Mr. Robot

I have a confession to make: In the recent past, I didn't own a TV. From November 2013 to August 2013 I did without and didn't miss it. When I was hired by Avalon Consulting LLC, the man who hired me, the CEO of Avalon, also graduated from Notre Dame. I decided I better buy a TV so that I could follow and discuss the football season. From there, Netflix was ordered, and eventually, TWC.

Still, though, I have resisted taking up any series on the TV. Between the travel I do for work and the general low quality of programming available I really didn't feel like there was any good reason to take up a series. I guess that appeared odd to some; I was dating a lady with a number of "regular" shows and to her I appeared quite odd.

The start of the USA Series Mr. Robot caught me though. That's not surprising since the series subjects, hacking, and IT security are all components of my specialty as a Hadoop Security consultant. There are plenty of other subjects in the series that strike a cord: Mega corporations dominating the economy, fantasies of a simpler lifestyle, the hacker lifestyle.

Evil Corp, the dominating corporate entity responsible for all the world's ills and the death of Elliot's and Angela's Fathers, is almost too perfectly evil, especially since the face of Evil Corp is Tyrell Wellick, the CTO-wannabe who gets passed over. Between scenes of Tyrell taking out his frustrations by beating a homeless man and his plotting corporate intrigue with his pregnant wife (while he plays his S&M games with her), we can't help conclude that Evil Corp must be evil to have such a deviant vying for a C-Level position.

Then of course there is the role of Elliot, the security engineer that is coopted by fsociety. Elliot, with his social anxiety disorder, is the poster child of the lone geek, the one that can't relate, can't communicate, and remains forever isolated and lonely. I have to admit that I feel affinity for Elliot. As an only child in a neighborhood without children, I felt some of those fears. We watch from show to show to see if Elliot can ever surmount his isolation, the way all of us must if we are to have any connection or relations with other humans.

Sam Esmail, the series creator and Executive Producer, does a great job of isolating Elliot further be ensuring that he loses the one person he becomes close to, Shayla. And we are left to decide if we should accept Elliot's rational, that he helps the people that he hacks, or held him accountable for the wrong he does in the act of hacking. For Elliot's argument might be Jesuitical, but would we accept a Jesuit doing the hacking?