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[Maklershed]

The whole Elliot is Tyrell theory is so dumb and completely nonsensical. I partly think it's started by people who didn't see/believe the Elliot is Mr. Robot angle and are now trying to compensate by suggesting Elliot is everyone.

It's not like Elliot is Mr Robot made sense either.

 

[maxcriden]

It's not like Elliot is Mr Robot made sense either.

The show has its faults, but that one made sense to me from the jump. Where did you find it not making sense?

 

[blueteainfusion]

I loved the pilot, thought that the middle episodes were great, but was hugely disappointed with the finale. It unfortunately emphasized all the problems within the writing of the show (for me).

The "main plot", that is the hacking scheme, is simply not engaging to me. I don't care about accuracy and the technology, the plan is simply stupid, shortsighted and would ruin lives of all the people in the world if it worked - not just evil corporations. It's hard to believe that idealistic and supposedly intelligent group of people in fsociety would think even for a second that it's not only sustainable but even good. For that reason, I cannot get invested. Doesn't help that the characters there are so under-developed, apart from Darlene - and even she's more of an idea of a sister than a character. I simply don't get what drives her, even if on paper that should be obvious.

Shayla plot was dropped, forgotten and simply was there for unneeded drama. What was the plot purpose to kill her, really? Elliot's mental state was fragile already and Shayla's death didn't change much. It was completely removed from the main plot too.

Mr Robot not being real was too obvious from the start. I appreciate the writers throwing a Darlene-shaped curveball, but it still didn't solve the biggest problem with a twist so plainly telegraphed: Mr Robot was never a character, mainly a plot device. Nothing interesting about him, no motivations to speak of, nothing. Just him being annoying everytime he's on the screen. Raging lunatics can be fun, but they've gotta have some depth to them.

I do think that the show still has huge potential. E-Corp, AllSafe, Angela, Whiterose, The Wellicks and Elliot's madness - they all have interesting storylines that could carry the plot. Even Krista's love life is better than that stupid fsociety. The biggest challenge for the writers is to drop improbable plot threads and focus on their characters, not hacking and world revolutions.

The series still has good acting, fantastic DP and great soundtrack. It's still a fine series, just not as magnificent as it presented itself in the pilot, at least as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Fret]

That scene was clumsy as hell for me.

For one thing, it bulldozes through any attempt at having even remotely natural dialog, to get to some shitty moral exposition, spelling out the obvious moral dilemma facing the character out right, in case some people didn't catch the obvious.
The equivalent of having a character say out loud how they feel, basically.

More over, that dude didn't even have some good "truth-bombs" in his arsenal.
I mean if anything he's a pathetic hypocrite, working in a store like that, likely rocking a smart-phone and all the other usual shit people come to terms with, when living in a western developed country.
Yet rebukes her to grow a spine even after she said she needs the job, gimme a break.
Pot calling the kettle black, basically.

But really, i'm annoyed by how stupidly the scene was written.

I really like the show and yep, that scene was weird and out of place. Why did he start talking to her? Should have just been a scene where the guy looks at the blood on her shoes and gives her a weird look - then cut to next scene. Or just remove it entirely

The "main plot", that is the hacking scheme, is simply not engaging to me. I don't care about accuracy and the technology, the plan is simply stupid, shortsighted and would ruin lives of all the people in the world if it worked - not just evil corporations. It's hard to believe that idealistic and supposedly intelligent group of people in fsociety would think even for a second that it's not only sustainable but even good. For that reason, I cannot get invested.

That's the point though - the plan is pretty bad in the sense that it would probably fuck over more people than it would help, but it's worth it in the end to fsociety because maybe they can stop the corporations from taking over again, etc

Perfectly fine plan for a plot of a TV show imo, it's a "cool" idea to reset the worlds economy, and to imagine the ramifications of that. And I'm also not sure if the show wants the audience to root for fsociety actually doing it, it's quite morally ambiguous

 

[PHOENIXZERO]

Elliot being Mr.Robot was supposed to be obvious though.

 

[aaaaa0]

Yep. As a programmer, the encryption of the data instead of deletion immediately jumped out at me. I guess there's a chance it was done to sound more menacing to the audience, but I doubt that given the relative accuracy of the tech in other episodes.

No this is completely 100% technically accurate. It's exactly how you'd go about doing it because any other way wouldn't work.

Imagine you have terabytes and terabytes of data stored across thousands of servers in a giant secure data center.

What happens when you try to destroy all of it?

