| Author |
Message |
Melfie1222
Member
07-29-2002
| Sunday, September 06, 2015 - 11:26 pm 
So many questions. I don't know what is real and what is in Elliot's mind, if we are even in Elliot's mind and not someone else's.
They do a brilliant job of putting up the credits towards the start of each episode, always different and unexpected, and it makes it feel like a movie every week and not a tv show.
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Spunky
Member
10-07-2001
| Wednesday, September 09, 2015 - 7:51 am
I'm sorry that we in Canada saw the first episode last Friday and only today, August 9, I took the time to see it and has the second episode programmed to tape this coming Friday.
So I stopped reading your comments above seeing that they refer to already many more coming episodes here, I read Kitt's comment referring to the first episode I just saw and something is a bit more confusing to me now. What I was seeing at first was the usual profile of a loner and a hacker with all good intentions, to use his skills to fight the evil corporations he's working for. So far so good, I said. Then we see him having emotional problems and a drug addiction to morphine and acute depression, and so I said to myself.. oh no, why does it always have be a misfit genius, why can't a genius be just a genius without all the crap about his inner problems. So, that now I don't know if I should see in this character the genius hacker or another story of a delusional character.
But something in the first episode, at least the only one I saw so far, makes me want to keep watching if they keep it a bit more 'surprising', for now, while watching, I predicted a bit too soon what was coming next and this I didn't like, for example, the men coming to get him into the car, why couldn't he foresee that?? I mean, here we have him raising his arms in praising his great achievement never even guessing the big evil guy could have had an army of hackers ready to free him and never noticing the big car stopping right beside him, as soon as I saw that big car, I said to myself... oh dear, here we go. Then the last scene with the boardroom full of the evil guy's group staring at him and he stares back... what? guessing what just happened to him?? Oh my, while I was saying.. .ha, ha, the genius hacker just got hacked. I hope he's not that dumb after all and somehow gets back to be the real genius I thought him to be at the beginning of the episode.
The one I really liked is the evil guy's top man who stares at him on the last scene, the one who caught on earlier what Elliott could do.
If it has to be another story about another delusional guy, well, I'll be tired of that.
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Kitt
Member
09-05-2000
| Wednesday, September 09, 2015 - 8:18 am
I don't think you'll get tired of it, although Episode 2 is a bit off kilter (or at least seemed it on first viewing). Don't let that put you off, it's worth staying for the season.
I didn't know Canada wasn't showing it at the same time as the US!
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Spunky
Member
10-07-2001
| Sunday, September 13, 2015 - 8:32 am
I watched the second episode and so far I seem to agree more with Sadiesmom.. we seem to see the same way.
Again I found myself predicting too much, when I saw them perched on that railing I knew one of the two would fall off but that it was Mr. Robot pushing Elliot made me laugh so hard.
What I like about the show is the intensity of the plot, evil against good, the eternal dilemma. Some soundtrack pieces are good, in ep 1 I heard again the song 'if you go away' and I loved it, in this second ep it was (I was shocked to hear it) none less than Beethoven 7th symphony, wow ! But what seems really ridiculous are those 'half French sentences', what the heck? Did I miss something or are these American people or not?
But one thing I just hate is the fact that a junkie could be a genius hacker. It was the same what enraged me about Dr. House, another junkie but a genius. I cannot associate these two things. Elliot goes around, most of the times, with that drug hazed look and yet he could destroy the life of a vicious gangster and know exactly how to do it. That's too much for me to accept.
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Kitt
Member
09-05-2000
| Sunday, September 13, 2015 - 10:30 am
Junkies come in all forms! No, seriously they do. And I always think geniuses in one area are missing something in another area (or areas), often socially, and self-medication can feel like an answer for that.
What do you mean by the half French sentences? I can't remember that.
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Spunky
Member
10-07-2001
| Sunday, September 13, 2015 - 4:15 pm
Kitt, Colby's top men,,, he was asking Elliot... "what's the word in English... 'fini'" and Mr. Robot said to Elliott... 'c'est la mort', and added in English 'it's the end'. This during the second episode.
Not only I speak French but I can't be wrong when I can also read the subtitles in both languages saying exactly those words. I had to rewind a couple of times thinking I didn't understand but that was it...
About the junkie/genius, it's a combination that unfortunately can never last for too long, a junkie self-destructs while a genius keeps expanding his mind, it has to be one or the other in the end or both things die eventually.
I'll keep watching, just to see what other quirkiness I notice on this show. I hope they keep having good soundtrack pieces..
