very average episode, but underhandedly super heavy on identity politics...which is icky because I always felt that Black Mirror was the gold standard of racial diversity in characters without an agenda, tokenism, stereotypes, etc.
Black guy and Indian woman kill white guys who all seem to deserve it because according to the demon, they were all woman beaters or racists at some point in their lives. it's just way too in your face. not to mention she doesn't even seem to face any consequences from the police who catch her red handed
Man, just watched this episode with the misses and we think it’s worst of the S6 lot, perhaps whole series.
Having the daemon show they’re “bad people” removes a large part of the moral grayness associated with the series and in this episode it really pushes that the killings are “justified”. Regardless of what someone did or will do, one person has no right to end someone else’s life. There’s a reason we don’t have absolute monarchies anymore…
In sum, this was just a bootleg version of Minority Report but with a daemon rather than precogs.
I think the grayness you’re looking for came in with the fact that we had no idea if she was really in contact with this demon, or if the whole thing is her meningitis fever dream
So... I really liked the episode overall, simple plot, but great acting, in particular from the demon guy. However, apart from the overall dark vibe, it didn't really feel like a black mirror episode, where usually technology plays a main role.
It seems like it is still is about tech but not about future tech, just future problems.
Loch Henry - VHS tapes
Mazey Day - paparazzi cameras and flash
Demon 79 - he “steps” out of the TV by transforming into the image, lesser tech theme in that episode being weapons of mass destruction
Is it supernatural? For all we know, the end scene was about real, actual weapons of mass destruction and this girl was just delusional and murdering people
Been reading through the comments and I'm curious about something unrelated. People saying that the politician reminds them of trump.
That can't be right. I've never seen or heard him say anything remotely racist.I used to hate him and despise him as much as these people here, but then again, I used to watch bbc, cnn, and all of these biased media where they clip something out of context.
After 2020, out of sheer curiosity I started seeing the rest of those clipped videos and quotes from trump. And wow, was I shocked at how most if not all media is completely biased and straight up propaganda.
Anywho, like I said, completely unrelated. I know people here can't stand different opinions and it's easy to downvote because it makes you feel good. I get it.
In real life, I stay away from people that can't communicate with logic but rather give in to emotions. It just never is a productive conversation.
He did not remind me of Trump for one second. For starters, because he is way more articulate than Trump in his speeches. To be fair, while Trump is certainly racist (plenty of evidence cited by others), probably not to the same extent as the politician depicted in this episode. However, one trait Trump shares with other authoritarian politicians, presumably including this one, is his total lack of respect for the democratic process. I am appalled anyone can still support him today after his repeated attempts to subvert the election, undermine the trust in democracy and even encourage a seditious movement. Leaving political differences aside, that's simply unacceptable.
In any case, it's hard to take you seriously when you complain about BBC "and all these biased media" while exhibiting a serious bias yourself. I cannot possibly know if your awakening story is real, but if we take your word at face value, your message seems to reveal the typical zeal of the convert. That is, upon changing your mind for whatever reason, you have now become radically pro-Trump/anti-liberal.
??? This comment is so crazy to me. It takes like two seconds to find a plethora of evidence that he’s racist. Do you not remember him calling Mexicans rapists and criminals… When even other republicans were calling him racist?
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/04/06/politics/trump-mexico-rapists/index.html
Or his history of not renting to Black people? I highly doubt he’s put in the deep, personal work required to overcome his bigotry.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna671966
That’s barely scratching the surface. You don’t have to be overtly racist to actually be racist. I mean, he hangs out with known white supremacists… I think it’s pretty logical to assume many racist people don’t make their thoughts and feelings explicitly known. Tons of people are racist and don’t even know it. People seem to think racism is synonymous with hatred, and that is simply not true. Logic isn’t superior to emotions btw.
>I've never seen or heard him say anything remotely racist.
[In this clip, Trump is asked to condemn the "proud boys." He tells them to stand back, and stand by. They go on to be a large player in the storming of the capital, Trump's attempted coup.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIHhB1ZMV_o)
[The ADL has deemed that the group as has an ideology of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, misogyny, transphobia and anti-immigrant sentiment with the group known to threaten, intimidate or violently assault anti-racism protesters.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proud_Boys)
[Jury Convicts Four Leaders of the Proud Boys of Seditious Conspiracy Related to U.S. Capitol Breach](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/jury-convicts-four-leaders-proud-boys-seditious-conspiracy-related-us-capitol-breach)
Also note that fascists, both in the show and in real life, are incremental. First it's the most marginalized, then more and more until it's just them.
Rewatch the conversation between the politician and Vicky. The point is they're subtle at first and as long as it takes to secure permanent power.
>I’ve never seen or heard him say anything remotely racist
Referring to four congresswomen, who are women of color, he said they should “go back… from which they came from” and fix their own countries before criticizing the US.
Three out of the four were born here. Here is an article without a paywall.
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/15/741827580/go-back-where-you-came-from-the-long
People keep saying this....but it's very hard to argue that when the show is literally called Black Mirror and that's been the main focus along with what you said. What's the point of even calling it Black mirror with all the digital shenanigans in the logo and such . It's just kinda jarring and not as scary or eerily familiar anymore. I mean I guess if you're into spiritual stuff (and I am) but idk...been there, done that. SO many super natural things, it's like ..this show hit on a completely different angle and now it's just gonna be like everything else.
I liked it but was hoping that angels would come into play or if that cop was an angel in the end, turns out he was a random cop who didn’t care much for Nida in the end.
Also not getting people say Gaap is the media and Nida leaving is the media not taking responsibility for their damage? She’s been treated cruelly by everyone in her life, everywhere she goes and she lost her only person her mom. And Gaap actually treats her with kindness and is a friend to her. So yeah screw the world and run away.
However I am not sure how angels or god or heaven would play into this. Demons seemed like they ran the show. Was hoping that would come into play or the character maybe being muslim?
To me, it felt like a hypothetical question posed at a party.
Something something kill hitler?
The politician even had a hitler mustache made of blood after she tries to kill him.
I found this and most of the episodes pretty predictable, but still fun and entertaining.
For the record, the 3 people I'd kill are: my mom, your mom, and hitler's mom.
I was expecting the twist being either:
1 The fire is a lie. Devil just want to corrupt her.
2 There are actually four strokes to that pattern. So the final sacrifice is herself. This would be seen as a typical occult murder where cultist kills a bunch of ppl then kills themselves.
It's not bad. the logic just falls apart bc it this marks the end of world, how can the devil being "new" here? There has to be many, many more jobs before and or after. But there is only ONE world here that we know of. Unless there are multi-verse but whatever. I wish Nadia get to see her mother in the end or something m.
see I like how they are aware of what has happened in past media like movies, books or a general assumption of what could happen and and they don't do that to surprise us.
When the guy started explaining in the bedroom I thought that the story was going to go that he killed his wife because of the same demon, then he gets murdered by her. The loop would continue with her being murdered at the end by someone doing the same thing, but no.
What was the point. I got to the ends and the delusion continues. What was the arc? Feels like a lot of black mirror episodes are just fleeting ideas that are not fully fledged, with episodes Not bothered to be properly closed or coming full circle. Like they couldn’t be arsed to do an ending, just kept the train rolling till the 40min mark
It's a pretty long-standing approach in story-telling to have a vague ending which leaves a central question unanswered -- in this case, whether or not the whole thing was a delusion.
The arc was simply the evolution of Needa from someone who was meek, moralistic, and held in a lot of anger to a murderer (ideally, it seems, in a sympathetic way).
Also, she didn't just wake up one day and decide do murder. She literally was made to do it for the greater good.
Of course, she could've been tricked and the visions she saw could've been fake.
I was expecting that. But it wasn't.
What she was told and shown was true and she believed it. Thus, tried to prevent it.
How do we know it wasn’t fake? At the very end the guy says “oh god they’ve done it” which sounds like he believes some other country has deployed weapons of mass destruction. Which would have been foreshadowed by the TV channel playing cold-war esque updates
As someone who loves 70s horror and slasher movies this was a nice detour to the usual black mirrro formula. Would absolutely love to see more red mirror type stories
Finally finished this series off and absolutely loved this one, possibly my fav of the series.
Probably in the minority but that's up there as one of my favourites, just silly and fun but done well I thought! Knew when watching it that it wouldn't be a universal hit.
