The reveal of Elliot’s true relationship with his father was one of the biggest gut punches I’ve experienced in TV. And the brilliant thing is, all the clues were there the whole time, I just chose to ignore them.
Honestly, one of the most interesting and best pieces of writing advice in regards to endings that I heard was said by James Patterson. He said that when he was writing a novel, he would try to come up with like a few dozen to 50 endings for the story, ranging from the completely predictable to the unpredictable. Once he had all those options, he would choose an ending somewhere in the middle, which wasn't predictable but wasn't too unpredictable and out of nowhere and he would basically sort of rewrite the story to fit the chosen ending. I always liked it because how it recommended both the hard work ethic required for the craft of writing along with the idea of avoiding being predictable. I think it's a pretty dope piece of writing advice.
Published author here. My method, that I think writers could try, is planning the beginning and the end as a architect and the middle as a gardener, and changing details of the ending considering what happened in the middle without compromising the overall story.
YES. I'm working on a story myself at the moment and while I've always known how it ends, the details have changed and expanded as I've gone on. Knowing how it ends has allowed me to adjust and develop the themes and tone of my story as I write. Not having a clue where it was going would have turned it into a sprawling mess.
the gossip girl problem is the same with pretty little liars- these shows are so obviously written on the spot that it ruins the whole mystery in the first place, especially in later seasons
So glad to see you tackling Mr Robot. One of my personal favorite shows, but I’ve always felt that it never got the recognition it deserved alongside the other great shows of the past decade.
I recently watched a UA-cam video that mentioned it when tackling shows/movies that have unreliable narrators,check it out if you haven't I think it's called unreliable narrators (I think I might have seen a similar comment to yours in that video so my bad if it was you lol)
I love this. Not only Mr. Robot’s finale made perfect sense but it was also beautiful and I still think about the last 5 minutes all the time. As for Gossip Girl… even the actors hated it
You mention a few times how knowing the ending makes your story more thematically resonant, and I cannot overstate how much I agree - cohesive theme is the most important part of your story, twist or no twist. It is, to me, what makes the difference between a series of plot points and a *story*. Knowing your ending draws a conceptual line in the sand-constantly reminding you that: “hey, this is what you’re trying to say. These are the thoughts and feelings you want to leave your audience with”. It’s like bowling with the bumpers up.
This is true, but you can also not know the ending with certain stories. As a theoretical (and one that has played out in many great films), you can not focus on themes at all, and simply focus on character. Robert Eggers does this to great success in all of his films. In that case, the only thing you might have for an ending might be a moment where the characters themselves are pushed down into a life altering, theme-enlightening decision. And then, only after you've written it out, will you know what decision they make - and only then can your ending be decided upon. The most popular version of this is Breaking Bad. Vince didn't even think about how to end the show seriously until around season 3, and only put together a plan around season 4. They wouldn't have even been able to go down the path they went down, which was itself a legendary, for the ages story, had they planned the ending. That would have completely undermined and destroyed the spontaneity that guided the show down it's winding paths and made it feel so human, so real. They NEEDED to go in without a plan, because the ending was crafted through the process of writing. They were going to kill Jesse off in the first couple seasons. A pre-planned ending from there would completely eliminate the ending we got, which is arguably one of the best finales ever written. You can just not write an ending IF IT'S YOUR STYLE. Some people are so much better at connecting what has come before that the ending is crafted through the process of writing. Some need an ending to keep the process of writing on track. It's up to the individual, mostly. Sam is a wildly creative writer with an incredible talent for honing in on and exploring tones and moods and then building an amazing story around them - which is a skill that NEEDS to be guided by a planned route, otherwise you get lost.
@@fatuousinnovatorofsadness4640 same with Better Call Saul, but these are the best writers in the game so idk if anyone can do what they did hahhaha. They always write themselves in a corner but manage to handle it masterfully. One of the best examples is when Walter bought a machine gun in s5e1 but Vince himself didn't even know yet, why Walt would do that.
Stephen King is an advocate of the gardening approach to writing. A number of his works and a lot of his endings illustrate how this approach can go horribly wrong.
F***ing totally! I used to be a HUGE fan of him in my teens but in my mid twenties after reading some better books I came to LOATHE most of his works. I find it especially funny that in The Stand which is the fan favorite he confessed he didn't know what to do with the ending and then he had a "genius" realization to kill half of main characters and do this totally random thing with travelling on their feet to confront the main villain. But Needful Things takes the cake IMO - just totally f***ng silly and anticlimactic. (Sorry for my bad English btw - not a native and quite a bit tipsy when writing this lol)
@@twisted-t The Movie for Needful things. Just Max Von Sydow strolling out of the flaming building, brushing off debris and flames. "Oh well, guess this towns a bust, later losers" Is just hilarious. Anticlimatic as hell, but I feel fitting for the Devil/Flagg to just rob them of any form of catharsis.
Reading Under the Dome made me lose any interest of ever reading any of his other work again. It simply made me feel like the almost 1000 pages I'd been reading just didn't matter in the end. It was the first and last for me.
It seems to me that we writers tend to anchor on some advice. In the late 1960s I read Asimov’s advice that for writing fiction, he never put fingers to typewriter keys until he had his story's ending completely thought out. About that same time, I read Slaughterhouse Five. In it, author Vonnegut explained that he wrote his novel’s outline on the back of a long roll of wallpaper. I anchored on that. Thus, always in fiction, and where possible when writing nonfiction, I think out the end of my story, then create some version of an outline (some much more detailed than others) to reference, before putting fingers to keyboard. Now an old man, I’ve written about twenty-million words for others following those notions. Robert Beattie, New York Times bestselling author
In the pilot episode Elliot says”scratches the part of my mind that won’t allow good to exist without condition” then said to Mr Robot how he loved his trips to the city with his dad but hated going home(a payment required?)all the clues were there from the start 👍🏼
As far as archirect vs gardener, I architect the plot, but I garden the characters, which means they can and do often change the plot. Sometimes they need to be steered in a certain direction, but most often, the chaos of making their own decisions makes things better on every level. But a structure in the setting and antagonist are needed to have them react to.
@@quantummidget its on amazon prime. just get past the first 3 episdoes, its a slower burn because of all the early world building, but after ep 4 your are running full speed, because they establish most everything early on, and can focus on story, and character development from that point. based off the book series too.
Wait, Dan is actually Gossip Girl? I only watched the first four seasons before losing interest in the show. I honestly thought Dan being Gossip girl was just a meme someone made up because the identity was never revealed! And Dan was like, the most funny, unbelievable choice they could think about! Thanks for the video, great one as always! 😂
From what I've heard, Eric was supposed to be GG but fans figured it out way too early so the writers had to figure out something, and they went with the most ridiculous option
Yoko Taro writes the Nier series backwards. He starts with the ending of the story and then works his way backwards constantly adding little details and he makes it work everytime
I may have to watch the entire Mr Robot series for a third time now. You reminded me how and why the show was so amazing. Regarding Gossip Girl, it is stunning that with the amount of money and number of people involved they were still flailing in the dark. Perhaps art is best created by one or only a few close people who have a vision in mind. But we knew that. This video is a great encapsulation of that. Thanks
Mr. Robot will always be the best show ever made (imo)... We need More Showrunners and Producers like Sam Esmail and Vince Gilligan. And more shows should have a memorable score and utilize fantastic cinematography as in Mr. Robot, BCS, BB etc.
I feel that most dystopian YA book writers have the gardening approach. Books like the Maze Runner, Divergent, the chaos walking series, etc, they occasionally have a good first book, with an engaging story and an interesting world to discover. But once you reach to that last book, where is all pure chaos and nothing makes any sense, you realize that the writers have a cool concept but didn’t plan a cohesive ending for their story. Also another series that had an amazing ending, because every season was planned before filming, was Dark, that show was top tier for me, along side Mr. Robot. Btw, Sorry for any misspellings or grammar error, english is not my first language.
Knowing your ending applies to comedy as well. The first three seasons of Arrested Development have some amazing foreshadowing and, in my opinion, a great ending.
I straddle the line. I first make the world and characters like an architect, then change into a gardener that lets those characters bleed into the story. Changing the plan to suit the character arcs and themes I’m ‘gardening’.
I'm so worried that Severance might go the Gossip Girl route. The first season is honestly one of the best shows I have ever seen, but I really hope the showrunners have an idea of where the show is going.
