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

I stopped watching but I guess they went full St Elsewhere with it?

I am thinking of just watching the finale and not the rest of the final season.

same tbh

I’d throw in the preceding episode as well

Fuck this candy-ass Dallas bullshit and fuck M83

At least he didn't move to Canada and become a lumberjack.

so yeah huh

I wasn't expecting the finale to be an extended riff on Inside Out

Agree, stuck the landing, for me. Wasn't expecting the reveal and loved how the reintegration was shown.

Just finished the finale, literally came here to type the phrase 'stuck the landing'. Glad to see I'm not alone! Esmail adroitly sailed between the cyberpunk Scylla and the multiversal Charybdis he'd set the audience up to expect. It ended in a much more satisfying and internally-consistent fashion than some of the shows I've deeply loved (I think I've settled on a designation of 'pretty darn good' for this particular show).

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2019 season is nominated in the 2019 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2019 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends January 31

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (4 minimum, 25 maximum, organized by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail by end of day today. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

Four-and-a-half years since I gave up on this--almost back where I bailed, S2/E5. I will definitely finish this time. Having subtitles off Prime helps (was watching bootlegs last time).

That's about where i quit too. i'm okay letting it pass.

You guys bailed because of this??
https://townsquare.media/site/442/files/2016/08/mr-robot-alf-pic.jpg

lol, i did not know that happened; it might've kept me in!

Haven't gotten that far...I indicated above that confusion was my main reason the first time--took too long a break between S1 and S2--but I'm reminded now of what may have been the bigger reason: keeping Christian Slater's character around way too long. I find him quite tiresome a few episodes into S2. I'm determined to finish anyway. Don't tell me, but I'm hoping he's gone after this season.

I'm curious what y'all think happens just based on this image...

Slater does go away, and Alf steps into the breach as Elliot's new ever-present id?

Would you guess that id-Alf speaks with Slater's voice, or it's Alf doing a Christian Slater impression but ending up sounding like Jack Nicholson?

I'd say end of S2 or after a particular midpoint ep of S3 is a fine place to quit.

honestly, if you quit when he finds Shayla in the trunk, you're good

i wasn't planning on watching s4 but i fell into it and it was a major quality leap over 2 & 3 imo, despite some wheel spinning in the pre-finale eps. still need to watch the finale tho.

Just watched the Alf episode--it's the one right after the point where I quit last time. During the whole fake sitcom, all I could think about was how it was such a blatant steal from the Rodney Dangerfield segment in Natural Born Killers (a film I don't much like).

Thought Angela karaoke-ing to Tears for Fears was pretty great. The Cramps, too!

The dude behind (or I guess beneath) ALF is supposedly this mercurial auteur who demands everyone treat ALF as real while on set.

As a Mad Men worshipper, immediately I bust out laughing when Duck Phillips/Mark Moses showed up (older guy at the bar Angela flirts with in S2, E6). When I checked to confirm it was him, was disappointed to find out that was his one appearance. He's there for 30 seconds; don't know if they were paying tribute to Mad Men, or if Moses just needed the work.

Finished S2. I'm as lost as ever, or maybe I'm just looking for more than what's there. The first half of the season was basically a ruse, and the rest amounts to fsociety on the run. I think I've got that much.

I'll keep going because it looks good, I'm glad they're using music more (going back to S1, "Some Velvet Morning" was great, but they barely gave it a chance), and I like most of the performances. My three favourite right now are Portia Doubleday, Grace Gummer as the FBI agent, and Michael Cristofer as Price. I'm finding Rami Malek's mumbling a little tiresome, though I really liked when he suddenly began talking like Christian Slater at the beginning of the last episode.

The highlight of the season for me was that young girl interrogating Angela. What a strange mix of Lynch, Marathon Man, and The Parallax View. And right after, DiPierro and Alexa.

It continues to look (and sound) good throughout the run. S2 is peak "why is this a TV show" iirc, Esmail never gives up on his love of messing with you but the shape of the show is a lot more conventional in S3 and S4.

Grace Gummer is good in this

She really is. She turned up in one episode of A Teacher, and I couldn't figure out where I knew her from until I resumed this--she was in a few episodes before I bailed last time. (I don't remember her her character in Frances Ha--Greta Gerwig's roommate?) Her conversation with Alexa that I mention above is classic.

I feel bad for Portia Doubleday, so much of what she gets to do is pointless or at least very tedious

The scene where Elliot's psychiatrist brings forth Mr. Robot reminded me so much of the scene in The Exorcist where one of the doctors does the same with Linda Blair--I'm sure it was an intentional allusion. I suspect Agent DiPierro's lollipops are too; I vaguely recall some film noir I can't place.

97% of the computer jargon loses me. Exploits, femtocells, rootkits--I just let it cascade by and assume the main point will be clear soon enough. Sometimes it's campy, like this bit from the S3 opener: "I've known Angela since I was eight. This is what she does. She doesn't love the people who love her. She loves the people who don't. This is her power-saver mode."

