Fire101
CONTAINS SPOILERS3/10 2 years ago
This is a contrarian opinion, so to clarify, I'm not demanding that the show must be a certain way, nor do I intend to invalidate the feelings of those who like it. This review's primary intent is to outline why the show failed to resonate with me.
Firstly, I like some story elements in Season 1. The pilot is solid, Whiterose receives a strong introduction, and the conflict between Elliot and Vera is excellent. Elliot turns Vera, a crime lord, into the police because he's supplying Shayla drugs, only for Vera to realize Elliot was the one who turned him in. He then forces Elliot to break him out, threatening to hurt Shayla. Elliot breaks Vera out, but it turns out that Vera has already killed Shayla. This ends up being an engaging conflict because the show provides Elliot with compelling motivations to act this way. We're shown that Elliot knows turning in Vera is risky but justifies turning him in because doing so will protect Shayla.
Shayla's death ends up compelling, as I empathize with Elliot's grief, understanding why Shayla meant so much to him. Early on, the show establishes how Elliot utilizes hacking to cope with his social anxieties. He understands the hidden side of people without directly interacting with them, and Shayla ends up being the first person Elliot feels he has a legitimate emotional connection with. Even though Elliot hacks Shayla, she voluntarily reveals secretive aspects about herself that Elliot failed to learn while hacking her. Unfortunately, I found this to be the most powerful emotional beat in the show.
Ultimately, rather than the show feeling like it had a story it wanted to tell, it often felt like it was desperately trying to pad out the run time. Season 1 is the only time the show provides self-contained story arcs with enough merit to stand alone, and after Season 1, it becomes incredibly slow-paced. Now, I inherently don't have any problems with slow, methodical pacing; it allows for introspection. It works incredibly well if your story deals with thought-provoking concepts; it gives the viewer time to contemplate one topic before the next is introduced. But I felt the show rarely explored thought-provoking ideas; it attempts to explore depression and anxiety but predominantly presents them in a one-dimensional, vague, or careless way. And because of this, much of the show's bleakness came across as self-indulgent.
Anyway, regarding the characters' conflicts, while the conflict between Vera and Elliot isn't incredible, it's more textured than any other conflict in the show. Some are mildly engaging conflicts, such as Elliot and Mr. Robot fighting for control. But many other conflicts are incredibly vague, and the characters involved are unsympathetic or too shallow for the emotional beats to carry any weight. After hearing all that, you may think I dislike the show's slower pacing, but I don't. The slower pacing allowed me to have introspection entirely unrelated to the show's content. Simply put, the show was relaxing to watch because, even though it was visually dull, it succeeded in creating a bleak atmosphere—however, while the show is relaxing, the story's still dull.
So, let's talk about what I think Mr. Robot's themes are.
When attempting to dissect the themes of a story, it's much easier if you have a baseline understanding of its authorial intent. It can be helpful to verify your interpretation, so I watched a few interviews with Sam Esmail.
Sam Esmail has stated that the show is meant to bring specific issues into conversation, saying: "such as income inequality." I believe the show attempts this by providing a critique of capitalism. Elliot consistently talks about the top 1% of the 1%. Unfortunately, I found the show's didacticism towards the subject matter uninsightful.
To provide this, I need to discuss the show's characters in the top 1% of the 1%: Price and Whiterose. Price and Whiterose had the potential to be compelling characters. For example, they could have compelling reasons why they think they should be in power. They had the potential to be morally grey characters, but they weren't. For me, Price ends up being unsympathetic. More specifically, his character doesn't have substantial motivations, so I fail to sympathize with him. Price is almost solely defined by the fact that he wants to be the most powerful person in the world.
On the other hand, Whiterose wants power to create her machine, and I don't think she's unsympathetic. The device's purpose is supposedly to create an alternate world; however, I think the show fails to explore the morality behind this idea adequately. Both characters fail to have compelling goals because they fail to provide understandable arguments for why they're in the right.
The most interesting thing about characters with this much influence is usually the dilemmas they face, and the show fails to provide interesting dilemmas. This is because both characters are wholly focused on their goals; they seemingly want to accomplish them by any means necessary. And with characterization such as the dark army, the organization Whiterose runs, killing themselves rather than being captured, and Whiterose blowing up 71 buildings, killing over 3000 people. We're shown that Whiterose is willing to kill for her goals. However, she believes her machine can bring people back to life; Whiterose does care about human life, but she's killing people in the short term. Even though Price doesn't support Whiterose killing as many people as she does and believes she is delusional, he seems utterly unempathetic towards everyone except Angela.
