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

also uh is it fair to call the wong scene a "post-credits" scene on tv, that seems weird

Does anybody else worry that this show is gonna have the steepest Season 1-to-Season 2 dropoff in quality since Homeland?

I'm not sure that's the comparison I'd make, since it didn't even take a whole season for Homeland to turn stupid.

nahdawg. for one, homeland never had any plan beyond season 1 (the showrunner has said as much publicly), and it did ok with the seat-of-the-pants method for a little while (like 5 episodes) and then shat itself. it's still shitting.

mr robot, per the creator, has a specific ending in mind, and while it's not perfect I think that having that focus a la breaking bad will prevent it from a collapse.

(xp)

So is Eliot Tyrell?

they certainly suggest it.

tyrell's wife's aloofness was suspicious af

but elliot as tyrell makes so little sense? he's a low level analyst at a contracting firm *and* a rageaholic executive at one of the firm's clients?

I really really hope Elliot isn't also Tyrell, unless they also reveal that Elliot is in fact a shapeshifting psychic alien, because that would be dope

the creator dude claims the ashley madison line was already in the script lol. stupid.

Tyrell's wife doesn't seem to recognize E, but who knows.
As somebody who got strung out on the American version of The Bridge, I can't say I'm beyond Whut Does It All Mean tranceification, but Elliot was born a cyberpunk cliche of the mid- 90s (which is when I finally gave up on William Gibson and his wannabees). I also have to admit I've watched every episode, but think it's more about presence of Malek and Doubleday, who plays Angela. Also Angela's storyline, but now she's surrounded by droning baddies (the balding beardo actor's really trying, though; kind of a squirmy, Vincent D'onofrio effect, which could pay off). Sure hope Sat Night Live does a take-off, with Elliot played by Kate McKinnon, in her Bieber gear.

Somebody upthread suggested that E himself is a defective computer program---now that could be cool! Also like how he seems to be addressing the audience as an increasingly untrustworthy imaginary friend (wish they did more with that and didn't bring back Ghost Dad, now w Ghost Mom and Little Elliot, yeesh)

I posited the 'Elliot = Tyrell' thing upthread, but there are an awful lot of inconsistencies with that theory. I don't see how it would be possible.

Yeah. It just seemed like his conversation with the wife was possibly hinting at that. Or maybe just that she had seem him before, in Christian Slater form.

the whole "okay.... 'OLLIE'" bit seemed pretty telegraphed imo

i thought that conversation was so good
the guy from ny mag talking about this show not entirely understanding its strengths is otm, i think; it has reached these various kinds of perfection, none of which especially relate to its ostensibly key concerns/themes. like i could just watch anxious elliot on the stoop all day.

first second/second season drop off talk is p cynical imo

I dunno I can easily see this following an Orphan Black trajectory: incredible first season carried by awesome central performance, devolving into endless convolution. Found the finale incredibly irritating.

Tyrell's wife looked interested, like he was so furtive, he must be up to something, and maybe he's her type, since E and T do both have that pale, shadowy stare, like those bug-eyed kids in the kitsch paintings (see Big Eyes, starring Amy Adams, based on a true story). In any case, being her, she's bound to give him that android Mona Lisa smile (hadn't noticed her lips seeming slightly inflated). Significance of scene(s) with Tyrell and Elliott's Dad, yet no E to be seen, unless he's T, or hallucinating them both? Maybe Mrs. T is a figment too?

scene(s) with Tyrell and Elliott's Dad, yet no E to be seen, unless he's T, or hallucinating them both?

to me he's just elliot-as-mr robot here, talking to tyrell

D'oh! SNl-wise, should've picked Pete Davidson as Elliot:
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/2802672/images/o-PETE-DAVIDSON-facebook.jpg

Kate McKinnon could be Mr Robot, with the face-scuzz she wore as Keith Urban.

Just about the only Pete pic where he isn't looking like a happy hoodrat

That opening scene in the coffee shop. Damn.

I would think Elliott's scene with Tyrell's assistant in this episode would disprove any Elliott=Tyrell theories.

In retrospect the middle stretch of eps 4/5/6 was very easily the apex of the season

also in retrospect I'm even more bummed that Shayla's gone, the show is less fun/funny without her around

i really like this show, malek is the best.

it seemed to me that elliott's father is possibly in his own way every bit as damaging/toxic as the mother, but elliott is hanging on to this idea of the father as a good person and his best friend and blaming himself for (something?) because he hasn't processed grief/anger/etc.. and thus sometimes is behaving in ways he thinks his father would have approved of. hasn't there been some not-clearly-explained references to the father going to prison as well - something else going on with him besides cancer?

i thought wellick might have been the one who went and carried out the final process of the attack on e corp, during this three days when we don't know what happened. and that the CEO when he said they knew who did it, was meaning he believed wellick did it, given that he was just fired and presumably would have had high level access and so on. also, there was a reference at some point to an encryption key which would autodeleted before it could recover the data, but it wasn't necessarily deleted was it? hanging onto that would be a very valuable piece of information.

no idea where they're going with wellick other than he also seems to lack an identity outside of his corporate role and has always seemed not exactly scary but anxious/insecure/pathetic to me.. kind of like pete campbell but with less social skills, and his wife seems to have picked up on this a long time ago and now has contempt for him.

using BD wong in that role is another 90s film reference, to cronenberg's m. butterfly
! i knew it reminded me of something!

