4. Bad Trip
Mr. Robot may be full of weird moments, but it's definitely the show's fourth episode that provided the biggest mindf*ck of the season so far. Determined to kick his morphine habit, Elliot tries to head out on an fsociety mission while going cold turkey. As you'd expect, it doesn't really work and he finds himself throwing up and blacking out. He begs Mr. Robot for a hit to keep him going, and that moment the entire episode begins to unravel. In one of the bravest TV moments of recent times, the show put its central narrative to the side and experimentally focused on Elliot's mind. It's not immediately clear that Elliot is hallucinating, which makes the extensive chaotic scenes that follow temporarily mind-boggling. In what seems to be simultaneously a nod to David Lynch and a reference to Trainspotting, Elliot has numerous dreamlike visions where the various aspects of his life crash into one another in bizarre and often creepy ways. His fish Qwerty chats to him, before being eaten by Angela in a restaurant that also happens to be their workplace. He is goaded into wearing the fsociety mask on camera by the mysterious video maker. He marries Angela. He tries to return to his childhood but is halted by a 404: Error message. He finds a key but no lock. The whole sequence is shot in a way which uses the medium as the message, with the screen bursting into static at times and warping constantly, as if the viewer is experiencing the same hallucinations as the character. This was arguably the moment where the hints that the show was likely to be more than just an exciting series about hacktivism were finally realised. Mr. Robot is something genuinely innovative: a series unafraid to use abstract techniques and study the deepest thoughts of its characters.