Mr. Robot Season 4 Teaser
youtube.com
youtube.com
They slowed down in season two and it had an overall pretty different tone, but they laid the groundwork for some amazing storytelling in season three where things really just fell in place together.
Folks want to live in a fantasy where they save the world that they feel so much pain in, and they can't stomach the idea that their pain is a product of their own mind rather than the world in which they reside where so many others are happily living their lives.
The economy, and people's place in the whole pecking order, isn't under anyone's control, really. People who are on the losing end want to change the system; sometimes their pattern-recognition sees conspiracies, or lets them believe in stories about how the system is oppressing them, but their responses don't necessarily lead to a better system.
That doesn't mean that they were wrong, that the system couldn't be better. Just that the stories that they used to make sense of the world didn't give them good tools to improve things. Most economic and social stories are like this - they become viral by being simple enough for a lot of people to understand, but fundamentally the whole system has feedback loops and second and third order effects dominate when people try to change the system.
There aren't any simple solutions, but simple solutions helped by simple stories are getting a lot of traction these days, on both left and right ends of the political spectrum.
Don't underestimate the power of self-delusion in justifying one's own position, if you think you're doing well. It's easy to start thinking that poor people deserve to be poor as a coping mechanism for the guilt you might otherwise feel.
I mind the people who want to do so without regard for the consequences and collateral damage of their actions, which can hurt those they think they're trying to help.
I mind the radicals. They are dangerous. They don't have a sane mindset. Worse than them though are the ones like them who don't care about making the world a better place, but rather simply want to see the world burn, because they are angry. These are the people that manipulate good causes towards not so good ends.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mr._Robot_episodes#Rat...
flipping sides apparently didn't really pay off for mr robot.
nevertheless i think mr robot set a higher standard for hacker related productions
Corny earnestness aside, I think it does a great job exploring the tension between software that eats the world and the people who live in it, between liberation and anarchy, and the "reality" of revolution in a global political context.
It's a fun show to think too much about and I'm really looking forward to this final season.
Not to mention the awkward alexa product placement...
..but ofc I'll still end up watching it
Yep. It was too obvious and we've already seen that in Fight Club.
It would have been a lot better if Elliot had never figured it out but the writers had left little breadcrumbs here and there for the internet to make conspiracy theories.
And the problem is not so much that it had been done before but that it was obvious.
The second season was dull and the third I had to force myself to finish just to be a completionist. Don't think I can watch another season, sadly.
It just fell of a cliff quality wise.
So did I make the wrong choice?
Mr. Robot has more impact, but after the first season, it has had many highs and lows, confusing at times, you are left asking yourself: should I continue watching? Well, very different styles. And it will surely deliver quite a few great moments more. It depends on what you are looking for.