Mr Robot: Full Series Retrospective

[Music] the following is an in-depth story analysis if you haven't seen Mr Robot you may want to before watching this video when cable television comes up what often comes to mind is the writer's innate desire to rise to the TV MA occasion and pack the series with gritty excess why just have a monologue when we can have sex position while we're at it well networks like HBO pursued audiences Through increasingly gory and runchy titilation in the 2000s and 2010s the USA Network endeavored to Brand itself in a more unconventional manner for cable television the characters

welcome Blue Sky Marketing with their Flagship series being the investigative procedurals monk psych and Burn Notice USA wanted to stand out in the market by highlighting the nature of its more light-hearted shows that thrived on the affable charm of their lead characters Those hon days couldn't last forever though and with the rise of streaming services in the mid-2010s blue skies would Fade to Gray and USA would have to make some changes pivoting their programming to reality television sports and the occasional short-lived spin-off series of universal owned film franchises however as the scripted television wing of

USA was slowly shuttering they would give audiences one last winner for the road the Unexpectedly grim and psychologically Twisted Masterpiece Mr Robot which managed to survive for the entirety of its planned Four Seasons despite terminally low ratings thanks to the accolades showered on its writing Direction and performances and while many industry analysts noted that the show's drastic shift in tone from USA's usual Breezy fair was the death nail for the network Credo I would argue that characters are still welcome because Elliot Alderson is certainly a character or I already got the spoiler warning out of

the way he's multiple characters this is Mr Robot Mr Robot tells the story of Elliot Alderson socially withdrawn computer security specialist by day vigilante hacker cracker targeting traffickers and diddlers who need to have a seat over there by Night the series delves into Elliot's psyche as he wrestles with the internal and external forces pushing him toward either Contorting himself to conform within an obviously hemorrhaging late stage capitalist Society or rejecting said society and joining a hacker Collective known as F Society helmed by the titular Mr Robot and planning to you guessed it f Society for

the good of The Working Man with the revelations of the first season revolving around uncovering that those internal and external forces pushing and pulling on Elliot are significantly more internal than he or The audience first realized Mr robot's plan as revealed in the pilot is to Target the financial records of shady American Mega Corp EC Corp more commonly referred to by their fitting nickname evil Corp thereby erasing the debts of a significant portion of the American public and as revealed in the second episode how Mr Robot intends to accomplish said plan is by blowing up

a power plant adjacent to evil corpse impenetrable server backup facility Steel Mountain taking the facility out in the blast uncomfortable with the innocent bystanders who would get caught in the crossfire and Mr Robot scheme to boom boom shake shake the server room Elliot proposes a more convoluted but less bloody plot to accomplish the same end sabotaging steel mountains Heating and ventilation to destroy the servers and recruiting the chinese-based hacker group The Dark Army of questionable ethics and questionable allegiance to Handle sabotaging the backups Off to the Races should I turn them in will I get

into trouble [ __ ] she's right I'm culpable now no we're culpable you're in this with me so start thinking of solutions now I mentioned the planet self isn't really elaborated on until the second episode and in truth I don't think Mr Robot puts its best foot forward in the pilot it's kind of funny these retrospectives started out with me talking about the two most perfect Pilots I'd ever seen then every video sense has just been the bitching about Pilots variety hour the series really comes into its own as the first season progresses with the

unique voice of the project crystallizing by The Freshman Year's third act but the early episodes can be a bit paint by numbers anti-hero cable drama with the pilot in particular making me wonder is this just Dexter but hacking computers instead of hacking up bodies well short answer no long answer No because the execution is vastly different though there are quite a few highlevel similarities running through season 1 you know social misfit vigilante protagonist with an internal monologue that plays fast and loose with the fourth wall employed by the very institution that would one day hunt

him down should his extracurricular activities ever come to light and as both shows go along spoilers for Dexter the introduction of a a hallucinated Father figure who provides unreliable advice the Revelation that the first season's Mastermind leaving behind cryptic Clues is so invested in our hero because the two are blood relatives and how could anyone forget an inappropriate relationship with his sister oh my God Elliot what the [ __ ] I'm I'm sorry what the hell is wrong with you fortunately later episodes shine more and more as we move beyond the premiere and the series

comes Into its own oneoff hacked [ __ ] of the week wind up having greater significance to the plot further down the line even if their significance may not be apparent at first preventing the show from falling into an episodic villain of the week routine that it at first seems to be flirting with the hacker man Shenanigans step away from the code flying by on a computer screen of the debut with Mr Robot instead indulging in the more viscerally intense World of physical infiltration and social engineering these sequences are marvelously tense with attenion only ratcheting

up further thanks to the captiv ating score by Matt Quail while I'm on the subject of music I'll point out that Mr Robot beat South Park to Steal My Sunshine and The Suicide Squad to people who died and those are two ludicrously good needle drops even by the fourth episode Elliot's penchant for drug abuse has evolved from the Aformentioned the main character does drugs because that's what gritty TV MA shows do to an Avenue for psychedelic character exploration for the mentally unstable viewers among us such as yours truly Elliot's misguided Dian into self-medicating with morphine

and later Aderall as the series moves along are amusingly relatable we had a system but it kind of broke down you need to be really careful with the ratios we just got the ratios a bit off so I do think I Am addicted to drugs now indeed insight into Elliott's fractured mind is a huge component of the series as a whole and between his everpresent internal monologuing intermittent fantasy sequences and Mr Robot who will be revealed as a Tyler Duran ask Alter Ego in due time the writers provide a combo platter of avenues to explore

what makes him tick Elliot's an iconic last although I'm sure him stumbling into casual sex with his hotpants drug dealer Shayla in the first episode severely deducted his social outcast points in the minds of a handful of viewers who views the very fabric of modern society as an illusion but who also reductively views even the closest people in his life as simply amalgams of the data he's preemptively paranoid Le minded on them a mindset of viewing human beings that's as p and calculating as our crooked corporate overlords and one that he will come to learn

