solution to mass incarceration. 

In addition, about eight percent of people incarcerated in the United States are housed in private prisons. Again, if we closed private prisons tomorrow, it would not significantly impact our mass incarceration problem.

Now, that said, I would be in favor of closing private prisons (if for no other reason than I want an end to ICE facilities). I am not a supporter of private facilities I just think that we need to be honest about the impact of closing private facilities.

2. “The Mayor of New Cluck City”

I don’t have too much to say here but:

1. It seemed pretty obvious that starting a pet therapy class around chickens would result in the return of Litchfield’s magic chicken. Welcome back magic chicken!

2. Great that Lolly and Suzanne have been paired up

3. Great that Susanne is the Mayor of “New Cluck City”

Always nice to have Suzanne in a good place, I was worried that this was going to go a very different direction once she realized her incarceration was not a form of justice.

1. “I’m Your Tutor”

Okay, on the one hand, I am glad Taystee has found a new reason for living and I am also really glad that she is helping Doggett with her epilepsy. But I have a sneaky suspicion that the “death-dose” that Taystee hid behind the picture frame is going to come back to haunt us soon.

I hope that I am wrong.

Unlocking The Gates

New recaps will come out once a week (usually on Sunday mornings).

Lots has happened since last season, I am now a policy analyst at Safe and Just Michigan, a consultant with #cut50, and still the host of a podcast. I am still a member of a Criminal Justice Reform organization called Nation Outside (The Voice of the Formerly Incarcerated) but I am not speaking for Nation Outside in any official capacity.

Leave comments, let us know what you thought! We will answer any questions you have (that are civil).

Several years ago, I decided to do a deep-dive into the Netflix show Orange Is The New Black to help explain things that folks watching the show who don’t have a background including incarceration might not catch. Seven seasons later, I am still rolling.

I am not a woman, which is a huge weakness of the coverage. I do consult with friends who did time in women’s facilities and try to ensure accuracy.

I did time in a state and not a federal facility, another huge weakness.  I try to consult with friends who did time in federal facilities and try to ensure accuracy.

If you haven’t been listening to the Decarceration Nation Podcast our most recent guest was John M. Eason, author of the book “Big House On The Prairie.”

Also, apologies, I missed something obvious last week, sorry for the sloppiness.

If you have not watched OITNB before *Spoiler Alert*

5. “That’s Why They Call The Bug Spray ‘Raid’”

Okay, Poly Con shut down the psych ward so some people were moved to psychiatric facilities while others, like Lolly Whitehill, were moved to Florida. Lolly is Frieda’s new bunky. And in classic Frieda fashion, she defuses Lolly by sending her on an impossible mission. 

Lolly was always one of the most sympathetic characters and another person demonstrating the absolute failure of incarceration as a stand-in for real psychiatric treatment.

4. “Chickens For The New Therapy Program”

Officer Hellman balks when Alvarez suggests using more respectful language about the women incarcerated at Litchfield but this isn’t just a question of so-called ‘political correctness.” We first learn the people we meet through language before we know anything about people we learn them through names or descriptive labels. If the first thing you know or hear about someone is a loaded and all-encompassing term, you will likely interpret everything else you learn about them through that same lens. 

Research has also shown that when we use “scary” words to describe people it triggers our lizard brains (the primordial parts of our brains governing many emotional responses) and also allows us to depersonalize and dehumanize people. This is why using what is called “person-first” language can make such a difference, it keeps people meeting people through humanization first. 

Another level of this discussion was represented in Bryan Stevenson’s now-famous suggestion that we people are more than the worst thing they have ever done. As someone who has done something wrong and done time, I can tell you from experience that I now am constantly aware of my capacity for doing evil deeds but I am also very much more than those evil deeds that I have done. If you only know me as “criminal” you don’t ever or are unlikely to want to learn anything more. Language can close the door and shut-out anything except the most superficial relationships. 

A personal passion of mine has been confronting the term “felon” and I crowd-sourced an article explaining all of the many reasons people think using that word to describe incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people.

Anyway, thanks for indulging me on the issue of language. I guess I am saying Hellman is not exactly my favorite character.

3. “Harry Bosch Books”

Try as I might, I just cannot get into the show Bosch (Amazon Prime Video) and I have never read the books. But, most everyone in prison reads whatever they can find. When I was in quarantine I read some god-awful books because those were the only books I had access too and I was locked in a room by myself for up to twenty-three hours a day. 

