5 details you might have missed in the latest 'Mr. Robot' episode
1. A flashback scene tells the origin of fsociety's Coney Island digs, and they were surprisingly hidden in plain sight.
And the group seized on the space. But they didn't do much to the name. They've been hidden in plain sight the entire time, as the hackers known as fsociety were literally working at a place called F Society.
That may be a costly mistake, since FBI Agent Dominique DiPierro finds the place at the end of the episode.
"You've got to be f--king kidding me," she says.
2. Elliot is still battling his hallucinations, fighting not to be "owned."
There's a key (and particularly gross) scene where Elliot decides to take a bunch of adderall to rid himself of Mr. Robot. That doesn't work out so well, and he ends up throwing them up.
It's at this point that Mr. Robot appears and says that Elliot is owned by him.
Which, in the hacker world, holds another meaning. Sure, Elliot is a bit of a slave to Mr. Robot, but "owning" something as a hacker means you have taken full control over that thing. Basically, if Elliot hacks a mobile phone, he has "owned," or "pwned it," as he would write it.
"I will not be owned," he fires back.
3. Romero booby-trapped his computer to self-destruct if someone messed with it.
The general rule of thumb for computers is that, if a hacker has physical access to it, they can easily own it if given enough time.
Which is a great reason why Romero would think to booby-trap his own computer at his home. So that's exactly what happens in the episode, right after Dominique asks a fellow agent, "did you check to see if the ports were modified?"
Poof!
Though this kind of thing is a bit out there for such a realistic hacking show. Most would think to use high grade encryption on their drives, and strong passphrases so the FBI couldn't get in. But setting it up to shoot flames out the back? That seems a little bit much.
Still, these kinds of possibilities do exist (minus the flame-shooting part), as The Verge notes.
"My personal favorite is a 2009 project called DECAF, so-named because it’s designed to nerf the COFEE forensics suite used by the FBI," Russell Brandon writes. "There are also USB keys that will fry your computer into oblivion when you plug them in — and it’s easy to imagine the same system on a port rather than a stick."
4. There was a callback to a Stanley Kubrick classic.
You might have missed it, since it happened so quickly, but there was a great callback to the Stanley Kubrick classic "The Shining."
The 1980 horror masterpiece starring Jack Nicholson has a part where two girls are seen in the hotel hallway by his son. In the Mr. Robot version, there are three girls — all wearing fsociety masks.
This quick shot also works well since Elliot, and Nicholson's character, were both going very, very crazy.
Come play with us.
Amazon's Echo makes an appearance in Dominique's apartment, and one of the known "Easter Eggs" for the voice assistant is used.
"Alexa, when is the end of the world?" asks Dominique.
The Amazon Echo — which is amazing by the way — responds in a very nonchalant way, telling her that barring any unforeseen asteroids, it'll probably be at least a billion years or so.
It's just one of many hidden "Easter Eggs" we know of, like telling Echo to "make me a sandwich," "beam me up," or "do you know the muffin man?"
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