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Kitt
Member
09-05-2000
| Sunday, September 13, 2015 - 4:58 pm
I don't remember the French which probably means they don't keep on doing it, or I would have noticed.
The junkie thing is new to Elliot, or rather it is a reoccurrence. It's not like this is how he always is. I have to be careful what I say as I don't want to spoil, but keep watching and more will become clear.
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Spunky
Member
10-07-2001
| Saturday, September 19, 2015 - 2:24 pm
Just finished watching Ep 3, and didn't find many comments on that particular episode, Kitt's comments on ep 4 and later are lengthy but I couldn't read because I don't want to be further confused. When I read that Mr. Robot could be Elliott's altered state, well, I have to not think that way otherwise it becomes even more confusing for me, I need to feel that Mr. Robot is another genius trying to team up with Elliott.. if this is not the case I'd rather wait to see the next episode to get into that idea as well.
To me the show is starting to become really 'noirish', the evil parts are coming out like 'bang', oh wow.. I didn't expect that, and so I was kept fully awake. I like when I can't predict what comes next. It took me a while to realize why the bad guy, the one who wants to become CEO, was looking for the word in English in previous episode, as he seems to be Sweedish, thank goodness for the dubbing in English during that conversation while strapping the woman.. I said, oh wow, what the heck.. that part I also didn't expect.
I just hope the show goes back to the Elliott character, since in ep 3 it was more about the bad bad guy, in ep 1 I almost liked the guy, oh my, I no longer do.
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Kitt
Member
09-05-2000
| Saturday, September 19, 2015 - 4:30 pm
I got to about episode 5, then Sanfran suggested something that made me watch from the beginning again. It is very confusing at first, but makes sense in retrospect. Well, mostly makes sense in retrospect!
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Mizinvanccouver
Member
02-21-2003
| Sunday, September 20, 2015 - 7:35 am
Spunky I too just finished episode 3, I'm in Canada too so just airing here.
I think half my confusion is I don't catch all he says as he sort of mumbles as does Mr. Robot or the sound quality isn't that good?!!
I'm so confused, why did Mr. Robot push him when they were talking about his father. I didn't hear half of what they talked about, Mr Robot blaming him for his father's death? Then BAM he pushes him over.
Then the girl from Mr Robot's organiziation shows up (well breaks in) at his home when he is returning home from the hospital and shows him the magazine. What was that all about?!!!
Who is bribing the boyfriend of the blond woman he has known a long time at his work? Is it him, I thought he looked different when they showed guy at the library on the computer watching them.
What are the 'Swedes' up to?!! HOly cow where did they come from?!!! First we just knew him as the guy from the main guys work, then second episode it looked like he was CEO of another company where they asked our main guy to work?!! No? Am I confused? Then 3rd episode we see him getting ready and preparing himself (rather brutally by hitting himself!) for the interview which to his disappointment he never got. Goes home tells the pregnant what I assumed at the time wife he will be going out partying and not to wait up, almost seeming like he was the one in control. To which he seduces a guy (I'm assuming it's the guy who is getting the job he wanted?!! Could one of you verify for me?!) and what looks like bugs his phone?!!
Then he gets home to his pregnant wife wanting soem S&M and asking him if he was "successful", he says he's "progressing". So now I"m assuming they are spies of some sort?
So in the meantime our main guy meets with Mr Robot and goes and has an apple martini decides he's been given a new lease on life and going to make big changes. So goes to the work dinner where he discovers on the news about a company who knew somethign about cancer patients health but didn't do something as it would be too costly. So him and the blond have something in common. Last we see him, he is going to the company (where Mr Robot is) and plugging in a a computer.
So can any of you help me know whether I'm on track and fill in any gaps? I'm not sure I'm following this right. Thanks so much!
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Spunky
Member
10-07-2001
| Sunday, September 20, 2015 - 9:34 am
Mizi... I'm just as confused as you are, but I think Kitt and Sanfran give some explanations that may help you, although they refer to later episodes as well. (For example they do explain why Mr. Robert pushed Elliott over the railings)
You got some details of the show better than I did, what I like to do is concentrate on the evolvement of the Elliott character more than others on the show and see if it goes the direction I'd like it to go, but if I see it deviates too much from my original expectation I may get tired of the show. For now, curiosity makes me want to keep watching...
I think Kitt and Sanfran's comments on later episodes will make sense of some of our questions.
I'm also in Canada and this is why we are watching this show with some delay, can't understand why it wasn't aired here at the same time it aired in the US.
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Mizinvanccouver
Member
02-21-2003
| Sunday, September 20, 2015 - 12:32 pm
Thanks Spunky, I will venture to read the past few posts, I was affraid it might spoil my future viewings though, that's why I only read your post.
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Kitt
Member
09-05-2000
| Sunday, September 20, 2015 - 12:45 pm
I'm going to try to answer your questions without giving away anything from episodes after that, but you'll have to read at your own risk in case I make a mistake.
Basic story so far is that Elliot (main guy) works for Allsafe, a cybersecurity firm that does security for other big companies. One of their clients is E-Corp (which Elliot refers to as Evil Corp), and there is a denial of services attack on them in the first episode, so they go to Allsafe to talk about it. That's where we see Tyrrel Wellick (the Swedish guy), who's a VP at E-Corp. (Side note: his wife is Danish, they speak in their own languages to each other, but the languages are so close they understand each other, who knew?!)
Tyrrel takes a fancy to Elliot during that visit, and at the start of episode two, he and his team try to poach Elliot from Allsafe and have him work for them at E-Corp (they take him off the street and put him in front of that big table of people). Elliot thinks E-Corp is the embodiment of evil and declines. Partly why he thinks that: Elliot and Angela (blonde girl who works with him) are friends from childhood. They are especially linked because Elliot's father and Angela's mother both worked for or with E-Corp, and E-Corp mishandled (possibly willfully to save money) some project with cancerous material in it, and they died of cancer because of it.
When Terry Colby (the CTO of E Corp) has to step down, Tyrrel thinks he's the natural replacement, goes for what he thinks is an interview, but it gets cancelled by the higher up person who's all enthusiastic about another guy. It's that man's (the potential interviewer's) assistant who Tyrrel sleeps with, possibly just on a power trip, but he also installs a program on the assistant's phone. When he gets home to his wife it's clear that she is okay with him doing whatever he needs to do to get the CTO job.
Meanwhile we find out it's FSociety, Mr Robot's gang of hackers, who organised the denial of service attack on E-Corp, and want to do more to take them down, like hack into one of their data storage centres.
We know (at this point) that Ollie (Angela's boyfriend) got hacked when he bought a CD off a guy on the street and put it in his pc, but I don't think we know (yet) who the hacker is or what he's up to.
What happened when Elliot falls off the railings will be revealed later.
And then there's the side plot with Elliot's neighbour Shayla, who's selling drugs for a very bad guy called Vera.
I think that's all up to episode 3. I don't want to spoil anything but I think really look around the plot and see if things start seeming odd to you, and then concentrate on that as much as what else is going on. Or if not, then you might want to do what I did, and go back and watch some of the earlier episodes when it starts to click.
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Mizinvanccouver
Member
02-21-2003
| Sunday, September 20, 2015 - 6:02 pm
Kitt THANK YOU so much for explaining about the corporations, I had no clue, didn't even attempt to write about them as I was lost. Makes way more sense.
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Kitt
Member
09-05-2000
| Sunday, September 20, 2015 - 6:55 pm
You're very welcome 
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Spunky
Member
10-07-2001
| Sunday, September 27, 2015 - 9:16 am
Kitt, I had to re-read your post on Ep 4 which I just watched and some things I saw as you saw them but others are still very confusing and I wonder what's the point of enjoying a show if it just frustrates the viewer. At one point I felt like the black hacker who was telling Elliott he should just forget about it, his drug problem would be a danger to the mission and Elliott should concentrate on detox and get better, no one has use for a drug addict. My sentiments precisely. Then of course, we end up wondering if those scenes in the drug den were just delusions and Elliott was indeed in bed detoxing while Mr. Robot sat beside him.
The title of the show Mr. Robot is too significant to just refer it to Slater's character and it makes me think that Mr. Robot is indeed Elliott, or his split personality Sanfran talked about.
I get too impatient with the show when I don't see it going where I wanted it to go, when there is too much drug use and not just by Elliott but the girls as well, they should be smart girls but trusting a pill to get them better? I keep rolling my eyes but will watch the next episode to see if anything makes a bit more sense...
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Rosem4243
Member
06-27-2005
| Wednesday, September 30, 2015 - 11:17 am
I haven't read back because I've been planning to watch Mr. Robot for a while now, just haven't had time. Don't want to be spoiled!
It's great to see so many comments here - it must be a good show - I'll come back once I watch to see what everyone thinks of it.
