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Mr. Robot season_2.0 |OT| We Would Care, Bill - Wednesdays on USA
- Thread starter CRS
- Start date
Monocle
Member
It picks up a lot in the last half, but never really achieves the same tone and propulsive pacing of Season 1.
PHOENIXZERO
Member
They also used the Ballad of Davey Crockett and whatever song it was from when Marty returned from 1955 with Red laying on the bench and probably something else I'm forgetting.
That's what I like most about this season :O
Why would it? This season doesn't have the singular focus point S1 had. Esmail explicitly said each season would be distinctly different from the last.
It makes sense for S2 to open up and slow down since it is more about the ramifications of the 5/9 hack and how it affected each character and the world at large. Not to mention that the cast has been expanded considerably.
Depending on whatever the fuck stage 2 is, S3 will probably ramp up again as the different factions converge on their respective endgame.
-Plasma Reus-
Service guarantees member status
Angela crap brings the show down.
I just wish they'd kill that character off.
I just wish they'd kill that character off.
BenjaminBirdie
Banned
This show continues to be the scariest show on television. That Angela stuff was television perfection not seen since Dale Cooper popped into the Black Lodge.
-Plasma Reus-
Service guarantees member status
The only good angela scene in a while.
EdibleExplosives
Member
Angela is one of the most interesting characters on the show imo.
Grinchy
Banned
I want an extra scene where Whiterose sits all the employees down and explains the plan for how they must capture Angela and only play old songs that were from Back to the Future, hire a contractor to outfit a room in a random house in all black with only a fishtank in it, find an old computer off of Ebay along with a red phone, find a child actor on craigslist who is ok with pretending to be tortured, ect...
It's all so stupidly bizarre that I don't know how anyone can take it seriously. They went off the deep end with that scene and there's no returning.
It's all so stupidly bizarre that I don't know how anyone can take it seriously. They went off the deep end with that scene and there's no returning.
Hope Elliot is put in a position like the Flash was when he swapped minds with Lex Luthor in Justice League Unlimited.
Elliot! What's the plan for Phase 2?
Uhhh. The plan. Ummm. Ok! How about we go around the table and everyone tells me their part of the plan!
Not surprised to see Time Travel mentioned here. I keep getting this weird vibe from the second season that there will be some super natural element added. Figured it's just the season trying to out-weird itself.
Elliot! What's the plan for Phase 2?
Uhhh. The plan. Ummm. Ok! How about we go around the table and everyone tells me their part of the plan!
Not surprised to see Time Travel mentioned here. I keep getting this weird vibe from the second season that there will be some super natural element added. Figured it's just the season trying to out-weird itself.
I don't mind angela because she offers a window into a bunch of other more interesting stuff like whats going on with Price and Whiterose, but I can't fathom why either of them are interested in her. Elliot has super hacker skills that caused this whole shebang and is coming in for a second phase of it. In comparison, Angela is just a mildly clever, somewhat plucky girl. Like, the actual thing of value she does is putting pressure on others and hoping they break, like how she arranged that interview and bribed that group suing E-corp with money to remove the investigation thing. Like, how she stole the files is another example of this. She called the girl away, used the thing to copy everything and kept cool under pressure when the boss stuck his head in the door and thought she was the actual secretary.
It's not bad or anything, but the show makes her out to be some super powerful entity comparable to Elliot (since whiterose herself made the comparison), but she's really just a normal, if courageous, girl who they could take care of at any given instant. I mean, every position of power she has gained was at the behest of someone more powerful. She was recommended by Terry Colby out of guilt, she bought her risk management position because Price felt reciprocating her help. Elliot moves himself through the plot, not all the time, but for a lot of it, while Angela is moved by others. So it's just weird to have her treated as such a big deal by the real holders of power.
It's not bad or anything, but the show makes her out to be some super powerful entity comparable to Elliot (since whiterose herself made the comparison), but she's really just a normal, if courageous, girl who they could take care of at any given instant. I mean, every position of power she has gained was at the behest of someone more powerful. She was recommended by Terry Colby out of guilt, she bought her risk management position because Price felt reciprocating her help. Elliot moves himself through the plot, not all the time, but for a lot of it, while Angela is moved by others. So it's just weird to have her treated as such a big deal by the real holders of power.
