Charlie Brooker’s anthology series Black Mirror is possibly one of the most captivating and disturbing shows of the last decade. In a blend of science fiction and horror, each episode perfectly portrays the deterioration of our society as technology advances and transforms all aspects of our lives, while also commenting on contemporary social issues through a near-future dystopian lens.
Forcing us to take a hard look at ourselves and the world around us, Black Mirror emphasizes the damaging reality and even darker future for us as a society. The show quickly re-popularized the TV anthology genre, and the cultural impact it had is impressive, with many people wanting to know everything about season six, even with Brooker has said the world has gotten too depressing for him to write one. There’s no doubt that the mind-bending episodes that confront dark and serious topics, and pull the rug out from under the viewer’s consciousness with a major twist, resonated with fans until their jaw couldn’t drop any further. Here are some of the most shocking twists in Black Mirror.
Spoiler Alert: As this article addresses shocking twists, there will obviously be major spoilers ahead.
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7 Crocodile
Netflix
Fifteen years after Mia (Andrea Riseborough, from the UK thriller Here Before) helps her friend Rob cover up a hit-and-run death, Rob wants to come clean about the murder. When Mia kills Rob to keep her past crimes a secret, she is unfortunate enough to witness an accident from a window, drawing attention from private investigator Shazia, who uses Recallers to extract memories from people. Mia becomes completely exposedm and so murders Shazia, her husband, and even their toddler to make sure no witnesses are left, in the hope that her secret will finally be safe, ultimately digging herself a deep, dark rabbit hole.
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The plot twist in this episode is truly unexpected and shocking; what Mia didn’t know was that Shazia’s child was born blind and wouldn’t have been a witness. Not only did she kill an innocent child, but while she thinks she got away with murder, Shazia’s pet guinea pig saw everything. Just when the audience think her secrets will be locked away forever, the guinea pig’s memories are extracted through a Recaller and all of Mia’s murders are exposed. It just goes to show, the truth will always come out.
6 Shut Up And Dance
Kenny’s laptop camera was used by an unknown hacker to record him pleasuring himself. They threaten him into a series of stacked blackmails, including a bank robbery with another man ensnared in blackmail, or they will leak his secret. Exploring themes of techno-paranoia, Kenny shoots and kills an unidentified man in the middle of the forest on the orders of his blackmailers.
While throughout the episode, it is hard to not feel any sympathy towards Kenny, the audience are unaware of the disturbing, underlying reason for his desperate compliance with the blackmail. When Kenny thinks that he is finally free, his mother phones him and yells at him for “looking at kids.” Kenny’s internet habits, which remained a mystery for most of the episode, have been leaked by the hackers, and he is arrested on charges of child pornography.
The shocking twist in this episode is that, it wouldn’t have mattered whether Kenny would have obeyed the hackers or not, he would have been caught, only now for multiple crimes instead. The horrific and disturbing events that happen in the most ordinary and contemporary setting is what makes this episode so disturbing, along with the empathy the audience develops for someone who turns out to be a pedophile, offering the audience a glimpse of events that are very possible in real life. It shows us the power of the internet, technology, and how easy it is to get caught for your mistakes.
5 White Bear
Awakened with no recollection of who she is, Victoria is surprised to discover strangers filming her on smartphones. She runs into a masked assailant who is intent on killing her, but she is saved by two strangers who tell her about society’s deterioration. Both the audience and the protagonist completely believe this story, but are about to be disturbed and shocked by the true reason for the hunt for Victoria.
The audience quickly learn that she’s part of a bizarre game, a torturous reality show-style punishment. As part of her punishment for killing a child, Victoria is forced to forget her daily experiences and who she is, so she can relive them over and over again in “White Bear Justice Park.” The plot twist in this episode is disturbing and shocking enough, but the possibility of such a punishment in the future, with the advances of the dark side to technology, is even scarier.
4 White Christmas
This special Christmas episode offers three interconnected stories that form one horrific storyline. At a snowed-in cabin, two men tell each other stories. First, Matthew tells Joe about something horrific revolving around “Cookie Consciousnesses,” which are digital clones of people. This prompts Joe to tell Matthew his story about murdering his partner Beth’s daughter and father after discovering the child is not his; getting a confession was Matthew’s intention.
For his service and getting Joe to confess, Matthew avoids prison for his role in an online group that watched each other seduce women, which resulted in a death. However, the audience is shocked to learn that he still gets punished and permanently banned from society as a sex offender. Meanwhile, the most unsettling conclusion is that Joe’s cookie is playing “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day” on repeat, which played as Joe killed Beth’s father.
3 Black Museum
As Nish tours the Black Museum, Rolo Haynes describes his dedicated collection of actual criminological relics in anthological snippets. The major exhibit is a hologram Clayton Leigh; Rolo claims he was a murderer, but Nish points out the conflicting evidence. A visitor can activate an electric chair hologram of Clayton by pulling a lever, and a souvenir copy of him being electrocuted is made. It is revealed that Nish is Clayton’s daughter, and as revenge, Nish sabotaged the air conditioner and handed Rolo poisoned water. As Rolo suffers, Nish transfers him into Clayton’s hologram and electrocutes it. The greatest plot twist in this episode is that her mother lives as part of her consciousness as she converses with her when she leaves.
2 Hated In The Nation
This episode deals with the dark side of the internet and the power exerted by its supposedly anonymous users. The trending #Deathto is a key element in the murder cases of celebrities, which is when investigators uncover a macabre voting system used on Twitter. Social media users can select the celebrity they hate the most, and bee-sized drones will assassinate them. What neither the audience nor the voters realize, and the biggest twist in the episode, is that the voters are the real targets, and the episode ends with a mass killing of nearly 400,000 people. It is the perfect message to stop spreading hate on the internet.
1 The National Anthem
In Black Mirror, the very first episode is also one of the most disturbing. The National Anthem tells the story of the humiliation of the British Prime Minister, who is forced to have sex with a pig on live television in order to save the kidnapped princess. Although, in a shocking twist unknown to the Prime Minister, it is revealed that the princess had actually been released well before the event, making the Prime Minister’s actions meaningless.
In this episode, we learn a lot of important things about our time, like how politics is run by the press, the public, and social media, and can never be kept under wraps. This episode shows how public opinion has become more important in the age of social media. The public now has more information and more power to change other people’s minds. It was meant to show how much the public cares about the media. A lot of people don’t like this episode because it shows a very gloomy picture of humanity and how we act, but perhaps the most shocking twist of Black Mirror as a whole is just how accurate it is about the human condition.
