Mr. Robot: Eps3.3metadata.par2
November 2, 2017 10:38 AM - Season 3, Episode 4 - Subscribe

"Metadata. The story behind the data. Getting information is one thing, but how it was created, where and by whom can often be illuminating." Official summary: Dom has a close call; Elliot chases himself with Darlene on the lookout.

Tyrell gets a pep talk, Phase 2 is moving ahead with an aggressive schedule despite hold-ups, Elliot is trying to cope with Mr. Robot, Darlene is trying to cope with Elliot, and Dom is tired of being alone.

‘Mr. Robot’ Season 3, Episode 4: Elliot Under Fire (NY Times review and recap by Jeremy Egner)
It’s never been easy being Elliot, what with the shattered family and history of depression, anxiety and addiction, not to mention the caustic alter ego battling him for control of his own mind and body.

But in this third season of “Mr. Robot,” Elliot’s persecution has reached a new intensity. Because as we saw in Wednesday’s busy setup for the long-promised Stage 2 — or its undoing — now that the secret about Elliot’s dual nature is all the way out, pretty much everyone in this story is using his Hyde against him.
Mr. Robot Season 3 Episode 4 Review: Metadata -- "Metadata" begs the question: how much longer can style make up for poor pacing on Mr. Robot? (Alec Bojalad for Den of Geek)
This is a show that always looks compelling and beautiful and at least feels like it has something to say (even when it doesn’t) but at times doesn’t know how to present itself.

Throughout season 2, many viewers were turned off by a perceived lack of progress. Finding out that the first seven episodes or so were an elaborate fantasy was certainly interesting but it came at a steep cost of pacing.
The Verge: here's the fourth episode of the Mr. Robot After Show (article with embedded video; direct YouTube link) -- Nilay Patel, Russell Brandom, and Megan Farokhmanesh, and a long talk with Carly Chaikin, aka Darlene; they delve into some fan theories about Angela's talk with Irving. Plus another hack report, focused on the Rabbler and the FBI's backtracing.
posted by filthy light thief (11 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Lack of progress? Come again? White Rose escalated the timeline, did they want explosions in this episode? Darlene recognizes that she made the world a mess, but to fix it, she'll lose her brother? What's slow here? -_-

Anyway, I included that review for something contrary to my take, which is more in line with Jeremy Egner's: things are speeding up and getting more intense on various fronts.

Tangents: the titles for this season have more variety with their extensions. The first season was all video containers, the second season was all about encoding formats, and now we have:
  1. eps3.0_power-saver-mode.h - header file for C
  2. eps3.1_undo.gz - files are compressed files created using the gzip compression utility, which was initially created by two software developers to replace and improve on Compress in UNIX
  3. eps3.2_legacy.so - Shared Object, again for C
  4. eps3.3_metadata.par2 - PAR2 files contain error-correction data that can be used to fix files that become corrupted during the upload/download process on Usenet where there is no built-in error correction
And I'll stop there to avoid discussing possible spoilers from either the titles or the extensions.

Final link: music from this episode, via Tunefind.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:53 AM on November 2, 2017 [5 favorites]


Ooh, "error-correction data".

That's good stuff, filthy light thief. Thanks for filling in those details on the titles!
posted by minsies at 11:53 AM on November 2, 2017


Holy cow, I was shipping Darlene and Dom since last season, but now...

Also, Esmail keeps signalling that Elliott needs to get laid; I'm betting that he hooks up with Angela soon, probably with disastrous consequences.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 1:25 PM on November 2, 2017


On the silent Mr. Nouri, folks on The Verge's aftershow recalled a comment that I forgot and tied him back to the prior episode, where White Rose tells the InfoWars kook "I need you to put fsociety's origin on Iranian soil." And he replies "Iran, huh? That's brown enough. Shouldn't be too hard."
posted by filthy light thief at 1:39 PM on November 2, 2017 [2 favorites]


The conceit of of the second season somewhat pissed me off but it's about my tribe and I'll watch it all and get a kick out of some parts that are right but I think I'll wait to binge at the right time, and if there's spoilers so what it's the journey not just the clever reveal. And as much as I've gotten a kick out of the show it's actually in some ways a superhero comic, there are no super hackers, just a whole lot of folks that put in a lot of time for sometimes the wrong reasons. With enough work and care any toolkit can seem magical, the hacker breaking into networks, like magic tricks, are often quite simple, breaking into a bank can be almost trivial if someone forgets to change the default password and it's in a manual and you just click in.
posted by sammyo at 6:18 PM on November 2, 2017


But Flipper! ) :
posted by minsies at 5:06 PM on November 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Yeah has Flipper like completely ruined that apartment yet?
posted by numaner at 9:05 PM on November 3, 2017


With enough work and care any toolkit can seem magical, the hacker breaking into networks, like magic tricks, are often quite simple, breaking into a bank can be almost trivial if someone forgets to change the default password and it's in a manual and you just click in.

But sometimes it is like magic, exploiting a buffer overflow in an obscure RPC service on their SecureID ACE server & adding a new root user in the passwd & shadow files. Then you could subvert their entire authentication schema, use any arbitrary token or no token at all to digitally impersonate any employee. Then it's just a matter of finding a user that has the rights you're interested in & becoming them.
posted by scalefree at 9:46 PM on November 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm no longer able to follow this narrative. I've lost the plot.
posted by Nelson at 4:59 AM on November 5, 2017


I'm no longer able to follow this narrative. I've lost the plot.

Excellent. Thank you for being a loyal E-Corp customer. We appreciate your trust.
posted by numaner at 9:55 AM on November 5, 2017 [4 favorites]


God, that last shot of Darlene putting the family photo back on Elliot's shelf just kills me every time. So well shot, with perfect music.
posted by mabelstreet at 9:01 PM on November 27, 2023


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