‘Mr. Robot’ Finally Reveals the Purpose of Whiterose’s Machine

For years now, in between all the other mysteries tossed in the air by USA’s Mr. Robot, one question has loomed over all the others: what is the purpose of the massive machine Whiterose (BD Wong), the leader of hacker group the Dark Army, has been building at Washington Township? Though the series hasn’t shied away from weirdness — the whole premise revolves around Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek) teaming up with an alternate personality called Mr. Robot (Christian Slater) in the form of his dead father — would the machine be something simple, like a power plant? Or something more science fiction based?

Well, as of this week’s episode “eXit,” we finally know the answer, and ha ha, oh boy, I don’t think we were all ready.

Spoilers for Mr. Robot Season 4, Episode 11 “eXit” past this point.

The first half of the episode picks up with where we last left Elliot, in a motel parking lot saying goodbye to his sister Darlene (Carly Chaikin). While she heads off on her own adventure with Dom (Grace Gummer), Elliot has one final task: destroy Whiterose’s machine before she can turn it on. The machine is based in a nuclear power plant in the Washington Township, a power plant that caused Elliot’s and his deceased best friend/secret love of his life, Angela Moss’s (Portia Doubleday), parents to die of cancer.

It was that same plant that caused the inciting incident for the series, caused Elliot to go down the rabbit hole that would lead to the destruction of E Corp, a massive corporation helping bankroll Whiterose’s efforts, and eventually come into conflict with Whiterose herself. This all ends in a room set up like a stage, similar to the room Angela found herself in a few seasons ago when she became convinced of Whiterose’s mission: that she could somehow bring back the dead.

Elliot isn’t convinced, and a passionate back and forth between the two boils down to a pitch for the continuing longevity of the human race. Whiterose believes there’s a place where we all get what we deserve, the world is essentially broken, and that all stems from her being born in a body she wasn’t meant to have (we’ll leave the discussion of whether having a trans villain of this magnitude is appropriate for another time). Elliot believes that society is mostly broken, but that there are people who love him anyway means the world is worth saving.

So Whiterose shoots herself in the head, and pulls a classic Watchmen style “I did it 35 minutes ago”: she’s already turned on the machine, and thanks to Elliot, it’s going to cause a nuclear meltdown in the process. Instead of escaping, Elliot plays a classic, text-based adventure game Whiterose has created for him called “eXit.” The first time through, he escapes to a new world, but it doesn’t stop the meltdown. The second time through, he chooses to wait and die with his “friend” in the game, and that’s exactly what happens. As the plant blows up, Elliot sits and waits with Mr. Robot for the end, telling him he loves him before the screen goes red.

This whole section could be interpreted as connecting to the book Whiterose places on the table for Elliot, Tolstoy’s “Resurrection.” And sure that book has the usual amounts of railing against injustice, but the clearer touchpoint is Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit.” In that play, three souls stuck in a waiting room in Hell debate whether humanity is worth saving. In the play, they try to leave multiple times, opening the door just how Mr. Robot does on the show, but never actually escape. Ultimately the realization there is that “L’enfer, c’est les autres,” translated as “Hell is other people.” Elliot, of course, is arguing the opposite — but given that Whiterose says she’ll prove her point to him before she shoots herself in the head, hold on to that thought for the rest of the episode.

That’s because it doesn’t end with the reactor meltdown. Elliot wakes up in a perfect version of his own apartment. He gets dressed, listens to music, smiles, showers, and talks to the no-longer-dead Angela over Facetime. Not only is she alive, but they’re getting married tomorrow — and while they’re talking, he also gets a text message from his also very much alive father, who is telling him to get a move on so he can give a big presentation at work.

Is something wrong with this Utopia? Of course it is, from the very beginning: we know that Edward Alderson is a monster who sexually abused his son, yet he seems to be fine and happy here. And more importantly, Darlene doesn’t exist: both Angela, and a family photo drive home the fact that Elliot is an only child in this reality.

Other cracks pop up, including Elliot’s frequent headaches, a 5.6 magnitude earthquake in New York, and the reappearance of E Corp (now called F Corp, in a merging of Elliot’s hacker group f society and the E Corp company in the “real world”) CTO Tyrell Wellick (Martin Wallström), who also seemingly died. He seems to know something is off about this world, too, and as Elliot pitches him on having his company Allsafe (Elliot now runs the place) handle F Corp’s digital safety, for a moment he thinks Elliot sees it, too.

It isn’t until the last moment that we discover this Elliot is not the Elliot we know — not exactly, at least. He enters his apartment, and sees… Elliot, sitting at the computer, dressed in his hoodie.

So, what’s going on here? Is this, in fact, a parallel universe? Is it all taking place in Elliot’s mind? Did he die in the reactor explosion, and this is all a fever dream, moments before he dies? The strongest possibility in my mind is that, though it’ll be ambiguous, Mr. Robot has gone full sci-fi and we’re in Elliot’s utopia. The problem with utopia, though, is perfection for one person isn’t for everyone. It’s certainly not perfect for Darlene, who was never born, for example. This is Elliot’s version of a perfect world — or what Whiterose thinks a perfect world would be right for him — but what does Elliot really want? He tells Tyrell that he sometimes thinks he would want to be more of a risk taker, and have a more exciting life; but that then he remembers he’s lucky to have what he does. That’s in direct contrast with the Elliot who confronts Whiterose at the plant who explains that felling pain is how we know we’re alive. You can only appreciate the happy moments because of the loss, something Whiterose doesn’t want to understand.

Is the resolution, then, going to be settled inside Elliot’s mind as he faces down his own worst fear: himself? If he is able to bring the world back to “normal,” will he be dead? Will it be more broken than before? Or is the moral that pretty good is good enough, and better than a life lived in fear? Is hell other people, or is it just purgatory?

With only two episodes left, whatever the answers are, they’re coming soon.

Mr. Robot airs Sundays at 10/9c on USA.

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