129 Fun Facts About Mr. Robot

Which US cable channel originally aired Mr. Robot?

USA Network aired Mr. Robot from 2015 to 2019 and renewed it for a second season before the first had even premiered.

Who plays hacker Elliot Alderson?

Malek later won the Best Actor Oscar for playing Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.

Which actor plays the title character, the anarchist who recruits Elliot?

Slater had been off the A-list for years; the part revived his career.

What does fsociety plan to do to E Corp's data?

fsociety encrypts E Corp's data to erase all debt records, scrambling the files and their backups so consumer debt can never be reconstructed.

What does Elliot call the conglomerate that Allsafe protects?

Elliot calls it Evil Corp, and because he narrates, every character on screen is heard saying Evil Corp instead of E Corp.

Where is the series set?

The series is set in New York City; Silvercup Studios in Queens, Queens College and Coney Island were among the filming locations.

How many seasons did Mr. Robot run?

The fourth season was announced as the last in August 2018.

How many episodes were made in total?

45 episodes were made in total across four seasons; season 4 alone had 13, the most of any season.

Who plays Darlene Alderson?

Carly Chaikin plays Darlene Alderson, Elliot's sister and the fsociety hacker who coded the malware used against E Corp.

Who plays Elliot's childhood friend Angela?

Portia Doubleday plays Angela, who climbs from Allsafe to a PR job at E Corp over the course of the show.

Whose persona does Mr. Robot turn out to be?

Mr. Robot is a persona of Elliot's dead father, Edward Alderson, who died of leukemia when Elliot was a child; Slater also plays Edward in flashbacks.

Which mental health condition explains Mr. Robot's existence?

Dissociative identity disorder sits alongside Elliot's social anxiety disorder and clinical depression; Rami Malek consulted a psychologist to prepare, and Sam Esmail then hired her as a consultant.

Where does fsociety operate from?

An abandoned Coney Island arcade is where Mr. Robot first explains that his small group of hackers attacked E Corp's server; the real boardwalk doubled as the base's exterior.

What item of Malek's own clothing became Elliot's signature look?

A black hoodie from Malek's own wardrobe became the look; the costume designer ordered 20 more even though the item had been discontinued years earlier.

Which drug does Elliot snort in the pilot?

Elliot snorts morphine, rationing it and taking suboxone afterwards to stave off withdrawal.

What are the season 4 episode titles based on?

Season 4 titles are HTTP status codes, running from "401 Unauthorized" to "410 Gone" before the last three episodes change style.

What do the season 1 episode-title suffixes (.mov, .mkv, .avi) refer to?

The suffixes are video container formats; season 2 switched to encryption file types and season 3 to library and archive extensions.

What is the title of the season 3 finale?

The season 3 finale is "shutdown -r", the only season 3 title styled as a computer command rather than a file name.

What is the title of the final episode?

"Hello, Elliot" is the final episode; it aired back to back with "whoami" on December 22, 2019.

Who plays E Corp executive Tyrell Wellick?

Martin Wallström plays Tyrell Wellick; Mr. Robot was his American television debut.

What nationality is the actor who plays Tyrell?

Martin Wallström, who plays Tyrell, is Swedish, born in Gothenburg; his on-screen wife Joanna is played by a Danish actress.

Who plays Whiterose?

BD Wong plays Whiterose, recurring for two seasons before joining the main cast in season 3 as the trans woman who leads the Dark Army.

What official post does Whiterose hold in China?

Whiterose is China's Minister of State Security; Dom's FBI team meets the minister in Beijing in season 2 with no idea who they are really talking to.

What is Whiterose's birth name?

Whiterose's birth name is Zhi Zhang, the identity she keeps for public life; Wang Shu is her assistant in season 4.

Who plays FBI agent Dominique "Dom" DiPierro?

Gummer joined as a regular in season 2 and stayed to the end.

In Mr. Robot, what position does Phillip Price, played by Michael Cristofer, hold?

CEO of E Corp Phillip Price was a recurring guest in season 1 before Michael Cristofer joined the main cast for seasons 2–4.

What is Dark Army fixer Irving's day job?

Irving's day job is used car salesman; by season 4 he has also written a novel and is signing copies at an airport bookstore.

