Who Is Mr. Robot? IT Nut Blog Takes a Look - Spoiler Alert!

Who is Mr. Robot?

Ok. So... In episode 8, we find out that the man who we've been referring to as 'Mr. Robot' (because he wears a jacket with a Mr. Robot badge) is Elliot's dad... And in episode 9, we discover that he's is a figment of Elliot's imagination... Right... This is becoming all kinds of weird.

There are still lots of loose ends to deal with, like why did Elliot not recognise his dad in the first place? He talks about his father all the time, and shares those memories with us. Also, why does Elliot not remember that he has a sister? Why is she in none of Elliot's memories?

These revelations are highly confusing, and annoying, so I had a quick flick through the previous episodes, to see if I missed any tell-tale signs.

It seems that Mr. Robot has been cleverly and subtly integrated into the story line. Whenever Mr. Robot talks to anyone, he is always right next to or in the immediate vicinity of Elliot. So it looks like Mr. Robot is having the conversation, but it could just as easily be Elliot who is having the conversation. That's fair enough. There are some major exceptions, however, that I have found so far.

In episode one, Elliot sees Mr. Robot begging outside a restaurant. The people he's begging from look directly at Mr. Robot and they use body language / make hand gestures to dismiss him. That's a bit confusing.

After Elliot's first visit to the fsociety headquarters, also in episode one, he did an online search for Mr. Robot. NOTHING came up in his search. That's really odd, because if Mr. Robot had been the name of the computer repair shop where Elliot's dad worked, SOMETHING would have come up SOMEWHERE online.

When Darlene turned up at Elliot's apartment in episode 2, it makes sense that she made herself so at home, because she is his sister. Why does Elliot not remember his connection with her? If we go back to the hallucination sequence of episode 4, there is a girl on a scooter, and we are now to believe that she was the young Darlene. It's not too far fetched.

In response to Elliot walking away from fsociety, Mr. Robot throws Elliot off some railings, but it is plausible that Elliot could have jumped of his own free will.

In episode 5, after the successful penetration of Steel Mountain, Darlene wants to go ahead with the plan regardless of the fact that they no longer have the support of the Dark Army. Elliot is standing a behind Darlene, a few feet away, and Mr. Robot, who is to her right, leaps over to physically restrain her, and they have an exchange of words. Darlene then turns around to directly address Elliot and ask for his instruction. Mr Robot then picks up some equipment and smashes it on the floor before walking in the opposite direction to Elliot, and continues a two-way dialogue with Darlene. Surely there cannot be any doubt at this point that Mr. Robot is a separate entity and visible to the other hackers, because they are all looking at him.

In episode 7, Darlene meets with Mr. Robot in a bar - just the two of them. They have a dialogue. This definitely makes no sense. Mr. Robot also has a one-to-one meeting with Romero, one of the other hackers. Am I missing something?

The last confusing scene is in episode 8, when Mr. Robot gets into a car with Tyrell and they have a two-way dialogue...? Somebody please explain!

I'm still not overly convinced that Elliot is the man behind the mask. Elliot makes this discovery in episode 9. He has been living a double life that he seems to know nothing about. The whole Jekyll and Hyde thing is all good and well, but I didn't have that "Ah hah!" or "Yes, of course!" moment when the revelation is made. It doesn't sit well with the plot, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

Just one more episode to go!

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Mr. Robot - eps1.8_m1rr0r1ng.qt - Episode 9 - IT Nut Blog Review

Mr. Robot - Episode 9

That last episode ended a bit weird... Mr. Robot is Elliot's dad... Moving on!

Episode 9 begins! How did they get all those antique computers and pristine bits of hardware for the shop! It's like a museum piece. Amazing! So, this episode starts with a flashback to Elliot's youth, and his father's computer shop, which is called 'Mr. Robot'. Get it? Ok. It's all very lovely. Blah blah blah whatever.

It gives us an insight into Elliot's criminal past. He stole $20 from one of the shop's customers, and his dad covered up for him. "Even though what you did was wrong, you're still a good kid. And that guy was a prick. Sometimes that matters more." Right...

Mr. Robot mentions to Elliot that he met with Tyrell last night. We don't really know what they talked about at this point.

Elliot is understandably disconcerted that neither his father nor his sister thought to reveal their identities earlier on. He thinks he's going crazy, and we see the first bit of passion from Elliot since the beginning of the series. Btw, has there been any mention of where Elliot's mother is?

