Black Mirror Series 3 Episodes 4-6 (2016) - Review
Starring: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Mackenzie Davis, Malachi Kirby, Kelly MacDonald & Faye Marsay
Written By: Charlie Brooker
Directed By: Owen Harris, Jakob Verbruggen & James Hawes
Certificate: 15
Welcome
back to my review of the third series of 'Black
Mirror'.
This time, I'll be looking at the episodes 'San
Junipero',
'Men Against
Fire' and
'Hated In The
Nation'. You
can find my review of 'Nosedive',
'Playtest' and
'Shut Up &
Dance' here:
The
fourth episode of the series, 'San Junipero' introduces us to
the town of the same name in 1987, where we first meet Yorkie. A shy
young woman, Yorkie meets the much more outgoing Kelly in a
nightclub, and the two quickly form a strong friendship. However,
despite Yorkie's reluctance, owing to her engagement with someone
else, her and Kelly's friendship soon develops into something more.
As I'm sure plenty of people have pointed out, it's ironic to think
that 'San Junipero' is the most popular and acclaimed episode
of 'Black Mirror' considering how vastly different in tone it
is to the rest of the series. 'Black Mirror' has a reputation
for being a serious, dark and often downbeat show, yet 'San
Junipero' is anything but, instead being much more optimistic and
hopeful. Rather than examining the many ways future technological
developments could go disastrously wrong, this episode looks at the
good that it's simultaneously capable of. Coming straight after 'Shut
Up & Dance', which personally is one of the most terrifying and
harrowing episodes of the show to date, something much lighter and
friendlier is a welcome relief. That being said, I wouldn't recommend
going into this episode with your expectations set to the insanely
high standards a lot of fans hold it to. I won't deny that when I
first watched 'San Junipero', I felt a slight twinge of
disappointment that I wasn't completely blown away by it. Especially
coming straight after 'Shut Up & Dance' (which is easily
in my Top 3 for 'Black Mirror'), the glowing word of mouth for
this episode didn't do it many favours. In all fairness, I will admit
that part of the reason I didn't enjoy 'San Junipero' as much
as everyone else was down to me being a bit of an idiot. The first
30-40 minutes plays around with time and feature lines of dialogue
that don't quite add up or make much sense until a certain reveal
that comes around the end of the second act. Given how the episode
originally played out conventionally by 'Black Mirror's
standards, I should've expected some kind of reveal to come along,
but in the moment, I remember just not being able to totally invest
in it because of how confused I felt. It's one of those things that
requires multiple viewings in order to fully appreciate it, and when
re-watching it for the purposes of this review, I found myself
enjoying it a lot more than when I first saw it.
But
I don't want to come across as being too negative towards this
episode because over time, I have really come to appreciate it a lot
more. For one thing, it share some similarities with 'Nosedive'
as far as its overall look and feel goes. The two episodes are
visually the most distinctive the third series has to offer, and it's
pretty easy to figure that 'San Junipero' was made with a lot
of love and nostalgia for the 80s. The set design, costumes and
hairstyles are all a wonderful reflection of this, and I particularly
liked the use of bisexual lighting during the nightclub scenes, and
the use of blue, pink and purple. Also, even though my knowledge of
80s music (and most music in general for that matter) is very
limited, even I was onboard with the choice of music here. In
particular, the use of Belinda Carlisle's 'Heaven Is A Place On
Earth' during the episode's closing moments was a perfect
fit, and I can't think of any way you could improve such an uplifting
and romantic ending. Speaking of romance, 'San Junipero' is
one of those rare bits of media that conveys it in a practically
faultless way. Very few romance films click with me and this can be
down to a number of reasons – conflict that fails to feel natural
and that's just there to pad the runtime; a lack of any emotional
depth beyond the surface details; or just simply failing to treat
something as special and important as love seriously (that last one
also being a problem that's bleeding into modern-day culture).
However, 'San Junipero' hits the nail on the head – Yorkie
and Kelly share some fantastic chemistry with each other, and their
relationship is never treated as anything less than important and
something special. Any conflict that arises is never done just for
the sake of it either – just like the relationship itself, it has
weight and purpose behind it. Not to mention, the two characters are
superbly realized thanks to Mackenzie Davis and Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
Davis does a terrific job showing us how Yorkie changes and
progresses over the course of the episode, overcoming her shyness and
becoming more open as she spends more time with Kelly. For me though,
the best performance here comes from Mbatha-Raw, as she conveys quite
the range of emotions over the course of the episode. (Spoiler
Warning!) The standout moment comes when she confesses to Yorkie
about why she doesn't want to be uploaded to the simulation and
reveals to her that she once had a daughter. It's such an emotionally
charged moment between the two, and it still manages to bring a lump
to my throat. Full credit has to go to 'Black Mirror' for how
well it portrays an LGBT relationship, and the representation it
provides for bisexuals, who often become unfairly invisible, facing
discrimination from both people who are straight and who are gay. Not
to mention how refreshing is it to subvert some tropes and finally
have a positive, hopeful ending for a non-heterosexual couple?
