4 out of 5

Yeah, most of these TV / movie preview deals are just blanket praise, and just net viewers who were already going to watch whichever show or movie anyway.  And dec0d3d – an hour long warm-up for Mr. Robot’s second season – is that, constantly reminding us of the praise the show received, its cultural impact, and promising info on crazy upcoming stuff, but the special does go the extra mile to underline, and I would say justify, why the show proved so popular to fans.

It’s a bit of a loop, but Mr. Robot steps through several layers to bring people on board, while at the same time making it clear that to talk about the show is to lay out some spoilers; it’s a good balance of perhaps swinging those who were on the fence by making the tone fairly open while also welcoming assured returners.  Some tech terms are explained, in case you were too lazy to look them up or just intuited from context, and the presentation is similarly respectful – informative but surface-level.  Examples between events that the show predicted and fictionalized from reality are reviewed, and the promise that “all of this is possible” is reinforced as part of the reason why the show had such a loyally growing following.  And perhaps most interestingly, the show’s resident tech advisor talks a bit about all of the work done to make sure that the tech that’s shown is real.

We also get some facetime with lead Rami Malek, and it’s incredibly comforting to see / hear that he seems to be actually intelligent.

All in all, it’s still a shill, but like the show itself, there’s nothing about dec0d3d that feels flim-flammery or Hollywood – those involved are proud of their accomplishment, and the special is fair proof that they should be.