*Okay major spoiler alert! If you haven’t seen every episode of Black Mirror and don’t want the show ruined for you please do yourself a favor and exit this article, open the Netflix tab and begin watching the show immediately. Your midterm studying and assignments can wait.*
Black Mirror has absolutely taken over my life and ruined the way I look at any form of technology – let’s be real. I went so crazy after watching this show that a stranger asked me to charge his phone with my laptop once in class and I was convinced he was going to use the charger to extract my consciousness through my MacBook. Every episode carrying its own plot with unique characters and some of the most creative writing I have ever seen in a show make it extremely addictive and very exciting. While every episode has its own twists and surprises I have compiled a short handful of the ones that blew my mind pretty much right out the window and had me pausing the show in order to reorganize my thoughts and stop freaking out.
White Bear
This episode definitely started out confusing with the main character walking around being filmed by strangers as she screams for help. When she meets the people who finally interact with her normally, the episode turns into a typical “we need to get out of this town” trope and seems predictable – for about 4 minutes. Once the big twist is revealed and we finally find out that the main character, Victoria, filmed the murder of a child that her fiancée committed without intervening as the child screamed for help. We also find out that the entire “town” is an arena for Victoria to experience the horrors that the child faced as she is filmed by tourists who are told not to intervene. She is then paraded through the park being fully aware of everything she has done to the child and her memory is erased as she is placed back in the original house and is set up for another day of confusing horror. This is the kind of twist Black Mirror loves to pull its viewers through – rooting for a character and seeing them as the victim until your entire world flips upside-down when you find out that character is the antagonist in the episode. These ideas pose a lot of ethical questions as to how criminals should be treated, especially those who are not aware or can’t remember their crimes. Victoria’s memory was wiped so clean she saw pictures of the child she helped murder and thought it was her daughter. It also addresses the level of bystander responsibility Victoria carried by filming the crimes of her fiancée. I believe the creators of the episode were trying to make a point about by-stander association and that when we see something happening and film it without intervening we become responsible for the harm implemented. The ethical dilemma and the sneaky but mind-blowing twist makes this episode an absolute must-watch and a personal favourite in the Black Mirror series.
White Christmas
This episode looks at the possibilities and ethical questions surrounding both “Eye-link” technology as well as the “Cookie”. The main characters Matt and Joe are presented sitting in a cabin that they had apparently been in for years without really having a proper discussion. Matt attempts to break the ice by telling Joe a story of how he used to guide men on their dates through Eye-link technology making him capable of seeing through their eyes, which eventually led him to witness the murder of one of his clients through his eyes. Once Joe began telling stories about his past, he begins talking about his previous girlfriend and her child both of whom he was not allowed to see until the girlfriend died. He then confesses to visiting the girlfriend’s father to see the child, finding out it wasn’t his and murdering the grandfather. The biggest twist in the episode isn’t the fact that our Joe was a murderer, but the fact that the entire cabin scenario had been set up as part of Joe’s cookie, a device in which a copy of his conscious is placed and was manipulated into confession by Matt in partnership with an investigation group into the death of the grandfather. The cabin in the cookie was set up to look like the grandfather’s house with a similar winter scene lasting for years and the same decorations, foods, and smells in order to push Joe into a confession faster. As the viewer is so wrapped into the stories that Matt and Joe tell, it comes as a big surprise when you find out the entire point of the episode was for Matt to make Joe confess and that the entire set-up was a part of an investigation. This is one of the longer and more complicated episodes of Black Mirror, and definitely worth the watch.
Hated in the Nation
This episode takes the viewer on quite the roller coaster. Starting with the initial “WTF” moment as we find out that the local cute robotic bees are actually little flying killers getting away with elaborate murders. The killer bees are linked to the mysterious murders from an online game, where the hashtag #DeathTo allows the public to vote for who they want to die the most in the country. Each day the person with the most votes is killed by the robotic bees. The biggest shock of the episode goes beyond the fact that killer bees were being used to murder people by the choice of social media users. It was the fact that the man who programmed the bees was planning on using the hashtag as bait for those who actually would take part in the online bullying and wished for others’ deaths through a hashtag knowing that it could result in their actual murder. The man ended up killing hundreds of thousands of hashtag-users using the bees to track and target them. You could argue that these people were all individually responsible for the murders, or the attempted murders of others, as they used the hashtag to vote for the death of someone else. In another sense, you could also argue that they were not the ones programming the bees to kill and therefor did not harm anyone directly. Either way, the storyline raises major debates around the responsibilities that come with online usage and the words we choose on the internet. Being a strong reminder to end online bullying, this episode is definitely dark and ends off season 3 with a bang.