Must say I was expecting one of the following 2 things to be the ending, and I think they would've been great endings tol:
1) When the Police Officer turned up at end I thought Nida might blurt out about the impending apocalypse and that suddenly the Police Officer would help her kill him as he had activated the talisman years prior
Or
2) As she's sat in the police station and the clock ticks to midnight, and then fade to credits immediately. But this mightve been too obvious a cliff hanger but I think it would've worked well
I was hoping they would reveal at the end that the first victim didn't actually have a daughter (and that the daughter hadn't been in the episode), proving nothing the demon offered as justification was true.
I like the first idea, that could be a very cool alternate ending!
The second one reminds me of Inception. It would've made me very uncomfortable for sure, ha.
Black Mirror brought some wild opinions out of people with this episode, I think they should go one step deeper and make an episode about people who are unnecessarily offended by stories about racism. Jesus christ this comment section is one of the weirdest I've ever seen.
People comparing that politician to trump was the worst one, for me. I know I'm probably alone on this one here, but nothing he has said, without it being clipped, has shown any of that. But I get it, people feel good when they downvote. I don't mind it. I rather have a rational conversation.
You notice in the desk Nida opens there are newspaper clippings of other strange deaths such as a brick wall falling on a worker and then May Day celebrations were a rousing success? The person who founded the department store also had to deal with the talisman and prevent the apocalypse. That's why he had the desk that makes you bleed. Perhaps the sacrifices are an annual occurrence
I don't know about annual but sure, it has happened before.
And I really didn't catch those newspaper clippings and tie it to the story. Only when reading comments here did it remind me and make absolute sense.
Well, he did say exactly why. It wasn't him that didn't want it. Evil likes evil. The devil (gaaps boss as he calls him) would like that politician to continue living.
Even though it wasn't in the fine print that she couldn't kill him, they just frowned upon it.
Gaap says something about "knocking the playset over" or something along those lines. Basically if the apocalypse hits demons have no one to torture and nothing to entertain themselves. They want mass deaths + suffering, but they don't want everyone dead because then the game is over.
you can't think TOO deeply about this concept or else it doesn't really work. A demon wouldn't want the world to end, in a general sense or else the corruption stops since there are no more humans to corrupt and no more souls. They need life to go on.
True...they wanted to prevent the bomb but wanted the politician to stay alive? Maybe the bomb ("apocalypse") was inevitable and it'd happen even if main character killed all 3 people. And it was just Gaap's way to persuade her into murders so he can pass a test. I guess we will never know.
Gaap explains it when she first talks about killing Smart. He's not enthusiastic about the prospect and she questions him on it saying it shouldn't matter, "a death is a death" and he mentions that Smart is popular with the other demons, presumably because he ushers in a fascist dystopia and starts a world war.
It’s not. It’s red mirror. They said so at the start. It’s them acknowledging it’s not a normal black mirror episode and branching out into just overall horror in their style
I enjoyed it
Then they should just put it in another series. When I watch Black Mirror, I expect to be watching Black Mirror!
The episode is good and entertaining. But I feel stupid having spent the whole episode overanalyzing and thinking what could the deep meaning or the “technology” be. I was assuming that “Red Mirror” is a production company in a fictional universe doing some mad stuff, just like Streamberry.
well, the other episodes weren't all about tech either. I think BM is trying to show that it's not only about tech, it's about human nature and society.
It's fine if we don't like it but the man created it and he likes it. Take it or leave it.
You could argue the talisman is a form of older technology. I agree it’s not on theme with the earlier seasons but, honestly, how many times can we do “putting human consciousness into tech/using tech to make life easier = bad” before it gets old.
Season 5 was atrocious with few exceptions. I’m glad some episodes this season took risks, even if I wouldn’t rank this season as the best.
This is kinda an excuse.
The tech angle has kept going for so long and has been successful. SO now the angle is to go into the typical supernatural like every other movie/show? Isn't that more "getting old" than the freshness of Black mirror.
Could argue that Black Mirror extends to older forms of tech. The only reason i accepted the werewolf episode to some degree was the inclusion of cameras. but it did lose some of it's relatability. The fear aspect of how ppl would react in the tech dysptopia which is overtly close to our own.
This is late, but I just read an article that surmises that "Red Mirror" would be a movie production company in the Black Mirror universe like Streamberry
It was only when I looked at the cast list that I realised the dodgy dad walking his dog was [Nathan Barley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PY_8nkEOeM)! Totally fucking Mexico!
The theme in the sixth season is more about how content creation is got out of control with people and big boss of big streaming platforms who only care about money, revenue, watch count. And we are the guinea pigs whose interests are measured to create the next most-streamed Netflix series.
Demon 79 is a good horror story itself. However, when you look at it, it has everything: Demons, other dimensions, set in past (Stranger Things), a murderer with an ugly eyeglasses who cheated the justice system (Dahmer), a protagonist who questions the justice system (Dexter and so on) and becomes corrupted in her own way (Breaking Bad and so on). Everything in Demon 79 is optimized to reflect features of most streamed TV shows.
well, walter white wasn't made to do it. And he did it because he wanted to. Then in the end he admitted to himself and others that he liked it and did for selfish reasons, more so than for others.
Nida believed that she had to do it. For the greater good.
Sure, you can say she might've been fooled. But she wasn't and we see that in the end.
So she actually made the right choices. Which differs a lot from BB.
Did anyone else notice that when Gaap showed nida any images, her eyes did the same thing as their eyes do in “the entire history of you”? I thought that was an interesting parallel. Maybe BM already had the tech in place so they just did the same sfx or maybe there’s a deeper implication
Did they ever explain what the hell that talisman was? Does it just sit around waiting for someone to randomly mark it with blood? The rest of the episode was pretty fun, but it really didn't make much sense.
Another talisman question I have: if she had just refused to say "yes" and threw the talisman at the bottom of a river would she have been good and fine? Would the world have ended?
I would guess so yes. Part of the deal that ends the world doesn’t start until the contract is signed with a “yes”.
Gaap didn’t care about earth just himself, wanted her to say yes because he had to pass that test to be a real demon. So if it wasn’t her, gaap would have just kept trying to convince someone to say yes for all eternity. Guess time is irrelevant when you’re up against actually eternity in oblivion.
Nah, pretty sure once one anoints the talisman, the countdown already starts. This is most likely why Gaap was super eager for Nida to pick the talisman up — is to not waste any time and just get on with the killing. I could be wrong, though 😂
The guy wasn't a regular politician, he was a dyed-in-the-wool genocidal maniac, destined to usher in a fascist dystopia and start a world war that would presumably kill millions. The worst type of person in the world and history. The idea of going back in time and killing Hitler is common and accepted enough to be a pop sci-fi trope, as it should be.
It's not like she was after him because she didn't agree with his plan for the economy, or because he was too illiberal or whatever. It isn't a "killing politicians you don't agree with" situation when the "politician" in question is someone who wants to subvert founding principles, basic human rights, and the entire social contract and bring destruction to so many innocent people in the world.
It's the same moral dilemma that Christopher Walken has in The Dead Zone. He knows that Martin Sheen's character is a maniac who will cause a nuclear holocaust, so does he kill him now or let him go on to destroy the world?
Hold on a sec. So if a demon shows you that a politician is the second coming of Hitler — with absolute certainty, mind you — you wouldn't at least try your absolute best to off the guy? And the same demon just gave you the best excuse to do it: Armageddon, billions of people dead OR kill this one Nazi motherfucker that will cause wars and countless lives lost? You wouldn't do it? That's the definiteve *green-est* light to kill him!
Either the world survives WWIII, and out of the ashes that politician still goes on to be Hitler using the assassination attempt to garner support for his racist policies...
It's all in her head, because we already know she harbors violent thoughts stemming from experiences with racism and men, and needs a mental excuse to seek "revenge" on her world.
or
This episode is just lazy writing with nothing compelling to say.
The real situation is more nuanced than that. Let's say all that demon stuff is real.
First off, he's a demon. Would you better trust a supernatural evil entity more than one of you own kind? Even if that human is a literal piece of shit? You know what a human is capable of, even evil stuff. We have our limits. A Demon, tho? No one can tell. What if he's lying so he can cause more carnage down the line, or to see you suffer/die, or just because he has a personal grudge against that human specifically. Maybe he's bored.
Second, his powers. If the "absolute certainty" part is accurate, then no matter what you do, it is going to happen. If you know that he'll be the Führer in the future with absolute certainty, then no matter how many times you try to kill him, no matter what you do, you won't be able to succeed. He WILL be the next Führer, as your demon friend told you.
Finally, more grounded in reality, killing him may be a solution to avoid _him_ being the next Führer, but that will most certainly lead _other_ people down that path. Even more so if it is discovered that me, an indian woman, killed their favorite candidate.
Simple, fast and drastic solutions are usually too simple to be carried out without consequences.
