Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Robotpremiered in 2015, it was far ahead of the curve.
Yet, at its heart,Mr.
Vulture spoke with creator and director Sam Esmail aboutMr.
Robots final season, the evolution of Elliots relationship with his split personality Mr.
This was never about Capitalism: Is it good or bad?
or How can we fix the world economy?
or How can we fix the geopolitical nature of money?
This was about wanting to connect and not being able to connect.
We kept that ending intact for these past three seasons, so the final two episodes were fully formed.
Robot thats usually our starting point.
How much story do we have left?
And thats how we came to this last batch of episodes.
What I did not want to do was tread water or start to go off on tangents.
I just wanted to stay focused on that ending.
Can you talk about the relationship between Elliot and Mr.
The second season is hardcore resistance.
Then that culminates in the third season, which is this total disintegration between the two.
This fourth season is the opposite.
The keyword for this season is integration.
Elliot starts to realize that theres a lot of who he is in Mr.
Robot and vice versa.
So Elliot and Mr.
Robot start to overlap and work together.
When you got to season three, I felt like Elliot was the thinker and Mr.
Robot was the muscle.
Now were in season four and Mr.
Robot is doing things that Elliot might otherwise do and vice versa.That was totally by design.
Season four kicks off with Angelas violent murder, and Elliot has become unhinged in a way.
Hes just out for vengeance.
Hes gonna be like what Mr.
Robot was like in the first season.
Of course, Mr.
In a weird way, they flip-flop.
Robot remember it, so there must be a third person.
My first thought was, Oh, its the viewer.Thats an interesting theory.
Whos he talking to?
Hes not talking to Mr.
Robot when he does his voice over.
There must be some other person in there that we havent met yet.Mm-hmm.
Okay, fair enough.
[Laughs] Let me just say, you will get the answer to the end of that question.
By the end of the season.
You really doubled down!
]Its funny, that was something I had known since the first season.
I was okay if people had figured that out because Im never really in it for the shock value.
To me, reveals can be impactful when theyre earned.
When theyre that mix of inevitable and surprising.
Thats the story of this whole show.
This was never about Capitalism: Is it good or bad?
or How can we fix the world economy?
or How can we fix the geopolitical nature of money?
This was about wanting to connect and not being able to connect.
The Price-Angela relationship was very key to all that.
That was because Price wanted to have this indirect relationship with his daughter.
Against his better judgment, he signs up this cybersecurity firm because his daughter works there.
Emotionally, this was about lonely people yearning to connect with somebody.
I love endings where you might choose.
Look at whats going on with the whole Trump scandal.
And I wanna honor that.
That feels like a dishonest take on our world.
Would you classify the show as science fiction?No.
To me, science fiction is when you go outside our understanding of science.
It is an alternate timeline.
Robotis slightly off from our calendar.
I wanted to have that creative license to say, This is a slightly altered timeline from our world.
Hes very angry at the world.
He names his hacker group Fuck Society.
The gift that Rami gives me is that he papers over the plot.
The plot is designed to have these characters connect to you.
The emotional experience is all youre after.
Robotcan get complicated, Rami has that gift of being able to ground it.
I mean, look, were talking about some really byzantine plot machinations.
Were inside the guys head.
I cant imagine the show working at all without that.
At a certain point, I actually think they know the character better than me.
Heres how you feel about each other.
And, specifically with this last season, heres where you guys overlap.
Robot in the first season, and Christian, youre gonna do the opposite.
The three of us had to calibrate that.
It seems like theres a negotiated truce happening between him and his alter ego.Thats the idea.
We can dramatize that because, to a person suffering from DID, they do feel like different people.
They were basically little features.
Each of them is about a couple hours long and was the send-off to the series.
It had this interesting melancholy without being overly grim or pessimistic.
It wasnt too sentimental, but there was something very touching and moving.
Christmas is always like that to me.
Its also a time you tend to be self-reflective over the past year.
For all of those reasons, the tone felt right to end the show on that note.
Theres just something about Christmas that was able to capture what we wanted the finale to feel like.
[Laughs]
AndThe French Connection.
And every Shane Black film.Ill putDie Hardup there.
AndEyes Wide Shut.Although, if you think aboutEyes Wide Shut, thats probably Kubricks most optimistic film.
At least when it comes to marriage!
Thats what youre left with.
When you think about all the other Kubrick films, that is oddly the most hopeful, you know?
Thats the most hope youre gonna get from a Kubrick film.
