INTRO
After a long four years, Black Mirror is finally back - but… was the new season worth the wait? Well, yes and no. These five new episodes see the show move away from its traditional technological warnings of an eerie near-future, instead diving into stories grounded in a foreboding take on the past and our present. So this noticeable shift begs the question - have the problems of modern society become too real for Black Mirror to satirize? Or has the show simply lost the magic that made it so special in the first place, instead becoming a cash cow for Netflix to profit off of?
But this storytelling shift, while different, is not necessarily a bad thing. Many of Season 6’s episodes may be missing the actual ‘black mirror’ element that we have come to know, but each one still hits on the show’s deepest theme: humanity and the consequences of the choices we make. Here’s our take on the ups and downs of Black Mirror’s sixth season, and what its notable shift in storytelling says about the future of the series as we know it.
JOAN IS AWFUL - HOW META IS TOO META?
Likely the Season 6 episode with the most cultural buzz, ‘Joan is Awful’ follows the titular Joan as she discovers that her life has been made into a rapidly evolving streaming series capturing her at all moments of the day. While Black Mirror has long satirized modern politics and technology, ‘Joan Is Awful’ sees creator Charlie Brooker taking a crack at Netflix with very little remorse while simultaneously promoting and making money for the streamer. From poking fun at the endless amount of content offered on Netflix to exploring the genuine concerns of AI taking the place of human writers, the episode raises very real questions about modern streaming culture. But does the fact that the show makes its criticisms of Netflix on Netflix lessen their impact? Although Joan’s conclusion is a rare instance of a feel good Black Mirror ending, the reality is that tech companies continue to mine our data every day in our real lives. And while Netflix may not have made AI rendered series of our lives just yet, the episode points to a dark indication of what’s to come from these major streamers. Even though Netflix may try to convince us that they’re in on the joke, at the end of the day, there’s no denying that they’re still part of the problem.
LOCH HENRY - DON’T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER
Black Mirror has long delivered gut-wrenching plot twists with unforgettable episodes like ‘Shut Up and Dance’ and ‘White Bear’, but ‘Loch Henry’ may take the cake for the most gruesome one yet. When young couple Davis and Pia visit his hometown of Loch Henry, their plans to film a documentary about a local egg collector take a sharp turn after setting their sights on the story of Ian Adair, a local infamous for a string of murders in the ‘90s. But Davis and Pia dig up more than they can chew - it turns out that Davis’ mother and late father were accomplices of Ian Adair, and the main perpetrators of some seriously twisted murderous acts. The truth brings Davis and the finished documentary great success, but not without a great personal cost - Pia loses her life trying to flee danger, Davis’ mother takes her own life once she realizes the truth is going to come out, and Davis himself has to live with these losses and the psychological weight of knowing that the parents he loved were actually monsters.
While this episode may be another meta-crack at Netflix and its true-crime obsession, ‘Loch Henry’ is simultaneously a commentary on how true crime media really affects us, not only just as viewers, but also as everyday people who could be involved in a horrific crime at any time. It also interrogates the insensitivity in the way true crime documentaries and dramas are created, as they force victims and those still living with the aftermath to relive past traumas via their real stories being turned into mindless entertainment for the masses. This is best exemplified in the scene where the duo pitch the film to a studio while embellishing the truth and leaning into how “close to home” the story is. It’s apparent there are no moral boundaries when it comes to selling this film, something real studios have been called out for while releasing true crime content—most recently, Netflix’s Dahmer series.
Loch Henry the documentary debuts to great acclaim (alongside Euthanasia: Inside Project Junipero, a nod to Season 3’s ‘San Junipero’), but with more fanfare for the gossip-laden story than the horrific trauma that Davis lived through. Which points to a very real aspect of true crime obsession - at some point viewers detach from the traumas on their screen, viewing these horrible crimes as pure content as opposed to gruesome lived experiences. And unlike his doting admirers who can hit pause and move on with their lives, Davis must live with the trauma forever, having been ironically turned from greedy, detached filmmaker to victim of the film.
BEYOND THE SEA - A HERO’S FALL FROM GRACE
‘Beyond the Sea’, while elevated by great performances from Aaron Paul, Kate Mara, and Josh Harnett and an interesting concept, hits a few snags along the way. Mostly due to its feature-length runtime and compelling but ultimately predictable plot. We could all guess from pretty early on that David switching with Cliff wouldn’t end well, that he would make a move on Lana, and that this all would likely end badly for everyone. But, the episode’s predictability doesn’t make its take on loneliness and isolation any less poignant.
Set in an alternate 1969, astronauts Cliff and David split their consciousness between their spaceship work and family life via robotic replicas on Earth. The episode takes a close look at toxic masculinity, and how it leads to both David and Cliff’s downfall. David is initially established as a classic All-American hero with a perfect house, family and wife. But, not only does he lose everything after the murder of his family, he also feels like he’s lost his masculinity. Once a father and husband, he’s now been metaphorically castrated, with his only purpose being to maintain the spaceship. So, naturally, he channels his feelings of powerlessness into the sense of control he gets in Cliff’s body, attempting to dominate Lana, yes—out of deep loneliness, but most importantly to feel like a man again.
