Mr. Robot

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Mr. Robot

Postby KleinerKiller » Tue Jul 14, 2015 6:19 am

I've only been able to catch the first episode today, with the other two still sitting in my DVR, but I'm already pleased with how this series is going.

I'd describe it as Fight Club with hackers instead of punching and bombs, or the TV equivalent of what Watch_Dogs could have been if it tried harder. The hero is Elliot, an awkward, delusional, possibly paranoid-schizophrenic introvert, who's a cyber security expert for a tech firm by day and a vigilante hacker by night (and who narrates the show in Fight Club-esque monotone). He gets caught up in a conflict between a secretive hacker group and the world's largest corporate conglomerate, and he has to help the former take down the latter with his expertise.

From what I can tell so far, it's actually a brilliant little show. All of the concepts have been done to death, but they're executed here in an intelligent light that makes them fit together in a fresh and compelling way. I love Rami Malek as Elliot, and I quite enjoy how the hacking is portrayed fairly realistically as opposed to the unstoppable cyber-magic every other show and film makes it out to be.

Let's just hope that it doesn't get cancelled like every other remotely intelligent show I get into.
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Re: Mr. Robot

Postby Dr. Ambiguous » Sun Aug 09, 2015 9:06 am

So I'm glad you posted about this show here, as I'd have not have heard about it otherwise, and I'm really enjoying it. I just finished watching the 6th episode, and it was probably the best episode yet. I'm enjoying the show a lot, and Kleiner did a pretty good job describing it so far. It got off to a strong start, maintained momentum pretty well for the next few episodes, and now it feel like it's picking up more, and I'm excited for the rest of the season.
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Re: Mr. Robot

Postby KleinerKiller » Sat Aug 15, 2015 4:46 am

Holy shit, Episode 8.

Spoiler: show
We know who Mr. Robot is now, but the jury's still out on what the hell he's done. And Elliot was already an unreliable narrator, but we literally can't believe anything he sees, hears, or says anymore. For all we know, the entire series could be a great big lie.


If you aren't watching this show... rectify that.
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Re: Mr. Robot

Postby Dr. Ambiguous » Sat Aug 15, 2015 11:20 am

Damn, I am loving this series. Two more episodes to go for this season, and I'm pretty fucking excited for them.

@KleinerKiller's spoiler

Spoiler: show
Fight Club much, eh? I am realy intrigued to see where this shit goes from here.

Seriously guys, watch this motherfucking shit.
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Re: Mr. Robot

Postby KleinerKiller » Thu Aug 20, 2015 6:13 pm

Dr. Ambiguous wrote:
Spoiler: show
Fight Club much, eh? I am realy intrigued to see where this shit goes from here.


Well. Episode 9.

Spoiler: show
When you made that direct comparison, I thought you'd misunderstood the reveal. After all, it looked for the longest time like Mr. Robot was actually alive and collaborating with Darlene. But nope: in addition to being Elliot's father, he was a hallucination of Elliot's actually dead father, and Elliot's unreliable narrator tendencies have reached even higher levels. That... took me off guard. Fucking double twist. I hope Mr. Robot still appears in some fashion, because Christian Slater's performance has been brilliant.

There's so much I wanted to talk about in this episode, because unlike Gotham, I'm actually enthusiastic about discussing this show. Then they went and played an instrumental version of "Where Is My Mind?" over the last scene, and my thoughts abandoned me. Some might see it as cheesy or too on-the-nose, but for me, after all of the subconscious Fight Club comparisons, having them openly acknowledge the inspiration in a sly, in-jokey way just resonated so effectively. I'm counting it among my favorite scenes thus far.


There's just one thing that isn't quite clicking for me, and I hope you can answer or at least take a stab at this, Ambi.

Spoiler: show
We know now that Mr. Robot is a hallucination. He's not alive, and he's not a different person than Elliot. That would imply that Elliot was the one who spoke with Tyrell in the car last episode, when Tyrell talked about knowing secrets about him that nobody would want exposed. Yet when Tyrell walked into the apartment at the end of this one, he acted like he was just figuring out Elliot's involvement and importance. What's going on? Is there something I'm missing?
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Re: Mr. Robot

Postby Dr. Ambiguous » Fri Aug 21, 2015 12:43 pm

Oh jesus, episode 9. Damn, this shit is dope. (I've been listening to a lot of N.W.A. lately)...

KleinerKiller wrote:Well. Episode 9.

