TV - Mr Robot: Season 2, Episode 1

The Mr Robot team surprise dropped the first episode of Season 2 over social networks for a couple of hours on Sunday night before wiping it. Luckily we know an American who was watching. Nate McKenzie now has theories (and slight spoilers)...

"It's almost as if... something has come alive."

Melding the mind, disrupting reality, Mr. Robot's Season 2 premiere not only picks up right where the stellar first season left off, but also hyperdrives right into a world of chaos, conviction, and questions that seem to have no answer.

Even if answers are elusive, there is much to dissect within the premiere, titled "eps2.0_unm4sk-pt1.tc".

In less than 24 hours since the episode surprise aired on social media and USA Network's website theories have spread across the internet.

Here is what we know for sure (we think):

Darlene is in control of fsociety now.

Tyrell Wellick is believed by authorities to be the mastermind behind the Five/Nine attacks on Evil Corp. His whereabouts are unknown.

Gideon Goddard is being investigated by they FBI, who think he is complicit in the hack against Evil Corp.

That's about it. Everything else that can be surmised about the episode would be conjecture.

Meanwhile, Elliot hasn't been seen by anyone for a while.

Confined to a new life of self-imposed isolation, Elliot seeks to control that voice in his head with repetition and familiarity by moving back in with his mother . He attempts to create a rift between what he understands to be reality and that which he is sure (as sure as he can be) is all in his head, Mr. Robot. Every day is the same routine: wake up at the same time, eat at the same time at the same place, with the same person (his new buddy Leon, who is obsessed with Seinfeld), watch a basketball game, attend a religious group meeting, then go to bed at the same time. As Elliot refers to it, "A loop. My perfectly constructed loop."

All this, he does while his mother sits and watches the news; news that continuously features President Obama deriding fsociety and their attacks.

To keep a grasp on what has happened each day, Elliot keeps a detailed journal.

I have a theory.

Elliot is in an asylum. If not an asylum, then a mental health hospital of some sort.

The mundane routine. Waking and eating at the same time each day. A daily meeting with a religious bent. The ambiguous presence of his mother. The television she watches that never changes channels. Elliot's journaling.

The journal.

Elliot titled his journal Red Wheel Barrow. When he is watching basketball (prison yard ball?) with Leon he introduces us to "Hot Carla, the local pyro". Carla is burning a book in a red wagon.

Leon is obsessive-compulsive, Carla is a pyromaniac, and Elliot is schizophrenic (with at least a few other issues compounding that one). Where would these three people possibly end up meeting? A psychiatric hospital.


Elliot's "mother" could very well be just a manifestation of his mother in place of a guard or nurse. During a therapy session with Krista, she asks Elliot, "Why your mom? Why her specifically?" to which Elliot responds, "She's the strictest person I know."

Is Elliot self-incarcerated for his own safety? Was he forcibly put there after whatever-happened at the beginning of the episode with Wellick? Or did he simply build this facade in his mind to protect himself from the havoc that Mr. Robot wreaks in his life?

Whatever the case, Mr. Robot has firmly established that it has no intention of releasing its grip on our minds.



Image - Mr Robot Facebook/ USANetwork

Watch Season 1 on DVD, Amazon Prime and coming soon to Universal. Watch Season 2 on Amazon Prime from THURSDAY in the UK.