-Pyromaniac-
Member
show got me trippin balls on the real
I don't see how the show portraits Angela as "powerful" at all.
What makes her valuable to the real power players is her connection to certain key events in the past and the Alderson clan, something both Whiterose and Price have explicitly stated.
She is important by circumstance.
What makes her valuable to the real power players is her connection to certain key events in the past and the Alderson clan, something both Whiterose and Price have explicitly stated.
She is important by circumstance.
Still really like Mr.Robot but that's almost how the whole season feels to me. And at the end we get cliffhangers that resolve into nothing or just more questions.
I like the tone, the style, the music, the characters. But a bit more clarity about what is going on would be nice.
Also am disappointed how they held back Tyrell til the end of the second to last episode. He was my favorite character in S1 and I really missed him throughout S2.
MegaManTrigger
Banned
The problem is if Angela is let loose, she was going to eventually blab about the shit ECorp did with actual evidence, and get the Washington Township Facility shut down amongst other damages that ECorp would have suffered (whether that evidence is permissible is a completely different story considering she "hacked" into a co-worker's account to acquire them). If Washington Township gets shut down, Whiterose loses his one big bargaining chip. This is why Price was interested in the first place, by having Angela do what she does, she takes away any leverage that Whiterose had over him, even if it meant damaging his business. Now that Whiterose intervened over her, it starts to play out the "control is an illusion" theme that was shown throughout the season, Price doesn't have anyone now to protect himself from whatever Whiterose is going to do.
That being said, this is when Angela and Elliot come off a lot more similar than you think. On one hand, Elliot/Mr. Robot are committed to taking down ECorp as a way to bring down the economic system that had promoted disparity for centuries. However, Angela is committed to bringing ECorp down for a slightly different reason: as vengeance for killing her mom (you could argue that Elliot is also doing it for vengeance, but that reason hasn't really been made as obvious as Elliot's hatred over the disparate nature of economics and his internal dialogues being about money and its control over society). Their skills are obviously different, but I think there's something that connects each other and that's how they responded to the trauma that the WTF inflicted in their lives.
It's people reading way too much into what Whiterose told Elliot in S1, and who Whiterose represents.
"You hack people. I hack time."
They automatically assume that Whiterose is literally hacking time to find access to the multiverse, which IMO is too weird for the show. They assume that the power brown-outs are a strange way to have a time machine working, when really Darlene referenced that infrastructure was going to be the next point of attack. That and news reports referencing how infrastructure has been declining now that 5/9 has had drastic effects on the economy.
While the show does a great job in showing how hacks work, the one thing that people tend to miss is that hacking is used as a metaphor to show when a character wants to gain knowledge about a particular topic. For instance, in the majority of the first season, you see Elliot hack into accounts of everyday average joes/jos to try and understand what it's like to be normal. That being said, I think the whole point behind Whiterose "hacking time," is that she's exploring how time works. More specifically, she knows that possibilities come into being/become shut down with regards to time (90 days soliloquy to Angela + WTF), and she also knows that because time is finite (with regards to human life being ephemeral), that you must take advantage of whatever time is given to you. That's why she mentions the whole 90 days to Angela, and why she's anal about how much time people get to have with her. As she says, "there are always deadlines."
Watched like 9 episodes yesterday to catch up on my DVR. But was confused about stuff around episode 6 or 7. Don't know if spoilers need to be here but will be cautious anyways.
When Elliot was in jail...was busting Ray for the tor site real or fake? Did his friend actually kill the people who were after him?
Zoe
Member
Everything that happened really did happened, just dressed differently.
torre_avenue
Banned
Please don't go off the sci-fi deep end, Mr. Robot.
I love you, but I don't Primer meets hacking. I want a semi-realistic drama about a man with a mental illness, finding who he really is and fighting his demons. I don't want any fated to save the world bullshit, I don't want time travel, or clones, or fucking Skynet. I just want a realistic-ish grounded story.
I love you, but I don't Primer meets hacking. I want a semi-realistic drama about a man with a mental illness, finding who he really is and fighting his demons. I don't want any fated to save the world bullshit, I don't want time travel, or clones, or fucking Skynet. I just want a realistic-ish grounded story.
We're gonna know for sure this Wednesday but I don't think you'll get what you want. I wish I was wrong though.
