‘Mr. Robot’ Season 3 Episode 6 Ending Explained

USA Mr. Robot Season 3 Episode 6

Tonight was a phenomenal episode of Mr. Robot. In fact, I’d daresay that this episode was even better than the hyped episode from last week, which was essentially one shot and never broke for commercials. Tonight’s episode kept fans on the edge of their seats the entire time, wondering just what was going to happen next. Would Mr. Robot win or would Elliot win? What would happen with Dom’s investigation? Why is Angela so completely on board with Whiterose now? (We’re still wondering that.) But that ending… Well that was something else. If you’re still trying to figure out exactly what happened at the end and how it came about, we have a quick explanation for you.

This post will have spoilers for Mr. Robot Season 3 Episode 6. 

At the very end of Episode 6, after Elliot spent pretty much the entire episode fighting Mr. Robot and trying to stop an explosion that would take down E-Corp’s New York building a la Stage 2, he learned that he was wrong. Very wrong. He turned to the newscasts and saw that Whiterose and the Dark Army had a different plan in mind the entire time. Instead of taking down the New York E-Corp building, they took down all 71 buildings where Elliot had the backup papers sent, trying to stop Whiterose’s plan. Thousands of people died in the bombings.

What can we deduce from this crazy twist at the end of the episode? Well, first we know that Elliot was tricked. Whiterose used the New York building as a decoy to distract Elliot so he wouldn’t stop the real plan.

It’s also most likely that Mr. Robot was tricked too (and he wasn’t just playing along to distract Elliot too.) He was the mastermind behind Dark Army’s original plan to take down E-Corp, and he was the mastermind behind Stage 2. But he spent so much time trying to fight Elliot when he was trying to stop a bombing at the New York building, it seems likely that he was in the dark on Whiterose’s ultimate plan. Remember, he only stopped Elliot when Elliot told him that he was being played and there weren’t any papers in the New York building at all. Elliot and Mr. Robot were played by Whiterose and allowed to chase a red herring so they wouldn’t stop the real plan.

From the perspective of the Dark Army, it was smart to keep Mr. Robot in the dark, since there was a war going on between him and Elliot. As to why they didn’t just take out Elliot… Well, they probably still will need him or Mr. Robot in the future. Whiterose has talked about Elliot’s intellect and how his dad helped engineer some impressive things for them in the past. So it’s likely they might need Elliot in the future.

As far as Tyrell goes… It’s unclear if Tyrell knew the plan for Stage 2 was to blow up 71 buildings, not just one. That’s still open to interpretation. But since Tyrell thinks of himself as almost a type of god now (and he’s disavowed his love for Elliot and Mr. Robot), some fans are guessing that he did know about the 71 buildings. (Remember, he said that for his plan to work, he would need the full force of the Dark Army.) It seems likely that the instructions Irving gave to him told him to go out in public and talk about wanting to stop what was about to happen. This gives him an alibi and makes it look like he was not behind the bombings and he was not central to the planning, which might win him back his freedom.

As far as Angela’s knowledge, it seems like she was in the dark too and believed what she was doing was only going to blow up one building that they were going to evacuate. When using the HSM to update the UPS firmware in Episode 5, she believed her actions would allow the Dark Army to blow up one building. But it actually allowed them to blow up 71 buildings.

But will learning that 71 buildings were destroyed and were not evacuated change her mind about Whiterose? It likely won’t. She’s really bought into something that Whiterose showed her. From her vague comments, it seems like she either believes that Whiterose can go back in time and change the past — thus saving her mom and Elliot’s dad — or she thinks Whiterose can access a parallel timeline where they’re still alive. Either way, she will likely be able to rationalize away all the deaths, assuming all these people will still be alive in the end if Whiterose can implement her plan and “fix” the mistakes of the past.

There’s another twist that some fans might be missing. All along, Elliot thought that by rerouting the paperwork to 71 different buildings, he was going to stop the Dark Army from blowing up the New York building. But instead, his actions led to the destruction of those 71 buildings. In the end, he could have saved thousands of lives if he had not rerouted those deliveries and let all the papers go to the New York building as originally planned.

What do you think about these theories and analyses regarding the ending of Episode 6? Let us know in the comments below.