Rachel Bellwoar reviews the first half of Mr. Robot season 2…
An erratic viewing schedule on my end hasn’t helped but, while Mr. Robot‘s creativity is still there in season two, my investment in it hasn’t been. As the last person who wanted to feel that way after season one, an attempt to divulge why at the halfway point.
Creator, Sam Esmail, directs every episode this year and the visuals continue to be stunning—multiple Elliot’s walking, then skipping, across the screen, when he takes too much Adderall, just one example of a scene elevated by Esmail’s framing and cuts.
New characters have merged in effortlessly. If I knew anything about Seinfeld, tearing apart the specific episodes Joey Bada$$’ Leon references (for the very reason that Elliot deems them unimportant white noise) would be a blast.
The show continues to sport some of the best female roles on TV, with the power trifecta of Carly Chaikin’s Darlene, Portia Doubleday’s Angela, and new addition, Grace Gummer’s Dom. None fulfill the cookie cutter labels that dominate the scene and would have boxed them into tough hacker chick, girl next door crush, and female FBI agent with something to prove. The biggest surprise pay off has been the additional screen time for Stephanie Corneliussen’s Joanna Wellick. Cut off from the rest of the action, and straddled with the popular scandalous go-to lately of BDSM, Joanna manages to subvert expectations through great dialogues with her partner, over the nature of their relationship, and complicated intersections of roles (having a man report on a hit she placed while singing her newborn a lullaby).
Which leaves plot.
Starting with the fan theory that was confirmed last week, of Elliot being in prison this whole time, various opinion’s exist on whether this was the right move for the show to make. I fall into the camp of supporting it. What I think was a mistake is when the show timed the reveal. Elliot needed the illusion to last this long but the audience could’ve been officially tipped off much earlier.
It’s not even that the fan theory spoiled the outcome. Last season’s big moments were designed the same way, where fans could potentially pick-up on Mr. Robot’s and Darlene’s identities before the show shared them. The difference here is last year knowing about Mr. Robot and Darlene was an encouragement to watch, to see how the show pulled it off. This year, knowing about Elliot being in prison was impressive but then, as the wait for confirmation grew longer, the impressiveness mixed with self-doubt and attempts to poke holes in the theory (because the show wouldn’t attempt such a major change in perspective twice, would it?).
Then there’s the fact that, now that the truth has come out, instead of having a chance to appreciate the visual metaphors the show was making to prison, from the security of knowing there were metaphors to find, Elliot’s already getting released. It’s over, which is very different from the ramifications of, say, learning a character was your protagonist’s sister the whole time, where the effects of that reveal continue today.
The main cost of the prison set-up, however, has been Elliot’s isolation. All of the new characters have been great but they can’t replace dynamics with old ones, including with us, the viewer, whose fourth wall breaking conversations Elliot now offers as a consolation prize for lying to us.
Secluding Elliot, so that he could double down on his efforts to figure out his relationship with Christian Slater’s Mr. Robot, is in line with how we’ve been led to believe he would act in this kind of situation. He needs to fill in his missing time with Tyrell during the 5/9 attack and he also wants to protect those he cares about.
Still, a lot of the power of Elliot’s arc from season one (besides Rami Malek’s performance itself) came from his uncomfortable attempts to bridge both worlds, a semi-normal life as an employee at Allsafe, with friends, and a hacker life, all too aware of humanity’s problems and trying to solve them with his fsociety. This year Angela has been the one working both sides—from within Evil Corp and alongside fsociety—and it’s not a coincidence that her scenes have become some of the most palpable as consequence.
Chaikin’s Darlene brings a confident energy to every room she enters but there’s only so much she can do to uplift fsociety’s latest stunts since 5/9. Too many undeserving victims (like the shop owner Dom visits) have been shown to be hurt by the economic outcome for their idealism to have the same sparkle. It also doesn’t help that their time has been so heavily diverted to covering their own tracks.
Realistic backlash for a cyber-attack of this magnitude? Sure, but the heart of Angela’s campaign is still personal, finding justice for her mother’s death. It’s a worthy goal, whether her methods are entirely kosher or not, and it stands out against the scale of everything else going on. In setting themselves into a corner, where they had to raise the stakes, Mr. Robot lost some of its relatability and sense of hope within the darkness. It’s tackling a story that’s much bigger than Elliot’s orbit now, the one that was promised if they went through with 5/9, and like 5/9, whether we’re actually happy with the results is still uncertain.
Rachel Bellwoar
Originally published August 25, 2016. Updated October 24, 2022.