You can have a crappy begining, a crappy middle but always make a big ending or everything will be waste. Something like this said irving in season 3 of mr robot
I think he probably did have an ending in mind tho. There was some tiny voice in his head saying "There is no way in hell this will end up in a happy place for Walter. "
Nah Gilligan was definitely an architect you could tell since the first scene of the 5th season that he had his ending planned now I believe in the beginning he was a gardener but he definitely became an architect when making season 3-5
Great analysis. It’s interesting how Mr. iRobot was intended to be a movie. The writers did a good job stretching the story for a full series. I, on the other hand, can barely connect point A to point B when I’m writing, so I’m beyond impressed. 💀
Not a fiction writer, but as a historian I’ve always planned out my papers beforehand However! That plan tends to be fairly thin and flexible. As you get more information and even as you write, you’re going to want to change things as you actualize. Typically, my thesis when I originally plot things out is going to be sharpened and more specific as part of the process, to the point that my starting point almost seems stupidly simplistic by the time I’m done. So, overall I lean towards the planning side of things while being aware enough to keep my options open ig 😂
Thank god I thought you might say something bad about mr robot (cus it has quite a bit of flaws despite it being one of my favorite shows) but then I saw it was up against Gossip Girl and I had a sigh of relief lmao
I don't know how much I agree with your video for once... I agree that, most of the time, if there is a mystery you are working towards, knowing the solution to that mystery is better. But I think that there are exceptions to that rule, especially when it comes to TV shows. Because TV shows are rarely written for the exact number of seasons they will last, which complicates the problem greatly. Something that make sense for one or two seasons, may not make sense after 8 more renewal because the show is popular. You might have to "fill" the seasons and make the character evolve in ways you hadn't planned just so that it stays entertaining. And these characters may end up being very different that the ones you were planning the ending for. And I think that GoT is an example of how to plan wrong and how not to plan wrong at the same time. The other example that I think contradicts this idea of planning in advance is How I Met Your Mother's ending. SPOILERS for both shows: So Game Of Thrones: -Didn't plan and it sucks: in s8e3 Arya kills the Nigh Kings. Makes no sense thematically, or narratively, even if she has the skills to do it. It should have been either John or Bran maybe (or Jaime? If you want a fun pun on "The King Slayer" title). The point is, they tried to be surprising, but it just came out of nowhere and was not satisfying because the character had no prior business or particular reason to make that move. They should have thought of that way earlier in the series and "prepare" a character for it (like John ffs) -Planned it and it sucked: in s8e5, Daenerys burns a city full of innocent people and then gets murdered for her crasyness. Though I'm not 100% sure about it, I'm pretty certain it's where they wanted the show to go from the start, and even where Martins is going to end the book series. Except the way they portrayed the character doesn't work at all with that ending. She never did something that insane; she can be ruthless, but she has a sense of justice and a constant need of saving innocents. This ending contradicts what has been presented to us throughout the show. They should have changed that ending. Either have her killed in battle, or make her take the throne. HIMYM: -This still pisses me off to this day XD They planned on having the mother die and Ted ending up with Robin. Except that was when the series was not 8 seasons in. They kept the ending they had planned, except the characters where NOT AT ALL where they needed to be for that ending to make sense. Ted had moved on, they actually managed to stick the landing with the mother reveal (after 8 seasons of anticipation she was a suprisingly good character), Robin was married to Barney who had progressively evolved from his bachelor life to engaging with someone he loves. And then they reversed litterally 5 seasons of character growth in 15minutes of the last episode to fullfil a stupid ass ending that didn't only created problems, not only narratively but also ethically. I think that planning an ending should be mandatory. BUT especially in the case of a TV show, re-evaluating that ending in the light of how much the show evolved is WAY more important than having an ending in the first place. Ultimately, I think it's not a dichotomy between being a planner or a gardener. In TV writing, you need to do both.
i truly believe that mr robot is a show you need to watch more than once to fully understand its beauty. it was very well executed and truly attention catching. its something that you cant put on as background noise. it took me multiple watches of each episode to appreciate it.
I really loved how it all came together in the final episodes of Mr Robot. All the things that were there since beginning - from Eliot jumping from his window was really him trying to save Darlene from their father to the very fact that Mastermind didn't remember who Darlene was - the clues were there from the start. There were some things along the way were I thought the show was losing it's way but they stuck the ending and so many shows fail at that.
Great use of Mr. Robot, one of the best TV endings ever, and one of the best shows ever in general. Love the insane twists and recontextualizatoins. I wonder which shows and endings you think are the best. For me The Shield, Mr. Robot, The Americans and The Sopranos have the best ending, though that may change cause I've gone back on finales before, like Breaking Bad's which is still great but felt too neat and tidy.
I think this one needs a follow up tbh, because it covers the importance of knowing your twists beforehand, but the importance of knowing your ending is not any less so when you aren't planning a twist and just want to do a straightforward ending, which is a different enough situation that I think it deserves a corollary discussion
I feel like your point is made really well comparing Avatar the Last Airbender to The Legend of Korra. With ATLA everyone knew it would end in a showdown with the firelord and everything else was just how they would prepare for it and get to that point. When they made Korra they didn't know they would get another season so they just had a villain per season which made everything feel disjointed in comparison to its predecessor.
There are three types of writer: Planner - has an outline from start to finish, planning out their story framework before starting Pantser - has an idea and just sits down to start writing, using a 'by the seat of their pants' method Plantser - a hybrid with an general idea of the direction for their story but who lets the story go where it takes them as they write and adjusts as they go
Yes, 100% agree. I'm mostly a gardener writer, but the only stories I finish are the ones where I know how it's going to end, even if I have no idea how I'm going to get there. That doesn't mean I never tweak HOW that ending plays out, to better fit with new things I discover along the way, but it does mean that I, at the very least, have the definitive 'yes or no' answer to original question my story arose from.
Yes! You finally covered my favorite TV show. I've watched it through 3 times by now, and it's one of the only shows I own on disc. I can only hope one day you’ll do a deeper analysis of this masterpiece, even if you crap on it a little lol
Knowing your ending is everything; the basic ideas he left in notes and ideas he shared with his friend is the reason why the Berserk series will be able to finish despite the death of Miura. Compared to CLAMP, who said it was unlikely they'd pick pick up X/1999 again (despite it being on a something like a +15 year hiatus). One of their greatest manga, and we'll never learn how it ends 😢
I've never seen the original gossip girl (I watched 8 episodes of the reboot and I hated it) I watched all of Mr Robot last month and it's stayed with me to this day. Rami Malek was superb and it had the best ending of a show I loved since Nikita (CW)
AoT is another exampple of amazing storytelling from having the writer know the ending but also flexible enough to re-write based on the journey to the finish line.
You know shows that didn’t learn this with their endings? Lost, Dexter, and the most recent shows Killing Eve and Ozark. Man, did Ozark piss me off more. It was like the creators stopped giving a damn. Would be interesting to see you tackle these shows in your Finale Face-Off series (Which I’m surprised that this video isn’t part of your series).
@@Bugga-Ray-Dudley , it had the most stupid final episode and ending. Character arcs went downhill, the story became so inconsistent, and so many moments felt contrived and not smart. It even left so many questions unanswered.
A garden has a shape. That is what differs it from wild growth. You may need to plot out patches of land, decide where tomatoes grow, and try to figure out if marigolds really trick rabbits off the scent of vegetables. Those that profess to be gardeners but play no mind to structure at all miss this bit of the metaphor. Excellent piece, as always.
If you want to talk about a show not knowing it's own ending, look no further than Pretty Little Liars. Holy hell talk about a out of nowhere reveal and a lackluster ending that seemed like a last minute add in.
I suspect a lot of the "writing without an ending in mind" comes from the old network model, where if a show suddenly becomes a hit, the network will want seven more seasons, requiring the creators to either tread water getting to their destination, or else to keep coming up with new destinations. You would hope that needing to tell one coherent story with a planned ending would mean the creators would say "we need four seasons to get there and that's all we're making", yet I think we all know that this doesn't fly if a show suddenly blows up and everyone starts seeing $$$. Mr. Robot was perfect.
I do not envy the writers of long form television. My own writing process usually involves coming up with a bunch of different, yet slightly similar ideas, writing plot point outlines for each, picking my favorite parts of each, combining that into a Frankenstein's monster version of an outline, then letting the characters drive the smaller details of the story as I actually write it. Needless to say, it requires several rewrites to be at all consistent and the whole process is far from efficient, heh heh
As someone who watched Mr. Robot when it first aired every week(I even won a hoodie from their viral marketing strategy).....the ending for me was perfect and tied every up nicely. The second watch through is definitely amazing.
Here’s a better way of thinking it… you NEED TO KNOW YOUR ENDING IF… you’ve got a twist or if there’s a running prevailing mystery going within the series. If it’s a story that’s not exactly supposed to reveal anything that recontextualized the entire story then it’s not as important. But if you absolutely want a story that has any grand reveal you NEED to know it. It’s the difference between Sherlock the tv show vs Sherlock Holmes, the better one. The show basically just made Sherlock know everything all the time all at once, sometimes figuring stuff out off screen like some bullshit anime character we’ve seen too much of. They didn’t really have an ending in mind (if they did they didn’t really do the lead up or pay off very well whatsoever) while the old stories you and Holmes discovering the actual mystery unfold WITH a decisive person known in the end. If you wanna be like Tarantino, welll that’s harder but not necessarily impossible, just DO NOT make a grand reveal, and instead end it off in a way that feels more in line with the story’s through line. He’s stated in multiple interviews that he doesn’t know the ending nor wants to until he gets there, mainly because his characters at that point are completely different people. Sooooo just know what kind of story you want and go from there :D
Journeys tend to, by the nature of their own structure, have very satisfying endings because every journey has a destination, a culmination of all the previous events. You just need to not make a boring middle (easier said than done) and make the end of the journey valuable (saving the kingdom, reclaiming a birthright, getting treasure, that kind of stuff.). They also allow for some "filler" and episodic instances that people generally like to see (like characters taking a break to relax, visiting different countries, varied biomes etc.), as long as they are not too damaging to the overall pace.
