From a certain perspective, Mr. Robot is a critique of the very thing you are complaining about. Elliot is able to justify doing many things because of the comic-bookish way in which he perceives his world. He is mentally unstable and a central theme of the show is that the things you see (through him) may or may not reflect the reality of his world, and his actions which, while internally consistent with his reality, may not be as noble or righteous as he thinks they are.
What I've heard about the second season only made me more glad of my decision to stop watching.
At some point, the obfuscation has to resolve. I felt like it resolved reasonably well in S1, though S2 definitely did the LOST thing and just left you hanging for S3. I'm hopeful, though, as Sam Esmail has apparently written the whole story from start to finish, so he hopefully knows where it's going well enough to give it a graceful resolution.
I couldn't even make it through the first episode of season 2.
The Wolf of Wall Street employs a similar trick for part of the film to great effect.
I also find the 'evil corp' thing to be immersion-drainingly adolescent, given that there's no other direct replacement. Everything else is 'gritty and real', and then there's this Loony-Tunes bit in the middle of it.
When Elliot isn't present, things are certainly more reliable, though we have to remember that our context for this world is through Elliot, which colors how we perceive these non-Elliot scenes, as well. We have to accept that at some artistic level, there have to be scenes without Elliot present, but we know that it's still colored by Elliot's reality through tells established in E1 - ie, characters referencing "Evil Corp" in conversations between themselves when he isn't present (it's not the company's name, it's the name that Elliot tells us he has explicitly replaced the real name with in his mental processes.)
"Evil Corp" is adolescent, but I think that's the point. It's not a lack of intellectual rigor on the part of the writers, but on the part of the characters. If you latch onto it literally as Esmail railing aginst dem eeeeeviiiilllll bigcorps then yeah, it would be tedious and silly, but Elliot goes out of his way in S1 to tell us that he that in regards to Evil Corp, he actively rejects reality and substitutes his own.
We all think that we have an objective view of the world, and that it's the other people that must have it wrong. I can only conclude that I would be very foolish to believe that out of seven billion people on the planet, I'm the one that got it right.
(That being said, the extremist hacktivist is sort of necessary for a show like this. A responsible, measured one wouldn't make for nearly so engaging a story.)
I disagree that the caricature protagonist is necessary. I think a more nuanced hacktivist character could have made the show much more ambiguous, and in my opinion, interesting, maybe approaching some of the complexities inherent in the material.
>Mr. Robot is that it's told through the eyes of an unreliable narrator //
When they drop the bombshell of that reality in the second series, that the narrator is unreliable, was a great moment that had me giggling with glee. I'd been guessing "oh, that guy is another element of his own dissociated personality", but never quite guessed the full gravity of it.
The "breakdown" episode [there's just one!?!] where his family are on vacation in pseudo-flashback with smaltzy sitcom styling whilst not great to watch was a real testament to how different this show was IMO.
(spoilers) The Fight Club parallels were there from the very first time he saw Mr. Robot in the episode one. So I kind of expected what was coming.
Either way, if you don't like it then there's plenty of other good shows to watch these days.
Also minor nit - I'm pretty sure Tyrell's wife is aware of his escapades. But you're missing the point about it...Tyrell and his wife are concerned solely with power.
Yes, the protagonist is smug and intelligent but that's common in a lot of TV shows for a good reason. Would you watch Suits if the character is an inept lawyer? Or House if the doctor is a mediocre doctor doing routine checkups?
And besides, I'd say that most programmers do feel a bit smug in the same sense about your average person clueless about technology.
It worked for comic books, back in the day.
Don't you mean sadist?
The protagonist isn't always right.
Comically bad/cliche companies that are polluting the earth, killing innocent people, and robbing the poor. A closeted gay, masochist antagonist and a smug, patronizing protagonist that regularly demeans the people around him and feels they are less intelligent than himself. This was all in the first few episodes.
I assume the characters and plots have changed since the first season, but not by much.
I felt like the writers were ignored in high school and used the show as a way to passive-aggressively get back at their perceived enemies.