As a network, USA has traditionally been the home of “blue sky” procedurals where there’s no problem that can’t be overcome in the span of 60 minutes. That’s why Mr Robot was a shock last summer. The gritty story of a hacker with a drug problem and mental health issues trying to take down capitalism by forgiving the world’s debt didn’t really make sense alongside the likes of the relatively happy-go-lucky Royal Pains and Burn Notice.
Thanks to buzz from SXSW, great reviews and a series of plot twists that kept the message boards guessing, Mr Robot became a hit for USA, winning two Golden Globes and becoming one of the most exciting shows on television.
But what if you missed out on the first 10 episodes? Well, they’re all streaming on Amazon Prime, so you could go watch them or you can find out everything you need to know below. Or maybe you watched it and just need a refresher before the new season starts on 13 July at 10pm EST. And, of course, spoilers are ahead, so if you don’t want to know what happened, shut down your computer now.
Characters
Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek): The unreliable narrator of the show, Elliot is a master hacker who works for AllSafe, a computer security firm that helps corporations protect themselves from people like Elliot. He has a penchant for illegal drugs mostly to keep his social anxiety and dissociative personality disorder in check. On the side, he uses his computer skills as a vigilante to help people, especially those who are close to him, like when he scares a married man away from dating his therapist.
The shady Mr Robot recruits him into fsociety, a group of hackers that want to use their powers to bring about the end of capitalism and take down E Corp (or Evil Corp, as Elliot and the rest of the characters on the show call it), which is also AllSafe’s biggest client. Elliot doesn’t always know what is happening because he suffers from blackouts and sometimes does things without being conscious of them.
Mr Robot (Christian Slater): A powerful hacker who lives in an abandoned amusement park in Coney Island, Mr Robot runs fsociety and wants nothing more than for everyone to be free from the shackles of debt and capitalism so that he can restart a sort of anarchic paradise. However Mr Robot isn’t real. He’s an embodiment of Elliot’s late father that only he can see, sort of like Tyler Durden in Fight Club.
Darlene Alderson (Carly Chaikin): The lead hacker of fsociety with connections to a powerful Chinese hacker collective Dark Army. She’s also Elliot’s sister. He doesn’t remember that, however, and tries to make out with her. It is gross.
Angela Moss (Portia Doubleday): Elliot’s best friend since childhood, they both lost a parent because of Evil Corp’s malfeasance. Angela is a salesperson at AllSafe and got Elliot his job there. She is the one who takes care of him, makes sure he is employed, fed and takes his medication. Because of her work at AllSafe, she’s within the orbit of Evil Corp, even though it was responsible for the death of her mother. She is getting very close with its CEO, who thinks of her as a protégé.
Tyrell Wellick (Martin Wallström): The ambitious head of technology at Evil Corp with an equally ambitious wife. Tyrell will do anything (and anyone!) to get ahead, including murdering the CTO’s wife on the roof of Evil Corp during a company event. Because he is a suspect in her murder, he gets fired from the company and starts working with Elliot.
The story so far
Elliot is recruited by Mr Robot to join fsociety and help bring down Evil Corp. They launch a DDoS attack that doesn’t destroy the company but frames Terry Colby, the CTO who was responsible for the deaths of Angela and Elliot’s parents.
Fsociety plans what they call the Five/Nine Hack, a complicated operation that requires social engineering (aka breaking into Evil Corp headquarters), as well as a large number of hackers working in concert. Darlene gets in touch with the Dark Army, a group of Chinese cyberpunks, who help fsociety carry out the attack.
The problem is that Elliot doesn’t remember what happens in the days leading up to the attack. He wakes up in a car in a parking lot in Manhattan with no idea what happened during the previous three days. He does know that the hack was successful, that everyone’s debt has been erased, and the American markets are in complete chaos thanks to fsociety’s attack. Also Tyrell Wellick, who Elliot was working with, has disappeared in those three days and Elliot has no idea what happened to him.
What to expect in season two
The show has added a host of new characters to the lineup. Especially prominent will be Dominique DiPierro (Grace Gummer), an FBI agent on the hunt for the masterminds behind the Five/Nine Hack. Phillip Price (Michael Cristofer), the imperious leader of Evil Corp and Angela’s new mentor, and Joanna Wellick (Stephanie Corneliussen), Tyrell’s scheming wife, have been upgraded from recurring characters to series regulars. That means Angela’s focus won’t be on Elliot, but her place in Evil Corp and whether she can affect change at the company from within.
Creator Sam Esmail, who directed all 10 episodes of this season, said at the Television Critics Association meeting this winter that he wants season two to focus on Elliot’s emotional journey. “For me, the headline for season two is: how do these two guys [Elliot and Mr Robot] reconcile? How does Elliot reconcile with the fact that he’s been seeing a delusion, a fantasy?” he said. Does that mean we’re going to find out that all sorts of things were delusions all along and other outrageous twists? I bet it does.
