Many people might say that nothing much happened in this episode until the final few minutes. And to the extent that they are correct, it was some of the most beautiful "nothing" that I've seen in quite a while. In an episode full of moments worthy of awards, none stands out more than the scene between a suicidal Elliot and Trenton's little brother at a mosque.
Psychologically and emotionally, the entire series up to now can be summed up by an exchange later in the episode between Elliot and Angela, where Elliot brings up a "wishing game" that he and Angela used to play as children. "After we made all our wishes, we'd close our eyes really hard, hoping that when we opened them, it'd all come true," Elliot says. "And we thought the harder we closed them, the stronger our wishes would be. And even though they never came true, we still liked doing it. Because the ending was never our favorite part, anyway. It was the wishing. I didn't get that at first. You remember what you used to say to me right before we opened our eyes that would make it all better?"
Angela, hurting every bit as much as Elliot, takes a moment before replying. "No matter what happens, we'll be okay."
By this point, Elliot has decided not to delete himself after all. "That's the thing about deletion. It's not always permanent. There are many reasons why you wanna recover a file you just deleted. When you have that moment of panic, where it hits you, where that thing you thought had no value suddenly becomes important. Where you suddenly find new purpose for it. Maybe there are still things left for me to do."
For Elliot, one of those things is to restore some digital data that Trenton had sent to him and that had previously gone unread. Specifically, an email that she referenced in the previous episode. An email that Elliot now reads. An email that begins with: "I may have found a way to undo the hack."
Review by Jim G.BlockedParentSpoilers2017-12-02T20:55:33Z
Many people might say that nothing much happened in this episode until the final few minutes. And to the extent that they are correct, it was some of the most beautiful "nothing" that I've seen in quite a while. In an episode full of moments worthy of awards, none stands out more than the scene between a suicidal Elliot and Trenton's little brother at a mosque.
Psychologically and emotionally, the entire series up to now can be summed up by an exchange later in the episode between Elliot and Angela, where Elliot brings up a "wishing game" that he and Angela used to play as children. "After we made all our wishes, we'd close our eyes really hard, hoping that when we opened them, it'd all come true," Elliot says. "And we thought the harder we closed them, the stronger our wishes would be. And even though they never came true, we still liked doing it. Because the ending was never our favorite part, anyway. It was the wishing. I didn't get that at first. You remember what you used to say to me right before we opened our eyes that would make it all better?"
Angela, hurting every bit as much as Elliot, takes a moment before replying. "No matter what happens, we'll be okay."
By this point, Elliot has decided not to delete himself after all. "That's the thing about deletion. It's not always permanent. There are many reasons why you wanna recover a file you just deleted. When you have that moment of panic, where it hits you, where that thing you thought had no value suddenly becomes important. Where you suddenly find new purpose for it. Maybe there are still things left for me to do."
For Elliot, one of those things is to restore some digital data that Trenton had sent to him and that had previously gone unread. Specifically, an email that she referenced in the previous episode. An email that Elliot now reads. An email that begins with: "I may have found a way to undo the hack."
Amazing episode.