Ok suppose you just run a script on every server that does "del *.* /s" or "rm -rf"?

First of all, that doesn't actually delete anything, it just removes the file system's references to the data and marks those sectors as "not in use". You can go to the raw sectors on the disk, and reconstruct anything that hasn't yet been overwritten. Not good enough.

Ok so just start filling all the files with random junk? Well that solves that problem, but then you run into more problems.

Deleting data this way is easily detectable. As things get deleted, apps are going to start failing or crashing, if their antivirus doesn't catch you first.

That means someone is going to notice.

Worse, writing junk over everything takes a really long time. A disk might be 4 TB, but only be able to write at 200 MB/s, meaning it will take over 5 hours to wipe.

This means you're easily detected *and* they have ample time to yank power and save most of their data.

Ok, now instead imagine that you install a piece of malware in every server. It loads into the storage driver stack of the target OS, just above the disk driver, but below the file system driver.

If the server issues a read, it reads from the disk and transparently decrypts the data. If the server issues a write, it transparently encrypts the data and writes it to the disk.

Without carefully inspecting the servers for your malware, no one has any clue what's going on. If you do it right, no one will know, except that every read and every write is just a tiny bit slower.

Then you wait, as your malware slowly encrypts all of the disks in the data center.

Once the last sector on every disk on every server in the data center is encrypted (which could take days or weeks), at that time, you erase JUST the encryption key (which takes milliseconds), then crash every server.

Almost instantly, the whole data center is *gone*. They had no time to react, no time to cut the power, no time to save anything, and no idea anything happened.

 

[Nelo Ice]

So just binged watched all the episodes in the past 2 days. Holy fucking shit this show is good!. All the programming friends I've made have been raving about it. I finally tuned in after getting stuck at on a programming question and wow what a freaking ride.

As someone trying to break into the tech industry, this show was really something. I now have the sudden urge to install and learn linux. Also I now I wanna learn the command line better since I only know how to use git and github with it lol.

 

[liliththepale]

No this is completely 100% technically accurate. It's exactly how you'd go about doing it because any other way wouldn't work.

Imagine you have terabytes and terabytes of data stored across thousands of servers in a giant secure data center.

What happens when you try to destroy all of it?

Ok suppose you just run a script on every server that does "del *.* /s" or "rm -rf"?

First of all, that doesn't actually delete anything, it just removes the file system's references to the data, so almost everything is recoverable. You can go to the raw sectors on the disk, and reconstruct all the data. Not good enough.

Ok so just start filling all the files with random junk?

Well that solves that problem, but then you run into more problems.

Deleting data this way is easily detectable. As things get deleted, apps are going to start failing or crashing, if their antivirus doesn't catch you first.

That means someone is going to notice you before you're done.

Worse, writing junk over everything takes a really long time. A disk might be 4 TB, but only be able write at 200 MB/s, meaning it will take over 5 hours to wipe.

This means you're easily detected, and they have ample time to yank power and save most of their data.

Ok, now instead imagine that you install a piece of malware in every server. It loads into the storage driver stack of the target OS, just above the disk driver, but below the file system.

If the server issues a read, it reads from the disk and transparently decrypts the data. If the server issues a write, it transparently encrypts the data and writes it to the disk.

Without carefully inspecting the servers for your malware, no one has any clue what's going on. If you do it right, no one will know, except that every read and every write is just a tiny bit slower.

Then you wait, as your malware slowly encrypts all of the disks in the data center.

Once the last sector on every disk on every server in the data center is encrypted (which could take days or weeks), at that time, you erase JUST the encryption key (which takes milliseconds), then crash every server.

Almost instantly, the whole data center is *gone*. They had no time to react, no time to cut the power, no time to save anything, and no idea anything happened.

All very good points, but didn't they have a rootkit in the system? Done properly, there's no antivirus or malware catcher stopping that. Five hours isn't that long, all things considered. You could just do it in the middle of the night and have the system ping the UI that the server is down and lie saying it will be back up shortly.

You're probably right, though. Either way, I still think a hostage situation is likely.

 

[aaaaa0]

All very good points, but didn't they have a rootkit in the system? Done properly, there's no antivirus or malware catcher stopping that. Five hours isn't that long, all things considered. You could just do it in the middle of the night and have the system ping the UI that the server is down and lie saying it will be back up shortly.

You're probably right, though. Either way, I still think a hostage situation is likely.