Refreshing, mature and ultimately a much more positive experience,
while I wouldn't call this the best episode of 'Black Mirror',
it's still excellent and makes for essential viewing.
Next
we have 'Men Against Fire', which takes us from the fun
seaside town of San Junipero to a post-apocalyptic dystopia. In this
world, we are introduced to Stripe, a soldier in a military
organization that hunt down and kill mutant humans known as
“roaches”. He and every other soldier are fitted with an implant
that enhances their senses and provides them with instant data. But
when a regular mission to eradicate “roaches” leads to Stripe's
implant being affected by a mysterious device, his perception of
reality begins to alter. You've got to hand it to 'Black Mirror'
for the range of content it's able to mine from potential future
technology. While I'd probably say one of the show's most recurring
themes is social media, episodes like 'Men Against Fire' prove
that it has a lot of range, with the focus in this episode being on
military technology. The episode features similar tech to that which
we've seen in episodes like 'White Christmas' and 'The
Entire History Of You' and again explore how risky it is to view
the world through technology. While this in itself is not exactly
something new for 'Black Mirror', until now the show hadn't
explored how this could be used in a militaristic way. I should point
out at this point that unlike 'San Junipero', 'Men Against
Fire' isn't an episode I can talk about without spoiling it, so
there will be major spoilers ahead. This episode takes a lot of
inspiration from studies which have shown how a lot of soldiers in
war never fired their guns at the “enemy”. But if you can alter a
soldier's perception of who they're firing at, and rather than
shooting at another human being, they're instead killing a monstrous,
scary-looking zombie, the soldier would be much more likely to fire.
It's also uncomfortably similar to how easy it is killing something
in a video game in the knowledge that that kill has little overall
impact. Perceiving certain humans as “roaches” has not only led
to mass genocides which've been seen throughout history, but can also
be interpreted as a statement on class and how lower classes can be
dehumanized as seen in the media and in daily life.
Many
of these ideas are communicated plainly and openly in 'Men Against
Fire' and I quite like how unpretentious it is about putting them
across. I do however have one criticism to make of it, and that's the
twist that takes place about halfway through. Once Stripe begins
seeing humans instead of “roaches”, but Hunter continues firing
at them, it's at this point that you should be able to piece together
what's really happening. But I have to admit that on this very rare
occasion, I'd started to piece it together before this twist actually
arrived. Usually when it comes to 'Black Mirror's twists, it's
very good at keeping them hidden, but here I'm afraid I could see
where it was going. Not to say that it wasn't still effective, and
the sight of Hunter gunning down an innocent family was uncomfortable
to watch, however if the twist had been kept a bit better, the
emotional impact may have been greater still. When it comes to the
episode's technical merits, it's fair to say there's one hell of a
difference from the last episode. Gone is the neon, bright and
nostalgic 80s aesthetic, and instead we're back to something far more
typical of the show. The post-apocalyptic world here isn't realized
all that much through wastelands, flaming wreckages or anything like
that. A lot of it comes through the drab, dreary settings and the
notable absence of any pleasing or pleasant colours. In fact the
dominant colour throughout the episode is just grey – the world
around us being made to feel as bleak and hopeless as possible. We
even end the episode on a similarly bleak tone, with Stripe being
given an impossible choice to make. Complete with a harrowing
performance from Malachi Kirby, 'Men Against Fire' ends on a
high note as the last we see of Stripe is of him still enslaved by
the technology inside him.
Last
in the series we have 'Hated In The Nation', the longest
episode the show has so far produced, clocking in at almost an hour
and a half. Set in the near-future, the episode follows DCI Karin
Parke and her new trainee, DC Blue Coulson as they investigate a
string of gruesome murders. The only thing connecting the victims is
that they were all targets and deeply unpopular on social media for
things that they've said or done, with each victim being targeted
online with the hashtag #DeathTo. Again, this is an episode I can't
talk about without dropping some major spoilers, so be aware that
there are plenty ahead. Now previous 'Black Mirror' episodes
have looked at things such as dependency on social media, having to
live under a fake smile and persona to achieve social acceptance, or
even how we filter the things we let others see thus creating a
distorted picture of the truth. However, with 'Hated In The
Nation', the focus is much more specific on the Internet's mob
and outrage culture. You tend to see this most on platforms like
Twitter, where if someone either in the public eye or someone you've
never even met before, says something deemed offensive or in ill
taste, they will become the victims of an outraged mob. Now I'm not
about to say that people are just too easily offended nowadays or any
crap like that, and in a lot of cases people have every right to be
outraged and angry. That being said, you do see some cases where the
anger towards something that's been said doesn't justify the outcry,
and the person who's being targeted can become swept up in an
uncompromising wave of hate when they really don't deserve to be.
