Coming as no surprise, USA has renewed its psychologically-tortured cyber drama Mr. Robot for a third season.
It’s no secret that Mr. Robot has become the prestigious dramatic centerpiece of the USA network’s scripted stable. The tone-heavy hacker drama has reaped accolades beyond expectations with recent wins at the Golden Globes and has accrued an array of Primetime Emmy nominations. Thus, while the show has made some recent divisive turns, USA’s Season 3 renewal in the midst of its sophomore season isn’t exactly a shocking revelation.
News of USA’s Mr. Robot Season 3 renewal came straight from an official announcement. The series is currently rounding the seventh entry of its 12-episode second season, still feeling the tumultuous aftereffects of Season 1’s culminating “5/9” hack of mega-conglomerate E Corp. Controversially, Season 2 has been immersed (some would say mired,) in the melancholy of the multiple personality-affected psychological state of tortured super-hacker Elliot Alderson, played by Rami Malek.
Take the Den of Geek 2016 Reader Survey for a Chance to Win a $100 Amazon Voucher Right Here!
Those issues, however, have not dampened the series’ Season 1 rewards, with recent Golden Globes wins for Best Television Series, a Best Performance by an Actor for Christian Slater and six Emmy nominations that could still bear the fruit of wins in September. According to a statement by NBCUniversal Cable entertainment president Chris McCumber:
“We couldn’t be more proud of Mr. Robot, a series that has pushed boundaries, captured the cultural zeitgeist and been honored as one of the best dramas on television. Midway through its second season, Mr. Robot continues to break new ground and open up new opportunities for the network. We can’t wait to see where [series creator] Sam Esmail and the entire brilliant Robot team take us next.”
Despite glowing affirmation, Mr. Robot faces challenges with ratings down to around 40% compared to Season 1. Indeed, while the show’s celebrated place in pop culture remains firm, its numbers have taken sizable hits as a result uneven extended episode lengths and dreary psychological direction; recently exemplified in the bizarre avant-garde approach of its August 10 episode, “eps2.4_m4ster-s1ave.aes,” which devoted most of its time to a hallucination in which Elliot was immersed in a late-1980’s sitcom with canned laugh tracks, retro commercials... and Alf. At 0.572 million viewers, it was, by far, the lowest-rated entry in the show’s existence.
Consequently, it could be the case that Mr. Robot might just take an extended hiatus between the current Season 2 and Season 3 to recharge batteries and address some structural issues. In fact, creator Sam Esmail has essentially implied such a notion, assailing conventional seasonal show structures, when he told EW:
“Personally, I think this is another weird, archaic judgment on television shows, where you have to bring them back at a certain schedule or you’re going to lose your audience. I’m just going to say this: I think it’s bulls—, especially at the cost of the quality of the show.”
That being said, Mr. Robot’s Season 2 plot pieces do appear to be finally falling into place concerning Elliot’s extorted ordeal at the hands of Craig Robinson’s opaquely evil human trafficker Ray. Portia Doubleday’s Angela – initially thought to be a traitor at the beginning of the season – has started to emerge as a strong participant in the anti-E-Corp cyber battle. Plus, there’s still the mystery of what happened to Martin Wallström’s former power-hungry E Corp hotshot-turned-fugitive Tyrell Wellick.
Mr. Robot continues its Season 2 run Wednesdays on USA, with Season 3 now a guarantee.
