Mr. Robot

There’s a slow build in progress with this season, since Eliot has deliberately put himself on the bench, but Esmail’s deft touch with the blend of reality and fantasy remains as engrossing as ever.

Two episodes (one of which many of you may have seen) isn't a big sample size to judge whether Mr. Robot will avoid the sophomore slump. But they're a very promising start, and a continuation of all that made the series so fascinating a year ago.

Mr. Robot remains one of the most dizzying, intoxicating, challenging shows on television, a gripping look at mental illness and brilliance run amok, tied to an essentially sweet, if damaged, character. It’s a show that poses Big Questions and dares to leave them hanging.

Sam Esmail’s weirdly mesmerizing cyberthriller continues to pull off an audacious feat of boldly original, eerily relevant and daringly surreal storytelling, reminiscent of the visionary cinema of the 1970s. [25 Jul-7 Aug 2016, p.14]

There are moments (like the aforementioned withdrawal episode) where you think about giving up on it. But those thoughts disappear once the show's surprise is revealed and Elliot recognizes his true purpose. That leads to Season 2's premiere being a thrill ride. ... Mr. Robot has the potential to be [as good as "Breaking Bad."]

The show’s centerpiece remains Malek’s mesmerizing turn as Elliot, as well as his chemistry with Slater‘s Mr. Robot. Excavating that much emotion from deadpan narration is a tough gig, but Malek continues to find new shades of neutral both in voiceover and in his scenes.

It is striking more for its form than its contents, which are familiar. ... But it looks and feels like nothing else on TV.

Watch Mr. Robot simply for its beguiling oddness, personified in Malek’s outstanding, trip-wired lead performance. ... Mr. Robot asks an entire generation of harried and hurried viewers to pay attention, think about it and, most of all, wallow in it.

Esmail's camerawork--characters tucked into corners of the frame, among other nontraditional compositions--continues to give the sense of disorientation and never feels tired. In fact, there are some flourishes in the first two hours that are brilliantly conceived and, with the show's strong sense of sound (both pop songs and smothered, slowed-down and manipulated background noise), contribute to what is one of the most visually remarkable hours on television.

Last season, Elliot was trying to save the world; now he’s trying to save himself. That battle promises to have lots of casualties.

The premiere suffers from a premise of scattered characters and broken relationships, which subverts emotional resonance, and the decision to be a two-hour event. ... But there’s an abundance of artfulness, and Malek is electric.

Mr. Robot continues to use its distinct aesthetic to explore some of the fundamental tensions at the heart of what made both politicians’ campaigns so popular.

The two-hour Season 2 premiere, airing Wednesday night, is as stylish and well-performed as any in Season 1, but it is also confusing, burdened by the series’ dense backstory and intricate, time-skipping structure. The new season will surely rev up: Malek’s performance remains excellent.

Mr. Robot and creator Esmail have earned this quirky, almost mild and studious, way to commence the second season; for fans, trust in the show has been established.

The show loses steam when it leaves Elliot to concentrate on other characters, many of whom speak in grad-student aphorisms about power and delusion.... But the result is still riveting, sinister fun. Mr. Robot has a bouncy energy and an exhilarating sense of verbal, visual, and musical play that makes its bleakness palatable.

The two-episode premiere not only re-establishes the world of Mr. Robot but it also introduces new characters, expanding the show's world while still rooting it firmly in the present.

In its two-part, two-hour premiere, some problems from season one resurface, but, for the most part, this is entertaining, accomplished television that has to something to say.

With just two episodes made available for review, it’s difficult to say yet whether or not Mr. Robot will be able to produce a second season as wild and seductive as the first. But the show remains an artfully constructed receptacle for our cyber-paranoia, whether directed at the government, or capitalism, or technology, or most pressingly, one’s ability to betray oneself, with hallucinations or selective memory or--worst of all--a self-serving notion of the right thing to do.

Mr. Robot is as sly and clever as ever, calling out the shallow nature of a life controlled by advertising and the comfort of a life on auto-pilot. It challenges us, but also Elliot himself, and his choices, as he considers the harm he’s done his old boss, Gideon Goddard (Michel Gill).

Mr. Robot returns for its second season 10 p.m. Wednesday, as enigmatic and intriguing as ever.

The first two episodes also reinforce that Mr. Robot is at its strongest when keeping a tight focus on Elliot and his Mr. Robot companion/adversary.

Mr. Robot may be self-serious, but it’s also a rarity on TV, capturing a modern mood, an ambient distrust based on genuine social betrayals. For all its flaws, it feels like an alarm going off. It’s worth paying attention to.

The show is vastly more interesting when it shows the dystopian consequences of Elliot’s actions than when it tries to litigate what, precisely, is happening between his ears.

Watching Mr. Robot can be a little like living in Elliot’s skin: engrossed by a skillfully executed dystopian fantasy while nagged by the knowledge that it isn’t everything it claims to be.

For those in need of a serialized, compelling storyline, the fact that two episodes in we have no idea what Eliot will be up to on a weekly basis, and only a half of a hint of a whisper about Tyrell’s fate, has to make one wary.

Things are much murkier, and the question of whether the show will recover its focus or remain mired in psychological trauma will define whether season two succeeds or fails. Malek’s hollow-eyed charisma can redeem a hero who’s deeply troubled but essentially noble in purpose; it can’t carry a show whose defining quality is cynicism.