[Madness]

So we're watching Mr. Robot...

(click to show/hide)

Who else thinks Mr. Robot killed Elliot's Dad?

[Wilshire]

Ah, was just going to make a topic this morning .

Spoilers up through and including episode 3:

(click to show/hide)

First of all, I'm not convinced that Mr. Robot exists at all. Note that no one so far has actually interacted with him in any measurable way other than Elliot. Episode 3 this was most obvious, since he was at Allsafe and the woman he acausted didn't react, nor he did not pay for the drink he had in the next scene, and the bartender did not serve him his beverage on screen or react to his compliments or jests. Even the hacker chick (whats her name? Princess or something?) never actually acknowledged Mr.Robot in the several scenes they've had together. I'd also like to point out that at the end of episode 3 Elliot sits down at the same computer Mr. Robot sat in during their first meeting...

That said, the rest of the little hacker group in the fun society building most assuredly exist. However, I can't decide how much what is going on with Evil Corp is the work of this group, f society, or if its somehow mostly tied to the other hacker group that is accosting his friend and her boyfriend. Might be that they are the "dark army" referenced in the first episode, and they are working with, yet independantly from, fsociety.

As for the VP guy, i have no idea. Obviously he's trying to get the CTO spot, and probably will after he systematically destroys all the other candidates via the secretary's phone that he hacked. Mostly unrelated, but too bad his wife is pregnant, as it would have made the bondage scene better imo .

[SilentRoamer]

Starting this series soon. As someone in the field a lot of guys in the office are saying this is the most accurate depiction of hacking they have seen on screen. Normally its laughable and we play a game in the office of pausing shows and analysing the code in the background, some of the stuff in popular media is hilarious, a quick Google will show you.

[Wilshire]

Pretty sure its illegal to show actual hacking and/or working code to that effect on any tv and/or movie screen.

As far as accuracy, I don't know, but at least they use a dos window. What they do show and  how they explain whats going on seems logical. Seems legit.

[H]

My wife and I watched all three current episodes, some observations:

(click to show/hide)

The Fight Club references are all over.  I picked up on the monologue aspect immediately.  He even sounds something like Edward Norton in delivering it.  The "plan" is even the same as Project Mayhem in Fight Club.

As such, I am pretty sure that Mr Robot is not real, this is a Tyler Durden ploy.  The part with him in the office seemed to be a clear giveaway, since how could he have gotten access?  How would no one have noticed, not even the woman he was sexually harassing?

Also, it would explain Darlene more so, as she is essentially Marla, exposed to both sides of the Elliot/Mr Robot dichotomy.  No wonder she has such a short temper with him.

[Wilshire]

Yup all that seems to fit the bill, which is disappointing. I'm hoping for some kind of double bluff, otherwise its too much of a "modern"/future retelling of fightclub.

[H]

Yup all that seems to fit the bill, which is disappointing. I'm hoping for some kind of double bluff, otherwise its too much of a "modern"/future retelling of

Yup all that seems to fit the bill, which is disappointing. I'm hoping for some kind of double bluff, otherwise its too much of a "modern"/future retelling of fightclub.

Yeah, they have reupped for a second season already, so I guess they do have some idea of a long-game in mind.

Tyrell is definitely something of a wild-card.  I had to go look it up, he speaks Swedish to his wife and she speaks Danish to him, which explains why I couldn't pick up at all what languages they were speaking, not that I imagine it's significant.

[Wilshire]

He's definitely a key player, probably the most important. I'd not be surprised if he was a more skilled hacker than Elliot or any of the other hacker groups... If one can go so far as to measure such things.

Good catch though that he was speaking different languages. I though it was all French, shows what I know .

[H]

I actually thought it was French too, because when Elliot walks in to the board room in the previous episode, Tyrell says something to him in French.  As him and the wife talked though, I noticed none of it sounded French.  My wife can sort of understand some French and so we realized it was something else...

[Camlost]

I'm surprised this thread hasn't seen some more action given recent developments in the story.

I was reluctant to buy into the Fight Club allegory as it seemed far too obvious, but it hasn't been entirely eschewed yet, excepting

(click to show/hide)

Mr. Robot not being figmentary.