Who plays Irving?

Cannavale went straight on to Esmail's next series.

Whose drug supplier is Vera when we meet him in season 1?

Vera is Shayla's supplier; she in turn provides Elliot's suboxone, which is why Elliot tolerates Vera at all.

Who plays drug dealer Vera?

Villar was promoted to the main cast for the final season.

Who plays Tyrell's wife Joanna?

Stephanie Corneliussen plays Joanna Wellick; she was promoted from recurring guest to series regular for season 2.

Which House of Cards actor plays Allsafe boss Gideon Goddard?

Gill played President Garrett Walker on the political drama.

Who composed the show's score?

Quayle won a Creative Arts Emmy for the pilot's music.

Which award did Malek win for Mr. Robot in 2016?

Malek won the 2016 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series; he was nominated for three Golden Globes for the role but never won one.

Malek's Emmy made him the first non-white winner in his category since which year?

Andre Braugher's 1998 win for Homicide: Life on the Street was the previous one; Malek's 2016 Emmy ended an 18-year gap.

Which award did Slater win in 2016 for playing Mr. Robot?

Slater won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in a Series in January 2016 and was nominated for the same award again in 2017 and 2018.

How many Golden Globe Awards did the series win?

Two: Best Television Series – Drama and Slater's supporting-actor award, both won at the January 2016 ceremony.

Which broadcasting honour, judged at the University of Georgia, did the show win?

Esmail and Malek accepted the 2016 Peabody in person.

How many of the 45 episodes did Esmail direct himself?

Esmail directed 38 of the 45: three episodes in season 1, then every episode of seasons 2 through 4.

Who directed the pilot episode?

Oplev also directed the original film of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Which episode drew the show's largest US broadcast audience, 1.75 million?

The pilot drew 1.75 million viewers on its June 24, 2015 broadcast, after USA had streamed it online for a month beforehand.

On which platform did the pilot get a live-streamed pre-release in May 2015?

The pilot was live-streamed on Twitch on May 27, 2015, a month before its USA Network broadcast, before going to other online services.

Which film's split-identity twist did Esmail cite as an influence on Mr. Robot?

Esmail cited Fight Club; playing a piano cover of the Pixies' "Where Is My Mind?" during the hack was his nod to that film's closing scene.

Which 2011 uprising did Esmail cite as an inspiration for the show?

Esmail cited the 2011 Egyptian Revolution; he is of Egyptian descent and watched young people there use social media to force change.

Roughly how many actors did Esmail audition for Elliot before Malek?

Esmail saw over 100 actors for Elliot and was close to rewriting the character when Malek's audition changed his mind.

What was Mr. Robot originally going to be?

Esmail wrote Mr. Robot as a feature film; the end of the film's first act became the season 1 finale.

Why was the season 1 finale pushed back a week?

The murders of Alison Parker and Adam Ward happened the morning it was due to air.

What is E Corp's Steel Mountain?

Steel Mountain is E Corp's offline tape backup facility, modelled on Iron Mountain; fsociety's first plan was to blow up a neighbouring gas plant to destroy it.

Which small computer does Elliot plant to overheat Steel Mountain's tapes?

Elliot plants a Raspberry Pi on the climate-control network to raise the temperature slowly until the magnetic tapes are ruined.

In Mr. Robot's second episode, why does Mr. Robot shove Elliot off a railing onto the rocky beach below?

The punishment is for telling his mother about his father's illness, for not keeping the secret; the fall foreshadows the reveal that Elliot's father did the same to him as a boy.

Where does Elliot find his kidnapped friend after breaking Vera out of jail?

Shayla's body is in the trunk of Vera's car; his line "She was with you the whole time" is one of the show's cruellest twists.

Whom does Tyrell strangle on a rooftop in season 1?

Tyrell strangles Sharon Knowles, wife of the new CTO Scott Knowles, on the E Corp rooftop; Scott is later arrested for her murder.

How does Joanna distract police asking about the rooftop murder?

Joanna breaks her own water with a fork to end the questioning; she gives birth soon after, and Tyrell is fired from E Corp in the same episode.

What does Elliot find on a CD that reveals Mr. Robot's identity?