I've heard these types of writers somewhat jokingly referred to as "plotters" and "pantsers". Plotters plot their stories out meticulously while pantsers fly by the seat of their pants XD I'm definitely in the latter category, as I do not have patience to think of *everything* before I start writing. But I 100% agree that the ending needs to be known first -- at the very least so you can keep your book thematically consistent as you go. Using the gardening metaphor -- if you don't know what you want your garden to look like when it's all grown and blooming, you won't know what to plant/trim/etc.
You gotta be both gardener and architect, breaking bad had Jessie dying but they like Aaron Paul so much they made him a main character and changed the story
When I write, I always make several drafts. But the first thing I do is make a note of the most important situations of the plot. A beginning, middle, and end. I always think of the ending in advance, but not so strictly that I cannot make any changes to the flow or creativity of the story if I so wish. It really works out well for me. Because my first book I ever wrote (at age 15, so bear with me) was something that I wrote when I woke up in the middle of the night and just came up with an idea. I hadn't planned out a proper ending in advance, and as a result, the ending felt a little random. Now I use this formula where I think of major points and the ending in advance, but leave enough room for creative changes and things I can add along the way. It really makes me enjoy writing more, because I feel like I am actually going somewhere when I write as opposed to just winging it.
I wish I could forget Mr. Robot so I could experience it as if it were the first time. But I have marathon the series 4 times and the ending still makes me cry.
also its completely fine to be a gardener if you are working on a standalone movie. By the time you start shooting, you'll have the ending pretty much.
Make plans, or at least one coherent plan. It's a good habit you can have even if you don't need to write a multiple-seasons-show. You can abandon you plan if you got a better one. But zero plans will be the worst scenario you can get yourself in to.
I make sense of the revelation that Dan was GG by imagining the character a far left or anarchist agent, planted by his comrades among "Manhattan's elite" to instill distrust and burnt bridges in the latest crop to soften up the whole foundation for a swifter revolution. Of course he ultimately failed and settled squarely in the wasp's nest himself, but that's ok, maybe he just sucked at what he did and fell to a "can't beat 'em join 'em" mentality. But that about explains everything.
A lot of long-running Japanese manga have this problem. They don't know how to end their story, some didn't think about it, some had it in mind but drift away as they go because they keep adding more and more plots to make the story move on and on, instead of heading to the end or achieving the goals.
Hey, thanks for pointing out that My story might not ever have an ending. Now I might actually drop my passion project, as it went through over 1000 years of in-story development and an ending wasn’t even on the cards, though the themes were explored in great depth. Now I will never complete it.
@@MacabreStorytelling Considering that the founding premise was a guy stumbling into the infinite multiverse at 18 and falling ass backwards from death to a version of immortality at 38/58, I’d say that it’s like trying to fit tungsten cube into a steel peg hole.
Given all story comes from character, I cannot agree more regarding the necessity of (generally) knowing your ending from the start - but also being open to your characters leading you to a new/better one. That being said, I’m not sold on Mr. Robot as an example of a show sticking the landing. Having finished the series without knowledge of Esmail’s claim to have known its ending from the start - if you believe that to begin with - the ending, to me, felt very jump-the-shark. A sort of left-field subversion of Fight Club, which is where, in my mind, the series was leading me. So, to each his is own, but “one of the greatest television series of all time,” a masterpiece? In the words of Tony Soprano, “Get the fuck outta here.” Great work as always, Mac.
Breaking Bad might be the only objection to the rule, but they at least had a built in ending that played out all the write notes. Mr Robot the opposite but just as good. Dexter on the other hand...
What I find interesting is breaking bad was purely gardening and it turned out great. Vince Gilligan is on record saying that they were flying by the seat of their pants the entire series
I found the ending of Mr. Robot incredibly offensive (apart from the fact that it completely missed what it was trying to portray, or at the very best, mislabeled it)-enough that it ruined what I could watch of the show for me-but you’re absolutely right. I feel like a ton of recent shows have either fallen into the trap of going on way longer than they should, or not knowing the ending that they’re heading towards and stumbling when it comes. My own issues aside, this is a fantastic analysis!
@@ajiththomas2465 It was the division of the ‘real’ part vs. the ‘others’, and the suggestion that the Others had to give the Real One his life back. First off, I saw the whole show was portraying OSDD, not DID. Speaking from experience, because mine with DID looks absolutely nothing like it showed whatsoever. I didn’t know I had it until I was diagnosed. I have absolutely no awareness of other parts, let alone internal communication, shared knowledge/experiences/memories/abilities/influence of any kind, or ability to transfer those things to any other parts. I didn’t know I had it and never would have guessed I did until I was diagnosed. Rami and Christian converse and share information with each other in real-time, instead of very delayed note-leaving or other physical, external means while one is out for the other to find later. That’s internal communication. The younger one shares memories that Rami then remembers himself as autobiographical memories- that’s transferring and, again, internal communication. The show was very back and forth between ‘Christian and Rami’s memories are segregated’ and ‘Christian and Rami experience things together’, which seemed like co-consciousness(?) but many with DID (like us) are just not capable to achieve that, and it requires deliberate effort to GET to that ability for those who do. There are scenes where one switches to the other and just fluidly picks up exactly where they left off, seems completely aware of what the one who was previously out was doing, like the first time that Christian meets the therapist. He knew where he was, who she was, and the conversation being had. Plus some parts knew things about others without being told, which tracks for OSDD. I don’t know anything about other parts without being informed through writing or another person as liaison. Some with DID are able to establish a little of this, but not many like myself, and not pre-diagnosis or without extensive effort if they even can. Christian seemed aware of Rami long before, and Rami was interacting with Christian before he even knew he was another part at all? With DID, I have no awareness of other parts in any forms. We have no shared conscious times, knowledge or skills, memories, thoughts or feelings, etc. And that includes influence from other parts- I never ‘feel’ other parts or change myself in any way; my conscious experience is literally identical to yours, except that mine happens in 1-4 hour intervals days apart (though I never know that that time passed until I look at my watch and see that it’s actually days after the thing I thought I was doing a minute ago.) The other problem I have is the finale- Rami was designated the ‘real Elliot’ and MM was told he ‘had to give his life back to him.’ This is completely gross and dehumanizing. We’re all equally complete, real, and entitled to our own life. We are not the ‘alternate’ version or fragments of one ‘real’ or whole self. We’re separate individual people. The term ‘alter’ never meant ‘alternate self,’ ‘alternate personality,’ or ‘altered ego’- it means AlterED State of Consciousness. Because our brain has multiple fully formed, equally complex, equally real conscious states. We don’t form by one Original person splitting apart; we form because the brain’s developing functional states (discrete behaviors, emotional states, conscious state, etc.) are disrupted from unifying by extreme and constant trauma before the age of 5-6. For me, it started at birth. A person cannot be physically or cognitively functional without all of those parts, so they all develop what they’re missing once it goes on for so long that it becomes clear they’ll never unify and gain what they need. That means there is no ‘original’, ‘whole’, or ‘real’ one- I’m exactly as complete and complex and human being as you. On my own. And I’m just as entitled to my life as you are, because we’re literally the same. The goal is for whoever can to contribute to collective needs, like hygiene, eating, taking medication, sleeping, etc. (which benefits everyone because those who can’t like me aren’t affecting everyone else with our limitations), which allows for us all to have our individual lives safely in return that no one else needs to be filled in on. Communication through things like leaving notes where others can find them later, or for those who have other people in their lives, using messengers/liaisons, for the collective needs is crucial. There’s no way to be sure everyone is, or make them do it if they aren’t aware or choose not to, but you work with who will. To say that I’m not real or that I’m not entitled to live my life is fucking inhumane. It honestly floored me hearing that- I felt like the whole series was unsalvageable by that point no matter _what_ it was portraying. I hope that helps!