With how these characters are presented, the show wastes the potentially realistic and engaging ways of exploring people in positions of power. It had the potential to ask questions like: How much power should one person be allowed to have? And: How much control should the government have over your life? You could write a show solely about exploring these questions. However, Mr. Robot ends up only asking one much less interesting question: Would it be bad if people with selfish goals who are willing to kill large amounts of people to accomplish those goals were in power? Shockingly, the answer to that question is yes, that would be bad.
And herein lies the problem. The show shies away from exploring fundamental issues with capitalism because the conflict in Mr. Robot is positioned as individual rather than systematic. As far as I'm aware, if you were to try to fix the problems with the world of Mr. Robot, you wouldn't need to make fundamental changes to society; you would only need to remove people like Whiterose from power, and the show reflects this. Elliot's initial attempt to fix society's problems by destroying the economy and all financial records failed. Many of those in power maintain their power, and rather than progressing society in a better direction; it creates chaos.
On the other hand, the Deus Group hack is portrayed a lot more cathartically. The Deus Group was created by Whiterose and encompassed some of the wealthiest people in the world. And through hacking them, Elliot succeeds in removing them from power. Ultimately, Elliot wins not by enacting any systemic changes to policy but with the temporary solution of removing those in power from power.
Of course, I'm not expecting the show to give a full-proof solution to capitalism, but it could've done something. For example, maybe the show portrayed how Whiterose and Price exploited the free market to gain power. Through this, it could explore one of the fundamental issues with capitalism. However, the show mainly explores why Price and Whiterose want power, and while we know Whiterose made Price CEO, the show is vague on how Whiterose acquired her power.
However, the show does provide a few good things. It provides some social commentary, showing that people in power will give the general public a false sense of security to retain their power. And it portrays government corruption, showing large conglomerates being more or less integrated into the government. Whiterose having as much influence as she does and conglomerates being integrated into the government is simply the status quo of Mr. Robot, the fact that the free market caused this is implicit.
Again, I think the show presenting these is good, its heart is in the right place, and if it intends to spark some conversation, it succeeds; what it presents may be enlightening for certain people. However, I don't find what it portrays particularly unique or compellingly implemented. The show would need to be significantly more fleshed out to serve as a coherent political critique. And while I like some of the stuff it presents, it's uninsightful.
Anyway, I want to continue elaborating on my issues with Whiterose and Price.
I stated that Price was an unsympathetic character. However, his character goes through a massive shift because of Angela's death at the end of Season 3. Whiterose explains to Price that Angela forced her hand because she looked too much into the toxic waste that killed her mother. After all, the plant is the power source for her machine. Price thinks that Whiterose's machine won't work and that she's killing Angela out of delusion; however, this causes Price to drop his pursuit of wealth to team up with Elliot. And unfortunately, I didn't find this transformation compelling, and there are two ways it could've been.
The first would be to make Price sympathetic. For example, the show could've given Price compelling reasons why he believes he should be in power or added some reason behind his lust for power. If they did something like this, it would add moral complexity to his character. And even though these changes are unrelated to Angela, I would better understand his character and the way he thinks, likely making his transformation more believable. The second way would be for the show to develop Price's relationship with Angela further, clearly establishing some basis for how much she means to him. Because in the show's current state, we don't understand Price's relationship with Angela further than she's his daughter. And, if anything, what we're shown suggests that he doesn't care much about her. He is still working as CEO of the company that killed Angela's mother and, for the most part, ignores her. He does hire Angela and, at some brief moments, shows a fondness for her, and Price tells Angela that her mother took her away from him because he was a monster. But that brings up the question: Why didn't he give up on his goals sooner if Angela meant so much to him? Anyway, Price's feelings towards Angela are vague, and Angela's death catalyzes a character shift for Price. However, the lack of a substantive logical basis behind their relationship makes it a dull catalyst.
And because I didn't find his transformation compelling, I also didn't find his death compelling. Price sides with Elliot and succeeds at avenging Angela. But Price is killed by Whiterose; however, he seems at peace. Unfortunately, again, I fail to understand this character enough for his death to carry any weight.