Alex Stroud
Banned
I honestly feel that the finale will make or break the series for a lot of people. All the uncertainty swirling around every character and plot development makes it exhausting to continue caring.
umop_3pisdn
Member
I think we've already crossed the Rubicon with that Angela and White Rose scene. If that doesn't amount to something 'fantastic' then it would just be disappointing in another way, because it would be a wasted scene posturing at a mystery that isn't really there. Before I would have agreed with you, but now that it seems to have already begun doing in that direction, I think the best hope for the show is doing the fantastic stuff well. It's theoretically possible that it might be done well, but at this point it's just really hard to imagine what that might look like, and that's part of the 'problem', or the prospective anxiety that there may be a problem with this direction in the story.
Turin Turambar
Member
Hah, that was pretty funny.
Pretty funny because in this very same thread two weeks ago, we were commenting on the rumors of Tyrell appearing as another illusion for the main character in the third season. People said it wouldn't make sense because Elliot doesn't have a strong personal link to him, unlike his father.
I said I would totally expect something like that so I wouldn't be surprised, not because in-fiction reasons, but because out-of-fiction reasons, as it's the type of shit the series strives for: having twiiiiists, keep the audience second guessing, reveling in unreliable narrator-isms, playing with dreams, illusions or other trippy moments, characters talking to the audience, etc. Hell, they love it so much in this second season they spent 4 episodes building up the illusion of Elliot being on the streets so they could say after to the audience "surprise, it was all a lie!", in an effort to maintain their reputation after the main twist in season 1.
Some people said I was wrong, blah blah blah.
And now here we have this episode. Not only in this episode we had specifically Tyrell appearing (is he real? isn't he? What will it be?!! etc) as rumored, the episode in general showed that love for 'unreliable narrator', for fanwankery, and trippy scenes like Angela's even if it doesn't make a lot of sense to happen. Heck, I thought Angela was in a dream (sorry Angela, the crazy character role was already taken) but no, it was all happening (!).
Pretty funny because in this very same thread two weeks ago, we were commenting on the rumors of Tyrell appearing as another illusion for the main character in the third season. People said it wouldn't make sense because Elliot doesn't have a strong personal link to him, unlike his father.
I said I would totally expect something like that so I wouldn't be surprised, not because in-fiction reasons, but because out-of-fiction reasons, as it's the type of shit the series strives for: having twiiiiists, keep the audience second guessing, reveling in unreliable narrator-isms, playing with dreams, illusions or other trippy moments, characters talking to the audience, etc. Hell, they love it so much in this second season they spent 4 episodes building up the illusion of Elliot being on the streets so they could say after to the audience "surprise, it was all a lie!", in an effort to maintain their reputation after the main twist in season 1.
Some people said I was wrong, blah blah blah.
And now here we have this episode. Not only in this episode we had specifically Tyrell appearing (is he real? isn't he? What will it be?!! etc) as rumored, the episode in general showed that love for 'unreliable narrator', for fanwankery, and trippy scenes like Angela's even if it doesn't make a lot of sense to happen. Heck, I thought Angela was in a dream (sorry Angela, the crazy character role was already taken) but no, it was all happening (!).
torre_avenue
Banned
I have a feeling that the finale is going to be the most polarizing thing this series has ever done. It's either going to be praised as genius or Sam going off the deep end into sci-fi wankery. I love the uncertainty and the tension and the hanging threads, but I don't want it to be "Mobley and Trenton were captured by Time Lords and sent to the past" or "this is just an advanced AI program." I just want it to stay relatively grounded in reality.
I really want to believe the Whiterose-Angela scene is just Whiterose convincing Angela that her plan for the future will bring humanity into the future i.e. clean energy driven, credits instead of cash, etc. And I'm with you; what I'm expressing above is just what I want, but regardless of what happens, I'm on this ride all the way to the end. If Sam wants to go sci-fi, I'll venture down that path with the rest of y'all because I believe he'll do it well.
Turin Turambar
Member
BTW, I think the theory of the Dark Army being
is very interesting. I wouldn't mind if the series goes to that path.
I just thought they were really not a hacking group but Chinese-NSA, something that the characters haven't noticed.
