BLACK MIRROR SEASON 5 ~ RACHEL, JACK & ASHLEE TOO

The final episode of Black Mirror Season 5 is “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too”, and it tells the dual tales of Rachel and Jack (Angourie Rice and Madison Davenport)—two sisters who, after the recent death of their mother, have moved with their dad to a new town where making friends has proven difficult—and of globally renowned pop star Ashley O (played with verve and panache by real-life pop star Miley Cyrus), who is surrounded by dangerous people intent on using her and plundering every last possible resource from her mind, body, and spirit.

One such resource is a licensed product that’s a sort of hyper-advanced, desktop Tamagotchi called Ashley Too, each copy of which contains a “cookie”, the mind-replication technology with horrific implications that we were first shown in the film-length special Black Mirror: White Christmas. The difference with this version is that it comes with a cognitive limiter that allows Ashley Too access to only 4 percent of her brain power, which ensures that she simply sings, chats inconsequentially, offers make-over tips and other self-improvement encouragements. This, despite the fact that the real Ashley is an intelligent, troubled young woman who chafes at the restrictions placed upon her and her music by her manager/aunt and other handlers.

Of all the fifth season episodes of Black Mirror, this is the one with the most, and most pertinent, surprise twists. Therefore, I won't go into much more detail about the plot, beyond the set-up as described above. Suffice it to say that a series of ludicrous coincidences lead to superfan Rachel, skeptic Jack, and Ashley O herself (via an "unlocked" version of Ashley Too, due to the fact that the real Ashley O has been drugged into a pharmaceutically-induced coma by her evil manager/aunt) joining forces in a madcap caper that almost feels like a Disney movie for grown-ups.

I’m talking the whole kit and kaboodle, complete with such shenanigans as the girls disguising themselves as pest control workers (their father's trade) in order to gain access to Ashley O's fortress-like home, where they save her from an objectively horrific fate using the old bedpan-to-the-back-of-the-skull trick, followed by the old syringe-full-of-sedative-switcheroo trick.

Then there's a protracted chase scene in a van decorated to look like a giant mouse (talk about on the nose!), with the van and police cars crashing into the arena where Ashley's aunt is giving investors a first look at “Ashley Eternal”, a state-of-the-art hologram show that will make all its investors filthy rich (insert evil bad guys laugh here). Shortly thereafter, Ashley and Jack are playing the kind of heavy rock that both long to perform, while a smiling Rachel looks on, content to observe the people she loves.

And yet, while the episode seems to end on an upbeat note… does it really? Pay particular attention to each character’s final moments and see if you don’t find something about the whole thing to be amiss. Considering what Brooker must surely think of the Disney empire in general, I can’t imagine him ending it any other way.

One last thing about this episode… “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” is positively jam-packed with Easter Eggs from other episodes, even more, probably, than the fourth season episode, “Black Museum”. And this time, the Easter Eggs aren’t even limited to the series. My favorite happens to be the Sugar Ape magazine cover on the wall behind Ashley’s auntie’s desk in the image below. Sugar Ape, of course, was the magazine where Dan “Preacher Man” Ashcroft worked in Charlie Brooker’s first, most incisive, bleeding edge satirical 2005 series, Nathan Barley. The whole thing is available on Youtube (here's the first episode). I urge you to seek it out. You won’t regret it.

BLACK MIRROR SEASON 5 ~ SMITHEREENS

The second episode of Black Mirror's fifth season, "Smithereens", is a relatively straight-forward police procedural with a twist, all wrapped around a central riddle. Chris (in an award-worthy performance by Andrew Scott) has a job providing ride-share services, where he concentrates exclusively on the area surrounding the corporate headquarters for Smithereens, a fictional company meant to stand in for social media giant Facebook.

One day, Chris pulls a gun on one of his passengers, a young man named Jaden (Damson Idris), who appears to be a Smithereens executive. After a series of fuck-ups, Chris and Jaden—who turns out to be an unpaid intern—end up in an open field in the countryside, surrounded by police, negotiators, and snipers with itchy trigger fingers. Chris demands to speak to Smithereens' equivalent of Mark Zuckerberg, Billy Bauer (Topher Grace).

The riddle at the center of all this is... Why? What does Chris hope to achieve by communicating one-on-one with the young billionaire creator of Smithereens?

