‘Mr. Robot’ season 2 aftershow ‘Hacking Robot’ snags host

With the season premiere of “Mr. Robot” coming on USA Wednesday night, it’s understandable that the network wants to promote that as much as humanly possible. An aftershow is the perfect way to do that, and if you’ve been reading for a while, you already know that it is going to have one coming up in “Hacking Robot.”

Now, it’s been confirmed that writer / podcaster / “After the Thrones” co-host Andy Greenwald is going to be taking on those duties come Wednesday night following the first two episodes of “Mr. Robot” season 2, which are being presented with little commercial interruption. It feels on paper that he is the right person for the job, at least given his overall pop-culture knowledge and his appreciation for intelligent debates.

Now that we’ve said this, make no mistake that there are few jobs out there in the TV world that are as underestimated as host of an aftershow. You have the challenge of trying to keep the discussion going, while being entertaining and also catering to your specific guests. After seeing a number of pretty-bad aftershows on the air over the course of the past few years, it gives us all the more appreciation for what Chris Hardwick has been able to do over on AMC with “Talking Dead” and some of the other stuff that he does.

The status of “Hacking Robot” beyond the premiere episode is a little unclear, but we’d be disappointed if the network does not at least consider something more to accompany the finale.