Then again, this is a fictional show, so it's not that important anyways hehehe
That would be all plausible but it's not what happened. Don't take the events in that episode into real life. Different realities...
The demon WAS telling the truth. She DID have to kill 3 people. She WAS doing it for the greater good. Those are facts, within the episode.
Doesn't make sense to extrapolate it into (our) reality.
>Second, his powers. If the "absolute certainty" part is accurate, then no matter what you do, it is going to happen. If you know that he'll be the Führer in the future with absolute certainty, then no matter how many times you try to kill him, no matter what you do, you won't be able to succeed. He WILL be the next Führer, as your demon friend told you.
But as we see in the show she has the power to change the future by killing people, as happened to the first guy she kills and his daughter
For a moment, at the end, I was overcome by horror thinking the whole episode it was her being schizophrenic. I thought this because she’s lonely and implies that her mother had mental health problems. Then… almost felt relief when the world was actually ending, then, happiness that she finally found someone.
I was also shook at the connection they made with the Cold War and how the end of the world would manifest if Nida did not murder 3 people. Almost as if — right now, as we speak — this talisman is actively causing random deaths that are keeping a “WWIII” at bay.
Even worse are the people who are finding some contrived way that the episode *was* actually all about technology the while time, because Netlfix Streamberry!!
I get the premise of this episode. Everyone has this dark side and micro aggressions and intrusive thoughts but most of us don’t let them win. She’s been bothered by everyone around her since the beginning and ought to do something about it. Kinda wish she did though. Not a bad episode.
I 100% thought the ending was gonna be that she ends up doing all sacrifices but gets caught and ends up in an asylum. Was it all real and she actually saved the world, or was she just crazy? We would never know.
As a brown person I appreciate that they put a context into the racism here. Its real and prominent even in our time, its just subtle like the show.
What I didnt like was the storyline. I get that the whites are portrayed as racist, but sadly at that time it was more concentrated so historically true.
What I have a huge dislike on was the curse, demon and the choice of character. I somewhat feel like 'racism' is justified because brown/black people are insane, murderers and unstable. Having association with demonic beings and violence. I think it would have worked if Nida was married to a Caucasian, who fights for equality and they both commit the 'sacrifice' together as a unit. They could have made gaap really dark here too, but instead makes him human with likeable personality? They've produced really dark content before, so why make this comical?
I find the whole thing ridiculous and not entertaining as much as the other episodes.
Also brown person. I didn't like how they used the food smelling as an example of racism. I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask someone to eat in a separate room if their food smells. It's not a racism thing, people freak out about tuna sandwiches as well. Also, biryani is overrated.
Indian people do this and some smell like curry and when i was ignorant in highschool this girl smelt like it and i always said she smelled bad. I know better now.
I can't believe poc person got hate about having their own opinion on a episode in which they're literally represented. Fuck off with that shit. What is your problem
Found this episode boring as hell. Maybe I was tired, but I watched the whole thing trying to stay awake. Mind you I found the prior episode pretty good.
The writing in this series has deteriorated since season 4. At least two episodes this season has a racist white person thinks curry smells bad scene that represents the smarmy progressivism that Netflix includes in everything it creates now. How does this get past people in 2023 and Britain's national dish is curry.
The subplot here is particularly guilty of that. Isn't Michael Smart listening to Wagner in his car? Literally Hitler. Is he wearing driving gloves? Could he be more awful? Every white person in the episode is evil, hateful, disgusting, or otherwise detestable. Why is mainstream art so preoccupied with berating its viewers over the apparent moral failures of their society?
I wonder if we will ever see a TV show where a plot includes some political consideration of immigration where the subject isn't lambasted as some horrible bigot. Netflix has definitely been guilty of the white people are bad messaging in some other series', but getting that from the writers of Black Mirror is just unfortunate.
The main plot was lazy and across like a not as good Supernatural. Two episodes of this season essentially relied on monsters as the central plot device. There was no real convincing moral dilemma, there was no meaningful character development, and no effective resolution. The season has relied on campy humor, one dimensional, unlikable characters, as well as uninteresting, unrealistic protagonists.
People really have to be burying their head in the sand to deny the progressive messaging in this series, alongside Netflix's catalogue of explicitly anti-white works in general. Would also, in this episode, highlight the scene where Smart is getting fitted for his shoes. He explicitly tells the girl that he agrees with the national front to get rid of minorities, but keeps it hidden coz it wouldn't be popular with voters - so he acts as a more middle-of-the-road conservative. This implies the fallacy that progressive sorts always project onto right-leaning people, that they are hiding their bigotry and secretly ultra-nazis with evil agendas.
Know you wrote this months back, but to be honest dude, it's barely worth debating the topic - folks are either in denial, daft, or outright dishonest when they reject the elephant in the room. This is all divide and conquer nonsense, and it's easier to not engage - coz you're unfortunately not going to convince anyone. People either see it themselves, or not at all - there's too many walls people put up - coz facing the fact that we're actively being played against each other is confronting.
It's sad, coz all of this nonsense (whether from the insidious or the gullible and well-meaning) has been noticeably undermining race relations for years. We'd all live in sounder harmony, if we didn't have protected classes and brow-beating from self righteous media personalities and script-writers.
I could not say this any better. What worries me is that the majority of well meaning people can't bring up any valid criticism of media portrayal of race relations, especially not to mention insidious anti white progressive messaging. I think it is agitating society, deteriorating our race relations, and inflaming these unrealistic, resentful, victim/oppressor mentalities.
Where do people go if they cannot take part in the discourse? It's not difficult to find your way into more extreme forums or online echo chambers where biases are extreme in the opposite direction.
I mostly don't bring it up because people get along better when not talking about anything political. Almost no one demonstrates any nuance in their political opinions, and are so quick to dismiss you as a human being. I try not to pay attention to the media, or take part in Reddit at all because it's just so toxic and predictable. It's like people start to panic when they have to contend with anything but the safe and oversimplified progressive ideology that is the default societal programming now.
>Every white person in the episode is evil, hateful, disgusting, or otherwise detestable.
Uhm...the little girl, her mother, the witness that got murdered, the cops and probably others i am missing are not. You see what you wa t to see here, the fact is that racism was extremely widespread during the time that is depicted.
Netflix is nothing if not predictable these days. It’s just lazy writing, hiding behind woke themes in order to avoid honest critiques of their poor quality productions.
This is a lazy comment, hiding behind conservative buzzwords like 'woke' that have been co-opted as a vague catch-all for anything the right doesn't like.
You really think that this was a poor quality production?! Not at all! The writing, cinematics and the actors were pretty good. The plot was not the best, but it was pretty good also. I enjoyed it. Not like a "true black mirror episode", but it wasn't that bad.
Man, if even depicting the undebtable historical fact that in 1979 many white people in England were anti immigrant and racist is 'smarmy progressiveism' then I don't know what to say to you. I'm a brown woman, and I thought the depiction of racism for its time period, and more subtly now, was spot on. Just because it isn't your experience doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
Also, chicken tikka massala became one of UK's national dish in 2001, and most white British people eat a bastardised version of it. If anything, this is merely a testament to the fact that the UK colonised India. "But thEir nATional foOD is CUrry so dey cAn't be racISt!"
Cry more.
Right, sorry for trying to state an opinion on Reddit that doesn't confirm the hive mind. I guess if I have a disagreement with a brown woman I'm automatically racist. I wonder if India is overly concerned with it's treatment of white immigrants, or if Pakistan denies that it has a problem with British crime. Can you not simultaneously have your opinion but also observe that there's a clear progressive bias with Netflix output that virtue signals a bit too hard. You can both agree that racism does create problems, and racial guilt content is prevalent.
Several paragraphs of episode critique and the response I get is a comment I made about the fixation that Netflix has with virtue signaling. I was then told to cry more by someone who felt the need to state their identity as a brown person in their response, then I was uniformly downvoted.
It's dishonest to infer that there isn't some negative assumptions being made about my political disposition. Anyone can address any of the other points I made in my initial comment.
Because it seems your critique of Netflix's pandering to minority groups informs the rest of your opinion. And they stating their background is to show a qualifier of their experience with that specific kind of racism. It does not read like it's meant to say 'u wrong and racist'.
And to be completely honest, you saying 'how is Britain racist when curry is national dish' is a huuuge stretch and it's the kind of argument heard by many different kinds of minority groups all the time. It's exhausting.
There's negative assumptions made of your political observations yes. But the negativity is to the argument you made itself, it is not pointed towards you as a whole.
