I dig “Psychological Thrillers’. Well, the ones that aren’t cheesy. What I would call a recipe for awesome is you take some “A Beautiful Mind”, add some “Fight Club”, some “Dexter” with a pinch of “The Matrix”, “V For Vendetta” and “Lost”. You do that and well, you’ve got my attention. ‘Mr Robot’, an intriguing new series on the USA network, that hits on those themes and sensibilities.
Two episodes into this cyber-age tale infused with a dark, almost nihilistic pessimism about the Internet, capitalism and income inequality. Yeah, I’m already hooked. The content of the show is compelling, that’s for sure. Some might say that the Anonymous angle is so 2013 – but the canvas that is being painted for us, though bleak, has some great streaks of color and I am certainly getting caught up in Elliott’s (Rami Malek, who should be a household name in years to come) neuroses. The acting is top notch all around. But there is something that sets this show apart from almost everything else and which captivated me before the first episode was over – the directing. This show is filmed cinematically. And in that I don’t mean wide angle shots of great backdrops. Cinematic directing, sorely lacking nowadays including in cinematic films, not only utilizes the full screen to help tell the story but it uses depth and field to convey emotion.
The best part, people are already ‘theorizing’ about the show. I’ve seen postings on Alan Watt’s “The Game Of Yes & No”, screen-grabs of chinese text deciphered from an IRC chat (a user named ‘White Rose’ & yes…’White Rose’ is the name of episode 8 that hasn’t even aired yet) and even how numbers play into what is going on. This is just an example of what I’m talking about: The number 13 occurs throughout episode one. Texts from his bestie Angela, number of years the previous owner owned Fun Society, number of dollars Evil Corp loses in an hour of downtime and the infected server is CS31 which is 13 reversed. ALL of this and the potential big baddie behind E-Corp, Tyrell, assumably named after the all-extending tech corp in “Blade Runner.”
So, since we are going all crackpot. Let me take a shot at it. At this point, if you haven’t watched EP’s one & two- get on it, soak it in and return to RIGHT here. These are not spoilers in the spoilery sense just speculation and what could happen.
Here goes. Elliot was very close to his father, who worked as an engineer at a company called E-Corp. His father got leukemia, he told Elliot (again, they were close), but he told Elliot not to tell his mother not to worry her. But guilt consumed Elliot and he cracked and told his mother. His father got irreversibly sick and this traumatic event made him imagine the scene in which his father and Elliot had a fight and broke his arm (that was a suicide attempt).
After his father’s death, Elliot decided to blame E-Corp for the whole thing, from now on calling it Evil Corp.
In the present, Elliot formed this group of hackers to take down E-Corp. But his personalities remained dissociated, and he would normally go to work like nothing was happening. it was like the right hand had no idea what the left one was doing. Then this shady figure called Mr. Robot appeared and made both his universes collide. Also, I’m guessing that Elliot’s father was a hard working immigrant with long foreign name like Rohanaya Bottysvahna or something and was affectionately known to his coworkers as Mr Robot.
Elliot is the leader of the hackers. Even the hacker girl knows where he lives (he told her as Mr. Robot). When he addresses the group to give them orders or explain his plan, he assumes the Mr. Robot personality, with all the Christian Slater mannerisms. (By the way, the man in the top hat threatening “Evil Corp” was also Elliot, unrecognizable by the disguise). When he’s not explaining things to the group, he reverts back to his introverted persona and Mr. Robot stays in the back (of his mind) just “collecting his thoughts.”
Elliot now realizes his plan went too far and is having second thoughts about actually killing people. This is why Mr. Robot materialized in an attempt to make his saner self take over and keep the killings from happening. But the problem is that he doesn’t want to be a “zero.”
But of course, this is television, stories live on twists and turns, and in the end Christian Slater’s character could be as real as you or I, and then my theory would be shamefully fan fiction meh.
-Dagobot
Get at me on twitter: @markdago
Like me on THE Facebook: facebook.com/markdagoraps
Download my latest EP for free: markdago.bandcamp.com
Listen to MY podcast http: http://poppundits.libsyn.com