Following that hypothesis, there was something that bothered me and it's how the Dark Army mook that killed himself when he was hurt in the leg. It felt cheap to me, normal people aren't that loyal/crazy, not even if you are part of the government. But... I could see it happening if they are crazy people
.
actually Chinese revolutionaries with the endgame of bringing down their government
I just thought they were really not a hacking group but Chinese-NSA, something that the characters haven't noticed.
Following that hypothesis, there was something that bothered me and it's how the Dark Army mook that killed himself when he was hurt in the leg. It felt cheap to me, normal people aren't that loyal/crazy, not even if you are part of the government. But... I could see it happening if they are crazy people
believing in the Revolution
Jon Carter
Member
I see "stage 2" being referred to as "phase 2" here all the time. What's up with that?
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
Someone killing themselves for failing and how believable it is all depends on what the stakes are. If their family is at risk if they are taken alive that seems plausible to me.
torre_avenue
Banned
I think its because of the phase signs when Elliot and Angela were in the subway.
Two Phase signs = Phase Two.
Discotheque
Banned
Yeah I really didn't like that Angela scene. It felt like a poor attempt at a twin peaks-esque black lodge sequence. Except it doesn't have the presence of supernatural or dream elements in it. (That we know of I guess) so it all just seems like a pointless exercise in bring weird
Still overall I've liked this season a lot more than the last. The show was at its weakest with these corny gangsters esmail wrote and tyrell the bootleg Patrick Bateman. It's strengths were playing with the viewer using Elliots unstable mind and perception. So the fact that he doubled down on that this season made it all the more better to me.
tearsintherain
Member
Rami Malek won an emmy for outstanding lead actor in a drama series, well deserved. That was the only big emmy I believe Mr. Robot won. Since the elibility time period was June 1st 2015 - May 31st, 2016 it won the award for season 1, not season 2 - this years episodes will be eligible for 2017 Emmys.
His first line on getting on stage to accept the award - "Please tell me you are seeing this too"
http://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/Rami-Malek-Emmys-Acceptance-Speech-Video-2016-42414728
His first line on getting on stage to accept the award - "Please tell me you are seeing this too"
http://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/Rami-Malek-Emmys-Acceptance-Speech-Video-2016-42414728
ScaryShark
Banned
It's pretty stunning television. No one is reaching as high as Esmail is right now. It's also only one singular act that might end up being 1/3 or 1/4 of the entire thing. I think when the finale happens people are going to feel differently about this season when everything comes in to focus. The groundwork is being laid EVERYWHERE. A lot of stuff is going to be right in our face this entire time after Wednesday.
Net_Wrecker
Member
At this point, if the stakes aren't raised in such a way as to match the surreal nature of that black lodge voight kampff ....thing, it's going to feel like such a let down. So part of me actually does want the show to go full anime and drop a bombshell revelation that changes the way we look at everything, beyond another Elliot psychological break, or weak E Corp/Dark Army reveal. Cause honestly it's getting hard to buy into any of the tension as each successive scene feels like it could be wiped away as a misrepresentation or metaphor. Without an anchor this is like a runaway train of questions and mystery unfolding into more questions and mystery, especially the way cliffhangers and perspective has been dealt with this season.
Idk, the show is still very intriguing if only to see where it goes each week, but I don't know how much I'll actually care about anything if it keeps playing out the way it has been.
Idk, the show is still very intriguing if only to see where it goes each week, but I don't know how much I'll actually care about anything if it keeps playing out the way it has been.
LowParry
Member
So I've been catching up with this show. Just finished Ep. 8 of S2. I really enjoy the show and kind of glad that it stepped away for a bit from the whole hacking side of things. But maybe I missed it.
When did Elliot end up in jail and for what? Maybe this gets explained in the later episodes. And also there's the black man with the dog (forget the guy's name already, bleh. Chess is a beautiful game). But after we find out that Elliot was just hiding the fact of his jail life, the scenes that played out afterwards don't really explain who he was or where that computer was. My impressions were he was one of the guards. Again, does this get explained out in later episodes?
Episode 9 should explain it.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
The episode right after the Reveal explains it.
Elliot was charged for hacking his Therapist's bf's social media account, and stealing his dog.
Ray, the guy with the dog and illegal website, is a prison warden.
Ray, the guy with the dog and illegal website, is a prison warden.