Also, I think Angela's death being the catalyst behind Whiterose and Price's conflict is a missed potential. A feud between the two characters in positions of power can be engaging. For example, Price and Whiterose could greatly disagree on certain things, such as how they should handle homeless people. Maybe Price believes homeless people should be killed because he thinks they're unproductive, but Whiterose empathizes with the homeless, feeling they are victims of a broken system. This type of conflict could be genuinely thought-provoking and delve into legitimate philosophical and political discussions. I'm not saying their conflict must be philosophical or political. But I want it to be engaging or have a compelling emotional core, and unfortunately, I found Angela's death to be a dull catalyst for this conflict.
Regarding Whiterose, her introduction is engaging, but later in the story, her character is poorly handled.
I mainly want to focus on the final scene in "eXit," when Whiterose kills herself. I think this scene is terrible.
Elliot confronts Whiterose at the power plant, and they converse. The show continually alludes that Whiterose has some moral complexity, and in "eXit," it finally seems that it will explore it. Whiterose finally tells Elliot what her machine is. A device that will transform their world into a parallel world, bringing people back to life. And if her machine works, if she can create a parallel dimension, that's really morally conflicting. And by further fleshing out the machine's function, there's a lot of potential in exploring its morality, as well as a lot of potential in how exploring that morality could further the themes of a story.
Anyway, what's Elliot's response to this? Well, he immediately dismisses Whiterose and provides uncompelling reasoning for doing so: "You're not liberating them. You're forcing this on them."
Here's the problem, we later learn that Elliot isn't Elliot, he's a created personality that embodies Elliot's rage, and he was "the mastermind" who orchestrated the 5/9 hack. Elliot's rage's core motivation is to make the world Elliot lives in better. His character flaw is that he's willing to take radical action to accomplish this goal, and his efforts have caused many of those he cares about to be killed. This response to Whiterose makes no sense. He tried to destroy the economy; he's not a stranger to "forcing things on people." And his ultimate goal is to try to improve the world, so I find Elliot's rage being so dismissive of Whiterose is inconsistent with his character. And Whiterose keeps insisting that she's right, alluding to what she showed Angela, but Elliot doubts her machine even works.
Whiterose keeps implying that she has strong evidence her machine works. Unfortunately, this evidence never reveals itself; instead, Whiterose suddenly gets a sense of destiny. She states that all she wanted was for Elliot to believe in her, and then "Our paths were too precisely linked to this moment for there not to be a reason." Then Whiterose kills herself. So what does Elliot do? Well, he tries to stop her. Whiterose never explains why her machine will work, yet she has enough faith in it to kill herself, convinced Angela, and managed to form an army that would rather die than be captured around this idea. And she lets Elliot try to stop her claiming she could convince him but doesn't because the show abruptly gives her a sense of destiny.
And when trying to stop Whiterose's machine, Elliot thinks he has succeeded, but it turns out it is too late, and her machine activates. But this is a fake-out; her machine doesn't work. And the show doesn't specify why, which makes Whiterose's character ambiguous. The show doesn't determine whether the machine didn't work because Elliot tried to stop it, it didn't work because it would never have, or it didn't work because she didn't have the necessary resources. So with Whiterose's character, there are two ways to view this situation. That Whiterose was simply insane, Price was right, her machine would never have worked, and she needlessly killed a bunch of people for it, or Whiterose did have a point to make; she was morally complex, but she refuses to reveal she gets a sense of destiny. Either way, it's a cop-out.
The most likely interpretation of Whiterose's character is that, in one way or another, she was incredibly delusional. Whiterose is transgender, and because of that, I take issue with this. Many transphobes will attempt to label gender-expansive people as mentally ill to dehumanize them and also attempt to immoralize them by, for example, using the autogynephilia theory to imply that trans women are sexually deviant men. I heavily disagree with these people; I believe that your biological sex is bimodal, not binary because while, in most cases, one's gametes and chromosomes are unambiguous, there are various other sexual characteristics, some of which aren't apparent at a young age. I think the idea that gender is binary is ludicrous. I also think that gender is a social construct and that while your biological and social factors can inform your gender identity, ultimately, we as a society should not assign someone their gender identity; we should allow the individual to figure it out for themselves and tell us. And initially, Price reminded me of these people, claiming Whiterose is delusional, but I thought the show would likely invalidate his perspective. Because, again, it seemed like Whiterose would have a lot to say for herself, but she doesn't. The show reassures Price's perspective, and I ultimately find Whiterose being portrayed as delusional to be disconcerting.
