Black Mirror Bad | Big Joel

hey everybody so I didn't like the fifth season of Black Mirror and I figured that instead of making some big holistic video essay about it I just review each of the three episodes and tell you all about them if you end up disagreeing with me about black mirror even after I say my sweet points we can't be friends but if it turns out you do agree with me we actually can be friends and will most for sure hang out and stuff so just keep that in mind anyway spoilers spoilers for all of you let's get started so let's start with Rachel Jack and Ashley to an episode I honestly think is atrocious and it's a shame that I thought it was so bad because the episode starts off really strong as far as I'm concerned when I saw the first act where Rachel a teenage girl obsesses over an idealized version of her favorite pop star and develops a relationship with that pop stars creepy robot I had a strong sense that there was a lot of ideas the episode had at its disposal I thought it was ripe territory to discuss parasocial relationships the way that grief and social isolation create the desire to form one-sided connections with people you don't know or understand at its core the episode seems to present the question what should Rachel choose in artificial world of positivity and escapism and affirmation as represented by the Ashley robot or the real painful and substantial world as represented by the actual Ashley that's cool it's like 8th grade but with robots yes please but after the first act after the conceit of the episode is established everything completely falls apart and it does so in the blink of an eye see at around the halfway point of the episode Ashley to the Ashley robot becomes sentient as it turns out the designers of the actually put the Popstars entire mind into it and now after the robot discovers that the original Ashley is in a coma the robots brain power activates and she becomes exactly the same as Ashley the real person now I get why this is a fun choice for the writers to make watching the Ashley robot be sassy and human is kind of fun and goofy I do see the appeal but to me this decision completely destroyed the episode because in a single moment all of the narrative and thematic tension of the episode is unceremoniously thrown out the window suddenly the protagonist Rachel no longer has a choice to make between the real person and the artificial version of her if there is a choice it's a choice between two nearly identical options talking like that oh so rachel has no opportunity to have a character arc no ability to create a meaningful story for the audience because the conflict she faces is resolved for her and resolved in a way that tells us very little about who she is and the effect of this decision is striking the episode basically forgets about Rachel come on guys now we're watching a worse version of ET rachel has to get her best friend to the robot back to Ashley there's a good team Ashley enter your pals and a bad team the mean aunt who just wants money and will use the image of Ashley to get it I powdered your pill station in your food but don't worry your careers gonna hold up just and after Rachel decides to go on this little mission she literally doesn't make a choice she's just along for the slap sticky goofball ride and could be replaced with any other generic character these questions like what does it mean that pop stars exist are the people who love them and see them as idols helped by that fact candies artificial one-sided relationships be positive or are they fundamentally toxic they just get thrown out in the sweep of watching Ashley fight against the man so that she can express herself looking at the latter half of the episode we have to wonder why the former far more interesting half was even there now look I know what an apologist for Rachel Jack and Ashley too would say to me at this point why are you putting so many expectations on this show it doesn't want to be understood here as a standard episode in a sci-fi anthology series look at it's Disney pop aesthetic look at its slapstick heist scenes what [Music] it's shockingly long chase sequence watch the antagonist look into the camera and say oh [ __ ] [ __ ] it dude just meet it where it's at and no I don't think this is a good defense for one thing there's often a pressure with cheeky self reflective media like this episode to just accept whatever decisions it makes this is what they wanted it to be like so it must be kinda good right and honestly I disagree with this philosophy pretty vehemently like I'm a huge fan of sci-fi anthology stuff how it focuses on its conceits how tight it is how it usually centers on social commentary in some way and it doesn't make me a worse media consumer to want something like that out of black mirror and to watch an episode of the show start down that path and then just forget about it I don't know it's viscerally disappointing it feels bad I more importantly even if we do accept that the show just wanted to be a fun Disney movie does it really do a good job at that do people like those movies because they ignore their protagonists and reject any kind of thematic or narrative through-line I mean I'm not a connoisseur of the genre but it seems to me that at the beginning of High School Musical Troy has to deal with the conflict of wanting to be an actor when everybody expects him to play basketball feeling so wrong my head's in the game but my heart and at the end you know it's still about Troy he gets what he wants he's an actor I can do that look at him act his heart out and the reason for this is simple High School Musical is competent it follows through with its characters and succeeds at being a fun Disney movie Rachel Jack and Ashley - doesn't it's just lazy writing any way you slice it so let's move on and talk about the first episode of the fifth season striking vipers and this one's really interesting because it sort of has the opposite thing going on as rachel jack and ashley - where are j and a just feels like it's drowning in material the grieving teenager the unhappy popstar the ashley robot that robot becoming sentient the ashley hologram striking Vipers just feels incredibly pared down diligently focused on its core mechanic - friends find that when they enter a video game and become characters in it they are impossibly attracted to one another so much so that the protagonist cheats on his wife that's about it and we don't even really know why these two like having sex with each other so much sure the protagonist feels bad and old and nostalgic about the past his buddy likes to have sex in a body that has boobs in a vagina it's crazy I mean it's different like the physical feeling of it it's more sort of but there's not much more to it than that and on some level I think this is a sort of clever choice because if nothing else this episode is about the arbitrary nature of love toward the very end of the episode the two men try kissing each other outside of the game and feel nothing whatsoever and we're left with some interesting questions what is this infatuation what is it about this game that makes these men want one another and if all they have is this virtual reality is that desire real or meaningful and by not answering these questions the episode tells us I don't know maybe there's something here maybe they love each other for a reason but if they do we can't say what that reason is maybe it's just random and these guys happen to find a strange place where they wanted to be together that's all that's enough but as much as I like this idea on paper I can't help but feel like it wasted opportunities to explore that randomness that sense of hollowness in a more intricate and satisfying way for instance striking Vipers the game in the episode is a really interesting landscape like these two men go into a virtual reality occupy different bodies and have sex but fundamentally the space that they enter is constructed authored the characters act like they are inhabiting real people but they're not they're inhabiting characters fake avatars who are specifically designed to arouse straight teenage boys the protagonists love interest he doesn't just become a woman when he has he basically becomes chun-li who wears a tiny skirt and has an optimal bod and who is deeply artificial check this [ __ ] out so what does