I finally watched the second season of
Mr. Robot.
I'm glad I decided to do what I do with
Homeland and probably anything else serialized I start from now on is wait and watch the season as a whole once it completes.
I really liked it, I know a lot of people are upset because nothing BIG happened but it was all character stuff and that was nice. This is supposedly the first half of act two, with season three being the rest of act two. Then seasons four and five are act three which ends it. But writers say lots of stuff.
Dom was great, and I loved more White Rose. The first half with Darryl was kinda unnecessary like with the drug dealer in the first season I thought. It just kept Elliott with things to do while everyone else moved forward in the plot beats. Joanna's plot had the same thing. But once again she maybe got the epic oh god she's frightening scene of the season that almost justified it all.
The one thing I love about this show is that the reveals aren't really reveals in the standard TV method, it's all there before, Elliott's not an unreliable narrator as much as he's in the dark as much as we are. And there's a way that the unpeeling of the onion doesn't make me go "wow didn't see that coming" instead it makes me want to go back because I
know it's all there before. Even stupid stuff like two seconds of a shot of Darlene in a park with an open laptop sitting next to her, how they put in obsessive detail about the hacking being legit, Mobley mashing Alt+F4 and Ctrl+Alt+Del while pretending to be an IT guy, etc. I thought the "routine" thing was a bit hokey and they went out of their way to show it all which lessened it (and also made the conclusion of that arc with Darryl not make as much sense) rather than thinking back to exactly okay that explains the basketball, and the Seinfeld and so on...I have a feeling explaining Angela is going to get kneecapped like that.
I know there's been a lot of criticism over letting Sam Esmail direct every episode this season and man does he certainly get up his own ass at times, but there are just some great framing in the shots. He did a lot with just leaving a camera in one place for every scene in a certain location. The camera not moving while people pause and there's hanging silences put tension into some otherwise weak dialogue, White Rose got that treatment a lot I noticed. Where he's just looking at someone for a moment.
One thing I'd like White Rose to do is help the show inform me of time better. That might be intentional and will unfold as we go but it gives the impression at times that we've seen four
years of events in the two seasons.
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Loved Darlene's walk through the FBI and then looking at the big board. And it backward explaining the busts they thought were someone else.
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Also I get why especially since it has some obvious similarities, but people comparing this to Fight Club irk a little because this season really gave me the further impression that EvilCorp and FiveNine aren't really much more than MacGuffin's rather than some kind of "message" about debt or corporations or class or something. The show seems vastly more concerned with playing with the medium for its messages. Even Angela's storyline is using EvilCorp for building her character, literally in some cases, and the season started to strip away what initially seemed like its overimportance to her.
Of course, I'm not sure Fight Club is anywhere strong enough to carry its own attempted message as claimed by Fincher/Norton/Pitt but that's my own issue I guess.
I really hope this show stays tight and focused, like I don't know,
Deadwood did, instead of sprawling towards levels it can't hold up and was never built to work with in an effort to chase a new high. What's that? No, I wasn't intentionally referencing
Homeland up above because of this.
Unlike
Deadwood, I hope it gets to finish though. Ugh. Still hurts.
