It didn’t make sense to me, the reveal at the end of “402 Payment Required”, last week’s episode of Mr. Robot. This was fine, and surely intended, to whatever extent. This is serial storytelling, after all, which requires serial patience (or, from Whiterose’s point of view in tonight’s episode, is that serial surrender?), so of course even this week’s “403 Forbidden” left it entirely unaddressed.
Unknown to Darlene, she’d apparently just revealed to Elliot and Mr. Robot that there seems to be a third persona about whom neither of them knows. This surprise seemingly is confirmed through flashback, as Elliot’s mother, Magda, tells a young Elliot that, no, they aren’t waiting for Elliot or Mr. Robot, both of whom he names in the third-person, but for “the other one”.
Notice what doesn’t make sense there. This definitely is the same actor we’ve seen before as the young Elliot, but he refers to both Elliot and Mr. Robot in the third-person, as if he’s not, at that moment, either Elliot or Mr. Robot. Yet, in that moment he also can’t be “the other one”, because Magda’s entire point is that it’s “the other one” for whom they need to wait.
Most of the chatter last week was that “the other one” must be us but that doesn’t make sense in the context of the conversation being about another persona within Elliot—because we cannot be another alter, as we are present throughout the show when Elliot is not around at all. We are the closest thing to omniscient the narrative has, and yet even we were not around when Darlene told Elliot about Fernando Vera’s return.
The only way any of this makes sense is if there’s both a third persona besides Elliot and Mr. Robot to whom Magda is speaking in the boardroom and to whom Darlene spoke about Vera, and there’s whomever is “the other one”.
Mostly what this leaves is that “the other one” isn’t a persona at all but in fact either is us, or is Tyrell Wellick, about whom Elliot’s mother somehow knew back when Elliot was a child.
Any way you look at it, the reveal had to have been multi-layered.
There is a third persona besides Elliot and Mr. Robot, to whom both his mother and sister have spoken (but only the former, somehow, knowingly); and there is “the other one” for whom they must wait, who isn’t a persona, and who must be either Tyrell, about whom Elliot’s mother somehow knew in advance, or us, about whom she somehow knew in advance.
None of this, however, explains Sam Esmail’s comments to The Hollywood Reporter that “you guys could technically figure it out because it’s been in the show the whole time”.
Where? How? Only a few weeks before season four began, I’d finished a complete series rewatch. For the life of me, I don’t see how you could have seen coming a third persona, let alone the fact that Magda knows things.
I guess I should just surrender: things don’t look good for explanations in next week’s episode, which, of course—of course!—is entitled, “404 Not Found”.
Addenda
- In a colloquial use of Occam’s Razor sort of way, the simplest explanation is that Tyrell is Elliot’s half-brother; the name “Magda” counts Sweden among its possible national origins. A potential link between Elliott and Tyrell has been posited from the very beginning, and this, not the mystery of the third persona, could be what Esmail meant by it having “been in the show the whole time”.