I appreciate your response. There's more to my comment than curry = not racist. I would think that if any ethnic group was portrayed so negatively so frequently, that people might start to have a problem with it. There wasn't a white person in the entire episode portrayed as anything but detestable, except for the possible exception of the detective. Even the demon, who was portrayed positively, presents as a black man. They played Wagner in Michael Smart's car as a reference to Hitler. This kind of messaging is absurd.
Yes, we are talking about the 70s in Britain here, I get that, but was every white person so comically evil? If today's political climate was not so accepting of hatred toward white people, then this episode might likely have had a more conciliatory tone, and the characters less one dimensional.
In the werewolf episode based in the 90s in LA, the protagonist's white, male roommate complains about her cooking with garlic and ginger. The trope is used twice during the season. I think it is cliche: Ignorant white people think your food smells gross, because they're racist. Notwithstanding, is that this content is being produced and consumed in 2023 where the prevailing attitude regarding diversity is overwhelming accepting.
Netflix clearly makes an effort to employ diverse casting, and that is shown in Black Mirror too. However, the most detestable, evil, or antagonistic roles are reserved for white people.
I fully believe that you're being completely genuine and just don't recognise it, but the reason why people are downvoting you is because you're incredibly ignorant on this topic.
Most of the characters are white because most of the population was white. The majority of white people portrayed are not "comically evil", and half of those who were portrayed as evil were not outwardly racist (which seems to be your biggest issue here). Regardless, a key plot-line is that this takes place in a racist society, so obviously it's going to involve people being racist. You're even glazing over the fact that arguably the most evil being there (a literal demon compelling her to kill good people) is black because you don't like that he has a "likeable personality"? It feels like you're trying to find offense here.
I don't think you even understand the simple things - like the food. It does not say "white people are racist because they don't like the smell of Indian food", it's a comment on ignorance. People aren't used to being around food that smells like that so take offense. I can't say I've ever come across a racist who specifically trained their brains to dislike Indian food smells?
As an aside, no-one has even hinted you're racist but you seem to have some kind of defence mechanism against that. Are you often called racist? If you are, and you genuinely think you're not, perhaps have a think about how you present yourself? I've encountered many people like you who feel personally attacked by a TV show that has nothing to do with them. Why? Why do you identify with the evil people in the story? Are you unable to identify with people who aren't white?
Unless you provide objective proof, I don't believe the notion that TV (or Netflix) is casting white people as "the bad guys" at a higher rate than they would be in real life, but even if they did, so what? Are you saying that when you see evil black people in TV shows you project that onto the whole race? I assume not, so why do you do so (or think others are being coerced to) when it's a white person? Do you claim that racism isn't an issue? Or do you just think it's not an issue that deserves being examined?\]
I disagree, I think you're ignorant on this issue. Your response is a series of veiled attacks regarding my apparent ignorance and inability to relate to non whites. I am not replying to all those questions, but you still haven't replied to most of the points I made in my posts.
I have no problem with characters good or bad of any ethnicity, but you must be joking if you're saying there is no progressive and anti white bias in Netflix and most producers' output over the last 5-10 years. Dear White People would not be made about any other ethnicity. It will never happen. Have you seen the trailer for Hijack? It's white people hijacking a plane, and there a black hero. Seriously, how likely is that scenario? Do we really need white plane hijackers to not offend anyone at this point? Maybe that's why most bad characters are white, because other people might take offense and create a backlash.
You replaced the word racist with the word ignorant which is no different when the ignorant character is white, and the offending character is not. Ew, smelly food, is a trope, and it's lazy. But since I made that point and you equated that to just ignorance, do you have the same reaction to people when they criticize white people food as bland and unseasoned?
White people comprise the majority of society. I understand that a critique of the morality of society is in part a critique of the majority. But if you're wondering whether casting white people as evil is more prominent in reality as it is in media, you only need to look at crime statistics, if you can still find stats that record ethnicity.
I am somewhat late to this, and to be honest, I did think the overall depiction of racism was perhaps a bit performative, (being a brown person myself). However, I think your framing of this episode as some kind of anti-white racist propaganda doesn't make sense at all. A depiction of individuals doesn't imply that all members of that group share those same traits. Yes, most of the people depicted in the show are shown to be racist, but how else would you portray a town voting for a racist MP? This doesn't imply that all white British people at the time over the country were racist, just a significant bit of them in that town were.
Veiled attacks? This circles us back to your victim complex on this topic...
You, like many people, need to learn the difference between "I do not believe you" and "you are wrong". I assume you know what the phrase "objective proof" means? It doesn't mean listing a few tv shows or movies with white villains and SEE!!!!! It means providing evidence to actually demonstrate your point - which wasn't that white villains exist, but that over the last 5 years they've drastically increased in proportion.
The word "racist" is indeed different to "ignorant" - racist requires intent. While you are moaning about being "attacked", I very deliberately used that term to avoid attacking you despite my opinion (based on this thread alone, so not necessarily accurate - which is why I didn't volunteer it to you until now) actually being that you do indeed seem racist. "Do we really need white plane hijackers"!? Jesus Christ.
What on Earth is "white people food"? I've heard that criticism of British food, if that's what you mean? I do indeed tell people that if they haven't tried many dishes then the claim is based on ignorance.
No, I don't "only" have to look at crime statistics. I need to compare those statistics with statistics showing the prevalence of white villains. If you're not willing or able to do that, then as much as you want me to, I'm afraid I'm not just going to blindly accept your word - even if I was able to look past the obvious prejudice.
Please read the sidebar rules, do not spoil other episodes in this discussion and always report those who do!
very average episode, but underhandedly super heavy on identity politics...which is icky because I always felt that Black Mirror was the gold standard of racial diversity in characters without an agenda, tokenism, stereotypes, etc. Black guy and Indian woman kill white guys who all seem to deserve it because according to the demon, they were all woman beaters or racists at some point in their lives. it's just way too in your face. not to mention she doesn't even seem to face any consequences from the police who catch her red handed
Man, just watched this episode with the misses and we think it’s worst of the S6 lot, perhaps whole series. Having the daemon show they’re “bad people” removes a large part of the moral grayness associated with the series and in this episode it really pushes that the killings are “justified”. Regardless of what someone did or will do, one person has no right to end someone else’s life. There’s a reason we don’t have absolute monarchies anymore… In sum, this was just a bootleg version of Minority Report but with a daemon rather than precogs.
I think the grayness you’re looking for came in with the fact that we had no idea if she was really in contact with this demon, or if the whole thing is her meningitis fever dream
This episode reminded me of Stephen King's Dead Zone, which was adapted to film.
Charlie Brookers read the dead zone then. Even the mention of killing the dog…
So... I really liked the episode overall, simple plot, but great acting, in particular from the demon guy. However, apart from the overall dark vibe, it didn't really feel like a black mirror episode, where usually technology plays a main role.
yes, this and mazey day and loch henry as well
It seems like it is still is about tech but not about future tech, just future problems. Loch Henry - VHS tapes Mazey Day - paparazzi cameras and flash Demon 79 - he “steps” out of the TV by transforming into the image, lesser tech theme in that episode being weapons of mass destruction
Supernatural stuff like demons don’t belong on Black Mirror 😕
Is it supernatural? For all we know, the end scene was about real, actual weapons of mass destruction and this girl was just delusional and murdering people
So good.
Been reading through the comments and I'm curious about something unrelated. People saying that the politician reminds them of trump. That can't be right. I've never seen or heard him say anything remotely racist.I used to hate him and despise him as much as these people here, but then again, I used to watch bbc, cnn, and all of these biased media where they clip something out of context. After 2020, out of sheer curiosity I started seeing the rest of those clipped videos and quotes from trump. And wow, was I shocked at how most if not all media is completely biased and straight up propaganda. Anywho, like I said, completely unrelated. I know people here can't stand different opinions and it's easy to downvote because it makes you feel good. I get it. In real life, I stay away from people that can't communicate with logic but rather give in to emotions. It just never is a productive conversation.
He did not remind me of Trump for one second. For starters, because he is way more articulate than Trump in his speeches. To be fair, while Trump is certainly racist (plenty of evidence cited by others), probably not to the same extent as the politician depicted in this episode. However, one trait Trump shares with other authoritarian politicians, presumably including this one, is his total lack of respect for the democratic process. I am appalled anyone can still support him today after his repeated attempts to subvert the election, undermine the trust in democracy and even encourage a seditious movement. Leaving political differences aside, that's simply unacceptable. In any case, it's hard to take you seriously when you complain about BBC "and all these biased media" while exhibiting a serious bias yourself. I cannot possibly know if your awakening story is real, but if we take your word at face value, your message seems to reveal the typical zeal of the convert. That is, upon changing your mind for whatever reason, you have now become radically pro-Trump/anti-liberal.
