Mr Robot on USA

Actually, he is a pretty good choice for this role.

Watched the episodes and indeed highly enjoyable.

Re: Unreliable narrator. Elliot is definitely that. I mean, in his head he not only sees the name ‘Evil corp’, but actually hears everyone say it (which is hilarious).

Speculation

As far as Mr Robot being a figment, that became pretty obvious pretty soon. Apart from the example mention above; the first meeting in the metro has Mr Robot shouting at him in an otherwise silent coupe and not a single person turns their head. The interaction between Mr Robot and the Men in Black, which are a confirmed figment by the psychologist, is another indicator. In fact, I’m half a mind the entire fsociety is fake as I’ve yet to see any of their number interact or even be noticed by someone not Elliot or another member. There are some signs this isn’t the case though, primarily Darlene’s mocking response when Elliot asks where the boss is.

Yeah, I think Christian Slater is all right here. I just thought that that line was pernicious nonsense.

BTW, re “E(vil) Corp,” I also find it hilarious that everyone around Elliot is calling it Evil Corp, and that its logo oh-so-coincidentally evokes the Enron logo.

Re: the end of the second episode,
spoiler

does Elliot just jump off that railing? Seems as though that would be a nasty fall. I suppose that could just be a delusionary metaphorical way of making the decision to further become Mr Robot.

Well, on the theory that it’s his voice, that sort of reflects Eliot’s slightly (although only slightly) misguided idealism (personally, I don’t favour gold, I favour a basket of commodities as the standard; but standard of value there must be - the un-mooring of money value from any real-world values is the cause of most of today’s finance/banking-related problems, especially the gross hidden inflation that hits the middle classes and the poor hardest).

The show certainly raises large issues.

I thought he jumped. He was dealing with some heavy emotional issues, which explains why he’d do something like that in that moment. It fits in with the ‘I have no choice’ theme of the episode too. He would have to be injured though, and I don’t know the show would want to have to deal with makeup/props to depict him with an injury for a few episodes.

He was pushed by Mr. Robot. You guys did listen to the monologue about his father, right?

-Tom

Just Maybe…

the crew at Mr. Robot is in fact real. If you watch, there is a lot of little signs that Slater may be the only “manifestation” in the Mr Robot crew. The rest interacted with him like they already knew him when they were allegedly meeting for the first time.

I will have to re-watch this. I think, with the benefit of a slightly different perspective, there are some worthwhile revelations hiding in a 2nd viewing.

Speculation as well…

[spoiler]
I think you’re right about the crew being real.

This seems to be very much a Fight Club situation. The woman, especially, is saying things to him that feel like they are having conversations he isn’t aware of. “Why weren’t you there last night”? [/spoiler]

Enjoyed the hell out of the first 2 episodes. I’m especially happy about their depiction of hacking and counter-hacking. No crazy flying icons or random text-to-speech conversion programs, just pure line commands and error messages. Delivered in a way that is accessible to even relatively computer illiterate people (like my wife).

I had an absolute blast watching this! I watched both episodes yesterday then watched them again later with my wife. This was really fun and really well done. Just the name had me thinking this show was gonna be lame but after watching the first episode the name seemed kinda cool and I was hooked.

Man, plowed through both eps and totally ransacked my bedtime to do so. Great show so far; I feel like an idiot, though, because the Robot/Elliot thing you all are talking about like a done deal wasn’t obvious to me at all :(

I’ve also enjoyed the first two episodes. More than I thought I would after seeing the trailer. Which felt a bit trope-ish, and the “I’m a rogue hacker by night” hook isn’t as interesting as the psychological angle the show really has.

The Pacific was a letdown compared to Band of Brothers, but I really liked Rami Malek’s character in it. Glad he’s back playing another ‘weirdo’.

It was not obvious to me either, until I read it in this thread and watched the second episode with that in mind, THEN it seems obvious. I think it’s because I was focused on resemblances to other material, like The Matrix, some stuff just slipped by me.

So, tonight’s episode:

Was the hacker writing in Chinese part of Elliot’s group? Are we supposed to think he is? Was Wellick’s “date” the assistant to the big boss who postponed the meeting with him (I only thought of it later that it might be him and didn’t go back to check). That’s the only reason I can think of for why Wellick did the thing while the other guy was washing up.

Also, Wellick and his wife are some strange birds, aren’t they? I’m glad they acknowledged that the character is Swedish (although that doesn’t sound like a particularly Swedish name). His English is excellent but here and there his accent pokes through.

A touch I loved about the 2nd episode-- the awesome use of the second movement of Beethoven’s 7th as the title card plays, and it’s still playing in the car as the men in black are dropping him off. Speaking of music, in the 3rd episode, you can barely hear Animotion’s “Obsession” playing somewhere in the building as they’re waiting at the boss’s door.

No on both counts, as far as I can tell.

Yes.

-Tom

I like how they keep adding dimension to the characters without upsetting the applecart. Wellick, who up to now has been a pretty slick operator, is actually struggling in life like everyone else, albeit in different ways. The thing I found interesting about him and his wife is how that relationship is portrayed, she’s dominant although her position would indicate otherwise. That feels far more realistic than if Wellick doing a 50 Shades of Grey thing with her.

Elliot’s ‘bug free’ life? Surreal. Somehow, without needing to do much more than give him a cup of Starbucks coffee, everything got weirder than before and that’s saying something on this show.

One other thing I realized after last night’s show. I pretty much relate to all the characters one way or another, I can see why they are who they are. Even the idiot boyfriend, by manning up and being honest with his girlfriend, showed me something. He even managed to sound reasonable and make his position seem like the best one even though he caused all the problems to begin with!

I hope they play against audience expectations with the idiot boyfriend, the story would be more interesting if he had just been a decent non-idiot person (not a superhacker, but at least mildly competent) rather than the scummy idiot taking Elliot’s true love or whatever.

I loved his expression after taking a drink of the latte while walking down the street. Half manic, half disgusted, all determined to enjoy it.

Even the idiot boyfriend, by manning up and being honest with his girlfriend, showed me something.

This was great. I cant count the times a TV show has relied on the old cliche of hiding that stuff from the girlfriend, even when you know the end result will be totally disastrous. You want to scream “Just frikkin tell her!” at the TV.

Episode 3 was not as riveting as the first two but it was important as it helped develop a lot of the side characters in the story. And while they havent given us enough to know, with certainty, if Mr Robot is real or not, (I, myself, believe he is a delusion) it seems like the fsociety crew is real.

Last night’s episode was a step back for me. I really can’t stand dream sequence shit.

Same here. Pretty disappointing overall.