If there are two things the Ars staff has been itching for over the past year, it’s a return to podcasting and the return of Mr. Robot. If you feel similar, we have some good news.
Welcome to Decrypted, Ars Technica’s weekly podcast for season 2 of Mr. Robot.
For our debut episode, we look back to season one exclusively through the eyes (err, words) of main character Elliot Alderson (played by Rami Malek). Despite the Internet’s (justified) obsession with the show’s realistic depiction of tech, Ars reviewer Jonathan Gitlin said the characters and especially how “they break down and experience their delusions” is what makes Mr. Robot compelling. So if breakdowns and delusions are what you’re after, there’s no better way to relive season 1 than through Elliot’s words.
We also talk to one of the most familiar TV voices around: NPR’s Chief Critic Eric Deggans. Deggans watches a lot of television, and in a crowded 2015 field, he felt Mr. Robot stood out from the rest:
On the surface, this series is a snaky, unpredictable drama about a disturbed hacker attempting to break the world’s biggest corporation. But Rami Malek’s performance as hacker Elliot Alderson is a masterpiece of detached charm. You start the series believing this is a story about an eccentric prodigy exposing how corporations control the world. But Malek’s Alderson is an unreliable narrator, turning the series into a darker, more intimate mystery airing on a cable channel once known for slighter “blue sky” adventure dramas and mysteries. This is what the face of modern cable TV drama should look like: surprising, revolutionary, and revelatory.
No spoilers, but Deggans has seen the first episodes of season 2 and maintains high hopes for the series in the future. He shares the story of how Mr. Robot caught him off guard last summer and what Batman v. Superman could have learned from this little hacking drama that could.
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