‘Mr. Robot’ Season 2: Elliot Reboots Himself

Opting to cash in on a little of that enthusiastic good will he accumulated from Mr. Robot’s fascinating, often exciting, always imaginative first season, show creator Sam Esmail places a large bet in the two-part second-season premiere on Wednesday night: He gives us a Mr. Robot that’s almost as paralyzed as the world economy that Rami Malek’s Elliot crashed in the first-season finale. The show spends a lot of time showing us Elliot’s current life, which includes sleeping a lot, writing in his journal in pencil, watching neighborhood basketball games, and no going online! For the sake of—what? The new season of Mr. Robot could not arrive at a better—or at least more opportune–time in our culture.