Mr Robot begins with the internal monologue of the kind of guy that may be the target demographic. Enter Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek). He is a young man who is on the outside of Society. In fact `F- Society' is a theme here. Elliot's enemy like Mulder and Scully are the men in the shadows, the puppet masters, the ones rigging all the games. In Elliot's world the House always wins, except not on his watch.
Elliot is socially awkward in the extreme, He has trouble talking to people, he wants desperately to fit in but he just doesn't and he knows this. This may sound familiar to many, but what he does about it; lets say just say we will be exploring some seriously awesome Gray areas.
Firstly Elliot is a Hacker. If you are thinking `The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo', you should. No 90's style goggles on, Elliot is new school. His `black hat' is a black hoodie which by all rights should have a penguin somewhere on it; Linux for the win! Those of you in the know, can attest to this as a better attempt than hacker movies and shows of days past. Swordfish comes to mind, and then swims away never to darken our collective doorstep again.
Elliot has the perfect superhero archetype for our modern age. His awkwardness may be seen as a curse but maybe it is also a sort of defense mechanism. Hopefully this aspect will be further explored in later episodes. He has a close friend and co-worker Angela (Portia Doubleday), he's able to function, but he comes off as weird/creepy to most he encounters. He can't hang out with everyone at Angela's birthday, but he can go to work and hold down a job. Does he cry at night? Maybe crying every other week? Yes, yes he does that too. But don't feel to sorry just yet. It turns out his `Creepy factor' is his super power.
Elliot uses his `1337' (leet or elite) hacker skills for some seriously questionable net activity. First of all, change your passwords now. Elliot utilizes social engineering like he wrote the book on it. What's your dogs name? What's your birthday backwards? Elliot uses all of this to get into every single thing that is personal to you, but may have been made innocently public thanks to Facebook and facebook mentality. Seriously 12345 is going to get you into trouble. Speaking of Facebook, guess who doesn't have a page on it?
With all of this going on, it's not surprising that Elliot self medicates to treat his anxiety. After all he already knows about all of the shadow conspiracies going on, no way he's going to trust `Big Pharma' with his magnificent intellect. Like Sherlock Holmes in the Conan Doyle Novels who was an avid user of cocaine in liquid form. Elliot's drug of choice is Morphine. He says that he has this under control, but when Mary Jane and Molly come into play, that control seems to go out the window. At points he wonders if the things that he sees are even real. You'll want to stick around to find out. Mr. Robot grabs you and doesn't let go.
One may wonder just who is this Mr. Robot (minor spoiler) it's not Elliot. Look for one very fun big name that you are sure to recognize. Also fans of the 80's conspiracy sci-fi flick `They Live' will get a kick out of the way Elliot sees the advertisements around him, sans funky 80's style shades. This one is for the weridos and weirdos, even the creepy ones can still be Batman. Creepy-Batman, but hey wasn't our pal Bruce just a little creepy too?
One star being another savage attempt by the industry to churn out yet more butter to be consumed by the masses, and Five stars being a show that televises the proverbial revolution that was not supposed to be televised. This one demands your attention with a solid Five Stars. Buy the Ticket, take the Red Pill, and fight the good fight. This one is for all of us.
Mr. Robot Airs Wednesday's at 8PM on the USA network. It is also available on HULU.
