Seinfeldsuperfan Leon was MIA from last weeksMr.
Robot, but there was a lot of his obsession in logic-b0mb.hc.
A recurring motif echoed one ofSeinfeldssignature gags: Kramer barging into Jerrys apartment without invitation or knocking.
Credit: Peter Kramer/USA Network; Joseph Del Valle/NBC/Getty Images
(Elliot might call this a life hack.)
Darlene blamed it on Angela.
Terrorists blowing into the lobby of Doms hotel.
Mr. Sutherland barreling into Kareems pad to kill him.
you’re able to see a lot ofSeinfeldin a lot ofMr.
And it makes a certain amount of storytelling sense, at least from an Elliot point of view.
The psychologically damaged lad experiences the contents of his mind as external objects.
Its really fing with me, he told Elliot in the premiere.
One episode, Leons talking about The Parking Garage.
Its a hallucination, of course, trigged by an overdose of Adderall provided by Leon.
Robot: an allegory about the toxic dangers of binge TV viewing.
You shouldnt swallow TV shows all at once.
You should watch them in the prescribed dosage, one at a time, once a week.
You know, the way we used to do withSeinfeld.
This way, you avoid cancelation.
Leon, Elliots eating buddy, is a symbol of both consumption and influence.
But from Elliots perspective, hes a symbol of the culture.
Elliot gleefully eats up LeonsSeinfeldbinge the way eats up the diners comfort food as well as Leons Adderall.
Elliots hallucination literally feeds into all this.
Adderall =Seinfeld= the cement binge, representing Elliots misguided effort to shore up his shaky mind, his self-medication.
Note also where the cement is made and mixed: in a red wheelbarrow.
Its also a symbol of artistic creation and response.
He fills it with drawings.
He writes about The Bible and likens it to a (poorly run?)
He recaps his day.
Its The Man, trying to keep us down!
To be clear, I dont thinkMr.
Robotis usingSeinfeldto say that TV or pop culture is completely and totally bad for us.
I go on like this because were about to see, the episodes ofSeinfeldthatMr.
Robotis a red wheel barrow of thick, well-blended, and very heavy cultural response toSeinfeld.
As such,Mr.
Robotreframes Seinfeld, which was famous for being a show about no hugging, no lessons learned.
In huggingSeinfeldtightly,Mr.
Robotshows us that it learned its lessons very well.
NEXT: Lets have some fun…
[pagebreak]
Okay, enough of that.
Lets have some fun with this.
The remainder of this essay is going to ridiculously heady, or just plain ridiculous.
I hope you find it interesting, but more so, I kinda hope you laugh.
Robotsproverbial cereal boxes searching for prizes and decoder rings.
In other words: its not my fault the show pours this cement down my throat.Penetration test.
Lets start with the implicitSeinfeldreferences, beginning with the classic The Contest.
It gave us the memorable phrase master of your domain.
The language perfectly describes the defining conflict ofMr.
Robotssecond season: Elliots battle with his alter-ego for control of the organ they share.
No, not that one, silly.
The other one you think with.
In logic-b0mb.hc the parallel The Contest was more on point.
The project turned into a waiting game as Darlene tried to recruit Angela to facilitate their plan.
Here, it was the private sections of Rays black market website.
Clicking on those forbidden zones risked serious consequences.
If Elliot got caught looking?
Elliot succumbed to temptation, too, much to the dismay of father figure Mr. His transgression discovered, Elliot was rousted from peaceful slumber and beaten by his other father figure Ray.
Which, of course, is what happened to George in The Contest.
A couple episodes ago,Mr.
Robotgave us a pivotal scene in which Elliot and Mr.
Robot took their contest to the next level.
The catalyst was a disagreement over a girl, specifically, Elliots sister, Darlene.
Robot driven by the more risky, emotional desire to advance the fsociety mission opposed this idea.
In The Nose Job, Jerry reached a crossroads moment with his latest girlfriend, Isabel, an actress.
She is the most despicable woman I have met in my entire life.
Ive never been so repulsed by someone mentally and so attracted to them physically at the same time.
Its like my brain is facing my penis in a chess game!
Eventually, while entertaining Isabel in his apartment, Jerrys push-pull is dramatized with the aforementioned chess match.
It took hallucinatory form.
Head Jerry was represented by a spectral Jerry wearing a hat resembling a brain.
Penis Jerry was represented by a spectral Jerry wearing a helmet resembling, yes, a penis.
Robot chess match, there was no victor.
It ended in a stalemate as a result of Elliot recognizing a paradox: He and Mr.
Robot were inextricably connected because Mr.
Robot was an extension of himself; they both die if one wins.
(In The Nose Job, Head Jerry won for a moment.
In the end, though, it was Isabel who broke up with Jerry.
She said she couldnt be with a man whose work she couldnt respect.)
NEXT: On to the explicit connections…
But enough with the implicit.
Lets get to the explicit.
logic-b0mb.hc internalized all of them to an almost uncanny degree.