It turns out the answer to that question is a lot less important than the details that make up this episode's complex procedural narrative, which has a lot to say about the awesome powers that most of us have willingly (if unwittingly) handed over to the handlers of the unaccountable, Panopticon-style social media surveillance structures that have become ubiquitous virtually overnight. This point is hammered home by foundering officials expressing dumbfounded gratitude to Smithereens' C-wing representatives, who keep popping in with offers of such difficult to obtain, proprietary intel as perpetrator photographs and background checks, the ability to eavesdrop on Chris and Jaden, etc.

After an interminable wait, during which Chris frankly displays the patience of a Saint, another serious screw-up forces Bauer's hand, and Chris gets his long-delayed chat. Simultaneously devastating and yet also somehow anti-climactic, this discussion almost seems like an afterthought compared to what precedes it. And then, there’s the final twist of the metaphorical dagger, a joke on the viewer that should leave you inwardly groaning and damning whoever conceived of this shaggy dog coda.

Although it's incredibly well acted, it also caps off the least Black Mirror-like episode of the entire series, in the least Black-Mirror-like way possible.

Apparently, showrunner Charlie Brooker wanted this episode to contain no science-fiction elements, so as not to distract from its message. It's a message that I would dearly love to reveal to you right now, but I refuse to spoil it for you.

Allow me to conclude by offering up this double-rating:

As a random TV drama: 8/10

As an episode of Black Mirror: 4/10

Make of the above what you will.

BLACK MIRROR SEASON 5 ~ STRIKING VIPERS

It's baaack! After a few months' hiatus following the release of the Black Mirror-branded stand-alone film "Bandersnatch", Season 5 has finally arrived with three new episodes, hearkening back to the the show's first two truncated, Channel 4-produced seasons.

Unfortunately, while the six episodes that made up Black Mirror's first two seasons gave us five unforgettable classics and one unfortunate misfire ("The Waldo Moment"), Season 5 brings us three episodes that, while far from unfortunate, aren't likely to inspire much excited, wide-eyed chatter at the proverbial water cooler, either.

Case in point, episode one, "Striking Vipers". This is a story about two former college roomies, Danny (played by Anthony Mackie, aka the MCU's Falcon) and Karl (portrayed by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), somewhat accidentally stumbling upon an unadvertised bonus feature of the cutting edge VR tech used in the video game system Karl buys Danny for his birthday.

Basically, it lets players engage in spectacular, better-than-lifelike sex with each other.

Of course, the ability to engage in superhumanly perfect, hyper-addictive, electro-stimulated endorphin/serotonin-squirting brain-sex doesn't exactly work wonders on the romantic lives of Danny and his devoted wife Theo (the wonderful Nicole Beharie), which sucks for them, as they're trying to conceive their second child.

And that's the set-up. The game in this episode is an obvious stand-in for online pornography, and in the Big Picture sense, the destructive potential of porn addiction is one of the avenues explored. Of course, there's more to it than that, but to go into too much detail would be to rob anyone reading this of the pleasures this "Striking Vipers" has to offer... and it has a few. 

For instance, this episode is absolutely refreshing in its portrayal of the Black middle class family experience. I respect that Brooker and company had the balls to let Danny and his family be so... mundane. Mundane and normal. It's also commendable for its sensitive, emotionally mature treatment of the issues that it raises, while never taking the easy way out by failing to acknowledge how fraught and complicated of an issue such things can be for some—indeed, most—of us.

"Striking Vipers" could easily have ended on a bleak, downer note, wallowing in yet another example of our species' increasingly obvious failure to engage in the mutual respect necessary to achieve actual, worthwhile communication. That it doesn't is a blessing, and makes it the best of this season's three middling offerings from Black Mirror.

BLACK MIRROR SEASON 4 ~ BLACK MUSEUM

The final episode of the fourth season of Black Mirror, "Black Museum" is set up to be a sort of  counterpoint to the magnificent "White Christmas" special that aired between the second and third seasons (and which is included as part of season three on Netflix). They're both longer than normal episodes, and both feature multiple storylines, with a wraparound narrative that underpins the final of three tales told. Unfortunately, this is a juxtaposition that does "Black Museum" no favors.