@@jasond.b-w Wow, that was a long read but I perfectly understand where you're coming from. While I can't relate to your specific mental condition nor do I have any real in-depth knowledge of it, I am neurodivergent myself with ADD and Asperger's, albeit a high functioning one. And I appreciate the detail and clarity in your description of why you didn't like the ending of Mr. Robot and why you felt personally betrayed and dehumanized by it. If I were to be charitable to the showrunners of Mr. Robot, my guess is that they weren't intending to be a super realistic take on alter personalities and was going for a more pop culture idea of it but I don't think offending people with your particular mental condition was the intention. But I totally understand and respect why you didn't like the ending of Mr. Robot and I'm glad that I learned quite a few new things today thanks to you. So thanks for that. ;)
@@ajiththomas2465 Valid! The point on ‘not intending to show a realistic portrayal’ is exactly why I do not think that creators should be using this-or any-real psychiatric diagnosis to tell their stories if that isn’t the goal (and if it isn’t coming from an authentic point of view.) I’ve recently said the same thing about Moon Knight. It is completely fucking dangerous, let alone disrespectful, to slap a real experience’s label onto a different experience’s portrayal. (In the case of MK, it’s also gross and inappropriate to superhero-ize a disability.) If you’re not writing from a place of firsthand experience and attempting to get your subject matter correct, in the case of disability-and especially heavily demonized and misunderstood disability-do not claim that label at all. That isn’t their story to tell, let alone to twist around with false ideas and harmful opinions to make the point that they want. Thanks for being open to my perspective. I’m sorry you experience this too.
I completely agree with 95% of what you said in the video. Stuff like an ending is the most important part of the story. Mr. Robot had arguably the greatest ending of any piece of media out there. I read about 1000 theories for how the show would end before the finale aired and none of them were true, the actual ending was completely different and still completely satisfying and so on point for the characters and it's just absolutely drop-dead beautiful. I am just thankful to everyone involved with Mr. Robot for creating this GOAT masterpiece. However, I do disagree with one point in your video that HIMYM and GOT comparison. HIMYM's ending did make sense and it does stay true to its characters. The only thing is that the creators had kept both the endings till the last possible second and planted seeds for both cases so that whatever they choose would make sense. I've seen that show 17 times and I will defend its ending as much as I can. GOT's ending on the other hand was not only rushed but was also extremely poorly executed and is just plain bad. I don't think comparing these two in the same manner as having bad endings is fair. Great video though brother, I hope more people watch Mr. Robot and make videos about it.
The Mr. Robot and Fight Club endings both leave us with this sort of idealistic anarchist ambiguous conclusion without a visible aftermath of what a world without the villain looks like. Both never show the power vacuum and vice that will continue to plague man even after the fall of the evil predecessor. In short, it's human nature to do and undo.
When I look back on shows like the rebooted Battlestar Galactica, which was looked at at the time the way GoT was in later years the one major reason that I believe it isn't really remembered today is because it was clear ( from listening to the commentary track ) that they had no idea, or at best a very vague idea of how it and all the plot threads were going to end, and because that ending was unsatisfactory to a lot of the audience, it's just a minor footnote today. As for Star Wars, I still believe that while the ending was basically what Lucas intended, we would have had a completely different ending to the first trilogy if Star Wars had been only moderately successful rather than the toy selling phenomenon that it became.
I wasn’t a fan of season 2 of mr robot. But season 1 was a masterpiece. As cliche as it is IDC but fight club is my favorite movie of all time so it really resonated with me bc I didn’t catch it until the reveal. And all that yummy serotonin flowed thru my brain.
Mr Robot was brilliant, but it lost a LOT of points because the big subplot about White Rose's mysterious machine went nowhere. The machine failed, and we never even learned its purpose.
Mr Robot was pretty dope. I think Season 1 is amazing, S2 dips a little, S3 gets back on track, and S4 is masterful. I never watched Gossip Girl, so I can't speak to it (and I'm skipping that section because who knows? Maybe I'll check it out someday), but I do have some thoughts about other finales based on "Knowing your Ending"... I find the ending of *Game of Thrones* complicated because how can they know their ending when the books never got finished! I'm giving them some leeway here, lol. I can do no such thing for *Killing Eve* who's finale was an unmitigated disaster, predicated by the push and pull between pandering to shippers or being true to the story logic. *Avatar The Last Airbender* and *The Legend of Korra* are two ends of an interesting spectrum. The most satisfying finale I may have ever watched is actually from the Avatar cartoon. This is a textbook example of what having a roadmap looks like, and executing it to a T. Animation, by nature has to plan things out in advance, which is why it's so baffling the sequel series, Korra, had an ending that was much more rushed. With *L O S T* there's much debate about if the creators knew their ending or not, and if so, how long they knew it. Going into that controversial finale, I was ready for anything. A lot of viewers felt questions weren't answered (they were, they were just unsatisfying), but I'm of the mind their finale 'got away with it,' because it did connect with me emotionally, and I'd argue that's important too. On that token, I also think *The Leftovers* has a similarly strong, emotional finale, and it's from one of the same guys. *Endings coming soon* Strangers Things has announced and an date, and imo, this is a series that probably should have been an anthology after Season 1. They have their work cut out for them... Better Call Saul is also wrapping up, and them knowing their ending is unique in that as a prequel, it has to dovetail into an established series. I can't think of any other TV examples they can follow for inspiration.... I've been watching the Attack on Titan anime, and having not read the manga, I have no idea how it will conclude. Seemingly, adaptations shouldn't have this 'know your ending' problem, right? The source material is basically storytelling insurance.
Journeys tend to, by the nature of their own structure, have very satisfying endings because every journey has a destination, a culmination of all the previous events. You just need to not make a boring middle (easier said than done) and make the end of the journey valuable (saving the kingdom, reclaiming a birthright, getting treasure, that kind of stuff.). They also allow for some "filler" and episodic instances that people generally like to see (like characters taking a break to relax, visiting different countries, varied biomes etc.), as long as they are not too damaging to the overall pace.
So, addressing the point of Avatar (which was the reason why I wrote all of that above). The first series had a very clear ending: stop the Fire Nation and save the world. We had three seasons for the characters to grow in that journey, experiencing a lot of different situations and exploring the world they would like to save, building towards the final moment they would defeat Ozai. On the other hand, Korra did not go on a journey like the Aang, and did not have a "Final Big Bad" to beat. In this case, Korra had villains PER SEASON, with which one of them representing an ideology, not necessarily building up from each other and, again, only one season to flesh out the antagonists - some of them were more compelling than others, and the quality and pace of the seasons varied; the same with escalation of the tension. I actually like Korra series, but Avatar had a more "reliable" structure for the writers to work with it.
The reveal of Elliot’s true relationship with his father was one of the biggest gut punches I’ve experienced in TV. And the brilliant thing is, all the clues were there the whole time, I just chose to ignore them.
The “clues” didn’t give you any information to actually predict it , then they use a random plot device they threw out lmaoo
@@luluna5228what?
@@luluna5228Wdym?
@@luluna5228Wdym?
Honestly, one of the most interesting and best pieces of writing advice in regards to endings that I heard was said by James Patterson. He said that when he was writing a novel, he would try to come up with like a few dozen to 50 endings for the story, ranging from the completely predictable to the unpredictable. Once he had all those options, he would choose an ending somewhere in the middle, which wasn't predictable but wasn't too unpredictable and out of nowhere and he would basically sort of rewrite the story to fit the chosen ending. I always liked it because how it recommended both the hard work ethic required for the craft of writing along with the idea of avoiding being predictable. I think it's a pretty dope piece of writing advice.
Thats a basic technique but ok
@@ESALTEREGO man you must be fun at parties, huh
@@_laurenolo_ yep, any objections?
@@ESALTEREGO Yes.
@@ESALTEREGO , разъебал, брат. А на 'меликанцев не смотри ауф ☝😔
Published author here. My method, that I think writers could try, is planning the beginning and the end as a architect and the middle as a gardener, and changing details of the ending considering what happened in the middle without compromising the overall story.
YES.
I'm working on a story myself at the moment and while I've always known how it ends, the details have changed and expanded as I've gone on.
Knowing how it ends has allowed me to adjust and develop the themes and tone of my story as I write. Not having a clue where it was going would have turned it into a sprawling mess.
awesome take
the gossip girl problem is the same with pretty little liars- these shows are so obviously written on the spot that it ruins the whole mystery in the first place, especially in later seasons
Mr Robot is one of the best shows ever made. I’m usually dead inside and that fourth season made me feel so many things
So glad to see you tackling Mr Robot. One of my personal favorite shows, but I’ve always felt that it never got the recognition it deserved alongside the other great shows of the past decade.
I recently watched a UA-cam video that mentioned it when tackling shows/movies that have unreliable narrators,check it out if you haven't I think it's called unreliable narrators (I think I might have seen a similar comment to yours in that video so my bad if it was you lol)
@zetta _ barry and mr robot top tier
the dialogue in mr robot is kinda cringy :(
Mr robot is utter garbage
@@navarone4031 care to provide an example?
Love mr robot. The therapy episode with Vera was one of the best tv episodes I've ever seen.
