TV Review: BLACK MIRROR: Season 3, Episodes 1-6 [Netflix]

Black Mirror Shut Up and Dance Review

Shut Up and Dance was the second best episode of the third season of Black Mirror. Shut Up and Dance had an increasing engaging and evolving storyline and a twisted ending. Shut Up and Dance also had the second best ending of the season behind San Junipero.

It was hard to weigh the villains in this episode. Was the sadist behind-the-scenes the worst or was it the pedophiles? The pedophiles were sympathetic until what they were was revealed. When that happened, they weren’t two people trapped by the threat of being exposed as self-gratifyers. They were two criminal deviants entrapped by a far smarter criminal who decided to use them as Simon Says playthings. The deviants most telling moment together: “How young were they, in the pictures?”

Unlike some of the other episodes this season, Shut Up and Dance had the most action coupled with an action thriller tone. The viewer felt sorry for Kenny (Alex Lawther) and what he was being put through. This apexed with the bank robbery. The bank robbery emotionally ripped Kenny apart. It may have been Lawther’s best acting in the episode. Millions of people could see his reaction to the robbery as their own. As he walked into the bank, he walked into a living, breathing trauma. Not just for him but for all the people held-up in the robbery. Like them, he would be affected by the robbery for years to come.

Part of the ending to Shut Up and Dance that surprised the viewer was that Kenny won his sine missione fight. I would have thought The Man in the Woods (Paul Bazely) would have won the fight (having strength, size, and experience over his younger opponent). The battered yet victorious Kenny walked away from the battlefield thinking that the worst was behind him (literally). He’d won.

His tormentor proved that assumption to be false and it was wonderful turn of events.

Black Mirror San Junipero Review

San Junipero started off slowly, awkwardly, very much like lead character Yorkie (Mackenzie Davis). By the middle of the episode, after the main characters had met again in an 80’s environment, that was the moment when

If A Walk to Remember had been adapted correctly, it would have had the emotional depth and heart-felt moments that San Junipero possessed.

San Junipero may have been ordinary if it was not for the performances of its three leads: Kelly (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), Older Kelly (Denise Burse), and Yorkie. The best moments of the episode were when the leads were expressing their feelings to one another, explaining their point of view, and telling their life stories.

Yorkie not knowing how to say she wanted to go home with Kelly was an outstanding character moment. That moment in the bathroom was the beginning of the TV episode to TV movie transformation. It was that good, helped by Kelly’s reaction and realization of what Yorkie was saying.

Older Kelly visiting older Yorkie in the hospital was an effortless passing-of-the-ball between actresses as the episode transitioned from the digital world to the real world. That segment of San Junipero ameliorated the human heart aspect of the episode. It made San Junipero substantive and real, far realer than any other episode of Black Mirror (though 15 Million Merits and Be Right Back had their moments).

Yorkie’s decision to “pass over” was a no-brainer. After thirty years of being paralyzed from the neck down, choosing to be free of that body and existence was a choice many would make if they had the option.

Kelly’s decision to kill her failing body for a eternal, digital one was also an understandable choice. Unlike Yorkie, Kelly didn’t do it to escape an empty life. Kelly’s choice was more complicated. She did it for true love and because of the state of her failing, real-world body.

Yorkie and Kelly’s finally moments together in the San Junipero were beautiful. Heaven Is a Place on Earth by Belinda Carlisle playing over the end credit scenes made the on-screen moments even lovelier, poignant, and touching.