Charlie Brooker has absolutely outdone himself with Black Mirror season 6.
The dismal anthology series, which is cloaked in unparalleled secrecy until its release each time, is constantly audacious, fearless, and ruthless, but Black Mirror is even more stunning than ever before for the sixth blockbuster run of episodes.
Five episodes, five very bizarre plotlines.
Annie Murphy, Salma Hayek, Aaron Paul, Josh Hartnett, and Kate Mara are just a few of the big names who have signed on for the collection, which includes mind-bending twists and an A-list actor defecating in a cathedral.
Joan Is Awful
Joan is played by Annie Murphy. Joan isn’t awful, but she’s having a bad day after having to inform a colleague and a friend they’ve been fired, before telling her therapist she’s not fully happy in her relationship and misses the punchier sex life with her ex, who texts to say he’s in town out of the blue. When they meet, the desire is still palpable and unmistakable.
So Joan is only a little bit bad until that day is suddenly dramatised into a new US sitcom on Netflix and she’s now portrayed as the worst person in America.
Joan is scrolling through streaming provider Streamberry while Netflix and chilling, but genuinely chilling, to find the events of her day being played out by Salma Hayek and she is living in the craziest nightmare possible.
Joan Is Awful is my fave Black Mirror feeling – psychedelic as hell, absolutely unexpected, and reaches heights of ridiculousness you could only find in a programme that started with a Prime Minister having sex with a pig and then turned out to be a true tale.
I Hate Joan is a US blockbuster that retains the finest humour and terror of Black Mirror’s heyday. The mix of appearances may be too much but works brilliantly, and while there has been justifiable criticism that Black Mirror went worse as soon as it got “too American.”
Loch Henry
Loch Henry’s view on actual crime is the most accurate since Making A Murderer blew up the bizarre phenomena and transformed awful murders into sick bingeable entertainment.
Perhaps the most believable of all Black Mirror episodes to date, it’s also the brutal truth of how exploitative television has become right here, right now.
For the first time, Black Mirror travels to Scotland, to the fictitious Loch Henry, the birthplace of filmmaker Davis, who takes his fiancée Pia to produce a documentary on an egg-protecting vigilante and stay with his widowed mother, who has been living alone since his policeman father’s death.
During their visit, they meet Davis’ buddy Stuart and discuss the history of the formerly renowned tourist attraction that became a ghost town when a couple went missing on their honeymoon in 1997.
The case immediately became a national news topic, and holiday goers were replaced by journalists and news vans until Princess Diana’s death, when the story vanished.
Davis, on the other hand, has a special affinity to the narrative because it was the impetus for his father’s death.
Naturally, Pia realises that the film they should be creating is staring them in the face.
Loch Henry is a straightforward thriller that makes an obvious observation but with a completely unexpected twist in an anthology packed with huge budget episodes, A-list actors, and some of the most extreme tales in Black Mirror history.
It’s a classic British horror story, set in a gloomy British town where numerous dead are buried and mysteries linger unsolved, and where there are more ghosts than humans. Everyone has their own peculiarities, so there are limitless questions and possibilities, but the closing 10 minutes are more exhilarating than a Line of Duty season finale (when it was still thrilling).
Wait for the Bergerac twist…
Beyond The Sea
Cliff (Aaron Paul) and David (Josh Hartnett) are on a long-term space mission, estranged from their family and friends, floating in space with just each other for companionship. Well, sort of.
A robotic body twin still lives at home, thanks to cutting-edge technology, allowing them to transfer their consciousness back to earth on occasion.
However, when a genuinely horrible occurrence occurs for David’s family, the essential mission’s future is jeopardised unless Cliff is willing to make a great sacrifice – one he may live to regret.
Beyond The Sea is a lyrical tragedy that is both wonderfully beautiful and brutally horrible, full of twists and turns. A true television classic that belongs in a movie theatre.
Mazey Day
When one of her photographs results in the death of a closeted star, a paparazzi photographer desperate for work throws up the towel.
When a budding celebrity goes off the rails, the price for a single photograph of the actress is too good to pass up.
What follows is a violent homage to classic 1980s horror, complete with a satisfying crunch at the conclusion.
Mazey Day offers an unexpectedly sympathetic view of the paparazzi while ultimately finding they’re all monsters with genuine murder on their hands. It’s not your usual Black Mirror (what is? ), but it’s a lot of fun.
Demon ‘79
Paapa Essiedu as a demon masquerading as a Boney M member? I’m in.
During the ascent of Margaret Thatcher, shy store assistant Needa (Anjana Vaan) is treated horribly by her coworkers and neighbours.
She accidentally sets off a cursed talisman and is confronted with a demon who, to make things a little less terrifying, transforms into a fictional ‘dancing man’ from Boney M who tells her that she must kill three people in order to save the world from an impending apocalypse.
Demon ’79 is a shattering look at Thatcher’s hell and the emergence of the National Front that seems like peak Edgar Wright horror comedy. Vaan’s performance is undoubtedly one of the season’s standouts, which is no small achievement considering the season’s overall calibre.
Black Mirror is available to stream on Netflix now.
