2) Even Its Absurd Villain Is Frighteningly Believable
Though Mr. Robot operates in a realm of heightened drama, there’s something strangely believable about it all. Whether it’s because of the firmly current real-world setting, the committed performances from the cast, or the quality of Esmail’s writing, there’s something that lends even the most un-real aspects of Mr. Robot a sense of veracity.
One of the more absurd components of Mr. Robot is its villain, E Corp exec Tyrell Wellick, a man so flagrantly sociopathic he pays homeless people just so he can have the satisfaction of beating them up. And yet, for all his ridiculousness – his psychopathy at almost Patrick Bateman-levels – Wellick is still drawn so well he actually feels believable.
Sympathetic, even; Esmail doesn’t make any of his characters merely two-dimensional, and even with the terrifying Wellick, there’s an understanding for where he’s coming from, even when he’s committing the most evil deeds.