As someone who suffers from a crippling anxiety and depression this show speaks to me on so many levels, no I'm not delusional or seeing things that may not be there, but as someone who isn't great in social situations this show speaks to me on a personal level unlike any other.
SPOILER WARNING for everything from season one, so if you have yet to see this show that I can only describe as a weekly David Fincher trip then please go watch it and come back here when you're done and we can both talk about it together.
Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek) is a security engineer working at a cyber-security company called Allsafe, he struggles daily with his social anxiety, and the only way he can connect to people is by hacking them. His best friend Angela Moss (Portia Doubleday) also works for Allsafe, they both connected after Elliot's dad and Angela's mum died from Leukemia they contracted after working for the tech giant E corp.
Morphine is Elliots drug of choice, he has a daily regiment which he usually seems to stick to, so he can the drug without becoming an addict. Elliot also takes suboxone to help with any withdrawal effects he might have while using the morphine, he gets these drugs from his neighbour Shayla (Frankie Shaw), and she also gifted him with his pet fish Qwerty.
Elliot hears and refers to the tech giant as Evil Corp, think of them as Apple, Google, and Microsoft all combined into one huge conglomerate. Elliot is recruited by Mr Robot (Christian Slater) who runs an underground hacker group called F Society, at first Elliot is against the idea, but after some persuasion Elliot agrees to help them take down Evil Corp.
Elliot continually breaks the fourth wall and speaks with the audience, this is a nice touch as it really gives us an inside look into mental illness as well as a running dialogue on what is happening around us. Elliot is also very paranoid, be it because of the hacking, the morphine, the mental illness, or just an extreme mixture of all three. He believes than men in black suits are following him, and as a viewer we really can't decipher if he is right.
Mr Robot takes Elliot to meet the other members of F Society, Darlene (Carly Chaikin) is very friendly towards him, she also acts very strange, appearing in him apartment to take a shower while he is away, and constantly calling him out. The other members don't seem to have this same rapore with him, and they don't really have that much screen time. This is a shame because the three other members seem like very interesting people, but I guess we'll just have to wait until season two for their character development.
Elliot is also visiting a therapist called Krista Gordon (Gloria Reuben), it is mandatory, but we never actually find out why he was forced to go and see her in the first place. It seems as though Krista genuinely wants to help him, it also seems as if he has been seeing her for a while because she notices that he is hiding some things, and disappearing into himself again. Elliot hacks her, and has a weird feeling when he tries to do the same to her boyfriend but can't find anything on him.
Evil Corps Senior Vice President of Technology is Tyrell Wellick (Martin Wallström), he has been promoted faster than any other one else, and is the youngest Senior VP that Evil Corp has ever had. He is also a huge puzzle which I still haven't work out, he started off just like Elliot, and he seems to be a very accomplished hacker who has a previous relationship with Elliot. It isn't confirmed but from their first meeting we see on screen it feels as if he already knew him from some previous life, or possibly from F Society.
Elliot goes to investigate a hack at the start of the season, and a note is left telling him specifically to leave the trojan in the system, Elliot is freaked out by this but he complies, and takes action against Evil Corps CEO Terry Colby (Bruce Altman) framing him for the attack. This is possibly a move to help Tyrell move up the chain faster so they can have more inside access to Evil Corp but this leads to acknowledgement of the workers who died of Leukemia that Evil Corp had previously covered up.
Elliot successfully hacks Krista's boyfriend after pretending to lose his phone, he finds out that he is cheating on his wife with her, he also has had several altercations with the Ashley Madison website, and Elliot goes back to visit him with an ultimatum. He tells him to admit everything to Krista, she needs to learn a harsh lesson that will help her later in life, and he takes his dog from him because he's treated it terribly.
Shayla is constantly getting grief from her supplier Vera (Elliot Villar), he even rapes her by spiking her with some unknown substance, putting her in the bath afterwards. Elliot is fed up with his behaviour towards her, so he puts in an anonymous tip about his drug operation, and Vera gets put in Jail. He discovers that it was Elliot that turned him in and threatens Shayla's life unless Elliot helps him break out of prison. Elliot performs a hack on the prison letting all the prisoners including Vera go, but he doesn't save Shayla as she was dead the entire time.
Angela has a boyfriend Ollie Parker (Ben Rappaport) who seems to be faithful at first, that is until Darlene's ex-boyfriend and Dark Army member Michael (Cisco) takes all his personal information and tries to blackmail him to use the same disc on his computer at Allsafe. Ollie tells Angela everything, she pretends to forgive him until he is asleep she sneaks out to use the disc on his computer and using his keycard she successful allows Ollie's hacker group access to Allsafe's security.
During this time Angela then grabs the attention of ex Evil Corp CEO Terry Colby, she leaves her job at Allsafe, she moves in with her Father, and she reopens the lawsuit against Evil Corp for the toxic waste cover up which gave her mother and Elliot's father Leukemia. Terry see's something in Angela, he is impressed with her tenacity, she may be suing them but he gets her a job at Evil Corp, maybe she can change the organisation from the inside.
Elliot seems to be growing more paranoid by the moment, but who can blame him, he is helping to take down the world's biggest conglomerate. But there is one huge twist which everyone seemed to miss (on rewatch it made me feel stupid for not noticing), Elliot is Mr Robot, the manifestation he has been seeing with, talking to, and helping take down Evil Corp was all in Elliots head. It was his Father, and by the sounds of it this isn't the first time Elliot has seen him.
It also turns out that Darlene is his sister, which makes all her previously weird behaviour now make completely sense, we find this out after Elliot totally misreads the situation and kisses her. Turns out this has also happened before, by her reaction it seems to have happened a lot, she doesn't even need to say it to him, and he feels completely terrible for forgetting her.
F Society's mission was a complete success; they managed to wipe out every piece of debt owed to Evil Corp, also taking down pensions in the process. Elliot however has lost his entire memory of this event, waking up three days later in Tyrell's car, the last thing he can remember is telling a newly sacked Tyrell his entire plan, he can't remember starting the hack or anything that happened to Tyrell, and no matter how hard he tries to remember Mr Robot will not tell him.
The show ends with Elliot answering the door and the screen cutting to black (I guess we'll just have to find out who was there next season). The Transgender hacker Whiterose who runs the Dark Army and helped Elliot with the hack then appears at a party with the CEO of Evil Corp. During this meeting he is dressed like a man, meaning that not everything is how it seems, and Elliot could be headed for some big problems in the next season.
I have so many questions about this show, but they will just have to wait to be answered in the next season. Please post some of your questions in the comments below and I will try to answer them as best I can. Is Elliot really showing us the whole story? Is Angela going to eventually become the next big bad, or will she instead take down Evil Corp from the inside? Who is Whiterose? Did Evil Corp orchestrate this entire thing for their gain? I don't know, but I'm interested to find out.
If you enjoyed my quick recap of Mr Robot then please feel free to click on some of my articles below.
Ghostbusters - http://mcqsviews.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/an-open-letter-about-ghostbusters.html
Why Daenerys Will Win - http://mcqsviews.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/an-open-letter-about-ghostbusters.html
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