It’s a masterpiece
I love this. Not only Mr. Robot’s finale made perfect sense but it was also beautiful and I still think about the last 5 minutes all the time. As for Gossip Girl… even the actors hated it
You mention a few times how knowing the ending makes your story more thematically resonant, and I cannot overstate how much I agree - cohesive theme is the most important part of your story, twist or no twist. It is, to me, what makes the difference between a series of plot points and a *story*.
Knowing your ending draws a conceptual line in the sand-constantly reminding you that: “hey, this is what you’re trying to say. These are the thoughts and feelings you want to leave your audience with”.
It’s like bowling with the bumpers up.
This is true, but you can also not know the ending with certain stories. As a theoretical (and one that has played out in many great films), you can not focus on themes at all, and simply focus on character. Robert Eggers does this to great success in all of his films. In that case, the only thing you might have for an ending might be a moment where the characters themselves are pushed down into a life altering, theme-enlightening decision. And then, only after you've written it out, will you know what decision they make - and only then can your ending be decided upon.
The most popular version of this is Breaking Bad. Vince didn't even think about how to end the show seriously until around season 3, and only put together a plan around season 4. They wouldn't have even been able to go down the path they went down, which was itself a legendary, for the ages story, had they planned the ending. That would have completely undermined and destroyed the spontaneity that guided the show down it's winding paths and made it feel so human, so real. They NEEDED to go in without a plan, because the ending was crafted through the process of writing. They were going to kill Jesse off in the first couple seasons. A pre-planned ending from there would completely eliminate the ending we got, which is arguably one of the best finales ever written.
You can just not write an ending IF IT'S YOUR STYLE. Some people are so much better at connecting what has come before that the ending is crafted through the process of writing. Some need an ending to keep the process of writing on track. It's up to the individual, mostly. Sam is a wildly creative writer with an incredible talent for honing in on and exploring tones and moods and then building an amazing story around them - which is a skill that NEEDS to be guided by a planned route, otherwise you get lost.
@@fatuousinnovatorofsadness4640 same with Better Call Saul, but these are the best writers in the game so idk if anyone can do what they did hahhaha. They always write themselves in a corner but manage to handle it masterfully. One of the best examples is when Walter bought a machine gun in s5e1 but Vince himself didn't even know yet, why Walt would do that.
Stephen King is an advocate of the gardening approach to writing. A number of his works and a lot of his endings illustrate how this approach can go horribly wrong.
F***ing totally! I used to be a HUGE fan of him in my teens but in my mid twenties after reading some better books I came to LOATHE most of his works. I find it especially funny that in The Stand which is the fan favorite he confessed he didn't know what to do with the ending and then he had a "genius" realization to kill half of main characters and do this totally random thing with travelling on their feet to confront the main villain. But Needful Things takes the cake IMO - just totally f***ng silly and anticlimactic. (Sorry for my bad English btw - not a native and quite a bit tipsy when writing this lol)
@@twisted-t The Movie for Needful things. Just Max Von Sydow strolling out of the flaming building, brushing off debris and flames. "Oh well, guess this towns a bust, later losers" Is just hilarious. Anticlimatic as hell, but I feel fitting for the Devil/Flagg to just rob them of any form of catharsis.
Reading Under the Dome made me lose any interest of ever reading any of his other work again. It simply made me feel like the almost 1000 pages I'd been reading just didn't matter in the end. It was the first and last for me.
@@bulbafett5001 my "favorite" part was the main characters simply gaining magic powers cause "just believe, baby".
@@weslleyfj the first book of his I just gave up on after reading about 100 pages.
I’m so glad Mr Robot is getting its posthumous flowers for its incredibly cohesive execution and restraint
It seems to me that we writers tend to anchor on some advice. In the late 1960s I read Asimov’s advice that for writing fiction, he never put fingers to typewriter keys until he had his story's ending completely thought out. About that same time, I read Slaughterhouse Five. In it, author Vonnegut explained that he wrote his novel’s outline on the back of a long roll of wallpaper. I anchored on that. Thus, always in fiction, and where possible when writing nonfiction, I think out the end of my story, then create some version of an outline (some much more detailed than others) to reference, before putting fingers to keyboard. Now an old man, I’ve written about twenty-million words for others following those notions. Robert Beattie, New York Times bestselling author
In the pilot episode Elliot says”scratches the part of my mind that won’t allow good to exist without condition” then said to Mr Robot how he loved his trips to the city with his dad but hated going home(a payment required?)all the clues were there from the start 👍🏼
As far as archirect vs gardener, I architect the plot, but I garden the characters, which means they can and do often change the plot.
Sometimes they need to be steered in a certain direction, but most often, the chaos of making their own decisions makes things better on every level. But a structure in the setting and antagonist are needed to have them react to.
mr robot is my favorite show of all time, and im so happy that someone is talking about it! it honestly doesn’t get the recognition it deserves
It really doesn't, I'm always amazed by how few people have watched it.
I'd suggest giving The Expanse a chance. That is another awesome show if you are looking to fill the void of Mr Robot, being finished.
@@dustinherk8124 cheers, I'll add it to my list
@@quantummidget its on amazon prime. just get past the first 3 episdoes, its a slower burn because of all the early world building, but after ep 4 your are running full speed, because they establish most everything early on, and can focus on story, and character development from that point. based off the book series too.
Wait, Dan is actually Gossip Girl? I only watched the first four seasons before losing interest in the show. I honestly thought Dan being Gossip girl was just a meme someone made up because the identity was never revealed! And Dan was like, the most funny, unbelievable choice they could think about! Thanks for the video, great one as always! 😂
From what I've heard, Eric was supposed to be GG but fans figured it out way too early so the writers had to figure out something, and they went with the most ridiculous option
Yoko Taro writes the Nier series backwards. He starts with the ending of the story and then works his way backwards constantly adding little details and he makes it work everytime
I may have to watch the entire Mr Robot series for a third time now. You reminded me how and why the show was so amazing.
Regarding Gossip Girl, it is stunning that with the amount of money and number of people involved they were still flailing in the dark.
Perhaps art is best created by one or only a few close people who have a vision in mind. But we knew that. This video is a great encapsulation of that. Thanks
Mr. Robot will always be the best show ever made (imo)... We need More Showrunners and Producers like Sam Esmail and Vince Gilligan. And more shows should have a memorable score and utilize fantastic cinematography as in Mr. Robot, BCS, BB etc.
Mr.Robot is peak television
Thank you for treating Mr. Robot with the respect it deserves
I feel that most dystopian YA book writers have the gardening approach. Books like the Maze Runner, Divergent, the chaos walking series, etc, they occasionally have a good first book, with an engaging story and an interesting world to discover. But once you reach to that last book, where is all pure chaos and nothing makes any sense, you realize that the writers have a cool concept but didn’t plan a cohesive ending for their story.
Also another series that had an amazing ending, because every season was planned before filming, was Dark, that show was top tier for me, along side Mr. Robot.
Btw, Sorry for any misspellings or grammar error, english is not my first language.
I feel like I’m more of a gardner/pantser, but I often start the story knowing how it’s supposed to end more or less
Knowing your ending applies to comedy as well. The first three seasons of Arrested Development have some amazing foreshadowing and, in my opinion, a great ending.
I straddle the line. I first make the world and characters like an architect, then change into a gardener that lets those characters bleed into the story. Changing the plan to suit the character arcs and themes I’m ‘gardening’.
I'm so worried that Severance might go the Gossip Girl route. The first season is honestly one of the best shows I have ever seen, but I really hope the showrunners have an idea of where the show is going.
You can have a crappy begining, a crappy middle but always make a big ending or everything will be waste. Something like this said irving in season 3 of mr robot
While I totally agree with the points you made in this video, it must be stated that Vince Gilligan makes a pretty good case for being a Gardener.
I think he probably did have an ending in mind tho. There was some tiny voice in his head saying "There is no way in hell this will end up in a happy place for Walter. "
Nah Gilligan was definitely an architect you could tell since the first scene of the 5th season that he had his ending planned now I believe in the beginning he was a gardener but he definitely became an architect when making season 3-5
Great analysis. It’s interesting how Mr. iRobot was intended to be a movie. The writers did a good job stretching the story for a full series. I, on the other hand, can barely connect point A to point B when I’m writing, so I’m beyond impressed. 💀
Not a fiction writer, but as a historian I’ve always planned out my papers beforehand
However! That plan tends to be fairly thin and flexible. As you get more information and even as you write, you’re going to want to change things as you actualize. Typically, my thesis when I originally plot things out is going to be sharpened and more specific as part of the process, to the point that my starting point almost seems stupidly simplistic by the time I’m done.
So, overall I lean towards the planning side of things while being aware enough to keep my options open ig 😂
One of the biggest example of architect is definitely Attack On Titan. It foreshadows so much but it is always so subtle.
Thank god I thought you might say something bad about mr robot (cus it has quite a bit of flaws despite it being one of my favorite shows) but then I saw it was up against Gossip Girl and I had a sigh of relief lmao
I don't know how much I agree with your video for once...