In return, Lana becomes a pawn in both men’s games. She tries to alert Cliff of her discomfort with David after he strikes their son, but he doesn’t listen due to his own pride. And after Cliff finds David’s drawings, his main concern is if she cheated on him as opposed to her safety. So when the two men finally confront each other, and Cliff delivers his crushing final blow, David hatches a plan to castrate him for good and put them back on equal footing by murdering his shipmates family. Though we can imagine Cliff wants to kill David in these final moments, he displays restraint, even being offered to take a seat and talk. It’s their reliance on each other to keep the ship intact that has bound them together, but with no families to go back to we are left to wonder if this treaty will truly last. In the end, both men are simply hurtling through the darkness of space with nothing left but their fragile, shattered masculinities.
MAZEY DAY - HUNTING THE HUNTED
In recent years, the media has finally begun to reflect on the ruthlessness of 2000s paparazzi culture, and how damaging its effects were on the individuals in front of the flashes. But ‘Mazey Day’s slow transition into a proper monster horror takes this commentary to a horrifying new level. Desperate for funds, ex-paparazzi Bo sacrifices her morals to snag a much-coveted image of Mazey Day, an A-list actress missing after storming off a movie set. After tracking her to a secluded rehab center, Bo uncovers the horrific reality - Mazey has been bitten by a werewolf. With ‘Loch Henry’s top-notch twist hitting a home run right out of the gate, ‘Mazey Day’s supernatural, surface-level reveal struggles to leave the same impression. The concept is interesting; celebrity culture is ruthless, and leaves these individuals feeling like caged animals rather than human beings. But having Mazey transform from prey to literal predator is a bit on-the-nose, even for Black Mirror.
However, the episode’s ending still manages to be deeply harrowing, as Bo snaps Mazey killing herself after she had begged for mercy, all so she could make millions off of the gruesome image. This ending flips the script, turning Bo into the blood-thirsty monster that Mazey had become. While slightly muddled in its execution, ‘Mazey Day’ does highlight the dehumanization of celebrities in our culture, and how their struggles are often viewed as yet another chance to turn a profit.
DEMON 79 - EVERYTHING’S POINTLESS. OR IS IT?
‘Demon 79’ sticks out for two significant reasons. One, it has nothing to do with technology. And two, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, the episode is presented under the moniker of ‘Red Mirror’. Demon 79 was the first episode to be written for Season 6, so why Red Mirror? Well, to Brooker, the episode’s unclassifiable nature and strong roots in 1970s supernatural horror positions it as “different-from-yet-adjacent-to’ Black Mirror.” And different it is. ‘Demon 79’ sees Nida, a mild-mannered shoe clerk thrown into a very existential moral conundrum: after accidently anointing a talisman (featuring a glyph we’ve seen before in both “White Bear” and Bandersnatch - a symbol of the branches of fate) possessed by a demon named Gaap, she must kill three people over three days or unleash the apocalypse. And in typical Black Mirror fashion, despite sacrificing her morality and killing three people, the world burns anyway.
But the path to total destruction is much more nuanced than that, since we know from the start that Nida has a deep-seeded rage inside of her. In a way, Gaap’s prophecy allows her to act on that violence, which is why she targets politician Michael Smart - to prevent his totalitarian rise to power that will specifically target people of color. A potential threat made all the more horrific with the inclusion of ‘Metalhead’s robot dogs in Gaap’s image of the future. Like Nida, the evils that exist in our world have essentially corrupted us all, but the episode’s grim ending points to a more nihilist view of our actual capacity to enact change.
The newspapers Nida sifts through give us a clue that this in fact isn’t the first time someone has been tasked with spilling blood to stave off the apocalypse: we can see clippings that suggest that the store’s founder Geoffrey Posset murdered three people and, so we can assume, was successful in stopping the end of the world. But, given that Nida becomes burdened with the same task, the show seems to be highlighting the fact that our individual attempts can only do so much to hold off destruction before things start falling apart yet again.
However, Nida and Gaap’s ending points to a hopeful silver lining in the fiery ashes of it all. Although the two are condemned to spend the rest of their lives in hellish nothingness, they choose to do so together. Despite their catastrophic failures, they still tried to save the world, and found real connection throughout the process. So even if these two failed, there is hope for love to triumph over the rest of humanity’s impending doom as we work together to enact real change.
CONCLUSION
Despite some low points, Black Mirror Season 6 ushered in a reimagined future for the series to explore in future seasons. And with ‘Demon 79’ receiving widespread acclaim, there is hope that the show can find its footing with profound stories not necessarily grounded in technology. With this new direction in mind, we can’t wait to see where Black Mirror goes next, and what new and seriously twisted stories Charlie Brooker has for us to explore.
Sources
Brocklehurst, Harrison. “Here’s What You Need to Know about Red Mirror, Black Mirror’s New Horror Direction.” The Tab, 20 June 2023, thetab.com/uk/2023/06/20/heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-red-mirror-black-mirrors-new-horror-direction-313366.