Baby you can drive my car
Sam Esmail is the eminence gris behind Mr Robot. Though the word “behind” undersells it. He’s more the man right in the middle: producing, directing and writing the show. That he has been able to create suspense and relatable characters at the same time as immersing his audience into the technical murk of hacking has delivered kudos enough. But now, with this week’s episode, Esmail is taking the mickey. Not content with creating a complex drama, he’s knocked off a note-perfect pastiche of one of those sunny 90s sitcoms. And played it for shivers.
First, the explanation. Elliot has been beaten unconscious by Ray’s goons and is in a bad way. If the aspect of Elliot’s personality that is Mr Robot is to be believed, this shiny fantasy has been created to stop Elliot from dying. “Keep your eyes on the road in front of you” as the father in the sitcom (Mr Alderson, Christian Slater, Mr Robot), keeps saying.
The set up of the sitcom sees the Alderson family (Elliot, Darlene, mum and dad) on a road trip in a nice convertible. The colouration and image quality is a bit bright and a bit grainy, perfectly 90s. There’s a laughter track after every one liner – “It’s one for Alderson, and Alderson for one!’ – and the odd comedy sound effect. Everyone is ripping on each other, but only Elliot can see that this reality isn’t real. While the others smile calmly, he is freaking out. What is that on the screen of Darlene’s Gameboy – and who’s making those noises in the trunk?
The scene hints at plot revelations. The man in the boot turns out to be Tyrell Wellick, who gets shot in the head by Mr Robot, perhaps explaining what happened before the Dane’s mysterious disappearance. Darlene is punched in the face by her mother, suggesting a different abusive relationship in the family – could she be the cause of the bruise on Elliot Jr’s face at the end of the episode? Meanwhile Mr Alderson says out loud to his son what we’ve all been thinking about Angela and Elliot: “You two are just gonna keep on stringing us along aren’t you,” he says, “You’re a classic will-they-won’t-they.”
There are elements that work on a thematic level too. First off the disjunction between the lazy smiles of the rest of the Alderson family and Elliot’s wide-eyed panic reinforces the alienation he feels in his real life. The world might as well be a TV show for all that he can relate to it. Then there’s the glitches, the way Elliot’s real memories start to blend into the imagined ones (the Gameboy is, in actual fact, playing back his beating). Glitches, just as Elliot finds (or leaves) glitches in code or hunts them in other people’s personalities. Finally, there is a sense of unease that hangs over the entire scene – this can’t be real, can it? It’s a heightened version of the anxiety that eats at Elliot every day.
Ultimately though, this recasting of Mr Robot through a prism of Alf, the Fresh Prince and Blossom, is a marker from Esmail. He’s saying that he’s here to join the pantheon of venerated showrunners; people like Vince Gilligan of Breaking Bad (who once introduced an episode of the drama with a Narcocorrido music video) or David Chase (whose Sopranos dream sequences are legendary). For me, there’s still a way to go before Mr Robot can be mentioned in the same breath as these other serials, but it’s heading in the right direction. And you can hardly begrudge the man his ambition.
Yes I’m going to be a star
Elliot doesn’t feature much in the rest of this week’s episode. He’s under Ray’s watchful eye and the dark web impresario has plans for him. Plans that involve more beatings and being dumped in abandoned warehouses, by the looks of things.
The real action this week takes place in Evil Corp HQ where Angela is hoping to graduate from a crash course in international hacking by breaking open the FBI’s information systems. It’s like a reprise of last season’s Steel Mountain raid, except Angela is not dealing with overweight security guards but ripped Feds, who want to know why she’s there and, also, have a date with her. Furthermore, there’s a problem with the magic router through which f.soc hope to strip all their info: it’s been modded by the Dark Army. That does not bode well, especially since the big bads have also decided their friendly gaijin hacker Cisco is a snitch and fitted him with a chip like some kind of pet. So when Angela manages to stunt her way out of trouble with the amorous Fed, you are impressed by her skills but sure that something bad is yet to come.
And it does. The wi-fi goes down, so f.soc can’t get their data out. To fix it, Angela is going to have to go back to the office and boot it back up herself, with code, which she barely understands. Rarely has watching text being entered on a screen been so suspenseful and, of course, just as Angela is waiting for the final command to be enacted, there’s a voice in her ear. Oh look, it’s Dominique de Piero.
Our Dom has survived the shootout in Beijing, So did her boss, by the way, who by a striking turn of fortune turned out to be in his hotel room for the duration of the event. He says Dom should take some time off, get some r’n’r. Dom says that she’d rather stay on the case, after all the official explanation that the attack was conducted by regional separatists doesn’t seem to stack up. I’m sure that kind of smart, independent thinking won’t get her in any trouble at all.
Order v Chaos rating: 8
And there was me thinking it had gone away. No, while the last couple of weeks haven’t focussed on the continued collapse of civilisation, it very much hadn’t stopped. Phil Price is trapped in his swanky office thanks to the hundreds of protesters now gathered outside Evil Corp HQ. Meanwhile Dom’s favourite convenience store owner is wearing his same unflappable smile, but there’s little else left, as he reveals he will soon be going out of business due to an inability to replenish supplies. It could be pitchforks time quite soon.
Self assault index: green
No punches, just hugs. Mr Robot says he took the blows for Elliot so that he could ensure his survival. Elliot thanks him. It’s a tender moment, for a moment, until you realise that this might just be Mr Robot’s victory in the battle for Elliot’s psyche.
Questions
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Is Tyrell Wellick dead? What is the tabloid obsession with Mrs Wellick by the way, what has she done (in public) to deserve her infamy? Who has the better masks, the Dark Army or f.soc? And will Phillip Price get his bailout?