Spoiler: show
When you made that direct comparison, I thought you'd misunderstood the reveal. After all, it looked for the longest time like Mr. Robot was actually alive and collaborating with Darlene. But nope: in addition to being Elliot's father, he was a hallucination of Elliot's actually dead father, and Elliot's unreliable narrator tendencies have reached even higher levels. That... took me off guard. Fucking double twist. I hope Mr. Robot still appears in some fashion, because Christian Slater's performance has been brilliant.

There's so much I wanted to talk about in this episode, because unlike Gotham, I'm actually enthusiastic about discussing this show. Then they went and played an instrumental version of "Where Is My Mind?" over the last scene, and my thoughts abandoned me. Some might see it as cheesy or too on-the-nose, but for me, after all of the subconscious Fight Club comparisons, having them openly acknowledge the inspiration in a sly, in-jokey way just resonated so effectively. I'm counting it among my favorite scenes thus far.

Spoiler: show
Oh Jesus, man. When I made that comparison I was just referring to the unreliable narrator thing. That it ended up being the same person too! Fuck man, I did not see that one coming. I mean, I didn't see the other one coming either, but daaaamn.

I'm still trying to process the episode, a lot has happened, a lot is going on, and there's a lot we don't know yet, so I'm not really sure where to begin. Elliot is beyond untrustworthy as a narrator at this point, and I'm much less certain about what is and isn't real at this point.

I too hope Slater remains in the series in some way, he's been great in it so far, though I do fear how that could go if it lasts much longer than a few episodes after this given the reveal.

There's just one thing that isn't quite clicking for me, and I hope you can answer or at least take a stab at this, Ambi.

Spoiler: show
We know now that Mr. Robot is a hallucination. He's not alive, and he's not a different person than Elliot. That would imply that Elliot was the one who spoke with Tyrell in the car last episode, when Tyrell talked about knowing secrets about him that nobody would want exposed. Yet when Tyrell walked into the apartment at the end of this one, he acted like he was just figuring out Elliot's involvement and importance. What's going on? Is there something I'm missing?

Spoiler: show
Given the unreliable narration, I think it's impossible to say for certain at this point, but I think it's more that you're seeing too much. I think when he had that conversation with Elliot/Mr. Robot in the car last episode, he knew some things, but likely didn't detail all of them. He wanted... something from Elliot, and I think he was trying to either convince or coerce him. Then he got fired from Evil Corp, and he needs to get his shit together, or his plans are in the gutter. And if that happens, his wife is leaving him, and presumably he is getting something out of that relationship that is atypical for marriage. (Of course, Tyrell's end game is still a big mystery). So once he gets fired he comes to Elliot, presumably for help, and he reveals fully what he knows. My guess is he didn't reveal how much he knew to Elliot originally, only part of it. I'm assuming he's doing this in an attempt to aid in getting assistance from Elliot. Possibly this is longer explanation is just to explain to the viewer what Tyrell knows, but that seems to overt and dumb for this show, so I really doubt it. I could be way off with all of this, but that's how I took it.
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Re: Mr. Robot

Postby KleinerKiller » Thu Aug 27, 2015 4:39 pm

Apparently the season finale's been postponed by a whole week because it contains "an event similar in nature to the tragic events in Virginia". I only learned about this when I tried to play what I thought was the recorded episode, and it played a short message before repeating the previous episode. And because they kept the title and identifying information for the finale in this surprise repeat, my DVR no longer considers said episode new and will not record it at its September 2nd release (which is currently nowhere on the channel listings for September 2nd, nipping any chance of setting up a manual recording in the bud).

I'm not happy. I get why they did it, but I'm not happy.
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Re: Mr. Robot

Postby Dr. Ambiguous » Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:09 am

I noticed that too when I had a similar issue when I tried to watch it last night and couldn't. Happened over to IMDb for unrelated reasons and saw the headline. I noped the fuck out of reading it because of potential spoilers, so I can't comment much until after I watch the episode and subsequently read up on what happened. I'm pretty bummed about it, since I was looking forward to watching it after work, but oh well. That's life I guess.
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Re: Mr. Robot

Postby KleinerKiller » Thu Sep 03, 2015 6:34 pm

Well, that's a wrap. The first season of Mr. Robot is over, and thankfully, another one is coming next year. This is a brilliant show that I couldn't do without, and hopefully it can fill the hole Hannibal left in my heart.

On the finale:

Spoiler: show
The whole setup from the beginning was haunting, even if I was a little underwhelmed that we didn't get to see Elliot and Tyrell accomplishing the actual hack. The world really felt like it was changing, and it felt like we the viewers were standing in the middle and watching it happen. Not many shows can pull you in and make you feel involved like this one.