leaves some very Significant gaps in his understanding of others because not all insights into the human psyche are conveniently Post-it noted around the web for any old hacker to stumble across another way the series does well to distinguish itself from Dexter well the writers would tell us that Mr Morgan was a real Disturbed individual a square Pagan Society it increasingly came across as an informed attribute and by the end of the series Dexter was easily the most stable and Socially well- adapted member of the cast by contrast the more Mr Robot goes along the more

apparent it is that Elliot is Crazy Town banana pants though some of his tie raids against the ills of social media perverting Society religion and corporate greed oppressing the masses can be disappointingly boilerplate for a character who is intended to be so innately idiosyncratic especially given the trippy complexity of the series at large I'm not so much Asking for the talking points themselves to change just maybe J it up a little but first a word from our corporate overlords The Supporting Cast are well fleshed out enough if not nearly as complex as Elliot Mr Robot

will get to but he essentially functions as a shoulder devil for Elliot since he will ultimately be revealed as a manifestation of Elliot's more anarchic and unhinged urges aside from the handful of scenes where he appears alone Without Elliott after completely taking over Elliot's body designed to throw Savvy viewers off from the fight clubbing scent dur is an increasingly hedonistic hothead growing more and more in sens as she realizes just how entrenched and undefeatable the opponents of society have pitted themselves against R Romero is the put upon straight man officially getting too old for this

[ __ ] and ideologically idealistic second stringers Moy and Trenton both realized that the Alderson Clan are a few cards short of a full deck and maybe it wasn't the brightest idea in the world to join forces with them to commit the crime of the century like I said they're not as complex as Elliot but with most of the first SE spent inside Elliott's Noggin they really shouldn't need to be however there are a handful of breather episodes that put Elliott on the bench and when The Supporting Cast has to carry the Runtime in those

early episodes the momentum of the show can come grinding to a halt a solid chunk of screen time goes to Angela Elliot's childhood friend and a coworker blackmailed into aiding the Dark Army unbeknownst to Elliot well later seasons will give Angela a significant amount of material to wrestle with meaningful interconnections with the primary story lines of the series and some really meaty character development to sink her teeth into Season 1 spends all this time with her to ultimately just set up that she's a nice lady with a childhood history with Elliot and moral compunctions about

what evil Corp is doing who's going to wind up working in the belly of the Beast next year where either she will change it or it will change her and while the death of Elliot's father caused by an evil Corp toxin leak is used to further develop his character with his stand against the company almost a cornered Animalistic lashing out to contrast his father's acquiescent rolling over and dying and Angela's mother sharing the same fate kind of just reads as stock you killed my parent motivation when compared to how much juice the writer squeeze out

of Elliot in the same situation just tell me what to do here because the only solution I can think of is to give up and then we get to the villains on the minor arkville inside is petty crook Fernando Vera an early season caller of Elliot's vigilante Moonlighting Vera as the centerpiece of Mr robot's first truly exceptional episode a nail-biting breakout mission where Elliot is coerced into springing Vera from the hus scow with the life of his maybe possibly could be new girlfriend Shayla hanging in the balance an impossible mission made even more difficult since

Vera's own men are working against their Looney Tunes boss's rushed Rescue Mission Vera Is an effectively crafted and portrayed love to hate villain especially because he manages to so effectively back our ambitious main characters into a corner despite being pathetically low rent himself and of course that he kills Shayla anyways even when Elliot miraculously delivers a jailbreak is just the final insult Vera skips town and I'm sure we'll never see him again yes yes this seeit right here this T's better than any [ __ ] I ever Had Vera's presence may prove the most imminently

perilous but the big bat of season 1 is evil Corp CTO hopeful Tyrell willick and just call me Elliot Alderson because I'm of two minds how to feel about this character in his debut season on the one hand I'm a sucker for a crazy over the toop villain and Tyrell wellick is nothing if not crazy and over the toop Lawrence you'll never be able to afford that tuition an unemployment sorry get Fired just as the series Endeavors to show a more grounded true to life version of what hacking is like compared to typical Hollywood hacking

in the F Society storylines tyrell's story in season 1 is essentially a grounded true to life version of what a complete disaster it would be if someone sliming their way up the corporate ladder decided to actually act like Patrick baitman from American Psycho his attempts at psychosexual manipulation Fall flat on their face and end in TI rates of impotent rage rather than sticking to Bachelor Hood he's paired off with an equally conniving wife he's totally whipped by her and seemingly loving every second of it although funnily enough that only makes him even more literally me

and well Patrick baitman could never be punished for his actions even when he was begging to be Tyrell wellik winds up on the lamb after one little old impulsive murder we're Investigating a murder that occurred at your husband's place of employment ma'am may we please come in she's been murdered and you think I did it hey stop so while the momentto moment antics of Tyrell can't help but be amusing schlock I find the purpose of the character as he fits into the larger narrative and themes of the first season to be muddled best and outright

confusing to first-time viewers at worst He's sort of in this Boardwalk Empire Nelson Van alony place where he's set up as the spearhead of this massive institution that's going to work at odds with the show's main characters but then as the first season WS along that role in The Narrative winds up subverted and the character just sort of defeats themselves through their own Insanity I had my issues with season 1 Van Alden 2 but Boardwalk Empire at least had the courtesy of introducing and establishing Other law enforcement characters to flesh out that corner of the

show's World building Mr robot's freshman year is in the awkward position where Tyrell is really the only evil Corp character we get to know until very late in the season we don't really get to know price the CEO until the season finale and as a consequence Tyrell comes across like he's supposed to function as a figurehead character for the 1% of the 1% of America which is very misleading Because one that is not tyrell's role in The Following Season narratives at all season 2 you may hear his voice over the phone but he is simply

