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Mr. Robot may be technically correct, but I couldn't get past a few episodes of the first season. Comically bad/cliche companies that are polluting the earth,

Mr. Robot may be technically correct, but I couldn't get past a few episodes of the first season. Comically bad/cliche companies that are polluting the earth, killing innocent people, and robbing the poor. A closeted gay, masochist antagonist and a smug, patronizing protagonist that regularly demeans the people around him and feels they are less intelligent than himself. This was all in the first few episodes. I assume the characters and plots have changed since the first season, but not by much. I felt like the writers were ignored in high school and used the show as a way to passive-aggressively get back at their perceived enemies.

yarou 10y ago
Rami Malek really kills it in the first season IMO. Especially the opiate withdrawal scene. Also minor nit - I'm pretty sure Tyrell's wife is aware of his escapades. But you're missing the point about it...Tyrell and his wife are concerned solely with power.
- RUG3Y 10y ago
  I'm fairly certain that he's not meant to be a closeted gay man, but a psychopath who will pretend to be gay and sleep with someone he isn't interested in, in order to get what he wants.
  - cheald 10y ago
    I think this is right. The Willicks are the embodiment of the maxim that "everything is about sex, except sex, which is about power." They are both the most sexually prolific characters in the show, and at the same time, the characters least motivated by sex. It's entirely about power for them.
teekert 10y ago
Yeah it's cliché but if you call it Evil Corp you kind of imply that that is what it should be. I can appreciate that.
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
...Except that they aren't (or may not be), and they're wrong. The protagonist isn't always right.
alex_anglin 10y ago
Another way to look at it in the context of the show is the 'unreliable narrator' that is Elliot. The show is told and shown through his perspective, which is a major aspect of the plot. So the criticisms you make could be seen as projections of his personality. Either way, if you don't like it then there's plenty of other good shows to watch these days.
cheald 10y ago
The thing you need to keep in mind about Mr. Robot is that it's told through the eyes of an unreliable narrator. Evil Corp is Comically Evil Cliche Corp because that's how Elliot perceives them, regardless of their actual evilness. From a certain perspective, Mr. Robot is a critique of the very thing you are complaining about. Elliot is able to justify doing many things because of the comic-bookish way in which he perceives his world. He is mentally unstable and a central theme of the show is that the things you see (through him) may or may not reflect the reality of his world, and his actions which, while internally consistent with his reality, may not be as noble or righteous as he thinks they are.
- stormbrew 10y ago
  The show's heavy lean on the unreliable narrator aspect is what eventually made me lose interest in it (near the end of the first season). At a certain point, a narrator can become so unreliable that there's no actual story anymore. Just increasingly opaque layers of obfuscation. What I've heard about the second season only made me more glad of my decision to stop watching.
  - cheald 10y ago
    I think that's a fair critique. S2 definitely went full on "you have no idea what is real or not", which is either going to be extremely satisfying or extremely dissatisfying based on how S3 turns out. At some point, the obfuscation has to resolve. I felt like it resolved reasonably well in S1, though S2 definitely did the LOST thing and just left you hanging for S3. I'm hopeful, though, as Sam Esmail has apparently written the whole story from start to finish, so he hopefully knows where it's going well enough to give it a graceful resolution.
  - hfourm 10y ago
    Totally. I fully 5/5 loved the first season, but it started to go in a direction I didn't love towards the end. I couldn't even make it through the first episode of season 2.
    - 10y ago
avar 10y ago
Given what happens later in this series your comment reads like someone who watched half of Fight Club and is annoyed that Brad Pitt's character isn't a plausible friend to Edward Norton's character.
stcredzero 10y ago
I felt like the writers were ignored in high school and used the show as a way to passive-aggressively get back at their perceived enemies. It worked for comic books, back in the day.
sushid 10y ago
The later season hints at the antagonist being more than that and possibly alludes to some interesting ideas that I won't spoil for other readers. Yes, the protagonist is smug and intelligent but that's common in a lot of TV shows for a good reason. Would you watch Suits if the character is an inept lawyer? Or House if the doctor is a mediocre doctor doing routine checkups? And besides, I'd say that most programmers do feel a bit smug in the same sense about your average person clueless about technology.
amag 10y ago
> A closeted gay, masochist antagonist Don't you mean sadist?

yarou 10y ago

Rami Malek really kills it in the first season IMO. Especially the opiate withdrawal scene. Also minor nit - I'm pretty sure Tyrell's wife is aware of his escapades. But you're missing the point about it...Tyrell and his wife are concerned solely with power.

