Spoilers for Season 1 and 2 of Mr. Robot.
In a TED talk by J.J. Abrams about writing, he talked about what I refer to as "black box" writing. J.J. Abrams brought out a black box he said was given to him long ago, and told never to open it because what he imagined was inside would always be greater than what it actually contained. The lesson was simple: your audience's imagination and the questions they come up with are greater than anything you could ever provide. The talk has gone down in some infamy as a revealing admittance that J.J. Abrams is some sort of hack, that his writing style is simply a trick to get you engaged without any intention of fulfilling the proposals it teases. You can look at the insane amount of set up in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a movie that is held together almost entirely by references because everything new it brings to the table is a question to be answered later. Those answers, it turned out, either never happened or stretched credibility and are a large reason as to why The Rise of Skywalker was so heavily panned (as an aside, I have a fondness for The Last Jedi, even if I think it sort of disrupts the Star Wars flow - a bad sequel, but an alright movie, essentially).
Black box writing has been criticized numerous times in numerous shows, but that isn't to say it does not work. The high bar, the masterclass of black box writing for me comes in The Leftovers, a show created by Damon Lindelof, not coincidentally one of the showrunners of Lost. One of the reasons The Leftovers worked so well with this type of storytelling was that it provided a series of questions too enticing not to wonder about, and continually forced you to step back and ask why you wanted this question so bad, what were you searching for, and what will you do if you ever figured it out? It was a show about unanswerable questions and our obsession with them, how they reflect insecurities and needs as much as they compartmentalize and stoke trauma. It was an emotionally complex show that liked to hang out just on the other side of reality, where it leaned against the fence asking you what proof there was in the fence anyway?
Mr. Robot has consistently flirted with the idea of black box writing, utilized its style and tropes in order to feed intrigue in its premise and in what was going to happen next. It brought an intoxicating element to the high-pitched drama unfolding and changing this alternate history world that often times did a better job reflecting our world than real life did (and isn't that what great art is supposed to do?). The first season had elements of this type of writing, but it was so focused on the potential twist it was building towards that whatever thing was being obscured was relegated to the margins. The real question Season 1 had was "what is real?" and "will they pull it off?" The answer was "some", and to a degree "yes". The first season was able to get away with something that, at this point, is tediously obvious because it cast a coy eye to your observance, teasing you with "have you predicted what will happen?" over and over with its style. It seemed to border on post modernism, but within the first season alone it was hard to tell.
The second season made things a little more obvious, in a sense. The black box writing style was in full effect, as conspiracies snaked over one another with large gaps in their systematic production line, issues with the overarching implication of what is happening due to gaps of why this was all happening, and who was doing what. This obfuscation made it difficult to know whether the series' social and political commentary was something sincere, or simply another bit of smoke and mirrors meant to give the impression of significance where the show was unwilling to follow through. But what definitely came in crystal clear was this was certainly something post modern.
In comes Season 3. For me, my main issue with the entire series prior to Season 3 was that I wasn't sure if this was actually going anywhere at all. I watched The X-Files, I watched a portion of Lost, I've been burned many a time by ambiguous promises of high octane drama, and there was a scent in the air with the early seasons of Mr. Robot that I could not dismiss. Whiterose was up to something, Mr. Robot was acting crazy against Elliot's best interests it seemed, and Angela was getting herself into serious trouble. As things start in Season 3, Angela is working with Whiterose because of an ambiguous promise to turn back time, to return her mother to her. None of that really makes a lot of sense, but it is obviously flagged as "Season 4 stuff", so okay. Elliot, meanwhile, is recovering from being shot by Tyrell after he tries to lock the back door to E Corp's servers, something the Dark Army is particularly pissed about. The Dark Army is in the process of executing stage 2, where the paper filing of E Corp is to be blown up, causing casualties that Elliot cannot live with. Meanwhile, Darlene is in FBI custody, being flipped into an informant in exchange for her and Elliot's immunity.
