A couple of years ago the Stock Market crashed.
The Big Boys of the banking world, Citibank, Chase, Bank of America, etc were all trading for around a quarter a share. The reason for this was they were, and mostly still are, run by greedy, selfish, cheating bastards. Our fine Government stepped forward and said these Institutions were [easyazon_link identifier=”0143118242″ locale=”US” tag=”londonthoug-20″]Too Big Too Fail[/easyazon_link]. Everyone who owed them money was more than happy to see them fail. No more bank, no more debt.
Which brings us to [easyazon_link identifier=”B00YCVCBRS” locale=”US” tag=”londonthoug-20″]Mr Robot[/easyazon_link], an often brilliant show from the USA Network. The main idea here is that a small group of hackers want to bring down the single largest financial mega-corporation on earth. The company is constantly referred to as Evil Corp and it could easily be an stand-in for your bank of choice. This is the fantasy fulfillment for everyone who wanted all the Gordon Gekkos of the world to end up homeless or dead.
I really liked the first couple of episodes, the idea that a small band of crazies could end the world as we know it has a certain appeal. But there were a few too many jaunts into madness and murder for my taste. Our hero was clearly mad, right from the get-go, but it seemed to work. Near the end, however, we veer off into What is Real and What is an Illusion? territory.
One of the gimmicks that doesn’t work so well is an attempt to be like House of Cards, where our hero casually looks into the camera and chats us up. Here it was very clearly nothing more than Voice Over. This made it a bit jarring when they say something like ‘Stop talking to them, they can’t help you.’ Well, it never felt like he was talking to us.
This first season was still very good. I could have lived without the crazy drug dealer and the prison break, but the rest was pretty solid. In the post credit scene, we find a group of still rich people carrying on as if nothing has happened. Likely for them, nothing has happened. Evil Corp was just one player, even if it was a very large player, in this game. I’m sure next season will see Elliot going up against new Evils, or maybe it will just be all post apocalyptic fun without the banks around to make us all behave.
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