The problem is the rootkit is just a rootkit. Giant data centers don't just hold data, they process the data too. And since Evil Corp is a global conglomerate, there's no time that nothing is processing data in its data centers.

For example, if you start deleting the loan database, then the queries going to the loan database are going to start to fail or crash. And for a huge company like that, they're probably processing loan queries 24 hours a day from all over the world.

Your rootkit can't pretend it's the database server software serving loan database queries, first of all because it is a rookit, not a database server, and second, you're in the middle of destroying that very database.

This means someone will notice, and if they notice, then it's likely they'll figure out what's going on pretty quickly.

 

[liliththepale]

The problem is the rootkit is just a rootkit. Giant data centers don't just hold data, they process the data too.

For example, if you start deleting the loan database, then the queries going to the loan database are going to start to fail or crash.

Your rootkit can't pretend it's the database server software serving loan database queries, because you're in the middle of destroying that database.

This means someone will notice, and if they notice, then it's likely they'll figure out what's going on pretty quickly.

Hmm, okay. The only reason I'm still suspicious is because the timeframe of the show is a little hard to follow. Wasn't FSociety planning to pull the trigger right after the Evil Corp heist? Wouldn't they have needed to wait weeks for all of the encryption to propagate? When would that have happened otherwise?

edit: I guess there could be a subroutine using server downtime to accelerate the encryption, so that would bring the timeframe down a good amount.

 

[aaaaa0]

Hmm, okay. The only reason I'm still suspicious is because the timeframe of the show is a little hard to follow. Wasn't FSociety planning to pull the trigger right after the Evil Corp heist? Wouldn't they have needed to wait weeks for all of the encryption to propagate? When would that have happened otherwise?

The malware doing the encryption was installed way back in episode 1, during the first Evil Corp network intrusion that AllSafe was trying to handle.

AllSafe thought they'd cleaned out the first attack, but that was just a diversion for the real malware they missed and which was silently encrypting all of Evil Corp's datacenters.

The heist thing with the Raspberry Pi and Steel Mountain was to kill the offline backups on tape, not the data centers.

(An interesting side point is that modern datacenters typically already encrypt all their server's disks. This is to facilitate disposing of old disks and servers. If they're already encrypted, you just wipe the encryption keys instead of having to spend time overwriting or physically destroying the old disks and servers.)

 

[aaaaa0]

Either way, I still think a hostage situation is likely.

Oh I agree. The beauty of it is that it's not a contrivance. How they describe it is actually how one would go about doing such a thing (deleting everything in a data center instantly).

The fact that this means there is an encryption key that could undo everything is a beautiful logical McGuffin that they could use for season 2 plot.

 

[Aureon]

Oh I agree. The beauty of it is that it's not a contrivance. How they describe it is actually how one would go about doing such a thing (deleting everything in a data center instantly).

The fact that this means there is an encryption key that could undo everything is a beautiful logical McGuffin that they could use for season 2 plot.

Yeah, you sold me on that. Very sold.

 

[freeofgreed]

Just caught up. This show is really good. Remi Malek does an amazing job, he's definitely the best part of the show. Somehow this show made me like Christian Slater. I wasn't really sold initially on the first few episodes because the tone of the show seemed very different then what I expected but once I accepted that the show really clicked, especially around episode 5 which is when I really became on board with it.

Oh I agree. The beauty of it is that it's not a contrivance. How they describe it is actually how one would go about doing such a thing (deleting everything in a data center instantly).

The fact that this means there is an encryption key that could undo everything is a beautiful logical McGuffin that they could use for season 2 plot.

Didn't Elliot say they deleted the key?

Edit: nvm misheard him.

 

[daniels]

Somehow this show made me like Christian Slater.

I really liked him in the short flashback that episode also had the best title card

 

[-griffy-]

Mac Quayle just tweeted this:

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

While encryption is a good way to go, it does highlight that this is fantasy, not reality. A lot closer to reality than most every computer/hacking thing that has come before, but it's still not very realistic. It requires a rootkit on a single server to be able to access everything, it would require intimate knowledge of virtually all Evil Corp's systems, doesn't allow for things like on-site daily backups that haven't gone offsite yet, and as previously noted, the anti-Steel Mountain hack doesn't really work at all.

All of this is beside the point-- it's got enough "real" in it to serve the purpose of the story, which is really about Elliot and about the societal critique.

 

[PHOENIXZERO]

Yeah, I should've jumped on the "why didn't they just delete it" talk but as already said it would've been impossible for all that data to be wiped out by just deleting it, just deleting would've made it easy enough to recover and to do enough passes to actually destroy the data to be unrecoverable would've taken days and easily been caught.

