Also way to just off the most sympathetic character right away, what is this, GoT
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 16 July 2016 03:38 (seven years ago) link
Yeah the boss being killed was brutal :( He was the one guy in the show who really didnt deserve any of this shit.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Saturday, 16 July 2016 05:28 (seven years ago) link
TBH I wasnt feeling this new season much, but I'm willing to give it some time. S1 needed some patience too really.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Saturday, 16 July 2016 05:29 (seven years ago) link
http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/18/12213340/mr-robot-digital-aftershow-hosted-by-the-verge-starts-this-week
Every week after the show, Emily Yoshida, Russell Brandom, and I will be breaking down the episode, looking at the tech and hacks involved, talking to guests from the cast and crew, and taking questions and feedback from fans on Twitter and (of course) our very own Mr. Robot IRC channel.
obviously I will be joining the irc channel via a vanity domain
― mh, Monday, 18 July 2016 19:44 (seven years ago) link
my reaction to this show reminds me of nothing more than how I reacted to Pump Up the Volume (waddup C Slate) which also took punk rock themes and presented them in a super cartoonishly corny way. I am aware that this is what ilx likes but I couldn't stomach PUTV and I can't hang with this either.
― skateboard of education (rip van wanko), Monday, 18 July 2016 20:04 (seven years ago) link
I feel like you have confused this show and the excellent movie Hackers
― mh, Monday, 18 July 2016 20:17 (seven years ago) link
The dialogue in this episode was definitely OTT portentous, and his buddy who just discovered Seinfeld disappears immediately after Craig Robinson shows up, for whatever reason.Not sure you can drive a whole season of this show on a single mystery, especially not one as potentially inconsequential as "where is Tyrell Wellick?" --El Tomboto
something tells me wellick will ultimately end up being the reddest of red herrings. there's only so much you can do with him now that he's fully unhinged before it becomes one note
― if young slothrop don't trust ya i'm gon' rhyme ya (slothroprhymes), Tuesday, 19 July 2016 03:17 (seven years ago) link
he's in a village in northern europe with no internet access imo
― mh, Tuesday, 19 July 2016 03:47 (seven years ago) link
or possibly trying to work with eastern europe hacker groups
― mh, Tuesday, 19 July 2016 03:48 (seven years ago) link
i watched the first season a week ago and now im caught up on the new episodes. outside of some episodes of Mad Men and maybe True Detective (both ultimately better shows imo), I don't think I've seen a tv show really lean so heavily on evoking a particular mood and for the most part do it really well. in the case of Mr. Robot I guess it's the dread-laden ennui of the protagonist, someone who finds himself adrift from the world at large and therefore sees its full contingency clearly. cyber-gnosticism. (or "techgnosis" in erik davis's phrase.) long takes! unorthodox framing! deep rumbles on the soundtrack!
― ryan, Tuesday, 19 July 2016 23:47 (seven years ago) link
are we talking True Detective season one or two in your rankings, here?
― mh, Wednesday, 20 July 2016 00:03 (seven years ago) link
one
― ryan, Wednesday, 20 July 2016 00:55 (seven years ago) link
*whispers* season two wasn't even remotely as bad as the internet made people think it was *runs away laughing maniacally*
sry what were we talking about? right. stoked for tomorrow's episode!
― if young slothrop don't trust ya i'm gon' rhyme ya (slothroprhymes), Wednesday, 20 July 2016 02:16 (seven years ago) link
oh agreed, it was...tomorrow is the day, robot fans!
― mh, Wednesday, 20 July 2016 02:34 (seven years ago) link
depressed fbi agent who is a walking advertisement for the lonely human talking to amazon's computer voice... good stuff
― mh, Thursday, 21 July 2016 23:54 (seven years ago) link
Not quite sure that was a ringing endorsement of Amazon's product
― poolboy skew (voodoo chili), Thursday, 21 July 2016 23:59 (seven years ago) link
not at all! very realistic, though
― mh, Friday, 22 July 2016 00:17 (seven years ago) link
when you're not sure how to go forward, you go backward. *cue flashback
― calstars, Friday, 22 July 2016 00:37 (seven years ago) link
I'm trying real hard to dig this season but it kind of seems to have dissolved into self-parody. It seems more like an SNL skit than itself.
