WEIRDLAND: November 2019

Saturday, November 02, 2019

Mr Robot's 3rd personality theory

Is there actually a solid answer to that pressing question of identity of Elliot's 3rd personality? According to the theory of 1Individual_1ne: As some have already noted, this is possibly not a particular person or character that we have already encountered. The identity of the Third One might be a person in/behind the Fsociety Mask. I suppose that the exact face wearing that mask is not even relevant (it could be both Elliot/Mr. Robot, but it still does not matter, the mask is the key). The first time we see it is when Gideon shows Elliot the first video message of fsociety, which seems to be in line with Esmail's explanation that this has been planted "from the beginning". Whenever this or any other video is being shown to Elliot, he seems to be totally puzzled by it and also creeped, and he clearly has no memories of recording or directing. The narrative in fsociety videos is actually cold and terrorizing, which proves the point that the 3rd personality is more of a cold-blooded person. We also hear what sounds like Mr Robot in mask say "made in the orient, just for your head" as he hands a mask to Elliot. When Elliot shatters the mirror in the end of season 1, we see there a glimpse of several persons (Darlene, Angela, Tyrell, Mr. Robot, Sam Esmail, etc), including a Person in Mask. In Season 2, when we revisit Halloween with Elliot and Darlene, we see Elliot put both jacket and a mask before he turns into someone else and declares a plan on taking down E-Corp. We do know that the jacket stands for Mr. Robot, but Mr.Robot itself never wears that mask. The mask itself is worthy as a distinctive attribute of the separate third personality.

Sam Esmail On casting Rami Malek: When we were auditioning people, and we must have seen I would say close to 100 guys if not more ... we had great actors coming in. They would do these beautiful interpretations of the scene, but the character just came off very cold, very obnoxious, and I was almost going to tell USA [Network], "Let's not do this. This doesn't make sense," or, "I got to rewrite this. I think this guy is annoying and I don't think anybody is going to want to spend every week with this person." Then Rami came in, and when he did the scene, he added this vulnerability... where it doesn't come off as commanding or egotistical, even though the words are that — he added this subtext that it was coming from a place of real pain and real vulnerability and real wanting to connect. And that was the spark that really made that character come to life.

Sam Esmail On why Elliot wears a hoodie all the time: This is something directly lifted from my life. I wore a hoodie every day. And for me, that was easy to visualize. I'd visualized it just with myself walking down the street, knowing where to put the camera, and I loved that you could see that he was hiding. Even though I couldn't see his face at all times... we could see a piece of him. It's not about capturing someone's face. It's about capturing that person, that character, and always trying to tell a story with wherever you put the camera on that person. So it's not about getting both eyes and having it symmetrical. We wanted a frame and to always express what Elliot is doing, who he is, and so it was easy. That made it easier, because the limitations of where you can put the camera when Rami was in that hoodie made us closer to who Elliot was. Source: www.npr.org