Mr. Robot Information

Mr. Robot is an American drama-thriller television series created by Sam Esmail. It stars Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson, a cybersecurity engineer and hacker who suffers from social anxiety disorder and clinical depression. Alderson is recruited by an insurrectionary anarchist known as "Mr. Robot", played by Christian Slater, to join a group of hacktivists. The group aims to cancel all debts by attacking the large corporation E Corp. The pilot premiered on multiple online and video on demand services on May 27, 2015, and was renewed for a second season before the first season premiered on USA Network on June 24, 2015. Mr. Robot has received critical acclaim and has been nominated for multiple awards, winning the 2015 Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series - Drama.

Premise

The series follows Elliot Alderson, a young man living in New York City, who works at the cyber security company Allsafe as a security engineer. Constantly struggling with social anxiety disorder and clinical depression, Elliot's thought process seems heavily influenced by paranoia and delusion. He connects to people by hacking them, which often leads him to act as a cyber-vigilante. He is recruited by a mysterious insurrectionary anarchist known as Mr. Robot and joins his team of hacktivists known as fsociety. One of their missions is to cancel all debts by taking down one of the largest corporations in the world, E Corp (which Elliot perceives as Evil Corp), which also happens to be Allsafe's biggest client.

Cast

Main

• Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson, a security engineer at Allsafe Cybersecurity and a vigilante hacker. He has social anxiety disorder and deals with clinical depression and delusions, which cause him to struggle socially and live isolated from other people.
• Christian Slater as Mr. Robot/Edward Alderson, an insurrectionary anarchist who recruits Elliot into an underground hacker group called fsociety; and Elliot's father.
• Carly Chaikin as Darlene, Elliot's sister and one of the fsociety hackers.
• Portia Doubleday as Angela Moss, Elliot's childhood friend and a fellow employee at Allsafe.
• Martin Wallstrm as Tyrell Wellick, the ambitious Senior Vice President of Technology at E Corp.
• Grace Gummer as Dominique "Dom" DiPierro, an FBI field agent investigating the Evil Corp hack. (season 2)

Recurring

• Michel Gill as Gideon Goddard, CEO of Allsafe Security.
• Gloria Reuben as Krista Gordon, Elliot's psychiatrist.
• Frankie Shaw as Shayla Nico, Elliot's drug dealer and girlfriend.
• Bruce Altman as Terry Colby, the former CTO of E Corp who is framed by fsociety for a hack attack.
• Ben Rappaport as Ollie Parker, Angela's boyfriend and an employee at Allsafe.
• Aaron Takahashi as Lloyd Chung, Elliot's co-worker at Allsafe.
• Ron Cephas Jones as Romero, a member of fsociety.
• Sunita Mani as Trenton, a member of fsociety.
• Azhar Khan as Mobley, a member of fsociety.
• Michael Drayer as Cisco, Darlene's ex-boyfriend who is the U.S. liaison to the Chinese hacker group, the Dark Army.
• Elliot Villar as Fernando Vera, Shayla's drug supplier and Elliot's only supply of suboxone who has a unique dangerous philosophy and is obsessed with Shayla.
• Stephanie Corneliussen as Joanna Wellick, Tyrell's wife.
• Michael Cristofer as Phillip Price, the CEO of E Corp.
• Michele Hicks as Sharon Knowles, the wife of Scott Knowles.
• Brian Stokes Mitchell as Scott Knowles, the CTO candidate of E Corp following Colby's arrest.
• Sakina Jaffrey as Antara Nayar, Angela's lawyer against Terry Colby.
• BD Wong as Whiterose, a transgender woman and head of the Dark Army.

Episodes

| Viewers = 1.75 | ShortSummary = Socially inept Elliot Alderson works at cyber security company Allsafe. At night, he hacks social media, personal information, and bank records including those of his co-workers, therapist, and drug dealer. Allsafe's biggest client, E Corp, suffers a DDoS attack which Elliot stops. He identifies a file labeled fsociety00.dat, along with a text file asking him to leave the malware he finds hidden on E Corp's server. Mr. Robot, the mysterious leader of the hacker group fsociety, contacts Elliot on the subway. Fsociety plans a digital revolution by deleting all debt records and Elliot is invited to join their cause. He is intrigued and eventually agrees. | LineColor = A90009 }}

