Author: Nathan Mattise

Enlarge / Not pictured here (or anywhere in this week's episode): Darlene. (credit: Michael Parmelee/USA Network)

Warning: This piece contains minor spoilers for the most recent episode of Mr. Robot (S2E8)

Mr. Robot staff writer and technical producer Kor Adana doesn't sleep much (four and a half hours is realistic while in the midst of production). Part of that comes from sheer volume of work. Adana holds the high-profile role of coming up with the show's famed hacks. He's involved in everything from generating an idea and recruiting consultants through the feasibility testing and onscreen portrayal. The entire process can take three or four months for a mere three or four seconds on-screen. On top of that, Adana also works to clear various technical products appearing on the show, leads Mr. Robot's many Easter egg initiatives, and contributes to the overall narrative (including writing an episode this season).

But nerves about Mr. Robot's reception week to week don't quite help Adana relax either, and this latest episode created more stress than usual. One week after the show ended on a cliffhanger with a gigantic plot reveal, Mr. Robot's most recent hour never even addressed the situation. Perhaps even more remarkably, it marked the first episode where main character Elliot Alderson didn't appear on-screen for a single second. As Adana tells Ars on this week's Decrypted podcast:

Enlarge (credit: NBCUniversal)

Warning: This piece contains minor spoilers for the most recent episode of Mr. Robot (S2E7)

If it wasn't already obvious, the people behind Mr. Robot keep tabs on the news. But unlike some of the ripped-from-the-headlines shows syndicated elsewhere on USA, reality serves as background tapestry—and not necessarily direct plot inspiration—for the series. As NPR TV Critic Eric Deggans told us ahead of this season, such a strategy “gives viewers the feeling everything is grounded in reality… Because they get the details right, the average viewer—and 80 percent of the viewers may not know the computer stuff—can watch it and it feels right. And when the show has to do something that’s unrealistic, this makes it that much easier to buy it.”

Last week, Mr. Robot put this idea to the ultimate test. S2's big reveal has viewers confused about what reality means within the show's universe, but that question largely applies to main character Elliot Alderson's perception and not the show at large. Within the same hour, for instance, Elliot takes a very real-world approach to torpedoing the series' stand-in for the Silk Road, Midland City. When invited to handle some sysadmin duties by the site's operator, he subtly opens Midland City up to non-Tor traffic, indexes it on some top search engines, purchases a few banner ads elsewhere, and then tips the FBI about the whole thing. Simple and truthful.

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  Since this is a cocktail conference, every seminar needs a tasting. This riff on an Old Fashioned was inspired by Comet Lovejoy, "which is effectively a massive Old Fashioned—alcohol and sugar—slinging itself along the universe," said bartender Tristan Stephenson. [credit: Nathan Mattise ]

NEW ORLEANS—"Half a century ago, this was an essential part of spaceman culture," said Jeffrey Kluger, senior writer at Time and author of the book that inspired Apollo 13. Presenting at the world's best alcohol event, Kluger wasn't referring to old astronaut traditions like military experience or crew cuts. "Test pilots were male, under 6-feet tall, and had to be a tough and tireless drinker."

Tales of the Cocktail 2016 continued the conference's trend of sneaking science into a series of bar industry seminars. Food scientists from Bacardi discussed internal testing on carbonation in liquor, and alcohol alchemist Camper English unveiled his tireless research on the compounds and combinations that can be lethal (or at least really, really bad) when unleashed in our cocktails. But this year's schedule also featured what seemed like a peculiarity—a panel titled "Cosmic Cocktails: The Final Frontier" that outlined the informal history of NASA and drinking.

According to Kluger, the intertwining of highballs and high altitudes was inescapable—a natural evolution of the downtime imbibing of previous military generations. For many of the US' early space pioneers, this part of training took place outside Southern California's Edwards Air Force Base at a vast and communal pub in the Mojave Desert called the Happy Bottom Riding Club (fittingly considering its clientele, the bar was created by Pancho Barnes, a pioneering female pilot who had bested Amelia Earhart's air speed record at age 29).

