Mr. Robot

More often than not, Mr. Robot is not a show which invites you to buy in. It’s standoffish, reticent, only willing to make you care when prodded to do so, and even then it will resist. Yet if you are willing to engage, willing to challenge yourself, it’s some of the most fascinating television happening right now.

Version 3.0 marks a welcome return to form, one that tightens the story but still seems disarmingly weird and appropriately suited to the current political and cultural moment.

Mr. Robot is finally evolving into the show it always should have been, and you should watch it.

Mr. Robot is must-watch again. ... Mostly it's just a welcome relief to tune into Mr. Robot and have it take off immediately in creative, smart and adrenaline-fueling directions. The writing and plotting is spot-on, the directing brilliant and once again Malek proves, in almost every scene, how utterly essential he is to everything working.

For those already weary at the prospect of more episodes rife with frustrating mind games, know that in season three, Mr. Robot is much more consistently assured and compelling than it was in its uneven second season.

The third season, based on the four episodes I’ve watched, is strong and exciting and moves the narrative along at an invigorating pace.

There are so many interlocking agendas and conspiracies and secrets that the show feels more like work than it originally did, no matter how much Esmail tries to pare things back to the basics. Beat to beat, it can still knock me off my chair, but then we get back to keeping track of who’s really loyal to whom, when Angela might or might not be telling the truth, or what Tyrell’s motivations are, and the episodes can start feeling much longer than they actually are.