 

[M1ch04c4n0]

Guys, guys, wha if...
What if this series is the prequel...


To Dark Angel?

 

[Maklershed]

The show has its faults, but that one made sense to me from the jump. Where did you find it not making sense?

People keep saying that other people with the Tyrell = Elliot theory are almost laughably wrong but Tyrells interactions with the outside world are no different than Mr Robot. I don't see why it's so hard to believe that Tyrell/Elliot are one. At this point it seems likelier to me that Tyrell is real and Elliot is a manifestation of him. The only thing making me think that they wouldn't go that route is they already did it once and it sorta starts getting silly doing it twice .. But then again the shows main protagonist is a corporation literally named Evil Corp, so who knows.

 

[PHOENIXZERO]

Guys, guys, wha if...
What if this series is the prequel...


To Dark Angel?

I think I mentioned something like that with Orphan Black once. Nah, it takes place "today", at this point the "pulse" happened six years ago on Dark Angel.

 

[Tunesmith]

Mac Quayle just tweeted this:

Score... want... now!

 

[-griffy-]

People keep saying that other people with the Tyrell = Elliot theory are almost laughably wrong but Tyrells interactions with the outside world are no different than Mr Robot. I don't see why it's so hard to believe that Tyrell/Elliot are one. At this point it seems likelier to me that Tyrell is real and Elliot is a manifestation of him. The only thing making me think that they wouldn't go that route is they already did it once and it sorta starts getting silly doing it twice .. But then again the shows main protagonist is a corporation literally named Evil Corp, so who knows.

They were very consistent with rules about Mr. Robot and Elliot interacting with other people. Only one of them was "real" at any given time, so other characters could only acknowledge one or the other. They were very careful about how characters talked to Elliot so as not to contradict the reality that he is Mr. Robot. A character wouldn't acknowledge Mr. Robot, for example, and then not know who Elliot is, since they are one in the same.

There are numerous scenes with Tyrell that would break these established rules. Tyrell's assistant not knowing who Elliot is, and talking about Tyrell to Elliot is perhaps the easiest one to point to in the finale. The show has been too thoughtful about the rules for this stuff that I don't think they would abandon them just to have another twist of that nature.

It can't be possible for Tyrell and Elliot to have been the same person for the entire season unless the show actively broke it's own set of rules just for a cheap twist, which doesn't seem like something this show would do.

 

[kyo27]

But then again the shows main protagonist is a corporation literally named Evil Corp, so who knows.

The corporation is not actually named Evil Corp. In episode 1 Elliot states that he has reprogrammed his mind so that he only hears or sees "Evil Corp" when it comes to E Corp and his therapist would shit if she knew.

 

[maxcriden]

They were very consistent with rules about Mr. Robot and Elliot interacting with other people. Only one of them was "real" at any given time, so other characters could only acknowledge one or the other. They were very careful about how characters talked to Elliot so as not to contradict the reality that he is Mr. Robot. A character wouldn't acknowledge Mr. Robot, for example, and then not know who Elliot is, since they are one in the same.

There are numerous scenes with Tyrell that would break these established rules. Tyrell's assistant not knowing who Elliot is, and talking about Tyrell to Elliot is perhaps the easiest one to point to in the finale. The show has been too thoughtful about the rules for this stuff that I don't think they would abandon them just to have another twist of that nature.

It can't be possible for Tyrell and Elliot to have been the same person for the entire season unless the show actively broke it's own set of rules just for a cheap twist, which doesn't seem like something this show would do.

Thanks, -griffy-. This is pretty much what I was going to say in reply, Maklershed, just assuredly better written. Thanks for your response, as well, man, I appreciate it.

 

[Maklershed]

They were very consistent with rules about Mr. Robot and Elliot interacting with other people. Only one of them was "real" at any given time, so other characters could only acknowledge one or the other. They were very careful about how characters talked to Elliot so as not to contradict the reality that he is Mr. Robot. A character wouldn't acknowledge Mr. Robot, for example, and then not know who Elliot is, since they are one in the same.

There are numerous scenes with Tyrell that would break these established rules. Tyrell's assistant not knowing who Elliot is, and talking about Tyrell to Elliot is perhaps the easiest one to point to in the finale. The show has been too thoughtful about the rules for this stuff that I don't think they would abandon them just to have another twist of that nature.

