Mr. Robot 4x08 Reaction

There's a lot of easter eggs but the meaning of entire scenes changes on a rewatch. Not worth it until after you've seen the finale :)

Definitely watch 12 and 13 back to back. That's how they aired and how Sam intended them to be seen

Great ep, great reaction. I gotta admit the family kidnapping switcharoo totally got me on first watch, I had already emotionally accepted some of Dom's family were gonna die... which makes the ending even more cathartic. Love Krista this episode. Love Elliot's 'inner child' showing him the key he hid. Love subdued Mr Robot apologising and fully willing to be 'put away' because he has the face of the abuser he fought against and loved Elliot's acceptance. The recontextualisation of Mr Robot is huge on rewatch, and adds a lot of depth to the personality imo. When Elliot started misremembering things maybe it was a little nice for Mr Robot too, he could play pretend and choose which memories to show while they built out F Society all those seasons ago. And then it must have been so frustrating to know you are there to protect Elliot as a part of Elliot, but having no way to confirm that without revealing the horrible truth you exist to conceal. Not justifying any of the bad things Mr Robot chose to do, but it adds context for sure. Looking forward to the rest!

When they’re usually so good at predicting the trajectory of a show, their utter bafflement this ep was so entertaining

It always come to my mind in that final scene when Mr robot is holding Elliot..he is just embracing himself….so moving. Krista referring to that hitch in the back in his head…Elliot always refer to it specially when he was dealing with sexual offenders.

I always think Mr Robot looks so cute in the final scene the way he's awkwardly fumbling with his hat.

There's a moment in the next episode preview that I feel like you two are gonna love hahahaha

I'm surprised you didn't remember the key. It's shown a lot in that episode, first with Mr Robot / fsociety entity, then with Darlene, then with Tyrell and then with Angela. Probably even more than "monster" is mentioned. And there might be other episodes where there's a key? Or I just have so many memories from thinking about key symbolism with this show that I've overexaggerated how frequently it appears in my mind. When I first watched this episode I found the key being the door to his room as a really cool physical recontextualization. In my mind the key always represented trauma, like his memories were locked away (well there was a brief period in the S2 theorizing where I thought it had to do with the idea of split consciousness and that Whiterose's plan had to do with this 'key' that she gave to Angela in the finale during their offscreen talk). "Find your monster and turn the key" being related to that. The stuff with it being in his food (raspberry pie) and then being a wedding ring is in my opinion mostly absurdism but you could read into it with all the characters holding the key at some point but it ending up with Elliot.

The Krista scene at front of the police station is a parallel to Angela and Elliot hugging in 1x9 after he finds out about Mr Robot - "Take care of yourself"

Officially starting the campaign to REMIND THEM IT'S 13 EPISODES, NOT 12! Normally I would let them figure it out, but Melina is saying to watch the last two episodes together, which will obviously pose an issue if they don't realize how many eps there are Personally I don't get people saying "Watch these episodes together!" when we have multiple instances of proof that it leads to shorter reactions/discussions. Like why would you actively choose for a lesser final Mr Robot reaction? So I should probably just let it play out so they watch 11 and 12 together and then 13 is a separate reaction, but my conscience won't let false info go untouched so there you go. It's 13 episodes in S4, but personally I'd much prefer they watch 1 ep a day so we get hour+ discussions

1:06:54 - Elliot has never had an issue with female touch, from my observation - he only negatively reacts when another male touches him. But he was able to be close to Shayla, Angela, Olivia. If a male touches him he yanks his body part (arm or whatever) away from them - or jumps / displays fear. Female touch he gets comfort, but also experiences surprise (e.g Olivia touching him in the bar). Krista, Olivia, Angela, Shayla all are able to pass this boundary with him without resistance

Dom couldn't shoot Janice when they walked in because she hadn't received a call from Lucky Irish Bastard that her family was safe. That's why she mentioned she was out of time 2 episodes ago while looking at her phone waiting for the call and tried to go with plan b by asking Darlene to shoot her.

favorite part of the reaction is oddly Janice's dead body with Lola being like "agh" but Milena just laughing a bit at it. Great ep great reaction getting into discussion now After Krista started the season scared of and not wanting to associate with Elliot, to actively wanting to be there for him is so nice. Krista is a genuinely good person and that really shows through here. I also love how Janice is almost a shipper on deck for Domlene in her own psychotic way and her end is extremely satisfying

so you know, there are actually 13 eps total in this season, so 12-13 are the ones you wanna watch together! https://www.reddit.com/r/MrRobot/comments/fvhxh4/deleted_scene_from_408_request_timeout/ This is the second deleted scene from this season that I wish had found its way in– really good Price scene that parallels a similar scene from S2 beautifully. I understand the decision to cut it from this episode, it kinda breaks up the pace of cutting back and forth between Elliot and Dom/Darlene, but I also really enjoy it on its own merits. If anyone wants to watch it, by all means! And stay out of the comments just to be safe