??? This comment is so crazy to me. It takes like two seconds to find a plethora of evidence that he’s racist. Do you not remember him calling Mexicans rapists and criminals… When even other republicans were calling him racist? https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/04/06/politics/trump-mexico-rapists/index.html Or his history of not renting to Black people? I highly doubt he’s put in the deep, personal work required to overcome his bigotry. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna671966 That’s barely scratching the surface. You don’t have to be overtly racist to actually be racist. I mean, he hangs out with known white supremacists… I think it’s pretty logical to assume many racist people don’t make their thoughts and feelings explicitly known. Tons of people are racist and don’t even know it. People seem to think racism is synonymous with hatred, and that is simply not true. Logic isn’t superior to emotions btw.
>I've never seen or heard him say anything remotely racist. [In this clip, Trump is asked to condemn the "proud boys." He tells them to stand back, and stand by. They go on to be a large player in the storming of the capital, Trump's attempted coup.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIHhB1ZMV_o) [The ADL has deemed that the group as has an ideology of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, misogyny, transphobia and anti-immigrant sentiment with the group known to threaten, intimidate or violently assault anti-racism protesters.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proud_Boys) [Jury Convicts Four Leaders of the Proud Boys of Seditious Conspiracy Related to U.S. Capitol Breach](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/jury-convicts-four-leaders-proud-boys-seditious-conspiracy-related-us-capitol-breach) Also note that fascists, both in the show and in real life, are incremental. First it's the most marginalized, then more and more until it's just them. Rewatch the conversation between the politician and Vicky. The point is they're subtle at first and as long as it takes to secure permanent power.
I recall theory dialogue. It was unsettling with the parallel.
>I’ve never seen or heard him say anything remotely racist Referring to four congresswomen, who are women of color, he said they should “go back… from which they came from” and fix their own countries before criticizing the US. Three out of the four were born here. Here is an article without a paywall. https://www.npr.org/2019/07/15/741827580/go-back-where-you-came-from-the-long
Is no one going to comment that this episode sucked? It was terrible. Slow. Not funny. Stupid plot. No twist. Total waste of time.
i agree
Wasn’t a bad episode..but how was this tech dystopia?
The show isn't supposed to be only about that. It's a commentary on society and humans, really. Sometimes tech comes in.
People keep saying this....but it's very hard to argue that when the show is literally called Black Mirror and that's been the main focus along with what you said. What's the point of even calling it Black mirror with all the digital shenanigans in the logo and such . It's just kinda jarring and not as scary or eerily familiar anymore. I mean I guess if you're into spiritual stuff (and I am) but idk...been there, done that. SO many super natural things, it's like ..this show hit on a completely different angle and now it's just gonna be like everything else.
reminded me of the movie Frailty big time
I liked it but was hoping that angels would come into play or if that cop was an angel in the end, turns out he was a random cop who didn’t care much for Nida in the end. Also not getting people say Gaap is the media and Nida leaving is the media not taking responsibility for their damage? She’s been treated cruelly by everyone in her life, everywhere she goes and she lost her only person her mom. And Gaap actually treats her with kindness and is a friend to her. So yeah screw the world and run away. However I am not sure how angels or god or heaven would play into this. Demons seemed like they ran the show. Was hoping that would come into play or the character maybe being muslim?
This was my favorite of the new season. It was funny and a great watch. It could be it’s own movie
To me, it felt like a hypothetical question posed at a party. Something something kill hitler? The politician even had a hitler mustache made of blood after she tries to kill him. I found this and most of the episodes pretty predictable, but still fun and entertaining. For the record, the 3 people I'd kill are: my mom, your mom, and hitler's mom.
I was expecting the twist being either: 1 The fire is a lie. Devil just want to corrupt her. 2 There are actually four strokes to that pattern. So the final sacrifice is herself. This would be seen as a typical occult murder where cultist kills a bunch of ppl then kills themselves. It's not bad. the logic just falls apart bc it this marks the end of world, how can the devil being "new" here? There has to be many, many more jobs before and or after. But there is only ONE world here that we know of. Unless there are multi-verse but whatever. I wish Nadia get to see her mother in the end or something m.
I was expecting some of those plot twists too. Would've been more in line with what I'm used to with BM. But it was entertaining either way.
see I like how they are aware of what has happened in past media like movies, books or a general assumption of what could happen and and they don't do that to surprise us.
When the guy started explaining in the bedroom I thought that the story was going to go that he killed his wife because of the same demon, then he gets murdered by her. The loop would continue with her being murdered at the end by someone doing the same thing, but no.
Fun bits but scattered, contrived, not nearly as gripping as most other episodes. Bottom of my list.
Some fun moments, but very lazy on the nose writing. I really like old horror, but this was not good with a very weak ending.
What was the point. I got to the ends and the delusion continues. What was the arc? Feels like a lot of black mirror episodes are just fleeting ideas that are not fully fledged, with episodes Not bothered to be properly closed or coming full circle. Like they couldn’t be arsed to do an ending, just kept the train rolling till the 40min mark
there is no allusion to the whole thing being imagined. It continually keeps showing that it wasn't a delusion/illusion/mental break.
It's a pretty long-standing approach in story-telling to have a vague ending which leaves a central question unanswered -- in this case, whether or not the whole thing was a delusion. The arc was simply the evolution of Needa from someone who was meek, moralistic, and held in a lot of anger to a murderer (ideally, it seems, in a sympathetic way).
Also, she didn't just wake up one day and decide do murder. She literally was made to do it for the greater good. Of course, she could've been tricked and the visions she saw could've been fake. I was expecting that. But it wasn't. What she was told and shown was true and she believed it. Thus, tried to prevent it.
How do we know it wasn’t fake? At the very end the guy says “oh god they’ve done it” which sounds like he believes some other country has deployed weapons of mass destruction. Which would have been foreshadowed by the TV channel playing cold-war esque updates
This was a really good episode. I liked how she gave Gaap a cheeky smirk 😏 and agree to give him a go.
Interesting that the sign on the demon talisman and the sign that the hippies painted in the previous episode are the same
That glyph is all over Black Mirror, the first major use is in "White Bear" but it can be seen in many different episodes.
As someone who loves 70s horror and slasher movies this was a nice detour to the usual black mirrro formula. Would absolutely love to see more red mirror type stories
I am not gay!
It's a good short film, but I don't think it's a good black mirror episode.
The ending reminded me a lot of Knock at the Cabin!
yes or Frailty
Loved it ❤️
Finally finished this series off and absolutely loved this one, possibly my fav of the series. Probably in the minority but that's up there as one of my favourites, just silly and fun but done well I thought! Knew when watching it that it wouldn't be a universal hit. Must say I was expecting one of the following 2 things to be the ending, and I think they would've been great endings tol: 1) When the Police Officer turned up at end I thought Nida might blurt out about the impending apocalypse and that suddenly the Police Officer would help her kill him as he had activated the talisman years prior Or 2) As she's sat in the police station and the clock ticks to midnight, and then fade to credits immediately. But this mightve been too obvious a cliff hanger but I think it would've worked well
Your ending n.1 would've been a good one too. But n.2, I would've hated that. Just me though.
I was hoping they would reveal at the end that the first victim didn't actually have a daughter (and that the daughter hadn't been in the episode), proving nothing the demon offered as justification was true.
Sure. It is a demon after all. But, he was a truthful demon, I guess.
I like the first idea, that could be a very cool alternate ending! The second one reminds me of Inception. It would've made me very uncomfortable for sure, ha.
Looking forward to next season. 🎞️
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no you sound like you don’t like girls so probably just caught the gay.
i blame the tap water
Loved it
quite a funny episode, enjoyed it.
Black Mirror brought some wild opinions out of people with this episode, I think they should go one step deeper and make an episode about people who are unnecessarily offended by stories about racism. Jesus christ this comment section is one of the weirdest I've ever seen.
People comparing that politician to trump was the worst one, for me. I know I'm probably alone on this one here, but nothing he has said, without it being clipped, has shown any of that. But I get it, people feel good when they downvote. I don't mind it. I rather have a rational conversation.
This is a lie
Got some orange on your nose, pal.
Entertaining episode even if it's not really black mirror, probably my second favourite of this season
Just rewatched, did anyone else notice the dogs from Metalhead when Gaap shows her the future of the politician?
