One year I was flying back to Shanghai from Burning Man and I was browsing the in-flight entertainment. I found a show that featured a character that seemed eerily familiar. There was something buzzing in the back of my brain when I watched it. I felt like Elliot Alderson was me.
Spoiler Warning
This article will spoil the ending of the masterpiece that is Mr. Robot. Go watch it if you haven’t already. You will not regret it.
Mr. Robot
When I got back I immediately tracked down the series and started watching it. It got even weirder. As the show progressed, showing Elliot’s delusions, struggles with addiction, his desire to save the world, it all felt too familiar. I’m not going to say that what I’ve experienced in the past is exactly what Elliot is shown to experience, but something about it all was eerily familiar.
Even the titular character, Mr. Robot, seemed to match with someone I had created. His name is Robert, as he wasn’t born, but created, like a robot. He’s named after one of my names, literally a part of my identity.
When I would feel myself slipping into a fantasy world, I would think about my sister. She was the thing that always pulled me back to reality. Just as with Elliot in the show. The more I watched the show, the more it felt like I was watching a version of myself.
If felt like Sam Esmail had written a show about me. I thought I was losing my mind again. But it turns out I was right.
Sort of.
4.07
Obviously I was hooked on the show. I followed the adventures of these hackers trying to save the world. What I was watching was a masterpiece. Better than Breaking Bad, better than The Wire, better than The Sopranos. I had to see where it was all heading. How was he going to take down the 1% of the 1%? Was he even going to succeed? What was White Rose’s device?
Everyone watching was asking all of these questions. But the important question, the question that I thought I was the only one asking, was why did it feel like the show was about me?
407: Proxy Authentication Required. The episode where they finally break Elliot down. The episode where they finally reveal why Mr. Robot exists. The episode where we learn the answer to a question we forgot to ask.
Elliot was sexually abused by his father. His DID, his delusions, Mr. Robot, his need to help people, to save the world, all of it, boiled down to this.
Mr. Robot wasn’t a show about me. It was a show about people like me. It was a show that understood what we were going through.
Watching this episode was hard. Painful. But it was also comforting. It felt like someone was reaching out and there was a voice saying, You are understood. You are not alone.
Some people thought the reveal was completely out of the blue. But for others everything suddenly made sense. Even going back and watching old scenes you see how it all folds into this one reveal.
And in watching this episode we were able to go online and find others like ourselves. Talk to each other. Understand each other. And we could talk to those who hadn’t been through and see how they were eager to learn. To understand. To show compassion.
Mr. Robot is more than just the best television series ever made. It is the show that started the conversation we couldn’t. It’s a show that made me feel seen.