It can't be possible for Tyrell and Elliot to have been the same person for the entire season unless the show actively broke it's own set of rules just for a cheap twist, which doesn't seem like something this show would do.

But aren't Elliott and Mr Robot together multiple times at the arcade and holding conversations with everyone in the room? Maybe I'm just remembering it that way but if you watch closely one keeps leaving the room or something?

The corporation is not actually named Evil Corp. In episode 1 Elliot states that he has reprogrammed his mind so that he only hears or sees "Evil Corp" when it comes to E Corp and his therapist would shit if she knew.

Ah ok thats a nifty idea. But still - if something like that can be explained with 'its because of Elliot's fucked up mind' I dont see why the show couldnt break its own rules in other regards and use the same excuse.

I don't deny that I and other Tyrell=Elliott=Tyrell people are dead wrong, hell its probably the likely outcome we are but I just don't think its so far fetched to think it could be right either.

 

[Zoe]

But aren't Elliott and Mr Robot together multiple times at the arcade and holding conversations with everyone in the room? Maybe I'm just remembering it that way but if you watch closely one keeps leaving the room or something?

Sam Esmail: There's that one scene at the end of episode 5 where we do exactly that, but we were very specific about the blocking. Initially, Elliot hangs back in the shadows, and Robot walks up and engages with Darlene and gets upset, and you'll notice if you watch that scene back, Elliot pulls out his phone because he's getting a call from Shayla, and we cut to Mr. Robot on the other side of the room and he's shaking his head no. And you think that shake of the head is because he's upset about Darlene, and you cut back to Elliot and he's declining the call from Shayla. We were very careful. Obviously, we had to include everybody in on that conversation.
Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-wa...o-telegraph-the-big-twist#Xppb5OfZWXXTFke3.99

.

 

[-griffy-]

But aren't Elliott and Mr Robot together multiple times at the arcade and holding conversations with everyone in the room? Maybe I'm just remembering it that way but if you watch closely one keeps leaving the room or something?

No, that's the thing. Only one or the other is ever talking to anyone. Mr. Robot might be talking to Elliot, but nobody else will acknowledge that. People are only looking at Elliot and Mr. Robot is hanging in the background, or vice versa. There's never an instant where a character will say something to Mr. Robot and then turn to Elliot and say something to him. The closest we get is when Mr. Robot gets mad and yells at Darlene, then Elliot comes over and talks to her, but they stage it very deliberately where Mr. Robot yells at her, then leaves the immediate vicinity, and Elliot comes over after and talks to her.

 

[Jay Shadow]

But aren't Elliott and Mr Robot together multiple times at the arcade and holding conversations with everyone in the room?

Nope. When one of them is talking to the room, the other is not participating at all. There's even one moment where Mr Robot is the active one, and Elliot gets a call. When he looks down at his phone and rejects it they make sure to cut to Mr Robot to show that he's not interacting with anyone at the moment and is ducked in an alcove so you can't see what he's doing (he's checking his phone, because he's Elliot). Once he puts the phone away, Mr Robot goes back to talking.

 

[Rhaknar]

when Ellito was going cold turkey, there is a bit where the guy that was with them (him) says to mr robot "make sure he drinks all of it" or something to that effect. I cant remember if that was also part of the drug binge dream and Elliot never actually gets up from bed tho, as he was sitting down on the floor at the foot of the bed when he says that.

if everything that happens, even in the room still, that is out of the bed is part of the dream, then thats fine

 

[Maklershed]

.

No, that's the thing. Only one or the other is ever talking to anyone. Mr. Robot might be talking to Elliot, but nobody else will acknowledge that. People are only looking at Elliot and Mr. Robot is hanging in the background, or vice versa. There's never an instant where a character will say something to Mr. Robot and then turn to Elliot and say something to him. The closest we get is when Mr. Robot gets mad and yells at Darlene, then Elliot comes over and talks to her, but they stage it very deliberately where Mr. Robot yells at her, then leaves the immediate vicinity, and Elliot comes over after and talks to her.

Nope. When one of them is talking to the room, the other is not participating at all. There's even one moment where Mr Robot is the active one, and Elliot gets a call. When he looks down at his phone and rejects it they make sure to cut to Mr Robot to show that he's not interacting with anyone at the moment and is ducked in an alcove so you can't see what he's doing (he's checking his phone, because he's Elliot). Once he puts the phone away, Mr Robot goes back to talking.

