the new USA show MR. ROBOT: the rise of Rami Malek and the inexplicable solidness of Christian Slater

although slater does speak to other characters in the last episode, Elliot isn't involved in the conversation and is almost invisible in his black clothes against a black arcade machine. when slater storms off after arguing with darlene Elliot steps in and starts talking - they never interact with the other characters at the same time. there's definitely a case to be made that elliot and Mr rowboat are alternate personalities, as much as I hope they're just fucking with us.

yeah i was eagle eyeing that and actually enjoyed the degree to which it felt like they were fucking with us by having robot's voice literally in elliot's head during the steel mountain sequence

also lol @ 'steel mountain,' are we all aware of irl offsite data storage facility 'iron mountain'

http://beforeitsnews.com/contributor/upload/291278/images/iron-mountain.png

iron mountain was one of my company's clients :/

my last job used iron mountain for everything!

we wrote their newsfeed and blog content and whitepapers, it was such a pain in the ass account that required like 6 writers

The World Leader in Pain in the Assery

lol p much

Just watched 1st 2 on a computer monitor that kept pixilating or otherwise breaking down. So hoping I get to watch this on something more stable.
What I could see of it looked interesting.

seems oddly fitting though

I'm enjoying this but it feels like it's moving in an almost inevitably Fight Club-y direction at this point. Is it possible that neither Mr. Robot nor Swedish Patrick Bateman are real? They pop up in inexplicable places with little explanation as to why they're there. And Elliot's cruel interaction with the Steel Mountain employee seemed very Bateman-esque. I want this show to just be what it appears to be on the surface because it does what it does so well, but I fear that we're gonna be going high concept before long.

pretty sure swedish patrick bateman is real cuz we've seen him with other characters away from elliot. i really do hope they're messing with us by making it look like mr rowboat is a delusion but yeah it does feel like a fight club reveal is increasingly likely.

idk, i feel like Inevitable Fight Club Denouement is such a trope at this point that it wouldn't be weird for it to be something they're able to play with & misdirect around. episode five probably had enough moments of sort of unavoidable christian slater participation for it to be retroactively ridiculous if the finale is a shutter island thing. who knows though. also i think the other guy is for sure real, we see him solo/with his wife/&c. anyway i like this series & most all of its cast feel like real finds. it's like michael shannon & kristen stewart: the college years.

did i read somewhere that this was supposed to be a miniseries then usa decided to pick it up for a second season? kinda makes me worried that they had a self-contained story with a shocking mr-rowboat-is-a-delusion finale plotted out.

no way is rowboat durden

i really hope not!

"I have an ending and it's about 4 or 5 seasons away."

https://twitter.com/samthemovie/status/622503766940475393

spoiler alert: turns out they were all in purgatory all along

spoiler alert: it's all just a dream

turns out they were on 77 all along

I sincerely hope they avoid any of that nonsense because I think I'd be done with the show at that point. I'm pretty much over the Shyamalaning of television.

finchering

slater is the least interesting element of the show imo; it's a very good television program(me in teh uk)
if they fight club this i am going to be very pissed.

otm x2

hey as well as the score
something else i like about this show
particularly the first few eps
is
its new york locations
which are v credible & sort of temporally accurate & meaningful vibewise

i mentioned this on another thread but the show is primarily filmed both in my neighborhood at the Church Ave F/G stop, surrounding environs and just off the F stop at East Broad where I do some charity work so it feels VERY accurate and it's fun to see places i spend time in as part of this show
EXCEPT all the "shady areas" are like 1800 dollar apartments

and yes, the score is excellent
kinda surprised that ctrl+f "kubrick" isn't getting any hits here

i don't think i know kubrick well enough to speak to that, it didn't ring bells for me

& re: locations i think maybe one of the pluses of abundant routine voiceover is in necessitating a lot of accompanying silent footage of the guy, usually traversing the city, slumped on subways, &c, & some of those cuts are pretty judiciously picked, like aren't new york in a glitzy skyscrapery way but are just sort of familiar city fabric

but yeah the score is rad

the openings of every ep are studied kubrick homage

Thanks for the recommendations, loving this show - if it reminds me of anything it's Utopia

Yes not bad after 2 eps, guarded optimism for the rest

Well that was quite ruthless and brutal but a very good episode.

Been enjoying the songs that they've chosen from MOR or whatever background. Neil Diamond If You Go Away & the latest one opening with Nancy & Lee's Some Velvet Morning. Hadn't heard the Diamond before but I did recognise he source and the Nancy & Lee is a song I love but never know how many people know.

Not sure what else there is of that sort. Will probably have to rewatch the series at some point. Especially as the 1st 2 were in a format that my computer was struggling with.

Durdenisms of the episode, chance appearance of somebody sitting on a set of stairs at a crucial moment?

I just think the Swedes area pair of psychos, the embodiment of that purple people school that was being touted before the most recent recession.

this was so good! wow. it is also kind of as credible as it could possibly be when pitching nerd vs tough guy & feeding him lines about making the best move.

not foreshadowing this episode for anyone who hasn't seen it yet but just in general i am o_o

Wellick freaking out while his wife snacked in the foreground was a killer shot, this ep was beautifully directed

Was trying to work out what she was eating. was she eating something normal in an odd way or was it a swedish delicacy?

hey what do you think is their Long Term Goal

try to take over the world?

but where are we going to get a mini-pack of red vines and two tons of ball bearings at this time of night?

this is shot so beautifully. worth it for that alone.

this is getting harder to watch because of the tyler durden problem. otherwise, a+ still.

Jesus fuck, this episode. Gah.

just watched it. aw, mannnnnn

incredible episode. just brutal, though.

preview for next ep seems to give further indication mr robot is not a hallucination - scenes w just him and no other character

can't wait to see fuck

that came out wrong

you know what i mean

do i ever

<3 this show. there's been a need for more decent hacker lore like this.

also their website is cute: http://www.whoismrrobot.com/

'420' is the only unlisted command i could find, and i wonder if there are other easter eggs.

jesus fuck

that opening ;_;

I actually love that there's just that one shot kind of hauntingly establishing there's a woman inside Danny's house, wife, daughter, doesn't matter

only if you think of the "explanation" presented by the character as having anything to do with what's actually happening

I don't think his speech has to be the 'real story' - it was an retelling of things we'd already seen (cars going haywire, transport isolating everyone, communication down, etc.) turned into a narrative. The viewers all got to make that narrative up as we watched, having the prepper lay it out at the very end was unnecessary. (If that conversation came halfway or two thirds in, maybe, but it acted as a summation.)

it was F Society, obviously

anyone else spot the E Corp logo on the meal kit buckets in the back of the pickup at the beginning?

this was super entertaining. great cinema? probably not but a thoroughly enjoyable 2+ hours. I loved the ending. Also it's an interesting choice to put Hawke and Bacon in the same movie as they are morphing into the same guy as they age.