On the morning of May 12th, 2019, as I started out on my morning drive, Nick Lowe’s “Cruel to Be Kind” came on the radio. Every time this classic power pop ballad has come on my radio, it’s been either a harbinger of doom or a herald of prosperity. The first time I heard it was on my way to the train station the day I received my first job in the film industry. Friends have gotten engaged, family have been in car accidents, hurricanes have devoured the East Coast. Suffice it to say, I have a strange relationship with that song. This particular day, I mistook it as a good sign.
It would be an understatement to assume that Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek) could never take the lyrics to Nick Lowe’s impressive anthem to heart. Like a cinematic Job, he endured setback after setback in his endeavors against the insidious conglomerate ECorp. Even so, he made it to the end of the line, emerging through a matryoshka of mind traps that even Cobb and Ariadne would never be able to navigate.
I’ve finally made it to the end of Mr. Robot, and I’d like to share with you some final thoughts on the show. Did Sam Esmail succeed with his hacker drama, maintaining one of the highest quality runs of this latter stage in the golden age of television? Was it ever really worth comparing it to Gotham? In my first article about Mr. Robot, I posited to you there was a connection between the two shows in their early stages. I followed that up in the second season with a status appraisal of both series. Finally, when Gotham concluded this time last year I conceded that the strange show did manage to become worthwhile, allowing a young Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon to acquaint themselves with Batman’s infamous rogues gallery.
So where does that leave us during the final season of Mr. Robot? The mission statement of fsociety has sort of fallen apart after a desperate showdown where they were caught between FBI agents and the sinister Dark Army. The power move culminates in near total control for their leader Whiterose (B.D. Wong). Everyone involved has gone their separate ways – one-time enemy Tyrell Wellick (Martin Wallstrom) mires in his patsy management role; crestfallen Dom DiPierro (Grace Gummer) holes up in her mother’s house, shellshocked; embattled ECorp CEO Phillip Price (Michael Cristofer) is left with the worst collateral of all, his distressed daughter Angela (Portia Doubleday) being used as a Dark Army pawn….until her usefulness runs out.
With most of their team dead or being used by the Dark Army, sibling duo Elliot and Darlene Alderson (Carly Chaikin) are left with very little to work with. Their goal remains, of course, to take the elite down from the inside. While they were in fierce battle against ECorp for much of the first three seasons, there was always the spectre of Whiterose waiting in the wings. As it turns out, her alter ego in the regular world is Minister of State Security for the People’s Republic of China. Through that position and her Dark Army, she has waged a silent war against Phillip Price raging back decades. Their endgame was to rule the world, and Whiterose is days away from victory.
In the end, it sure sounds like I was right enough about the show sharing an allegory with Batman, but how close was I? It was easy to transpose characters from the Caped Crusader’s franchise onto this as I pleased, but no one else was composing comparison pieces. I have faith in my original assessment of all the characters, as each counterpart sustained enough attributes to satisfy even the heartiest naysayers. The juxtaposition isn’t flawless, however much we’d like it to be, but it was certainly fun to watch the proceedings through a bat-shaped lens.
The chief figures who don’t cooperate with my scenario are twofold: Phillip Price, whose executive grew merely in realizations rather than substance – much like his equal Sal Moroni, whose pedestrian shroud over Gotham stands in lackluster odds with the more colorful villains; it’s also fair to reason that Mr. Robot (Christian Slater) himself is the least like his other, Alfred, especially because the butler is more or less alive and well in Batman’s universe, and a major endgame revelation pertinent to Edward Alderson has never been less representative of the Wayne family butler. It’s curious that the patriarchs don’t quite cut it, given their prestige in both Bruce and Elliot’s worlds.
I’m glad that I stuck with Darlene as Catwoman and Angela as Batgirl, as their paths took them in similar directions. Throughout the show, Darlene was constantly shifting her morals, so that you never shook the feeling that she could turn to the wrong side at any minute. She knows that it takes a certain level of criminal activity to set right the injustices of the system. Darlene’s one true loyalty is to Elliot, however dangerous that meant to those around them. Meanwhile, Angela was always searching for the right way to do things, even if that meant siding with the enemy in hoping for the greater good. On the other side of that same coin, it results in tragedy much like cardinal Batgirl Barbara Gordon.
The easiest two to decipher had been Dom, the no-nonsense FBI agent, and Krista Gordon (Gloria Reuben), Elliot’s psychiatrist since year one. It was easiest to apply longtime ally Leslie Thompkins to Krista, especially given her prominence in Gotham as well. Her resurgence in season four became pivotal to Elliot’s journey, just as Leslie often did for Bruce. Dom was slightly trickier, but with her first appearance arriving after all other regulars had alternates, she seemed to line up best with Huntress. It was proven best during a climactic fight scene opposite the Dark Army. Despite a bullet in her lung, Darlene handcuffed to a coffee table, and no less than three henchmen surrounding them, Dom managed to shoot every villain in the room. It reminded me of the recent scene in Birds of Prey when Helena Bertinelli, as played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, dispatched a room full of gangsters with nominal effort.
