"Chill out, man," Darlene reassures Elliot as she picks him up near the smoldering remnants of the Dark Army van. "We don't need to chat." These words set the stage for Mr. Robot's inaugural gimmick episode of its final season, masterfully penned and helmed by Sam Esmail. Titled "Method Not Allowed," the narrative follows Elliot and Darlene as they infiltrate Virtual Realty to directly pierce through the digital defenses of Cyprus National Bank. This episode essentially reimagines the heist genre through the Mr. Robot lens, with Esmail—renowned for his creative borrowing from cinematic greats—taking cues from the classic French crime thriller Rififi, forgoing dialogue entirely for the remainder of the episode. Minimal communication is conveyed through texts, while visual storytelling and Max Quayle's haunting score shoulder the narrative burden. That is, until the credits roll in, when Vera finally corners Elliot's former therapist, Krista, whispering, "We need to talk." A delightful touch, indeed.
The pitfall of many gimmick episodes lies in their overreliance on the central gimmick, often to the detriment of the storytelling. Rififi's iconic half-hour heist sequence, famously devoid of music and dialogue, thrives on its silence, yet never draws undue attention to its natural soundscape. "Method Not Allowed," however, isn't quite as seamless. After a while, the characters' silence becomes increasingly jarring, especially in scenarios where dialogue would naturally flow. While the concept is ingenious and poses an intriguing challenge, it's unsustainable when applied rigidly to every scene.
That being said, the dialogue-free approach largely succeeds in the Elliot-Darlene segment. Esmail extracts a wealth of tension from the tried-and-true heist tropes—distracting guards, disabling cameras, swiping fingerprints—while interspersing the visually static hacking sequences with external threats, like ticking clocks and the imminent risk of capture. Occasionally, Quayle's score might seem overly embellishing, as if Esmail feared certain moments wouldn't resonate without it, but it's a minor flaw in an otherwise impeccably directed episode.
However, the actual sequence of the heist often stretches credibility to its limits. Generally, I refrain from highlighting logical inconsistencies, preferring to accept most narratives at their face value. Yet, there are a couple of instances in this episode that significantly strain Mr. Robot's grasp on realism. It's one thing for the security guard to overlook Elliot as he dashes through the lobby unnoticed. It's quite another for him to fail to detect both Elliot and Darlene, fully visible in the server room, during his inspection. While I thoroughly enjoyed Elliot's thrilling chase across Manhattan, weaving through Central Park and the Upper West Side, it's a stretch to believe he could outmaneuver two officers and multiple patrol cars on foot for such an extended period. Nonetheless, the scene of Elliot and Darlene clutching hands atop the gearshift, a poignant reaffirmation of their sibling bond, makes the suspense worthwhile.
The episode's sparsity of dialogue, however, does little justice to the other storylines. Philip Price receives the time and venue of the Deus Group meeting via a series of cryptic messages. Dom surveys the charred remnants of the Dark Army van and subsequently hacks police intelligence to track Janet. On their own, these plots hold merit, yet they're rendered somewhat awkward by the total absence of speech. Crime scenes, police stations, and Christmas Day celebrations are settings where silence is rarely the norm. I comprehend the necessity of their silence within the context of the episode, and I'm willing to overlook this for the sake of the narrative. Nevertheless, it pushes the gimmick into overworked territory. It would have been far more convincing and preferable if Esmail had confined this silence to the scenes featuring Elliot and Darlene rather than the entire episode.
The episode concludes amidst the hustle and bustle of Christmas Day. The Deus Group is set to convene at 9 p.m., armed with the Cyprus National Bank information by Elliot and Darlene. Dom has been entrusted with the mission of apprehending them before it's too late. As for Vera... well, he remains at large, scheming something sinister. What a wondrous, yet tense, holiday it promises to be.