Not that it's a bad episode, or even a mediocre one. It's quite good actually, with only a few minor quibbles (about which more later). It's just that "White Christmas" is so fantastic, it's a bad idea to invite comparisons to it unless you're damn sure you've smashed a home run. And while "Black Museum" has a few intriguing ideas and some deeply disturbing moments, a home run, it isn't. For one thing, it's definitely the preachiest episode of the series, and is sorely lacking in the ambiguity that distinguishes the best Black Mirror episodes.

"Black Museum" revolves around an encounter between Nish, a solitary cross-country traveler, and Rolo Haynes, the owner and manager of the Black Museum, a sort of reliquary for technological artifacts of ill repute. As Rolo guides Nish through the exhibits, he regales her with their lurid backstories, about which he happens to have first-hand knowledge.

There are three stories in all, with the first being the best by far. The fact that it was adapted from a short story by Penn Jillette is surprising, but it certainly helps to explain its descent into extreme perversion. The second story, featuring a married couple's doomed attempt to share a single consciousness, feels like a more tongue-in-cheek replay of the second segment from "White Christmas", and is the weakest of the three. The final, wraparound story goes for broke in terms of cruelty, sadism, injustice and revenge, and ends up falling flat.

If Easter egg hunting is your game, then "Black Museum" offers fan service a-plenty, with callbacks to at least half (and probably more) of Black Mirror's 19 episodes. Aside from that, I'd place this episode squarely in the middle of season four, quality-wise, and it leaves me worried that Brooker and company might be running out of ideas.

Don't get me wrong! I'm still holding out hope for future seasons. But, perhaps an infusion of fresh blood in the form of new writers is called for?

BLACK MIRROR SEASON 4 ~ METALHEAD

In the penultimate episode of the fourth season of Black Mirror, three survivors of an unidentified near future civilizational collapse are scavenging for items to help ease a dying friend's suffering, when they accidentally activate a terrifying, unstoppable, four-legged security drone that is equally adept at problem-solving and improvising as it is at committing brutal, cold-blooded murder.

"Metalhead", the first Black Mirror episode to be shot entirely in black and white, is also the closest the series has come so far to producing an all-out horror movie, with season three's "Playtest" being the only other episode to come close. The episode's genre bona-fides are bolstered by the decision to make extensive use of needle-drops from Penderecki--instantly recognizable from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining--in the score.

Maxine Peake is excellent as Bella, the only character to survive the initial heist-gone-bad, but the real star here is the drone, or "Dog", which ruthlessly hunts Bella down after making short work of her partners, Clarke and Anthony. Its appearance and movements are partially based on robots designed by Boston Dynamics, online videos of which gave Brooker the idea for this episode in the first place.

While the real-world robots in the above video have a certain goofy charm, there's nothing cute about the Dogs in "Metalhead", which seem to have escaped from the deepest, darkest canyon at the bottom of the Uncanny Valley. Imagine if a mad scientist crossed a pit-bull with a giant hissing cockroach, then gave it a 9mm revolver, heat vision, a GPS tracking system, a functional IQ of 200+, no morals, and every tool it needs to interface effectively with every current real world technology, and you begin to get a sense of what poor Bella is up against.

I've seen some reviewers complain about the lack of backstory in "Metalhead"; how we're given no clues as to what happened to make the world such a mess. Personally, I think this works in the episode's favor. Somewhat similarly to "White Bear" from season two, "Metalhead" is more experiential than it is speculative. It takes you for a ride... and what a wild ride it is.

In keeping with its formal approach and minimalist tone, "Metalhead" is also the shortest episode of the entire series, coming in at a tight 38 minutes. Taut and trim, there isn't an ounce of flab on this feral, unforgiving episode, which for me is one of the best of the season, second only to "ArkAngel".

BLACK MIRROR SEASON 4 ~ HANG THE D.J.

Here's how I think Charlie Brooker came up with the idea for the fourth episode in his Black Mirror anthology series: "Hang the DJ".

One night, he takes his wife out to see Yorgos Lanthimos' The Lobster, and they both enjoy it immensely. Afterward, Brooker starts wondering whether he can tell a similar story, about the ways in which we human beings struggle in our quest to find and be with the best possible life-mate, for his Black Mirror audience. Yes, this is fertile ground indeed, he thinks. But then, he wonders how he might be able to distinguish his story from Lanthimos' film, which has developed a substantial cult of admirers since its release (a cult that includes your humble blogger)? And that's when he hits upon the idea of making his story the fourth season's "San Junipero"... the "feel good" story of the season, in other words.