(credit: NBCUniversal)

Warning: This piece contains minor spoilers for the most recent episode of Mr. Robot (S2E6)

Last week on Mr. Robot, the intrepid hackers of fsociety went back to command-line school. They didn't need the training, of course. In order to access an FBI system on location at E-Corp headquarters—which currently houses a temporary FBI division after last season's cyber-attacks—the hacker collective needed someone on the inside. Their only option was a relative n00b: Elliot Alderson's family-friend-turned-E-Corp-employee Angela Moss.

The episode ends on a slight cliff-hanger. As Angela continues to execute instructions pumped into her headphones from fsociety, the show's new FBI character, Dom DiPierro, arrives at her side to request a quick interview. Until that point, this newly made hacker had successfully socially engineered her way into an FBI space, executed some code in a bathroom stall, and then dropped a femtocell at an official workstation. For a show that prides itself so much on accuracy in hacking, does having a novice best the FBI go one step too far?

Warning: This post contains minor spoilers for Stranger Things' first season.

New Netflix sci-fi series Stranger Things wastes no time transporting viewers to a time, place, and feeling. There are vinyl records and cassette tapes, endless freedom via fixed gear bikes, and AV Club devotees with ham radios and walkie-talkies. The first episode even uses an epic, demogorgon-loaded Dungeons & Dragons campaign as both a delightful pop-culture reference and as an obvious call-out to some expected character tropes from the '80s.

Our four kid heroes represent well-established kid-movie roles: the quiet one (Will), the cynic (Lucas), the optimist (Mike), and the realist (Duncan). They have awkward, older siblings at opposite ends of the popularity spectrum, and they interact with adults we already kind of know at first blush—a flawed but capable sheriff, a stressed but determined single mom, a sage-like science teacher. Add allusions to Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, and a bevy of other era-appropriate pop culture entities, and you'd be forgiven for thinking you know how this "set in 1983" series will play out.

After all, this is a story that could happen (and has happened) in any era. A kid has gone missing, some dark forces seem to be at play, and it'll take a village (or at least a team of adults, our D&D nerds, and their siblings) to figure everything out. But what makes Stranger Things stand out after its eight-episode first season is that the show only uses the familiar as a backdrop; it doesn't wallow in it or simply retread known stories. This isn't Ready Player One, new Ghostbusters, or any of the upcoming Star Wars onslaught. Instead, Netflix's lovely homage to 1980s genre fiction deploys nostalgia only to speed up and deepen world-building. Its story, by contrast, feels fresh by including enough twists and turns to keep even the most capable pop-culture detectives guessing and entertained.

Warning: This piece contains minor spoilers for this week's episode of Mr. Robot, episode four of season two.

Mr. Robot rightfully gains a lot of attention for its obsession with detail. The show employs outside consultants to make sure things like its portrayal of the FBI or the bits of code flashing across the screen adhere as closely to reality as possible. As NPR TV Critic Eric Deggans told Ars ahead of the season two premiere, the show simply “gives viewers the feeling everything is grounded in reality… Because they get the details right, the average viewer—and 80 percent of the viewers may not know the computer stuff—can watch it and it feels right. And when the show has to do something that’s unrealistic, this makes it that much easier to buy it.”

It turns out this granular focus extends beyond the show's depiction of technology, hacking, or any of the related real world news—it includes video too. Last night's episode (S2E4, "init1.asec") opened with a flashback to Elliot Alderson and his sister Darlene watching a digital copy of one of their favorite childhood VHS tapes. Plot-wise, the sequence revealed a minor detail as it flushed out the origin story of the fsociety hacker mask. But that low impact didn't stop show creator Sam Esmail from ensuring this VHS film became fully realized.