that mean does it tell us something about this romance is it important to these guys in some way I don't know they never tell us or another example how does queerness work within this narrative see we have a dude here who's best sexual experiences occur in a virtual reality game where he's playing as a woman having sex with a man and I don't really feel like I gotta say much about this besides what's going on there that's interesting I'm not asking him to like freak out cuz he's ostensibly a straight guy who's now attracted to a dude while he's a woman honestly I kinda liked that nobody tried to stigmatize it or whatever but come on if I had that experience I'd have thoughts on it be a little shook questions some things about my gender and sexuality do I really like being a woman or do I just like occasionally having a vagina why am i attracted to dudes only in this synthetic world what does sexual preference even mean when you can be anything you want and have sex with anything you want you know I even [ __ ] tundra the polar bear character but again even though we feel like these questions are important we don't get to see them being important none of the characters even care it's weird and look I'm not saying the episode should have spoon-fed us these ideas it's okay for media to be subtle but I just feel like the story doesn't give us a chance to explore any of these dynamics I mean the most important moment and the whole thing where the to find out they have no chemistry when they're in person happens right at the end but why don't be bold right why not have that scene at the very beginning and let us see in depth how our characters deal with that fact and even if they end in the same place with a sense of randomness and confusion that ending could have felt more earned more rich more specific to the episode striking vipers could have addressed what this arbitrary weird relationship says about our protagonists about sexuality about video games and virtual reality about love but instead of engaging with any of that most of the episode is just spent with a dude sneaking around on his wife oh no my relationship is getting strained while I see hot other one it's not nearly as interesting to me so the episode has good bones has a lot of cool stuff to play around with but um P Hongo I wanted the delicious thematic meat off of those bones and I didn't get it the third and final episode we're gonna talk about is smithereens now I actually have a fair amount less to say about this one than the others because it is far and away the most competent episode of the season the writing is tight the acting is good particularly that of the protagonist and it has a simple nice idea to it centering on a man who takes someone hostage so that he can talk to the CEO of a social networking company smithereen the episode centers on the idea of being heard that's what the protagonist Chris explicitly wants for someone important to hear him that's what the police and smithereen are doing listening in on his conversations more broadly the episode suggests that in the New Age where social media is everywhere people don't really listen to each other and sure just saying that last part did make me cringe a little bit reminds me of a sign you'd see an awful boomer restaurant but still tone polish and focus really saved the day here I like that nobody in this society is malevolent wants to do harm instead they're all just people who want to resolve this situation who wanna help it wasn't supposed to be like this our whole platform I swear to god it was like it was one thing when I started it and then he just oh no it just became this whole other [ __ ] thing I like the overwhelming bureaucracy and feeling of claustrophobia that the episode of voc's like you're always on the line with someone you're always getting your complaint heard but you can never get anywhere with it I'm gonna put you back on hold I promise you we are working on it don't be long I don't know it all just worked for me but considering all that I do think the ending of the episode could have been a lot stronger and less messy like in his big speech in the last act Chris confesses that the reason he's so upset is that he is somewhat responsible for his wife's death he was looking at smithereen notifications on his phone when a drunk guy crashed into him nobody and honestly I just thought that was bland and needless how does that confession tie into the overall motif of hearing and being heard what does his partial responsibility for this tragedy really add to the thematic gesture of the episode I guess that like the CEO of smithereen this guy got involved in a system that got way out of hand maybe that kind of works but still I'm not really feeling it it's a moment that should have felt big and important and instead it fell flat as a sort of after-school don't text and drive vibe to it all so what's the deal with the way the protagonist dies as the hostage tries to prevent Chris from killing himself the cops see it as a threat and shoot him the struggling okay I kind of feel like that's the twist of the episode but it's a twist that tells me nothing about this world and adds nothing to its thematic dimension it was just a cool little turn of events I guess probably the most confusing thing of all in the final act is this montage that happens see these two images occur back-to-back this woman finally being able to access her dead daughter social media account because of what the protagonist did and the cops shooting the protagonist when you put a montage in a film it establishes that there's some relationship between the two things being depicted but what is the relationship between these two things what does their juxtaposition add or say a mistaken shooting and a happy woman I've thought about it for hours and I can't figure it out all in all the ending of the episode made me feel dumb and disappointed I imagine some commenter is gonna come in and be like um actually this is what the juxtaposition is supposed to signal to the audience and I'll be like wow I sure do feel stupid now thanks big Joel the commenter was me all along that's the twist of this video anyway is that fair to think less of an episode because I personally couldn't untangle its elements well maybe not but something tells me that I'm not going to be satisfied by the explanations angry commenters are gonna give me for these things we'll see I guess so was there a point to any of this or was I just being catty about media that I didn't personally enjoy well yes and yes see I think there's a growing culture one that I've personally contributed to of ignoring as much as possible we're a work succeeded or failed it's a very subjective thing liking a bit of media and even though the fifth season of black mirror breaks some pretty obvious rules of storytelling pay attention to your part agnus be as specific as possible direct the audience's attention to the salient questions of your work that's all I can really say about it it broke some rules who cares they were made to be broken and even though I didn't think they accomplished very much by breaking these rules if you liked these episodes liked the choices they made well that's fine I won't be your friend obviously but I have nothing else to offer you and that's all right by me in most of the videos I've made and in most of the videos I intend to make I don't want to conclude with a message as personal as I didn't like a thing but even so there is a place for that right how much we like media may not be provable but it is important and every so often I think it can be fun and interesting and telling to just sit down and be rude about a show that you didn't like hey thanks for watching my video if you liked it feel free to like comment and subscribe if you really loved it you know maybe try giving me some money on patreon we're doing a patron only live stream once a month now I just recently made a change and who's to say what what that will bring speaking of patrons now it's time for my patreon question of the video Dan mini-golf wizard Harvey asks I would really like to know what you think the best Pokemon is and the answer as far as I'm concerned is Alakazam because he's a big sexy boy that's it full answer done big sexy boy Alakazam Oh also special thanks to leftist tech support cool work ok thank you so much bye you

