The revelation, towards the end of the first season, that the vision Elliot sees, “Mr. Robot”, is the personification of his late father, was both obvious and deflating. But it is striking more for its form than its contents, which are familiar, including its unreliable narrator with an invisible frenemy and the decadent corporate Goliath that pulls the levers that drive the wheels that turn the pulleys that work the strings that make the world go round, to the “V for Vendetta” masking of its anarchist rebels. He’s gone completely off the grid, staying with his mother (who we know from Elliot’s delusions psychologically abused him as a child) in Queens. Who knocked on Elliot’s door? This is Mr. Robot we’re talking about. From there, he becomes a teacher for Elliot, as they take the necessary steps to perform this hack, but Mr. Robot isn’t everything he seems to be. His hallucinated alter-ego has apparently been shooting him in the head quite a lot (which is never good!), and he retains enough control to override Elliot’s program at night to set up secret meetings with odd dog aficionados (also probably bad!).
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The results are evident in this second season, which kicks off tonight on US with two episodes aired back-to-back and the debut of an after show, Hacking Robot. The show’s EP Chad Hamilton previews Elliot’s internal “struggle” and Darlene’s “overwhelming” arc. Darlene’s reaction implies that this has happened before. However, it’s premiere episodes last Wednesday came out strong, proving that the show is no flash in the pan.
Of course, imaginary characters have as much substance in fiction as “actual” ones, so things do get muddled, and I would not be surprised to learn that I have got things in this show upside-down or backward.
And Tyrell Wellick (Martin Wallström), who’s one of the show’s antagonists and a prominent face of E Corp for the audience, has just as much at stake. When Tyrell doesn’t get the promotion, he flips, taking out his anger on a homeless man whom he pays to beat the shit out of.
Joanna Wellick, Tyrell’s terrifying wife, has no idea where her husband is. That was released to the public between November 1994 and February 1995, making the website in question at least 21 years old.
Season One ended with F Society pulling off the greatest hack the world had ever seen.
How does Angela fit into all this?
Over on the other side of town, Angela is seen using her negotiation skills as a PR manager at E Corp.
Scott Knowles (Brian Stokes Mitchell) Current CTO of Evil Corp. Like I said, it’s all very One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Broke, with student loans and no job prospects, she accepts. It’s a jarring fictional experience that has some truth to it. Heck, the showrunners even managed to edit President Obama into the trailer for Season 2.
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In today’s double episode season premiere titled eps2.0_unm4sk-pt1.tc and eps2.0_unm4sk-pt2.tc, the consequences of the now infamous fsociety 5/9 hack on multi-national company E-Corp begin to emerge. But then the group backs out for an undisclosed reason, and Elliot pays Whiterose a visit where she alludes to a “vulnerability” in the group that prevented her from going forward.
