If Lainey were writing this she would tell you that when she asked what she should binge, post-Christmas, pre-new year, I told her to choose Jessica Jones over Mr. Robot, which she did. I stand by my choice, because up until now, conversations about Jessica Jones were in the zeitgeist, where people who knew about Mr. Robot were sharing it privately among themselves. But those days ended last night. Mr. Robot has arrived.
There’s something for everyone. There’s the beautiful and compelling lead, Rami Malek. Rami is an Arabic name that I expect to start popping up any minute now, and he’s a completely charismatic person to look at, even for those of us (yes, me included) who have only seen part of the pilot.
Then a Christian Slater nostalgia factor (and even though he didn’t thank Malek onstage, they spent all their press time at the after-parties talking about how much they love each other, so they’re good). Finally, there’s a current factor. When series creator Sam Esmail said he had a message for his Egyptian family, he said ‘Shukran’ and I got excited because I knew it means ‘Thank you’. But Lexi Alexander and others on Twitter got excited because Arabic was spoken on TV by someone who wasn’t being portrayed as a threat. Baby steps – but very cool baby steps nonetheless.