The CD holds old family photos of Elliot with his father and Darlene; moments earlier he had kissed Darlene, having forgotten who she was.

What business did Elliot's father run?

Edward Alderson ran a computer repair shop called Mr. Robot; the shop's name is the origin of the title, and young Elliot chose it.

What is Elliot's own hacker handle?

samsepi0l is the leetspeak form of Sam Sepiol, the fake tech-wunderkind identity Elliot uses to talk his way into Steel Mountain.

What name is fsociety's E Corp attack known by?

Five/Nine takes its name from the date the hack was executed in the show's timeline, May 9, 2015.

Where has Elliot actually been for most of season 2?

Elliot has been in jail the whole time; the audience saw his mother's house because that is what Elliot chose to see.

What crime lands Elliot in jail in season 2?

He pleaded guilty and served 86 days of an 18-month sentence.

Which comedian plays Ray, the prison warden with a dark-web side business?

Craig Robinson plays Ray, who recruits Elliot to fix a Tor marketplace trafficking drugs, weapons and people.

Which rapper plays Leon, Elliot's sitcom-obsessed Dark Army minder?

Joey Badass plays Leon; fellow rapper Young M.A also appears in the show, as Vera's henchman Peanuts.

Which 1980s TV alien appears in season 2's sitcom-parody episode?

ALF, the puppet alien of the 1986-90 sitcom, turns up in "m4ster-s1ave", which plays as a 1990s family road trip with Tyrell locked in the trunk.

What is the result of Elliot's chess match against Mr. Robot in season 2?

Mr. Robot had promised to leave forever if Elliot beat him.

What is Operation Berenstain?

Operation Berenstain is an illegal FBI surveillance program; fsociety leaks it after learning it spied on three million people.

What is the name of E Corp's cryptocurrency?

E Corp's cryptocurrency is Ecoin; Price uses the Chinese bailout money to prop it up and pressure the government to back it.

Which African country does Price let China annex in exchange for a bailout?

Price agrees to let China annex the Congo; Whiterose wants to relocate her secret project there.

What is Whiterose obsessed with, according to Elliot's first meeting with her?

Whiterose is obsessed with time; she gives Elliot a few timed minutes at their first meeting and ends it when her alarm sounds.

How does Susan Jacobs, E Corp's general counsel, die?

Darlene shocks Susan with a stun gun during her interrogation at the smart house; Susan had a heart condition and dies on the spot.

Where are Mobley and Trenton hiding at the end of season 2?

Mobley and Trenton are working at an electronics store in Phoenix, Arizona, where Leon finds them and asks for the time.

What is the real name of fsociety hacker "Trenton"?

Trenton's real name is Shama Biswas, played by Sunita Mani; Sunil Markesh is Mobley.

What does the Dark Army's "Stage 2" involve?

Stage 2 is blowing up E Corp's paper records facility; Elliot's attempt to stop it by moving the records to other buildings ends up making it far worse.

How many E Corp facilities explode in "eps3.5_kill-process.inc"?

71 E Corp buildings explode; they were the sites Elliot had redirected the paper records to.

How was "eps3.4_runtime-error.r00" presented?

It plays as a single continuous shot; the episode was actually filmed over several days in pieces that were digitally stitched together.

How many shots did FuseFX stitch together for the one-take episode?

Some individual shots involved up to 15 cues and 27 takes.

Which camera rig let the crew float between the E Corp tower and the riot outside?

The DP and camera operator Aaron Medick handled it.

Who was the show's cinematographer, known for leaving huge headroom in frames?

Characters sit at the bottom of the frame to suggest a weight hanging over them.

Which FBI supervisor turns out to be a Dark Army mole?

Ernesto Santiago, Dom's boss, is the Dark Army's mole inside the FBI; Irving kills him with an axe in a barn in the season 3 finale.

Who is revealed in the season 3 finale to be Angela's biological father?

Phillip Price is Angela's biological father; Donald Moss, who raised her, is not her birth father.

Who saved the encryption keys that let Elliot reverse the E Corp hack?

Mr. Robot saved the keys; Elliot had assumed Romero kept them, but the FBI's records of Romero's machines point back to his own alter ego.

