I wish they'd ditch the whole split-personality plot, but seems like we're stuck with it. It's not a disaster, just sort of tiresome. Seems cheap when compared to the rest of the show's plotting, and I was hoping there'd be less focus on it this season now the 'reveal' is done with. I think it's mainly that they want to keep Christian Slater on screen.
The trippy 'Lynchian' stuff really doesn't work for me here either, it seems out of place/poorly handled. Judging by the critics/friends though, I think I'm in the minority there. I think the show is generally a victim of its writer's grandiose ambitions; it wants to appear epic and sophisticated but it ends up oversimplifying.
Hacking is still great, though.
Yet I find the psychological issues and split personality exploration really fascianting. Is it realistic? No, not at all. But I like how the actor portrays Elliot's anguish.
Even the main character (that narrates) seems to think that the hacks and anti-corporate rhetoric are kind of pointless and juvenile.
If you didn't identify with that, then you're obviously not part of the subculture that the show portrays and is really made for. Mr Robot is not about the drugs or computer hacking, it's far more grandiose than that. Similarly to Fight Club, it can be viewed as a social study of a subculture that's operating on the frontier of consensus reality and could characterize where that reality will shift in the future.
Have you had to juggle multiple identities in your head, every day for years if not decades? Have you thought what this does to you?
Have you had to keep secrets from everyone around you?
Have you "felt" what cyberspace really is about? Have you experienced the VICIOUS feedback loop of projecting a thoughtform/idea (what the audience views as "hacking") into that new domain only to have it manifest and achieve its own reality, as if by magic?
The technical aspects of the show are by far the least interesting.
Usual disclaimer that this is my opinion, not trying to come off as snobbish though it might sound that way, but personally, like in Fight Club, I find the show's 'grandiose' attempts to be more than little simplistic. It doesn't effectively/subtly explore anxiety, isolation, schizophrenia, depression etc as well as I think it thinks it does. Honestly most of that narrative feels cheap and repetitive to me.
Taken as a satire ('Evil Corp', FSociety/Anonymous etc), the show works for me, but when it spends time plumbing Eliot's mental illness, it becomes dull to me. Some of it I appreciate, and in smaller doses it might work, but for me it's overblown and only elevated by the show's sense of style, not because it's telling the viewer anything of particular interest, or actually advancing any of the plotlines/character developments. I think the show is worse for it.
Having said all that I enjoy the show a lot. I'm just not willing to heap praise upon it since I have these reservations.
What would be an example of this?
Are you referring to something similar to multiple discovery:
The arrival of cyberspace however and its subsumption of more and more aspects of our everyday lives acts as a positive feedback loop. What was unthinkable or even heretical 20-30 years ago is now routine.
In a sense, we are witnessing a new paradigm shift where the intermediate substrates (mind/inception to manifestation) are being dissolved and the feedback loop gets shorter.
You can see this with the subsequent breakdown of social structure and monetary philosophy. The masses are reaching harmonization through their own voices rather than having a conductor leading them (politician/bankers/middlemen in general)
It's understandable that a lot of people on HN went in expecting a realistic show about hacking, and wound up with a much more abstract (and arguably ambitious) show about mental health, drug use, the role of corporations in society and politics, hacking, etc. I can see how that might be disappointing, but personally I like it.
But I don't think it's a fetishization of hackers. It's a stylized, exaggerated portrayal of many elements of society, that happens to include hackers.
One can already see from the first episode of season 2 (which I suppose you haven't seen yet) that it's much more complex than that.
In season one we saw the culmination of that extreme "fight club" ideology. In season two we're going to see the results of those actions. And so far it isn't pretty.
Agreed. I'm ok with both versions but a switch was definitely flipped in my head when elliot hacked a prison from the outside, via bluetooth in a police car, in order to release a prisoner from the outside. All with 24 hour notice.
That was so ridiculous. Oh and after he breaks out the prisoner he stands outside the prison in plain view of guard towers etc. for like an hour just to have a lengthy monologue. There is 0 chance you don't get caught in that situation. Oh and theres a dead fucking body next to him at the time.
I could be wrong of course, and that's what I like about this show: The viewer never truly knows WTF is going on.
Also, he has an attractive drug dealer girl that just comes over to give him free drugs and screw him? I'm sure this happens. But I doubt it's remotely representative to say that happens to introverted semiautistic "hackers".
There are also those three days Elliot lost that Mr. Robot took over to do the Evil Corp hack.
The show's creator expressed his motivations being from the Arab Spring. I'm starting to see the parallels when looking backwards at season 1. Elliot appears to represent the varied nature of the masses. Not all who want change are willing to commit such extreme acts. To me, Elliot represents that by being both the most revolutionary and quite neutral. In a way, it gives the show's creator a moral pass by showing Elliot as both the instigator of bad things and as a passenger just watching it happen. From a moral point of view, Elliot is not really a good guy, but it is hard to hate someone who is so deeply broken.
I'm starting to agree with you. From a personal point of view, I'm starting to tire of this neutral zone that is entered by Elliot's inability to take a moral stand.
I tried watching the first episode of the season 2 and I just couldn't finish it.
So in season 3, Elliot is staying away from computers and the Internet and trying to get a life and go outdoors. But Mr. Robot is there trying to take control. Elliot speaks to his friend who he describes as a monster inside him, but really it is the audience he speaks to, like he is breaking the fourth wall like Deadpool does.
I watched the first one. I enjoyed the first few episodes, seemed like it was going to be a drama about people working in InfoSec. Definitely appreciated the relative plausibility of the hacks. Was very disappointed when it turned into a psycho-druggie-anonymous-whatever sort of thing. It went so quickly from a semi-plausible portrayal to a fetishization of [black hat] hackers.
I understand how that's more appealing to a wider audience. Just saying what I'd prefer personally for my own sake.