not there and then he becomes this like crazed disciple of Mr Robot and two his over-the-top nature is at odds with the more sincere dystopian tone the show is trying to establish it's harder to buy the corporate machine as this cold unfeeling Juggernaut grimly marching along as it tramples us all under its Feet without care when our one character functioning as a window into that world pays homeless people so he can beat them in the streets for his own Amusement reminds me of that dichotomy between House of Cards and vep that became a topic of

discussion back when those two shows were on the air like yeah there's a part of us that sees the ills of the world and it's easy to imagine our politicians are these scheming Chess Masters who would kill journalists with Their bare hands but the both sad and hilarious reality is probably closer to a bunch of scumbags caught in a NeverEnding spin War desperately trying to keep jobs they're all immensely ill suited for did we all have cigars and laugh hysterically as we signed the evil documents is that what you pictured well I'm sorry hun you

see the world doesn't work like that as the day of the hack approaches Elliot starts to pick up some major vibes from Darlene and since his Last girlfriend died with the whole trunk or-treating incident Elliot's single again so he goes for the kiss it turns out the Vibes he was picking up on were sibling and he's forgotten their lifelong relationship due to his ongoing mental instability apparently not for the first time this kicks off a string of Revelations that positively Electrify the Final Act of Mr robot's first season Darlene isn't the only family member Elliott

forgot his relation to Mr Robot Is is also his dad and no his dad didn't fake his death he's still very much dead he's just an alternate Persona of Elliott because Elliot has dissociative identity disorder I did not see that coming and just before 5'9 the day F society's big dead erasing hack is planned to be put into motion a recently unemployed on theun tyral wellik stops by to give Elliot the talk hey Elliot I murdered a woman and I loved it I know you're involved with f society and Against eorp take me to your

base while I talk about how we're gods in what was probably an oddly comforting moment for Elliot as I imagine it was the first time in weeks he finally felt like he wasn't the most Disturbed individual in the room as soon as Elliot finds himself alone with Tyrell in the room with a gun we cut to credits and Elliot wakes up several days later it would appear Mr Robot hijacked Elliot mind body and soul for the duration and not only Successfully executed the 59 hack in Elliot's dead but also resolved the tense sit situation with

Tyrell and isn't forthcoming about how exactly he did that so well F Society cover their tracks the streets are packed with celebratory debtors now relieved of their crushing Financial burdens and the skies are peppered with evil Corp execs riging from rooftops which makes for a hell of a first week for new hire Angela Elliot has to skip the celebration and Try and piece together what happened to Tyrell if Mr Robot took more influence from Dexter possibly literally Elliot attempts to will Mr Robot away will Mr Robot reaffirms that I'm here your body will occasionally comeand

deer get used to it and that's season one of Mr Robot the Infectious energy of the finale's nation spanning Revolution is captivating and a good indication of the deeper World building the series is about to indulge in as fun as F Society's Capers could be setting the stage for 5'9 becomes clear after finishing the series The Writers were able to have a lot more fun with the consequences of the hack following its success then they were showing the logistics of how the hack was done in the first place and well Elliot's big question for season

1 was where is my mind his big question for season 2 will be where is my Tyrell should I tell her the truth should I tell her that her Husband's dead he called me last night that's impossible he wants to let me know that he's okay he has a plan behind the scenes of season 2 Mr Robot showrunner in siries Creator Sam Ismail would seize the Reigns of the project even more thoroughly going from directing three episodes in season 1 to directing every single episode personally for the remainder of the series The disquieting Cinematography inundating

the show with a sense of unease courtesy of Director of Photography Todd Campbell is only accentuated further with Todd and Sam's sure-handed sophomore year collaboration employing their distinctive quadrant framing method designed to put audiences in Elliot's socially detached off-kilter shoes and putting us further into Elliot's head is Elliott's new rigorous daily routine intended to keep the pesky anarchic voice of Papa robot at Bay Elliott staying with his mother only leaving home to observe games of pickup basketball in a public park or to get lunch and dinner with his new '90s sitcom obsessed binging friend Leon

always at the same Diner people who stopped by to visit him seem quite uncomfortable to be there especially F Society members who are all very recalcitrant to check in on Elliot or discuss where he went and oh he's not at his mom's he's in prison isn't he well Yes though not involving anything to do with 5'9 Elliot got pinched for hacking and blackmailing his therapist's cheating boyfriend I did manage to get year 2's big twist before The Season's opening Montage was even finished although that was probably due in part to me thinking Won't Get Fooled

Again and throwing ludicrous twist guesses at the screen every 5 minutes White Rose the leader of the Dark Army is a third personality of Elliott Tyrell isn't in Hiding he's been dead the whole time evil Corp CEO price has Taking Angela under his wing because they're secretly related somehow wait really that one's right too you're [ __ ] me the prison thing is more of a cute gacha than a genuinely like world upending impactful one like the the Mr Robot reveal of last year that reveal recontextualized so many moments on a second viewing in some

pretty heartbreaking ways as well like Elliot was not being tormented and Tested by Mr Robot he was self Haring or when he's enduring withdrawals and the only thing getting him through it is the last minute reassurance from Mr Robot that Elliott's not alone now of course we know he was alone with the prison twist Elliot's own monologue after the reveal kind of Winks to camera like yeah we just wanted to pull a fast one and even if you don't guess it immediately like me the Insight checks to see through the ruse get easier and easier

