What people need to understand about the series

Really miss Mr.Robot's theme, they hardly played it (only variants of it). I also missed the terminal, the daily hacking, everything that made the first season great. The second season was...good. It's obvious Esmail went the way True Detective went, he directed every episode and it shows. Season 3 should have many directors and please bring back the Mr.Robot theme!

It's all about the long haul. This isn't like traditional shows where each season neatly wraps up ...

I'll admit that for a time I was one of those people shouting out about needing answers and resolutions and all that, but once you view the show as the whole it will be and not the segments we get now, it just makes everything so much better (in my opinion).

It's easy in the short run to be frustrated, the nature of the show calls for one to be frustrated, but thinking big picture helps put it all into context for why we're not getting everything neatly tied up by the end of the season. They're not just doing season arcs, they're doing entire series arcs. It's ambitious to be sure, and clearly not everyone will like it, but by the time it's over I bet a lot of people will look back at s2 and get it and like it a whole lot more and understand how it fits into the greater story at play here.

We've been conditioned to watch tv a certain way over the years and to know what to expect from its format, so to get something that turns that on its head...or maybe not even that, but toys with its conventions like Mr. Robot does, it makes sense there will be a certain amount of backlash or confusion to that. I agree with the OPs sentiment though, that they're building for the long game and not worried, necessarily, about appeasing the short game. It's a bit risky, and again causes frustration, but that may just be what makes or breaks this show for some people, and that's just how it is.

The next time I find myself screaming about wanting a clear cut answer, I'll have to remind myself of all of this, and that I'd much rather have a cohesive, mind blowing series end than a mildly satisfying season finale that gives me what I'm anticipating. As the show has taught us...it's all a matter of perspective 

This has got me thinking about this "huge story arc" approach to making a TV show:

1. It's only been viable in this age of box sets, streaming and binge-watching etc. Online is changing the way stories are told and it's still quite a new thing. You can't blame people for taking time (years even) to adjust their expectations of what a TV show is, after decades of the old episodic approach.

2. As the maker you'd have to be damn confident in its success to know that 3+ seasons will be commissioned and the story will end satisfactorally. Say if this current story IS finished off nicely in S3, then what do you do? Commit to another 3 season/year story arc or end on a high and move on to a brand new IP?

3. You run the risk of viewers getting bored/impatient/distracted. Just my personal experience, but the plot is getting so out-there that i'm having trouble keeping up, with week-long gaps between shows (now there's a 10 month gap!). Especially as I have other shows to keep tabs on too. I think for season 3 I might be better-off binging the entire season after it's all available. If enough other people feel the same then viewing figures would look bad until it's all available.

Before I continue this post, I want to clarify that; I am still a fan of this series, I will continue watching, and, at least for the time being, I consider it one of the best shows currently airing. But I am, however, getting a bit concerned. And not because the S2 finale didn’t rise to «epic», it was more than enough for me, but it wasnt really on the scale of «epic».

Mr. Robot is in many ways similar to LOST in the way it presents seemingly weird mysteries left and right. We have gaps in time where seemingly important events took place, we have characters referring to such events, people who are believed to be dead and then not, and then to be a hallucination, and then not, and so on. We now have several phases of an implied «master plan», which seemingly is grand enough so that it can turn people like Angela to fully support and commit to it within 30 minutes or so. When we’re on the subject, I don’t feel like Angela is the kind of person who would take lightly upon blowing up a building with potentially hundreds of, in principle, innocent lives in it, so it’s got to be a pretty awesome plan.

(On a sidenote, by supporting the plan, Angela is sort of doing the same as the E-corp executives, when they «decided» that her mother would die, along with the others in the accident, but moving on).

Sure, I don’t need to be spoonfed answers to these mysteries, I don’t want to either. For a lot of them, its perfectly possible to piece together the answer by just paying attention and using common sense, and thats OK. I don’t need a narrative of Elliot or Mr. Robot walking through the events like: «and then we went there and did that, and then...., and then» or something of that nature. A lot of questions are better when the viewer can and should piece them together themselves. Provided its realistically possible.

And I can accept that this is a long-game series, where we will have to watch multiple future seasons to then be mindblown by the big picture. I can wait, AS long as I feel confident that there actually is a big picture and reasons and answers behind all this weirdness.

When LOST was airing, there were times where I would sit down and try to think out possible explanations behind the mysteries and the big picture, applying different types of math to the numbers to see if something came out of it and so on. Not a lot though, plenty of people spent more time on it than I did, but it was always this drive to try to make sense of it, because, at the time, the show seemed consistent, it seemed intelligent, we were all convinced that there was an explanation to everything, and that it would blow our minds. Of course, there was not. It was made up as they went on, and in the end it tried and failed to save itself with the BS: «it was about the characters, not the mysteries».

Yes, LOST had tons of really (REALLY) great characters and backstories, which on their own, I really enjoyed. In the same way I can enjoy the tech-aspect of Mr. Robot, or just the overall *beep* scenes on their own. If nothing else, its (probably) fun to watch stoned. But in the same way that LOST did present itself as a mystery series with an implied promise of resolution, so has Mr. Robot done.

And as the show goes on, now through 2 seasons, without really giving signs of such a resolution, my skepticism does rise. After all, how can I know that the writer really is as clever as everyone claims?

After LOST, I’m a lot more hesitant to to spend my time sitting down trying to figure out series like Mr. Robot. Because, if in the end there is no answer, why should I bother? If it all collapses in some sort of «everyone can make out their own interpretation of what they think happened» BS resolution, to reference the greatness of the human mind of some *beep* I would feel really cheated if I once again spent time of my life trying to solve mysteries that in reality had no answer to them.

The problem with weird scenes like the «fish tank interview», is that, given that this show operates within the realms of the real world, or at least the notion that the characters we se are «real» human beings, then behaviour needs to be explained within the realm of human behaviour. Sure, you can have really *beep* up behaviour, but it must still be motivated by something an actual human being could come up with. So for the interview scene, there must exist a reason for the character Whiterose to actually design and execute it that way. Maybe to test out the level of absurdity a person (Angela) would put up with, or something, as a measurement of open-mindedness or whatever. I dont know, but there has to be a reason. Because, if its just weird for the sake of weird or just to reference some scene from a book or movie, then its poor writing.

Scenes like the «sitcom»-sequence are sort of exempt from this, as this was a dream/hallucination, and you can dream up some really crazy *beep* And its totally plausible that a TV running in the background can influence ones dreams, no problems there. Im talking about the scenes that for all we can tell, did happen in the real world, and was not filtered through Elliots mind.

And while we’re on the subject; if the explanation is that everything is in Elliots mind, then thats a total flop. «It was all a dream» is one of the biggest cop-outs you can possibly come up with.

There was this article written by Adam Quigley about why LOST failed, the site which hosted it is unfortunately closed, however, you can read an archived version here: https://web.archive.org/web/20120911092333/http://www.alwayswatching.net/features/lost-sucks

This in many ways points out the direction I fear that Mr. Robot may go, and why its bad.

This is at least my «issue» with the series as of now, not that I wasn’t spoonfed every answer by the S2 finale.

I really wish that drudlord would get what coming to him somehow. By Mr. Robot's hands or someone elses somehow. That and the next episode were so sad.