Mr. Robot S1 E1 | eps1.0_hellofriend.mov | H3ll0, Fr1end: A Mr. Robot Podcast

Hello friend. Hello friend? That's lame. Maybe I should give you a name. But that's a slippery slope. You're only in my head. We have to remember that. I'm so happy to be here today with Henry to talk about Mr. Robot. This is the Hello Friend podcast. And this is our second episode ever. My name's Margaret, and we're here to talk about the premiere episode of Mr. Robot. We already had a premiere podcast.

quite a while ago that we only recently put up and it was so much fun to talk about Mr. Robot in general. But now we're gonna head into covering more of what happened in season one. And I think we're gonna try to approach it Not only talking about the story and the characters. but also from the perspective of what it means for technology, privacy, and our evolving interconnected world.

Hey Henry, it's so great to join you this week to talk about Hello Friend, episode one of Mr. Robot. Yeah, thanks, Margaret. Uh it's really good to be talking to you too. And I think The delay between the premiere episode and this one has actually worked out well for us because we get to talk about episode one in light of the aftermath of the Panama paper. And some of the things that Mr. Robot season one touches on.

Looks even more interesting in light of the fact that you have all these documents floating around that kind of reveal that secret corporate America and other countries and what they're able to do in the international financial system under the cloak of secrecy. I really like that you bring up the Panama Papers and the fact that the show still seems to be relevant even though this Initial episode aired back in June of 2015. We're heading up to the season two premiere pretty soon.

But you're right, so much of it is still incredibly prescient and relevant. We get to see how layers upon layers of people's identities and transactions and how currency moves throughout the world in both covert and also very out there kinds of ways. Yeah. And a lot of the themes that the show touches on it's just seems even more relevant in light of, you know, not just the Panama papers, but Donald Trump, the the way that social media is being used and politics.

Uh it's it's a very interesting time to be discussing the show and what an amazing show uh in terms of something that really speaks to the zeitgeist at the moment.

Oh my gosh, I know. And I was watching rewatching it the probably the third or fourth time I've seen this particular episode, wondering if it would be dated at all, if it would still be relevant, because we know the world of technology moves at such a breakneck. speed. One thing that struck me when I was listening to uh listening and watching the show again was in the voiceovers, who do you think he's speaking to?

'Cause oftentimes he will uh you know, talk uh sometimes it just seems like he's somehow narrating. But then there are times where he s says we and talks about some sort of action needed on the part of we. And so it makes me think that uh he's speaking to someone and or he it's maybe uh a hint of the fact that it's not just him. Uh it's not just Elliot the persona, but there's a lot of other people involved in what That's a really good point. We don't even

know that for sure and it's true. Elliot Alderson, who is our main Protagonists. As you know, this is the episode that sets up the whole first season of Elliot as a hacker by night, a cybersecurity expert by day, and his encounters with E Corp, which is the first time.

Which throughout the episode, everyone ends up calling evil core. And are we really hearing what we think we're hearing? And to your point, when Elliot is speaking to us, is he really speaking to us? Is he speaking into a camera? Is he speaking to a group of people? Or is he being manipulated somehow in ways we don't even know? So right off the bat, you kind of have this a reliable narrator um who is uh also authoritative.

Because for most people who are watching the show, I can't presume that they all know as much about technology as you or I do. And so a lot of the things that he is talking about in his narration are also explanatory about the capabilities of technology. And about particular tools and about uh how things operate, systems and otherwise. And so he's at once authoritative, but then as the show unwinds and unfolds, you see that he's actually very suspect.

and unreliable. Yeah, and I certainly did not catch on to that right away. And I should mention this particular uh premiere episode of Mr. Robot was written by the show creator Sam Esmael. And it was directed by the same person who directed uh things like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Niels Arden Oplev. So a Danish director and filmmaker. And it's true, it's it's not totally relevant. Even because he comes on so strong uh

He's almost like Batman in a way. You know, we're introduced to him, he's on a mission, he's very agitated about, you know, the invisible hand. And then we see him confronting that cafe owner who's a pedophile. And in a way we build this kind of weird trust with Elliot, but you're right, we really don't know where he's coming from and if he's even aware of his actions or remembers where he's going or what he's doing.

