Warning: Recap Contains Spoilers

Welcome back, friend. The premiere of the fourth and last season of Mr. Robot picks up right where we left off, with Phillip Price trying to reason with Angela, and then jumps ahead to Christmas time…but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a happy holiday for anyone. Ho-ho-no.

“She Made Her Choice”

Newly revealed father and daughter are still at the estate where Price made his big (daddy) confession at the end of last season…but no matter how much Price tries to convince Angela that she shouldn’t seek revenge for what whiterose manipulated her into doing, Angela refuses, even after she sees that the Dark Army has arrived. (Yeah, they’re having their convo outside, but of course Price has been wearing a wire so whiterose could listen in.) After telling Price to go, Angela sits down and accepts her fate (a bullet to the back of the head and another for good measure). Price is pissed—at Angela for not relenting, at whiterose for being so ruthless and at himself for not doing a better job protecting her, as whiterose so incisively points out.

New Number 2

Whiterose has a new assistant—Wang Shu—and she’s out for blood. “Mr. Alderson’s” blood, to be exact. Even though Elliot has an expiration date—namely by the end of the year after he helps get the project shipped to the Congo—Wang Shu secures whiterose’s permission to remind Elliot who’s in charge.

Unhappy Holidays

Lawyer Freddy Lomax is having a great time harassing his female staff at the firm holiday party and, let’s say, “immersing himself” in a video chat with an underage girl until he gets a special delivery from Mr. Robot: instructions to archive his email inbox and deliver it on a thumb drive to Robot/Elliot at Grand Central. If he doesn't, Mr. Robot will send Freddy’s little video to his family and the FBI. With the info that Freddy supplies, Elliot quickly susses out that Zhi Zhang (aka whiterose) is not only a client, but also has been using Freddy and his firm to move big money around via a shell company. But just as Elliot zeroes in on the info he needs from Freddy about John Garcin, their liaison at the foreign bank, the Dark Army tracks them down. Elliot and Freddy split up and run with the plan to meet up on the street. But once Freddy realizes that Elliot can’t protect him from the Dark Army, Freddy takes out the gun he pulled on Elliot earlier and offs himself outside the station.

Speaking of Unhappy…

Over at E Corp, Tyrell seems miserable even though he’s widely considered as the hero for the Five/Nine reversal and resulting economic upswing. If they only knew….

The Ghost of Angela Past

Despite the Freddy-suicide setback, working out of Allsafe’s old office, Elliot figures out John Garcin’s address and wants to move on it right away. Mr. Robot, however, thinks that Elliot is being too hasty and has lost sight of the bigger picture because he’s grieving Angela. Not so, says Elliot. Stopping whiterose is the big picture. They have found the “heart” of whiterose’s operation—the money pipeline—and Elliot believes they have no time to waste stabbing her right through the middle of it. After fielding persistent reach-outs from Darlene, they let her meet them at Elliot’s apartment. She’s freaked (and tweaked) that she has seen Angela wandering the streets in her bathrobe. Darlene believes that she’s still alive, which is why they never found her body. Instead of showing her the photographic evidence that proves otherwise, Elliot advises his sister to stop feeling guilty because Angela brought this on herself. In response, Darlene accuses him of shutting down. Later Darlene’s doing every drug available at a party she’s “hosting” at Angela’s apartment, which is the exact same as Angela left it, with her homage to the 9/29 victims. When Darlene hears some catty women trashing whoever must be the occupant of the apartment, she kicks everyone out and collapses on the bed clutching Angela’s ballet slippers.

Dom is Doomed

A sleepless Dom has been hiding out at her mother Trudie’s house in the ‘burbs of what seems like New Jersey, avoiding work and keeping watch over her family. Trudie has invited her friend Janice over for dinner. Sensing that her mom is trying to fix them up, Dom gently quashes the idea once she and Janice are outside. Then Janice says something that stops Dom in her tracks: “You better get your rest because you have your interview about the Santiago case in the morning. You’ve put it off for weeks. It’s starting to look suspicious.” Then comes the threat: unless Dom goes to work tomorrow and cleans up Santiago’s mess, Janice is going to be forced to do something really bad to Dom’s mother. Let’s just say it would involve Janice’s skills as a taxidermist. As Janice drives off, Dom notices two white vans parked on either end of the street.

Welcome to the Honeypot

With Mr. Robot reluctantly following him, Elliot hightails it over to John Garcin’s apartment. An open door, thick dust everywhere and a copy of Sartre’s No Exit (in which one of the main characters is named Joseph Garcin) all point to one conclusion: They’re standing in a honeypot. Two Men in Black appear at the apartment and drag out Elliot. They take him back to his apartment where a third black-cloaked man (Sam Esmail cameo alert!) injects him with heroin. The men leave Elliot writhing on the floor, struggling to reach the phone, with tears rolling down his face as scenes from happier days flash by before his eyes. As his eyes close, we fade to black.