Two of Black Mirror’s best episodes break the show’s biggest trend

The Netflix anthology series Black Mirror is known for its scathing criticism of the digital age, with television, social media, and all forms of AI constantly in its crosshairs. To deliver this criticism, the series often tells grim stories with tragic and violent endings befitting its grim themes. From time to time, however, the series takes a more positive view and gives its characters a happy ending.

Season 3, Episode 4, “San Junipero” and Season 4, Episode 4, “Hang the DJ” both tell romantic stories with happy endings. Although the technology of the episodes still has a dark side, the characters ultimately find love for each other and presumably live happily ever after.

San Junipero enables people to live in a digital world

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“San Junipero” begins with two young women in the 80s who meet at a club and have instant chemistry. While one of the women, the brilliantly played Kelly, is bold and flirtatious, the other, Yorkie, is suspicious when she is seen dancing with another woman. However, the next weekend she goes back to the club and meets up with Kelly again, intending to sleep with her. The two spend an intimate night and talk about their past romantic relationships. Over the next few weeks she searches for Kelly, who seems to have disappeared from the scene.

At this point the slight feeling that something is strange with Kelly and Yorkie, the hints of the twist most Black Mirror episodes have, is resolved. Some of the characters’ comments felt odd, like when Kelly, who appears to be in her mid-20s, mentions a long marriage she was in. That’s possible for a woman her age depending on how long she means it, but it feels surprising. Also odd is the characters’ constant focus on midnight as the end of their time together, which feels less like their curfew and more like Cinderella having to leave the ball. The mystery begins to unravel a bit as Yorkie spends the next few weeks searching for Kelly in the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s and the two of them recount where they actually came from in the simulation.

Kelly decides to visit Yorkie in real lifeand then the audience sees the whole situation; both characters are actually elderly, and San Junipero exists as a digital world that the Elders can upload their consciousness into. They can live their lives more intensely in San Junipero than in their real lives and bodies, especially Yorkie, who has been paralyzed since a car accident at 21. Kelly marries Yorkie so she can “cross over” to live in San Junipero full-time instead of just visiting, but the two argue when Yorkie insists that Kelly should join her instead of simply dying. Ultimately, however, Kelly decides to cross over and spend more time with Yorkie.

Hang the DJ presents a futuristic dating app

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“Hang the DJ” similarly creates a world that feels a little strange for the entire episode and then brings it all together towards the end. Two people, Frank and Amy, meet at a restaurant for a date, the first for each of them. They have a device that brings them together and also tells them how long they’ve been together if they both press it at the same time to display it. The time limit for their date is set at 12 hours and the two have an awkward but sweet date. From the restaurant they go to a room also provided by the same “program” that distributed the device, which they talk to like Siri on an iPhone, and they spend a chaste night together, holding hands. Certainly it’s clear early on that this is a healthier relationship than others Black Mirror Consequences.

After their first date ends, the two almost immediately begin new relationships: Amy with a man she is immediately attracted to, and Frank with a woman he immediately rejects. Both relationships are designed to last much longer than their first dates: Amy’s relationship lasts nine months, and Frank’s lasts a year. Frank frequently asks his device what the point of this relationship is, but it tells him that every relationship has a purpose; user feedback provides him with more data to match people with their ultimate partner, the kind of technological details that Black Mirror one of the best current science fiction series.After the end of her relationship, Amy has numerous 36-hour dates and notices that she is distancing herself from the encounters because the sex and the dates seem completely pointless to her.

Eventually, the two are reunited and agree not to check the relationship’s “expiration date.” However, Frank checks after a few days, and since he does so without her, the five-year duration is extended to a few hours. After they run out of time, he questions escaping the society they are in, but is told that failure to comply can result in banishment. Amy also questions the structure they are in; specifically, she questions why every time she skips stones across water, she skips exactly four times. The two meet again, and Amy says their entire world is a test that the two can only pass if they decide to connect beyond the technology that controls them. Eventually, as the world collapses around them, the two find themselves standing in a vacuum filled with hundreds of other incarnations of themselves, all of which dissolve, revealing that they were simulations on a dating app the whole time; Amy looks at her phone in a (presumably) real bar, which shows that she is 99.8% compatible with Frank. The two smile at each other across the bar.

Both Black Mirror episodes have a dark and a light side

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These two episodes are considered two of the happiest and best episodes of Black Mirror.Especially “San Junipero” with its happy ending for two LGBTQ+ womenwas widely praised upon its release. However, they still have their dark sides. In San Junipero, Kelly deals with the loss of her husband of over 40 years and the tragic death of her daughter. She also says that the people who live in San Junipero lead superficial lives and are constantly searching for new experiences and sensations after so long in the unchanging digital world.

“Hang the DJ” doesn’t dwell on the negative effects as much, but there are still some problems in its world. The whole episode focuses on two of many simulated versions of the main characters, and they have to go through some pretty unpleasant experiences to get to the end, which is what the other hundreds of simulations presumably did as well. While their consciousness is questionable, Black Mirror explores conscious AIs, so the audience is primed to see these two as fully-fledged individuals, so it’s hard to ignore how grim it is that all of these versions went through all of these problems just for the purpose of a dating app.

Nevertheless, they not only deserve their success, but are also considered one of the happiest episodes. Black Mirror can be a difficult show to follow and isn’t always suitable for binge-watching due to its pessimistic attitude. Neither “San Junipero” nor “Hang the DJ” abandon the show’s themes to tell a truly happy story. They still have a somewhat grim atmosphere and criticize the technology used in the episodes. However, they also acknowledge some of the positive aspects of technology and, moreover, recognize people’s ability to find hope everywhere. Even though the technology that dominates modern society is fraught with problems, people still find and will find ways to form real human connections and live fulfilling lives, which is something that these episodes explore.

Black Mirror

An anthology series exploring a crazy, high-tech multiverse where humanity’s greatest innovations and darkest instincts collide.

Release date

December 4, 2011

Pour

Michaela Coel, Hannah John-Kamen, Douglas Hodge, Brian Pettifer, Zazie Beetz, John Hamm, Aaron Paul

Main genre

Science fiction

Seasons

6

Creator

Charlie Brooker

Authors

Charlie Brooker

Number of episodes

27

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