On Sunday night, Rami Malek won an Emmy for best actor in a drama for his portrayal of Elliot Alderson on Mr. Robot. This was a big deal. Malek, an Egyptian-American actor, was the "first non-white actor to win the category in 18 years." And there would certainly have been more noise about this achievement had the actor's name not been swamped by names that sound like his, Muslim-sounding names. There was the Somali immigrant accused of stabbing people in a Minnesota mall, Dahir Ahmed Adan; and the Afghan immigrant accused of exploding bombs in Manhattan and New Jersey, Ahmad Khan Rahami. When a Muslim-sounding name trends on Twitter, it is often in connection with terrorism, and not with winning some award for acting on TV.
Nevertheless, Malek deserved the award because he is at the heart of what will certainly be recognized as one of this decade's defining works of science fiction, Mr. Robot's first season. His intense eyes, his twisted sense of power, the vibrant abyss of his paranoia, his hyper-connectedness to all kinds of information technologies captured the spirit, mood, tone of our science fictional times. With Mr. Robot, cyberpunk finally crossed the magic mirror into reality. At the end of the first season, you felt the narrative, and even apocalyptic, possibilities of the ordinary things that appear on the screen of your laptop: the comments left by your friends on Facebook, the emails in your inbox, your passwords to banking and shopping websites.
The second season of Mr. Robot ends tonight. Though it has not been a bad season, it hasn't been nearly as good as the first one. What you find in the first season are great visuals and a great storyâhackers unite and successfully complete a revolution. Though the second season still looks great, its story has been weakâhackers try to keep the revolution alive. The problem is this: Attacking something is always more interesting than defending something. The hackers led by Malek's character, Elliot Alderson, have been too passive in this season. Things are always happening to them instead of them making things happen. It seems our narrative imagination runs on empty when it comes to life after a revolution. As for tonight, expect lots and lots of stunning images and a disappointing plot. The post-revolution should not be televised.
Here is Malek's Emmy acceptance speech from Sunday night:
