Damn that's a great observation. This did indeed have a real Aqua Team vibe at times.

My favourite part of the wheel of robots scene is the way they use the animation alone to draw a huge amount of attention to Bender's hands, which are in motion all the way through. The misdirection would still have worked without this detail, but I think it's what elevated it from clever to sublime.

Distress beacons have been a sci-fi trope far longer than FTL (agreed: incredible) has been around. So I highly doubt it.

They've been saying in interviews that they are moving away from the split-structure of the episode and the down-to-earth-(ish) B-stories, and are going to increasingly just throw all the characters into crazy sci-fi situations.

I actually wish they hadn't taken the extra step of showing it on-screen. The subtler joke of just having him say "now make them all make fun of the blonde one, now make them do it on the table" was great (plus I felt all smart for catching it) and the button made it slightly less funny.

The thing is, if you're a rationalist and scientifically minded, you sort of have to face up to the fact that nothing matters, that everything is tiny, and that there is a vast and yawning universe that will never notice us.

At this point it's become clear that Rick & Morty is capable of a LOT. The A- is a compliment — it means that even when it's this good, they don't feel it's peaked.

"Remember that time everything froze?" should be an utterly absurd question in the world of the show. And yet, on a meta level, it works quite well - because it did indeed take me about 10 minutes to remember wtf he was talking about, since that episode (like most) left no lasting impression on me whatsoever.

There's a deleted (possibly storyboard-only) scene about the absurd existence of Hedonismbot, isn't there? Can't remember it clearly, it's been a while — it may have just been a lampshade-hanging of the absurdity with no explanation, too. Anyone have a more recent memory of what I'm talking about?

Last episode ends with Big Jim being thrown in a cage. Cue closing shot through the bars. This following episode is called "Caged". So, naturally, cue opening shot of Big Jim totally not in a cage and getting a huge exposition dump from the scientist who locked him up.

Where season one was excellent, this season is god-awful.

And in Dome Time that was, what, nine hours ago?

I would have loved it if he'd said "Oh my family and I just took a trip there. Would you like to see the 327 photos we took?"

"You need to give us some answers."
"What would you like to know?"
"ANYTHING! ANY SINGLE FUCKING THING ABOUT WHAT IS GOING ON!"

Am I the only one who thinks the weakest part of this show is Christian Slater's underwhelming-bordering-on-terrible performance?

Maybe some still do but I think the creators know they are dealing with a genre-savvy audience in the internet era where ideas don't stay private for long. Some people might still find it mysterious but by the end of the first season (and if the show grows in popularity) it'll be common knowledge that something's up…

I think the goal of the scene was to demonstrate how Elliot is a step above all these people. They know where Steel Mountain is and how to blow up a pipeline to destroy it — *he* knows every last detailed spec of the storage tapes and could see a vulnerability they couldn't. But yeah, the idea that they couldn't even…

I think the full-on Tyler Durden version is the "truth" in the writers' minds, and the conclusion we are supposed to reach — but also that the show will never make it explicit.

True, but there's no reason he has to always be around. Honestly I don't find Christian Slater's performance all that compelling anyway, and could do with less of him. If the show has nothing going for it *other* than that mystery it's sunk anyway — but if by next season it can leave Mr. Robot out entirely for long…

We only see others talk to Mr. Robot when Elliot is around though, meaning those could just be times when Elliot is channeling Mr. Robot (but still seeing him as a separate person from his perspective).