And that's how "Hang the DJ" was conceived! Or, at least, it might be. I don't know; I'm just guessing here. What I do know, however, is that "Hang the DJ", which has nothing to do with executions or radio presenters, definitely is this season's most light-hearted, uplifting offering.

Amy and Joe are an instantly likable, fashionably interracial couple who are both experiencing their first preordained relationship in The System, which appears to be an extremely thorough and exacting program designed to pair people off with their best possible romantic partner. This all takes place within the confines of a village of lakeside chalets surrounded by an inordinately tall barrier wall that keeps the outside world at bay while participants get to know each other in every sense, including the Biblical. While taking part in The System, participants have access to Coach, a sort of personalized Smart Phone that helps guide them through the process.

Seeing as they are both each other's first coupling, and their time together so short, Amy and Joe decide to forgo sex, a decision they both jokingly confess to regretting in their final moments together. After they depart, both cycle through a variety of relationships of varying duration, including some that go on for months. All the while, Amy and Joe keep bumping into each other at public events, and it's obvious they would both very much like a second chance at being paired up.

Of course, when this wished-for second chance comes to pass, one of them succumbs to temptation and accidentally breaks a rule they didn't even know existed, thereby giving this season its most human, relatable, emotionally resonant moment.

Beautifully acted and handsomely mounted, "Hang the DJ" is that rarest of things: A Black Mirror episode that is also makes for a perfect "Neflix and chill" date-night watch.

BLACK MIRROR SEASON 4 ~ CROCODILE

There is a long, hard fall in quality from the heights of "ArkAngel", to the lows of its follow-up, "Crocodile", an episode that, if it weren't for the glorious Icelandic setting, would have precious little worth commenting on. Unless I’ve missed the point completely, and it’s actually a brilliant, spot-on send-up of all those “Nordic Noir” procedural TV shows that were all the rage a couple years back.

For the second time this season, we have top shelf talent—director John Hillcoat, two excellent leading ladies in Andrea Riseborough and Kiran Sonia Sawar, and an obviously superlative crew behind the cameras—doing their level best to tell a story that, by the time the credits roll, most will doubt was worth telling.

Pared down to its essence, “Crocodile” is the story of Mia, a successful, intelligent, big deal urban planner whose decision-making process displays all the cognitive sophistication and analytical rigor of a first-generation computer chess program. In order to avoid being held accountable for taking part in the cover-up of a 15-year-old road accident, Mia commits murder, a crime that dwarfs her earlier transgression both in severity and in its potential to destroy the life she’s built for herself and her family. And then, to cover up that crime…

And that’s when the proceedings descend into farce. It’s a well shot farce in a gorgeous, austere and starkly beautiful setting, but it’s a farce nonetheless, complete with unfortunate clichés—like a car failing to start at the worst possible time—and a climax that features the one-two punch of an unnecessarily sadistic irony and a surprise “twist” reveal better suited to Monty Python than Black Mirror.

Looking back on this episode after first viewing it, I couldn’t help but ponder the lost opportunity. The basic conceit—a high-tech update of Rashomon, in which truth dwells somewhere near the intersection of subjective memory and objective reality, with a DePalma style multi-POV puzzle boxy murder mystery overlay—has tremendous potential.

Unfortunately, with “Crocodile”, Brooker seemed content to try and out-bleak all previous Black Mirror episodes, and the end results are so over-the-top and depraved that the entire episode seems like an exercise in nihilistic surrealism. This episode joins “USS Callister” and “The Waldo Moment” in a three way tie for Worst Black Mirror Episode Ever.

BLACK MIRROR SEASON 4 ~ ARKANGEL

Now we’re getting somewhere.

I suppose it won’t upset too many readers if I confess that I’ve broken my promise by failing to pause and write individual reviews between every episode from this season of Black Mirror. After reviewing “USS Callister”, I watched the remaining five in one long stretch. I blame Netflix’ auto-start, which I have yet to bother figuring out how to prevent.

Regardless, my having seen every episode at least allows me to declare that, in my opinion, “Arkangel” is this season’s best.