Speaking of the villains, they turned out to be the most fun to analogize – from Ray (Craig Robinson) in season 2 being Mr. Freeze, to Bobby Cannavale’s inquisitive Irving filling in for the Riddler. In hindsight, the show seems even more like a superhero origin story, as each segment contained villains of the week, minor and major in Elliot’s life. As season four commenced, we saw the return of the psychotic Fernando Vera (Elliot Villar), who I’d pegged as Mr. Zsasz, given his penchant for philosophizing amidst his murders. His shocking slaughter of Shayla (Frankie Shaw) midway through season one left a foreboding pall over the following episodes, as there was always a nagging feeling that Vera could show up at any moment. Jake Busey appeared early on as a sniveling pedophile, so he can naturally stand in for the Mad Hatter. With Dom stuck working for the Dark Army, she was handled by a sadistic taxidermist named Janice (Ashlie Atkinson) who makes the most sense representing the delusional Ventriloquist.
There were two villains who stood out above all else, of course. Fan favorite Tyrell Wellick will always seem like The Joker to me, especially when he pulled his Patrick Bateman impression in the first season. His wild-card intensity always implied that he was destined for greater things, particularly as Elliot’s antithesis. As with all best laid plans, his journey didn’t go quite as expected, with the two even joining forces at points in the last two seasons. By the time they’re thrust together for one last ride upstate, it’s clear that Wellick was more of a traditional anti-hero – one we’ve seen in places such as Pete Campbell in Mad Men or Prince Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Like those fictional contemporaries, Wellick paid the ultimate sacrifice in the name of Elliot’s plan, rather than buy into the promise of the top 1% of the top 1%.
Whiterose was always going to be the Emperor Palpatine to Elliot’s Luke. The bread crumbs were there from the start – from the idea that her secret device was buried beneath the Washington Township power plant that saw the elder Alderson’s death, to her manipulation of Angela that seemed to anticipate the inevitable showdown between our two forces for good and evil. When Elliot finally faces Whiterose in the penultimate episode, he’s allowed to recognize his true self, and firmly stands on the side of saving the world. Whiterose’s deranged idea that her “machine” will transport them to an alternate universe is ultimately a fool’s errand. That it implies we might be able to see our loved ones again is a revelation that only preys upon the audience’s own morals, a way for Esmail to tow the grey line. Elliot, despite his inner demons, must persist for those too weak to fight for themselves, while Whiterose has convinced herself that the only way to make things better is to turn the switch off and on.
This season, above the other three, had an air of inevitability. With the knowledge that things would be wrapping up, it became clear that the major characters all had to grapple with their own mortality, and legacy in the shadow of the 5/9 hack. If season four had any disadvantages, it was that the element of surprise had gone literally and figuratively out the window. After season one had the best revelations, Esmail struggled to replicate that brilliance by having Elliot sink deep into his own psyche to refrain from the dangers of actual prison. It felt at the time to be a misstep, given our unreliable narrator, but it would prove by the end to be a key to Elliot’s entire purpose. The problem by now was that it had become difficult to decipher what might still be real or fake, and with an expectation of bombshells waiting around every corner, any red herring seemed too nauseating to indulge. Much of these final episodes became meta as well, with one strange highlight being a creator cameo. Esmail slipped into the first episode of the season, wordlessly sucking the life out of his own creation – a mirror for how the finale would go. It felt like Bob Kane drawing himself into the panels of Detective Comics No 33, being the unnamed gunman that strikes down Bruce Wayne’s parents.
Mr. Robot was known for red herrings, and the finale was full of meta references galore. That showdown with Whiterose results in what we’re led to believe is a total meltdown of the Washington plant that launches Elliot into an alternate universe. Straight out of a comic book storyline, he finds himself wandering a world in which he’s due to marry Angela, Tyrell is a chummy coworker, his father is alive and well, among other aspects of his character. When he finally runs into his alternate self, Elliott is confronted with the possibility that he’s merely a comic book creation of the real Elliot. In a flip of the script, this “real” Elliot is a boring office drone who was once the hacker Elliot’s dream persona. Could it be that what we wish isn’t always what it seems, that the grass is never greener?
Of course, this is one last chance for Esmail to pull the wool over our eyes, and in one final therapy session in his mind, Krista personifies his id to explain the truth. Since day one, Elliot has buried the calm boring version of himself within an imaginary “perfect” world to protect him from what needed to be done. This way the hacker in him could assemble fsociety, take down ECorp and wrestle with his personal demons before letting his true self reap the benefits. Whatever feeling you get from this perplexing mess of brain synapses, it’s definitely an innovative spin on the superhero genre, right?