So the first episode does a a pretty uh good job, I think, in terms of laying the table for the rest of season one, but doing so in a way that doesn't uh immediately raise your suspicion. Like I think there are some people who watch the show and kind of pick up on the fact that he's an unreliable narrator right away. And for myself, the first watching, I didn't pick up on that.

So early. It was something that was just more of a sense rather than any particular moment where I thought, okay, this is what I'm being told.

He's not to be trusted. Yeah, and Elliot, we're introduced to him in in the most dramatic way, in a funny sense, because see him riding on a subway and he's incredibly paranoid just being on the subway, checking people out. This show is so ripe with cultural references from the conspiracy theory world, from the world of tech.

world of privacy and security. So immediately he thinks he sees men in black. So he thinks he's being followed by men in black. And I think it's so well researched that they immediately just throw that in. among a million other references to what's going on in our world today. And the men in black is actually a a an important early hint um because they come up again as the season one episodes unfold.

We may not necessarily think they're really there because is Elliot seeing things in the subway? And I know You had pointed out before, Henry, that you were wondering if the subway was more of a metaphorical space, like a hologram of some kind or some kind of spatial representation rather than really the subway. Yeah, because you never really see him go into the subway or uh to when he meets Mr. Robot.

Right. There are I think there are certain scenes in season one where he tickles with someone else into the subway, you see him entering and leaving. But those scenes where he's ruminating or he m encounters Mr. Robot, those scenes you don't see him get on the subway. He just he's there, he has an interaction, and then all of a sudden the scene cuts. To some other Place and time. Yeah, I can see it has an incredibly strong dream like quality and isn't riding the New York Subway kind of

surreal anyway to begin with. And I I love the footage. I love the cinematography of the subway because it it really captures I think a lot of what that feels like, but it has a more ethereal quality. And now that you mentioned who the director was, it makes sense.

the kind of very cold tones of the episode. You know, it's New York is has been shot so many different ways by so many different directors and cinematographers. But New York, through the lens of this particular director and in this series, has a very Nordic kind of quality, right? It's very blue, very gray, very cold and sterile. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And a lot of the music it goes all over the place this season, but a lot of the music used in this premiere episode is

very sterile and and very electronically d driven music as opposed to some of the other stuff we see even in in episode two. So that plays off of what you're describing. Yeah. And music is We know that Elliot is aware of different types of music. Like different types of music is also referenced in terms of the CD name.

that where he stores the files, you know, where he hacks someone and he writes down the names of these bands. And what struck me was like we don't hear any of these bands in the actual show. Um in a different type of show you might, right? Because if you label a certain character as, you know, uh a certain person as Pink Floyd and you store his data in the CD titled another show would have Pink Floyd music going on, you know, every time that that scene would happen. But no, like we have very

minimalist music as well. And I love that he called that person Pink Floyd. There was a touch of humor there that was subtle. You didn't have to necessarily pick up on it. That and that's what kind of fuels the question in mind about how deeply should we look at this show and uh and how much should we read into things because there is that fodder there where you know that

You know, it's inviting closer reading. Absolutely. I was also very captivated upon watching this again, where he was confronting the cafe owner, Ron, who is also known as Rohe, who happens to be a pedophile. And there's so many beautiful, sublime elements to the scene in terms of introducing the public to things like tour. So we learn that Elliot hacked

tour. Why did he hack this guy's tour presence on the dark web? It's because this guy in his cafe had some of the best wireless anywhere in the area. And it made Elliot curious because He knows not to think the best of people, at least in his mind. And so where there's smoke, there's fire. And so right away we get this sense of Elliot as this almost like avenging angel who pries away people's secrets.

And and judges them, you know? Um, and he acts as kind of his own judge, like you said, like a Batman, where he investigates. And he will bring punishment. upon the people themselves. Yes. And I loved some of the nuances that came through in this. In addition to it being humorous, uh Ron's website.

