Mr. Robot on USA network

My wife and I tried this a few days ago (in our search for new series to binge-watch); while the premise sounded interesting, and the reviews almost all positive, it didn’t really work for us. We managed the first episode and then quit. Perhaps we didn’t give it enough time… Our issues were that

…the main character is boring. Despite being antisocial, clever, slightly weird-looking, drug-addicted, borderline crazy, etc… - we weren’t interested in him.

…almost all of the other characters were obsessed with making friends with or connecting with this guy: his old friend (the blonde one) from his office, the aforementioned’s new boyfriend, the promiscuous drug dealer, his gay boss, the suit guy who talks to him about computers - they all continually reached out to him *personally *- this seemed unrealistic. People who are not interesting or charismatic do not have people constantly trying to make friends (or have sex) with them.

…the story was dull. A hacker works for an IT firm, and is sort-of recruited by a group of hackers to do hacking stuff. This didn’t work for us as an exposition.

All of this said, TV shows can grow on people - maybe we should have given it more of a chance.

MrLee,

I appreciate your honesty and I can certainly see the validity of the points you made.

But for some reason, none of those points seem to have made the same impact on me.

I just watched another ten minutes of this show and my opinion of the show has just been catapulted from “a really good show” to “a fabulous jaw-dropping show”. Why?

It started with this line, “Even though this guy is the Chief Technology Officer for one of the world’s largest technical corporations, he owns a Blackberry”.

I guess you have to have had some experience with a Blackberry and a different kind of smart phone to love that line. But I just about fell off my chair when I heard that. I always thought I was the only person who seemed to think that Blackberrys obviously suck. But my heart was gladddened to learn that someone else feels the same way.

I now don’t have to be afraid to come out of the closet and say that Blackberrys have always been (In my opinion) a real stupid approach to smart phones and most every other kind of smart phone is clearly superior to Blackberrys. I just loved that line.

It was followed by two other wonderful lines. The first was something like this:

“Even though he is the VP of technology, This guy was obviously a moron - an arrogant moron, too - the very worst kind of moron.” I can’t explain why that line made my heart soar. I guess it’s because I have met quite a few arrogant morons in high positions and found they were the worst kind of morons.

What a wonderful show this is proving to be. I’ve only watched 20 minutes of the first episode and I am in love with this show now.

But, I will try to put a lid on it and not post anymore. At least until I have finished watching the entire first episode.

We’ve had up to episode 4 here, so some of the stuff here is spoilerish (not fazed myself, but someone new to the show might be) and so far I’m loving it. Rami Malek is great in it.

And he’s the gay neighbour kid from The War at Home, for me…

There have been 9 or 10 episodes broadcast so far.

I’m not sure how to handle spoiler type info. I assume that everything up to and including Episode 4 can be freely discussed and will not spoil anything for anyone.

Am I correct in assuming that anything contained in Epi 5 or beyond must be discussed in spoiler boxes?

Can anyone explain to me how to handles spoiler type info? What should I do to prevent spoiling the show for anyone?

Finally, assuming that ten episodes have been broadcast so far, I would have guessed that it would be OK to discuss anything that ocurred in Epis 1 thru 9. Why do we need to keeps so many epis under wraps in this thread?

:confused: You don’t need to keep anything under wraps in this thread. This is the thread about Mr Robot. All episodes (1-8) except the finale (ep 9) have aired (because that was supposed to be on last night but was postponed until next week) so all aired episodes can be discussed openly.

Correction - there are ten episodes, numbered 0 to 9, like real programmers do.

Ah, thanks for that. I had last week’s still on my DVR and saw that it was titled Ep 8, and forgot the first one had been listed as Ep 0.

This is a good observation; I differ from you in that I do find the character to be interesting, but it’s certainly true that in his Pointedly-Unreliable Narration, an unusually (and implausibly) large number of people are enthralled by him.

That could be a useful clue in figuring out what’s really going on in this show. (Which apparently ends with some shootings; like many I was disappointed that the finale won’t be shown for another week, but I can understand that the makers of the show wouldn’t have wanted to give pain to the families of the Roanoke shooting victims.)

I’m thinking that might be something related to your provider (sorry - I don’t know the correct name for this - could it be something like NetFlix?). The reason I say this is because my episodes are listed from 1 to 9. Is it possible this may just be something specific to a particular provider or a particular site?