As the season progresses Craig Robinson is obviously some sort of corrupt Warden or nurse ratchet type running a trafficking site on the side and Elliott has to Aid him in his Shady business to facilitate his own F Society schemes because for some reason that's the only way he can get unmonitored access to the internet and once Elliot takes the site down it earns him the ey of neo-nazis neo-nazis who for some reason elect to spend every afternoon hanging out in a Public park with a bunch of black guys yeah Hands Across the Water I guess

maybe it's hard for me to judge the effectiveness of the twist entirely and compare and contrast since I saw it coming so well in advance but before I get too negative about it I will say overall it's not a boon or a curse just a wash the major beats of Elliot's relationship with the Crooked Warden who ultimately comes to terms with his own inability to live with his atrocities as Well as Elliot's continued increasingly trippy efforts to wrestle Mr robot out of his mind work just as well in prison as they do at his mom's

house I don't feel it's one of those situations where the work is so preoccupied with having a Twist that the Hoops they jump through to facil itate The Twist detract from the story like I'm not a card carrying BioShock Infinite hater or anything it's fine game but that story has a really hacky sci-fi plot device that causes the Main character to forget their own motivation all so the end can like do a twist where it Reveals His actual motivation obviously a main character with a really flimsy fake motivation for 90% of the story is well

underwhelming anyways why am I talking about Bioshock it's because most critics have shitty taste looking around the internet the general consensus seems to be that season 2 of Mr Robot is the boring season a major reason for this is that The central mystery of the season is finding out what happened to Tyrell and if he's still alive what he's planning and whether the show wants to admit it or not Elliott is in prison so he's in no position to be going on a man hunt across the tri-state area another reason for this criticism is that

Mr Robot sophomore year shifts the focus away from hacking Heist and infiltration and toward further emphasis on exploration of the psychological as thrilling as Some of the shows season 1 Capers could be I'm going to go ahead and white night for the effect iess of Mr robot's season 2 mental exercises Elliots make believe fantasy future worth fighting for which is so delusionally optimistic that it ends with even some of the villains joining him for a dinner party is delightfully adorable and that half episode long fake sitcom World Mr Robot sends Elliot to in order to

spare him from being conscious for a beating so Good if he cut it live USA Network actually ran their old 9s bumpers and promos for the duration of the delusion even convincing Budweiser to run a vintage ad during one of those breaks now that's commitment to the bit take together cuz it's one for Alderson and Alderson for one the final Way season 2 earns a reputation for slowing down the tempo is that in contrast to a proactive plot line from year 1 year 2 is all about Reactive paranoia when F Society member Romero turns up

shop to death in his own backyard the rest of the anarchic collective fear they may be next and I found the nervous dread of The Supporting Cast held enough momentum to keep me entertained if only because that nervous dread is established early and often to be entirely warranted by the ever increasing body count another early addition to the mass grave F Society accidentally dug for themselves is Elliott's old boss Gideon who despite being the only honest man in Tech is being set up as a 59 Fall Guy only for his string of misfortunes to come

to an abrupt end as he's gunned down by a conspiracy theorist Darlene's Dark Army adjacent boyfriend catches a bullet to the head as well and even Elliot's Neo-Nazi abusers don't live to see the credit when Elliot's saved by secret dark Army operative Leon though with a knife shoved up his ass he's probably Better off you don't want to know what his knife been feel me so yeah it's a slower burn than what came before but the pervading atmosphere of the second season I found much more effectively drew me into Elliot's world and honestly once you've

sapped through the fifth season of The Americans no show will ever feel slow again still Mr Robot can't entirely beat the languid pacing allegation because just like Before The Supporting Cast is simply not strong enough to carry the show when the writers decide to experiment with no Elliot episodes season 2 adds Dom to the cast an FBI agent who will function as our insight into the law enforcement side of this world she's written fairly workmanlike character cork here a focus scene demonstrating her loneliness there and despite the writer's Michael Scottish Tendencies to have masked men

burst into rooms and fire guns at her And uncanny number of times none of her material is terribly gripping at least this season next year we learn her boss is a mole for the Dark Army and she makes Darlene an FBI mole in F society and we get to do the whole departed Shuffle that's more like it you are not on some TV show this isn't Burn Notice there are no blue skies for you out there characters like you are not welcome here after Elliot's release both The writers and the characters seem to realize oh

[ __ ] we're almost out of episodes we better step on the gas on this whole plot thing so the race is on to find Tyrell after some wacky hij Janks with tyrrell's wife and tracking down the mysterious phone tyrell's been calling from which actually belongs to the widower of the woman Tyrell murdered who's been calling tyrell's wife to be like oh it's me Tyrell I'm still alive help me help Me classic prank Elliot realizes the real truth of what happened to Tyrell was with him the whole time it was in his heart in his

head actually as he utilizes a lucid dreaming trick to recall memories of what Mr Robot did in his body the night Tyrell disappeared it turns out the pair struck up a deal to see Mr robot's Revolution through because at the end of the day this is a two-step plan with the debt records erased evil corpse response has Basically been nuh-uh holding people to payments regardless attempting to Bild people who have already paid off their loans withholding savings accounts under the pretense they can't verify the account holder has any money at all all the while collating

paper records in a massive facility to create a 59 life support oh and their ecoin cryptocurrency is on the verge of replacing the US dollar so honestly 59 worked out great for them to take down Their 59 recovery efforts and finish the job Mr robot and Tyrell are going to blow up the building and knowing Elliot had moral compunctions about blowing up a building when planning phase one Mr Robot has elected to simply not tell him about Phase 2 Elliott attempts to stop the plot much to the confusion of his urw partner Tyrell who doesn't

know the details of Elliot's dual life and ultimately Elliott challenges Tyrell to shoot him if he wants to stop him Believing Tyrell to be yet another hallucination definitely one of the balls of your play is to Bluff someone pointing a gun at you go ahead and shoot you're not even real bro but unfortunately for Elliott Tyrell really really is and he begrudgingly obliges with Mr Robot in critical condition at the hands of his secret partner his secret partner calls their secret secret partner the dark Army's latest asset Angela and that's season 2 but I guess