Just look at the first victims we see in this episode – Jo Powers,
a controversial journalist (who I imagine was inspired by people like
Katie Hopkins) and the equally controversial rapper, Tusk. Neither of
these people deserved to die, but you'd be hard pressed to say they
were good people. In stark contrast, the third victim, Clara, is
murdered for a single mistake, and the brief time we the audience
spend with her would suggest that she's not the person the Internet
has already decided she is. It's honestly scary to see how quickly
people become violent and even some who start throwing death threats
around like this in real life. This is possibly the greatest strength
of 'Hated In The Nation' – it shows those who might be quick
to join the outraged mob and start throwing their weight around the
consequences of what they're saying so easily from behind a keyboard
if it were real. It also does a great job showing how people you'd
never expect to join this mob become a part of it, especially with
Liza – a mum and schoolteacher in a position of responsibility.
While a lot of this episode's ideas concerning social media have been
talked about by most critics, something I haven't really seen
discussed is its possible message of environmentalism. The robotic
bees we see briefly at the beginning of the episode is something that
initially we'll just accept as a minor detail, and just something
that's used to suggest the episode's set in the near-future. However,
we soon learn that the bees are much more crucial to the plot, and
that someone has used them to carry out the grisly murders of the
#DeathTo victims. The fact that bees have become extinct in this
world and replaced with robotic ones that as we see are susceptible
to being hacked, could be seen as a way of stressing the importance
of maintaining the natural bee population. Without the robotic bees,
none of these murders could've happened quite so easily. It's also
not that much of a stretch on the imagination to think that robotic
bees may soon become a reality, with scientists already looking at
potential alternatives in the event of bees' extinction. Perhaps
that's something else we can take away from 'Hated In The Nation'
– maybe we should be more concerned preserving what we've got
rather than looking for replacements. Now as I mentioned earlier,
'Hated In The Nation' is the longest episode of 'Black
Mirror' to date, being long enough to qualify as a feature film.
Despite this, I would argue that this episode doesn't need to be
quite so long. This one doesn't have that much more to say when
compared to other episodes that have just an hour of screentime to
play with. It's also strange to think that even with the greater
runtime, 'Hated In The Nation' doesn't feel complete when it
ends. The ending is left so open and unresolved that it feels like
we're missing at least five or ten minutes more. You could argue it's
an ambiguous ending, but if so, 'Black Mirror' has done them
far better before. And while we're on things that don't quite work in
this episode, it also feels remarkably ordinary for the rather
extraordinary things it depicts. While I understand that there isn't
too much here that's very futuristic or sci-fi, our two lead
characters feel strangely out of place. They're very ordinary and as
though they've been lifted from a bog-standard, regular detective
programme. This is especially true of Kelly MacDonald as DCI Karin
Parke, who feels very un-enthused and disconnected from the things
going on around her. Although Faye Marsay as DC Blue Coulson fares a
bit better and at least seems more invested in the story. 'Hated
In The Nation' is an interesting one – while I'd probably say
it's the weakest of the three episodes I've looked at in this review,
it's still far, far from being anything I'd called bad and still
provides us with a lot to talk and think about.
And
so at long last, we've reached the end of 'Black Mirror's
third series. On a personal level, this is quite an achievement for
me. Out of anything I review here, 'Black Mirror' is easily
the most challenging and intimidating to write about, not only because I
end up walking a line somewhere between reviewing and analysing, but
because there's always loads of details I either miss or have to omit
in order to save time. The review for the first two series, which
each have only three episodes were challenging enough, but with a
series of six, I have to confess I've been putting writing this
review off for longer than I should have. But as for Series 3 of
'Black Mirror' as a whole – it still manages to continue its
impressive run of having no episodes I can call anything less than
good. There's not many shows I can say that about by the time it
reaches its third series. It's still able to find new and compelling
ways of challenging its audience, and it continues to be some of the
most essential viewing currently on television. Once again, I can't
recommend this show enough.
San Junipero
9/10
Men Against Fire
Men Against Fire
9/10
Hated In The Nation
Hated In The Nation
8/10
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