Mr. Robot takes Elliot on a trip down memory lane, and they end up at his childhood home in New Jersey. They recreate the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, but a window is smashed and it's not very romantic. In the mean time, Angela and Darlene are frantically rushing around in search of Elliot because he has gone AWOL. They finally catch up with him and things descend further into confusion!

"Elliot. Who are you talking too?" That question is about 9 episodes too late! And no, we didn't know all along. It wasn't obvious at all! Elliot's dad is dead. He was dead all along. He didn't come back as a zombie or a ghost or anything like that. He was a hallucination.

Yes Elliot, we're going to make you say it. "I am Mr. Robot."

This is not a particularly rewarding revelation. What do you think?

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Mr. Robot - eps1.7_wh1ter0se.mv4 - Episode 8 - IT Nut Blog Review - Spoiler Alert!

Mr. Robot - Episode 8

Darlene does ballet...? With Angela??? And they're bonding over their mutual friend, Elliot... This is so random! Since when did Angela and Darlene know each other? The implication is that they are childhood friends. Strange.

Note: This whole episode seems to pose more questions than it actually answers.

The meeting with White Rose (the Dark Army's mythical leader) is set up! Elliot is about to meet his unlikely ally, thanks to Darlene's persistence. The suspense is palpable!

In other news, Tyrell waltzes into work as though nothing has happened. He hasn't told his wife what he did either. It's unclear what Tyrell's goals are, beyond becoming CTO, but he seems to be losing his self-control at an alarming rate!

Gideon Goddard of Allsafe has turned the infected server from the first fsociety hack into a 'honeypot' in response to the attacks, and in order to trick the hackers. His suspicions are becoming firmly focussed on Elliot.

Elliot meets White Rose - who is wearing a pearly king jacket - and White Rose tells Elliot about the honeypot. White Rose has allotted exactly 3 minutes for the meeting. Elliot wastes the first 2 minutes going over old ground, and then when it finally gets interesting, the time runs out. We don't learn why the Dark Army are helping fsociety, but they do agree to help.

Finding out why the Dark Army are helping fsociety is a vital detail to the overall plot. The Dark Army appear to have a sophisticated network, influence and money. fsociety have none of the above. They are operating from the fringes, which is not to say that fsociety can't achieve big things, but they are vulnerable. What is in it for the Dark Army? I suspect that they have bigger fish to fry, and that fsociety is just a tiny part of a big plan for the Dark Army.

Random: Tyrell has a one-to-one meeting with Mr. Robot...? Since when did they know each other? Who is Mr. Robot working for? What is going on?

The climate control hack on Steel Mountain is going to plan. The data will be destroyed soon!

This is when things start to get weird. Elliot gets all hot and heavy with Darlene, and she flips out! She asks Elliot if he's forgotten who she is. Darlene is his sister!!!??? That does not make any sense! How did he forget who she is? Apparently he's not been taking his anti-psychotic medicine, which has affected his memory and his grasp on reality.

For everyone that Elliot hacks, he downloads their data onto a CD, puts it in a folder under a dresser where he keeps all the CD's, and deletes the data from his hard drive. When Elliot gets home after the shock revelation of Darlene's identity, he finds that he also did a CD for his own data. He searches it to find some evidence of his sister, and finds loads of pictures of Mr. Robot! Relaxed, family album pictures. Some of those pictures are of the two of them together, when Elliot was a child... Mr. Robot is Elliot's father! Why doesn't he remember his father either? He reminisces about his father all the time. It's all very odd. And his father is supposed to be dead.

This new twist does not sit well with the plot, and I'm starting to get the same vibes from this series that I got from 'Lost' and 'Prison Break'. They kept drawing things out at the expense of good writing and great storylines. Hopefully I am wrong.

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Sprout Social - Free Trial - IT Nut Blog Review

I've heard a lot about Sprout Social, and I wanted to know what it can do, so I signed up for the free trial. If you are thinking of using Sprout, I hope you will find this review slightly helpful. If you do use it already, maybe you have some insights that I have missed, so please share your comments.

At the moment, I keep on top of the social media for my business using tweetdeck, twitter analytics, unfollowers, and the integrated analytics tools for Facebook and LinkedIn. That means I usually have at least half a dozen pages open on my laptop at any given time just to keep on top of the usual social media platforms. Plus the other platforms that I am exploring, such as medium, reddit and livejournal. That's not to mention keeping tabs on my website and blogs - Sumo.me and Google Analytics are my nbf's!

