Mr. Robot Episode 4.13 Series Finale Part 1: "Hello, Elliot"

Who's the Real Thief in This Scenario?

The next morning, Elliot does a full wipedown, which means removing all traces of blood, shoving his doppelganger in a box and trying to load it into Sweater Elliot's fancy SUV while wearing a tux for his wedding. Mr. Robot appears and tries to get Elliot to see what's going on. No, whiterose's machine didn't work and "you are not ‘him.'" But Elliot is determined not to let Mr. Robot "steal" this shot at happiness from him. Robot asks, "Who do you think the thief is here?" Just as he's about to load the box into the car, a cop stops him for parking in a fire lane. The officer is none other than Dom (guess she didn't get the memo about the abundant happiness in the parallel universe). When he hands her his ID, she's immediately suspicious. The guy standing in front of her doesn't look like the guy on the ID. Then they both see a spot of blood on his cuff and blood leaking from the box. She opens it up and...holy crap. She pulls a gun on him. Another tremor gives Elliot the chance to run and make his getaway on the subway. Mr. Robot tries to tell Elliot what's going on again but Elliot won't listen.

Not Exactly a Dream Wedding...

Elliot arrives in Coney Island and sees guests seated for the wedding ceremony. But when he gets closer, he realizes that they're all wearing fsociety masks. Angela, Price, Emily, and the Aldersons are nowhere to be found. Mr. Robot appears and gives him back his hoodie. He explains that whiterose's machine didn't create this. The game deactivated the machine like Elliot thought it would, but this is a world Elliot created. Elliot accidentally slipped into this world once when he was going through his morphine withdrawal, which is why it looks familiar. But it's not some kind of dream. It's a prison, "a recursive loop" Elliot constructed a year ago to keep "the real Elliot" occupied so Hoodie Elliot could take control of him. Elliot still believes that he's the real Elliot Alderson. No, Mr. Robot says, "You're just like me, only a part of him. And if you don't let go, he'll never go back to living his own life." "If I'm not Elliot, who am I?" Elliot asks tearfully. Robot tells him he already knows.

...But In a Way, the Bride Is

Elliot sees Angela in a wedding gown on the boardwalk. He follows her into the abandoned fsociety arcade. She tells him that he isn't Elliot. He's the "mastermind." Then the scene glitches and Elliot is forced out of the building. Elliot chases Mr. Robot. There's yet another glitch and Elliot is out on the boardwalk but everyone looks like Mr. Robot. Then Tyrell is there with a gun, and shoots him as hears Tyrell say, "Bon soir, Elliot." Another glitch and suddenly it's night and Elliot is sweating and grunting while he tries to crawl across the sand but someone pulls him by his legs and throws him into a large ditch. He hears Darlene's voice begging him to wake up.

The Therapist Also Wore White

Again, a glitch, and Elliot finds himself on Krista's couch, not wounded. But she's not really Krista. Since Elliot trusted Krista so much, "the others" thought it would be better if she tried explaining the truth to him. He wants to talk to Darlene but Krista says she's out in the real world trying to wake him. Krista explains that Elliot's connection to Darlene is so strong that she became his only link to reality. By design she was removed from "this fantasy." "Without Darlene," Krista explains, "it was your best chance at trapping him here." Elliot tries to leave but keeps being forced back while Krista waits patiently. Finally he sits so she can explain Elliot's dissociative identity disorder.

In Order of Appearance...

She walks him through Elliot's various personalities. Mr. Robot—the first, the protector, and the father replacement—was created when Elliot jumped out the window. Later, he created Magda, "the persecutor, blaming Elliot for the abuse, insisting that he needed to pay for it." Next he created "his own family of sorts": Young Elliot, Magda and Mr. Robot. Aha! Elliot says to himself that Krista must not know about "you" (Friend) but she can somehow now hear his inner voice, and she knows all about them too: "the voyeurs who think they're not a part of it despite being here for all of it."

The Newest Member of #ElliotSquad

But there's another personality, Krista explains, that came about not too long ago to protect Elliot's future and save the entire world. This new personality hid "him" in a fantasy that was an endless loop to keep him safe until this new personality fixed everything. Krista admits she never figured out that she hadn't been talking to the real Elliot. Instead she was talking to this version of Elliot, created to carry the real Elliot's rage, "the vigilante hacker Elliot always imagined being, the one that sought vengeance, the personality that had gained so much control...that he forgot...he was only just another personality. You're not Elliot. You're the mastermind and now it's time for you to give that control back to the host: the real Elliot." But this Elliot doesn't want to give up his life! Another tremor causes to the ceiling to fall in and then we cut to....

"It's official. You saved the world."

...Elliot in a hospital bed, some cuts on his forehead. Darlene is asleep in a chair until he says her name. He grabs her hand and asks her if this is a dream. She promises it's all real—fsociety, their hack on E Corp, Five/Nine, him going to prison, the Cyber Bombings, the two of them robbing those mother effers after what they did to Angela. Romero, Trenton, Mobley, Shayla...they're really gone, too. It's not in his head. She tells him that he stopped the meltdown but there was still an explosion, which he survived because the room he was in had some sort of advanced shielding. Whiterose is finally gone, along with her machine. The world is safe again. When he admits to her that he's not "him," Darlene says she's known that since she came back and he didn't remember her when he started fsociety. But she never said anything because she liked how close they were getting, since she felt so guilty for bailing on him when he needed her most. She then asks if "he" is okay and says that she misses him. She leaves to get the nurse and he closes his eyes as we fade to blue....

"You'll always be a part of him, Kiddo."

He addresses "Friend" again, admitting that he never gave himself a name either. He was "just a guy trying to play God without permission." The blue dissolves, revealing Hoodie Elliot standing beside Magda, Young Elliot and Mr. Robot in the same conference room with a view of the New York skyline we've seen before. Magda and Young Elliot leave the room, followed by Mr. Robot. Elliot tells us that changing the world is actually about being here, just showing up no matter what. If we don't just fall in line, then "just maybe the world can't help but change around us." Like Mr. Robot said, we'll always be a part of Elliot Alderson. "And we'll be the best part, because we're the part that always showed up, the part that stayed, the part that changed him. And who wouldn't be proud of that."

A Final Farewell...And a Hello

Elliot leaves the room and enters a glassed-in hallway bathed in blue light. He walks down the hallway to a red door. He looks at us and says, "This only works if you let go, too." He opens the door and joins Mr. Robot, Magda and Young Elliot in the movie theater. The projector goes on behind them. The camera moves into the light of the projector, which turns into abstract kaleidoscope of scenes from Elliot's world over the past several months. Then the projector light resolves into an eyeball brimming with tears. We hear a door close and then we see Darlene re-enter the hospital room. She looks closely for a second and then leans in with a smile. "Hello, Elliot."