Season 3 works a lot like how previous seasons have worked, in 2 acts. The first act is whatever it was the last season left off with, in this case Elliot trying to stop stage 2 while Angela secretly aids Mr. Robot and Tyrell in helping the Dark Army. The last half is spoiler territory, so I won't get to that just yet, but know that it is a doozy. The execution of this first half is where the show finally cinched up for me, where all doubts evaporated and I knew that this show was being sincere. Season 2's showing of the cost of a revolution is given the perfect capstone here, as it is shown time and again that those who suffer are not the 1%, but those lowly 99% that were struggling to begin with, those a revolution was supposed to save. And now that the global currency is quickly switching over to a corporate owned ecurrency, things will only get even more oligarchical.
I'm only really scratching the surface of the commentary present within Mr. Robot, where themes about wealth disparity and declining democracy crosses with themes of isolation, of paranoia, of multiple selves in a world where the online and the offline begin to bleed into a mess of pixels and flesh. Mr. Robot is cooking up something fierce and complex, already arriving at something worthwhile without having entered its final act. And yes, Season 3 casts a more favorable light back on the first two seasons as well, eliminating the anxiety of doubt that any of this was actually going to pay off. The pay off isn't here, exactly, but it does validate that what came before wasn't a trick, but the opening speeches setting up the real subject at play here. What once looked coy and teasing now looks deliberate and patient (albeit with some trickery here and there, it cannot be helped). There was a story to tell, and the story has begun to illuminate its folds.
I've been vague up to this point, and that is because a show like this is extremely difficult to piece apart. I imagine to do it true justice would be to rewatch it again with a healthy amount of notes. But for the sake of posterity, for the sake of being able to say things before I am forever tainted by the knowledge of what happens next in Season 4, the final season, I will try. Season 3's greatest strengths are in how it breaks down the chaos that has been happening up to this point and threads them into something meaningful. The great architecture to the show's plotting turns out to be just as petty as it always should be, albeit with one, absurdly outfield caveat that hasn't been revealed yet. Whatever Whiterose is planning, Mr. Robot as a show has planned for her to be wrong. There is hubris among the elite in this show's version of the world that allows for delusion to be just as equal an answer as being unrealistically correct. The show could end up being a simulation and Whiterose has the ticket to reboot the system, and I would probably still be on board. But whatever is the case, the themes of Season 3 resonate because the plot resonates. We can see the system at play here, where Elliot and Mr. Robot's relationship starts to make a lot more sense, something that began in Season 2 and is furthered here. Angela's struggle becomes a full-on existential crisis with layers of desire, of delusion, and of weaknesses. Darlene is playing a very difficult game on a high wire, where one missed step could ruin everything for everyone, not just herself. And, most importantly, it puts the revolution in its place. It was idealistic in the beginning, extremely wanting.
Since Season 1, that revolution has always felt like a pipe dream. Regardless of what we want to say about society, I do not believe you can take out the elite without actually, literally, taking them out. What made them elite was a survivability at all costs, of expending millions in favor of a minor edge. Revolution is passion, but those who excel are pragmatic. Living in the pacific northwest currently, it is easy to want a revolution. I was guilty of it this past summer when protestors were being misreported as aggressors while I watched people who want a sincere change get abused and beaten by a militarized police force. I and all of you, I'm sure, watched police with a budget inflated beyond comprehension, while I was at home during a pnademic without the money to pay for healthcare. Let us not kid ourselves: the modern world is apocalyptic for anyone outside of six figures. Healthcare costs too much, don't you know, but we need police with tanks and automatic rifles to fight back, what was the term, "soyboys?" Make no mistake, a revolution, in one fashion or another, is something required. But I do not see violence or protesting as much of the answer. It keeps the conversation going, which is a good in and of itself, but what really needs to change is literally everything. As I write this, the president of the United States is denying election results, and many believe him. If Mr. Robot isn't relevant now, then I don't know when it ever will be. Season 3 doesn't hold any answers for my grievances with the present, but it does make me feel at least somewhat heard. It is a sickening feeling when you realize a revolution is so much violence, so much upheaval, so much suffering and all it amounts to is a slideshow presentation for the elite, who look over at you with a mildly impressed expression as they say "we will get back to you. Thank you for your time."
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