Mr. Robot is another favorite show, premiered online by video on demand, on May 27, 2015. Shortly after that, the first season officially started on USA Network, on June 24, the same year. So came the second in 2016, the third in 2017, and eventually the fourth in 2019, a little bit forced if you ask me, but the important thing is that both public and critics generally liked it. I also want to say that even if I rarely offer spoilers in my reviews, this time, especially considering what happens to the world during the WHO’s declared Corona Virus Pandemic, I shall break this self-imposed rule.
Christian Slater and Rami Malek in Mr. Robot
[source of all pics: imdb.com]
Mr. Robot – Plot?
Mr. Robot is a guy played by Cristian Slater, and you have to watch the show to figure out what is all about because this is not the kind of spoiler you’re gonna get from me here. I started with Slater because his character gives the show’s title, but the main character is Elliot, a mentally unstable geek working for a cybersecurity firm. He is also a hacker who discovers dirty things committed by “respectable” people. He is also a drug addict but he uses drug suppressors at the same time. Anyway, he is enough controversial to confuse you. He did confuse me, but that’s personal, because in the series, everything has an explanation, except some dumb things which I considered just glued there, and they are illogical.
Portia Doubleday in Mr. Robot
Angela and her boyfriend work together at Allcorp, the same company run by a gay guy, Gideon. I’m not sure it’s relevant for the subject, but it’s in tone with the whole new concept of the modern transgender movement. There are few straight sex-related scenes in the four seasons, but the same-sex relationships prevail. Almost everybody there is at least bisexual.
Angela seems to fancy Elliot. You find out they know each other from before. At least in the first season, Allcorp is in negotiations to manage all security for one important company, something like Google, IMF, World Bank, and Amazon all-in-one package, called E Corp. Tyrell Wellick, a young ambitious aide to E Corp’s CTO, approaches Elliot saying: “Oh, I see you use GNOME, I’m more of a KDE person myself”. Now, this is Linux jargon, and if you are paying attention to details, you notice that Elliot is switching screens from Mint to Kali on spot, I haven’t figured it out how that happens with a single screen. At home, he has two LCD screens on his desk, but at work… I don’t know. Why Linux Mint? Kali is specially designed for what they are doing there, security, penetration prevention, etc. Kali at the time was installing with GNOME environment by default. Now, almost five years after, they switched to KDE. I prefer GNOME, though, it’s sleeker.
This Tyrell will become important, and you’ll see why.
Craig Robinson with Rami Malek in Mr. Robot
My favorite character is Phillip Price, E Corp’s CEO. “I’m Phillip Price, Master of the Universe”. Cool. There are also important characters, which will appear along, but you’ll find them when I present the cast. Mr. Robot looks like a bum who picks up Elliot in the subway. He takes him to a former amusement park arcade, where a group of hacktivists is planning to attack E-Corp and encrypt all their data with the result of eliminating all the people’s debt to the banks. They eventually succeed, and as in real life, everybody will be persuaded with the media channels that it is a bad thing to live without debt. In the meantime, the world as we know it went to collapse. “Crisis” unfold one after another. By the way, fsociety was helped in attacking the conglomerate, by a vicious hacker group named Dark Army.
Carly Chaikin, Michael Drayer, Azhar Khan, and Sunita Mani
Cast
Rami Malek is Elliot Alderson, network engineer by day, and vigilante hacker by night. Carly Chaikin is Darlene, a malware coder, one of the fsociety hackers. Portia Doubleday is Angela Moss, a fellow employee at Allsafe. Martin Wallström is Tyrell Wellick, the ambitious Senior Vice President of Technology at E Corp. Christian Slater is Mr. Robot, an anarchist who recruits Elliot into the underground hacker group called fsociety. Michael Cristofer is Phillip Price, the CEO of E Corp. Stephanie Corneliussen is Joanna Wellick, Tyrell’s wife. Elliot Villar is Fernando Vera, Shayla’s drug supplier, and Elliot’s only supply of suboxone (the drugs suppressor). Frankie Shaw is Shayla, Elliot’s drug dealer, and girlfriend. Gloria Reuben is Krista Gordon, Elliot’s psychiatrist.
Merryl Streep’s daughter, Grace Gummer with Omar Metwally
Michel Gill is Gideon Goddard, CEO of Allsafe Security. Ben Rappaport is Ollie Parker, Angela’s boyfriend, and an employee at Allsafe. Ron Cephas Jones is Leslie Romero, a member of fsociety. Sunita Mani is “Trenton”, a member of fsociety. Azhar Khan is “Mobley”, a member of fsociety. Michael Drayer is Francis “Cisco” Shaw, Darlene’s ex-boyfriend who is also a liaison to the hacker group Dark Army. Vaishnavi Sharma is Elliot’s mother. Grace Gummer is Dominique “Dom” DiPierro, an FBI field agent, who appears in Season 2, my number two favorite character. BD Wong is Zhi Zhang, China’s Minister of State Security.
Bobby Cannavale in Mr. Robot
Bobby Cannavale is Irving, a Dark Army fixer, who is a used car salesman as well, and an aspiring writer. He appears in Season 3, together with Ashlie Atkinson. He is also my number three favorite on the list. Ashlie Atkinson is Janice, a chatty taxidermist. Joey Badass is Leon, a new close friend of Elliot, you’ll see where, how, and what, from Season 2 on. Sandrine Holt is Susan Jacobs, an E Corp General Counsel, known as Madame Executioner. Erik Jensen is Frank Cody, a conspiracy theorist, and talk show host, I don’t remember when I noticed him on the TV screens, but I remember him in a very embarrassing position. Craig Robinson is Ray Heyworth, you’ll find out in time about him, starting from Season 2. Omar Metwally is Ernesto Santiago, Dom’s superior at the FBI, also joining in Season 2.
Michael Cristofer in Mr. Robot
Series was created by Sam Esmail, who directed all episodes from Season 2 on, and produced all of them together, partially assisted by Christian Slater and Rami Malek.
Trailer
Incredibly non-revealing trailer, but only for the first season.
Conclusion with spoilers
The fsociety mask is a combination of Parker Brother’s Monopoly Man (from the Monopoly game) with Guy Fawkes (represented in V from Vendetta).
Sam Esmail has been obsessed with hackers and hacktivism for more than 15 years. His favorite movie is David Fincher’s Fight Club, and now, this is a major spoiler. Another spoiler is that the themes in the movie seem to be inspired first by immediate reality, and second, by future reality. They predict a cryptocurrency as the main exchange unit sometimes in the future, and a short war between Bitcoin and a controlled one, here E-coin. In our near future, it will be called maybe different: G-coin, or Citycoin, whatever…
What I found stupid is that the group of manipulators from the top of the pyramid, the Elite, the 1 %, here ambitiously named Deus Group keeps all its money in a single bank, ready to be extracted in a matter of minutes by a genius hacker. They own over 50% of all the money in existence and all the known banks. If it was just metaphorically, it’s my bad, then.
Mr. Robot – Poster
Mr. Robot is a good and educative show, way better than Mad Men, and as depressing. Highly recommended if you get the opportunity.
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