Everything in this episode works.

The story, by Brooker, is excellent, a beautifully constructed study of a relationship between a mother and daughter from its beginnings up to those fraught and frantic high school years. Rosemarie DeWitt and Brenna Harding are outstanding as the mother/daughter duo of Marie and Sara Sambrell, as is little Aniya Hodge, who plays Sara at the age of three. All the other actors acquit themselves beautifully, also, which means at least some of the praise must go to the episode’s director, Oscar winning actor Jodie Foster. 

Kudos to Foster for taking on the job of directing an episode of a science-fiction anthology series known for bleak, edgy existentialism, and imbuing the proceedings with an unexpectedly warm, human, almost “indie” touch… this, despite the incredibly disturbing and cringe-worthy denouement. But more about that later.

The eponymous technology featured in this episode—an advanced version of the GPS “chipping” currently available to paranoid parents in most first world countries—is sufficiently advanced to be interesting, without ever seeming unrealistic. In fact, Arkangel seems like the kind of product we could expect to see available in the not too distant future. Much of the technology (remote GPS tracking, life-signs monitoring) is already available, and while the most advanced elements (mind’s eye POV recording and transmission) are still a decade or two away from being perfected, you better believe there are a bunch of very smart, capable and ambitious people working on making it a reality.

More than any other episode of this fourth season, however, “Arkangel” isn’t about technological extremes so much as it’s about the extremes to which some are willing to go in order to protect their loved ones. Mom might believe with all her heart that she’s doing right by her daughter when she walls her off from life’s many threats and dangers… but is she really? At what point does benevolent parental involvement in a child’s life become something else, even something potentially… perverse?

That’s where the “disturbing” part comes in. I’m not going to spoil it for you, except to say that, despite being seriously cringe-worthy, the scene is deftly handled and not played for titillation. If you know anything about the hazards snooping parents face when they meddle in the affairs of kids approaching adulthood, you can probably make an educated guess as to what this entails.

There’s a lot more going on in this episode than I can express in this short review, partly because I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it, and partly because I’ve only got a partial handle on it myself. I feel that Brooker is definitely saying something about the state of the modern (or is that post-postmodern?) family here, with Marie’s relationships with men relegated to one fuck-buddy, and no mention ever being made of Sara’s father.

This is underscored in the very first scene, where Sara’s birth requires an array of technology and five specialists in a sterile, lab-like environment, all working together in order to achieve something that our ancestors used to do while squatting in the dust. Marie is cut off from the experience, a point driven home with the striking visual of an overhead shot of the operating table, Marie's top half clean, serene, and separated via hanging curtain from her bottom half, naked and covered in gore. We’ve come a long way, certainly… but at what cost?

It also speaks to the unfair expectations put on all children in these days of vanishingly small families, where the loss of a single child to sickness, an accident or worse often means the end of one’s genetic lineage forever and always.

Another interesting sub-plot involves Arkangel giving parents the ability to “block”, in real time, anything the child sees and/or hears that causes their stress levels to spike. So if, for instance, a dog barks, and the child is afraid, the dog will become a pixelated mush and its bark will be muffled while everything else in their line of vision remains clear. While it might seem like a nice idea to spare a child from experiencing anxiety and stress, the potential negative consequences of such are duly explored.

Refusing to stick with the easy anti-censorship stance, however, Brooker also takes the opportunity to explore the potential consequences of exposing children to the kind of horrific violence and extreme sex acts that are easily available to one and all these days. This is an example of the moral ambiguity and philosophical sophistication that is the hallmark of the best of Black Mirror, and which was sorely lacking in the season’s first episode, “USS Callister”.

With “Arkangel”, Brooker has added yet another masterpiece to the Black Mirror canon, an episode worthy of the legacy forged by “The Entire History of You”, “White Christmas”, and “Shut Up and Dance”. If any Black Mirror episode has a chance at winning an Emmy or two (not that it matters), it's this one.

IT'S COMING... BLACK MIRROR SERIES 4

The above video is excruciatingly short, but it's still exciting to see all the upcoming episode titles for the fourth season of Black Mirror, and little snippets from each. It's amazing how much information can be packed into such a compact bit of video, isn't it? I'd say there's even something a little bit "Black Mirror" about it!