Written by Malaika Writes
Black Mirror is an anthology TV series that’s nutritiously known for its mind blowing episodes. The thrilling storylines weave technological advances with reality in a way that leaves watchers feeling both amazement and unmistakable dread. The Netflix Original series has mastered showcasing how technology can manipulate people in the worst ways. With so many intense stories being told, here’s a list of the most twisted episodes of Black Mirror. (Warning: spoiler alerts ahead!)
- Men Against Fire
We start off our list with Men Against Fire. The episode follows a soldier who’s job is to get rid of the “Roaches,” which are the dangerous zombie-like enemy. It only gets more twisted as it’s revealed that the “roaches” are in fact humans that are only viewed as “roaches” because of distortion implants. The episode toys with the idea of how soldiers are programmed to see the enemy as lesser in order to not feel the full impacts of the damage that they cause. What really topped the cake with this episode was the ending. Something about seeing the soldier see his family and their home where there’s only wreckage from war, and wondering if the implant is still intact, pulls at the heartstrings and makes the episode a lot more impactful.
- Playtest
The episode about Cooper, a globetrotter looking for his next thrill, who agrees to help test out a new game, takes a dark turn as you watch him go from playing Whac-a-Mole to being left in a manor where his biggest nightmares are simulated. While you watch him face his biggest fears, all you can think is that it can’t get much worse. The relief that comes with Cooper being snapped out of the simulation, and the sense of content that comes with him finally going to see his mother should’ve been warning enough that the twists weren’t over yet. The shocking ending of Cooper still being in the simulation all along, and his death (?), made the episode ten times more horrifying. The question of if he’s still in another layer of simulation by the end makes the episode all the more unsettling.
- The National Anthem
There’s only one thing that needs to be said about the first ever episode of Black Mirror to show why it deserves to be on this list: The Prime Minister has sex with a pig on national television.
- Shut Up and Dance
Shut Up and Dance had us all asking the same question through most of the episode. Why is Kenny working so hard to keep masturbation a secret? The episode follows Kenny as he’s manipulated into doing things and committing crimes by a group of people online that are threatening to release video footage of him doing something he shouldn’t have. While the tasks turn into crimes you find yourself wondering why Kenny would continue to do the tasks over something that pales in comparison. At the episodes climax, it is revealed that Kenny is a paedophile that was masturbating to children. To make matters worse, the episode ends with him winning a chicken fight to the death with another paedophile in order to keep his secret. Despite this, the online organisation not only reveals his, but also everyone else that was manipulated, is dirty secrets to the public anyways.
- White Bear
This episode takes place in White Bear Justice Park, which takes prison (and amusement park) to a whole new level. As you watch a woman who doesn’t know who she is get chased down by murderers, while the whole town films instead of intervening, you can’t help but feel sympathetic towards her situation. Once it’s revealed that she’s a criminal that helped kidnap a little girl and filmed her murder, which is the same situation she’s thrust into, you begin to question whether she deserves the punishment after all. Is the punishment a fair one if the woman doesn’t know what she’s being tortured for? Or is it fair because the crime she committed?
- USS Callister
From stealing peoples DNA, to creating carbon copies of people you don’t like to torture them. From taking away the clones private parts, to taking away their entire faces when they make you mad. From forcing clones to act the way you want by threatening to bring their loved ones into your simulation, to turning clones into grotesque monsters when you’re done with them. If you do all those things recreationally, you’re Robert Daly from USS Callister! And when you take into consideration that the clones have the brains of the people that they’re cloned from… you find yourself becoming less sympathetic of Daly when he gets stuck alone in the void left behind by the simulation he created. This twisted episode makes all immersive video games seem far less appealing…
- 15 Million Merits
As if watching everyone slave away on the bikes wasn’t enough, when you see the defeat at the end of this episode, you’re thoroughly destroyed. This episode follows our main character as he falls in love and then donates the points he’s has to help the woman he falls in love with fulfil her dreams… only for her to be drugged into agreeing to do porn instead. As he rebels against the system to get her back, and speaks his truth, you watch as he falls into the same trap and becomes an attraction of his own. There’s nothing more heartbreaking than watching the main character submit to the system when you were sure he was the one that was going to change it.
- White Christmas
When it comes to Black Mirror episodes, White Christmas takes the cake as the most twisted. While the majority of the story is nothing spectacular, the end of this episode is absolutely jarring. You watch helplessly as the two main characters suffer, and all you can do in the end is ask yourself, “What just happened?” There’s something truly horrifying about watching as our one main character lives through the same traumatising day on loop for millions of years while the other main character is blocked from everyone in the world despite being set free. Despite the two characters being criminals, you can’t help but feel like what’s been done to them is wrong. The two different tortures are both difficult to process, making the whole situation one that makes you want for all technological advances to come to an abrupt halt so that nothing like what happens in the episode can ever happen in real life.