Whiterose is a character with potential; however, it feels like her character only existed to serve as an initial over-looming threat and for the show to later deceive its audience into thinking her machine worked. Throughout the series, the show kept implying that Whiterose had a point to make, but instead, she ended up being more of a plot device than a compelling character.
It saddens me that I felt this way about Whiterose's character; trans representation is currently scarce. The show provides a compelling base for Whiterose's character; we're shown her struggle against a lack of trans acceptance and her partner's suicide due to it. But I'm left desperately wishing the show handled her differently following this.
I believe Whiterose may have been written this way to contrast Elliot, who developed multi-personality dissociative disorder to cope with his trauma and frustration. In contrast, Whiterose creates the delusion that she can bring people back to life to cope with her partner's death. However, I'm still left asking: Why did you have to make your trans character a delusional mass murderer?
Anyway, Sam Esmail has also stated that the show's central message is: "How technology disconnects us all." However, the show barely explores this concept.
I mostly see this concept explored in early Season 1, where we see Elliot's struggle to communicate and how he hacks people to cope with his social anxiety. I've already outlined that I found this compelling, but this is the only compelling exploration of this concept.
Now isolation is a big part of Mr. Robot; however, isolation is only a motif in the story, and the show doesn't provide a tangible thematic statement about isolation. Many characters in the story are often in a state of isolation, but the most I can pull from this thematically is that being lonely makes you sad. And the characters being isolated from one another just made the story feel more unfocused.
Next, I might as well discuss specific characters.
Firstly, Tyrell Wellick. To me, two things must be done to create an excellent loose cannon-type character. They will be consistently utilized as a loose cannon if they receive substantial screen time, which Tyrell does, and secondly, the fact they are a loose cannon should not define their character. The character should have more to them.
Firstly, regarding Tyrell Wellick being underutilized, he receives a lot of screen time dedicated solely to characterizing him as a loose cannon. The problem? So much time is spent building him up, but it never pays off. The loose-cannon aspect of his character only comes to fruition in the Season 2 finale. He shoots Elliot, but it ends up just being a death fake-out. In the overarching narrative, the only purpose he ends up serving is as a scapegoat for the 5/9 hack. And I must ask: did anyone need to take the fall for the 5/9 hack? I feel Tyrell's taking the blame for the 5/9 hack is only to serve his arc in that Elliot betrays him.
Secondly, Tyrell Wellick is unsympathetic. If you attempt to outline his motivations, it doesn't go further than: "He wants money and a legacy, I guess" We also know he loves his wife and likely has feelings for Elliot, but those feelings are rather vague. Regarding his feelings for Elliot, we know he has a sense of destiny, believing that he and Elliot are: "destined to do great things together." But it's still vague.
And Tyrell being unsympathetic is detrimental; it makes no sense to write him like this, considering his arc's direction. His wife's death and Elliot's betrayal catalyze a shift in Tyrell's character. Yet I need to understand more about Tyrell or his relationships with these other characters for it to be engaging. And because he's unsympathetic, the latter part of his arc has no weight. When he struggled, I was completely apathetic, and when he died, I was happy because it meant the show would stop wasting time on his character.
Suppose they provided anything to make Tyrell morally grey, some justification for his actions. For example, giving him a tragic backstory or contextualizing him as having been in extreme circumstances. In that case, I might have sympathy for him. But no, Tyrell seems to be already living in excess. He's killing people and the like in pursuit of further wealth. So, I don't have any sympathy for this character.
And really, it's a struggle to empathize with Tyrell; his character is vague. He's a psychopath who wants money and falls in love with Elliot because Elliot's so great, I guess.
There is little to no justification for Tyrell's existence in the story. He doesn't further any specific themes the story is going for. He mainly exists to add to the list of people around Elliot who died. I believe Tyrell could be removed from the story with little consequence.
And because I don't find Tyrell's existence justified, nor feel sympathy for him, his eventual death carries no thematic or emotional weight.
Also, I didn't particularly appreciate how they handled Tyrell's death, where Tyrell finds something glowing blue from the ground. I found it incredibly portentous, suggesting that he may not be dead. And knowing that Tyrell stays dead, I don't see the purpose of doing this other than serving as a metaphor for his death, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, a computer's blue screen of death, or some other nonsense. But my problem with this is that it removes most of the potential weight his death could have had; however, I was already wholly apathetic toward Tyrell, so I just found it annoying.