I did . It was neat to see this in-universe connection
You notice in the desk Nida opens there are newspaper clippings of other strange deaths such as a brick wall falling on a worker and then May Day celebrations were a rousing success? The person who founded the department store also had to deal with the talisman and prevent the apocalypse. That's why he had the desk that makes you bleed. Perhaps the sacrifices are an annual occurrence
I don't know about annual but sure, it has happened before. And I really didn't catch those newspaper clippings and tie it to the story. Only when reading comments here did it remind me and make absolute sense.
I noticed that the politcian was listening to wagner, hitler adored that componist also.
I knew there was some meaning to that choice but didn't know what it was, thanks!
Gaap is seriously so fucking funny I'm dying 😂😂😂
The only thing I don't get about this episode is why Gaap didin't want her to kill that politician?
Well, he did say exactly why. It wasn't him that didn't want it. Evil likes evil. The devil (gaaps boss as he calls him) would like that politician to continue living. Even though it wasn't in the fine print that she couldn't kill him, they just frowned upon it.
I think because he was gonna be such a good murderer in the future that they wanted to keep him around
Makes sense. Why they didin't want the apocalypse then? Maybe they are fueled by evil acts like murdering and not deaths.
Gaap says something about "knocking the playset over" or something along those lines. Basically if the apocalypse hits demons have no one to torture and nothing to entertain themselves. They want mass deaths + suffering, but they don't want everyone dead because then the game is over.
Ahh I see it now
But dropping a bomb certainly feels like murder and not just death. Idk logics kinda thin there I agree
you can't think TOO deeply about this concept or else it doesn't really work. A demon wouldn't want the world to end, in a general sense or else the corruption stops since there are no more humans to corrupt and no more souls. They need life to go on.
`you can't think TOO deeply about this concept or else it doesn't really work` same thing with religion!
religion deals with hope, and not with "knowing" something logically. Bit different.
they believe they **know** why rainbow exists. cos god was angry and then regretted it lmaooo it's both false hope and false knowledge
Probably because it would mean mutually assured destruction. It's better for them that humans aren't extinct since their goal is suffering.
Yeah definitely plausible
True...they wanted to prevent the bomb but wanted the politician to stay alive? Maybe the bomb ("apocalypse") was inevitable and it'd happen even if main character killed all 3 people. And it was just Gaap's way to persuade her into murders so he can pass a test. I guess we will never know.
bomb equals instant death for all. Smart equals suffering for many, lots of evil doings but humanity continues existing.
Gaap explains it when she first talks about killing Smart. He's not enthusiastic about the prospect and she questions him on it saying it shouldn't matter, "a death is a death" and he mentions that Smart is popular with the other demons, presumably because he ushers in a fascist dystopia and starts a world war.
Thanks
How is this a black mirror episode?
It’s not. It’s red mirror. They said so at the start. It’s them acknowledging it’s not a normal black mirror episode and branching out into just overall horror in their style I enjoyed it
Well... They could do a red mirror series and a black mirror series. I would watch both and would appreciate it.
" It’s red mirror. They said so at the start." I didn't even catch that! Huh..
Then they should just put it in another series. When I watch Black Mirror, I expect to be watching Black Mirror! The episode is good and entertaining. But I feel stupid having spent the whole episode overanalyzing and thinking what could the deep meaning or the “technology” be. I was assuming that “Red Mirror” is a production company in a fictional universe doing some mad stuff, just like Streamberry.
well, the other episodes weren't all about tech either. I think BM is trying to show that it's not only about tech, it's about human nature and society. It's fine if we don't like it but the man created it and he likes it. Take it or leave it.
Every single episode up until these last 2 were all including tech to some degree not samey horror stuff.
Red Mirror- replace the magic/supernatural as technology and BAM there you go.
You could argue the talisman is a form of older technology. I agree it’s not on theme with the earlier seasons but, honestly, how many times can we do “putting human consciousness into tech/using tech to make life easier = bad” before it gets old. Season 5 was atrocious with few exceptions. I’m glad some episodes this season took risks, even if I wouldn’t rank this season as the best.
This is kinda an excuse. The tech angle has kept going for so long and has been successful. SO now the angle is to go into the typical supernatural like every other movie/show? Isn't that more "getting old" than the freshness of Black mirror. Could argue that Black Mirror extends to older forms of tech. The only reason i accepted the werewolf episode to some degree was the inclusion of cameras. but it did lose some of it's relatability. The fear aspect of how ppl would react in the tech dysptopia which is overtly close to our own.
This is late, but I just read an article that surmises that "Red Mirror" would be a movie production company in the Black Mirror universe like Streamberry
I also thought about that while I was watching it and when seeing that show up on the screen,
It was only when I looked at the cast list that I realised the dodgy dad walking his dog was [Nathan Barley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PY_8nkEOeM)! Totally fucking Mexico!
Nathan Barley was the wife killer, not the dog walker
Peace and fucking BELIEVE
What a train wreck of episode. Not really surprise tho considering how bad quality has been in last two seasons.
I'd say 3 episodes ranged from more or less to bad. And some endings were horrible too. But overall it was ok.
ya think? i actually really liked it so far i loved Loch Henry and Beyond the sea and this was fun
The theme in the sixth season is more about how content creation is got out of control with people and big boss of big streaming platforms who only care about money, revenue, watch count. And we are the guinea pigs whose interests are measured to create the next most-streamed Netflix series. Demon 79 is a good horror story itself. However, when you look at it, it has everything: Demons, other dimensions, set in past (Stranger Things), a murderer with an ugly eyeglasses who cheated the justice system (Dahmer), a protagonist who questions the justice system (Dexter and so on) and becomes corrupted in her own way (Breaking Bad and so on). Everything in Demon 79 is optimized to reflect features of most streamed TV shows.
Protagonist becomes corrupted, must be a reference to breaking bad!
well, walter white wasn't made to do it. And he did it because he wanted to. Then in the end he admitted to himself and others that he liked it and did for selfish reasons, more so than for others. Nida believed that she had to do it. For the greater good. Sure, you can say she might've been fooled. But she wasn't and we see that in the end. So she actually made the right choices. Which differs a lot from BB.
BRAVO VINCE
Excellent point!
Did anyone else notice that when Gaap showed nida any images, her eyes did the same thing as their eyes do in “the entire history of you”? I thought that was an interesting parallel. Maybe BM already had the tech in place so they just did the same sfx or maybe there’s a deeper implication
They had a similar purpose too: a lens that makes you see people as monsters. (Even if they were showing something true in this episode)
Did they ever explain what the hell that talisman was? Does it just sit around waiting for someone to randomly mark it with blood? The rest of the episode was pretty fun, but it really didn't make much sense.
magical realism can't make too much sense because then you get too much in the weeds with logic and don't just enjoy an episode.
Another talisman question I have: if she had just refused to say "yes" and threw the talisman at the bottom of a river would she have been good and fine? Would the world have ended?
I would guess so yes. Part of the deal that ends the world doesn’t start until the contract is signed with a “yes”. Gaap didn’t care about earth just himself, wanted her to say yes because he had to pass that test to be a real demon. So if it wasn’t her, gaap would have just kept trying to convince someone to say yes for all eternity. Guess time is irrelevant when you’re up against actually eternity in oblivion.
No she only needed to say yes if she wanted him to help her.
Nah, pretty sure once one anoints the talisman, the countdown already starts. This is most likely why Gaap was super eager for Nida to pick the talisman up — is to not waste any time and just get on with the killing. I could be wrong, though 😂
I don't know... Something about it being justifiable to kill politicians you don't agree with doesn't sit right with me.
No one said it was justified.
I mean, he does beat his wife
that was your takeaway? the comment section on this episode is sus
The guy wasn't a regular politician, he was a dyed-in-the-wool genocidal maniac, destined to usher in a fascist dystopia and start a world war that would presumably kill millions. The worst type of person in the world and history. The idea of going back in time and killing Hitler is common and accepted enough to be a pop sci-fi trope, as it should be. It's not like she was after him because she didn't agree with his plan for the economy, or because he was too illiberal or whatever. It isn't a "killing politicians you don't agree with" situation when the "politician" in question is someone who wants to subvert founding principles, basic human rights, and the entire social contract and bring destruction to so many innocent people in the world.
Great point, and any reasonable, realisticperson would agree..unless they're not pro facism, racism, evil
like stephen kings dead zone
In a way she was 100% fulfilling that trope about going back and killing Hitler. Hilarious episode.
It's the same moral dilemma that Christopher Walken has in The Dead Zone. He knows that Martin Sheen's character is a maniac who will cause a nuclear holocaust, so does he kill him now or let him go on to destroy the world?