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Kitt
Member
09-05-2000
| Thursday, October 01, 2015 - 6:12 pm
Spunky, I also went through a "what's the point if anything could be fake or real?" stage too. But I think it becomes more clear as the episodes go on, and it certainly gets easier to decide which important plot points are fake or real.
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Spunky
Member
10-07-2001
| Saturday, October 03, 2015 - 9:37 am
Kitt, I stopped reading your comment after your summary of ep 5 which I just saw and will keep reading your next comment on next ep since you really help me see things I couldn't see. But because I now suspect, as you do, that Mr. Robot is Elliot's subconscious I keep looking for clues to confirm it and it distracts me from the events unfolding and I often have to rewind to watch it again.
It's a strange show but it really keeps the viewer wanting to see more to understand more. Your comment on ep 5 helped a lot and many things I saw the same way, I too noticed that Mr. Robot is becoming more of a separate identity in some scenes as he interacts with others more and more but at the same time Mr. Robot and Elliott keep switching places, one comes forward and the other retreats in the background and vice versa. I wonder if it is the director's choice to use both actors at what they do best, Slater is definitely the 'express yourself, action driven' character while Rami Malek (Elliott) is better at playing the enigmatic hacker, staring at you with those big eyes that could tell you he's in a daze but also a genius behind that dazed look.
The Swedish guy to me is at times just as intriguing as Elliot but scary too, because contrary to Elliott the Swedish guy has power and could destroy Elliott if he wanted to.
I like when the show gives us an inside look at how hackers operate and we saw that on ep 5 when they try to penetrate Steel Mountain facilities and those guys in the car trying to guide Elliot through were very good.
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Spunky
Member
10-07-2001
| Sunday, October 11, 2015 - 3:21 pm
Thank goodness for Kitt's ep 6 summary to make me see what I missed or didn't miss... I am starting to see how Mr. Robot is really Elliot's consciousness, but can't understand why he never follows up on the good advice Mr. Robot gives him. The girl was killed and he couldn't be that naïve to believe Vera was going to spare her, he may have played the right move to ensure his own safety but not to prevent the girl's death.
Some scenes make no sense at all but just enough to show us how Elliott survives another nightmare, like standing by the car outside the prison while all hell broke loose and go totally unnoticed like they were invisible... that can't be another delusion, the viewer may get bored with the nonsense.
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Kitt
Member
09-05-2000
| Sunday, October 11, 2015 - 5:11 pm
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Rosem4243
Member
06-27-2005
| Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - 6:42 am
Thank you to Kitt and SFJF for explaining this show to me. Heh.
I had to try THREE TIMES to get into Mr. Robot. Like others here, I had a very hard time following it. I'm so glad that I hung in there, its the kind of show that I keep thinking about long after its over.
I just finished watching S1, and **mind blown** - So great!
Now I've begun the re-watch so that I can catch everything I missed the first time!
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Kitt
Member
09-05-2000
| Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - 9:43 am
I think that's the way to do it, at least with the first half of the season. Watch the first six or so episodes being confused until things seem to click a bit, then rewatch from the beginning and then most of it will fall into place.
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Rosem4243
Member
06-27-2005
| Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - 1:07 pm
As soon as I started re-watching Episode 1, and knew all the players, everything seemed to become clearer.
I think I had the hardest time understanding what the girls on this show were saying. I don't know what kind of weird accent or strange way of enunciating that they had, but it sure wasn't a New York accent - And I'd know because I was born there!
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Spunky
Member
10-07-2001
| Sunday, October 18, 2015 - 9:05 am
I saw ep 7 and I read your take on that, kitt, I wasn't surprised to see Shayla alive and thought right away it was a memory of Elliott, I'm now used to the strangeness of the writers/director of this show, but I was a bit surprised to see Mr. Robot interacting with the other hacker and Elliott was nowhere near and made me feel Mr. Robot was indeed a distinct identity, but then I remembered the writers/director of the show playing tricks on the viewer and so I said..."Well, what the heck am I supposed to think", if they don't tell me soon I'll get bored with this trick.
The whole Angela/Colby issue makes sense, but as Angela I wouldn't feel too guilty for Colby's situation, if it was his fault her mother died. The Swede guy is truly a nut case and now we have a murder... so the viewer keeps watching the show because wants to know what will happen after the murder. Also, I want to keep watching because I want to know how the relationship will change with the therapist after Elliott revealed to her he hacked her and knows all about her and they're both linked by the same loneliness..
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