We never did Angela so let's do Angela Rising the corporate ladder at evil Corp under the mentorship of CEO price she has offered opportunities to exact apparent Justice against members of the company who had a hand in the Scandal that took her mother's life though as she is squeezed on all sides by evil Corp F society and the FBI she comes to realize that the control offered by her growing position of power in evil Corp is an illusion finally finding a cause To fight for after a mysterious meeting with white rose leader of the Dark

Army Chinese minister of State security and long-term control the world conspiracy Mastermind Frenemy of evil corpse price after nearly giving herself over to the feds just to end the ever surmounting pressure Angela now has a new lease on life along with a confounding confidence in a newfound ability to one day bring people back to life but to do so she'll need white Rose's utopic Grand designs To come to pass if her hands have to get dirty and she Tyrell and the Mr Robot partition of Elliot's mind have to exploit Elliot to do it so be

it but the Dark Army are ready to get everyone's hands positively bloody please tell me you can help him he he can't back he's kind of still alive appalled at what Miss robot in the dark Army have planned for stage two and despairing at the fact that evil Corp Seized the opportunity created by 59 and his revolution has only made the world worse Elliot decides that he's going to work for the Sinister conglomerate in whatever felony friendly position they'll offer him so he can start stage two proofing their data from the inside in the hopes

of one day undoing the damage he caused with his season 1 stunt this new directive puts Elliot at odds with his imaginary Father Figure in fact Elliot and Mr Robot are no longer on Speaking terms the pair have traded the Middle School the Worst years of my life Dynamic for a Jackel and Hyde relationship by day Elliot preemptively reinforces evil Corp to withstand his alter ego's plans well at night Mr Robot hijacks his body and works alongside Angela and Tyrell to see last season's aborted bomb plot through all the while Darlene has been unwillingly turned

informant for the FBI and is doing her best to not do her best when it comes to Her task of incriminating her brother with each member of the cast working their own angle all with the reintroduction of hacking and infiltration missions from the first season and the ticking Time Bomb of a building promising to blow at any moment the third season of Mr Robot certainly picks up the tempo following its sophomore year it's really The Best of Both Worlds definitely mixing the introspective character examinations of The second season with exhilarating infiltration sequences that manag to

outshine the Capers of season one but if you still need more proof that season 3 is the strongest of the bunch look no further than newcomer Irving a dark Army fixer played by the always welcome Bobby canaval channeling Saul Goodman is he dead uhuh all right be there in 15 minutes feel my dick I am rock hard for you right now mister in addition to Keeping the feds off the gang's Trail and feeding and watering Tyrell who the Dark Army has been keeping squirrel away off grid the entire proceeding season as part of their endgame

Irving is also visiting the Big Apple to make sure the techie terrorist Trio to the Dark Army line for Tyrell that's a matter of convincing him to stick things out until he can clear his name and be reunited with his family uh and we'll just keep the news that his wife was gunned down By a jealous ex-lover in our back pocket for now Mr Robot needs a bit of tough love to convince him it isn't always his way or the highway and what better way to illustrate that point than by pointing out that his Revolution

he's so proud of wound up being a let it happen on purpose situation and Angela well Angela's already fully devoted to the cause completely under White Road a spell and utterly convinced of the virtuousness of their mission so really All she needs are some transparently false reassurances that nobody is going to die when stage two goes down we've prepared for an emergency evacuation so no one will be in the building when we go I'm [Music] asking we have I love this character so much so that he and Tyrell managed to break the trend of no

Elliott episode being let Downs their little Cabin Fever flashback episode that clarifies many of The lingering questions surrounding the world outside of Elliot's incarceration is a fun watch and a great Focus episode for Tyrell that gets the ball rolling on expanding his character Beyond just being a really unhinged guy and that's one of season 3's slower entries as the day of stage two approaches Mr Robot reaches a fever pitch with three marvelous back-to-back Thriller episodes runtime error follows Elliot the morning of stage 2 where he realizes he's been Fired from from Evil Corp at Angela's

behest Elliot has to evade building security and find a way back into evil Corp system before the clock runs out with the entire episode presented as a simulated single take allaha Birdman following that is kill process picking up immediately after runtime error and seeing Elliot infiltrate the target building that's about to blow in a final desperate bid to prevent the blast the pulse pounding tension of the single Take episode continues though now with the blackly hilarious element of Mr Robot attempting to thwart Elliot at every turn even if he only is able to take over

his body for minutes or even seconds at a time call a cab and just start driving Elliott away take over for a second or two and smash his computer trip him going down the stairs smack his head against the wall you [Music] okay well Eliot is ultimately successful In his bid to prevent the building's Annihilation turns out that white rose planned a much grander stage 2 than Mr Robot Tyrell or Angela were privy to burning down 71 other evil Corp offices the same day in part as a screwy you gesture directed at price for trying

to say no to rigging a un vote in white Rose's favor but also a destructive necessity since Elliot established too many redundancies during his short stint at eorp turning stage two into a Everything Must Go literal fire sail following this large-scale terror attack the horrors only continue with the Dark Army rounding up Trenton and Moy and staging their suicides so they can pin stage two as an F Society plot with ties to Iran sadly we have no use for your skills but you both do serve a very important purpose in the wake of stage two

there's no big schemes our main characters are cooking up or villainous plots they're Racing to prevent the challenge they face now is finding the will to live Elliot and Angela are understandably the most emotionally devastated of the bunch Elliot's efforts to protect evil corpse information only managed to increase the number of targets and the number of fatalities well Angela struggles to maintain her devout dedication to White Rose's end goal of creating a better world with a reality warping machine when faced with the Carnage of that end Goal's methods Carnage that Angela had a direct hand

in see they all came back they're all fine I guess I buried the lead with the whole reality warping machine plot point Didn't I so let's do the machine an enigmatic Contraption to suit its enigmatic owner White Rose a character who predominantly functions as a string pulling conspiratorial Chessmaster kept at arms length from the Audience while her minions get both the Dirty Work and the characterization it isn't until season 4 where we'll receive significant insight into white Rose's character Beyond impossibly powerful utterly ruthless Mastermind with her Freudian villain motive flashback episode and by the conclusion