I remember there being one correctional officer that would distribute books from cell to cell on the sly. Supposedly, she had a bunch of books in a locker and would just rotate them around until people turned them back into her. 

These are the little moments of kindness I remember, there were not many of them.

At that same facility, I remember officers on the yard calling out the crimes of people whose crimes they thought were egregious, laying their history out before the entire yard. 

Anyway, somehow Suzanne recorded all of her memories from the last night of the riot in a notebook and Warden Ward ends up using it to convince Taystee that she should have some hope that a new trial might become possible as the result of what Suzanne wrote down.

I mean I am not sure why anyone would believe Suzanne would be a credible court witness not easily impeached by a prosecutor on cross-examination during a new trial...but I guess I want Taystee to end up back in the world, so I will just pretend this makes sense.

2. “You’re Habits are Becoming Disruptive”

Somehow Alex’s missive for Piper to work out her stress with someone new has worked its way into a masturbation addiction. Such an addiction that after a failed attempt to hook up with a guy in a gym she finishes herself off with his electric toothbrush before leaving his place.

Meanwhile, Alex is on the brink of hooking up with Officer McCullough.

Frankly, this all just seems forced and unlikely to me.

Speaking of unlikely things, before Warden Ward convinced Taystee to believe in life again, Daya sent her on a mission to recover a cell phone of hers that was confiscated after the police found their stash in the law library (I think I mentioned several times how ridiculous the hiding space in the library was). 

For this to happen, Taystee manufactures an excuse to discover where Ward hides the key in question, leaves an outdoor activity and walks alone back to the warden's office, lets herself in, and freely searches the office until she finds the correct key.

None of this could ever happen.

You can’t even walk the halls in a max facility on your own, I have never even seen a low-level facility without controlled movement (although I have been assured that at Federal Camps this happens there is no way it would happen at a max facility).

The idea that ANY person in prison would have seemingly unlimited access to the files of other people in prison is crazy enough on its own, but to be able to just walk in and out of the warden's office with impunity. That is just insanity.

You may wonder why I harp on these things but part of the point of this show is to let people know what prison is like, and to identify with prisoners plight, after this episode you would not have a very good idea of what these facilities are like or what people’s experience in prison is like.

1. “The Best Thing You Can Do As A Straight White Man Is STFU”

Caputo’s impression of himself is so delusional. 

Why in the world would he not realize immediately that many of the things, for instance, Luscheck is saying about him is TRUE (one of the very first episodes in the entire series features Caputo masturbating in his office after a routine appointment with Piper)?

I have exhaustively detailed all of the many troubling things Caputo has done over his time on the show. It is certainly true that he has also done many nice things, but he sold the women’s safety out multiple times so that he could move forward at Poly Con (or so he could hook up with Fig).

It was hard for me to even see how Caputo could walk back into the facility after what happened at the riot, much less be in charge of a restorative justice class (where being a good mediator requires being a neutral figure) but something like he pulled showing up at Officer Fisher’s house? You know this is insanity when Caputo goes to Healy for advice about how to handle the situation (if Healy was your counselor, it would be time to rethink your entire life).

Anyway, if Caputo walks back in to teach a restorative justice class and is allowed into a women’s prison in the middle of a #MeToo scandal involving his work in that same prison...I am just going to laugh because it is just not worth crying. I guess I will just write it up to the show being a “comedy” but why do the writers have to do things the hardest and most unlikely way possible.

Also, Fig has really turned out to be a pretty reliable place to get good advice.

Three last things:

1. The context of Doggett’s dad was heartbreaking and adds a lot to the understanding of her character. I might criticize the writers a lot, but sometimes they do some nice writing.

2. It is frustrating seeing Red reduced to sitting alone in a freezer lost. Red was one of the true forces of nature on this show. It is going to be hard to see her story arc finish out like this.

3. Glad Blanca is getting some legal help, hope something good happens for at least one of the people going through ICE hell (even in a fictionalized example).

Okay, not a super consequential episode,  hope everyone had a great week!

Unlocking The Gates

New recaps will come out once a week (usually on Sunday mornings).

