eps1.0_hellofriend.mov

The pilot was directed by Niels Arden Oplev and written by series creator and showrunner Sam Esmail.

The episode aired on June 24, 2015, and was watched by approximately 1.75 million people in the U.S., the highest rating the series has ever received.

[1] The episode was praised for its writing, music, cinematography, and performances, particularly that of Rami Malek, although it received some criticism for its similarity to David Fincher's Fight Club, a film which Esmail has stated he took inspiration from.

[2][3][4] Elliot Alderson is a socially anxious cybersecurity engineer who works at Allsafe Security in New York City while moonlighting as a computer hacker.

In a flashback, Elliot engineers a child pornographer's arrest by hacking the man's computer and sending its illegal content to the police.

On the train ride home, he again sees the men in suits along with a man in glasses who attempts to talk to him.

During their tour of the office, Elliot has a strange interaction with E Corp's Senior VP of Technology, Tyrell Wellick.

After work, Elliot snorts morphine to help him cope with his depression and loneliness and afterward takes suboxone in case he goes through withdrawal.

While walking home, Elliot receives a panicked phone call from Angela, his childhood friend, begging him to come back to work.

At Allsafe, Elliot finds Angela and his coworker Lloyd attempting to stop a DDoS attack on E Corp's servers.

Robot asks Elliot to modify the file to show that E Corp's CTO Terry Colby was behind the hack instead of fsociety.

Elliot returns to work and attempts to patch his relationship with Angela, who hasn't spoken to him since the meeting with the FBI.

They realize that everyone is staring at the TV monitor behind them, which is showing the news that Terry Colby has been arrested by the FBI.

Casting director Susie Farris (a role she shares with Beth Bowling and Kim Miscia) was surprised by some requirements; she recounted that, "Some of the things [Sam] would say on the phone, I remember just being like, 'Are you kidding?

And then Rami came in and just auditioned with this vulnerability and this warmth that instead of me feeling cold and disconnected from the character, it made me want to reach out to him and hug him.

Filming locations included Silvercup Studios and Coney Island, which served as the base of operations for the hacking group fsociety.