of the series will never manag to learn the truth behind her machine what does it actually do when you turn it on does it warp a reality or destroy the world and Make a new one in his place or send the user to a parallel universe how do white rose build it or well I know how they built it white rose just beat Walter Bishop in the race to dig up all the pieces after he sent him back in time but the exact function and all the list ICS of the machine aren't what the machine

is really about it's not what it's here for the machine functions as the focal point of the ideological battle between Elliot and white rose When Elliott takes on the Dark Army in the final season and white rose officially steps into the big bad shoes sure white Rose's grand plan to send us all to a better world bift of the ills of our own is a noble one but her utterly ruthless methods combined with her vindictive habit of penting all who oppose her Just for kicks leavs one to believe that this may be a selfish goal

motivated by white Rose's dissatisfaction that her world didn't Allow her to have the future and identity she desired and hey she's at the helm of an Illuminati esque organization controlling evil Corp and numerous powerful politicians as puppets so a lot of the ills of the world are their fault meanwhile Elliot's organization F Society wants to destroy modern society an ostensibly evil goal that would make the Joker smile although granted what doesn't but he's willing to put those revolutionary aims on hold or Even reverse them to do right by his fellow man and the people he's

come to care for I'm getting a little ahead of myself the machine is largely in the background until the final season but I figured I'd tackle its thematic purpose while the iron was still hot and given it's more of a thematic device than a narrative device this also means you don't have to fear too much about Mr Robot belly flopping into the Sci-Fi dend everything we see think and do is Unfolding simultaneously in a parallel universe Mr Robot smartly breaks the trend of following up high-intensity episodes with slower paced episodes that sideline Elliot instead going

for a slower paced episode with a laser focus on Elliot who is making plans to take his own life after he failed to prevent stage two inadvertently exacerbated its casualties and got Trenton and Moy tied up in all this to boot on paper the idea of Elliott delaying and eventually aborting his plans to take his own life thanks to a chance encounter with Trenton's kid brother who he's forced to babysit could be a disaster Elliott regains his desire to live after a heart-to-heart with a precocious child oh brother but in execution the episode is really

quite affecting mainly because Elliot's desire to continue existing isn't reduced to some hollywood-esque heartfelt speech or Eureka moment and instead it's a more True to life just making it through the Dark Knight of the soul is Victory enough it also helps that Muhammad and Elliot make for a pretty amusing double act you're a baby you're annoying you are this is a nightmare you are so are you I wish you were dead do I his resolve restored Elliot stumbles on a hail marry plan to undo 59 if he can track down an encryption key once possessed

by the late Romero and now under lock and key at the FBI Elliot Hacks a dark Army laptop to get an insurance plan in place while Darlene seduces Dom to gain access to the FBI another Dexter parallel Miami Metro PD treated their CIS like a goddamn Meat Market derene is busted by light sleeper Dom and learning there is a possibility 59 could be undone compromised FBI boss Santiago calls his Dark Army Handler Irving to dispose of Miss Alderson and the agent she honey potted are you scared of me Now there there cameras everywhere you really

think I'm going to do Elliott may have regained the will to live but now the Dark Army really wants him dead and the finale sees the entire cast s Angela rounded up in a cabin where one by one the either have to prove they can be of use to the Dark Army or die with FBI mole Santiago up first on the figurative and literal chopping block wait wait wait Dom just tell him you'll Flip this isn't worth it you can live with it I'm bad at this with Santiago burned and well now he's dismembered congratulations

on the job offer you can't refuse Dom you're now the dark Army's latest FBI mole with the life of her family hanging in the balance should she refuse meanwhile back at the barn Elliot proves his usefulness to White Rose by announcing that he has set up a shipping hack that will expedite the Startup date of white Rose's machine but will shut down should he ever wind up dead Dom declares her hatred for Darlene seeing her seduction as the reason she's in all this mess and Irving announces his intent to go on an extended sabatical from

fixer work oh so long Bobby canaval see you again when I cover I don't know vinyl Elliot and Mr Robot make peace with Mr Robot revealing the real encryption key has been in Elliot's apartment the whole time so they reverse 5'9 and while we're on the subject of father and child reconciliation price consoles Angela by letting her know he spent his life being manipulated by White Rose 2o it must run in the family because surprise I'm your pop and that's season 3 of Mr Robot sorry if this season turned into more of a recap than

a review but that's just my way of saying the show is firing in all cylinders in season 3 however with the 59 hack reverted the series is in a way Rebooting and like an aging computer takes a little while to start up again and get running full speed when season 4 kicks off you have to understand I have been trying to stop her from hurting you that's that's why I brought you here but you you talk like this and I cannot protect you season 3 may have left audiences with some pretty substantial Cliffhangers specifically Dom

being Forced to go dark Army and price and Angela forming a fatherdaughter Duo to take on White Rose after they both got burned but early season 4 doesn't get the most mileage out of them Dom spends the first half of the Season hiding away at her mom's house her actual mom's house not fantasy prison where despite her claims to now despise Darlene she can frequently be found gooning to her interrogation tape the writers take their sweet time getting her back into The action although the introduction of her Dark Army Handler Janice certainly keeps things Lively

when she does get back in the game well just as surface level levelheaded as her predecessor Irving Janice is much less affable and much more intimidating treating new recruit Dom with kid gloves but you know made from real kids unless you go to work tomorrow and finish cleaning up Santiago's mess then I'm going to be forced to do something very bad to your Mother like really bad you know like I'm probably going to have to slitter from mouth to and Angela well Angela's quest to take down White Rose doesn't even make it Off the Bench