Those brilliant bastards. Ok, now I think the Tyrell=Elliot people are wrong. :b

 

[Trey]

Ah ok thats a nifty idea. But still - if something like that can be explained with 'its because of Elliot's fucked up mind' I dont see why the show couldnt break its own rules in other regards and use the same excuse.

I don't deny that I and other Tyrell=Elliott=Tyrell people are dead wrong, hell its probably the likely outcome we are but I just don't think its so far fetched to think it could be right either.

Gideon interacts with both characters in an individually distinct manner. From Gideon's point of view, elliot is mutually exclusive with Tyrell.

The show making them the same person fundamentally subverts the nature of the writing and unreliable narrator plot device with a petty contrivance that adds little to nothing to the overarching story.

 

[sneakypete]

So Elliot's therapist is back in the picture.. I hope she gets to meet Mr Robot at some point.

 

[Mr. Saturn]

Adding to that is that Elliot's observations on society are of the intellectual maturity of a 14 year old which is why I find it incredibly hard to believe that people would be celebrating in the streets and supporting FSociety because "their debt got erased". As if that a) would suddenly solve all of the world's problems b) wouldn't also affect the tens of thousands of people actually employed by Evilcorp.

Elliot's sick it kind of makes sense his views on society would be warped. He spends his time hacking people while taking morphine and crying in his apartment, he's not exactly a stable person, the idea that someone like Elliot would have such views on society makes sense to me. As for the hack not solving the world's problems, I think that's the whole point, Elliot may want to help but his actions can often have devastating consequences. Like when he put Vera in jail and Shayla ended up dead.

I loved the pilot, thought that the middle episodes were great, but was hugely disappointed with the finale. It unfortunately emphasized all the problems within the writing of the show (for me).

The "main plot", that is the hacking scheme, is simply not engaging to me. I don't care about accuracy and the technology, the plan is simply stupid, shortsighted and would ruin lives of all the people in the world if it worked - not just evil corporations. It's hard to believe that idealistic and supposedly intelligent group of people in fsociety would think even for a second that it's not only sustainable but even good. For that reason, I cannot get invested. Doesn't help that the characters there are so under-developed, apart from Darlene - and even she's more of an idea of a sister than a character. I simply don't get what drives her, even if on paper that should be obvious.

Shayla plot was dropped, forgotten and simply was there for unneeded drama. What was the plot purpose to kill her, really? Elliot's mental state was fragile already and Shayla's death didn't change much. It was completely removed from the main plot too.

To your first point about fsociety's plan being short sighted and how its odd that they would consider the plan good, I would say this. Maybe they're not that good? I don't think the show is necessarily expecting us to cheer for fsociety.

Elliot's views on society are being filtered through a sick mind, I mean the guy was taking morphine, he wasn't taking any of the medication prescribed by his psychiatrist, he didn't realize he was hallucinating his own dad, his recreational activity is hacking people from a darkly lit apartment.

And its strange that a person like that would come up with a twisted idea of "saving the world" and not consider how his actions are basically fucking everyone over? I mean the truth is Elliot probably never considered how actions were going to affect everyone or he views all the negativity as necessary sacrifices, which would be in line with what his Mr. Robot personality said about blowing up steel mountain, his original plan for taking care of the tapes. His Mr. Robot personality basically said that there's a war and that there's going to be collateral damage.

It's easy to forget that Elliot wanted to blow up steel mountain it just happened to come a separate personality that he thought was a real person at the time. So obviously when Mr. Robot talks about sacrifices and collateral damage, Elliot himself believes these things too even if he doesn't realize, so Elliot's plan makes sense when you consider its coming from a person with a warped mind.

In short, I agree that fsociety's plan for fixing the world is actually pretty crappy, but I think that's the point.

 

[blueteainfusion]

To your first point about fsociety's plan being short sighted and how its odd that they would consider the plan good, I would say this. Maybe they're not that good? I don't think the show is necessarily expecting us to cheer for fsociety.

Elliot's views on society are being filtered through a sick mind, I mean the guy was taking morphine, he wasn't taking any of the medication prescribed by his psychiatrist, he didn't realize he was hallucinating his own dad, his recreational activity is hacking people from a darkly lit apartment.

And its strange that a person like that would come up with a twisted idea of "saving the world" and not consider how his actions are basically fucking everyone over? I mean the truth is Elliot probably never considered how actions were going to affect everyone or he views all the negativity as necessary sacrifices, which would be in line with what his Mr. Robot personality said about blowing up steel mountain, his original plan for taking care of the tapes. His Mr. Robot personality basically said that there's a war and that there's going to be collateral damage.

