Welcome to the man of recaps. This is Mr. Robot season 1. Meet Elliot Alderson. He's a computer genius who spends his free time as a hacktivist, exposing child pornography rings and such. But this isn't some cool superhero hackers show. He's got severe social anxiety and incredible paranoia. In fact, any given shot of the series, it's him walking the streets with his hood up, talking to us, his imaginary friend. By day, he works cyber security at Allsafe, and their biggest client is Ecorp. They're a mega corporation that owns everything, and throughout the series, they're only referred to as Evil Corp, as a powerful group of people out there that are secretly running the world. If you love corporate overlord conspiracy theories, this is the show for you. Part of Elliott's grudge is personal. Evil Corp killed his father, but more on that later. One night, someone's hacking Evil Corp, and it's a doozy. Elliot's got to go to the physical servers, and only because

he's the best in the biz. Is he able to shut it down? The hackers left a call sign. Their name is F Society. And the next day on the train, Elliot meets Christian Slater, who only goes by Mr. Robot. Turns out that hack was a test for Elliot. They want him to join F Society. They're a cool hacker group with a headquarters in an abandoned arcade, and they're into the same kind of taking down corporations that Elliot's all about. They're planning the hack of the century on Evil Corp. They want to erase all debt in the world. So, Elliot meets the rest of the crew. There's Mobley and Romero and Trenton, and then there's Darlene, who's got a very Fight Club Marla Singer trashy chic I don't care about anything cyberpunk cool. She's the type of girl that breaks into your apartment to use your shower because she doesn't want to pay your water bill. Elliot opens up to Mr. Robot about how his father worked at an Evil Corp chemical plant, but it

leaked and gave him cancer. Killed him, but his dad wanted to keep it a secret. So when Elliot told their mom, he got mad and accidentally pushed him out a window. Mr. Robot's like, Okay, that's nice, kid. Get over it. We got work to do. Evil corpse backup data is stored in Steel Mountain, which is totally offline, so they have to take it out in person. Long story short, they fake that Elliot's some sort of tech billionaire so he can get a tour and sneak in a bug to the climate control system. That way, they can raise the temperature and fry all the servers. The operation is a success, but they're partnering with a Chinese hacker group, the Dark Army. More on them later. They're pulling out, and if they don't take out the backups in China, taking down Steel Mountain will be a total waste. So there's time for some side plots. Eliot sees a psychiatrist. He really likes Krista, but Elliot hacks the guy she's been dating, and turns out he's secretly married. Elliot threatens to expose him.

unless he breaks up with Krista, and he's also a terrible dog owner. So, Elliot takes his dog, Flipper. This will actually matter later. To deal with his crippling depression, Elliot self-medicates, snorting morphine, which he buys from his hot neighbor, Shayla, who's also a little weird. So, they end up dating, but her supplier's a very bad dude who wants Shayla for himself. So, Elliot cracks his drug code, sends it to the cops, gets him arrested, but this guy figured out it was Elliot. He has his boys on the outside, kidnapped Shayla, and threatened to kill her if Elliot doesn't hack him out of jail. Long story short, Elliot pulls it off, but he killed Shayla anyway. No, Elliot does have a real-life friend, Angela. They grew up together, so she understands that he never says anything out loud. Her mom died from the same evil Corp chemical leak that Elliot's dad did. F society, lease documents implicating Terry Colby. So, Angela wants to reopen the case. She talks to Colby in person.

like hey, why did you kill my mom? And he's like, yo, it wasn't personal. It was just cheaper to let her die than it was to fix the plant. He's like, hey, you got gumption, kid. Why don't you take a job at Evil Corp, and maybe you can change it from the inside. So Angela does start working for Evil Corp, and the CEO, Phillip Price, takes a special interest in her. Also working at Evil Corp is Tyrell Wellick. He's kind of a dark reflection of Elliot. He's also a little crazy, but in an American Psycho kind of way. He doesn't murder people, but he does pay homeless men to let him beat them up. He figured out that Elliot was involved in the first Deaf Society hack, but he thought it was a personal vendetta against Harry Colby because of Elliot's father. And Tyrell is fine with that. He's like, hey, now I get to be Chief Technology Officer, but the company's decided to hire someone else, which is not okay. Tyrell's got a hot pregnant wife, and

they're both Swedish or something. By the way, she's into some kinky sex, and she's just as cutthroat as him. So, at the party for the new CTO, she's like, Tyrell, go seduce his wife so we have leverage over him. Now, a little bit of choking can be sexy, but a lot of choking is murder. So, Tyrell accidentally kills that guy's wife, though the part of the plan. Now, back to the main plot. Eliot finally gets a meeting with the leader of the dark army, this woman named White Rose. She's obsessed with time, has her watch beep every minute, but long story short, Eliot convinces her to join back in the hack. Darlene is very excited; their plans finally happening, and in the heat of the moment, Eliot kisses her, which does not get a good reaction. You see, there's something very important that Eliot completely forgot. You're my sister. Yeah, Eliot, you done Game of Thrones to yourself. Eliot starts to realize he might be crazier than he thought. Eliot pulls out

his only open if you think you're crazy CD, which has a bunch of pictures showing that Mr. Robot is his father. He's like, That's right, son. I'm secretly alive. But when the girls track him down, he'll be all alone, and his father's definitely dead. That's right, Elliot. You fight Club to yourself. Yeah, Mr. Robot is Elliot's split personality. He actually found it f society without Elliot knowing. And while Elliot's still trying to process that he's completely bonkers, Tyrell Wellick walks into his apartment. He knows about the hack because he's had secret meetings with Elliot as Mr. Robot. And when Evil Corp fires him, he's like, Hell yeah, let's do it. Cut to three days later. Elliot wakes up in Tyrell's car with no memory of what happened. Turns out he and Tyrell went through with the hack, and it worked. All that was erased. F society starts a revolution. But while his friends are partying, Elliot's trying to convince Mr. Robot to fill him in on what happened.

and where Tyrell is. Then that night, Elliot gets a knock on his door, and that's where season 1 comes to an end. [Music]

Mr. Robot RECAP: Season 1

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