site was called Plato's Boys, which is kind of ridiculous. Elliot had to explain to Ron slash Roheet that you might think you understand the dark web, but you really only understand this much of it. And I not only can understand it, but I can dance circles around you. And the cafe owner's response was Well, I didn't hurt anyone. And that's such a a betrayal of what a a lot of attitude is towards cybercrime. Like

scamming people and uh fishing and stuff like that. It's you know, it's a victimless crime. This scene really sort of uh laid down the gauntlet and just captured captured me. Um, you know, there's certain movies where it opens so strong that it just hooks me right away. Like the beginning of a second Batman movie with a bank robbery scene was one one instance. This was another

where it was a very, you know, not a very unusual scene as far as like cybercrime dramas go, right? Where someone's revealed to be some big bad monster and someone's gonna bring them to justice. But the way in which he unlike he unveiled the technical detail and the way that that was written into that scene, it but made me it made me realize immediately that this show was on another level. That just the way that they talked about Tor

and the technical dialogue that was going back and forth, like you could tell that someone had taken the time to research this and write the scene accordingly. And right away that just it just let me know that like wow, this is a show that has Oh totally. And then I thought it was super ironic that Elliot was reciting all these technical information.

And then he ends up opening up to this guy about his dad and his dad dying of leukemia and Elliot is so generally shut down and we don't really know that yet. But he's that's another aspect of I think the age we live in is that Strangers are much more open about what is going on in their lives. They disclose so much about themselves online, as we'll see later. And even in the context of this conversation, Elliot opens up to the sky.

He feels like he knows because he's been spying on him and hacking him all this time. And isn't it also part of what like superheroes do in a way? Where they they tell the the the bad guy who they've caught like why they're they're bad and why they're bringing them to justice. You know, like these like superhero monologues. Right, right before the like the penultimate scene where the the

Uh, villain is brought low, where they give him a little bit of a lecture as to like why they're bad and why they're the hero and the other guy's the bad guy. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's really very funny that you mentioned that because that is another trope that you often see in these sort of superhero anti-hero. hero type um narratives. And it's funny, I really only thought of the Batman thing this morning when I was re-watching some of the series. And it seemed so obvious, even sort of the Gotham setting of using New York City, I think is very moody, like like you were also just saying. So Elliot is this kind of unhinged superhero.

Right. With brains as his weapon, which is often like you say with the Batman parallel. Like Batman is not doesn't have superpowers. Very, very tough and dedicated and smart. Um, so Elliot kind of fits this mantle of a slightly unhinged. Hero. Yes. And we see that when we he goes back into the subway, he meets Mr. Robot the first time, who says,

It's an exciting time in the world right now. Elliot is also at this time walking around with the reality that he said himself, in three short minutes, a man's entire life I deleted him. In that snippet, Christian Slater says to him. Basically you're weird and you're going to be asking a lot of questions. Like it's weird that you're gonna try to do this way and you're gonna be asking a lot of questions. And it's almost like he it's like Elliot telling himself, like, okay.

If you're gonna go down this road and you're gonna do this thing, oh so be it. But it's weird, you know? It just shows how isolated Elliot is and how he is just uh not existing on any plane. with firm feet on the ground, you know, he's all over the place and we get to see that even more as the story unfolds. And what we kind of see as it unfolds is Elliot We we get the reveal of Elliot's uh dependence Right? Because in the the opening scene he's kind of

At his most powerful in our eyes. Like we see him bring someone uh dastardly down, you know, bring him to justice. We see like his intelligence, we see his virtue. In that one moment, he is the the ideal hero. And then as the episode unfolds, you start to see all of his dependency. You know, his dependency on opiates, his dependency on uh therapy and other

dependencies that he has just to kind of stay somewhat functioning. And at the same time, this person who has all these dependencies is so cynical about the dependencies of other human beings. and what they need to function.

to get through the world. He's very critical of this therapist, even though he has compassion for her. But everyone else he knows better about who they are. He knows them better than they know themselves. And there is a sense of arrogance about that. And we see it especially uh when he's going to work where we we find out he works at a place called All Safe. And I thought it was such an interesting juxtaposition to see All Safe. And I know we talked about this a little bit before.

an a very east coast tech kind of company, very different from what you would see out here in Palo Alto or uh even San Francisco right now. For one, there's a dress code. What? Did you did you pick up on the the gender themes? I noticed that much more on the rewatch The way that part of as much as Elliot is anti-corporate dominant. And this kind of evil multinational corporation ethics, that there's also a part of him that hates.

That's the way that women are treated. Yeah, I mean he has a real loyalty to Angela who got him the job. Uh the way Angela was treated by Gideon, who I think is kind of a lame boss and by the CTO of Evil Core or the initial CTO. Was very familiar to me. I've seen that a lot in tech, and I was so glad to see a show deal with it and show it how it really is.