― calstars, Friday, 22 July 2016 00:44 (seven years ago) link
I'm not sure how Craig Robinson's character is going to play out, but he'll be somehow as damaged as Elliott, I would guess.
Which parts seem parodic? There have been some over-the-top bits but nothing as out there/inexplicable as some of the things that drove people away earlier in this thread. I know that filling in backstory can very easily tarnish things, but extrapolating on the few characters in f society that we saw actually in action in the first season doesn't seem any weirder than Elliott's journey through his own past (and out the window)
refresh my memory -- the exec that Angela is working with, was he the one we saw meeting with White Rose at the end of the last season?
― mh, Friday, 22 July 2016 00:53 (seven years ago) link
Yes, he's the CEO of Evil Corp
― poolboy skew (voodoo chili), Friday, 22 July 2016 00:56 (seven years ago) link
if this theory's right it's pretty corny http://www.vulture.com/2016/07/mr-robot-theory.html
― just sayin, Friday, 22 July 2016 01:00 (seven years ago) link
Relevant glitching
https://twitter.com/archillect/status/755092285889675264
― mh, Friday, 22 July 2016 01:05 (seven years ago) link
don't think I agree w/ the psych ward theory tbh
― if young slothrop don't trust ya i'm gon' rhyme ya (slothroprhymes), Saturday, 23 July 2016 01:48 (seven years ago) link
(then again I didn't think the truth of mr robot's identity was what it was in the first season so my guessing track record is tarnished)
― if young slothrop don't trust ya i'm gon' rhyme ya (slothroprhymes), Saturday, 23 July 2016 01:50 (seven years ago) link
The hospital theory should get a good test when his sister visits him. IMO, Ray is a counselor with a side hustle involving bitcoin (pharmaceutical reseller!) and the dog is a therapy dog. Maybe his sister checked him in? Seems obvious Mr. Robot knows Wellick's phone number but Elliott of course doesn't, so that's how the phone call happens.
Which means at some point Ray is probably going to connect the dots and figure out not only can Elliott solve his hacker issues, Elliott can lead him to the most wanted man on earth, if only he can talk to Mr. Robot through Elliott. Ray strikes me as a very bad, bad man.
Why does sad FBI agent fixate on her name on a file printout if that information was supposedly already leaked (and who cares about the names of FBI agents? They print them on business cards for crying out loud)?
Can we find out who killed Rome, please?
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 23 July 2016 02:48 (seven years ago) link
I'm enjoying it. The first season was a slick, enjoyable but predicatable thriller, this one appears to be something stranger, less plot-driven and more interesting so far. Dark, compelling and very stylish.
― chap, Monday, 25 July 2016 15:55 (seven years ago) link
2 stylish
― schlump, Monday, 25 July 2016 17:25 (seven years ago) link
aronofsky-hard-on post-trainspotting max-prestige stylization overload imo
― schlump, Monday, 25 July 2016 17:26 (seven years ago) link
also something that made me laugh thinking abt ep iii yday was realising that, after the ambiguity of the first season, we are now in the position of slater appearing as a figment of elliott's imagination in the tradition of TV ghosts or supernatural sidekicks, ie someone leans over & he is suddenly present in a puff of smoke, his face talks to elliott thru the clouds, is reflected in pools of water, he rises from the back seats of empty cars, the season finale includes frequent cutaways to slater's yapping taunts materialized in the still water of a toilet bowl
― schlump, Monday, 25 July 2016 17:30 (seven years ago) link
― schlump
Nah it's more restrained and well done than that, imo also.
