oh man i looked into the mr. robot nutty edge fanbase after seeing some comments elsewhere and having instead of pacing myself watching the rest of the season the day after my post above and needing a small hit of some internet crazy
after reading probably ten separate dudes writing extended rants elaborating their anger at the idea that Sam won't reveal at the end of this season that the entire show uses time travel and alternate timelines even though the "best fans" on reddit, avclub, etc. have already been outlining how this will work, then they may be done with the show because it will feel like a betrayal, especially if there's no reveal this season just like the last two seasons never revealed the truth of this being the plot except in [chart of insane MGS fan theories as stand-in for their five page explanations]
when i got a taste of the fanbase last year i thought it was just disappointment at the second season being more about putting pieces in place for this one, but like, they literally think it's some kind of sci-fi show or something, when it's done nothing but hemmed to realistic lines whenever it could go off in another path
literally all the "twists" i've liked and thought of as the real "twists" have been it doing this and relying on Elliott being an unreliable narrator, and the other characters never having a full picture, except Whiterose obv, of events
looking at some of the reddit for example i think the whole Price/Tyrell/Robot conversation flew over the hardest of hardcores heads entirely...they want it so desperately to be another piece of the grand time travel timelines puzzle, not Price pulling what Whiterose did to him to the only people he could do it to (and I would suggest, if there's any further hook to that line, it's Price looking to turn those two against Whiterose not really knowing they already had started down that path nor how exactly they're involved except that they are important)
either that or people really don't understand the concept of FLASHBACKS and FLASHFORWARD/in media res/etc. stories, both there and elsewhere some of the most opinionated people couldn't understand the basic timeline of the episode where Robot leaves a note for Elliott on the mirror...that Elliott finds it, asks what it means along with other clues, then the show shows us pretty explicitly it's the result of Robot's time in control up to when he has to go, so he sends him the most important info which Elliott then sees which returns you to the earlier moment...instead it's all some kind of parallel timelines horseshit rather than simple storytelling
actually that's most of this season, simple storytelling, without the playing around with the medium gimmicks of the prior season...and that was most of the confusion i saw, much like the confusion of the second season's placing of pieces so it could tell this story
even saw some weird ass confusion over the fifth episode, where it's done as one faked long take, first for Elliott, then transitioning over to Angela, before bringing them back together as their stories sync back up finally...and by weird ass i mean, how one long take is really more proof of alternate timelines rather than...you know, someone saying "this is taking place in real time"
maybe it's just disappointment that the show doesn't seem to be headed into some crazy path they all want? even though the show has never been that? down to bothering to get the fucking hacks and websites right, even the ones you can't see on screen without pausing...down to uploading the video of Elliott throwing himself off the pier on Vimeo along with shooting every scene so they were framed together only, well before the show openly confirmed Elliott was Robot, to where even Sam suggested he was surprised that people didn't assume it from very early on in the show (which is imo why the Darlene scene is the actual reveal about the season and who Robot is, with the next episode straight up showing it iirc)
to be fair, the show didn't seem to fully decide that Robot and Elliott were indeed in the same body, with Robot spending time in control, rather than a very strong hallucination of Elliott's until well after season one...season three almost seems to indulge itself in mockingly toying with the ramifications of what such a concept would imply, especially with the episode where he's beating up himself and trashing that computer lab, etc. and even the way Tyrell decides he's too insane to work with (not to mention everyone else finally straight up dropping the pretense and revealing they knew about it once Elliot does, and Irving being all like wtf at this dude
)
i love irving, i hope he gets to meet dom, and they run off together as everyone else kills each other off presumably, he works on his book, she talks to Alexa (which a few people were like "ugh, product placement now?" and "why would Darlene be impressed by that?" when it's like did you miss her talking to it last season?!? and how it's still 2015?!? lol) they eat bbq together