| Viewers = 1.73 | ShortSummary = Elliot declines a job offer from Tyrell Wellick, interim CTO of E Corp. Elliot, increasingly paranoid, uses more morphine than normal. Darlene visits him at home to bring him to fsociety, surprising him. Mr. Robot and fsociety want Elliot to hack into a gas plant and cause an explosion, destroying the adjacent offline backup facility used by Evil Corp; Steel Mountain. However, Elliot does not want to risk lives - and backs out. Shayla's supplier Fernando Vera shows signs of abusing Shayla so Elliot gathers information against him, and when Vera rapes Shayla, Elliot turns him in despite Shayla's explicit instructions not to. Meanwhile, Ollie's computer gets hacked by an unknown man named Cisco, who is shown to be an associate of the Chinese hacker group, The Dark Army. In the closing scene, Elliot and Mr. Robot discuss Elliot's falling out with his father - Mr. Robot pushes Elliot off a railing onto the rock strewn beach below as punishment for not keeping his father's disease a secret and betraying his trust. | LineColor = A90009 }}

| Viewers = 1.60 | ShortSummary = Tyrell is enraged after he learns that Scott Knowles has been chosen for CTO. He pays a homeless man to let himself be assaulted by him. Cisco demands that Ollie infect Allsafe with the same CD. Elliot believes he is done with fsociety. Tyrell seduces his boss's male secretary and installs software on his phone. Attempting to be more normal, Elliot asks Shayla to accompany him to a party. She accepts. During the party, fsociety leaks Evil Corp's emails that incriminate Colby for covering up a toxic waste leak that caused leukemia in Elliot's father and Angela's mother. Tyrell ties up his pregnant wife and ball-gags her upon her request. Ollie confesses both his infidelity and Cisco's demands to Angela. Fearing identity theft, she wants him to infect Allsafe with the CD. Elliot returns to fsociety. Gideon becomes suspicious of Elliot's story regarding the E Corp attack, and begins to investigate. | LineColor = A90009 }}

| Viewers = 1.27 | ShortSummary = Elliot has a new plan to destroy backup files at Steel Mountain involving hacking into their climate control system, but this requires physical access. Elliot, Romero, Mobley, and Mr. Robot go to Steel Mountain. Elliot suffers from withdrawal attacks and has multiple hallucinations. Darlene and Trenton stay behind to contact Cisco (Darlene's ex-boyfriend) and arrange a simultaneous hacker attack by the Dark Army on Evil Corp's backup sites in China. Meanwhile, Angela and Shayla do ecstasy which results in the two making out. The next morning, Angela sabotages Allsafe using Ollie's work ID and computer. | LineColor = A90009 }}

| Viewers = 1.38 | ShortSummary = With the help of fsociety, Elliot infiltrates Steel Mountain through the use of what he calls "human exploits". He coincidentally meets Tyrell and uses his pride to successfully connect his hacking device to the climate control circuit. Tyrell reveals he knows that Elliot framed the CTO, but will not turn him in. The Dark Army refuses to attack the backup facility in China, which puts fsociety's plan in jeopardy. Meanwhile, Tyrell and Joanna have dinner with the CTO candidate Scott and his wife Sharon in an attempt to find their weaknesses. Tyrell sexually approaches Sharon in the bathroom. Angela leaves Ollie after telling him she infected Allsafe with the hacker's CD, and moves in with her father. She discovers that he is deeply in debt from her mother's old medical bills. Elliot finds Shayla's phone on the floor. Fernando Vera calls him on it from prison, with the suggestion that he has organized Shayla's abduction. He blames Elliot for turning him into the police. | LineColor = A90009 }}

| Viewers = 1.25 | ShortSummary = Shayla is kidnapped by Vera's brother in order to pressure Elliot to hack Vera out of prison before he is killed on the inside. Elliot visits Vera to check on the prison's cyber system, and later realizes Vera's brother arranged the inside hit. Acting CTO Scott reveals to Tyrell that his wife told him about the bathroom incident, humiliating Tyrell. After Tyrell smashes his kitchen in rage, Joanna explains that Sharon's desire to be wanted is their vulnerability. Angela meets with lawyers in an attempt to reopen her toxic waste lawsuit against E corp - they tell her it is impossible to win without testimony from someone on the inside. Elliot successfully breaks Vera out of jail, and Vera immediately kills his brother. Upon Elliot's query about Shayla, Vera tosses him the keys to the car and says, "She was with you the whole time." Elliot opens the trunk and finds Shayla inside with her throat slit. | LineColor = A90009 }}

| Viewers = 1.15 | ShortSummary = Flashback: Shayla moves in next door and gives Elliot a pet fish. She wants to be his friend despite his awkwardness around people. She offers to contact a suboxone supplier for Elliot. In the present, it has been one month since Shayla's murder. Angela makes a deal: she will lie and say she broke chain of custody with the .dat file that incriminated Terry Colby, if in exchange, Colby will testify that E Corp covered up the toxic waste leak in 1993. Gideon warns Angela that her plan will put Allsafe out of business. Meanwhile, Darlene and Mr. Robot attempt to bring fsociety back together. She sets up an in-person meeting with mysterious Whiterose, leader of the Dark Army. Tyrell, at a party celebrating Knowles's promotion, entices Sharon up to an isolated rooftop and strangles her while seducing her. Elliot confesses to his therapist that he hacks everybody in an attempt to find a way out of loneliness. | LineColor = A90009 }}