Channel: Big Joel

Views: 785,315

Rating: 4.7249827 out of 5

Keywords: black mirror, black mirror season 5, black mirror season 5 big joel, smithereens, rachel jack and ashley too, striking vipers, rachel jack and ashley too bad, black mirror review, black mirror big joel, miley cyrus, black mirror bad, big joel

Id: iMlWkHafoq8

Length: 22min 0sec (1320 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 06 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/foxhoundladies]

I’m p hongo for more Joel takes

[u/temporarilythesame]

hmm...

​

I think the tension with Striking Vipers was whether or not things were going to go violent or not. It was a coin flip between "they're cool with being virtual fuck buddies" or "I can't like my wife know I'm a degenerate so I'll murder my friend."

​

I though Rachel Too was interesting because it quickly switched who the main character is from the nobody fan girl to the rock star who is pretty much in an extremely fucked up situation all the while presented in disney channel packaging. (Also dug hearing Head Like a Hole tweaked into a teeny bopper pop song with the payoff at the end.)

​

The ending of Smithereens... I'm pretty sure the kidnapper wanted to die. He was going to kill himself (he's saying over and over that 'this is his last day') and in the end (while the scene cut does leave ambiguity) he probably did get shot by the police sniper. So in the end he got what he wanted. And the scene with the distraught mom, she got what she wanted, access to her daughter's social media account (for better or worse.) The CEO of Smithereens got what he wanted, to get back to his no tech retreat. The other Executives got what they wanted with the intern most likely returned relatively safely and little to no negative fallout. The police might have got what they wanted, the situation over with no civilian's harmed (the are several conversations among the police about a bad situation that recently happened). And in the end, everybody goes back to their regular routine.

[u/drearyspice]

I think he kinda missed it with striking vipers - I thought they did show us pretty clearly that the two men are in love based on all their interactions in the first act, the game just allows them an outlet where they finally feel safe to explore it through heterosexual role play. In the scene where they do kiss irl, it seemed pretty obvious they were lying about not feeling anything and then they actually fight right after, which I think is trying to say something about how violence can feel like the only acceptable physical interaction between men.

[u/NihiloZero]

Each episode was off in its own way and none of them were as good as standouts from seasons past.

The episode with the most Black Mirror "vibe" was the one with the guy on his cellphone... but it really wasn't very sci-fi and that's half the reason I watch the show. I don't want Black Mirror to be just another drama without much of a twist.

[u/Kozozwierz]

The thing I really disliked about the striking vipers episode is how it gives this massive space to explore relating sex and identity, and then pretends it doesn't exist. We never see the protagonists switch characters, I mean for ducks sake we have one guy asking the other what's its like to have sex as a woman. As if it's not something he can experience with a few buttons. It be interesting to see if there still is sexual attraction when they are different genders and how a homosexual relationship would feel in game.

[u/[deleted]]

Black Mirror is bad. Stop twisting yourselves into knots trying to imagine themes and development the show never presented.

[u/TiffanyNow]

I still haven’t seen the new season, but I remember the vr episode being hyped all over trans reddit and I found that very annoying because IMO the plot synopsis sounded like some transphobic AGP shit