I examined the relevancy of The Finale in my other Mr.
Robot Notebook entry this week, but Ill briefly recap it here.
While arguing with Mr.
He had seen a picture of an abducted girl for sale.
Elliot had to intervene.
He had to be a hero you know, like Jerrys idol, Superman.
Doing nothing would make him guilty ofcriminal indifference.
Once again, Mr. Criminal indifferenceandmoral authenticityare essential to Seinfelds comedy, and both concepts are intrinsic to The Finale.
In fact, the show puts the ideas on trial.
Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer witnessed a guy get mugged and dont do anything about it.
They laughed, actually.
They were arrested for violating The Good Samaritan Law and put on trial.
The Finale left the quartet in a cell.
In the final moments, Jerry and George began a conversation they realize theyd had before.
With that,Seinfeldgave a Sartre/No Exitending: hell is other people.
So much for contemplation and change.
Again, see: Elliot-Mr.
Robot indicts him for running away from his responsibility to the mess they made with Five/Nine hack.
(Another kind of criminal indifference!)
Instead of making forward progress with his project of purging Mr.
Robot and achieving self-realization, Elliot finds himself stuck.
His war with Mr.
Robot is a looping, endless stalemate.
Of course, the story isnt over yet.
Can Elliot break free?
Can he transcend beyond his Hegelian master-slave rapport with Mr. A bad one, too: Ed Woods notorious clunkerPlan 9 From Outer Space.
(Cue mySeinfeldlaugh track.)
However, Dom and company did eat some Chinese food, or rather, they tried to.
One of the agents couldnt stomach the authentic Chinese offerings.
He worried that the food was unsanitary.
(Bookmark that word.
Well come back to it.)
Wheres the General Tsaos chicken?!
These people are savages.
His ugly American attitudes echoes Georges entitlements and indignant bellyaching about humanity in The Chinese Restaurant.
At one point, George railed about a woman who barged ahead of him to grab the restaurants phone.
Were living in a civilized society!
Were supposed to act in a civilized way!
Does anyone ever display the slightest sensitivity over the problems of a fellow individual?
But Dom might reply with a resounding Yes!
We saw Elliot raise his hand to play Good Samaritan.
(Never mind that he fell asleep on the job.)
We saw Angela enter into Elliots dark place and reach out to him in the spirit of true friendship.
Dom represented these themes, too.
But at the same time, I am utterly fascinated by it.
The FBI is the perfect place for that kind of contradiction.
A related idea added urgency to everything: Jerry needed to pee.
He was goaded by Kramer to duck behind a car and take a whiz.
Among them: he needed to get to an anniversary dinner for his parents.
Im never gonna get out of here!
The guy goes to pee, he never comes back.
Its like a science fiction story!
GEORGE:Oh, whats the difference?
Well all be dead eventually.
KRAMER:Does that bother you?
GEORGE:Yeah, it bothers me.
Doesnt it bother you?
KRAMER:Not at all.
How could it not bother you?
GEORGE:Yeah, yeah.
Meanwhile, Im here with you in a parking garage.
What am I supposed to do?
Later, George also got busted for peeing in the garage.
You know, the one with the red peppers and orange peel at Szechwan Gardens?
GEORGE:Sure, I have it all the time.
JERRY:Well, General Chang was a very flamboyant man.
A complete failure as a general, but a very good cook.
Much of it was located in the Zhang party section.
(echoing the securitys concern for the sanitary condition of the parking garage).
The reason why Doms bumbled into Zhangs clock closet?
She really needed to pee and was looking for a bathroom.
Shes caught by Minister Zhang.
Zhang doesnt give her a ticket, but she did share her attitudes about mortality.
Doms translation: Youve surrounded yourself with constant reminders of mortality.
As each second passes, I constantly push myself to keep moving.
How the world would look right now?
In fact, some believe there are alternate realities playing out that very scenario.
That there are other lives were leading.
Other people that weve become.
The contemplation moves me very deeply.
Sounds like a science fiction story to me.
They just express them differently.Seinfeldmade the points through people who fail hysterically at these practices.Mr.
Robotgives us people who grapple tragically with them.
No one has embodied it better this season than Leons model of criticalSeinfeldfandom.
For him, the fiction ofSeinfeldwas an alternate reality to contemplate and be inspired by.
Which brings us to Elaines fish.
You didnt think I forgot about Elaines poor doomed fish, did you?
Shes been taking good care of him during Elliots exile.
Hes fat and happy, apparently, thanks to Angelas sensitive care and attention.
(Angela, remember, is Elliots old neighbor, best friend, and maybe-love interest.
Angelas life-giving Good Samaritan act (and pet rescue!)
was one more talk-back toSeinfeld,one more recognition of its meaning via mirror-twin opposites.
The sitcom was a satire of outrageous selfishness, the ultimate anti-role model sitcom.
Theyadda yadda yaddaof TV really does teach you the secrets of life.
Except, apparently, for the one about knocking before entering.
