Mr. Robot is a show about a complex and troubled person (Elliot) trying desperately to justify his own bad behavior (to recategorize his revenge as heroism).

I have gotten blasted for this take for years, but it was mostly confirmed tonight (Don’t worry, it won’t all be bragging, metadata.par2 disproved one of my recent theories too).

After asking why Elliot didn’t just turn the Dark Army into the FBI (like he did the guy in the coffee shop S1 E1, Ray in S2, and half of his co-workers in S3)) Darlene said: “You don’t blow up buildings, you don’t hurt people.”

Elliot replied:

“There's something inside me that can't let go of what we started.”

Exactly!

Elliot was always behind the 5/9 hack and he did it because he wants revenge on E-Corp for causing the death of his father and for his rage towards his father which manifests itself in Mr. Robot.

The problem caused by Season 2 wasn’t that Elliot wasn’t responsible, it was that the bullshit he was trying to sell himself wasn’t working anymore.

In the past, Mr. Robot didn’t really have to worry about Elliot because no matter how much Elliot kicked and screamed, deep down, they were always on the same page.

But then Shayla happened, then Ray happened, and then one he was paroled Elliot could no longer ignore the massive collateral damage from 5/9 stacked like cordwood all around him.

Mr. Robot was Elliot’s plausible deniability and anti-capitalism was Elliot’s political cover but both were mostly self-delusion because Elliot always wanted to make E-Corp pay and he always secretly enjoyed working out his rage hiding behind his fathers face inside his own noggin.

But then he and Mr. Robot negotiated the new handshake and with Elliot starting to grow a conscience he started to see the things he wasn’t allowed to see before and found out that initiating Stage 2 required sacrificing innocents as collateral damage.