Mr. Robot

This one is pretty strange, but I am enjoying it. It reminds me a little of Person of Interest, though it’s not violent, so far. We have seen the first seven episodes. “Mr. Robot” is Christian Slater, a crazy idealist hacker who has recruited a group of four other hackers. Goal: To take down the largest, most powerful corporation in the world, the E Corporation. (It is always referred to as the Evil Corporation, which was puzzling, until the last episode when … the reason for that is revealed, and I won’t reveal it now.) They intend to hack into Steel Mountain, the most heavily guarded data storage facility in the world. He wants to wipe out all their financial records, so all the trillions of dollars in debt would vanish overnight. What would this do to the world economy? I doubt it would be anything good, and I don’t think he has a clue, but he’s a true believer. And come on, wouldn’t you like to see assholes like that take a beating? I sure would.

Our protagonist is Elliot, played by a guy named Rami Malek, a genuinely creepy-looking dude of Egyptian descent. It’s something to do with his eyes. I don’t mean evil creepy, just … creepy. It also helps that Elliot is on the genius side of the autistic-Asperger spectrum: not dealing well with other people, not wanting to be touched, and so forth. He narrates the story, and I think it’s mostly him that makes the series so watchable.

(Later) Well, we’ve finished the first season, and there were a lot of surprises, none of which I dare reveal to you. But none of them were cheats. Looking back, you can see how you missed what was really going on. The second season is just wrapping up on the USA network, so I guess we will just have to wait for the DVD. But I’m in.