HESTIA

This review and thoughts are in 5 parts. First come the four seasons and afterwarts there will be a section about the whole series. This way each season get's a proper thought cycle.

Season 1

The first season went way faster then I would have expected. It has been only three days since I started the series, and season 1 is already finished. I must say that it has been quite an interesting watch. Both in terms of story and details as in characters and acting. I will go over those two in more detail.

The story is about Elliot, a cyber security employee and hacker. We experience the story through his perspective. To make it interesting we do this in two/three ways. The first way is the typical way, namely the following of the scenes where Elliot is the main character. In addition we get Elliot as the narrator of the story, this is usually done in a sort of mind voice. With that I mean that we hear what he is thinking. This speaks a bit to me as that is how I personally think (having my own narrator in my head, so that talking is basically just speaking on mute). The third way is sort of an extension of the second way. It is playing inside of the mind of Elliot, picturing a fake world in which his dad, mom, and former self live. This is happening throughout the whole season, but for a part you can only notice that this is happening in retrospect. This is because the dad, who plays quite a prominent role in the first part of the season (not as the dad, but as Mr. Robot), is later to be found out just inside of Elliots mind. I love this as it flips the whole story upside down.

Enough about the perspective. The story is about a hackergroup, Fsociety. This group is planning to hack Evil Corperation, a big tech corp. (Fun fact is that the logo of Evil Corp is the same e as in the Dell logo). Later in the story they do this forcing sort of a revolution, of which we will most probably see more in the next seasons.

One thing I like of this 'hacking' movie is that it is actually quite realistic. It uses normal tools and software. There is no case of unrealistic zooming in on pictures or camera feeds. The technical details are mostly correct and there is even some great humor about inside jokes of the tech community. Going as far as discussing GNOME vs KDE. (not quite that deep, but hey, at least is not typing in a terminal at the speed of light).

I've left way too many things out in the open (as the drugs, criminal circuit, power plays, murder, love, etc.), but that is for another time and for some fun while watching it for your own.

Season 2

This was quite an interesting experience. I must say that I have a bit of a mixed feeling about this season. While the story was still good it felt a bit chaotic. There was a lot more focus on the interpersonal relations and the struggel of Elliot with DID. While I think it opens up the story it also makes it harder to follow. You don't know what is real and what is not. In that way it is quite realistic haha.

My rating of the second season is a bit lower than that of the first, but that doesn't mean I think it is bad. There are a lot of plot hooks to use for the next seasons, and I am excited for those. I hope that there will be a bit more of the hacking in it, as that was a bit missing for me this season.

Season 3

God, I loved Irving this season. The vibe was immaculate. I was in 'love' with his character from the moment he entered the series. The complete lack of aggression in such a character is something you don't often see, but it is something that felt in a weird way very good.

This season we went more into the aftermath of the hack, what has happend, why did it happen, and most importantly what are the motives behind it. We see the struggle of Elliot with his condition, losing control, but also regaining it. We see relationships break people, and people break relationships. Good people get murdered, while worse people return.

The reason this season gets a higher score than the last is actually quite simple. There was a renewed spark in the story, and while new unknowns were introduced, there was a solid base on which you could lean. This made me longer for more, while not having to doubt what I had seen before.

I want to place one little shoutout to the people who composed and choose the music for this series. It has really stept up the game of the series. It added vibes you couldn't have added in a better way. For that I give my biggest applause.

Season 4

This season is a really nice wrap-up of the series. And it has a happy ending, which is nice after this rollercoaster.

I really liked how the story linked previous experiences and persons to the current season. Helping, for good or worse, Elliot with finding himself. The use of the drugdealer (I forgot his name) to force some childhood drama to resurface, was a good way I think. (btw fuck sexual abusers, what parasite is living in your head if you ever think that that is something you should do...).

I also liked that the hacking part came back a bit more, after it declined in amount a bit in the last two seasons. The hacks were both somewhat realistic and ambitious, so perfect for the series.

I cannot end this review without a proper conclusion, but for that I still have to process the series a bit more. So that will take a bit more time.

Conclusion

Coming soon to a display near you.