What happens to Angela at the start of season 4?

Whiterose sends Elliot a photo of her body as a warning.

What is the Deus Group?

The Deus Group is the cabal of the world's richest that funds the Dark Army; Price tells Elliot that Zhang built it up over decades.

In Mr. Robot, Elliot and Darlene rob the Deus Group by hacking which institution that Whiterose uses?

Cyprus National Bank surfaces when Elliot and Mr. Robot blackmail a lawyer, Freddy; Elliot later gets a passcode by seducing bank employee Olivia Cortez.

What day is it when Elliot and Darlene break into the Virtual Realty server farm?

It is Christmas morning; the break-in fills "405 Method Not Allowed", after which Elliot leads police on a long foot chase through the city.

What is the day job of Janice, Dom's Dark Army handler in season 4?

Janice is a taxidermist, and she befriends Dom's mother to get close to her.

Whom does Dom send to rescue her family from the Dark Army?

Dom calls in Deegan Maguire and his Irish mob crew; with her family safe she shoots Janice in the head.

Where does Darlene plan to fly with Dom in "410 Gone"?

They plan to fly to Budapest; Darlene misses the flight after a panic attack, and Dom boards alone.

What does Darlene do with the stolen Deus Group money?

Darlene sends the money to everyone with an Ecoin account; she calls it justice, and Irving tells her it is why nobody is chasing her anymore.

Where does Elliot go alone at the end of "410 Gone"?

Elliot goes alone to the Washington Township plant; he finds it deserted and its workers slaughtered.

What does Whiterose leave for Elliot on an old computer in "eXit"?

Whiterose leaves a text adventure game on an old computer; Elliot plays it thinking he can stop the meltdown, but seems to be too late.

In the alternate world, how many siblings does Elliot have?

None: Elliot is an only child there, with a loving relationship with his still-living father, while Tyrell runs F Corp.

What name is given to the persona viewers followed all series?

The persona is called the Mastermind; Krista explains he created the utopia to keep the real Elliot trapped and asleep.

Whose voice greets the real Elliot when he wakes in hospital?

His sister Darlene greets him; her line "Hello, Elliot" gives the finale its title.

Whose track "Outro" plays over the closing sequence?

M83's "Outro", the closing track of the 2011 album Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, plays over the final sequence.

How many seasons did the writers originally plan before shortening the story?

After season 3 they found they only needed 11 more episodes, so season 4 became the last.

Who holds Elliot and his therapist hostage in "407 Proxy Authentication Required"?

Fernando Vera holds Elliot and Krista in her apartment for the whole of "407 Proxy Authentication Required", forcing the therapy session that reveals Elliot's childhood abuse.

What structure did critics compare "407 Proxy Authentication Required" to?

The episode is built as a five-act play, with on-screen act cards and almost all of its action confined to Krista's apartment.

Where did Vera say he built a criminal empire before returning to New York?

Vera says he fled to the Dominican Republic after season 1 and built a drug empire there before coming back for Elliot.

Who kills Vera?

Krista Gordon stabs Vera in the back while he is embracing Elliot at the end of the episode.

Which professional body nominated Esmail for writing "407 Proxy Authentication Required"?

The category was Best Episodic Drama at the 72nd WGA Awards.

Which real hacking-conference founder joined the show's technical advisory team?

Moss founded both Black Hat and DEF CON.

Which operating system distribution appears in multiple episodes' hacking scenes?

Kali Linux, the penetration-testing distribution, shows up on Elliot's screens; the tech team performed real hacks, recorded them and rebuilt them as animation.

Who hosted the live aftershow Hacking Robot?

Andy Greenwald hosted Hacking Robot; he went on to create Briarpatch, the 2020 USA Network series that Esmail executive produced.

What was the title of the 2016 tie-in book by Esmail and Courtney Looney?

Red Wheelbarrow is the title, presented as Elliot's prison journal; it shares its name with the barbecue restaurant where Tyrell hides in season 3.

Which studio published the mobile game Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n?

Telltale Games published the 2016 game, which Night School Studio developed; players find an fsociety member's phone and help bring down E Corp.

How long is the Mr. Robot Virtual Reality Experience Esmail directed?