The Sprout Social Dashboard gives a quick snapshot of how your different social media profiles are performing. The main sections of the dashboard are:

• Group Trends - Which displays the stats used by the various platforms (E.g. tweet impressions, engagement, etc.)
• Audience Demographics
• Connected Profiles

The buttons across the top of the app interface take you to the 6 main sections:

1. Messages
2. Tasks
3. Feeds
4. Publishing
5. Discovery
6. Reports

1. MESSAGES

The term 'messages' seems to be used as a loose term. It includes twitter Mentions, Direct Messages, Retweets, Retweets with Comments, New Followers and Sent Messages. For Facebook it includes Wall Posts, Comments and Private Messages.

The results are filtered by selecting / deselecting the checkboxes next to each of the above categories. You can also save messages here.

There is also an option to add 'Brand Keywords' to further filter / expand the results. You are able to add 5 'Brand Keywords' to filter the results. I sent Sprout a tweet asking if they just limit it to 5 keywords for the free trial, or if that's standard with the paid version too. They responded with the following tweet:

2. TASKS

Tasks are created by going back to the messages section, selecting the desired interaction and clicking on the drawing pin icon. You can then leave an 'internal' comment and select a 'Task Type' from the following options:

• General Task
• Sales Lead
• Support Issue

The task will then show up in the Tasks section. This creates a 'to do' list that is very useful and easy to action / follow for future reference.

3. FEEDS

I connected my twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles to sprout social. This section allows me to access those separate profiles in a central place within the Sprout Social app, rather than checking the profiles within the other apps individually. Having this central location definitely saves time.

4. PUBLISHING

This is a way to publish content across multiple platforms from one central location, and posts can be scheduled in the calendar for future dates. Again, this will doubtless save time for busy social media marketers.

5. DISCOVERY

The main subsections and sub-subsections are:

• Suggestions - 'Your Followers', 'Conversed with', 'Have mentioned you'
• Cleanup - 'Silent Accounts', 'Irregular Usage', 'Do not follow back' - I currently use unfollowers to check the accounts that are not following back. Sprout incorporates this into the app, so that is a plus.
• Smart Search - This does what I use tweetdeck to do. It's great that this function is housed within the Sprout Social app, but the advantage that tweetdeck has over Sprout is that tweetdeck displays the keyword searches in columns, so you can glance across multiple topics, side-by-side, without having to change the display.

6. REPORTS

Last, but definitely not the least!

Note: This is where you can include Google Analytics for your website or blog. Very useful.

The subheadings are:

• Group Report - This is similar to the Dashboard.
• Engagement Report - Goes into more detail about the overall engagement across the group profiles.
• Facebook Pages - Gives detail on engagement with Facebook pages.
• Twitter Profiles - Gives detail on engagement with twitter profiles.
• Trends Report - Reports for each individual twitter profile.
• Twitter Comparison - This is a really useful tool! It allows you to generate comparison reports between your accounts and other twitter accounts. A great way to gauge your effectiveness compared to main competitors!
• Sent Messages - Tracks the performance of tweets in which you have mentioned other users.

IN CONCLUSION...

Sprout Social is a great app with lots of very useful features. I'm sure it is an invaluable tool for very large or busy businesses, that are running lots of social media profiles and campaigns simultaneously. Running a small start-up company, however, I'm not sure if I can justify the cost just yet, when there are so many great tools out there already that I can use for free... It's definitely an aspirational app for me, and now that I know exactly what it does, I can make more informed choices in future. Thank you to Sprout Social for extending my free trial for an extra week.

Mr. Robot - eps1.6.v1ew_s0urce.flv - Episode 7 - IT Nut Blog Review

Mr. Robot - Episode 7

It starts with a flashback... And then we fast-forward a month from where the last episode ended.

Angela makes progress with her case against Evil Corp, but not without compromising her values, and thus begins the slippery slope.

Darlene's attempts to get the Dark Army back on board finally pay off, but she loses Cisco as an ally.

Tyrell loses the plot and fires his advisors for no apparent reason, just because he can. He's obviously still sulking from being outsmarted by Knowles, the new CTO of Evil Corp.

Evil Corp host a party to formally announce the promotion of Knowles to CTO. Tyrell and his interesting wife, Joanna, are in attendance and they are scheming as usual. Joanna gives Tyrell the nod, and he makes another move on Sharon Knowles, the wife of Scott. Just when we thought that things couldn't get any more grubby, they do. Tyrell is losing control and he lashes out, with disastrous consequences.