As much as I love the HBO show Silicon Valley, I I love Mike Judge. You know, I'm a huge fan of everything he does. The one thing they don't handle really realistically is how women And frankly, a lot of uh people of different uh cultural backgrounds and ethnic backgrounds. The challenge of diversity going on in a lot of tech companies and the way women are treated, and then to see it in so I think realistically portrayed, it was

really compelling. I think that's that's very, very relevant. Like in technology, there is a huge lack of diversity, whether uh you talk about diversity with religion or ethnicity. There's just, you know, people overwhelmingly tend to be white men. Um and the the role in w the way in which women are treated in this industry.

uh is also something that needs to be talked about a lot more, but it's not something that's talked about like you said on Silicon Valley, which is supposed to be about Silicon Valley. I I realized a long a while ago that Mike Judge really doesn't do diversity. Um, like if you look at his shows. Like Beavis and Butthead, very from much more white point of view, King of the Hill, set in Texas, like this white dude. Like it's not to say that he he doesn't value diversity.

I just think that he knows what he knows. And he knows that he doesn't write from necessarily another, he can't write from the perspective of another race. As well as I think he can write from a perspective uh as a white male. And I think he realized that and he sticks stays in his lane, so to speak. But it's great that you see a show like Mr. Robot kind of talk about gender with reg and technology uh in a much more realistic way.

And here's a nuance to that scene, which I think a lot of people might not pick up on if they haven't seen it. privy part of these kinds of interactions. But even the very act of Elliot trying to step in and help Angela, it did hurt her. Not because of anything Elliot did. He wasn't coming from a place of trying to show her up but Gideon and the CTO Terry, they saw her a certain way. Nothing she could have said or done would have changed that. And they just used Elliot

It's interaction as an excuse to get her out of the room. I've seen that. I can't even tell you how many times. I mean, I had a meeting as recently a year ago where somebody told me to hold my tongue. Wow. Really? Yes. But and did you hold your tongue? Did you grasp it between your two fingers? I should have done that and taken a photo and and sent it to him, but I I was shocked and and and in that instance n nobody on my side really stuck up for me, partly because they were so shocked.

So I ended up having to fight my own battle, but Angela would have been better had she been more assertive and fought her own battle, whether she won or not, it doesn't matter. So she takes some culpability there. She wasn't really assertive enough.

But I mean, after a while sometimes you just get beaten down and you just kinda l learn to just take whatever you it you can. I mean he she also mentioned that she needed a raise and she wasn't getting a raise, but then they offered Elliot a raise, uh, either in this episode or the next episode. So it's the subtle stuff. Yeah, yeah. And I think her reaction was so

well written and genuine. The fact that she was upset at uh and stopped speaking to Elliot, you know, and he was trying to figure out what happened. Like other shows might have written it to be to have her be grateful, you know, and to have her say, Oh gee, Elliot, thanks Sticking out from

could be a little bonding moment for them, right? But instead she like she was embarrassed. She she's when she eventually spoke to Ellie about it, she's like, I was so embarrassed. Right. And I think that that captures much more authentic human reaction to the kind of professional embarrassment that often just get

pushed brushed aside. And he was safe for her to be mad with or upset with, which I I felt so sorry for him when she was mad at him because I felt like he's an ally. Try to, you know, understand where he was coming from. But he was safe for her to show her her um, you know, feelings about what had happened and She couldn't really show that to Gideon or to Terry Colby, who who who owns a Blackberry. So he's not a techie, he's a moron anyway.

And he's an arrogant moron, the worst kind. That's what Elliot said and oh boy. Yes, I think so. I think uh well casted and well written. I think we've all seen that person uh at some uh position in a company that Uh they probably should not be at. Totally. And there was the one scene where we were first introduced to Krista, who, as we talked about, is Elliot's therapist and and he's mandated to go to her, right? And

She seems to really care about him. And of course he's not very forthcoming with her when she asks, What is it about society that disappoints you so much? He has this whole internal monologue about it. that at first we think he's saying it out loud to her, but I thought it brought up some really interesting things like

First of all, he says something kind of about Steve Jobs not necessarily being a hero, and I know that's very controversial. And then they show images of Foxconn where the iPhones are made, I believe. And uh yeah, and talks about how heroes are counterfeit and you know social media is faking intimacy. And so uh he also talks about how we want to be sedated and The idea of sedation is very prevalent as you mentioned. The opiate addiction is very prevalent in this whole series.

