Mr. Robot is a critically lauded show that premiered its second season last night on the USA Network. On Thursday, its lead actor Rami Malek was nominated for an Emmy and it also co-stars Christian Slater. It is NOT, as I just learned, a series about a man who is also a robot.
Mr. Robot, I read on IMDb, is a show about hackers, kind of like the movie Hackers, but not. It also has nothing to do with RoboCop, Short Circuit, or Chappie because those are all movies about robots and Mr. Robot—as previously established—is not a robot.
I didn’t learn that Mr. Robot is not a robot (is Mr. Robot a man? Never mind, don’t tell me) because I watched an episode of the series, though I’m sure you’ll tell me it’s great. Okay. I believe you. I learned because I realized yesterday that I know nothing about it. And so I sent a text:
It has since been clarified that “Mr. Robot” is not the name of the hacker collective, but that telling me the meaning of “Mr. Robot” would reveal “the show’s biggest spoiler.” Because of that, the friend I was texting made the morally questionable decision to lie. Either that or he doesn’t know what Mr. Robot is about either.
Which would be fair enough because, as it turns out, there’s a lot of confusion surrounding this show:
Even Kate Dries, with a mind that’s typically sharp as a tack, was confusing Mr. Robot with Adult Swim show Robot Chicken. And she wasn’t alone:
What I’ve concluded is that no one, even the people who claim to watch it, knows anything about Mr. Robot. They might claim to know something about Mr. Robot, but they are probably kidding themselves. In the end, only two things seem certain: First, Mr. Robot and Robot Chicken are different things. Second, Mr. Robot is not about a robot man. Disappointing.
Image via Mr. Robot/USA.