The movie that Darlene (Carly Chaikin) and Elliot (Rami Malek) watch, The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie, is not a real film. It borrows its title and plot from Luis Buñuel's 1972 surrealist film The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), reinterpreted as a 1980's low-budget slasher film. USA Network has released an eight-minute version of the film online (Available here outside the U.S.). The film was distributed by E Corp Home Entertainment, and is a VHS rip (Careful.Massacre.of.the.Bourgeoisie.1984-VHSrip.mp4) that Elliot has torrented.
Origin of the Title:
- Init is part of the boot sequence in Linux-based operating systems. Init starts up the operating system at a designated run level, identified by a number. Init1 indicates a system is started up in single-user mode, which is generally used for problem-solving. It is roughly the same as safe mode in Windows.
- The extension: .asec files are Android Secure Encrypted files. These files are used with Google's Android OS to prevent corruption of apps by other programs.
Darlene (Carly Chaikin) tells Elliot (Rami Malek) "Init 1 - I'm serious" (also the name of the episode). "init 1" is one of the earliest phases of startup of the Unix operating system after a reset. So essentially Darlene is saying - let's start over.
In the subway scene, we see a woman with headphones on (hear no evil), a woman with VR goggles on (see no evil), amd a man with a health mask on (speak no evil).
Elliot (Rami Malek) and Mr. Robot (Christian Slater) play a series of chess games that keep ending in stalemate. Early in the first two games, Elliot (playing White) captures Mr. Robot's queen rook's pawn on square a5 (White's QR5) with his queen, leaving his white queen sitting unprotected and directly in front of black's rook on a6 (white's QR6). The obvious move for black, even to a low-level player, would be to capture white's queen with the rook, which would be a decisive blow to white in most games. Instead, both times Mr. Robot moves the rook clear across the board to h6 (black's KR3).