Also, Angela. I admittedly found Angela dull in the first two seasons. She has some decent points, such as her interactions with Elliot, but she receives substantial screen time covering her independent misadventures. Such as being hacked by Cisco and going undercover at Ecorp. These were dull and ultimately irrelevant. Some of them do a decent job at humanizing her, but the show spends a lot of time focusing on her, and the only thing that feels impactful is her work at Ecorp because it's tied to Elliot.
Now, the bulk of Angela's arc takes place in Season 3, and initially, I thought it was fine, but her motivations needed to be defined. At the end of Season 2, Whiterose shows Angela something that enthralls her but remains ambiguous. This drives her to betray Elliot and work for Whiterose in Season 3. Whiterose's machine supposedly creates an alternate dimension. This could explain why Angela sided with Whiterose because Whiterose's machine meant she could get her mother back. The problem is what Whiterose shows her remains vague yet is consistently brought up. This is the problem; I cannot grasp her internal conflict in deciding to betray Elliot.
Angela's arc has clear potential. The pieces are all there; Angela goes behind Elliot's back only to feel responsible for getting many people killed and then finds out that Price is her father. And we could've watched her battle with her temptations, ultimately deciding to betray Elliot. This could be great, but her motivations remain ambiguous; all we know is that what she was shown was potent enough for her to betray Elliot. The pieces are there, but the conflict isn't compelling.
There's also Trenton, Mobley, Cisco, and Romero. All four of them are killed by the Dark Army because they're considered loose ends, with Cisco only becoming a loose end after a police sketch is made of him and shown on the news. The problem with the Dark Army is that their hunt for these four carries no weight because of our limited understanding of the Dark Army. All we know about the Dark Army is that Whiterose is their leader, and they're cautious about staying enigmatic. Their motivation of just needing to tie up loose ends is dull. And I lack a solid barring on their capabilities, so their hunt of these characters isn't engaging. And the deaths of these characters only serve to characterize the Dark army as, again, cautious about staying enigmatic. Though, let's talk about these four characters the Dark Army kills. Elliots states that Trenton, Cisco, and Mobley worked with him because they wanted to change the world. However, Trenton is the only one with tangible motivations for why she would like to change the world; her parents are immigrants and financially struggling. It makes sense why she would join an organization trying to ruin the world's economy. This isn't great, but it's way better than nothing. And the other characters are nothing; Mobley and Romero receive little characterization. At points, Romero doubts Elliot's ability to carry out fsociety's plans, but that's about it. And while Mobley is rather charming, often being used as a source for comedy, I don't know anything about him or why he decides to work with Elliot. Cisco is part of the Dark Army and serves as Elliot's connection to them. However, all I know about Cisco's character is that he and Darlene are in love. He dies because Dom finds a keycard with his face on it, and he's announced on the news, making him a loose end. Simply put, the Dark Army hunting these four characters down is not very engaging, and I think their deaths carry little weight.
I also found Dom and Darlene dull. Early on, there were some decent parts with Darlene. Such as the show's brief exploration into how Darlene feels insignificant compared to Elliot. Later in the series, Dom and Darlene have drama with the dark army; however, this plotline is irrelevant. Their drama is largely disconnected from any other plotline and isn't interesting enough to stand on its own. Both characters are dull; Darlene is primarily defined by her vague angst, while Dom is defined by the fact that she's tired because she's been working for the FBI for too long, I guess. They're both just vaguely depressed, and the time spent on them feels pointless.
Lastly, we need to talk about the show's mystique, as it's the last core engagement factor the show has. So, let's discuss the show's twist ending.
My understanding of the show's twist ending is that the Elliot that we've been with was not the real Elliot. He created Fsociety and planned out "Stage 1" and "Stage 2." Then lies to the audience, making it out that Mr. Robot did all these things to feel like a hero. It reveals that Elliot was the "rage" personality taking radical action and "the mastermind" behind the plans just mentioned.
Generally, I like very few puzzle stories. The main reason I don't care for them is that I care more about a story's emotional core and the ideas it explores. The story having an unfolding mystery is an additive. However, it can dramatically enhance a story through recontextualization.
So, three things are relevant when criticizing a twist. How does the twist add to the prior story? How engaging is the twist's setup? And does it take the story in an interesting direction? But this last factor is irrelevant because the show has a twist ending.