she was on last season when price is unable to talk Angela out of her Crusade she's executed 5 minutes into the season on order from White Rose and that's it for Angela with all the transformation the character has gone through it does feel rather abrupt to See her go out so prematurely and does come across as a bit of a slight to the character that the big reveal she got last season and her big death scene this season ultimately just serve as catalysts for price to finally take a stand against White Rose although price is

a great character so at the end of the day it all works out Angela's surprise demise makes more sense when you learn the behind the-scenes funny business that motivated it according to Interviews with The Hollywood Reporter Angela's actress Porsche double day requested to have the character killed off and will an earlier interview with Ry Malik confirmed Angela's death on orders from White Rose was always the master plan for the series Creator Sam Ismail accommodated Porsche's request and killed her off prematurely as the season began as to why Porsche made this request well there's plenty of

speculation about a variety of different Possible causes but none of Mr robot's production team is ever going to confirm or deny there was a 2-year gap between the third and fourth seasons and Porsche was working on other projects by the time production resumed she jokingly implied in an interview that she would rather continue filming Blum House's Fantasy Island and sunny Fiji then return to finish Mr Robot in a frigid New York City Remy malakin Porsche double day began dating after meeting on Set with the pair reportedly breaking up during production of the show's third season

some speculate that the breakup was less and amicable leading to tensions on set Darlene's actress revealed on Josh pek's podcast that she and porsa discovered they were being paid significantly less than their male co-stars leading to a pay dispute and accusations of sexism again these are all just rumors all we know for certain is how the show turned Out another aspect of the series that sort of gets dropped going into season 4 is the show's occasional commentaries on American society capitalism social media Etc a wealth redistribution scheme was the center focus of season 1 and

corporate America's commodification of the 59 hack made for some compelling World building in seasons 2 and 3 but with a hack reverted at the end of season 3 that commentary is becoming a Vestigial element of the show especially when price joins forces with Elliott in order to get revenge on White Rose and reveals that following the collapse of the Berlin Wall an Illuminati ask organization founded by White Rose named the deis group has been in control of all wars elections major Global events and even invented the internet and social media as a means to control

the people of the world wait they invented Twitter these [ __ ] must pay the de Group ostensibly operates to profit themselves but is actually a tool white Ro is using to complete her machine so yeah instead of a system grinding The Working Man Down that only finds new avenues of exploitation the more you Crusade against it all of society's woses are now the work of a villain with an evil plan to build a doomsday device who can be smoked out and defeated with the deis group behind it eorp became the world's biggest front with

every new Device we rolled out there was a new way for the de group to manipulate the public his pet project which we belittled for years had been the singular purpose of the de rou all along it's to the point that when Elliot and Darlene robbed the deis group and Darlene distributes their money evenly to the good people of the world and Darlene's like we did it we finally redistributed all the wealth I was like oh oh right sorry forgot we were doing That kind of thought we were on the whole Revenge SL destroy the

machine Arc now yeah the exploration of Elliot psyche has always been where you're really going to get your money's worth of the series so pivoting to an even more more intense focus on that is fine by me not that Elliot is Keen on letting us or his alter ego in these days it may be the most wonderful time of the year in the show's timeline but Elliot's having a decidedly Blue Christmas his Quest to hack the deis group is on a crushing tiing clock since Christmas day will be the only chance I'll ever get where

every member will be in a single location and as the pressure of his desperate Revenge plot to stop White Rose before he outlives his usefulness grinds him down Elliott is becoming increasingly hard heartless his relationship with his sister is deteriorating as both contend with Angela's disappearance and their abusive Mother's death in dramatically different ways he drugs and blackmails his latest mark sgirl driving her to Suicide which he mercifully is able to interrupt and he's even giving us the cold shoulder by no longer providing an internal monologue instead leaving that duty to the increasingly concerned Mr

Robot his heart does grow well maybe not three sizes but at least a size when a darker Army agent learns their plot and he and Tyrell have to go Pine baring to track Him down before he can report back to base Elliot finally has a heart-to- heart with Tyrell that his care for his sister motivates him to press on even in the face of impossible odds after initially planning to leave the increasingly hopeless Mr wellik To Die world would have been saved and you would have been the savior is that what you think is that

the fantasy I ruined for you stay here die I don't give a [ __ ] about you miraculously The pair managed to hunt down the Dark Army informant but that's where their luck runs out as Tyrell catches a fatal bullet in The Showdown for a tantrum prone character known for throwing fits when things don't go to plan it is a neat conclusion to the character that Tyrell is the only person in the series who gets a moment to accept his fate with Grace instead of meeting a spontaneous violent end like the rest of the cast

but this Grim Christmas horror Show truly reaches it it darkest point when a certain escaped prisoner comes home for the holidays Fernando Vera what has Vera been up to the past year Well since fleeing the country he decided to get caught up on Hannibal but was struck by lightning while watching it and now Harbors a perverse obsession with Elliott believing he can make Elliot a willing partner likely in both senses of the word if he manages to psychologically break him and who better To Aid in that scheme than Elliot's kidnapped shrink Christa with Elliot and

Christa hostage Mr Robot presents their psychos psychology session as a five act play Rivera hopes to give Elliot his one bad day that drives him to Madness by revealing the origins of Mr Robot horrifically paid off at the episode's climax when Elliot resurfaces the repressed memory that spawned his hallucinatory father his real father sexually abused him Mr Robot was born to Take over in situations Elliot can't handle himself socially ethically and most critically of all emotionally you you did this you did this to stop letting him make you realize stuff thankfully Vera doesn't get much

time to hit the gas on the gaslighting after the Revelation as Christa givs him the knife she got him for Christmas pointy end first proxy authentication required is a Tense and enthralling bottle episode showcasing some truly exceptional performances and the dialogue Centric episode also functions as a neat contrast to the no dialogue Caper episode that preceded it a few episodes ago whether everyone's spilling their guts or everyone's shutting their mouths Mr Robot season 4 is electrifying in its creativity yo V I thought you said this kid a genius bro swear to God if you don't

shut the [ __ ] up creative yes but Wow Mr Robot the season has been uh very dark it's all for a good cause though because rather than wallow in the darkness from Premiere to finale the final season of Mr Robot spends its second half delivering nail-biting do or die showdowns with the villains and rousing speeches about the power of love from the heroes both Elements which could come across as schlocky but since the road to get there this season was so bloody and fraught with emotional Turmoil they instead land as immensely satisfying cathartic payoffs

