That being said, when I do want something thought-provoking, I go all out. Enter Black Mirror: your worst fears come to life with some terrifying lovely story-telling. I like to think of them as modern-day fables; each one comes with a lesson. A lesson you definitely don’t want to learn first hand…
We’ve written about Black Mirror here before at That’s Normal but the new season came out on Netflix on December 30th, so there’s more! And while I agree with our previous top 5 episodes to watch, this season has some contenders for that list. Here’s a quick recap of the 6 new episodes. YES, I KNOW, ONLY 6!! Damn British TV!
Episode 1: USS Callister
Lesson Learned: Virtual Reality is scary, also what is ~real~ reality, also white guys suck
This episode stars Jesse Plemons and the titular mother from How I Met Your Mother, Cristin Milioti. While this episode wouldn’t be on my top 5, it has its merits. It touches on loneliness, bitterness, obsession, possession, and how faceted personalities are. Someone can seem harmless, but really be stewing in jealousy, humiliation or hate. Solution: be nice to everyone and don’t leave your DNA laying around.
This episode is great for women: a woman foils a stereotypical white nerd’s plans and saves herself and others. If that’s not the hero we need in 2018 then I don’t know who is.
Episode 2: Arkangel
Lesson Learned: Helicopter parenting is BAD.
For me, this episode is so darkly wonderful. Black Mirror excels when it takes the technology we have and pushes it just the tiniest bit just to see what breaks. And Arkangel is a great example of that. Scared mom loves her daughter to pieces. After almost losing her, scared mom will go to any lengths to protect said daughter. Enter Arkangel, a tracking device on steroids.
It allows you to not only track your child, but monitor their vitals, block out anything that spikes their stress levels, and even see through their eyes. It’s bonkers, but not bonkers enough to not be believable. I wasn’t a kid with overbearing parents (thanks, mom and dad!), but I remember the kids that were, and I know parents now who would pay obscene amounts of money for a system like the Arkangel. Spoiler alert: attach your kid to one of these things and it will never end well.
Bonus: It’s directed by Jodie Foster!
Episode 3: Crocodile
Lesson Learned: Memories are a dangerous, PRIVATE thing. Also, not a crocodile to be found in this episode.
This episode left me with the biggest sense of dread. From the first shot to the last, nothing is happy about this story. It’s a simple idea – one accidental action leads to many purposeful decisions. It begs the question, where does desperation begin, and where does it end? I don’t want to give away the plot of this episode, which is why the last couple sentences have been incredibly vague, but trust me, once you watch you’ll understand why.
In this Black Mirror world, memories can be mined with just a stick of a tiny square on your temple. In this instance, a traffic accident occurs and witnesses are asked to provide their memories to reconstruct the scene for the simple purpose of an insurance claim. It’s something so mundane that spirals out and leads to something much worse. It poses the question about the privacy of memories. Is it moral to force people to relive moments they’d rather forget? And even if these memories bring certain events to life, can memories be trusted when they’re so changeable?
Bonus: Bonnie Prince Charlie himself makes an appearance in this episode and there’s nary a “mark me” to be found!
Episode 4: Hang the DJ
Lesson Learned: Online dating is here to stay – and it works!
Easily the best episode of the season. If you loved “San Junipero“ of Season 3, “Hang the DJ“ is for you. Dating apps have been taken to the next level in this Black Mirror world. Here in objectively just as scary 2018, dating apps like Tinder or Bumble are based on choice – if someone looks attractive, you swipe right and hope for the best. In a perhaps not so distant future, the app picks for you based on algorithms and experiences. Eventually, it will pick your ultimate match – with a 99.8% success rate. Sounds great, right? But is dating nearly as fun when your opinions and choices are taken away from you? Does it take away the uncertainty or just invalidate the idea of chemistry? It’s not often that an algorithm correlates to that spark of attraction you feel when you meet someone special.
This is another instance where this future is just an app away from being real life and that’s what makes it so engaging. Dating apps are so prevalent that who’s to say this isn’t the next iteration? I’d probably go for it if it was. But I’m also someone who’s a big proponent of dating apps – I met my sig. oth. on Tinder. It can work! And so could that nickname!
But in all seriousness, it’s the human factor that makes this episode interesting, rather than the technology. And that’s the case for every amazing episode of Black Mirror. It’s not the scare tactic of new tech, but how humans interact with it that has us watching from the edge of our seats.
Episode 5: Metalhead
Lesson Learned: Honestly, I don’t really know…
It’s episodes like Metalhead that prevent people from getting into this show. It’s far too extrapolated from real life to make sense. The episode follows a woman on the run – but we never find out from who, why, or where. There’s a frustrating lack of details that in a way add to the terror of the episode, but in another, just make it hard to watch. It’s hard to be invested when you don’t know the stakes.
That’s not to say that this episode isn’t shot well, or the acting isn’t great – it is, and the main – albeit only – actor, Maxine Peake, does a fantastic job. I just couldn’t find it in myself to care too much. If you got this episode, let me know in the comments. I’ll try to give it another shot while I’m not also cooking dinner…
Episode 6: Black Museum
Lesson Learned: If you’re a morally ambiguous person you’ll get what’s coming to you?
I’m still not sure how I feel about this episode. It felt like all the half fleshed out ideas got stuffed into on episode and in order to make it work they gave us a storyteller whose stories these were and a seemingly objective listener. I guess the overall theme is “neuro-technology” but if we’re being honest here that’s pretty much the theme of every Black Mirror episode…
For me, there’s a reason none of these stories were worth their own hour – they’re not fully fleshed out, and the imagery was a bit ridiculous. The worst was the second story. In this future, we’re able to extract a person’s consciousness and insert it into someone else’s brain. For example, there’s a young couple in the throes of the honeymoon phase, but suddenly the wife goes into a coma and their new baby will never get to interact with her. Just take that lady’s brain juice and stuff it in her husband’s brain and bam you’ve got your wife again! Except…she’s a tiny little version of herself sitting in a chair in your brain constantly berating you for not washing your hands after you use the bathroom, or for checking out your new neighbor for a few seconds too long. Do you see where this is going? There’s such a thing as being too close…
The only thing that made this episode enjoyable was Leticia Wright as Nish, our aforementioned seemingly objective listener. While the ending is still pretty morally questionable, she does a great job throughout the story, she takes no sh** from our storyteller, Rolo Haynes, and she’s rocking those sunglasses.
I also loved all the Easter eggs this episode gave us. See if you can spot them all!