The Barenaked Ladies bit was funny.

Duh--Kojack!

Bobby Cannavale is the least likely looking Irving I've ever encountered, but I'm really enjoying his scenes--one of those cases where he's off in some movie of his own. "That's a YP, not an MP"--Boogie Nights, I assume. I'm liking a lot, actually, most everything except the Elliot/Mr. Robot gimmick. They should have written Slater out by the end of the second season. Loved "If You Could Read My Mind." Someone sent me a Vimeo link for the karaoke scene.

https://vimeo.com/181859596

(Maybe you can't link to Vimeo.)

That interlude with Elliot taking Shama's brother to the movies was so weird--and then, at the end, kind of touching, a rarity for this show. Elliot and Angela at the doorway, though, was way too John Hughes-y; Elliot may as well have stood outside her apartment with a boombox.

As gimmicky as I find Mr. Robot's appearances, there are some affinities with Ghost Patti in The Leftovers.

And Ghost Mac in Magnum PI

Finished S3, will finish for sure. There's been so much over-the-top drama the last few episodes, couldn't say what's next. (Only show I've ever watched that spent two seasons trying to undo the first.) The big revelation with Phillip Price may as well have been SCTV's Days of the Week. Thought the last 20 seconds of the season-ending coda was hilarious.

BD Wong must have cribbed from every Bond villain for Whiterose--keep waiting for him to say, "No, Mr. Alderson, I expect you to die!"

I feel bad for Portia Doubleday, so much of what she gets to do is pointless or at least very tedious

I'd disagree for the first couple of seasons, but by this point, yeah--they lost the character as she stumbled around in a zombie stupor the last few episodes. Hope they get her back on track.

S4, E1, 45 seconds later--not back on track.

I'm not sure whether it says more about the show or about me but I watched every episode and I don't remember hardly anything that you're referencing. I think it may have all exited my brain immediately after I experienced it.

Happens all the time with me with TV shows. And I often get to them long after the fact, so when I revive a thread and start posting, I realize I'm pretty much talking to myself. For anyone who does plan on watching this some day: after three seasons as one of the main characters, Angela's killed in the first minute of S4.

(That should really read "In case" rather than "For.")

oh god, I did watch the bit with the spoiler. there were rumors that there was some sort of behind the scenes drama behind that

I thought S4/E4 was one of the best in a while: Elliot and Mr. Robot and Tyrell wandering in the woods (like "Pine Barrens" in The Sopranos, or Saul and Mike stranded in the desert in Better Call Saul), DiPierro's dream, plus a couple of memorable character bits, Tobias the Santa and the cashier at the gas station. I have no idea where any of this going, and I haven't checked ahead, but I have a prediction: Tyrell is another part of Elliot. There was a hint a couple of episodes ago that there was a third part to Elliot's id--the part that Darlene was talking to about Vera's return--and then that was dropped. Elliot and Tyrell being one and the same doesn't make sense a thousand different ways, but then Tyrell never made a whole lot of sense either.

I didn't know till I looked her up that Grace Gummer is Meryl Streep's daughter. How could I? It's not like she looks and sounds exactly like the Meryl Streep of The Deer Hunter and Kramer vs. Kramer or anything.

As much as I liked E4, that's how drawn-out I found E5. The near-wordlessness of it was somewhat audacious, but that meant 1) a lengthy heist montage; not a fan of heist montages, least of all one that mostly takes place on computers (I was lost), and 2) a lengthy chase scene; whether in cars or on foot (Elliot's sudden transformation into Usain Bolt was impressive), ditto.

I'm baffled as to how Vera ultimately figures into this. Unless it all ends with a Tarantino shootout in an abandoned warehouse, and they just need an extra body on hand.

E6 (Part One, Part Two...) was bizarre. I thought, towards the end, that the big revelation about Elliot was a ruse improvised by him and Krista (earlier, Elliot had told her "He's looking for a show"). Dramatically, the revelation does seem a little pat.

The guy who plays Vera is so over-the-top, I actually enjoy the character on a Dr. Strangelove level. Sometimes he's a little scary, but mostly it's just laughs. His references to Frost/Nixon and Fox & Friends...yeah, sure. Black Army psycho Janice, though, she's really scary.

Oh yeah I didn't like that part. Vera was a ludicrous creation.

Many beautiful images in E10.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/darlene.jpg

God, there was a lot of grandiloquent speechifying in those last two or three episodes. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks everything should have ended with the E10 scene of Darlene and Dom in the park, just after Darlene finishes up with the bank accounts. That was great. Ending there would have left a lot unexplained, but now that I've seen the explanations, that would have been a lot more coherent.

My prediction above about Tyrell was wrong. I still don't understand what was going on with that character.