It's easy to forget that Elliot wanted to blow up steel mountain it just happened to come a separate personality that he thought was a real person at the time. So obviously when Mr. Robot talks about sacrifices and collateral damage, Elliot himself believes these things too even if he doesn't realize, so Elliot's plan makes sense when you consider its coming from a person with a warped mind.

In short, I agree that fsociety's plan for fixing the world is actually pretty crappy, but I think that's the point.

I suspect the pacing may be an issue here. This is why Shayla's death worked so well in that arc (maybe not in the narrative, but it's another issue, as I said before). Eliott's decision regarding sending Vera to jail was a quick, spur-of-the-moment thing and it makes sense that he wouldn't consider all of the consequences. He underestimated his opponent and Shayla payed the ultimate price for his hero complex. But we're buying this, because there wasn't enough time to think, for him and for us. Heavy-handed foreshadowing as it was, I really have no major complaints for the construction of this plot-thread by itself.

I feel the opposite regarding fsociety. Eliott I could excuse, as he's delusional - his "friends", not so much. They had months to plan this, we're supposed to find them at least competent enough to pull the hack so complex. They not strike me as mentally ill, like Eliott, so why on earth wouldn't at least one of them voice the obvious concern about the state of the world economy in case the plan worked? If we had one serious conversation about this and could hear their rationalizations, maybe, just maybe I could be sold on this storyline. As it stands now, the show will expect us to feel at least somewhat sorry for them when they'll have an inevitable "My God, what have we done?" moment in future episodes. I just doubt it will work on me.

I'm not saying one cannot enjoy this plot, I'm saying that for ME, it falls completely flat. I can suspend my disbelief in a lot of cases, provided I care about the characters and buy their motivations. In this case, I don't. There is a lot of good stuff in the show - pity that the huge chunk of it, the A-plot, annoys me so much.

 

[Siegcram]

I feel the opposite regarding fsociety. Eliott I could excuse, as he's delusional - his "friends", not so much. They had months to plan this, we're supposed to find them at least competent enough to pull the hack so complex. They not strike me as mentally ill, like Eliott, so why on earth wouldn't at least one of them voice the obvious concern about the state of the world economy in case the plan worked? If we had one serious conversation about this and could hear their rationalizations, maybe, just maybe I could be sold on this storyline. As it stands now, the show will expect us to feel at least somewhat sorry for them when they'll have an inevitable "My God, what have we done?" moment in future episodes. I just doubt it will work on me.

Disregarding the fact that we know next to nothing about the fsociety members outside of the Alderson family, it's quite obvious that the hack itself wasn't supposed to solve anything or really accomplish much on its own. It was meant as an agent of change on a much greater scale, by showing the population at large that even conglomerats as massive as E Corp can be brought down if a sufficent precentage of people put their mind to it. Underneath the anti-corporate messaging you can see that the real enemy of fsociety is the general apathy that defines, well, society. That's what Elliot was getting at with his imaginary rant during his therapy session.

None of the team's motivations have really been explored on a personal level, but you don't need to be mentally ill to participate in this, just a technologically inclined anarchist with some kind of social optimism.

 

[Nyx]

Watched the last EP last night, thought it was a great episode even though it didn't feel like a season finale. But on the other hand, ep9 did feel like that so all is fine with me.

Great story, characters, filming and soundtrack.

A 9/10 from me and I can't wait for the next seasons!

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

No, that's the thing. Only one or the other is ever talking to anyone. Mr. Robot might be talking to Elliot, but nobody else will acknowledge that. People are only looking at Elliot and Mr. Robot is hanging in the background, or vice versa. There's never an instant where a character will say something to Mr. Robot and then turn to Elliot and say something to him. The closest we get is when Mr. Robot gets mad and yells at Darlene, then Elliot comes over and talks to her, but they stage it very deliberately where Mr. Robot yells at her, then leaves the immediate vicinity, and Elliot comes over after and talks to her.

It was this scene that convinced me that the Elliot=Mr Robot theory was real (which I had just heard shortly before the ep). It was pretty cool, actually.

 

[Mr. Saturn]

I suspect the pacing may be an issue here. This is why Shayla's death worked so well in that arc (maybe not in the narrative, but it's another issue, as I said before). Eliott's decision regarding sending Vera to jail was a quick, spur-of-the-moment thing and it makes sense that he wouldn't consider all of the consequences. He underestimated his opponent and Shayla payed the ultimate price for his hero complex. But we're buying this, because there wasn't enough time to think, for him and for us. Heavy-handed foreshadowing as it was, I really have no major complaints for the construction of this plot-thread by itself.