I agree that, most of the time, if there is a mystery you are working towards, knowing the solution to that mystery is better. But I think that there are exceptions to that rule, especially when it comes to TV shows. Because TV shows are rarely written for the exact number of seasons they will last, which complicates the problem greatly. Something that make sense for one or two seasons, may not make sense after 8 more renewal because the show is popular. You might have to "fill" the seasons and make the character evolve in ways you hadn't planned just so that it stays entertaining. And these characters may end up being very different that the ones you were planning the ending for. And I think that GoT is an example of how to plan wrong and how not to plan wrong at the same time. The other example that I think contradicts this idea of planning in advance is How I Met Your Mother's ending. SPOILERS for both shows:
So Game Of Thrones:
-Didn't plan and it sucks: in s8e3 Arya kills the Nigh Kings. Makes no sense thematically, or narratively, even if she has the skills to do it. It should have been either John or Bran maybe (or Jaime? If you want a fun pun on "The King Slayer" title). The point is, they tried to be surprising, but it just came out of nowhere and was not satisfying because the character had no prior business or particular reason to make that move. They should have thought of that way earlier in the series and "prepare" a character for it (like John ffs)
-Planned it and it sucked: in s8e5, Daenerys burns a city full of innocent people and then gets murdered for her crasyness. Though I'm not 100% sure about it, I'm pretty certain it's where they wanted the show to go from the start, and even where Martins is going to end the book series. Except the way they portrayed the character doesn't work at all with that ending. She never did something that insane; she can be ruthless, but she has a sense of justice and a constant need of saving innocents. This ending contradicts what has been presented to us throughout the show. They should have changed that ending. Either have her killed in battle, or make her take the throne.
HIMYM:
-This still pisses me off to this day XD They planned on having the mother die and Ted ending up with Robin. Except that was when the series was not 8 seasons in. They kept the ending they had planned, except the characters where NOT AT ALL where they needed to be for that ending to make sense. Ted had moved on, they actually managed to stick the landing with the mother reveal (after 8 seasons of anticipation she was a suprisingly good character), Robin was married to Barney who had progressively evolved from his bachelor life to engaging with someone he loves. And then they reversed litterally 5 seasons of character growth in 15minutes of the last episode to fullfil a stupid ass ending that didn't only created problems, not only narratively but also ethically.
I think that planning an ending should be mandatory. BUT especially in the case of a TV show, re-evaluating that ending in the light of how much the show evolved is WAY more important than having an ending in the first place.
Ultimately, I think it's not a dichotomy between being a planner or a gardener. In TV writing, you need to do both.
Lets go I left a comment real long ago pleading for a mr robot video, I cant believe my eyes
The ending of Mr. Robot left me feeling existential.
i truly believe that mr robot is a show you need to watch more than once to fully understand its beauty. it was very well executed and truly attention catching. its something that you cant put on as background noise. it took me multiple watches of each episode to appreciate it.
I really loved how it all came together in the final episodes of Mr Robot. All the things that were there since beginning - from Eliot jumping from his window was really him trying to save Darlene from their father to the very fact that Mastermind didn't remember who Darlene was - the clues were there from the start. There were some things along the way were I thought the show was losing it's way but they stuck the ending and so many shows fail at that.
Great use of Mr. Robot, one of the best TV endings ever, and one of the best shows ever in general. Love the insane twists and recontextualizatoins. I wonder which shows and endings you think are the best. For me The Shield, Mr. Robot, The Americans and The Sopranos have the best ending, though that may change cause I've gone back on finales before, like Breaking Bad's which is still great but felt too neat and tidy.
The Shield’s ending was fucking crazy. A lot of stories fail in that they’re consequence-averse. That episode, however, was a gut punch.
I think this one needs a follow up tbh, because it covers the importance of knowing your twists beforehand, but the importance of knowing your ending is not any less so when you aren't planning a twist and just want to do a straightforward ending, which is a different enough situation that I think it deserves a corollary discussion
MR. Robot is a masterpiece and the greatest show of my lifetime.
I feel like your point is made really well comparing Avatar the Last Airbender to The Legend of Korra. With ATLA everyone knew it would end in a showdown with the firelord and everything else was just how they would prepare for it and get to that point. When they made Korra they didn't know they would get another season so they just had a villain per season which made everything feel disjointed in comparison to its predecessor.
There are three types of writer:
Planner - has an outline from start to finish, planning out their story framework before starting
Pantser - has an idea and just sits down to start writing, using a 'by the seat of their pants' method
Plantser - a hybrid with an general idea of the direction for their story but who lets the story go where it takes them as they write and adjusts as they go
I’m not a huge fan of Penn Badgely’s shows, but I very much enjoy his criticism of the shows his own characters. Poor guy deserves better writing.
Yes, 100% agree. I'm mostly a gardener writer, but the only stories I finish are the ones where I know how it's going to end, even if I have no idea how I'm going to get there. That doesn't mean I never tweak HOW that ending plays out, to better fit with new things I discover along the way, but it does mean that I, at the very least, have the definitive 'yes or no' answer to original question my story arose from.
Yes! You finally covered my favorite TV show. I've watched it through 3 times by now, and it's one of the only shows I own on disc. I can only hope one day you’ll do a deeper analysis of this masterpiece, even if you crap on it a little lol
Knowing your ending is everything; the basic ideas he left in notes and ideas he shared with his friend is the reason why the Berserk series will be able to finish despite the death of Miura. Compared to CLAMP, who said it was unlikely they'd pick pick up X/1999 again (despite it being on a something like a +15 year hiatus). One of their greatest manga, and we'll never learn how it ends 😢
"You can't go back an edit shit to make it all fit together"
George Lucas... Watch me...
I've never seen the original gossip girl (I watched 8 episodes of the reboot and I hated it)
I watched all of Mr Robot last month and it's stayed with me to this day. Rami Malek was superb and it had the best ending of a show I loved since Nikita (CW)
AoT is another exampple of amazing storytelling from having the writer know the ending but also flexible enough to re-write based on the journey to the finish line.
aot has amazing storytelling? dont make me laugh
@@heisenberg3206 dont worry im laughing at you
@@Linny95 yea any normie who says aot has great storytelling would laugh for no reason
@@heisenberg3206 I'm not laughing for no reason
@@Linny95 that's what normies says
Re watching Mr Robot after season 4 is mind-blowing
You know shows that didn’t learn this with their endings? Lost, Dexter, and the most recent shows Killing Eve and Ozark. Man, did Ozark piss me off more. It was like the creators stopped giving a damn.
Would be interesting to see you tackle these shows in your Finale Face-Off series (Which I’m surprised that this video isn’t part of your series).
What happened to ozark? I remember enjoying it a lot and then just got bored
@@Bugga-Ray-Dudley Ozark final season was an absolute shitshow
@@Bugga-Ray-Dudley , it had the most stupid final episode and ending. Character arcs went downhill, the story became so inconsistent, and so many moments felt contrived and not smart. It even left so many questions unanswered.
@@osmanyousif7849 that’s disappointing the show seemed really smart and patient in the beginning
A garden has a shape. That is what differs it from wild growth. You may need to plot out patches of land, decide where tomatoes grow, and try to figure out if marigolds really trick rabbits off the scent of vegetables.
Those that profess to be gardeners but play no mind to structure at all miss this bit of the metaphor.
Excellent piece, as always.
Season 3 of Mr. Robot is essentially perfect. Not a single flaw.
BREAK GOSSIP GIRL DOWN FOR US KING
I NEEDED THIS!!!
1:11 Seeking the truth in good faith is never a copout.
Great video! Thanks!
If you want to talk about a show not knowing it's own ending, look no further than Pretty Little Liars. Holy hell talk about a out of nowhere reveal and a lackluster ending that seemed like a last minute add in.
I would say garden the first few drafts to find cool directions then architect a final story.
I suspect a lot of the "writing without an ending in mind" comes from the old network model, where if a show suddenly becomes a hit, the network will want seven more seasons, requiring the creators to either tread water getting to their destination, or else to keep coming up with new destinations.
You would hope that needing to tell one coherent story with a planned ending would mean the creators would say "we need four seasons to get there and that's all we're making", yet I think we all know that this doesn't fly if a show suddenly blows up and everyone starts seeing $$$.
Mr. Robot was perfect.
I do not envy the writers of long form television. My own writing process usually involves coming up with a bunch of different, yet slightly similar ideas, writing plot point outlines for each, picking my favorite parts of each, combining that into a Frankenstein's monster version of an outline, then letting the characters drive the smaller details of the story as I actually write it. Needless to say, it requires several rewrites to be at all consistent and the whole process is far from efficient, heh heh
As someone who watched Mr. Robot when it first aired every week(I even won a hoodie from their viral marketing strategy).....the ending for me was perfect and tied every up nicely. The second watch through is definitely amazing.