Yeah, and if you think about why I think that that's such a theme is you want to be sedated when you're overstimulated, when you're tense, when you're stressed out, when you're pushed to the limit. Right. And the show, even though it's it's shot in this kind of calm, austere blue gray really has a lot of internal tension in the show, both in its themes and is the way it's written, is it feels like there's a lot of tension. It feels um d does that make sense?

Oh, completely. And I think it's such a a metaphor for the opiate addiction that we see kind of taking over a lot of people's lives in this country and elsewhere. If you even look at recent deaths print.

And the Michael Jackson. I mean, that's pop culture, but we're a society that likes our ambient and whatever other medications are out there prescription wise. Yeah. And if you think about um if you subscribe to the theory that the the popular and troublesome drugs of a particular era of generation or in a response to

the the difficulties of that particular time, it's kind of telling that it's opiates now. Because in prior generations, like it was stimulants that were being abused. And it was because people were tired. People were working long hours, they were having to travel, like the body got bruised and the body got tired. And so stimulants were the thing that people turned to. Whereas now it's more about I think the mind and the soul. It's you know, the fatigue

That the constant pressure and information generate, that this is what people turn to to try to get relief. And the way that Elliot is trying to self-regulate it and he has a drug dealer who helps you know, as we learn later on in the series, who also helps him regulate his addiction.

It leads to question a lot of our drug policies and really what is keeping the population safe. Exactly. Uh uh the the drug uh the drug dealer uh story and what he becomes involved in through his relationship with his dealer and his actual culpability in what the situation that she finds herself in later.

I think is a really interesting thing that the show explores. It lends an element of grittiness to it that otherwise would I think be lacking. Back to All Safe, which is a really funny name for a cybersecurity company. It reminds me of that hacking team, right? That's based in Italy. That is a real company. Yeah.

He gets to work, he gets yelled at for not dressing according to the dress code or chastised a little bit. But what's really more important is that the one of the companies that All Safe is Guarding, which is Evil Evil Core, was hacked. They had to head over to the server farm. Basically, Gideon and Elliot had to head over to the server farm to find out what was going on. And I thought that was really great to show people what a server farm was because.

I've been I've been on a tour in a server farm and I don't think people understand that these data centers are all over the world and all interconnected. Yeah. I I think Again, just an another way in which the first episode impressed me with its attention to technical detail and uh was able to write technical accuracy into the show in a way that

was authentic but also really dramatic. Like the one scene where he's trying to keep a certain server from getting infected and you know you see all you see are just little blinking light. someone typing at a keyboard. Uh but it was a dramatic scene. Uh and the the fact that they were able to make, you know, what's really ephemeral r kind of dramatic, I think was pretty impressive.

I agree. I thought that too. I thought they did a good job of making what was happening feel incredibly prescient and and and scary and having really big implications because we know that Simple data breaches or shutdowns can affect whole infrastructures. And as we're moving further and further into uh

Into arenas such as the Internet of Things, it has huge implications. We find out that Elliot has the opportunity at the server farm to leave the file that he's looking for there on the server, which he learns F society really wants him to do and this is how he first discovers them. They make it pretty easy. Or he can delete it and it's sort of very similar to the matrix. You take the red pill or the blue pill. And of course Elliot being who he is,

takes the red pill or maybe he placed the red pill there to begin with, we don't really know. Yes. I was wondering the exact same thing. I'm so glad you brought it up. Whether or not he orchestrated this whole thing so that he would have access to the server farm. to place that file and maybe something else, maybe it'll be a future reveal.

Uh It's in a computer in the server file. Totally. We find that Elliot encounters Mr. Robot a second time and then they head off to Coney Island. And I know we talked about it a lot the last podcast, the scenes inside the modified arcade where Elliot gets to meet the rest of F society, they have a mandate to meet and do all their work in person because basically the real world is their encryption. Yeah. Uh I thought that was an interesting point. But and I started thinking about it.

