Mr Robot - 'eps1.3_da3m0ns.mp4', 'eps1.4_3xpl0its.wmv' and 'eps1.5_br4ve-trave1er.asf'

The effortless cool of Christian Slater masks a lot, but not all, of Mr Robot's
extremely dickish tendencies. If he is imaginary, then like Tyler Durden he's
the Elliot that Elliot wants to be, without actually being a better version.

I'm still watching Mr Robot, and it's still good, so why aren't I reviewing it?

In part, it's because it's so dense. I know that my usual semi-recap approach would miss things, and so be necessarily incomplete. Also, I'm running behind - again, the denseness of the narrative and the unsettling visual style make it hard to binge - which always makes it feel more apt to review a season at a time.

That doesn't mean that I have nothing to say about the show, however. It's one of the most unique things on television at present, and there's a lot to talk about. This not-a-review loosely covers episodes 5, 6 and 7; 'Daemons', 'Exploits' and 'Brave Travelers', to abandon the archly stylised file-name titles for ease of recall.

'Daemons' revolves around Elliot's assumption of tactical authority within fsociety, and the collapse resulting from eliminating his drug supply to protect Shayla from her dealer/boyfriend/abuser. Much of the episode takes the form of Elliot's internal narrative, as hallucinations and delirium take hold, but honestly when is that not the case? I'm still pretty sure that Mr Robot is only in Elliot's mind, and at least half-convinced that everyone else is as well. As Elliot hallucinates proposing to Angela with a key, the 'real' Angela has a soul-searching night on the tiles with Shayla, culminating with a drunken make-out session. Real, or part of Elliot's fantasy? It seems to affect Angela and drive her to upload the hacker's disc at E-Sure, but contains such obvious elements of male fantasy that the question remains. Elliot certainly thinks he's insane enough, periodically noting that his running narration is effectively talking to imaginary people.

'Exploits' follows the Steel Mountain job, and reveals the dark heart of fsociety as Elliot brutally manipulates low-level employees to gain access to the facility, and f-society plan to fake a text from a manager's pregnant wife to get her out of the way. This leads Elliot to a confrontation with Tyrell, who literally views people as insects and dismisses Elliot's infiltration as meaningless. This is proved to be true, as despite his success, the Dark Army decline to come through on the Chinese backups and the whole plan is blown (as would any other have been.) Tyrell is on an upswing, however, as he and his wife launch a social assault on the new CTO and his wife which is essentially a colder and more ruthless implementation of the same methods fsociety have used.

'Exploits' is also notable for several scenes which cast doubts on my theories of Mr Robot's Durdenity, as he speaks to Darleen and the other hackers on their own. Of course, if it's all in Elliot's head, no big change.

Shot from low down, everything in the frame looks huge, making Angela
look like a child in the principle's office. This kind of visual storytelling is
bread and butter for this show.

The sudden kidnapping of Shayla launches into 'Brave Traveler', as Vera blackmails Elliot into hacking him out of prison in 24 hours. This impossible task brings Darleen face to face with someone she can't shout down and forces Elliot to launch a series of desperate social hacks on the fly. Mr Robot warns him that it's a zero-sum game; the best case scenario is that only Shayla ends up dead. He's right, and despite a tour de force effort by Elliot and Vera's escape along with the rest of the prison population, it turns out that Shayla was already dead. This is a gut punch for Elliot, and the audience, and the scene drags out the reveal to maximise the effect. Did we ever believe that Elliot could be an island? We don't now. He may not make any big reaction, but Malek sells the abject pain of the discovery.

Meanwhile, Tyrell's scheming hits a roadblock as the CTO shoots him down cold, and Angela seeks justice for those killed by Evil Corp's negligence in what are practically separate plots. There is a brief meeting of roads as Angela talks to Elliot for guidance and innocently asks after Shayla, but for now they are almost unrelated stories. This disconnection, however, is par for the course with Mr Robot, a series that is pathologically reluctant to use a two-shot when a series of alternating, awkwardly framed singles could better convey the distance between two people talking face to face.

Mr Robot has no grand landscapes or baroque architectures, no special effects to speak of, but it is still visually stunning. Using unconventional framing and blocking to heighten the sense not just of separation, but of a person or people out of alignment with the world, the camera emphasises the core themes of the outsider, of power relationships, and of missed or crossed communications. When Angela comes to Elliot they speak on the sidewalk - because his apartment is full of gangsters - and the camera frames each in turn, almost never together, as well as putting each one low in the corner of their shot. It sometimes feels that the camera is almost an intruder; perhaps the us that Elliot is talking to when he narrates.

Well written, well acted and brilliantly composed, Mr Robot is a genuine original.