RUG3Y 10y ago
I'm fairly certain that he's not meant to be a closeted gay man, but a psychopath who will pretend to be gay and sleep with someone he isn't interested in, in order to get what he wants.
- cheald 10y ago
  I think this is right. The Willicks are the embodiment of the maxim that "everything is about sex, except sex, which is about power." They are both the most sexually prolific characters in the show, and at the same time, the characters least motivated by sex. It's entirely about power for them.

teekert 10y ago

Yeah it's cliché but if you call it Evil Corp you kind of imply that that is what it should be. I can appreciate that.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

...Except that they aren't (or may not be), and they're wrong. The protagonist isn't always right.

alex_anglin 10y ago

Another way to look at it in the context of the show is the 'unreliable narrator' that is Elliot. The show is told and shown through his perspective, which is a major aspect of the plot. So the criticisms you make could be seen as projections of his personality. Either way, if you don't like it then there's plenty of other good shows to watch these days.

cheald 10y ago

The thing you need to keep in mind about Mr. Robot is that it's told through the eyes of an unreliable narrator. Evil Corp is Comically Evil Cliche Corp because that's how Elliot perceives them, regardless of their actual evilness. From a certain perspective, Mr. Robot is a critique of the very thing you are complaining about. Elliot is able to justify doing many things because of the comic-bookish way in which he perceives his world. He is mentally unstable and a central theme of the show is that the things you see (through him) may or may not reflect the reality of his world, and his actions which, while internally consistent with his reality, may not be as noble or righteous as he thinks they are.

stormbrew 10y ago
The show's heavy lean on the unreliable narrator aspect is what eventually made me lose interest in it (near the end of the first season). At a certain point, a narrator can become so unreliable that there's no actual story anymore. Just increasingly opaque layers of obfuscation. What I've heard about the second season only made me more glad of my decision to stop watching.
- cheald 10y ago
  I think that's a fair critique. S2 definitely went full on "you have no idea what is real or not", which is either going to be extremely satisfying or extremely dissatisfying based on how S3 turns out. At some point, the obfuscation has to resolve. I felt like it resolved reasonably well in S1, though S2 definitely did the LOST thing and just left you hanging for S3. I'm hopeful, though, as Sam Esmail has apparently written the whole story from start to finish, so he hopefully knows where it's going well enough to give it a graceful resolution.
- hfourm 10y ago
  Totally. I fully 5/5 loved the first season, but it started to go in a direction I didn't love towards the end. I couldn't even make it through the first episode of season 2.
  - 10y ago

avar 10y ago

Given what happens later in this series your comment reads like someone who watched half of Fight Club and is annoyed that Brad Pitt's character isn't a plausible friend to Edward Norton's character.

stcredzero 10y ago

I felt like the writers were ignored in high school and used the show as a way to passive-aggressively get back at their perceived enemies. It worked for comic books, back in the day.

sushid 10y ago

The later season hints at the antagonist being more than that and possibly alludes to some interesting ideas that I won't spoil for other readers. Yes, the protagonist is smug and intelligent but that's common in a lot of TV shows for a good reason. Would you watch Suits if the character is an inept lawyer? Or House if the doctor is a mediocre doctor doing routine checkups? And besides, I'd say that most programmers do feel a bit smug in the same sense about your average person clueless about technology.

amag 10y ago

> A closeted gay, masochist antagonist Don't you mean sadist?