bunkaroo

There was a throwaway line about someone not keeping an eye on the GPS which would tell them when the owner was coming home. Simpler answer is it was a plot-driven action (or inaction).

Raul3

Yep, best episode of the season.

And as mentioned, the saddest part is that the protagonist of the show was not present, other than some mention of him.

So the big question now is, how can Elliott be back into the main story, without it being forced?

cowtown

At this point I'm more interested in the sister's character. Less monotone.

Deftones

yeah, this was a good episode.

mcnabb

This episode proved to me that Darlene is my favorite character on the show.

PhantomStranger

Everyone is going to freak out when it's revealed that Elliot is a figment of Darlene's imagination.

starseed1981

The hell you say.....

Jay G.

Just binge-watched the entire second season up to now. I will say that going through these comments, the level of negativity surprised me. Maybe it works better as a binge-watch, since I've been entertained. We'll see how I like it week-to-week (ended up binge watching most of season 1 too).

starseed1981

Binge watching generally helps hide flaws in shows as you don't have a week or so to dwell on mistakes they are doing. The negativity here isn't general internet whining...the show has some very legit narrative issues this year. I have no clue how they got the season 3 pick-up.

mcnabb

Not sure if anyone watches the Aftershow podcast? (It is also on USA OnDemand).

They had one of the writers on and he actually talked about many fans unhappiness with the season. He mentioned that fans did not like the 60+ minute episodes early in the season, as I have noticed the past few episodes have been shorter.

He then tried to defend the season equating it to Star Wars in 1977, and Empire Strikes Back. He said Season 1 ends in a bang just like Star Wars ended in 1977 blowing up the Death Star. Season 2 and Empire Strikes Back essentially go a different route then fans expected. I'll have to find the quote but that was the jist of it.

bunkaroo

The key difference is ESB was compelling and extremely well made; S2 of Mr. Robot is hacky and amateurish.

slop101

There was no one who was disappointed in ESB upon it's release.

If he wants to take a lesson from ESB, it should be that it's the SW movie that Lucas had the least amount of control over and the most outside input, and it happened to be the best.

Jay G.

Well, whether the complaints are "legit" is solely a matter of opinion. I will say that the longer episode length and apparently slower pace weren't an issue for me while binge-watching. It may have been an issue if I had watched week-to-week though. Whether or not that counts as a "mistake" is up for debate.

Except most people really loved Empire Strikes Back, even during release. I think the only criticism most people had was with the cliffhanger ending, which was pretty unique for its time (movies were standalone, and weren't made with the idea of being a serial or franchise).

I do think the show had to explore Elliot and Mr. Robot's relationship, and have Elliot deal with the situation and his own mental state. Whether it had to go on for so long in the second season is another issue. I remember people complaining about the "slow" start to season 3 of Hannibal in a similar way, with that show taking its time to deal with the fallout of the season 2 finale before really progressing the story more.


On a specific plot point, I think Elliot was in jail for the hack of his psychiatrist's ex boyfriend. In the season 1 finale, the ex said some Eastern European country would have to collapse before he could get the IP records to convict Elliot, and then he went home and saw on the TV that said country had just collapsed due to the economic fallout of the 5/9 hack. I feel like a conviction for that hack could lead to such a short prison term.

Also, from my memory, the only two people from the outside to visit Elliot at his "Mom's" were Darlene, his sister, and Angela, his childhood friend. So I don't think either would become suspects of anything just for visiting him in jail.

The logistics of Elliot's interactions with Ray still need to be more fully sussed out. It seems likely Ray was a guard or maybe a counselor, but probably not an inmate. Did Ray have an office with a laptop in the prison? It does explain why Elliot specifically went to Ray when he needed access to a PC, since if Elliot had been on the outside he would've had far more choices for PC access.

I'm also trying to figure out if the past IT guy was a prisoner or not. We first seem him and Ray in the IT guy's home, with wife and kid cowering in the corner, so it's possible the IT guy was from outside the prison.

mcnabb

I don't want to derail this thread into a SW debate, but I have to respectfully disagree with you on this. I remember in 1980 many of us were split on ESB. As someone said here that many did not like the cliffhanger ending, but others like me didn't like the dark tone and watching our characters get their asses kicked for 2 hours by the bad guys. I loved ROTJ more then ESB in the early 80's.

Now of course years later (around the early 90's is when many of us re-evaluated ESB), when we watched it in the context of Part 2 of 3 in the Original Trilogy, and understood the darker tone, we all loved it. But ESB was not this universally loved SW movie in 1980 (Hence why Lucas made ROTJ a more lighter tone). Around the Late 90's is when it started to really become known as the 'greatest SW movie'. But even then when the SE were released in 1997, here were the box office figures:

Star Wars: 136 million
ESB: 57 million
ROTJ: 45 million

Jay G.

That sounds a bit anecdotal. But it is true that it's hard to properly gauge what the true viewer reaction without coloring it with hindsight.

These articles give some insight into the critical reaction to the film when it was released:
http://fd.noneinc.com/secrethistoryo...eception1.html
http://fd.noneinc.com/secrethistoryo...eception2.html
http://www.starwars.com/news/critica...iginal-reviews

slop101

Well, I shouldn't have said "no one", but most weren't disappointed in it - certainly not as disappointed as they (we) were with Jedi, and I won't even mention the prequels.

gmanca

These are actually the solid reasons why it wasn't obvious that he was in prison; Angela met Elliot after her ex said he spoke to the FBI and was recording their conversation. The idea that she would just go to prison after this is what made the mother's house look real at the time; of course now it looks dumb knowing that was prison but that was needed to play up the twist.

Same with the IT guy and his family; the construct was seeing his home and family as the outside and blurring the lines of what the van represented and whether Elliot saw it as a van or not.

You can like or hate the twist but the commitment in keeping it from being obvious was real and sincere.

Deftones

I think I would like BD Wong's character more if it didn't seem like such a blatant ripoff of Job from Banshee.

Raul3

That was interesting.

Second half of the season has been great, as expected. A lot of open questions after this episode, but, IMHO, good open questions.

There's still a big risk that Esmail can paint himself into a corner, like have happened with other creators in the past, but hopefully the show can close in a high note this season.

mcnabb

Good episode. I never have any idea what is going on in this show, but still a good episode.

Jay G.

So if Stage 2 was Elliot's idea, it seems like there's a part of him that's still closed off to both Elliot and Mr. Robot. Is it possible there's a 3rd personality?

Brack

Still really liking this show. Binge watching is where it's at with a show like this. I pretty much mini-binge all my shows these days, but I really like being able to binge on this show for some reason. I actually liked this season's "twist" better than last season, which was painfully obvious after the first or second episode, and I'm willing to bet the better twist is yet to come.

hdtv00

Intense...

Deftones

Crazy how the second half of this season has been so good as compared to the shit first half.

OldBoy

I have the last 3 eps recorded, but frankly no desire to see them...