‘Mr. Robot’ episode 7 review: How Elliot handles his time away

We have not known Elliot, our disillusioned and extremely quiet hero of USA’s “Mr. Robot,” to be of the particularly social variety. So with that in mind, we’re not going to spend any time here raising an eyebrow or two over some of his latest actions on Wednesday night’s new episode.

The biggest surprise to us instead was more seeing just how much time has passed since we were last on the show. A month has gone by since the death of Shayla, and while we are surprised to a certain extent by this, we wouldn’t exactly say that our jaw is on the ground by this, either. What Elliot has done in the time we were away probably was not that excited, sulking and running through ideas in his head about why he is guilty to a certain extent of this happening. Had he not intersected with her, would things have been different? Probably, but he also must remember here that he is hardly the reason why all of this happened.

We were never too concerned that whatever happened here would pull him from FSociety or from hacking in this way, since what would the show be about otherwise? Also, we invested so much time in seeing a thing or two more when it comes to what is happening with Angela, it would be a waste if we were not seeing her eventually try to loop Elliot back in. Mr. Robot is not exactly being the most compelling leader right now, and that does make us wonder if at some point we could see either Angela or Elliot take those reigns. The latter certainly does not have the charisma for the job, but he does have skill.

The way we see tonight’s episode is almost a return to a foundation, and one that will continue to build until we get to some sort of confrontation between Elliot, Angela, and potentially FSociety with Evil Corp / Tyrell. The quicker we can get Tyrell (easily the show’s weakest character) out of here, the happier we will be. Grade: B+.

What did you think of this slow-moving (but important) episode? Share with a comment.