Today, USA released the VHS—The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie—online as a sub-10 minute film. Entertainment Weekly reports series staff writer/producer Adam Penn lovingly created this era-appropriate Easter egg, and a quick viewing will ring true for any fan of 1980s b-horror films. For a quick plot synopsis of this NSFW gem:

(credit: USA Network)

Last summer, the Mr. Robot crew made headlines by revealing they were working on a TV first—a scene made specifically for virtual reality. Last week when that scene was finally released, it happened in a very Mr. Robot-esque way: "The Mr. Robot VR Experience" launched inside the Within VR app at 10:45am last Thursday and promptly disappeared after 24 hours.

Now, apparently a revival is in order. Talking to the people at Within, Vice's The Creators Project (TCP) reports the limited-time experience will resurface this coming week (though no specific date was provided). The scene focuses on main character Elliot Alderson's memories of his first date with girlfriend Shayla Nico, so it supplements the series rather than providing any information vital to the overall plot or current season. "This piece is purely about Elliot," Justin Denton, technical creative director of the production company Here Be Dragons, told TCP.

Given the distinct and unusual visual aesthetic of Mr. Robot, it's no surprise creator Sam Esmail took an interest in trying virtual reality filmmaking. VR as an emerging medium has increasingly shown up at places like the Sundance or Tribeca Film Festivals, and some TV application was inevitable. Esmail apparently reveled in the experience, according to TCP, and the results provided some innovative visual work that Here Be Dragons said they'd be incorporating in future projects.

Yes, it's an homage to a famous hacker (nice touch). (credit: USA Networks / NBC Universal)

Warning: This piece contains minor spoilers for this week's episode of Mr. Robot (S2E1)

Near the intermission of Mr. Robot's two-part season two premiere, fsociety hacker Darlene boots her desktop computer and opens up something called the "Social-Engineering Toolkit." She scrolls through a list of options including a "Java Applet Attack" (done through a Remote Administration Tool) then chooses to unleash the "F-Society Cryptowall." Suddenly, tellers and high-level employees at one of the world's most powerful banks all stare at the same screen (above).

Ars readers will recognize this as another instance of art imitating life. And as Mr. Robot's premiere played out, the episode relied on a cryptoransomware story arc that could've been ripped from any number of headlines, including those high-profile Maryland hospital hacks. Similar to that real-life outcome, executives at fictitious E-Corp decide they could come up with the requested $5 million in the couch cushions and eventually pay up (or at least intend to).

Things seem a bit dark for Elliot Alderson as S2 begins (and it's not some "change the lightbulb" thing). (credit: Peter Kramer/USA Network)

Warning: This piece contains minor spoilers for this week's episode of Mr. Robot

Has our hero left the grid for good? In two hours of Mr. Robot’s glorious return, Elliot Alderson touches only one computer. Technically, that brief interaction takes place within the timeline of season one.

The screenshot-able coding and tech accuracy that the show became known for last year only surfaces twice (and fittingly, Darlene provides the other moment). Instead of action, the second season’s two-part premiere, titled “unm4sk,” is much more interested in the state of our hackers and the hacked.

I've wanted Mr. Robot to return so badly that my work notebooks are filled with schoolboy doodles. Unfortunately, my Elliot looks too much like Doug Funnie. (credit: Nathan Mattise)

If there are two things the Ars staff has been itching for over the past year, it's a return to podcasting and the return of Mr. Robot. If you feel similar, we have some good news.

Welcome to Decrypted, Ars Technica's weekly podcast for season 2 of Mr. Robot.

For our debut episode, we look back to season one exclusively through the eyes (err, words) of main character Elliot Alderson (played by Rami Malek). Despite the Internet's (justified) obsession with the show's realistic depiction of tech, Ars reviewer Jonathan Gitlin said the characters and especially how "they break down and experience their delusions" is what makes Mr. Robot compelling. So if breakdowns and delusions are what you're after, there's no better way to relive season 1 than through Elliot's words.