Lots has happened since last season, I am now a policy analyst at Safe and Just Michigan, a consultant with #cut50, and still the host of a podcast. I am still a member of a Criminal Justice Reform organization called Nation Outside (The Voice of the Formerly Incarcerated) but I am not speaking for Nation Outside in any official capacity.

Leave comments, let us know what you thought! We will answer any questions you have (that are civil).

Several years ago, I decided to do a deep-dive into the Netflix show Orange Is The New Black to help explain things that folks watching the show who don’t have a background including incarceration might not catch. Seven seasons later, I am still rolling.

I am not a woman, which is a huge weakness of the coverage. I do consult with friends who did time in women’s facilities and try to ensure accuracy.

I did time in a state and not a federal facility, another huge weakness.  I try to consult with friends who did time in federal facilities and try to ensure accuracy.

If you haven’t been listening to the Decarceration Nation Podcast our most recent guest was John M. Eason, author of the book “Big House On The Prairie.”

If you have not watched OITNB before *Spoiler Alert*

5. “Skeletons Will Come Back To Haunt You”

Cindy is going home (hopefully, by now you know how absolutely ridiculous I think this is), her bunky is Frieda and they have a totally trashed room (which is just not allowed, especially in a max facility), but even more crazy, in PLAIN VIEW are two bottles of BLEACH on the counter in the cell.

WTF

You don’t have full access to bleach in prison, you can’t keep bottles of bleach on your desk in prison. Bleach is literally a poison and corrosive. Even when you are cleaning, you have access to bottles of cleaner that you can check out. If you are working as a janitor you can go in the supply cabinet with an officer and put bleach (or something else) in your mop bucket. 

But you CANNOT have huge bottles of bleach just sitting on your desk in your cell. 

I went back and looked like four times, that is just insanity.  Someone had to actually place those bottles in Frieda and Cindy’s cell which means it was intentional. I get they are selling the story that Frieda isn’t cleaning her cell, but what in the world?

Oh, so Cindy is free, but Taystee decided to get her revenge using her access to Cindy’s file to send a letter to Cindy’s daughter both telling her that Cindy is her real Mom and also, I suspect, the story of Cindy setting Taystee up for the “murder” of Desi Piscatella.

I don’t mind this storyline, Taystee would probably do something like this, it doesn’t even feel fake. I am much more shocked by this notion that Taystee, or any person incarcerated, has full access to the warden’s files at all hours (even when the warden isn’t in the office). Sure, there is also the problem of Taystee even having the job, but let’s not pretend any of this is possible (even at a privately run facility).

The goodbye between Cindy and Suzanne was awesome, I have a sad feeling that Suzanne is going to be left behind and without hope at the end of this show. On the one hand, this is sad because Suzanne is one of my favorite characters but it is also accurate, there are so many tens of thousands of folks trapped in incarceration as a result of mental illness today.

4. “The Halfway Houses are all at Capacity”

The random counselor added to this scene was right, halfway house spaces are incredibly limited across the country, in 2017 the President severed ties with many of the contractors providing halfway house beds and while the First Step Act created more pathways from prison to halfway houses, there still are not enough spaces. 

One of the most cynical takes on this is that it is easy to push for reform when you know reform will be limited on the back end by the lack of bed spaces for folks coming out of prison (often release is conditional on a person having a place to stay).

Anyway, this conversation between Cindy and the counselor was a real thing, the primary thing counselors do is “help” people in prison plan for release. Now, this doesn’t always go well, for instance, despite all of our planning, my counselor had me released to the wrong county. I had been charged in two counties, but he had me released to the county I did not and had never lived in (that was awesome). I had to spend my first day out of prison running to a county where I had never lived, and where I was not planning on living.  I had to be at a parole office mere hours after I was released and had no idea where I was going (and you don’t have a phone or GPS when you get out of prison). Let me just say it was quite an adventure and took several weeks to straighten out.

It is also crazy to think that Litchfield Max would just discontinue psych treatment (pretty sure that would be stopped by the courts on constitutional grounds). That said, everyone who has been incarcerated is familiar with what we all know as the “Thorazine Shuffle.” It is very typical for “treatment” to consist of everything from being doped to the gills to being placed in solitary confinement. 

I am pretty sure Warden Ward wouldn’t have the political capital to suggest that savings from closing the psych ward would be reinvested in the prison. In other words, you would have to believe that Linda cared more about Ward remaining warden than she does about the millions of dollars in money she was trying to save by closing the psych ward. I just don’t know.