So watched all this over the last 4 days. Thought it was kinda incredible.
Opening credit sequence into title display seemed v Kubrick for most every episode.

Did Elliot shoot Welleck? With the gun in the popcorn and that's why he can't find him? Or was that Welleck knocking on the door at the end?

oh Welleck is still alive. "What if Pete Campbell was ACTUALLY evil" is too good of a thread to not keep pulling for a second season.

ha!

I just listened to the song Two Weeks for the first time in a while and the first thing I thought of was that scene, so THANKS A LOT MR ROBOT FOR WARPING THAT SONG FOR ME FOREVER I GUESS

i keep waiting for this to become crap - it's on a tightrope above a lot of big cliche pits at all times - but 3 eps in i really like it. i guess in particular the anti-social media stuff has been done so badly for the most part - like all the "but are we REALLY connecting" shitty thinkpieces etc. i think it's helped by the accompanying graphics and music here - plus the lack of conclusions, and the fact that it's not suggesting we need to go back to an older mode of society, instead a person deeply isolated within this world of technology.

there are some silly hollywood tropes - could jerk bf guy be ANY MORE of a stereotypical character? that mould has been perfected for years. also if being a disconnected nerd involves people calling around to give you ecstasy and sleep with you, then i am fairly sure a lot of people are doing it wrong. and the whole mary jane/spiderman thing with his love interest.

it's p comic book but it moves at a great pace - i guess the dissections of people via their social media and their passwords is the coolest part.

i keep waiting for this to become crap - it's on a tightrope above a lot of big cliche pits at all times

This is pretty OTM. I was hugely concerned after the interminable fourth episode, but then the next two were total rollercoasters. Elliot kind of annoys me mostly though.

SPOILERS
They even pulled the tired Fight Club twist round to something decentish in the end.

at work somebody asked me if i was elliot for halloween

i wasn't in costume

:(

The incidental music is amazing, by the way. I think that and the bits where the title of the show comes up on screen might be my favourite aspects.

the bit where tangerine dream comes on is amazing - i like the music well enough but that a classic like love on a real train put things in perspective. this show does small personal things quite well considering they're part of such a big blockbusting plot.

went to a party as Eliot and people kept asking if I was HOOS

lol

Binged this over the weekend and impressed-ish. Overall it felt like a ten-episode tribute to tvtropes.org, but cast and location work were *excellent* and it was entertaining enough that I'll watch the next season, even if the non-sensical plotting and random fridgings of the last few episodes don't totally inspire me with confidence. Still a fun show though.

I'm a couple of eps away from finishing

The Kubrick-ness is so addicting, especially in the opening scenes every episode. Some of the shots, there's so much beautiful composition going on and geometry and aaaagggghh

those freeze-frame title cards too, I can't get enough

and that's just the arty shit! Anyway I love Rami Malek so much and this show is aces

aside from the obvious show-level use of having the data around, was there a reason why the debt data was encrypted rather than deleted?

Wasn't too bothered by that detail. It does seem like the kind of thing hackers would do, giving an ultimate fuck you to have the data in front of you but meaningless AND showing off. But I agree that it leaves the door open for recovery, which seems like a strong possibility since nobody can remember anything. I honestly thought the season would end with Wellick providing the key and getting his job back, which would have been pretty dumb and explains why I'm not a writer

Totally missed the Durden angle when I watched the show. I chalk it up to not giving the show enough credit - I assumed the writers explained his showing up everywhere as a result of his 1337ness or something. Plus, it's pretty ballsy to borrow two huge plot ideas from the same movie. Malek is awesome. I'll keep watching the show mostly for him.

"I wish I could be an observer like you. Then I could think more calmly."

i only just conned that trenton (sunita mani) was in the turn down for what video

I did not realize that! hope she's in season two, most of the fsociety people were pretty ephemeral in the first.

I didn't catch it on first viewing, but the mid-credits scene at the end of season one... when was that to have taken place? I thought it was post-hack, but on rewatching I noticed that White Rose (BD Wong's character) silences an alarm during his "while Rome burns" dialogue, meaning he was probably there when the dark army activated their part of the plan. So he's at this gathering of powerful people at the moment the hack takes place.

Yeah but he also made that big speech about hacking time and how he wont give any time to anyone who doesnt deserve it. I saw that almost as an act of power over the CEO dude (though he may not have known so).

Just finished catching up with this series. Did my head in. I feel like I missed a LOT of refs, and the sister thing caught me completely off guard (the suicide didnt tho - the minute he grabbed his bag and got out the gun and said "please stay calm" I yelled "HEY MAN NICE SHOT" at the screen lol)

Binged this last night and today. I was 100% on board up until the scene on the roof, and then everything quickly disintegrated for me into narrative anarchy and by the end I was just like "oh no, fuck this!"

I'll watch the S2 premiere just to be sure, though.

That is the EXACT moment I hopped off too

Though I was already halfway there after the bathroom 'seduction' scene

Q: how censored is this show when it airs on USA?

I was trying to figure out how they edited the version I streamed on Prime, but it's got to be tricky. Of course, USA being a cable network, they're not bound by FCC decency rules and could air it exactly as I watched it, but I'm guessing they didn't.