TV REVIEW: ‘MR. ROBOT’ Season 2 Takes You to a Darker And Twisted Turn!

Mr. Robot season 2 touched on a lot of questions on the Elliot’s credible narrative and then we go through 12 episodes, he confuses us with what has been going on with his mind and sometimes and doesn’t have a clue or probably he is deceiving us or maybe it’s his mind that playing us or Mr. Robot is an illusion and a manifestation of between control and illusion.

Season 2’s pacing gets either slow or fast in each episodes, it doesn’t have a fixed flow and it perfectly depicts Elliot’s reliable narrative: the incoherent flashbacks mixed with some surrealist imagery that gives an ambiguous line between imagination and the perception that Elliot wants to tell us.

The 90’s sitcom featuring the Aldersons in a family vacation road trip had with campy visual aesthetics and colorful SFX with matching gleeful opening credits but while it supposed to be upbeat, Mr. Robot coughing blood, smiles and doesn’t worry about anything makes it unsettling and cut to Elliot’s daily routine from eating at the same diner to watching a basketball game but then the big twist that he is in prison.

The different layers of Elliot’s hallucinations or the perceptions he instills manifests his struggle to take control and during his prison sentence is where he contemplates a decision to embrace on what he is or just run away.

Showrunner Sam Esmail directed and wrote all episodes shows a seamless visual and narrative storytelling, especially the lore of E Corp, Dark Army, Fsociety and White Rose and how the 5/9 hack’s effects to each group, respectively and now with the constant electricity blackouts around the US paves way for ‘Stage 2’ following the rise of Ecorp’s new venture, the ECoins aims is to compensate their customers and beneficiaries’ losses, this and the blackouts have an Orwellian nod: privacy surveillance, the blackouts as a form of subduing the society echoing a dystopian authority.

With great characterization comes with compelling acting. Each storyline becomes a connective tissue, whether the show shits the camera to Elliott, Darlene, Angela or the newcomer Dominuqe DiPierro (played by Grace Gummer), their acting chops adds a nice touch to the characters. When Carly Chaikin (Darlene) takes the center stage this season, we get to see her reveal different layers of Darlene: there’s charisma, uncertainty and Chaikin takes those in a deeper and complex level and making her a standout this season.

And Grace Gummer’s DiPierro was a great addition to the show, she portrayed the determined FBI agent as a human being looking for justice, she has dry wit and sarcastic humor that keeps her composed on difficult situations. B.D. Wong’s White Rose’s creepy and unpredictable that every time he enters the frame keep you terrified.

The beauty of Rami Malek’s acting is that he doesn’t do the same acting, and in every season he reveals a new aspect of his character, his season 2 arc delved deeper on the confusion and questioning himself he takes Elliot on a long path that is close to soul-searching where he needs to accept who he is.

What makes Mr. Robot work it uses the seasons represent as chapters and pages of a novel: the suspense, surprise deaths, bizarre unsettling moments is what drives the story, and if the show will go down to its dystopian route, perhaps ECorp and White Rose’ Stage 2 is probably paving way to take the entire world, and an endgame resulting to a one-world government and it’s possible given today’s technology.

ECorp, FBI, Dark Army or fsociety, it doesn’t matter which you want to side, it’s Mr. Robot who is in between, an icon and a force of nature that encourages you to find the truth and picture control the way you see it; Quoting season 2’s tagline, “control is an illusion”.

You can catch all of Season 1 and 2’s episodes on Iflix.