| Viewers = 1.24 | ShortSummary = Darlene steals a gun, and has a conversation with Angela that implies they are longtime friends. Elliot and fsociety re-plan their attack but still need the Dark Army. Elliot meets Whiterose, a trans woman obsessed with time, who says the Dark Army backed out because Gideon, suspicious of Elliot's story, turned Evil Corp's hacked server into a honeypot. With help from Darlene, Elliot successfully shuts this down. Tyrell finds fsociety's .dat file after Gideon tells him of the honeypot and meets with Mr. Robot, and it appears that the two are working together. He reminds Mr. Robot that he knows his "dirty little secret" when Mr. Robot refuses to cooperate, which Mr. Robot shrugs off. When police question the Wellicks about Sharon's murder, Joanna manually breaks her amniotic sac to divert them. Elliot tells Darlene of their plan's success, and an ecstatic Darlene tells him she loves him. He kisses Darlene, who is revolted. She asks if he "had forgotten again". Elliot realizes that Darlene is his sister, but he has no recollection of her. He finds a CD that contains old family photos - revealing that Mr. Robot is his father. | LineColor = A90009 }}

| Viewers = 1.32 | ShortSummary = A flashback shows a young Elliot and his father in his computer repair shop "Mr. Robot". After the birth of their child, Joanna tells Tyrell that he needs to keep in control if he "wants to be part of this family". Tyrell is fired from E Corp - his final act is to prevent Gideon from reverting the honeypot. Mr. Robot takes a trip with Elliot to his childhood home. Angry, Elliot pushes Mr. Robot out of a window and then takes him to a graveyard. Mr. Robot tells Elliot not to let Angela and Darlene "get rid of him", and that he will always love him. When they arrive, Elliot, alone at the grave of his father, realizes he had taken on his dead father's persona the entire time, saying "I am Mr. Robot". Terry Colby offers Angela a job at E Corp. Elliot now doubts the continuation of his Mr. Robot/fsociety plan. Tyrell threatens Elliot about fsociety's plan "? Elliot takes Tyrell to the arcade and understands that he will carry on with the hack. They agree to work together, but Elliot glances over to the popcorn machine where Darlene's gun is hidden. | LineColor = A90009 }}

| Viewers = 1.21 | ShortSummary = Elliot wakes up alone in Tyrell's SUV three days after the conclusion of the previous episode, with no memory of those three days. The fsociety hack succeeded, throwing the world into chaos and gathering cheering crowds throughout the city. Fsociety encrypt their data and cover their tracks. E Corp is readying an emergency TV interview. The E Corp EVP of Technology commits suicide on TV after stating that the situation is hopeless. Elliot talks to Mr. Robot again and asks about Tyrell's location. The episode ends with Elliot opening his apartment door; the visitor is not seen. In a post-credits scene, Whiterose, dressed as a man, and Phillip Price, the CEO of E Corp, are shown conversing at a formal event where Price indicates he "knows who's responsible". | LineColor = A90009 }} }}

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Production

Conception and development

According to Sam Esmail, he is fascinated by the hacker culture and wanted to make a film about it for around 15 years. In the production, Esmail consulted experts to give a realistic picture of hacking activities. Another inspiration for Esmail, who is of Egyptian descent, was the Arab Spring, where young people who were angry at society used social media to bring about a change.

Sam Esmail had originally intended Mr. Robot to be a feature film, with the end of the first act being someone finding out that he had a mental disorder while enacting a greater scheme. However, midway through writing the first act, he found that script had expanded considerably, and that became a script more suited for a television show. He removed 20 pages of around 89 pages of the script then written, and used it as the pilot for the series, and what was to have been the end of the first act became the finale of the first season. Esmail took the script to Anonymous Content to see if it could be developed into a television series, which was then picked up by USA Network. USA Network gave a pilot order to Mr. Robot in July 2014, and picked it up to series with a 10-episode order in December 2014. Production began in New York on April 13, 2015. Prior to its series premiere on June 24, 2015, Mr. Robot was renewed for a second season, which will include a minimum of 10 episodes. In December 2015, it was announced that Sam Esmail will direct all 10 episodes in season two.

Influences

Sam Esmail has acknowledged several major influences on the show, such as American Psycho, Taxi Driver, A Clockwork Orange, and The Matrix. In particular, Esmail credited Fight Club as the inspiration for a main character who suffers from dissociative identity disorder creating a new manifestation of his deceased father in the form of a hacker, as well as for the anti-consumerist and anti-establishment spirit of its characters. Commentators have also noted the parallel in its plot on the erasing of consumer debt records to the film. In an interview, Esmail explains how playing the song that Fincher used to underscore the climax of his film ("Where Is My Mind?") when Elliot initiates the hack in episode nine is intended as a message to the audience that he is aware of the inspiration they took from Fight Club. The narration by the protagonist was influenced by Taxi Driver, and other influences mentioned included Risky Business in its music score, Blade Runner for the character development, and the television series Breaking Bad for the story arc.

