Rate it: 80%
I love when I just watch random stuff on Netflix. This was a good one, and I’m going to have to watch others for sure.
SPOILER ALERT
This is a pretty good episode by Black Mirror. The concept is a crazy one. It essentially portrays a new form of punishment, or I guess you could say rehabilitation, for a convicted murderer. As a viewer, it’s pretty confusing since we’re not given any details until pretty much the end during the reveal, but the trip getting there is pretty action packed. Moreover, being a British series, everybody having British accents is a nice change of pace.
You’ll find yourself wondering at times if everybody on their cellphones is speaking to what society has become. We have to wonder, how much of this is satire? At points, even when the gunman is chasing and shooting her, people are around them just filming and not helping. This does happen in real life, so I expect it was speaking to that. Besides that, it will keep you thinking and in suspense, so it does a good job of entertaining.
Overall, the craziness and surrealism you feel is portrayed pretty well. It’s fun to watch and probably worth the 50 minutes, as long as you don’t have anything actually more important to do.
If you want to save 50 minutes and just spend 3-5, read the following summary:
It starts off with a young woman, who seemingly tried to kill herself and has woken up without any recollection of her past, including her identity. There’s a weird symbol on all her television screens which we’ll learn about later. While she’s rummaging around her house looking for clues as to who she is or what happened, we learn she may have a daughter. She runs outside and this is when it starts to get crazy. The whole town is just filming her on their cell phones. Yeah. Nobody says a word, they just film her. All of a sudden a car drives up and a masked person gets out with a shotgun, and starts shooting at her. She’s got a big problem.
The action and confusion goes on. Mainly confusion, especially for the viewer. She continues to be chased by the man, while everybody is still filming it all happening and she continually yells something along the lines of, “Why isn’t anybody helping me?” She continues running with the dedication of a marathoner. She runs into another guy and girl at a gas station who aren’t mesmerized by their cellphones and are now also running from the gunman. Most importantly, they speak to her. Finally, friends! The guy is shot. Pretty instantaneously, that’s 1 less friend.
The 2 women are chased and chased, more masked murderers appear, they’re chased some more. They’re picked up by a seemingly normal guy in a van, who then tries to kill them at a sketchy graveyard, but fails, and in turn is shot himself. The 2 women run away and are caught up by 2 of the newer killers, who are pretty creepy. The amnesiac protagonist manages to grab a shotgun and shoots at one of the masked creepers. Confetti pops out. What!?
The reveal is more unexpected than Bruce Willis being a ghost. This is when it gets really insane. So, apparently she was on some sort of a Truman Show-esque exhibition for the public spectators to see. The guy who picked them up in the van and was killed, is back as the host…Haha, good one. We learn she had, in her normal life before this, apparently been convicted of murder, because she filmed with her cell phone her husband kill her daughter by burning her. As some sort of new-age punishment, the government didn’t just send her to jail. No. They invested in a very elaborate sort of punishment, which probably would cost millions of dollars. They tie her to a chair and make her watch footage of the news and her life beforehand. After explaining it to her and that the whole village and murderers and even her friends are in on the joke, they take her back to her house. They set her up, make her watch the murder footage while erasing her memory, only to have it all happen again. The cleaning crew finishes places her shoes and dishes back to their starting position, and close the door behind them when they leave. Yeah. What?