Man, I wish I had at least a 6-hour video or several more of these to watch. Keep it up Mac!
10:01 -- Using "cultured" ironically, heh, that's kinda funny.
14:43 -- Oh wow, he really is a man of culture.
Here’s a better way of thinking it… you NEED TO KNOW YOUR ENDING IF… you’ve got a twist or if there’s a running prevailing mystery going within the series. If it’s a story that’s not exactly supposed to reveal anything that recontextualized the entire story then it’s not as important. But if you absolutely want a story that has any grand reveal you NEED to know it. It’s the difference between Sherlock the tv show vs Sherlock Holmes, the better one. The show basically just made Sherlock know everything all the time all at once, sometimes figuring stuff out off screen like some bullshit anime character we’ve seen too much of. They didn’t really have an ending in mind (if they did they didn’t really do the lead up or pay off very well whatsoever) while the old stories you and Holmes discovering the actual mystery unfold WITH a decisive person known in the end.
If you wanna be like Tarantino, welll that’s harder but not necessarily impossible, just DO NOT make a grand reveal, and instead end it off in a way that feels more in line with the story’s through line. He’s stated in multiple interviews that he doesn’t know the ending nor wants to until he gets there, mainly because his characters at that point are completely different people. Sooooo just know what kind of story you want and go from there :D
Journeys tend to, by the nature of their own structure, have very satisfying endings because every journey has a destination, a culmination of all the previous events. You just need to not make a boring middle (easier said than done) and make the end of the journey valuable (saving the kingdom, reclaiming a birthright, getting treasure, that kind of stuff.). They also allow for some "filler" and episodic instances that people generally like to see (like characters taking a break to relax, visiting different countries, varied biomes etc.), as long as they are not too damaging to the overall pace.
If you freeze frame at just the right moment, you can see the spectre of JJ Abrams haunting this video...
Dark is also a very good example of show written from start to finish beforehand.
100%
Have the courage to end it and not to play to fan service or ego
I've heard these types of writers somewhat jokingly referred to as "plotters" and "pantsers". Plotters plot their stories out meticulously while pantsers fly by the seat of their pants XD
I'm definitely in the latter category, as I do not have patience to think of *everything* before I start writing. But I 100% agree that the ending needs to be known first -- at the very least so you can keep your book thematically consistent as you go. Using the gardening metaphor -- if you don't know what you want your garden to look like when it's all grown and blooming, you won't know what to plant/trim/etc.
You gotta be both gardener and architect, breaking bad had Jessie dying but they like Aaron Paul so much they made him a main character and changed the story
Blows my mind when you actually start making sense
Were does fisting come into play in my next masterpiece
When I write, I always make several drafts. But the first thing I do is make a note of the most important situations of the plot. A beginning, middle, and end. I always think of the ending in advance, but not so strictly that I cannot make any changes to the flow or creativity of the story if I so wish. It really works out well for me. Because my first book I ever wrote (at age 15, so bear with me) was something that I wrote when I woke up in the middle of the night and just came up with an idea. I hadn't planned out a proper ending in advance, and as a result, the ending felt a little random. Now I use this formula where I think of major points and the ending in advance, but leave enough room for creative changes and things I can add along the way. It really makes me enjoy writing more, because I feel like I am actually going somewhere when I write as opposed to just winging it.
Mr. Robot will be forever my favorite tv show. I love it so much.
I wish I could forget Mr. Robot so I could experience it as if it were the first time. But I have marathon the series 4 times and the ending still makes me cry.
also its completely fine to be a gardener if you are working on a standalone movie. By the time you start shooting, you'll have the ending pretty much.
Make plans, or at least one coherent plan. It's a good habit you can have even if you don't need to write a multiple-seasons-show.
You can abandon you plan if you got a better one. But zero plans will be the worst scenario you can get yourself in to.
I make sense of the revelation that Dan was GG by imagining the character a far left or anarchist agent, planted by his comrades among "Manhattan's elite" to instill distrust and burnt bridges in the latest crop to soften up the whole foundation for a swifter revolution. Of course he ultimately failed and settled squarely in the wasp's nest himself, but that's ok, maybe he just sucked at what he did and fell to a "can't beat 'em join 'em" mentality. But that about explains everything.
A lot of long-running Japanese manga have this problem. They don't know how to end their story, some didn't think about it, some had it in mind but drift away as they go because they keep adding more and more plots to make the story move on and on, instead of heading to the end or achieving the goals.
Hey, thanks for pointing out that My story might not ever have an ending.
Now I might actually drop my passion project, as it went through over 1000 years of in-story development and an ending wasn’t even on the cards, though the themes were explored in great depth.
Now I will never complete it.
Maybe try thinking of one
@@MacabreStorytelling Considering that the founding premise was a guy stumbling into the infinite multiverse at 18 and falling ass backwards from death to a version of immortality at 38/58, I’d say that it’s like trying to fit tungsten cube into a steel peg hole.
Given all story comes from character, I cannot agree more regarding the necessity of (generally) knowing your ending from the start - but also being open to your characters leading you to a new/better one.
That being said, I’m not sold on Mr. Robot as an example of a show sticking the landing.
Having finished the series without knowledge of Esmail’s claim to have known its ending from the start - if you believe that to begin with - the ending, to me, felt very jump-the-shark. A sort of left-field subversion of Fight Club, which is where, in my mind, the series was leading me. So, to each his is own, but “one of the greatest television series of all time,” a masterpiece? In the words of Tony Soprano, “Get the fuck outta here.”
Great work as always, Mac.
Breaking Bad might be the only objection to the rule, but they at least had a built in ending that played out all the write notes. Mr Robot the opposite but just as good. Dexter on the other hand...
What I find interesting is breaking bad was purely gardening and it turned out great. Vince Gilligan is on record saying that they were flying by the seat of their pants the entire series
Mr Robot is so underrated it’s crazy
Or alternatively: be a Mulholland Drive/Audition and not a Green Inferno
I've never heard Mulholland Drive and Green Inferno mentioned in the same sentence before.
I found the ending of Mr. Robot incredibly offensive (apart from the fact that it completely missed what it was trying to portray, or at the very best, mislabeled it)-enough that it ruined what I could watch of the show for me-but you’re absolutely right. I feel like a ton of recent shows have either fallen into the trap of going on way longer than they should, or not knowing the ending that they’re heading towards and stumbling when it comes.
My own issues aside, this is a fantastic analysis!
Out of curiosity, why do you think the ending of Mr. Robot was incredibly offensive and completely missed what it was trying to portray?
I would like to know as well.
@@ajiththomas2465 It was the division of the ‘real’ part vs. the ‘others’, and the suggestion that the Others had to give the Real One his life back.
First off, I saw the whole show was portraying OSDD, not DID. Speaking from experience, because mine with DID looks absolutely nothing like it showed whatsoever. I didn’t know I had it until I was diagnosed. I have absolutely no awareness of other parts, let alone internal communication, shared knowledge/experiences/memories/abilities/influence of any kind, or ability to transfer those things to any other parts. I didn’t know I had it and never would have guessed I did until I was diagnosed.
Rami and Christian converse and share information with each other in real-time, instead of very delayed note-leaving or other physical, external means while one is out for the other to find later. That’s internal communication. The younger one shares memories that Rami then remembers himself as autobiographical memories- that’s transferring and, again, internal communication. The show was very back and forth between ‘Christian and Rami’s memories are segregated’ and ‘Christian and Rami experience things together’, which seemed like co-consciousness(?) but many with DID (like us) are just not capable to achieve that, and it requires deliberate effort to GET to that ability for those who do.
There are scenes where one switches to the other and just fluidly picks up exactly where they left off, seems completely aware of what the one who was previously out was doing, like the first time that Christian meets the therapist. He knew where he was, who she was, and the conversation being had. Plus some parts knew things about others without being told, which tracks for OSDD. I don’t know anything about other parts without being informed through writing or another person as liaison.
Some with DID are able to establish a little of this, but not many like myself, and not pre-diagnosis or without extensive effort if they even can. Christian seemed aware of Rami long before, and Rami was interacting with Christian before he even knew he was another part at all?
With DID, I have no awareness of other parts in any forms. We have no shared conscious times, knowledge or skills, memories, thoughts or feelings, etc. And that includes influence from other parts- I never ‘feel’ other parts or change myself in any way; my conscious experience is literally identical to yours, except that mine happens in 1-4 hour intervals days apart (though I never know that that time passed until I look at my watch and see that it’s actually days after the thing I thought I was doing a minute ago.)
The other problem I have is the finale- Rami was designated the ‘real Elliot’ and MM was told he ‘had to give his life back to him.’ This is completely gross and dehumanizing. We’re all equally complete, real, and entitled to our own life. We are not the ‘alternate’ version or fragments of one ‘real’ or whole self. We’re separate individual people.
