Contains spoilers for Mr. Robot Season 1.
There are many kinds of puzzle games, but there are two particular categorizations that make a great difference: puzzle games that challenge the rules, and puzzle games that follow a pattern. It is almost reductionist the way I have laid these categories out, but a further explanation will help understand what I mean. Lauded developer Zachtronics makes games that challenges the rules. You are given a set of rules that the entire game must follow, but the conditions of how those rules can be expressed are challenged for each level. The gameplay, then, is your ability to realize what these conditions are in order to solve the puzzle. Classic puzzle game Portal by Valve is the opposite, a puzzle game that follows a pattern. Portal does little to challenge the conditions of the rules, even in the second game when liquids are introduced that change how pieces of the environment are used. What Portal does well mechanically is give you a language to follow in order to solve each puzzle. Portal 2 is debatably guilty of over relying on this design as most puzzles can be solved by simply looking at where you can place a portal in the first place. The difference is extremely important, and divides puzzle game aficionados on a lot of titles. One wants you to re-contextualize your knowledge and create something you would not have assumed possible, whereas the other teaches you how to follow, how to read the room in order to carry on.
Season 1 of Mr. Robot was a puzzle that follows a pattern. It was obvious from the outset that something was off with the socially anxious vigilante hacker Elliot, and the reveal at the end that the world was more than a little skewed - that Darlene was not just some hacker, but Elliot's sister, and that Mr. Robot himself was not the ring leader, but rather a separate personality of Elliot's mental illness in his father's image that allows him to go to extremes he otherwise wouldn't - was the general focus of what Season 1 was building towards. Season 1 used somewhat obvious foreshadowing and clues to point toward what many probably guessed, myself included. When you've seen plenty of "it's in their head" tropes, you tend to key in on them rather early. But Mr. Robot's success was in admitting that this was likely to be the case, of playing off on your probable knowledge of the season's twist before it was revealed. The show worked both ways, for the attentive and for the casually watching. Knowing the truth didn't diminish the season, but rather colored it in a way that allowed for more depth to be mined from its cryptic storytelling. It had a pattern to follow, and so long as you followed it you would understand all you could about the season at hand.
Season 2 of Mr. Robot is a puzzle that challenges the rules. What is or is not predictable in Season 2 is more than likely going to be up to guess work more than deduction, and that isn't a criticism. The biggest twist of Season 2 comes in the middle, a twist I admittedly didn't see coming although on reflection was certainly considered by creator Sam Esmail at all times. It wasn't an overt trick meant to confuse and play for profundity, but rather meant to avoid distraction while Elliot wrestled with his understanding of himself and what it means to have another person living inside your head, making actions when your current self is asleep and obscuring whole chunks of your life.
There is a lot going on in Season 2 and, much like many other shows, that much going on can lead to a season that feels far more like it is moving pieces than actually getting anywhere. Angela, Elliot's childhood friend and co-griever in the loss of a parent after mega-corporation E-corp ("Evil Corp", in Elliot's head) covered up radiation in one of their facilities, is now working for the corporation she so despises. What may sound like a sudden change in a character actually makes a lot of sense: she has been out of the loop, disrespected, and generally left blowing in the wind. Now she has a position of importance, one with the means to finally dig into the truth as to why E Corp was so adamant about covering up this particular disaster, and, more importantly, why they continue to let the disaster continue, even as they lie the problem has been fixed. Meanwhile, Darlene follows up on the hack that ended the first season, where the world's economy was irreparably disrupted when everyone's debts where forever encrypted. Credit cards and bank accounts are near impossible to access now that the banks (owned by E Corp) can no longer trust their systems, or measure what has or has not been payed off. The world has changed over to Bitcoin and, disturbingly, E Corp owned Ecurrency, as their preferred money of choice. Darlene and the gang of hackers are trying to follow up on the sudden windfall when one of their own is found dead, a bullet in his head. Things enter crisis mode as everyone scrambles to figure out who did it, and how they can remain safe. Meanwhile, Tyrell, the would-be CTO of E Corp who, at the end of Season 1, initiated the hack with Elliot, is missing and wanted as the ring leader. And all the while, Elliot remains in isolation, trying to come to grips with his reality and with the person living inside his head. Things are rightfully falling apart for all parties, even as they seem to get close to what is actually happening.
From a writing perspective, Season 2 drops most of its David Fincher influence in favor of David Lynch, recalling everything from Twin Peaks to Inland Empire, and maybe a bit of the behind-the-curtain fear of Mulholland Drive. What felt like a film-school reference in Season 1 has now blown into a full, homage worthy presentation in Season 2. It actually does feel like Lynch, particularly in the latter half of the season. With this greater focus on surrealism comes a much more difficult to discern reality from within the show. One of the biggest questions is whether Tyrell is dead or not, as the end of Season 1 strongly implied he was shot by Elliot using the gun hidden in the popcorn machine. Evidence flies left and right for his being dead and in turn alive, and you are never really sure what is fact. The entirety of Season 2 feels as though it is trying to instill the feeling that none of this could possibly true, all the while developing a conspiracy only ever alluded to behind the drama unfolding. There is something far darker, far more reaching than is being shown. The true powers seem to be motivated by things we cannot see or understand just yet, and the one rallying them all comes as no surprise, but it does complicate the storytelling in a delightful way.
Season 2 does suffer a bit from a seeming lack of focus. It isn't true, necessarily, as all things add up in the end, but the season has a slight disjointed feeling as it has to move things quickly and complicatedly in order to pull off the latter half. Information and events are whipping around your head with only the tiniest bit of ground to contextualize it all. It's exciting, but difficult to parse at first. A second viewing, I'm sure, would be better than the first, but is unlikely to avoid the feeling that you just want it to get to where it is going already. All the pieces are there, but there are a lot of pieces, and it can feel a bit like they may be trying to allude to too much all at once rather than drip the information in a usable way. As it stands, there is a lot of information throughout the season that needs to be recalled in the later episodes that it can feel like you've missed some stuff in the shuffle. A criticism and a praise, but a criticism nonetheless. Sometimes perfection really isn't the goal.
Season 2 is a weird beast, all things considered. Complicated and challenging while at the same time keeping you just far away as to not be able to predict or see the lines being drawn into any particular shape. Why some of the agents in this season are motivated to participate is still one of the greatest questions the show has to answer, and one I assume will be held close to the chest until Season 4, or at the earliest end of Season 3. But what Season 2 is about, more than the machinations that whir behind the curtain, more than the players moving into position, is how fallible people are in everything. If you've ever read or seen a documentary about how hackers have generally done their job, you'll find that more often than not they have very little to do with any sort of coding. Rather, hackers are good at exploiting the weaknesses of people, at learning their past to guess passwords, at creating a reliable character for their victims to entrust documents or powers to that they otherwise shouldn't. The weakness is people, not the machines. Here, the tables are turned, and those weaknesses are exploited in the hackers, revealing themselves as they scramble to understand the events transpiring that put them into a state of paranoia. Nothing comes cheap, and certainly causing one of the most historic hacks in history comes at a great cost of confidence, sanity, and even life. The ephemeral of the digital realm becomes extremely real in Season 2, as the digital wall falters for the unwavering lens of the eye, here in real life. Repercussions are a bitch.
8.5
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