Review: MR. ROBOT Ep. 2
Mr. Robot, @whoismrrobot
USA Network, Wednesday
By Allen Roy, @aroymb
July 4, 2015
The second installment of @USA_network drama @whoismrrobot aired this week with great anticipation to see where Elliott and the story would lead us. Unfortunately, the show is leading me to not want to watch many more episodes.
The show opens at a board meeting, chaired by the young and tenacious IT guy from E Corp we met last week. He has been named Interim CTO for E Corp. By the way, this actor and character remind me of Scarecrow from The Dark Knight trilogy. He’s young, brash, and shows a little danger in every scene.
At this meeting, Elliott is offered his worst nightmare, a job to protect E Corp for hackers, indeed from himself. Naturally, Elliott turns down the position setting up a battle of good vs. evil.
We are next introduced to Sheila, Elliott’s dealer and her supplier. Not surprisingly, the drug supplier is not a good guy. He is harassing Sheila, and she talks about the bad behavior of bosses. We see Elliott’s narcotic of choice is getting stronger and the frequency and dosage of morphine is increasing.
Elliott’s drug use and his emotional state lead him to destroy his computer after hacking the CTO’s email and @Facebook page. He believed it was too easy and was a set up by the CTO.
To further illustrate Elliot’s decaying state of mind, as he walks into work, all heads turn and look at him. Are they really looking at him, or is it paranoia or another of his hallucinations?
Elliott seems to have a death wish. He is devolving…using drugs more often and harder narcotics. Not sleeping….the hallucinations are coming more frequently…
On multiple occasions, Elliott sees men in suits walking towards him. Bear in mind, they are walking on crowded NYC streets or in the subways. There are millions of men wearing suits in those places. He believes they are the proverbial MIB’s. Men in Black.
The alternate story line, or as I’ll refer to it, the douche de jour, is about Fernando Vera, he is “a drug supplier, and one of the worst human beings” Elliott’s ever hacked. Worse than that, in Elliot’s mind, Vera appears to have drugged and sexually assaulted Sheila. Because Vera is the douche de jour, Elliott uses his hacking abilities to notify the NYPD of the crimes, and has Vera arrested.
An interesting development is the new character that hacked Oliver’s computer and is now using the camera to spy on Elliott’s friends. That may be the most intriguing part of the episode.
We see one last conversation with Mr. Robot and Elliott. They’re by themselves on a crowded pier discussing a common thread throughout the episode, Elliott’s father. While talking, they are sitting precariously on railings looking over garbage. It’s an allegory for how Elliott sees himself and his life. Looking into the precipice of the garbage past, struggling not to fall into the pit of despair.
And when Mr. Robot throws him off the balcony, I wonder if he is really there, or was Elliott attempting suicide?
What I liked:
Again, @ItsRamiMalek is brilliant in his portrayal of Elliott. His ability to show someone with social anxieties is genius.
The wannabe rapper who gives out his CD’s that we find are malware and have hacked into Oliver’s computer.
Don’t like:
In the opening scene, the Interim CTO offers Elliott a job and actually calls his company Evil Corp. It’s what Elliott calls the company. I’ve wondered how much is happening versus what’s in Elliott’s mind, and this lends me to believe it’s in his mind.
The story is getting predictable. Elliott is seeing the MIB’s almost every time he leaves the apartment or work. It’s incredibly cliché to have a computer hacker with anti-social tendencies to be followed by MIB.
Timdogg
#ComicBookChronicles @CBChron founder. Editor-in-Chief of @thekliqnation. Comic book reviewer, podcaster #RABBLERABBLE