Firstly, and because it's what I care about most, I have negative feelings about how this twist recontextualizes the prior story. It's a massive cop-out because it creates a lot of ambiguity.
Of course, there's nothing inherently wrong with ambiguity, but I can't entirely agree with the creative choice of having ambiguity like this on such a vast scale. The problem is that the ambiguity makes everything we see from Elliot's perspective unreliable regarding continuity, which is most of the show.
Suppose I criticize parts of the show from Elliot's perspective. There's always the interpretation: "No, that's not what happened. Elliot was tricking you." And this is the problem. When debating the validity of differing interpretations of a story, whether it be what the story is about or how it's told, the debate relies on whether you can provide evidence from the story to support your interpretation. Usually, these differing interpretations are derived from the same story. But with Mr. Robot, rather than having various ways of viewing the same story, you're told that parts of the story might be completely fake, so you can make up whatever you want to replace it.
This causes many scenes to have various interpretations without any way to debate their validity. For example, there's the scene where Whiterose shoots herself. Now you could take this scene at face value, how it's presented to you by Elliot, but you could also argue that Elliot lied. You could say that, in actuality, Elliot killed Whiterose, and Whiterose never explained why her plans would work because it allows Elliot to preserve his perception of the 1% as evil and make himself look like a hero stopping a villain rather than a murderer killing someone who had a point. But I could also say that Elliot let Whiterose run away, telling her he'd fix her machine.
All three are drastically different interpretations.
Some people may like this ambiguity, but it dramatically weakens my experience.
Earlier in this review, I attempted to analyze the show, but I was discussing what the show presents at face value, specifically what Elliot shows you. Because of this widespread ambiguity, the show's story becomes malleable enough to where interpretations of Mr. Robot can have drastically different themes. This caused me to be apathetic toward analyzing the story's themes, even though I found the story's tangible themes unremarkable.
But character analysis is where it's properly crippling. Because Mr. Robot is a character-driven show, the most substantial engagement factor should be exploring the psyches of its characters and being engaged by their conflicts. Now I've already discussed my problems with individual characters. My problem with the ambiguity is that it destroys my desire to try to dissect these characters. Because when a character interacts with Elliot, anything they do in that scene is ambiguous, as Elliot could be portraying their behaviors inaccurately. This causes problems. I already discussed the different interpretations of the scene where Whiterose dies.
I like cryptic story-telling, but here rather than inexplicit text, the show's text is malleable. And I don't like that.
But how does the twist add to Elliot's character? The main thing this twist directly changes is how we perceive Elliot. In Season 1, it's revealed that Elliot has multi-personality dissociative disorder and created Mr. Robot to cope with societal issues and the general frustrations in his life. I found this rather bland; it's the plot of someone having trauma and creating a delusion to escape from it. This type of plot has been done numerous times before. However, it's potentially great if it has a certain level of nuance. And with this reveal in Season 1, they don't expand upon the concept further than its premise. So how does this twist change my initial feelings?
Short answer: This twist adds nothing to this concept. The final twist reveals that our Elliot embodies Elliot's frustrations with the world when initially we thought it was Mr. Robot. This only changes which character embodies Elliot's rage, not why that personality was created.
Anyway, regarding the twist's setup, I will continue discussing whether or not the twist adds to the show, but I will now do so in tandem with discussing the show setup.
There is a clear distinction between a story with an unfolding mystery and any other story, and that's what questions you ask while watching it. With a regular story, the question you're asking is simple: What direction will the story go in? While a story with a mystery will bring up specific questions. For example, a murder mystery starts with the question: Who is the murderer? And as the story progresses, more questions arise to answer the core question, and then in some cases, more questions arise once you receive the answer to the core question. This is really engaging; it creates a string of interconnected questions that the viewer engages with.
Or the story will introduce an inconsistency: This character couldn't have possibly committed the crime, so who did, and who has the capabilities this character lacked? These make a story more engaging because anything that may answer their questions will stand out and sit in the forefront of the viewer's mind. The viewer engaged with it, even if it was only a red herring.
Throughout the majority of Mr. Robot's runtime, the question I was asking myself in relation to Elliot was: What direction will they take Elliot's arc in? And with the show suggesting that Tyrell may be a created personality, I began to believe that Elliot may have created more than one. But that wasn't engaging, and it wasn't until 407 that I was given any reason to engage with the mystery. This episode proposed Mr. Robot as the protector personality. I recognized this as an inconsistency; Mr. Robot's been putting Elliot in harm's way. And this is because Mr. Robot is the protector personality; earlier in the show our Elliot, Elliot's rage misrepresented him.