The offending event that got the episode pushed back a week for similarities to the deaths in Virginia? I guess I can see how they're similar, but honestly, for such a huge backlash, I was expecting someone to actually walk up and shoot someone else on camera in an open area. This wasn't like all of the episodes and films that got pulled around September 11th because they showed planes crashing into buildings. But oh, well. I should be glad it wasn't cut altogether.

I'm somewhat disappointed that we didn't get any concrete answers yet as to what happened during Elliot's missing time. I understand why it was left open for next season, but I would have appreciated just a little taste at least. What happened to Tyrell? Did Elliot / Mr. Robot kill him? What was the deal with the SUV? WHAT HAPPENED?! It's so strange to set up the guy as one of the main villains of the season, and then just leave his fate up in the air throughout the entire episode.

What we did focus on with Elliot was Mr. Robot's continued existence. The scene in the bar was great, especially when Mr. Robot insulted the guy and Elliot took the punch. Then there was the whole protest march bit that turned into an empty street, and Elliot's family on the broadcast screen. Real mind-screwy, effective imagery. I'm glad Elliot hasn't shaken Mr. Robot out of his head just yet, because that means we get more Christian Slater next season.

And in the continued tradition of ambiguous endings / post-credit sequences (see also Hannibal), we first get Elliot answering the door for parties unknown, then we find out that Whiterose is apparently tied with E-Corp and close allies with the CEO himself, and they're planning on taking down the person they think is responsible for the carnage -- whether Whiterose actually told him who it was, because the Dark Army was part of the hack, remains to be seen. Yikes. Consider me bamboozled and eagerly awaiting what comes next.


All in all, this was a hell of a first season. Few shows would be willing to permanently alter this much of the status quo in the span of ten episodes. Rami Malek was brilliant, Christian Slater was brilliant, everyone else was brilliant. The wait for more answers and continuations will be unbearably slow and painful, but it'll be worth it when it comes.
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Re: Mr. Robot

Postby Dr. Ambiguous » Fri Sep 11, 2015 5:22 am

I got the finale last week, but got busy and didn't have time to make a post here until just now. The short of it is that I was a little bit underwhelmed by the finale, I think mostly because it just created more questions than it answered. It hardly answered any questions at all for that matter. It was still a good episode, just not the peak of the season. I'm really looking forward to S2.
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Re: Mr. Robot

Postby KleinerKiller » Fri Sep 11, 2015 10:53 pm

Dr. Ambiguous wrote:I'm really looking forward to S2.


And look on the bright side: while we wait for it to start airing again, we'll have another twenty or so episodes of Gotham to tide us over!

Spoiler: show
Everything is pain.
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Re: Mr. Robot

Postby Dr. Ambiguous » Sat Sep 12, 2015 12:52 am

I don't know if I can survive another 20 of Gotham.
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Re: Mr. Robot

Postby Tuli » Thu Oct 22, 2015 10:22 pm

I started watching this today. Me and my bro went through 3 episodes at once, because cliffhangers, man! Anyway, this show is really interesting so far, so I'll definitely continue with it. The whole unreliable narrator thing keeps me guessing whether the titular Mr Robot actually exists or not.
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Re: Mr. Robot

Postby Tuli » Mon Nov 09, 2015 12:08 am

I'm gonna echo Ambi on the finale, it left so many questions I can't help but feel dissatisfied and I need season 2 like now!
Spoiler: show
My favorites were probably the opening episodes, and episode 6. I watched the last 4 episodes all in one sitting so they are all running together a bit. Episode 6 really packed a punch for obvious reasons. And episode 8 being the one where we learn that mr. Robot is definitely a hallucination. I love how they managed to keep it an open question for so long: in the first episodes we don't see him interacting with any of the other characters so there's a point for hallucination, but then that changes when he has conversations with Darlene and it's a point for reality. Or is it? I must say I didn't expect him to be Elliot's father, but once that was revealed I had no doubt he wasn't real. People don't look the same when 20 years have passed, heh.
I also thought the Darlene reveal was brilliantly done. All her odd remarks and behavior in the beginning episodes make sense in hindsight.
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Re: Mr. Robot

Postby LaChaise » Fri Nov 13, 2015 8:06 pm

I binge-watched this with my best friend while in Glasgow. We both really loved it, although we called the twist on episode 2 or 3.
Spoiler: show
I'd have liked it A LOT if, when we learn Mr. Robot is Elliott's father, we learned that we haven't been following Elliott but his dad from the start. That he had some sort of breakdown when Elliott died because of E Corp and started having delusions about living his son's life in his stead or something. It would have been some sort of twist on the expected (for me anyway) Fight Club-esque twist. That's just me musing though. The plot as it stands was quite great already. :)
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