Given the fact that they would all have to travel there, doesn't that actually make it less secure? Like you're tracked and traced through all your movements, especially in New York City. So how is that really any more secure? I understand that like it the forensic ability is reduced and you can't get content. Like I guess

Yes, it is more secure in the sense that you're mitigating risk, but by no means is it a foolproof method. Very good point. I mean, if your phone is even turned off, it's still trackable, I believe. So what's that about? If you take the MTA and you use a c a card that you bought using anything but cash, they can probably track that. And I'm sure all the MTA cards all have their unique identifiers anyway, with the magnetic strip. Exactly. So yeah. It was just one of these like

points that I thought about and it just made me think. It was like okay, like uh'cause I'm always I'm always on the lookout for Instances where the show may have not met it. bar for technical accuracy or or um technical knowledge. Yeah. Something I I also find super compelling that is introduced not only at the F Society headquarters, but as the rest of the story unfolds.

is the idea of a war against what is called in the show debt slavery. So so the whole concept of money and debt and debt accumulation and working for the very companies that get you in debt to get you out of debt. It's sort of like a never ending vicious cycle. Sometimes I dream of saving the world. Saving everyone from the invisible hand. One that brands us with an employee badge. The one that forces us to work for them. The one that controls us every day without us knowing it.

I'm not that special. Yeah, and then I think what Donald Trump is able to tap into where he there's a lot of people feeling pretty trapped and hopeless and looking for someone to tell them that there is a quick fix. a lot of the trade deals that have been passed have really hurt the population and most recently the Trans Pacific Partnership I w I wonder what the overlap would be between Bernie Sanders supporters and fans of this show. I I think the other overlap is Reddit.

I think uh there's a there's a very uh large Reddit community and the show lends itself really well to Reddit with the the little Easter eggs that it leaves around and the references that it makes. It It can spawn so many just different discussions. And there was a wonderful montage using a Neil Diamond song of all things called If You Go Away. You mentioned the Pink Floyd on the CD. I like that Elliot referenced it as his digital cemetery. So putting things on discs. It's a digital cemetery.

uh that that he's making there. Yes. And we never really talked about Tyrell, the introduction of Tyrell Wellick, the Swedish SVP of Evil Corp. He seems to really understand Elliot in a way that is alarming for Elliot. It seems like Tyrell might may may not be one step ahead of Elliot, but at least he can keep pace with him. Yeah. He is kind of uh

Uh he's accompanied by triumphant music in the background. He's shot in a certain way. We're being told both through the writing and through the presentation that this is in some ways going to be Elliot's arch nemesis. Um be and the the two kind of arch nemesis that uh Elliot encounters, like the drug dealer and this guy, they're both kind of opposite ends, yet somewhat similar characters in their own universe. Oh hi. I'm not Rel Wellick, Senior Vice President of Technology.

Elliot, just attacked. Don't be so humble. You know, I started out exactly where you are, and to be honest, you know, my heart is still there. So I see a run. You know, I'm actually on KDE myself. I know this desktop environment is supposed to be better, but you know what they say. Old habits, they die hard. An executive. Linux, but I know what you're thinking. I'm an executive. I mean, why am I even running Linux? Again, old habits. It's gonna be fun working with you.

I should join the rest of the group. Bonsoir Elliot. A major, major attack happened on Evil Corps. And just in the midst of when Elliot was having this huge Times Square celebration. Men in black show up and tell'em to step inside the car and we see c cops in Times Square turning their backs to it. It was beautiful. Yeah, it was a it was a great scene. And uh I thought Again, like one of these moments where you kind of realize the show's on a different level. Like, okay, um I see

I you you can't really expect the same old, same old thing. It's going to surprise you. Henry, this has been so much fun talking about the first episode with you of Mr. Robot. I think we got a lot of set up, established, and we have a really compelling storyline to talk about. Thank you so much and thanks to our listeners. You can find us on Facebook at Hello Friend, the Mr. Robot Podcast. I look forward to speaking with you again, Henry.

Me too, Margaret. Have a good one. Take care, bye bye. There he is, Terry Colby, the CTO. Even though he's the head technology guy at one of the biggest companies in the world, he owns a Blackberry. It also looks like he doesn't see a terminal very often. He's not a techie, he's a moron. An arrogant moron. The worst kind.