My main problem is that this inconsistency was too little too late. When this inconsistency was introduced, I didn't contemplate it; I only continued questioning the direction the story would take. Confronted with this inconsistency, I merely waited to see whether or not this was a purposeful inconsistency or a plot hole.
Of course, certain other elements hint towards this twist, such as the meetings between Mr. Robot and the other personalities in 4x09, alluding to the fact that our Elliot is a created personality. And some parts allude to the fact that Elliot is deceiving us, such as the end of 4x06, where Mr. Robot muses: "What if Elliot isn't the hero?"
However, there are also many poor allusions mixed in, such as Angela handing Elliot a key and saying: "Elliot, you are the-" and it cutting out in 1x04, just to be reincorporated in the series finale as: "Elliot, you are the mastermind." My problem, if not obvious, is Angela could've just said anything like: "Elliot, you are the coolest person in the world." Stuff like this doesn't imply anything.
Unlike most mystery stories, this twist isn't revealing a specific aspect interconnected with a broader story; it's exposing that the story is being told in a certain way and why it's being told that way. This twist feels like it exists despite the rest of the show. Because, as I just outlined, the show lacked a tangible gradual progression leading up to this twist. It lacked a sense of unfolding mystery because rather than peeling back layer after layer by fleshing out aspects and progressing specific themes, eventually concluding with this reveal, it felt like this twist more or less happened out of nowhere. Most hints towards this twist are scattered allusions to the fact that the story is being told in a certain way and why. I feel the reveal in 407 that Mr. Robot is the protector personality is the only reveal that sparks questions.
Anyway, it's this lack of unfolding mystery that caused me to be apathetic toward the mystery. Your brain treats information and problems with one of two systems. System 1 is fast thinking; it's an intuitive way of thinking through a situation. When your brain operates in this state, its experiences are stored in short-term memory. This is because the task is repetitive. Say you take out the garbage. Unless something particularly unique occurs, you'll never remember it. The action relies on long-term memory from when you initially learned to take out the trash. System 2 is slow thinking when you are presented with new problems. This is more likely to be placed in long-term memory. Mr. Robot is a show full of cryptic and vague elements, many of which are never fleshed out nor have any relevance. The problem is that rather than the story introducing some vague/cryptic and then fleshing them out shortly, it overwhelmed me with these elements. And this is where the problem lies; because of this, I began to engage with the show's cryptic and vague elements with System 1. I would put them into the backlog of my mind and potentially wholly forget about them. I just pointed out some sequences that were definitive setups for the twist; however, these sequences were cryptic. So, unfortunately, when they were shown to me, while I did remember them by the time of this twist ending, I didn't engage with them.
Also, what about Elliot lying to the audience?
Lying can be compelling in story-telling; however, usually, it's a character lying to another character. And in these cases, the audience is either aware of the lie or unaware of the lie, but so is the perspective character. However, Elliot is not lying to another character but directly to the audience. Elliot has solid motivations for lying; he wants to make himself out as a hero, but again the setup is hardly engaging.
Elliot was an unreliable narrator from the show's beginning. But they were minor things, such as his perception of E-Corp as Evil Corp. However, now, we find out that Elliot is an unreliable narrator who maliciously hides information from the audience. Early on, with Elliot's multi-personality dissociative disorder, we would experience his struggle with him. We saw the same delusions he did and shared his gaps with him, but now we find out that some of his gaps were sequences he didn't want to show the audience or whatever.
But how does this reveal change Elliot and Mr. Robot's characters? We were initially supposed to believe that Mr. Robot created the plans to take down the "top 1% of the 1%" and that Elliot spent the first three seasons trying to stop them.
This conflict is recontextualized. Now, Mr. Robot was trying to stop Elliot's rage from carrying out his plans, with Elliot's rage trying to preserve those plans. In Season 3, Elliot was trying to stop Whiterose because she went rogue, I guess. Also, when Elliot gets himself put into prison, we are led to believe he did so to stop Mr. Robot, but actually, Elliot was trying to stop Mr. Robot from ruining his plans.
These aren't clever recontextualizations, and Mr. Robot's and Elliot's conflict in the show's early stages doesn't suggest this twist. Again, the setups are just allusions to the fact the story is being told in a certain way and why.
