Decrypted, Ars Technica's TV podcast

Ars Technica continues our Decrypted podcast with the first season HBO's Westworld created by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan. Based on Michael Crichton's novel and the 1973 film with Yul Brynner of the same name, this drama about robots in a wild west theme park will fascinate, make you (extremely) uncomfortable, and generally creep you out. Join us each week as we explore the latest episode with colleagues, writers, and technology experts to discover and decrypt this complex, psychological world.

The Decrypted podcast began with season 2 of Mr. Robot, hosted and produced by Nathan Mattise. Visit us from Decrypted episode 1 and join Nathan as he explores the complexities of the fascinating, hit hacker drama.

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"As I was preparing to utter the first part of the sentence I just stopped," says Stephanie Corneliussen, aka Joanna Wellick. "I looked across the table at Sam Esmail and gave him that kind of 'What did you do? I can’t say this' look. And he just gives me one of those famous Sam scowls that’s like 'Go ahead, do it.' I said it, and everyone is reading along but hearing it out loud... we just burst out laughing because it’s so over the limit, so over the top.”

Mr. Robot S2 ended with its share of fireworks, Joanna Wellick's nasty streak chief among them. On the final episode (pyth0n_pt2) for this season of Decrypted, we unpack the many highs (and few lows) of the season at large: Elliot is like Batman, we all love Leon, and everyone seems to have a different favorite character or S3 theory.

And after that debrief (roughly the 26m mark), Stephanie Corneliussen joins the podcast to discuss Joanna Wellick's wild ride and her dreams for S3 (including Bloody Marys with Whiterose). 

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Only one hour of Mr. Robot S2 remains, but many questions do. Before the second half of season two's finale, GQ's entertainment and culture critic Scott Meslow helps us take stock of what answers we can expect and what's likely to linger into S3. 

"I have such a hard time getting mad at a show for being ambitious," Meslow says. "And they are really swinging for the fences. It's been a lot of fun, but ultimately it's a season that doesn't know which cards it should be playing at which times. Even right now, they're still dangling cliffhangers that I go, 'There's no reason we shouldn't have this information yet, except it's being withheld.'"  

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It's penultimate episode time for S2, and in the classic style of The Wire we may have a death or two on this week's Mr. Robot. "h1dden-pr0cess.axx" ends on a cliffhanger with possibly tremendous repercussions, so this week we start by examining the possibilities and evidence surrounding Darlene's drama.

Then, professional psychologist and TV writer Cameron Brown (@couchpotpsych) joins the podcast to dive deep into the mind of Elliot... because even within an episode that ends on such an action sequence, everything ignited when Elliot's struggles with mental illness and alternate personas came to the forefront.

"Elliot as a human has all the information," Brown reminds. "But as an identity, Elliot doesn't have all the information at all."

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"Who was behind the door? We already knew that," Mr. Robot staff writer Lucy Teitler told us this week. "I think it happens a lot with the show, the big questions the fans are obsessed with are things we all decide. They’re foundational. So the individual pressure is on with the way scenes are written.”

Teitler is a new staffer for Mr. Robot S2 and, no pressure, her first episode assignment happened to include the fallout from that big Elliot reveal. She co-wrote "init_5.fve" with colleague Kyle Bradstreet and joined the podcast to discuss what that process looks like (plus how it's similar to her other gigs—writing stage plays and reporting on infosec at Motherboard). 

Before that, we *had* to dive into that big PwnPhone cameo. The team from PwnieExpress got in touch to explain how their signature device showed up this week and just how feasible Elliot's SIM card hacking really is.

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"succ3ss0r" (S2E8) did the unthinkable—an entire episode of Mr. Robot *without* Elliot. Even show staff writer/head technical producer Kor Adana didn't see that coming. "I had a lot of anxiety and I know the other writers in the room had a lot of anxiety, because we weren’t sure how it was going to be received," he told us on this week's pod. "The question was: did we do enough work early in S2 laying the groundwork for our supporting cast to carry an episode?"

This week, we finally got the chance to chat with Adana about this latest episode and much more. He talked about his process writing the show's various hacks, how he's embraced creating Easter eggs for the Mr. Robot subreddit, and just how websites land in Elliot's RSS feed. Compared to his time working in cybersecurity real time, these days Adana says, "I’m doing more IT research than I’ve ever done.” 

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"h4ndshake" (S2E7) shook up Mr. Robot like few previous episodes have. While the critical opinion seems split on how the show handled its latest reveal, one thing rings a bit false—the notion this was some unexpected "twist." This week we *had* to break down the big news, which raises more question than it answers (that's a good thing, btw). 

Looking forward, two of the show's tech advisors—Tanium's Andre McGregor and Ryan Kazanciyan—presented a webinar this week with plenty of behind the scenes info. Amid talk of their favorite hacks so far or how real Angela's hacking prowess is, they dropped a few hints about what might be coming in the final episodes of S2. 

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With m4ster-s1ave (S2E6), Mr. Robot S2 is officially at the halfway point. That means now is the perfect time to look at the series at-large with Ars Technica's reviewer, Jonathan Gitlin. We break down what's happened thus far in five categories: our favorite sequences, biggest surprises, largest disappointments, most lingering questions, and craziest fan theories. 

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With "logic_b0mb" (S2E5), Mr. Robot's second season reached another level. From the FBI's tragedy to the reunion of our main characters, the episode seemed to address any lingering concerns fans may have from the slower pace of S2 thus far. 

Given how significant the happenings were this week, we devoted the entire pod to breaking down what made logic_b0mb so effective. Touching on everything from Ray to Joanna Wellick, fsociety to Whiterose, there are clearly spoilers ahead.

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This week on Decrypted, "init1.asec" (S2E4) hammers home just how different Mr. Robot S2 is compared to the series' original 10 episodes. To better understand what's happening both on- and off-screen, preeminent TV mind Andy Greenwald (formerly of Grantland, now of The Watch podcast and After The Thrones/Hacking Robot) joins the podcast for a long discussion. We start by talking about some of the season's biggest surprises thus far before transitioning into how the Netflix TV revolution has bled into Mr. Robot (and possibly the slew of post-episode talk shows now available).

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