[TV] Mr. Robot

[fakaroonie]

What an episode. Could the E Corp CEO now try to get Mr. Robot / Elliot as his ally against Whiterose?

I think the pause/ repeat scene with Angela is showing us why she switched to work with Whiterose. He promised to bring her mother back, and to make the world better, and it has something to do with that particle accelerator we saw early on. I hope they don't go sci-fi on us now, although that would be cool.

[Gallahadd]

I hope they don't go sci-fi on us now, although that would be cool.

This is exactly what I was thinking... It's looking like there's a chance they're going to go with a "Lets hack reality" type thing, which I guess COULD go quite well, and if anyone can pull it off, it's Sam Esmail...

But one of the main things that I love about Mr Robot, is it's realism. Everything from the way they handle Elliot's mental troubles, to the hacking is as close to realism as they can make it.

If they then jump the shark and start dealing with time travel and other super Sci Fi type stuff... That all goes right out the window.

[eschatological]

Yeah, I agree that a sci-fi twist would be too much.

I prefer to think WR just knew Angela has been teetering on the edge, her whole life, and knew which buttons to press to push her over the edge and make her on the Dark Army's side unconditionally.

It's amazing the small things they do to keep things grounded in reality. Having Obama on in the background, having Trump start his campaign and White Rose suggesting the Alex Jones-esque talk radio guy push his candidacy, having Santiago casually mention he needs to brief Comey this past episode. That keeps things grounded.

And I imagine if they ever do bring in the Trump Presidency, it'll be along the lines of one of the last scenes where the Senator's party is going on uninterrupted despite the chaos on the ground and the dead mistress in the bedroom.

[Gallahadd]

I prefer to think WR just knew Angela has been teetering on the edge, her whole life, and knew which buttons to press to push her over the edge and make her on the Dark Army's side unconditionally.

Very, very possibl. I mean, White Rose is a master hacker and schemer... Wouldn't surprise me if she was able to "Hack" Angela's brain and pretty much brain wash her into doing what she wanted.

[RobertoCarlos]

If he "hacked" Angela that makes the scenes with the guy wearing glasses from the 80s who enjoys pork chops massive misdirects because he made it clear "he had seen it too" and believed in the project.

And his whole demeanor and characters traits make me think he's someone confident in himself and not open to being mind fucked

- - - Updated - - -

Unless of course that was part of the brain washing /drum roll

[eschatological]

I don't think WR even "hacked" Angela. She's just very fragile, but we, as an audience, simply haven't seen it until this episode. That's why the scene with her and her mother at the beginning exists - to make us think as an audience, "Oh shit, she has some crazy beliefs from her mother."

Then, when she insists everyone will be okay, and Eliot's sister doesn't know what she means, we as the audience slowly realize, in some horror, that Angela understands people are going to die, and is okay with it, because she has this fucked up belief about meeting in heaven, and White Rose did something to make that belief real in her mind.

Remember that Angela was in that house where she was kidnapped being mentally fucked with for probably a couple days, at least. I don't think it has to be as strong as being brainwashed. White Rose strikes me as the type who doesn't want mindless automatons, she wants minions who believes in very specific things in order to push them to a certain end. That's why she's all about teaching E Corp's CEO a lesson. He got out of line, WR wanted to make sure he never would again.

[Blueobelisk]

The episode was slow. And I really thought it was going to tie back into Elliot leaving his dad to die at the movies, since the whole episode had fucking black bars.

Gotta say, I'm disappointed. It wasn't a bad episode, but compared to the godly ones, this one wasn't that good. I'd put it at the same level as the Tyrell episode.

Elliot was going to kill himself by ODing on Morphine on the beach, but Muslim girl's little brother saved him. And we see that whole perspective. Elliot regains his will to live, and see's Trenton's email. Evidently about fixing 5/9 and undoing the hack. (Since the email was set to go out if she didn't stop it every 24h.)

[infirmary]

I'm glad I found this thread. Nobody I know even watches this show which is such a shame. This season is shaping up to be one of my favorite seasons of TV ever. I love the Irving character and how he just doesn't care. So good.

[eschatological]

The series always oscillates between a techno-thriller and a study of the human psyche and mental illness. This last episode was the latter, and I think people like you, @Blueobelisk, who're all about the hacking, find these episodes slow.

I loved this episode. It was certainly a change of pace, but that's what this show does well. Even tying in Back to the Future was great, with the three competing theories of changing things. Eliot's mistaken view is that the movie is about going to the future and changing the past, and coming back to an alternate present day. Then, the guy in front posits the popular pop culture theory: you can't go into the future to change the past, you can only go into the future to change the future, which allows someone else to change the past, which changes the future again. And then, finally, you get the moral lesson from the lady dressed as Lorraine: "It's about how one mistake can change the world."

[Acidz]

God, I love this show.. also really liked this 'slow' episode. Thought the scene with Elliot and Angela was very cool.

[Gallahadd]

That episode was... Wow.

It was slow, I won't deny that. But it didn't drag! It was just... methodical.

This episode was a brilliant look into Elliot's mind and the baggage he's still carrying Re: his father, and his friends. Then right at the end they connect it all back to the greater story with that email from Tr3nt0n.

