Mr. Robot: Cyberpunk Triumph

Well, my number-one television guilty pleasure this summer was "Mr. Robot" on the USA Network - though it was so good, easily the best new show on TV this summer, indeed of the year, maybe even the past year or two, that there's nothing whatsoever to feel guilty about watching it.  It was just a pleasure, rare, keenly intelligent, and provocative.  I saw most of it in the past few weeks, and the finale tonight.

Hackers have appeared in all kinds of TV series, most of them obvious, a few like CBS's CSI-Cyber not half-bad, but Mr. Robot is something else, in a class all its own.  Impossibly suave and gritty at the same time, as lyrical as Rectify - the other out-of-left-field masterpiece to come along in the past few years - but hipper, with words like louche in  it, and with a heart and soul and slap-in-your face realism and cynicism that's not to be believed, but is plausible all the same, you disbelieve Mr. Robot at your peril.

Cyberpunk has attained impressive heights in writing - Sterling, Gibson, Varley - but not so much on the screen.   Mr. Robot takes its place right up there with its story - its only competition screenwise being Bladerunner, an utterly different kind of tale.

There are elements not only of Occupy Wall Street and V for Vendetta but Fight Club in Mr. Robot, but I won't say which ones or what, because I don't want to spoil your surprise and fun if you haven't yet seen it.  But unlike Fight Club and its progeny, in which the narrative is completely situated in the minds of the characters, in Mr. Robot we have a ratification or support of this in the very digital age we in fact inhabit, in which the difference between the fantasies on screens and realities in first-hand tangible experiences in hand have never been less.

Like many series, the next-to-last episode, and the one before that, packed more of a punch than the finale.  But that doesn't matter, because the story is continuing, the series will be back next year, which makes tonight's finale not a finale at all, but a bridge, and a short one at that.

I'll be here next year with more.

#SFWApro

The Good Wife 4.20: Anonymous

I haven't had a chance to review as much of The Good Wife as I would have wanted this season, but that doesn't mean I haven't been very much enjoying the show, which I have.  Indeed, I think it's the best season of The Good Wife so far, and episode 4.20 has all the winning ingredients - high tech social media savvy, powerful personal and professional stories, and great courtroom scenes.

Aaron Swartz and Anonymous both figure in the 4.20 story.  Swartz, a real life hacker, hounded by the government, who committed suicide just this past January, and Anonymous, a real organization that offers anonymous trenchant criticism and guerrilla reporting, both intersect with Alicia and Will as they pursue a civil suit against a rapist who has managed to beat the criminal charges.   Anonymous has been criticized in our reality for hacking sites of major corporations - and I agree with this criticism - but Anonymous has also played a legally protected (under the First Amendment) and important role in providing information and critique of the government not readily available elsewhere.

In The Good Wife, a new organization representing Swartz and his legacy come up with evidence not available in the criminal trial which proves the rapist's guilt.  Anonymous members show up in the courtroom donned with Guy Fawk "V" masks - to the judge's consternation - but more importantly get a video out to the world online with the rapist in a position which shows he's lying.   The mistrial that's declared is the first step for the rape victim finally getting some justice.

Aside from this powerful story even more "ripped from the headlines" than Law and Order, this episode of The Good Wife gives us a variety of other excellent threads.  Diane's chance of getting a judgeship turns out to be in jeopardy not because of her libertarian fiance but because of Will's quasi-disbarment.  This sets in a motion a possibility of her turning on Will and leaving the firm, both of which I doubt will happen.  But, meanwhile, Alicia may also be tempted to leave the firm, and she gets the details on Cary's move in precisely that direction.  And all of this is happening against the backdrop of the smoldering passion between Alicia and Will coming closer to the surface.

A great season, as I said, and I'm looking forward to the two concluding episodes.

See also The Good Wife 4.1 Meets Occupy Wall Street ...  The Good Wife 4.2: Reunited ... The Good Wife 4.3: "Template-Based Link Analysis Algorithm" ... The Good Wife 4.5 Meets The Sopranos

And see also The Good Wife 3.1: Recusal and Rosh Hashanah ... The Good Wife: 3.2: Periwigs and Skype ... The Good Wife 3.7: Peter v. Will ...  Dexter's Sister on The Good Wife 3.10  ... The Good Wife 3.12: Two Suits  ... The Good Wife 3.13 Meets Murder on the Orient Express ... The Good Wife 3.15: Will and Baseball

And see also  The Good Wife Starts Second Season on CBS ... The Good Wife 2.2: Lou Dobbs, Joe Trippi, and Obama Girl ... The Good Wife 2.4: Surprise Candidate, Intimate Interpsonal Distance ... The Good Wife 2.9 Takes on Capital Punishment ... The Good Wife 2.16: Information Wars