Anyway, I've claimed that the twist feels like it exists despite the rest of the show. I want to do what I can to continue justifying that. I just talked about Mr. Robot and Elliot, but we also need to discuss what this twist adds to other characters.
With many characters, the only relation they have to this twist is that they died, fueling Elliot's general angst so that the story can be tragic, such as Trenton, Mobley, Angela, Tyrell, Cisco, etc. Concerning the twist, these characters could be put in a myriad of other tragic stories; they do not feel like they were written with this specific twist in mind.
With Whiterose, in the later seasons, which flesh out her tragic past, she's written so that the fake-out that her machine worked is believable. And as I've previously outlined, the twist adds nothing to her character; it just makes her character ambiguous.
And lastly, Darlene: In the final episode, Darlene admits she knew the entire time that our Elliot wasn't the "real Elliot." Here's the problem: many different things fueled Darlene's angst, all of which are only vaguely coped with. The twist recontextualizes her character to that she had multiple things we were already aware of that caused her angst, but knowing our Elliot wasn't the real Elliot was a cause of her angst we weren't aware of. This is the problem: the fact that she knows this is piled on top of her pre-existing vague angst. And regarding her choice to work with Elliot on fsociety, it's initially contextualized that she worked with him to change the world and because she cared about him. Neither of those motivations is altered by her knowing this, and nothing signifies that Darlene is aware Elliot is a personality until the finale episode.
So, unfortunately, I was disappointed by this twist. The show failed to provide an engaging mystery, and the twist tells me nothing about the world of Mr. Robot and adds nothing to its thematic dimension; it was just a neat turn of events, I guess.
I believe the best way to end this review is with an overview of my feelings.
It is helpful to break down a story into its simplest components and ask: What is this story about? For example, people consistently compare Fight Club to Mr. Robot, often calling Mr. Robot a remake of Fight Club. What is Fight Club about? To me, Fight Club is about apathy. How seeking fulfillment in consumerism can create apathy for oneself, and how the free market, desire for self-preservation, and living for a cause can generate apathy towards others.
I personally like Fight Club, but in comparison, what do I think Mr. Robot is about?
Mr. Robot is about escapism as a coping mechanism, relying on a delusion to deal with trauma and frustration.
All right, I already outlined that I found this disappointing. And also, under the same logic, Fight Club is similar; it's about relying on a delusion to resolve a lack of fulfillment. It's just that with Fight Club, I find that secondary.
This concept has been thoroughly explored, and Mr.Robot doesn't expand further than its premise. Elliot's trauma is vague, and the show's lack of exploring systemic issues fails to adequately examine the source of his frustration. Through Elliot's frustration, all the show says is that the answer to society's problems isn't destroying that society. Yeah, that's obvious, and I feel Fight Club said the same implicitly.
Mr. Robot is a show that steps up to the doorstep to ask important questions, explore interesting ideas, or provide compelling character; however, with few exceptions, the show plays ding-dong ditch instead. It heavily suggests that characters have compelling motivations but never fleshes them out. They remain vague or one-dimensional. And the show hints that its villains will be morally grey, but they remain unsympathetic. It's a show that suggests it will explore interesting questions and provide a compelling expose of the human condition, but by its end, it completely backs out of it and explores next to nothing. And by its bitter end, Mr. Robot makes a damning decision; it creates an extreme amount of ambiguity that I feel encourages wild theorization rather than a compelling story. Mr. Robot left me enthusiastically intrigued by the end of its first season, but by its series finale, I was left disappointed.
On an unrelated note: I didn't particularly appreciate how the show portrayed Olivia Cortez, a suicidal character who ends up attempting suicide. (She doesn't die, but the episode implies it's solely because Elliot intervened.) Watching someone attempting suicide, and trying to intimately portray the psyche of the person leading up to such in a piece of fiction, is something I feel should be handled with the utmost care. Yet here, I thought it was handled carelessly and used for shock value. Of course, you may feel differently about how her character was presented, and better for you. Personally, I was made uncomfortable, not because of the subject matter but the show's treatment of it. Ultimately, the show's general celebration of angst strikes me as slightly naive, and I feel its exploration of suicidal people isn't super understanding of actual depressed and/or suicidal people. Anyway, I used to be suicidal and found the implementation of the subject matter regarding Olivia Cortez gimmicky.