― chap, Tuesday, 26 July 2016 15:50 (seven years ago) link
i guess i just think it's more 'like' that, tho, now; that the first season had so many kind of slightly formless incredibly satisfying 'present'-feeling sections of just people bopping around ny, montages of subway riding or mundane clerical activity or whatever. now it's a tighter form of montage invariably set to music & quite often in that like exact requiem-for-a-dream quick-cut ratio. i am complaining about it & i still think it's okay, & i think sometimes it seems to overshoot & then redeems itself - the scene where elliott's kidnapped, but then is vomiting, say - but it being consumed by weird vague fight club shit & almost parodic monotonous delivery over deadpan cityscapes would be a rly sad derail from where it was last year, i think, great as a procedural, novel as something thoughtful that wasn't contingent on devices like flashing ACCESS DENIED screens, & with a guy who was sort of zeitgeistishly affectless
― schlump, Tuesday, 26 July 2016 16:18 (seven years ago) link
I get the sense that this show is slowly starting to fall victim to that anxious critical tic whereby ideas presented in the show as text (rather than subtext) are vaguely dismissed as shallow or sophomoric without any actual engagement of said ideas by the critic--as if they are aesthetically unappealing and thus dismissable in an aesthetic medium?
But tbf I frequently watch this show with only the vaguest idea of what's going on. I just like the long takes and monologues.
― ryan, Tuesday, 26 July 2016 16:28 (seven years ago) link
I also like the frequent kubrickian device of banal conversations with a minimum of 5 seconds between every response.
― ryan, Tuesday, 26 July 2016 16:31 (seven years ago) link
It is rather Kubrickian all round actually, as has surely been pointed out before.
― chap, Tuesday, 26 July 2016 16:33 (seven years ago) link
So far minus a few cool moments I have found the show suddenly excruciatingly boring, and the unending pointless arguments between him and ghost dad are excruciating
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Wednesday, 27 July 2016 09:53 (seven years ago) link
I meant to say exceedingly, then excruciating
Exactly. Show seems to be going nowhere slow.
― calstars, Wednesday, 27 July 2016 13:29 (seven years ago) link
And does anyone really care about Angela? How many more scenes of her sitting mute and listening to the e Corp old man do we have to sit through?
― calstars, Wednesday, 27 July 2016 13:30 (seven years ago) link
yep the most fascinating aspect of this show is its adulation imo
― skateboard of education (rip van wanko), Wednesday, 27 July 2016 13:34 (seven years ago) link
"going nowhere slowly" is kinda why i'm still loving s2. i've actually really enjoyed angela this season, watching her remaining scruples wash away, and like all good tragic characters, it's something she's completely aware of. certainly better than her wet fish 1st season.
― barbarian radge (NotEnough), Wednesday, 27 July 2016 17:17 (seven years ago) link
Idk it feels one dimensional to me. Also I don't the entire exchange where the woman tells the prostitution anecdote it rang false
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Wednesday, 27 July 2016 19:28 (seven years ago) link
yeah, that was clunky and a bit on the nose.
― barbarian radge (NotEnough), Wednesday, 27 July 2016 19:31 (seven years ago) link
always knew teh backlash taeks would come for this show, hoped against all reason that they wouldnt tho
― if young slothrop don't trust ya i'm gon' rhyme ya (slothroprhymes), Wednesday, 27 July 2016 19:39 (seven years ago) link
White Rose is baaaack
― mh, Thursday, 28 July 2016 02:41 (seven years ago) link
I'm bailing out on this after S2E3. I'd have to force myself to continue and I'm just not gonna. Totally lost interest.
― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Thursday, 28 July 2016 19:03 (seven years ago) link
if the Big Evil plot is going where I think it's going, I'm gonna nerd out a little bit
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Friday, 29 July 2016 01:02 (seven years ago) link
I watched the opener and I realised I just don't care any more.
― Matt DC, Friday, 29 July 2016 13:08 (seven years ago) link
Honestly this season could just as easily have started with this week's episode
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Friday, 29 July 2016 13:34 (seven years ago) link
When i found annoyed that they didn't bother to make sure he knew how chess was played I got disproportionally upset about it
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, 29 July 2016 16:48 (seven years ago) link