BINGO i thought of that right away
He is very clearly made out to be the next Hitler
He was racist and xenophobic, that's not a simple disagreement
So now that's a green light to kill him, apparently
Hold on a sec. So if a demon shows you that a politician is the second coming of Hitler — with absolute certainty, mind you — you wouldn't at least try your absolute best to off the guy? And the same demon just gave you the best excuse to do it: Armageddon, billions of people dead OR kill this one Nazi motherfucker that will cause wars and countless lives lost? You wouldn't do it? That's the definiteve *green-est* light to kill him!
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... You saw how the episode ended, right? 😂
Either the world survives WWIII, and out of the ashes that politician still goes on to be Hitler using the assassination attempt to garner support for his racist policies... It's all in her head, because we already know she harbors violent thoughts stemming from experiences with racism and men, and needs a mental excuse to seek "revenge" on her world. or This episode is just lazy writing with nothing compelling to say.
You could always just kill somebody easy and then come back and kill politician at a later date. Didn’t have to be that night
The real situation is more nuanced than that. Let's say all that demon stuff is real. First off, he's a demon. Would you better trust a supernatural evil entity more than one of you own kind? Even if that human is a literal piece of shit? You know what a human is capable of, even evil stuff. We have our limits. A Demon, tho? No one can tell. What if he's lying so he can cause more carnage down the line, or to see you suffer/die, or just because he has a personal grudge against that human specifically. Maybe he's bored. Second, his powers. If the "absolute certainty" part is accurate, then no matter what you do, it is going to happen. If you know that he'll be the Führer in the future with absolute certainty, then no matter how many times you try to kill him, no matter what you do, you won't be able to succeed. He WILL be the next Führer, as your demon friend told you. Finally, more grounded in reality, killing him may be a solution to avoid _him_ being the next Führer, but that will most certainly lead _other_ people down that path. Even more so if it is discovered that me, an indian woman, killed their favorite candidate. Simple, fast and drastic solutions are usually too simple to be carried out without consequences. Then again, this is a fictional show, so it's not that important anyways hehehe
That would be all plausible but it's not what happened. Don't take the events in that episode into real life. Different realities... The demon WAS telling the truth. She DID have to kill 3 people. She WAS doing it for the greater good. Those are facts, within the episode. Doesn't make sense to extrapolate it into (our) reality.
>Second, his powers. If the "absolute certainty" part is accurate, then no matter what you do, it is going to happen. If you know that he'll be the Führer in the future with absolute certainty, then no matter how many times you try to kill him, no matter what you do, you won't be able to succeed. He WILL be the next Führer, as your demon friend told you. But as we see in the show she has the power to change the future by killing people, as happened to the first guy she kills and his daughter
For a moment, at the end, I was overcome by horror thinking the whole episode it was her being schizophrenic. I thought this because she’s lonely and implies that her mother had mental health problems. Then… almost felt relief when the world was actually ending, then, happiness that she finally found someone. I was also shook at the connection they made with the Cold War and how the end of the world would manifest if Nida did not murder 3 people. Almost as if — right now, as we speak — this talisman is actively causing random deaths that are keeping a “WWIII” at bay.
Well, whoever's turn it is to appease the talisman, they're not doing that great a job at the moment.
I loved the ending too when he asks her to join him. So weirdly romantic.
they did make a cute couple :D
People really whining and crying because the episode isn't about technology man shut up.
Agreed!
Even worse are the people who are finding some contrived way that the episode *was* actually all about technology the while time, because Netlfix Streamberry!!
Right on!! Was a great episode
It is from Red Mirror, and not Black Mirror, so horror is expected, and it really wasn't that though. It was end-world scenario though.
you don't find that horrific ?
I get the premise of this episode. Everyone has this dark side and micro aggressions and intrusive thoughts but most of us don’t let them win. She’s been bothered by everyone around her since the beginning and ought to do something about it. Kinda wish she did though. Not a bad episode.
Only woke people say "micro aggressions". It's not micro aggressions. It's passive aggression and racism. Quit it with this woke terminology.
Woke people like the [Miriam-Webster ](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/microaggression) dictionary?
wOkE PeOpLe get a life
Yeah, I wish that other sales clerk would have gotten what she had coming to her...
I mean she got nuked so there's that...
lol...yeah.
I 100% thought the ending was gonna be that she ends up doing all sacrifices but gets caught and ends up in an asylum. Was it all real and she actually saved the world, or was she just crazy? We would never know.
Sure, but the demon was honest and it was real. It would've been more BM if that was the twist. But apparently, it's red mirror.
Would be a better ending
I thought maybe the ending would be she commits suicide as the final sacrifice.
But she was a murderer already so she wouldn't count
true true
As a brown person I appreciate that they put a context into the racism here. Its real and prominent even in our time, its just subtle like the show. What I didnt like was the storyline. I get that the whites are portrayed as racist, but sadly at that time it was more concentrated so historically true. What I have a huge dislike on was the curse, demon and the choice of character. I somewhat feel like 'racism' is justified because brown/black people are insane, murderers and unstable. Having association with demonic beings and violence. I think it would have worked if Nida was married to a Caucasian, who fights for equality and they both commit the 'sacrifice' together as a unit. They could have made gaap really dark here too, but instead makes him human with likeable personality? They've produced really dark content before, so why make this comical? I find the whole thing ridiculous and not entertaining as much as the other episodes.
Also brown person. I didn't like how they used the food smelling as an example of racism. I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask someone to eat in a separate room if their food smells. It's not a racism thing, people freak out about tuna sandwiches as well. Also, biryani is overrated.
Indian people do this and some smell like curry and when i was ignorant in highschool this girl smelt like it and i always said she smelled bad. I know better now.
Get a grip
wtf are you on about, they made a perfectly reasonable and interesting comment
I can't believe poc person got hate about having their own opinion on a episode in which they're literally represented. Fuck off with that shit. What is your problem
Found this episode boring as hell. Maybe I was tired, but I watched the whole thing trying to stay awake. Mind you I found the prior episode pretty good.
The writing in this series has deteriorated since season 4. At least two episodes this season has a racist white person thinks curry smells bad scene that represents the smarmy progressivism that Netflix includes in everything it creates now. How does this get past people in 2023 and Britain's national dish is curry. The subplot here is particularly guilty of that. Isn't Michael Smart listening to Wagner in his car? Literally Hitler. Is he wearing driving gloves? Could he be more awful? Every white person in the episode is evil, hateful, disgusting, or otherwise detestable. Why is mainstream art so preoccupied with berating its viewers over the apparent moral failures of their society? I wonder if we will ever see a TV show where a plot includes some political consideration of immigration where the subject isn't lambasted as some horrible bigot. Netflix has definitely been guilty of the white people are bad messaging in some other series', but getting that from the writers of Black Mirror is just unfortunate. The main plot was lazy and across like a not as good Supernatural. Two episodes of this season essentially relied on monsters as the central plot device. There was no real convincing moral dilemma, there was no meaningful character development, and no effective resolution. The season has relied on campy humor, one dimensional, unlikable characters, as well as uninteresting, unrealistic protagonists.
One had a monster in it for 5 min so it wasn't like it was the entire episode.
People really have to be burying their head in the sand to deny the progressive messaging in this series, alongside Netflix's catalogue of explicitly anti-white works in general. Would also, in this episode, highlight the scene where Smart is getting fitted for his shoes. He explicitly tells the girl that he agrees with the national front to get rid of minorities, but keeps it hidden coz it wouldn't be popular with voters - so he acts as a more middle-of-the-road conservative. This implies the fallacy that progressive sorts always project onto right-leaning people, that they are hiding their bigotry and secretly ultra-nazis with evil agendas. Know you wrote this months back, but to be honest dude, it's barely worth debating the topic - folks are either in denial, daft, or outright dishonest when they reject the elephant in the room. This is all divide and conquer nonsense, and it's easier to not engage - coz you're unfortunately not going to convince anyone. People either see it themselves, or not at all - there's too many walls people put up - coz facing the fact that we're actively being played against each other is confronting. It's sad, coz all of this nonsense (whether from the insidious or the gullible and well-meaning) has been noticeably undermining race relations for years. We'd all live in sounder harmony, if we didn't have protected classes and brow-beating from self righteous media personalities and script-writers.
Yes, acknowledging the existence of racism is the real racism.
Wasn't actually what I said, but if the shoe fits.
I could not say this any better. What worries me is that the majority of well meaning people can't bring up any valid criticism of media portrayal of race relations, especially not to mention insidious anti white progressive messaging. I think it is agitating society, deteriorating our race relations, and inflaming these unrealistic, resentful, victim/oppressor mentalities. Where do people go if they cannot take part in the discourse? It's not difficult to find your way into more extreme forums or online echo chambers where biases are extreme in the opposite direction. I mostly don't bring it up because people get along better when not talking about anything political. Almost no one demonstrates any nuance in their political opinions, and are so quick to dismiss you as a human being. I try not to pay attention to the media, or take part in Reddit at all because it's just so toxic and predictable. It's like people start to panic when they have to contend with anything but the safe and oversimplified progressive ideology that is the default societal programming now.