3. “Do You Need To Find Some Other Peas To Pod With?”

Look, after all these seasons, I frankly am exhausted with the ongoing and mostly manufactured relationship issues between Piper and Alex.

Is Alex suggesting Piper hook up with someone outside because she is worried about Alex or because she wants to hook up with McCullough? No idea, but it sure seems like we are going to find out.

I have a hard time imagining that the core of the problem with Piper’s acting out is that either a) she really wants to be back in prison or b) she really misses physical contact so much she needs to get busy with someone other than Alex (who would be what she misses in prison). The core reason Piper is getting high with Cal and doing idiotic things is that a) She is Piper and b) The writers make her do all kind of insane things for no reason and always have.

Look, most people returning from prison who have a place to live, have a job, and get to talk with their incarcerated loved one EVERY SINGLE DAY via contraband cell phone would be considered LUCKY. There are so many REAL reentry struggles and problems that happen to tens of thousands of people every single day in this country that you would think the writers would have more imagination? 

This also raises a separate issue. 

When I was on supervision, I had my cell phone confiscated and the memory card searched once. Supervision officers have access to your phone anytime they want to. As the Supreme Court has put it, people on supervision have no right to be on supervision, which means officers can search your property at virtually any time. 

In other words, it would be really risky to talk with Alex on your personal cell phone. Remember, if Piper got caught she would be sent back to prison and Alex would get NEW CHARGES for possessing a contraband cell phone. 

I get that some of this is to allow the characters in the show to interact, but part of the point of the show is also to introduce the public to how prisons really are and while this certainly might happen in real life, what wouldn’t happen is how careless all of these folks are about contraband cell phones.

2. “Dibs on Eckhart Tolle”

Spiritual teacher Eckart Tolle is someone that many people read in prison. My first, and only, contact with Eckart Tolle was while I was in prison myself. 

It should not be surprising that in a place where there's very little hope that incarcerated people often turn to books for spiritual guidance. It is not hard to find religious texts, books by spiritual leaders, and books on personal improvement.

Oh, also, lots of stuff that seemed sketchy, like people really love astrology and pseudo conspiracy theory literature. People read a lot of Steven King and James Patterson. Believe it or not, Harry Potter and Game of Thrones are also big draws. 

I might revisit this later if any readers want to suggest books they remember from when they were inside I can start compiling a list (Leave a comment).

It is still interesting that Caputo is running the restorative justice classes, as we are reminded when former officer Fisher outs Caputo on social media at the end of this episode, former-warden Caputo has a very troubled history at Litchfield. I have argued in previous seasons that it would be crazy to consider Caputo a heroic character because of all of the terrible things he has been involved in. The funny thing is that Caputo did do everything former-officer Fisher outed him over. 

Also, it is very unlikely that a teacher at the prison would be allowed to enter prisoners cells. Prisons operate on a system of “call-outs” designed to bring people in prisons to the person who wants to see them. Cindy would be called to Caputo (and not the other way around).

Side note, as much as I have issues with Caputo, I am not sure it makes sense to compare him with R, Kelly. (Trapped in the Closet).

1. “I'm pregnant”

<Note to readers: Whoops, yes, I am an idiot, and I missed that this was a flashback…apologies in advance, I think I must have been suffering from a blow to the head or a lack of sleep…thanks to the Reddit readers who straightened me out. It took like 90 recaps, but I have finally lost my mind>

Huh?

I know it hasn’t been that long since the riot, but how in the world is Maria Ruiz pregnant?

I mean at least when Lorna got pregnant we knew the correctional officers had allowed her, in essence, to have a conjugal visit in the visiting room after her marriage. 

How in the world is Maria pregnant?

*** Okay, as a result of me being an idiot, I am editing here ***

Unlocking The Gates

New recaps will come out once a week (usually on Sunday mornings).

Lots has happened since last season, I am now a policy analyst at Safe and Just Michigan, a consultant with #cut50, and still the host of a podcast. I am still a member of a Criminal Justice Reform organization called Nation Outside (The Voice of the Formerly Incarcerated) but I am not speaking for Nation Outside in any official capacity.

Leave comments, let us know what you thought! We will answer any questions you have (that are civil).