Mr. Robot Season 3 Premiere Recap: Can Elliot Still Hack It?

Believe it or not, that bullet lodged in Elliot’s gut is actually the least of his problems when Mr. Robot‘s third season (finally!) comes online.

We learn of Elliot’s fate from an unlikely source: Irving, a fast-talking car salesman played by Emmy winner Bobby Cannavale. He’s demanding a free milkshake at Red Wheelbarrow BBQ after filling out his loyalty punch card — and he has a point; what does qualify as a “visit”? — when he gets an urgent call from Tyrell. He rushes over to the warehouse lair where Elliot lies bleeding, but Irving’s not worried: “He’s kinda still alive.” He tells Tyrell the doctors are on their way, and calls Whiterose, who’s holed up inside the bowels of a nuclear power plant, to brief her on Elliot’s condition. Who is this guy…?

Elliot wakes up in a strange bed, and thinks because he’s alive, “I must’ve been right. None of it was real.” But he’s at Angela’s, who tells him “the people that you’re working with” brought him here — including Tyrell. That, and the bullet wound, confirms that this is all very real. (Oh, and by the way, the power’s been out across the city for a week now.) Elliot rushes to the phone to call the cops, but Angela stops him: “If you tell the police anything, they will kill me.” He’s determined to stop “Stage 2” — aka the plan to blow up the building where E Corp stores their recovery data — so he throws on Angela’s “Property of Josh Groban” sweatshirt (ha!) and heads out into the night.

VIDEOS She takes him to a secret underground club with throbbing music and young computer nerds enjoying plentiful electricity. Darlene calls it “the only hacker space with a dedicated fiber connection”; the people there are competing in some kind of worldwide “Hacker Olympics.” Elliot needs access to a terminal, so he offers to just win the competition for them. (Easy, right?) But while he’s busy giving a hacker some helpful tips, Darlene spots a pair of Asian guys eyeing her suspiciously. She flees to the bathroom in terror, not able to catch her breath. The good news: Elliot not only wins the competition, he also manages to connect to the E Corp back door. The bad news: The Asian guys, with Darlene in tow, pull the plug on him before he can finish shutting it down. Uh-oh.

They lead Elliot and Darlene out to an alley, where a cab pulls up… and Irving’s the driver! They get in and notice an SUV full of federal agents on their tail, but Irving coolly calls the cops, posing as an officer, and reports the SUV as stolen, getting the cops to initiate a remote slowdown. The SUV helplessly slows to a stop while Irving’s cab speeds away. He takes Elliot and Darlene to Red Wheelbarrow (his favorite place!), where Elliot informs him he’s calling off Stage 2. Irving’s surprisingly OK with this, but when Elliot demands confirmation from Whiterose, he turns nasty: “You know that bullet we took out of you? We can easily put it back in.”