Filming locations

The series was filmed in New York. Filming locations included Coney Island which served as the base of operations for the hacking group fsociety. As the production crew was unable to shut down Times Square for filming, the scenes at Times Square in the finale were shot late at night just before the 4th of July holiday weekend to catch the area at its emptiest.

Reception

Critical response

Mr. Robot has received widespread acclaim from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a rating of 96% with an average score of 8 out of 10 based on 55 reviews. It set a record on Rotten Tomatoes as the only show to earn perfect episode scores for an entire season since the site began tracking television episodes. The site's consensus reads: "Mr. Robot is a suspenseful cyber-thriller with timely stories and an intriguing, provocative premise." On Metacritic, the first season scored 79 out of 100 based on 23 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Merrill Barr of Forbes gave it a very positive review and wrote, "Mr. Robot has one of the best kick-offs to any series in a while" and that "Mr. Robot could be the series that finally, after years of ignorance, puts a deserving network among the likes of HBO, AMC and FX in terms of acclaim."

In The New York Times, Alessandra Stanley noted that "Occupy Wall Street, the protest movement that erupted in 2011, didn"?t do much to curb the financial industry. It didn"?t die out, though. It went Hollywood", before finding Mr. Robot to be, "an intriguing new series ... a cyber-age thriller infused with a dark, almost nihilistic pessimism about the Internet, capitalism and income inequality. And that makes it kind of fun". The UK The Daily Telegraph reviewer Michael Hogan gave the show five stars, finding it to be "The Matrix meets Fight Club meets Robin Hood, noting that, "Bafflingly, it took months for a UK broadcaster to snap up the rights". Although Hogan found too much attention was devoted to Elliot's social anxiety, he eventually decided that "this alienated anti-hero was a brilliant, boldly complex character." Overall, Hogan concluded that the show deserved to find an audience in the UK.

Mr. Robot made several critics' list for the best TV shows of 2015. Three critics, Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone, and the staff of TV Guide, named it the best show of the year. The series also placed second on the list from three other critics, and was named among of the best of the year from four other critics.

Accolades

Year	Ceremony	Category	Recipient(s)	Result
2015	2015 SXSW Film Audience Award	Audience Award for Best Episodic	Mr. Robot
	25th Gotham Independent Film Awards	Breakthrough Series - Long Form
	2015 American Film Institute Awards	Television Programs of the Year
2016	42nd People's Choice Awards	Favorite Cable TV Actor	Christian Slater
	20th Satellite Awards	Best Drama Series	Mr. Robot
		Best Actor in a Drama Series	Rami Malek
		Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or TV Film	Christian Slater
	68th Writers Guild of America Awards	Best Drama Series	Kyle Bradstreet, Kate Erickson, Sam Esmail, David Iserson, Randolph Leon, Adam Penn, Matt Pyken
		Best New Series
	22nd Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series	Rami Malek
	73rd Golden Globe Awards	Best Television Series - Drama	Mr. Robot
		Best Actor - Television Series Drama	Rami Malek
		Best Supporting Actor - Series, Miniseries or Television Film	Christian Slater
	6th Critics' Choice Television Awards	Best Drama Series	Mr. Robot
		Best Actor in a Drama Series	Rami Malek
		Best Guest Performer in a Drama Series	B.D. Wong
		Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series	Christian Slater
	Dorian Awards	TV Drama of the Year	Mr. Robot
		TV Performance of the Year - Actor	Rami Malek
	42nd Saturn Awards	Best Action-Thriller Television Series	Mr. Robot

Ratings

The first episode of Mr. Robot was released across multiple digital platforms in advance of its first broadcast. It had a viewership of 2.7 million prior to the first broadcast of the episode.

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Release

Broadcast

Mr. Robot premiered in the United States on USA Network on June 24, 2015, and in Canada on Showcase on September 4, 2015. Amazon.com secured broadcasting rights in the United Kingdom, with the first season added on Amazon Prime on October 16, 2015, and second season episodes to be released immediately after initial broadcast in the United States.

Home media

The first season was released on Blu-ray and DVD in region 1 on January 12, 2016. It contains all 10 episodes, plus deleted scenes, gag reel, making-of featurette, and UltraViolet digital copies of the episodes. In September 2015, Amazon.com acquired exclusive streaming VOD rights to Mr. Robot in several countries, with the first season becoming available to stream in spring 2016 for U.S. Amazon Prime subscribers.