Vera Janice and white rose all get an episode where they have one of our heroes at their Mercy twirling the proverbial mustache with sadistic Glee only for the heroes to pull some clever trick at the 11th Hour that turns the tables and their tormentors and saves the day and those villain breakdowns when their plans fall apart enough to make grown man cry especially when the ludicrously Monstrous Janice finally gets what's coming to her the Fell's guarden Dom's mom's house I had to give him a bit of the Holy Show back there there weren't no other

way what speak English I [ __ ] killed him dear price and Elliot's big you can defeat me but you can never defeat The Power of Love ideological speeches to White Rose are also satisfying though definitely conver into schaly territory price and Particular I half expected to start going on about Kingdom Hearts being light during his final monologue though again their earned moments the show has been building to for sometime as is Dom's Focus episode where Darlene convinces her to run away together where the two are rewarded for fighting for the ones they love with

a final farewell from Irving who lets the couple know that the Dark Army is no longer concerned with them although Darlene and D are not rewarded with each other neither gal gets the girl after An American Tale ask Mom by that much moment at the airport I was about to do the whole run to the airport thing like Ross did on friends and Liz Lemon did in real life though each Wednesday symbolic battle against their own personal demons so it's uplifting while being Bittersweet I killed my Handler ow she was a pain in the ass

trust me you were doing them a Favor and and your little loudmouth friend over there yeah well what she did was a bad thing but with the deis group defunded and white rose becoming America's Most Wanted White Rose is left with no choice but to say well do it live [ __ ] it and turn on her machine just as Elliot also makes his way to the power plant that poisoned his father the power plant that Harbors White Rose's machine all while the entirety of the Beach Boys heroes and villains plays Save for the final

word to Hype us up for the coming confrontation that's probably the greatest needle drop in a series of fantastic needle drops like honestly how are more shows not using this song I swear it's just Mr Robot and Mr fu of the Fantastic variety rather than a shootout hack off or infiltration Heist the final showdown between Elliot and white rose is instead a 10-minute conversation where the two espouse their competing ideologies and white rose Ultimately leaves the fate of the machine and the world up to Elliot she even blows her own brains out while she's at

it as a closing argument of sorts to demonstrate her faith in the machine's ability to deliver a reborn World you've got to stick to your principles I will not give up on this world and if you can't see why then I speak for everyone when I say [ __ ] [Music] you Elliot elects to shut the machine down and the plant melts down with him inside only for Elliot to wake in a new world the machine has seemingly worked anyways transporting the audience to an ult Universe where Elliott is CEO of the socially conscious F

Corp editors note here Tyrell is the head of f Corp and Elliot is the head of all safe engaged to be wed to Angela price is in her life as Elliot's bumbling soon to be Father-in-law White Rose is an out and proud humanitarian and good old daddy robot is still alive too and no longer a diddler which is just the cherry on top the only thing missing from this perfect world is Darlene who was never born but we make up for her in the total Alderson in the universe count by now contending with two Elliots

taking us into the finale sounded like you were talking to someone [ __ ] he can hear us there it is again the Elliott on our side somehow Crossed over after the plant meltdown and he sees an opportunity to live his dream life by stealing it from his double murdering Elliot alteron on the day of his wedding much to the hallucinatory Mr robots consternation Mr robot was right to be concerned as Elliot is caught while trying to dispose of the body and the dream life starts to fall apart before his eyes the two-part finale definitely

warrants an immediate rewatch after viewers conclude the Series the alternate universe versions of the characters are all incredibly fun to watch but first timers will probably miss the chance to drink them in properly since they'll be so busy attempting to deduce what the hell the show is up to and what is the show really up to well that's Mr robot's last big twist the Elliott we've been following the whole series isn't really Elliott he's another alternate personality just like Mr Robot only Instead of protecting Elliot from distress he exists to make the world a better

place so Elliot won't need protection at all so the Elliot we've been following per chance to dreamed the real Elliott isolating him in a mental fantasy world while taking over his body so he could enact these revolutionary schemes and omitted Darlene from the fantasy as Elliot's sister has always been his strongest connection to his identity so the two-part finale was all A parable about how this life doesn't belong to the Elliott we've been watching the whole series and with the deis group defeated and the purpose of his existence complete it's time to stop stealing and

give the real Elliott his life back rejecting the idea Elliot wakes up in the hospital having narrowly survived the destruction of the machine Darlene Comforts him while pointing out that she's always known he was some sort of variant personality since the show Began realizing that a fantasy world without his closest relationship is no real f fantasy at all he agrees to give back control to the real Elliott though Mr Robot notes they'll always be a part of him and that's Mr Robot at least until that comic book prequel that's been in development hell finally comes

out well to an outside Observer the series may be that show where the hackers hack the evil capitalists as Mr Robot came into its own it became this Fascinating examination of identity relationships Despair and hope that was equal parts insightful and thrilling bolstered even further by some of its more creative and experimental unconventional episode Concepts all concluding on an experimental unconventional finale it may not be the easiest show to get into with a first season that takes a while to find its footing and a second season that has a reputation for being slow but the

hot Streaks are so so hot that I'm confident you'll see it through and look back on this captivating story with affection after all I'm you imagine a world gone and your mind just drift away this patch ensures that the UPS devices will only run trusted code that's digitally um that's digitally that's oh [ __ ] that's we have to put this on the gag reel somehow