It explores Elliot's past and needs a VR headset to watch.

Which channel aired the show in the Republic of Ireland?

In Canada it aired on Showcase and in Australia on Presto.

What is the name of Elliot's pet fish?

Elliot keeps a betta fish named Qwerty in a bowl in his apartment; the name is the top row of a keyboard.

Season 2's episode order grew from 10 to how many?

Season 2 ran 12 episodes; the extra hours came from splitting the premiere and finale into two parts each.

What business does Rohit "Ron" Mehta run in the pilot's opening scene?

Ron's Coffee is a coffee shop; in the pilot Elliot confronts its owner over the criminal site he runs through the shop's servers and tips off the police.

Why was Esmail put on academic probation at NYU?

He studied film and computer science at Tisch.

Which Amazon series starring Julia Roberts did Esmail direct after Mr. Robot?

Homecoming (2018) starred Julia Roberts; Esmail directed its whole first season and stayed on as an executive producer for the second.

Which 2023 apocalyptic film did Esmail write and direct?

Leave the World Behind, adapted from Rumaan Alam's 2020 novel, came out in 2023 with Mac Quayle scoring it, reuniting the show's team.

How did Wallström win the part of Tyrell?

It was his most prominent international role to date.

Chaikin auditioned for Darlene and which other role?

Angela Moss is Elliot's fiancée in a world where he is upbeat, runs Allsafe and still has a loving relationship with his living father.

On which sitcom did Chaikin play Dalia Royce before Mr. Robot?

Suburgatory, in which Chaikin played Dalia Royce, ran on ABC until its cancellation in 2014, a year before Mr. Robot began.

Doubleday first drew notice as Sheeni Saunders in which 2009 film?

Youth in Revolt (2009) cast Doubleday as Sheeni Saunders opposite Michael Cera's Nick Twisp.

The actor who plays Whiterose won a Tony Award for which play?

BD Wong won the 1988 Tony for M. Butterfly, a role that also brought him the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Clarence Derwent and Theatre World awards.

Cristofer, who plays Price, won a Pulitzer Prize for which play?

The Shadow Box won Cristofer the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony for Best Play the same year.

Cannavale won a Supporting Actor Emmy for playing Gyp Rosetti on which series?

Cannavale won the 2013 Supporting Actor Emmy for Boardwalk Empire; he had also won a guest-actor Emmy for Will & Grace in 2005.

Gummer made her Broadway debut in a 2011 revival of which Tom Stoppard play?

Gummer played Chloë Coverly in the 2011 Broadway revival of Arcadia, which earned her a Theatre World Award.

Villar made his Broadway debut in the original cast of which play?

Vera was described on his page as an eccentric Dominican gangster.

Which horror anthology series has the show's composer also scored?

Mac Quayle took over American Horror Story's score from its fourth season, Freak Show, and also handles 9-1-1, Pose and Feud for Ryan Murphy.

Which stand-up comedian plays Elliot's E Corp coworker Samar Swailem?

Ramy Youssef plays Samar Swailem, appearing in season 3 when Elliot is working inside E Corp; he later created the Hulu series Ramy.

Where does Angela realise the fsociety mask comes from?

The mask comes from The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie, a horror movie she and Elliot watched as kids; the memory convinces her that Elliot and Darlene created fsociety.

Who talks Elliot out of suicide on Coney Island in season 3?

Trenton's little brother Mohammad, whom Elliot spends the day with in "dont-delete-me", pulls him back; Elliot then plays the old wishing game with Angela.

Which sitcom does Leon talk about endlessly in season 2?

Leon is obsessed with Seinfeld; his prison-yard monologues about a show about nothing are how he is introduced in season 2.

Whom does Elliot frame for the pilot's DDoS attack on E Corp?

He gives the FBI a falsified .dat file after Colby has Angela thrown out of a meeting.

Why were the season 1 finale's Times Square scenes shot just before July 4?

The crew could not shut Times Square down, so it filmed late at night before the holiday weekend.

Which fsociety member owns the arcade in a season 2 flashback?

Romero owns the arcade; a season 2 flashback shows him giving Mobley a tour of its grisly history before the hackers take it over as fsociety's base.