The cinematography is always excellent on this show (that one scene episode!) but I need to make special note of that final scene between Elliot and Angela. Just BRILLIANTLY shot. The contrast between the two of them; him sitting in the seedy light, her still lost in the dark... Perfect. Then throw in that song, which always reminds me of Bill and Ted. How can you not love that?

This season has been nigh on flawless so far... let's hope the final two episodes can keep up the quality!

[Blueobelisk]

I get that you guys love seeing the characters. Is it still high quality TV? Of course. But there's so much else the show could be showing. I want to see Tyrell, Dom, the FBI guy, sleezy car salesman, White Rose, Price, etc.

Taking an entire episode for Elliot to visit useless characters so he can feel like living is a bit pointless. These episodes are by far the weakest. I could understand them showing like 20 minutes of the episode on it, and the rest getting back to business...but the whole episode on useless fodder? C'mon. The whole flow of the show breaks.

And it's not like this is the first time they've done it. Manyyyyyy times they've shown weird shit for the sake of "look @ what we can do, aren't we cool at making a TV show? Yeah, I bet you feel the feels." But eh, it shouldn't be half of the show's content...(The drug dealer guy being weird was a bit cool, but ultimately pointless. Spending multiple scenes on Muslim kid's church and the movie and his shoes and everything...was too much.)

Definitely I'd consider all of this a quality drop. (Again, it's still high quality, but the focus of the show, as ech says, is too all over the place.)

[eschatological]

You have two, essentially broken, characters. Who cannot cope with the horror they're tied to. One of them knows the two people blamed for the attack, and knows, factually, that they are innocent. This is classic post-traumatic stress stuff.

As a writer, I'd say it's pretty important to address how they move on from that. Even an-episode-long important.

If Eliot or Angela was just going about their day this episode, it'd be jarring and narratively disruptive. And killing yourself is literally the most life-altering decision to come to. I think spending an episode on it is justified. It's not so much about the Muslim kid or the mosque or the shoes, but Eliot, the main protagonist, clawing his way back from the edge of the abyss. And if there's any character you can spend a whole episode on, it's the main character. I thought the Tyrell episode was more egregious than this.

[Deleted]

Taking an entire episode for Elliot to visit useless characters so he can feel like living is a bit pointless.

#1 Elliot is the main character of the show thus the main focus
#2 these chars mayhaps be useless for you but not for Elliot

These episodes are by far the weakest. I could understand them showing like 20 minutes of the episode on it, and the rest getting back to business...but the whole episode on useless fodder? C'mon. The whole flow of the show breaks.

for you mayhaps. didnt do that for me.

[Travis B]

I enjoyed the episode. I agree it moved a bit slow at times, but that scene at the end between Elliot and Angela along with the song was absolutely perfect.

[Blueobelisk]

You have two, essentially broken, characters. Who cannot cope with the horror they're tied to. One of them knows the two people blamed for the attack, and knows, factually, that they are innocent. This is classic post-traumatic stress stuff.

As a writer, I'd say it's pretty important to address how they move on from that. Even an-episode-long important.

If Eliot or Angela was just going about their day this episode, it'd be jarring and narratively disruptive. And killing yourself is literally the most life-altering decision to come to. I think spending an episode on it is justified. It's not so much about the Muslim kid or the mosque or the shoes, but Eliot, the main protagonist, clawing his way back from the edge of the abyss. And if there's any character you can spend a whole episode on, it's the main character. I thought the Tyrell episode was more egregious than this.

Alright fine. I'm convinced. At first, I wondered why Elliot would even distinguish Mobley and Trenton as good people to their families since they helped in 5/9.

But I guess the significant difference here is that buildings exploded, killing 4000 people. I guess killing people is worse than making the entire country have a financial depression, one is cool and the other you should feel guilty about.

Which means that Elliot and Angela should feel culpable for being involved, and they feel the weight of killing all those people on their shoulders. (Angela for sure is a psychopath who bares that responsibility, but to be honest...Elliot didn't do it. Yeah, he argues that Mr. Robot did it so he is responsible too, but Mr. Robot had a change of heart when he saw the DA was playing him into destroying a building that there were no paper records in anyway.)

TL;DR I GUESSSSSSSS that an episode spent watching Elliot deal with mundane shit after he sorta (not-really) killed 4000 people and had two innocent (not-really) friends take the blame was something that we as an audience needed to see. I still feel like it could've been done in less time, though.

[eschatological]

Damn, things are heating up. Three, almost four distinct factions: The DA, Darlene/The FBI, Mr Robot/Wellick against E Corp, and Eliot owning the Dark Army.

It's pretty intense - I wonder how Mr Robot and Eliot are operating now. Mr Robot seems to be on Eliot's side, now, to a certain extent, but still focused on taking down people like Price and E Corp.

Oh, and Angela is definitely super batshit.

[Blueobelisk]

See, now this was the action packed episode I was asking for.

I'm nervous about next week since it's the season finale, so I'm avoiding this thread til then.

[Gallahadd]

God damn, this season has been near FLAWLESS. Another fantastic episode and dear gods things are heating up, next week is going to be MINDBLOWING.

Really hope they don't fuck it up...

[Sorshen]

Dom is so close to figuring out why she's on a wild goose chase.
I think Darlene is a goner. At least Darlene. Maybe Dom's boss too.