Everything You Need to Know Before WatchingMr. Robot‘s Second Season

Have you come across Mr. Robot ? The enigmatical hacker and the show named for him snuck out on the USA connection last yr , only to become one of TV ’s most talked - about shows . The 2d time of year commence tonight , but what if you have n’t had a fortune to catch up on everything that happened in season one ? Well , io9 has your back .

Here ’s a warm refresher course on the show , leave alone out any contingent or reveals from season two ’s briefly ( and on purpose ) leaked premiere :

The Three Main Characters

When we first meet Elliot Alderson ( Rami Maleck ) , he ’s a socially awkward engineer at a cybersecurity ship’s company in New York City . The business firm ’s grownup node is the largest conglomerate in the world : E Corp , which is always call “ Evil Corp , ” because Mr. Robot is told from Elliot ’s POV , and that ’s Elliot ’s opinion of it . He hates it because it has its tentacle wrap around every piece of the major planet — but also because his father died of Cancer the Crab as a consequence of Evil Corp toxic waste .

But Elliot is n’t just a morally conflicted applied scientist . He ’s also a computer drudge who investigates everyone he meets . When he divulge a wrong that needs righting , he turns vigilante and utilize his considerable skills to make it encounter . And he is n’t just socially awkward — he ’s addicted to morphia , and he ’s very mentally slight . One of his symptoms is extreme paranoia . He also tends to blank out things , lose raceway of time at inopportune moment , and see things that are n’t really there . As the season come along , his grasp of reality grows ever more tenuous .

Which brings us to the 2nd major character , Mr. Robot ( Christian Slater ) , a rumpled guy in a globe ceiling who appears out of the blueing to entice Elliot to join fsociety , a hacker group plotting to pass over E Corp off the map and gut the global economy in the procedure . There ’s something very unpaired about Mr. Robot that makes total signified when , late in season one , we realize that he ’s Elliot ’s father — or , more specifically , a hallucination of Elliot ’s long - dead beginner that ’s been guiding Elliot ’s fsociety endeavors all along .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

Other important characters let in Tyrell Wellick ( Martin Wallström ) , a monstrously ambitious E Corp exec ; hard eyeliner - ed fsociety drudge Darlene ( Carly Chaikin ) , who is later on revealed to be Elliot ’s baby — remember , he ’s mindless ; and Elliot ’s longtime protagonist and co - worker Angela ( Portia Doubleday ) , who does n’t know about his cyberpunk activities but share his loathing of E Corp , though she ends up taking a job out of despair .

But Mr. Robot ’s third main character is you . Every episode is guided by Elliot ’s internal ramblings that reveal what ’s really live on on inside his hoodie - hatch head : affright , fear , untamed speculation , sober introspection , a summation of secrets about the person he ’s with ( con by hacking into his or her email and societal medium score ) . But they are no mere vocalization - over ; they ’re styled as one - sided dialogue with his “ imaginary admirer . ” We ’re secret to his thoughts , and he cause us part of the chronicle — though we before long see that Elliot can be a most undependable storyteller .

Why You Should Watch

Mr. Robot is a show that borrows liberally from other sources , and — as is befitting a show that never insults the intelligence operation of its audience — it knows that you sleep with . The full example of this is probably when a piano translation of the Pixies ’ “ Where Is My Mind ” soundtracks a scene late in the time of year ; by then , we ’ve realized that Mr. Robot owes more than a pass debt to Fight Club , and repurposing the song that plays during that pic ’s stopping point is an affirmative jiffy . But though the American Psycho and Little Phoebe for Vendetta pop - culture vibes are warm , the show also references thing that are all too substantial . The Evil Corp logotype is basically Enron ’s logo , but it ’s more than that — the mood of the show feel alarmingly authentic . No other show has captured the current post - millennial anxiety and tedium so astutely , or accurately .

Also : it never feel like it ’s trying to hard to be current or cool , even though it totally is ( a hack lair secretly pucker into a Coney Island arcade ? Awesome . ) It ’s full of stylistic choice that feel fresh and inspired ( its soundtrack is sea wolf ) . It ’s surprisingly well - acted , and though its subplots do n’t always storm ( Elliot ’s neighbor - turned - girlfriend , kidnapped by her drug - principal employee , was understandably in a drained - end storyline … literally ) , its commitment to making its master role a dizzyingly complex someone is always refreshing and even suspenseful . When Elliot ’s in a scenery , which he almost always is , you ca n’t confide your own middle . How many other shows can you say that about ?

Where Everything Stands

Mr. Robot ended on a most strange cliffhanger , whichit ’s been dropping clue about via social media , but here ’s where we ’re at : the fsociety hack was a success . The world is in turmoil , with a revolutionary spirit edifice in the vein of Occupy Wall Street . While Darlene and company keep , Elliot wakes up in Tyrell ’s elevator car , ineffectual to remember actually action the hack or any of the days immediately follow . All he call back is Tyrell — fresh fired from Evil Corp , probably getting divorced from his creepy married woman , definitely a cold - blooded manslayer — depict up at his apartment , and take him to the fsociety arcade .

Just a few of the questions run into tonight ’s season premiere :

What happened during the missing days ? Where is Tyrell ? Did Elliot shoot him with the gunman squirrel away in the arcade ? Will the FBI trace the taxicab back to fsociety , Darlene , and Elliot ? What ’s the connectedness between Evil Corp and the Chinese hacker group that avail fsociety fetch it down ? Who was bang on Elliot ’s apartment doorway ? What role will Mr. Robot encounter , now that Darlene and Angela know the profundity of Elliot ’s illusion ? And dammit … WHO IS TAKING CARE OF ELLIOT ’S DOG , FLIPPER ?

William Duplessie