Elliot comes clean with Krista and confesses that he hacked her. That he hacks everyone. What is the purpose of this confession? Why now? Why at all? Will there be repercussions?

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Mr. Robot - eps1.5_br4ve-traveler.asf - Episode 6 - IT Nut Blog Review - Contains Spoilers

Mr. Robot - Episode 6

This episode looks quite normal to start with. Elliot and his dealer / girlfriend, Shayla, are having dinner in a dingy diner, with their characteristically one-dimensional facial expressions.

I haven't really mentioned Shayla much because her part is more like ambient noise than central to the plot. Shayla's supplier, a pleasant chap by the name of Fernando Vera, was sent to prison, thanks to an anonymous tip. Vera has now discovered that the tip came from Elliot. He's understandably annoyed, so he uses Shayla to get to Elliot. Vera figured that if Elliot could put him in prison, Elliot could also get him out. Vera arranges for Shayla to be kidnapped in order to get Elliot's attention and cooperation.

This is another interlude that feels a bit like the hallucination sequence in episode 4. It takes up a lot of time and it's not immediately obvious what value it adds to the main plot. Anyway, long story short, Elliot succeeds at breaking Vera out. Sadly, Shayla is collateral damage.

In the previous episode, Tyrell goes all creepy in his pursuit of his CTO ambitions. The CTO position was given to someone else, Scott Knowles, and Tyrell pays him a visit. What looks like a civilised dinner at the guy's home turns into Tyrell's biggest mistake. In this episode it becomes clear that by looking for the flaws in his opponent, Tyrell exposes his own biggest flaw. Arrogance. Knowles has Tyrell's card marked. That CTO position is even further from Tyrell's grasp than ever.

Angela is up to her own games also. She has resurrected the case against Evil Corp, relating to the death of her mother and Elliot's dad. What will happen next?

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Mr. Robot - eps1.43xpl0its.wmv - Episode 5 - IT Nut Blog Review

Mr. Robot - Episode 5

The best episode so far, by far! Warning! Contains Spoilers!

Elliot has gone through his Morphine withdrawal at record-breaking speed, and now he's in the mountain! Steel Mountain - the fortress that houses the servers used by Allsafe.

Evil Corp have decided to do physical backups of all of their data, and they are moving it from Steel Mountain. Probably due to the security breaches, but possibly because it was always part of the plan that Tyrell revealed to Elliot, to bring everything in house and cut Allsafe out of the loop.

The downloading and movement of the E Corp data gives fsociety a limited window of opportunity to act.

Whilst Elliot is inside Steel Mountain, he bumps into his old friend, Mr Tyrell Wellick! What is he doing there? They weren't expecting to see each other, but it works to Elliot's advantage. He needs to get access to the 2nd floor, which requires special security clearance - and Tyrell has that clearance. Bingo!

Tyrell, drops the bombshell that he knows about Elliot framing Colby - the previous CTO of Evil Corp. There's no trail leading to Elliot, so he's safe for now, and Tyrell doesn't want anything. He just wanted to know what Elliot's weakness is, and now he believes he has it. Revenge. Revenge for his father's death, for which Elliot holds Evil Corp responsible. What Tyrell will do with that knowledge is unclear at this point.

Anyway, the raspberry pi has been put in place and the plan is in motion, or so they think! Darlene had enlisted the help of the 'Dark Army' (a Chinese hacker group) to bring down Evil Corp, but it looks like the Dark Army had plans of their own.

Now that we know about Cisco (the rapper / hacker), we know that he was working for the Dark Army. They are the ones who blackmailed Ollie, and Angela took the bait. Presumably, the Dark Army got what they needed when Angela put that CD into a computer at work, and now they have gone silent. fsociety has had its legs cut off.

The more we learn, the more doubt that is cast on the true identity of the fsociety behind the mask. Tyrell Wellick had a lot to gain from Colby being out of the picture. Wellick has his eye on the CTO position, and he is relentless proactive in his pursuit of power. The Dark Army also has its own agenda, which is still shrouded in mystery. Maybe they are working for the highest bidder, whoever that may be. And Mr. Robot. We still know nothing about what drives him. What's his story? Is he really driven by idealistic motives, or is he a hacker-for-hire?

The plot thickens!

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