‘Mr. Robot’: Everything You Need to Know for Season 2
Nothing is a coincidence or an accident in Mr. Robot, Sam Esmail’s hacker psychothriller that wormed its way into last year’s TV season like a particularly efficient computer virus. Visually stunning and meticulously plotted, the first season tapped into a rich vein of paranoia and disillusion running through the heart of late-stage capitalist society — in other words, it’s not exactly your typical USA Network fare, a channel known for play-it-safe shows like Royal Pains and White Collar.
Told from the perspective of Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek), a brilliant but mentally unstable hacker who becomes embroiled in a plot to dismantle the global economy, Mr. Robot is one of the most daring and unsettling shows to hit the airwaves in recent years. Sure, it bears more than a passing resemblance to Fight Club, with its unreliable narrator and its takedown of the status quo. But Esmail’s series is far more nuanced and sophisticated than those surface similarities would have you believe. We don’t just hear from Elliot and the voices in his head, we hear from everyone around him — and that’s just one of the aspects that elevates it above every other series about a screwed-up antihero on a mission.
With Season Two premiering on Wednesday night, here’s a quick refresher on the slow-simmering mindfuck that was Mr. Robot‘s first season. Hello, friend.
Elliot Is a Mess
We’re introduced to Elliot — electrocuted undercut, omnipresent black hoodie and giant, haunted eyes — as a sort of techie Batman. By day, he’s a mild-mannered cybersecurity expert at a company called Allsafe; by night, he roots out evildoers by hacking into the bowels of their digital history. But of course, it’s much more complicated than that: Paranoid and socially inept, Elliot uses his skills to access the sordid histories of everyone he meets, even the people closest to him. To cope with his isolation — and what we eventually learn is an untreated dissociative disorder — he self-medicates with morphine. But like, it’s totally not a problem, he swears.
His Inner Circle Is Very Small
Elliot had a pretty fucked-up childhood: His mom was emotionally abusive, and his dad once pushed him out of a window to prove a point. His only real allies: Angela (Portia Doubleday), his childhood friend who works with him at Allsafe and keeps an eye on his well-being; and Shayla (Frankie Shaw), his drug dealer/hookup buddy. Elliot’s well-meaning boss, Gideon (Michel Gill), and his therapist, Krista (Gloria Reuben), seem to have his best interest at heart, but he keeps them at arm’s length.