I was also waiting for Tyrell to be revealed as a much more tech capable character than he had been portrayed as initially. I want to argue that he might be working towards a similar end as Elliot but with a much more self-centered end.

(click to show/hide)

I can't imagine his wife risking her pregnancy for anything so mundane as wealth and status.

I've also been entertaining some thoughts recently that the "third person" to which Elliot is describing events is less an emotional outlet as it is a constructed alternate ego, a truly dispassionate, objective personality to which he can justify "Elliot's" self

[Camlost]

Well, just watched the most recent episode. Ignore just about everything I had written in the previous post..

Although I was certain that

(click to show/hide)

Darlene had interacted with Mr. Robot in a previous episode or am I go infer that Elliot has always been Mr. Robot?

[Wilshire]

Through 9

(click to show/hide)

So yeah, totally called Fight Club: The Remake.

Anyway, now I feel compulsed to go back through and see if anyone else may be fabricated, as the hallucination thing seems too obvious to just be Mr. Robot.

Yeah, I think he has always Mr. Robot, his dad did die like he was supposed too - see injuries collapsing onto Elliot post-revelation.

I'm irritated that he isn't real. Episode 1 and 2 they were so careful and subtle making Mr. Robot seem real. After that he started having his own interactions with people, which is irritating to me.

[Camlost]

I felt like I had been watching all season to find a moment in which Mr. Robot interacts with someone other than Elliot, else it fall precisely into the same pattern as Fight Club. Now I'm not so sure though. I thought he had, but I might be wrong. On top of that, I think the second season should be quite a bit more exciting given everything that we've seen, and I feel that might be saying a bit. I think the stakes have been raised given the last episode.

I guess the only thing I'm hesitating about is

(click to show/hide)

if Elliot has been Mr robot all this time and all MrR interactions have been Elliot then I feel there has been a disparity between the responses of other characters. Maybe they know he's unstable and overlook much of it, but how much leniency can I give to the writers

You're right though, they do make an effort to point out that Elliot experienced injury during the old home scene

[Wilshire]

Alright, everything here is a spoiler.

(click to show/hide)

The first blatant interaction Mr. Robot has with a person, other than Elliot, is when he steals the key card to get into Steel Mountain. Mr. Robot just walks up to a guy, bumps into him (the man actually jumps when they contact), and he moves on (key-card acquired). Directly following that, he makes a big deal about putting a tip in the tip jar, but no one reacts.

After that, there are a few other scenes that have Mr. Robot alone with other characters. The two that stand out are with the one F-society guy the 'quits' and Mr. Robot tells him he's crazy and he'll kill him if he doesn't come back. The other is with whats-his-name crazy VP guy, they have a conversation in the car.

I have been watching the other character's reactions to MrR vs. Elliot, but not closely enough to say if its consistent or not.
However, I feel that there is some confusion. Since MrR is both 'real' in the sense that he is Elliot, but also imaginary in that he exist only within Elliot's mind. So you have Real MrR, RMR, and Imaginary MrR, IMR.

RMR is Elliot, and all the things he does are actually Elliot.
IMR is only in Elliot's mind. Everything he does did not in fact happen in real life, ie no one saw/heard it other than Elliot.

So, in the sense with both MrR and Elliot, this is IMR, and nothing 'he' does happens, thus no one reacts to him.
When Elliot is not around, thats RMR, and those scense are Elliot-as-MrR actually doing things.



I will go on to say that the interaction with the dark army hacking AllSafe now make way more sense. They set up that whole hack with the CD so that they could, at their liesure, speak directly with  MrR/Elliot. I think whiterose was irritated/dissapointed that he got Elliot, who is apparently less ingenious and diabolical, than his alter-ego MrR. That whole sense would likely have played out entirely differently if he had his MrR hat on.

[Somnambulist]

All other considerations aside, I liked the nod Mr. Robot gave to Fight Club in the use of the instrumental version of 'Where Is My Mind?" during the climax of last week's episode.  It was such powerful music to use in that climactic moment in Fight Club, I had to explain to my wife my nod of approval and grin when the music started in Mr. Robot.  Total nerd moment.  lol