I feel the opposite regarding fsociety. Eliott I could excuse, as he's delusional - his "friends", not so much. They had months to plan this, we're supposed to find them at least competent enough to pull the hack so complex. They not strike me as mentally ill, like Eliott, so why on earth wouldn't at least one of them voice the obvious concern about the state of the world economy in case the plan worked? If we had one serious conversation about this and could hear their rationalizations, maybe, just maybe I could be sold on this storyline. As it stands now, the show will expect us to feel at least somewhat sorry for them when they'll have an inevitable "My God, what have we done?" moment in future episodes. I just doubt it will work on me.

I'm not saying one cannot enjoy this plot, I'm saying that for ME, it falls completely flat. I can suspend my disbelief in a lot of cases, provided I care about the characters and buy their motivations. In this case, I don't. There is a lot of good stuff in the show - pity that the huge chunk of it, the A-plot, annoys me so much.

I get what you mean when it comes to Elliot's friends in fsociety. I mean Elliot is mentally ill, it doesn't seem like the rest of them have that excuse. I'm a little worried about the show getting too up its own ass with the secret society and fsociety. Hopefully in season 2 they'll take the time to let these characters breathe and develop. Especially the members of fsociety considering I don't even know hardly any of their member's names.

 

[Maklershed]

It was this scene that convinced me that the Elliot=Mr Robot theory was real (which I had just heard shortly before the ep). It was pretty cool, actually.

I suspected from pretty early on but was finally sure of it when Mr. Robot was randomly in the stairwell while Shayla being held hostage.

 

[NimbusD]

No, that's the thing. Only one or the other is ever talking to anyone. Mr. Robot might be talking to Elliot, but nobody else will acknowledge that. People are only looking at Elliot and Mr. Robot is hanging in the background, or vice versa. There's never an instant where a character will say something to Mr. Robot and then turn to Elliot and say something to him. The closest we get is when Mr. Robot gets mad and yells at Darlene, then Elliot comes over and talks to her, but they stage it very deliberately where Mr. Robot yells at her, then leaves the immediate vicinity, and Elliot comes over after and talks to her.

I started to notice this around the third episode (or so, I dont actually remember when), but once you notice it, you see it everywhere. I do have to hand it to them though they really do go out of their way to make scenes like the one you mentioned that make you question the thought that they might be the same person and prevent it from being too obvious.

 

[DevelopmentArrested]

Just finished Season 1, this show is amazing.

The acting, script, attention to detail, the way its shot, its opening credits, the soundtrack, the score, fucking everything.

The score is the main highlight for me - between this and The Knick - Mac Quayle and Cliff Martinez can do no wrong (dunno if they work together but looks like it)

 

[crazygambit]

when Ellito was going cold turkey, there is a bit where the guy that was with them (him) says to mr robot "make sure he drinks all of it" or something to that effect. I cant remember if that was also part of the drug binge dream and Elliot never actually gets up from bed tho, as he was sitting down on the floor at the foot of the bed when he says that.

if everything that happens, even in the room still, that is out of the bed is part of the dream, then thats fine

When he goes to the heroin house I remember the guy at the entrance telling Mr. Robot that he couldn't go in, that Elliot had to go in alone. I will pay special attention to that part when I rewatch season 1.

 

[Zoe]

When he goes to the heroin house I remember the guy at the entrance telling Mr. Robot that he couldn't go in, that Elliot had to go in alone. I will pay special attention to that part when I rewatch season 1.

That was all a dream...

 

[crazygambit]

That was all a dream...

Ahh somehow I missed that.

 

[BlackGhost]

Finally finished s1, pretty great. I feel like I need to go through it again as I probably missed stuff or to understand certain things better.

Any speculations for s2?

 

[tirminyl]

I finally watched the last episode and I just don't know what to think.

 

[IKizzLE]

The associate producer of this show is a classmate of mine. She almost spoiled to me the fate of Tyrell. I was super curious....but I can wait....smh.

 

[Mike Works]

That was all a dream...

Ahh somehow I missed that.

He gets shot dude!

 

[PHOENIXZERO]

I thought it was meant for just music since that's all I've seen but Carly Chaikin and Portia Doubleday have a few, here's one.
https://instagram.com/p/1lL5E2JNWg/