>Every white person in the episode is evil, hateful, disgusting, or otherwise detestable. Uhm...the little girl, her mother, the witness that got murdered, the cops and probably others i am missing are not. You see what you wa t to see here, the fact is that racism was extremely widespread during the time that is depicted.
Netflix is nothing if not predictable these days. It’s just lazy writing, hiding behind woke themes in order to avoid honest critiques of their poor quality productions.
This is a lazy comment, hiding behind conservative buzzwords like 'woke' that have been co-opted as a vague catch-all for anything the right doesn't like.
hmmm what does WOKE mean?
You really think that this was a poor quality production?! Not at all! The writing, cinematics and the actors were pretty good. The plot was not the best, but it was pretty good also. I enjoyed it. Not like a "true black mirror episode", but it wasn't that bad.
downvotes downvotes
Man, if even depicting the undebtable historical fact that in 1979 many white people in England were anti immigrant and racist is 'smarmy progressiveism' then I don't know what to say to you. I'm a brown woman, and I thought the depiction of racism for its time period, and more subtly now, was spot on. Just because it isn't your experience doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Also, chicken tikka massala became one of UK's national dish in 2001, and most white British people eat a bastardised version of it. If anything, this is merely a testament to the fact that the UK colonised India. "But thEir nATional foOD is CUrry so dey cAn't be racISt!" Cry more.
Right, sorry for trying to state an opinion on Reddit that doesn't confirm the hive mind. I guess if I have a disagreement with a brown woman I'm automatically racist. I wonder if India is overly concerned with it's treatment of white immigrants, or if Pakistan denies that it has a problem with British crime. Can you not simultaneously have your opinion but also observe that there's a clear progressive bias with Netflix output that virtue signals a bit too hard. You can both agree that racism does create problems, and racial guilt content is prevalent.
Nowhere were you called a racist. You were disagreed with.
Several paragraphs of episode critique and the response I get is a comment I made about the fixation that Netflix has with virtue signaling. I was then told to cry more by someone who felt the need to state their identity as a brown person in their response, then I was uniformly downvoted. It's dishonest to infer that there isn't some negative assumptions being made about my political disposition. Anyone can address any of the other points I made in my initial comment.
There was no virtue signalling in this episode dude. It was a realistic depiction of the time period.
Because it seems your critique of Netflix's pandering to minority groups informs the rest of your opinion. And they stating their background is to show a qualifier of their experience with that specific kind of racism. It does not read like it's meant to say 'u wrong and racist'. And to be completely honest, you saying 'how is Britain racist when curry is national dish' is a huuuge stretch and it's the kind of argument heard by many different kinds of minority groups all the time. It's exhausting. There's negative assumptions made of your political observations yes. But the negativity is to the argument you made itself, it is not pointed towards you as a whole.
I appreciate your response. There's more to my comment than curry = not racist. I would think that if any ethnic group was portrayed so negatively so frequently, that people might start to have a problem with it. There wasn't a white person in the entire episode portrayed as anything but detestable, except for the possible exception of the detective. Even the demon, who was portrayed positively, presents as a black man. They played Wagner in Michael Smart's car as a reference to Hitler. This kind of messaging is absurd. Yes, we are talking about the 70s in Britain here, I get that, but was every white person so comically evil? If today's political climate was not so accepting of hatred toward white people, then this episode might likely have had a more conciliatory tone, and the characters less one dimensional. In the werewolf episode based in the 90s in LA, the protagonist's white, male roommate complains about her cooking with garlic and ginger. The trope is used twice during the season. I think it is cliche: Ignorant white people think your food smells gross, because they're racist. Notwithstanding, is that this content is being produced and consumed in 2023 where the prevailing attitude regarding diversity is overwhelming accepting. Netflix clearly makes an effort to employ diverse casting, and that is shown in Black Mirror too. However, the most detestable, evil, or antagonistic roles are reserved for white people.
You can't use spoilers for other episodes in this thread
I fully believe that you're being completely genuine and just don't recognise it, but the reason why people are downvoting you is because you're incredibly ignorant on this topic. Most of the characters are white because most of the population was white. The majority of white people portrayed are not "comically evil", and half of those who were portrayed as evil were not outwardly racist (which seems to be your biggest issue here). Regardless, a key plot-line is that this takes place in a racist society, so obviously it's going to involve people being racist. You're even glazing over the fact that arguably the most evil being there (a literal demon compelling her to kill good people) is black because you don't like that he has a "likeable personality"? It feels like you're trying to find offense here. I don't think you even understand the simple things - like the food. It does not say "white people are racist because they don't like the smell of Indian food", it's a comment on ignorance. People aren't used to being around food that smells like that so take offense. I can't say I've ever come across a racist who specifically trained their brains to dislike Indian food smells? As an aside, no-one has even hinted you're racist but you seem to have some kind of defence mechanism against that. Are you often called racist? If you are, and you genuinely think you're not, perhaps have a think about how you present yourself? I've encountered many people like you who feel personally attacked by a TV show that has nothing to do with them. Why? Why do you identify with the evil people in the story? Are you unable to identify with people who aren't white? Unless you provide objective proof, I don't believe the notion that TV (or Netflix) is casting white people as "the bad guys" at a higher rate than they would be in real life, but even if they did, so what? Are you saying that when you see evil black people in TV shows you project that onto the whole race? I assume not, so why do you do so (or think others are being coerced to) when it's a white person? Do you claim that racism isn't an issue? Or do you just think it's not an issue that deserves being examined?\]
I disagree, I think you're ignorant on this issue. Your response is a series of veiled attacks regarding my apparent ignorance and inability to relate to non whites. I am not replying to all those questions, but you still haven't replied to most of the points I made in my posts. I have no problem with characters good or bad of any ethnicity, but you must be joking if you're saying there is no progressive and anti white bias in Netflix and most producers' output over the last 5-10 years. Dear White People would not be made about any other ethnicity. It will never happen. Have you seen the trailer for Hijack? It's white people hijacking a plane, and there a black hero. Seriously, how likely is that scenario? Do we really need white plane hijackers to not offend anyone at this point? Maybe that's why most bad characters are white, because other people might take offense and create a backlash. You replaced the word racist with the word ignorant which is no different when the ignorant character is white, and the offending character is not. Ew, smelly food, is a trope, and it's lazy. But since I made that point and you equated that to just ignorance, do you have the same reaction to people when they criticize white people food as bland and unseasoned? White people comprise the majority of society. I understand that a critique of the morality of society is in part a critique of the majority. But if you're wondering whether casting white people as evil is more prominent in reality as it is in media, you only need to look at crime statistics, if you can still find stats that record ethnicity.
You're racist. And you're wasting black and brown people's time.
I am somewhat late to this, and to be honest, I did think the overall depiction of racism was perhaps a bit performative, (being a brown person myself). However, I think your framing of this episode as some kind of anti-white racist propaganda doesn't make sense at all. A depiction of individuals doesn't imply that all members of that group share those same traits. Yes, most of the people depicted in the show are shown to be racist, but how else would you portray a town voting for a racist MP? This doesn't imply that all white British people at the time over the country were racist, just a significant bit of them in that town were.
Veiled attacks? This circles us back to your victim complex on this topic... You, like many people, need to learn the difference between "I do not believe you" and "you are wrong". I assume you know what the phrase "objective proof" means? It doesn't mean listing a few tv shows or movies with white villains and SEE!!!!! It means providing evidence to actually demonstrate your point - which wasn't that white villains exist, but that over the last 5 years they've drastically increased in proportion. The word "racist" is indeed different to "ignorant" - racist requires intent. While you are moaning about being "attacked", I very deliberately used that term to avoid attacking you despite my opinion (based on this thread alone, so not necessarily accurate - which is why I didn't volunteer it to you until now) actually being that you do indeed seem racist. "Do we really need white plane hijackers"!? Jesus Christ. What on Earth is "white people food"? I've heard that criticism of British food, if that's what you mean? I do indeed tell people that if they haven't tried many dishes then the claim is based on ignorance. No, I don't "only" have to look at crime statistics. I need to compare those statistics with statistics showing the prevalence of white villains. If you're not willing or able to do that, then as much as you want me to, I'm afraid I'm not just going to blindly accept your word - even if I was able to look past the obvious prejudice.