The term ‘alter’ never meant ‘alternate self,’ ‘alternate personality,’ or ‘altered ego’- it means AlterED State of Consciousness. Because our brain has multiple fully formed, equally complex, equally real conscious states. We don’t form by one Original person splitting apart; we form because the brain’s developing functional states (discrete behaviors, emotional states, conscious state, etc.) are disrupted from unifying by extreme and constant trauma before the age of 5-6. For me, it started at birth. A person cannot be physically or cognitively functional without all of those parts, so they all develop what they’re missing once it goes on for so long that it becomes clear they’ll never unify and gain what they need. That means there is no ‘original’, ‘whole’, or ‘real’ one- I’m exactly as complete and complex and human being as you. On my own. And I’m just as entitled to my life as you are, because we’re literally the same.
The goal is for whoever can to contribute to collective needs, like hygiene, eating, taking medication, sleeping, etc. (which benefits everyone because those who can’t like me aren’t affecting everyone else with our limitations), which allows for us all to have our individual lives safely in return that no one else needs to be filled in on. Communication through things like leaving notes where others can find them later, or for those who have other people in their lives, using messengers/liaisons, for the collective needs is crucial. There’s no way to be sure everyone is, or make them do it if they aren’t aware or choose not to, but you work with who will.
To say that I’m not real or that I’m not entitled to live my life is fucking inhumane. It honestly floored me hearing that- I felt like the whole series was unsalvageable by that point no matter _what_ it was portraying.
I hope that helps!
@@jasond.b-w
Wow, that was a long read but I perfectly understand where you're coming from. While I can't relate to your specific mental condition nor do I have any real in-depth knowledge of it, I am neurodivergent myself with ADD and Asperger's, albeit a high functioning one. And I appreciate the detail and clarity in your description of why you didn't like the ending of Mr. Robot and why you felt personally betrayed and dehumanized by it. If I were to be charitable to the showrunners of Mr. Robot, my guess is that they weren't intending to be a super realistic take on alter personalities and was going for a more pop culture idea of it but I don't think offending people with your particular mental condition was the intention. But I totally understand and respect why you didn't like the ending of Mr. Robot and I'm glad that I learned quite a few new things today thanks to you. So thanks for that. ;)
@@ajiththomas2465 Valid! The point on ‘not intending to show a realistic portrayal’ is exactly why I do not think that creators should be using this-or any-real psychiatric diagnosis to tell their stories if that isn’t the goal (and if it isn’t coming from an authentic point of view.) I’ve recently said the same thing about Moon Knight. It is completely fucking dangerous, let alone disrespectful, to slap a real experience’s label onto a different experience’s portrayal. (In the case of MK, it’s also gross and inappropriate to superhero-ize a disability.)
If you’re not writing from a place of firsthand experience and attempting to get your subject matter correct, in the case of disability-and especially heavily demonized and misunderstood disability-do not claim that label at all. That isn’t their story to tell, let alone to twist around with false ideas and harmful opinions to make the point that they want.
Thanks for being open to my perspective. I’m sorry you experience this too.
Dude... i skipped the mr robot portion thinking you'd keep the spoilers to that part then got big spoiled in the 2nd part
smdh
I’m so hyped. I loved your videos covering _The Last of Us: Part 2_ . Now you’re covering one of my favorite shows. I love it.
I completely agree with 95% of what you said in the video. Stuff like an ending is the most important part of the story. Mr. Robot had arguably the greatest ending of any piece of media out there. I read about 1000 theories for how the show would end before the finale aired and none of them were true, the actual ending was completely different and still completely satisfying and so on point for the characters and it's just absolutely drop-dead beautiful. I am just thankful to everyone involved with Mr. Robot for creating this GOAT masterpiece.
However, I do disagree with one point in your video that HIMYM and GOT comparison. HIMYM's ending did make sense and it does stay true to its characters. The only thing is that the creators had kept both the endings till the last possible second and planted seeds for both cases so that whatever they choose would make sense. I've seen that show 17 times and I will defend its ending as much as I can. GOT's ending on the other hand was not only rushed but was also extremely poorly executed and is just plain bad. I don't think comparing these two in the same manner as having bad endings is fair.
Great video though brother, I hope more people watch Mr. Robot and make videos about it.
The Mr. Robot and Fight Club endings both leave us with this sort of idealistic anarchist ambiguous conclusion without a visible aftermath of what a world without the villain looks like. Both never show the power vacuum and vice that will continue to plague man even after the fall of the evil predecessor.
In short, it's human nature to do and undo.
Hope we get an hour long video essay on Mr Robot sometime🙏
Great wisdom in your words brother, so helpful for an aspiring writer like me.
When I look back on shows like the rebooted Battlestar Galactica, which was looked at at the time the way GoT was in later years the one major reason that I believe it isn't really remembered today is because it was clear ( from listening to the commentary track ) that they had no idea, or at best a very vague idea of how it and all the plot threads were going to end, and because that ending was unsatisfactory to a lot of the audience, it's just a minor footnote today.
As for Star Wars, I still believe that while the ending was basically what Lucas intended, we would have had a completely different ending to the first trilogy if Star Wars had been only moderately successful rather than the toy selling phenomenon that it became.
The STFU a few minutes in really got me! 😂
this is why i make the ending first and then go backwards
Mr. Robot KreyGasm
I wasn’t a fan of season 2 of mr robot. But season 1 was a masterpiece. As cliche as it is IDC but fight club is my favorite movie of all time so it really resonated with me bc I didn’t catch it until the reveal. And all that yummy serotonin flowed thru my brain.
Lmao "Mr. Robot vs. Gossip Girl" comedy gold already
Mr Robot was brilliant, but it lost a LOT of points because the big subplot about White Rose's mysterious machine went nowhere. The machine failed, and we never even learned its purpose.
‘‘Twas the point homie
@@MacabreStorytelling Don't you sass me, Drunk James Woods.
@@jerrysstories711 patrician lore reference
Did I watch all 4 seasons of Mr Robot in order to watch this video ? Well...
king dropped another banger!!!!!!
Mr Robot was pretty dope. I think Season 1 is amazing, S2 dips a little, S3 gets back on track, and S4 is masterful. I never watched Gossip Girl, so I can't speak to it (and I'm skipping that section because who knows? Maybe I'll check it out someday), but I do have some thoughts about other finales based on "Knowing your Ending"...
I find the ending of *Game of Thrones* complicated because how can they know their ending when the books never got finished! I'm giving them some leeway here, lol. I can do no such thing for *Killing Eve* who's finale was an unmitigated disaster, predicated by the push and pull between pandering to shippers or being true to the story logic.
*Avatar The Last Airbender* and *The Legend of Korra* are two ends of an interesting spectrum. The most satisfying finale I may have ever watched is actually from the Avatar cartoon. This is a textbook example of what having a roadmap looks like, and executing it to a T. Animation, by nature has to plan things out in advance, which is why it's so baffling the sequel series, Korra, had an ending that was much more rushed.
With *L O S T* there's much debate about if the creators knew their ending or not, and if so, how long they knew it. Going into that controversial finale, I was ready for anything. A lot of viewers felt questions weren't answered (they were, they were just unsatisfying), but I'm of the mind their finale 'got away with it,' because it did connect with me emotionally, and I'd argue that's important too. On that token, I also think *The Leftovers* has a similarly strong, emotional finale, and it's from one of the same guys.
*Endings coming soon* Strangers Things has announced and an date, and imo, this is a series that probably should have been an anthology after Season 1. They have their work cut out for them... Better Call Saul is also wrapping up, and them knowing their ending is unique in that as a prequel, it has to dovetail into an established series. I can't think of any other TV examples they can follow for inspiration.... I've been watching the Attack on Titan anime, and having not read the manga, I have no idea how it will conclude. Seemingly, adaptations shouldn't have this 'know your ending' problem, right? The source material is basically storytelling insurance.
Journeys tend to, by the nature of their own structure, have very satisfying endings because every journey has a destination, a culmination of all the previous events. You just need to not make a boring middle (easier said than done) and make the end of the journey valuable (saving the kingdom, reclaiming a birthright, getting treasure, that kind of stuff.). They also allow for some "filler" and episodic instances that people generally like to see (like characters taking a break to relax, visiting different countries, varied biomes etc.), as long as they are not too damaging to the overall pace.
So, addressing the point of Avatar (which was the reason why I wrote all of that above). The first series had a very clear ending: stop the Fire Nation and save the world. We had three seasons for the characters to grow in that journey, experiencing a lot of different situations and exploring the world they would like to save, building towards the final moment they would defeat Ozai.
On the other hand, Korra did not go on a journey like the Aang, and did not have a "Final Big Bad" to beat. In this case, Korra had villains PER SEASON, with which one of them representing an ideology, not necessarily building up from each other and, again, only one season to flesh out the antagonists - some of them were more compelling than others, and the quality and pace of the seasons varied; the same with escalation of the tension.
I actually like Korra series, but Avatar had a more "reliable" structure for the writers to work with it.