However the episodes are listed, I only have nine episodes in total and they are just great. IMHO, this is really and truly a great, great show. I love it. Absolutely love it.

I would still love to know why, in the first episode, Elliot destroyed that man’s life the way he did at the beginning of the episode? Did he just despise people who engage in child pornography? If so, is that because he may have been abused as a child?

Please. Can anyone help me? I would very much like to know the truth of that. Any chance someone might think they know?

He found a pedophile and called the cops on him, does that really need more explanation?

It seems to me that turning him into the cops was easy. But it was a waste of a large opportunity. It just doesn’t mesh with what else we know about Elliot. He is so much smarter and so much more capable than just dropping a dime (or half a dollar) on that man.

Elliot is portrayed as being far more intelligent and capable of so much more. This pedophile was rich and becoming richer. Elliot could have found many ways to make use of this man in order to further Elliot’s goals - whatever they may be.

Elliot has said more than once that he “helped people”. He seems to want to use his skills to do some good in the world. Putting that pedophile in prison was easy. But there was so much more that Elliot could have done to that man instead.

Elliot could have made him pay for his crimes in many imaginative ways. I would have expected that he would have made him pay in many ways that would have done some good for many other people. Putting him in prison just seems like a waste of a large opportunity to me.

Putting him into prison doesn’t do any good for anyone. He had built up a large financial enterprise. Why not put that enterprise to some good use? At least for a while?

At the very least, Elliot could have made him pay for several years and then put him into prison. Don’t you think?

The pedophile was just a minor plot element of the first episode. If they’d done as you suggest, the entire series would be about that guy. That’s not what this show is about. So the character was dealt with and the show moved on.

You make a good point. I’m not sure that I agree the entire series would be about that guy, but you make a good point anyway. Thank you.

I just finished watching Episode 9 and I want to say, “Wow! This show is truly excellent.”

I may be being repetitive. But I must say, at this point, I would place this show in the top ten list for all American drama shows. I just love the fact that it takes an intellect stronger than mine to understand much of this show. I have watched all nine episodes at least twice and I have watched many of them several times more than twice. I must conclude this show is certainly aimed somewhere above my intelligence level because I find that I must struggle to understand many of the sub-plots that are going on. And yet … I love that.

I do have a few more questions. There is one couple (I think the husband’s name is Tyrell? I also think he is the one who murdered the wife of the new CTO). I have not found it explained what language that couple have been speaking and I certainly would like to know. Can anyone tell me?

I also want to ask if I am correct that the name of Angela’s BF (or fiance) is Ollie Parker. Is that correct? Also, I believe that Ollie Parker is the man who was duped into accepting that CD that caused AllSafe’s network to become “hacked” and that he was working with or for White Star? If so, I’d like to say that I find it very difficult to keep track of all the names and relationships of the characters.

I am perplexed by the involvement of the man who gave his CD to Angela and her BF (or fiance?). Did that man work for White Rose? Has it ever been explained just why or how he has gotten involved in this plot?

Oh! I was just looking thru the cast list and isn’t “Cisco” the name of the guy who gave his CD to Angela’s BF?

Ok, this whole “I am confused by everything! I can’t follow a simple plot!” shtick you pull in every single thread is really becoming tiresome.

Well, if you believe the plot is so simple, then please won’t you answer the question?

the fellow who gave Tyrell the CD that hacked AllSafe’s network - how did he become involved with White Rose?

And, if you think I’m causing people to become tired, why don’t you report my post and take it up with the mods? That is what they are here for.

By the way, I just examined the last ten threads in which I posted (sorted by Last Date) and I can’t find my saying I don’t understand those threads in any of the last ten threads into which I’ve posted.

But, if you disagree, then I suggest you report my post and let the mods handle it. I just happen to think you are all wet about this and I have to wonder just where your anger emenates.

Please put me on your ignore list and in that way we won’t have to disturb any other members with these kinds of quarrels. I have nothing more to say about this.

I’ve seen it mentioned online in more than one site that Tyrell is speaking Swedish to his wife, and she is speaking Danish to him. One such site (the information is in an August 3 comment) –

http://www.tv.com/shows/mr-robot/community/post/mr-robot-season-1-episode-3-debug-review-143628729487/

Another reason for the cafe owner/pedophile plotline was simply to establish that Elliott is a really good hacker.