At the time my mother passed away, a year ago today, the first thing I heard after emerging from our enclosed grief was the faint radio behind a nurse’s desk. It was softly playing “Higher Love” by Steve Winwood. I’ve always been attuned to what song is playing in a restaurant or on the radio, and I’ve held close those moments that truly spoke to me. You might say it’s like a soundtrack that follows me in daily life. I remember songs from first dances, first dates, weddings and funerals, and everything in between. When I heard that song “Higher Love” I was immediately drawn back to the end of season two when Elliot and Tyrell regroup to plan the next phase of fsociety’s master plan, set to the tune of Phil Collins’ “Take Me Home”.
I think this is what the great editors look for when they assemble a soundtrack for their films or shows – Sam Esmail had a focused plan for each and every song’s placement. His collaboration with Mac Quayle is one of the best since David Lynch’s partnership with Angelo Badalamenti on Twin Peaks. His attention to detail in every aspect of the show is unmatched in recent years, save perhaps the talent of Matthew Weiner re: Mad Men. I am always driven to complementary talent like these, where meticulous presentation and easter eggs are de rigueur.
How hard is it, truly, to wrap up a perfect show like Mr. Robot? In the past few years we’ve seen disaster after disaster in terms of series finales, from Dexter’s misguided lumberjack phase, to fans balking at the limited screen time of the titular mother in How I Met Your Mother, to the unprecedented backlash to last May’s Game of Thrones. That last show’s entire season was derided, but it was nothing compared to how fans felt at the end of Lost, which had clearly telegraphed several possible endings right off the bat, and merely satisfied the most obvious one.
Can a show ever survive a whiff at the end? When I think of how badly Game of Thrones landed its final season, I always drift back to the early part of this golden age, when all anyone could talk about was that Sopranos blackout, set to “Don’t Stop Believin” by Journey. That blew everyone’s mind, with many assuming the power had gone out. Were they angry? Absolutely. Did they hold a grudge and accuse the whole show of being meaningless because we didn’t get the satisfaction of learning Tony Soprano’s exact fate? Not that I’ve come across. I feel that, in time, the bad rap GoT is getting will fade, much like it has for Lost, Mad Men or Weeds. For an acclaimed show like Mr. Robot, we were lucky to have such a determined writer at the helm.
In the days after Mom’s passing, I felt guilty for thinking of all the shows we’d left unfinished. The team behind Mr. Robot had announced the premiere date for season 4 that Saturday, May 11th, so I planned to talk about that with her as we came for our Mother’s Day visit in the hospital room. We also had the fourth and final season of The Man in the High Castle to look forward to, which would debut in November, a month after Robot. The strange part of this is that both shows wound down surrounding a similar sci-fi conceit – a portal to an alternate dimension where everything is better. You can find your deceased loved ones once again. Never did we think when starting both shows in 2015 that they would conclude on that same note.
The void left in my life is hard to see, as our relationship was borne on entertainment. My parents literally met in a community theatre, and as she went on to direct plays there and at a local high school, I would thrive as a local child actor. I know that I inherited the same love for cinema, in the same fashion, from her endless stories of youthful summers spent in Cape May catching double features with her brother. I know I eventually took his spot, when in my adolescent summers we would head to multiplexes twice a week for movies like Homeward Bound or Jumanji, or take in reruns of our favorite sitcoms – Wings, NewsRadio, Mad About You or Remember WENN. I realized a few years ago that it wasn’t my childhood I was mourning, but the future I would eventually have to deal with – the absence of such a perfect viewing partner.
When we first sat down to watch Mr. Robot, neither of us knew what to expect. I think I put more of an emphasis on the show as a whole because I analyzed it so much for these articles – but it allowed Mom and I to revisit each season together and discuss it in that light, like we’d never done with any other program. Did Mr. Robot ever matter that much, in the long run? It mattered to me, it mattered to Mom, especially as a talking point. We wanted something then that we could discuss at length, as we had with Lost in the beginning, or Sports Night, or Quantum Leap.
A month and a half after Mom passed away, Norwegian DJ Kygo remixed a b-side from the Japanese edition of Whitney Houston’s 1990 album I’m Your Baby Tonight, her cover of Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love”. I couldn’t escape the song all summer – whenever I was feeling down, it seemed like it would appear – popping up on the radio, playing over a store’s speakers, or blasting through a stadium between sets. I haven’t heard “Cruel to Be Kind” in the past year, which could go either way given my history with the song, but maybe I have a new sound looking out for me. I want so badly to write something that Mom would have watched with me. Now that I’ve seen everything that we watched together, I think it’s time to write something of my own, something that she’d want to watch with me.
Interjections 