The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Black Mirror’ Season 6, Episodes 1-2 Recap

Episode Date: June 16, 2023

Joanna Robinson and Van Lathan are here to unpack the first two episodes of ‘Black Mirror’ Season 6. They briefly talk about the shows that came before it and that inspired the Netflix anthology series, as well as their thoughts on past seasons. Next, they share their personal top five ‘Black Mirror’ episodes before diving into what makes “Joan Is Awful” so compelling. Later, they discuss the overarching themes of the season, point out a handful of in-world Easter eggs, and break down series creator Charlie Brooker’s take on true crime in “Loch Henry.” Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Van Lathan Producer: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Erica Ramirez, founder of Ili, and hosts of What About Your Friends, a podcast dedicated to the many lives of friendship and how it's portrayed in pop culture. Every Wednesday on the Ringer dish feed, I talk to my best friend, Stephen Othello, and your favorites from within the Ringer and beyond about friendships on TV and movies, pop culture and our real lives. So join me every Wednesday on the Ringer Dish feed, where we try to answer the question TLCS back in the day, What About Your Friends? Hello, welcome back in the Prestige TV podcast feed.

I'm Joanna Robinson joining me today. He's looking at, I think, four different devices as I speak. Yeah. It's Van Lath. Hi, Van. How are you? Hello, Joe. The Giovanni Experience rides again.

It took some technical mastery by one Sean Finacy to get here, but we're here. We're here. Kai also helps our producer, Craig Grady. But, like, many devices were corralled for us to talk to you about the ultimate device horror show, which is Black Mirror, which is back with season six, a classic Netflix. binge drop. This Friday, we're recording a couple days in advance of Friday. We're splitting this into two podcasts to cover the season. So there's five new episodes. We're covering episode one and two in this first podcast, and then we'll cover three, four, five in next week's podcast. So spoilers today for season six episode one, Joan is awful. And season six episode two,

Locke Henry. We're also just going to talk in general about what Black Mirror means to us. It means a lot to Van. I know that. And I can't wait to hear him expound on that. Fandy, you just want to start there? Should we talk about what you love about Black Mirror, why it's such an important show for you? For me, growing up, the greatest television show that had the best combination of brilliant,

inventive writing, performances, social commentary, and chills was always the Twilight Zone. The Twilight Zone was this amazing television achievement that was able to vacillate from really affecting stories about the human condition to also just being like fucking terrifying. That's like really scary. You know, and when you think of classic Twilight Zone episodes, you think of ones that just either the twist or the theme just sticks to your ribs. If you think of to serve man, you know, Burgess Meredith stepping on his glasses. But then, of course, they're beautiful ones like Mr. Death with just unbelievably good-looking Robert Redford, just coaxing this older woman into accepting her mortality and her fate. and if I would always watch that one in particular when I was a kid and think

you know if death was showing up to take you would it show up as this creepy thing with a sithe just is that what that thing that's called yeah to take you know it would come step up looking like I don't know Rihanna or somebody like hey come dance with me we can dance forever so the show just was able to do all that and I loved Vignette Horrible shows or vineyard television shows, anthology shows, more like I should say anthology and that vignette vignette is when they're doing their movie. Anthology shows since then.

Tells on the Dark Side, Friday the 13th had one. Tales from the Crypts. Tales from the Crypt, all of that stuff, right? Actually, I think Tells from the Dark Side was actually never a show. Did they ever do a show? I don't know if they did a show. I don't know. Yeah.

Anyway, and they were all great for the most part. None of them ever reached the heights of the Twilight Zone and what they were able to accomplish. They normally went for scares more than they went for the actual themes until Black Mirror.

And Black Mirror is the only show that's able to show you in a contemporary way, not necessarily ghosts and goblins or the nuclear panic that existed during the time that the Twilight Zone was on. But in a contemporary way, some of the horrors of our world

now and the near future world we could be living, living in and really deal with those same scary, oftentimes beautiful, sometimes brutal, you know, points of plot that the Twilight Zone got to. Yeah, I think Charlie Brooker, who is the creative mastermind, often writer of these episodes, I think his preoccupation with tech coinciding, like 2011 is when the show starts coinciding with our complete preoccupation with tech and the cautionary tales. of these things that feel so frictionless, so easy, solutions to many, like, that's the whole point of tech, right, is to solve problems we didn't know we had. And the best episodes of Black Mirror,

I think, asked the question, in solving that problem, quote unquote, are you chipping away at something that makes us very human, at the human condition, at our concepts of what true love means, what grief means, what all these other things mean, like, down to its core. And so Black Mirror, when it started, the first two seasons, I think, are pretty perfect, three episodes each. This is when it was still like a British television show before Netflix bought it and co-prose it, I think, now.

And those, like, tight three episode, very British seasons, like, forever stand as classic to me. And then there are incredible episodes going forward, but then it becomes a little bit diluted as the seasons get longer. And this season in particular, be talking about how the episodes get longer. And then you get, you get like a mixed bag, but you always get at least one, hopefully two,

maybe even three great episodes per season as you go forward from there. And there's like a couple different specials as well. I was in a huge Twilight Zone watcher as a kid. I think I was too scared. I mean, like I remember being very scarred by I have the... You played yourself. You played yourself, Joe.

I was a scared child. But I have the beholder, which is the like pig face plastic surgery episode. like forever stuck in my mind. For sure. But think about, but so here's a deal about I of the Beholder. Let's take that real quick.

Not to step on you, Joe. No, no, no, please. But I'm excited. Think about I of the Beholder, man. Think about what that episode of television manages to do. First of all, the pig face people are horrible. They're very scary. But that's not the point of the episode.

Right. Exactly. The point of the episode is not that they are scary, is that you are scary, is that it only matters how beautiful something is from perspective and the turn gives you that. That is a masterclass.

If I could just make somebody in anything that I created, feel that way wants the way that you feel like when the turn comes in that episode, I would be just over the moon that's such brilliant storytelling. That's the perfect episode

to talk about. We talk about why that show is so great. I was too chicken shit to wash the Twilight Zone, but I did read a lot of Ray Bradbury, and it's a very similar situation when you're reading Sound of Thunder or I can't remember the name of the one right now, but the one where the kid is locked in the closet

where the one day year the sun comes out. Those stories, as you say, they stick to your ribs. There's something like horrifying and true, and usually there's like a caution, lesson in there, a very, like, a very, like, finger-wagging moral lesson that nonetheless goes down smoothly just because the concepts are so interesting with what the Twilight Zone does in its best episodes, what Ray Bradbury does in his best short stories, and what Black Mirror episodes do in their

best episodes. So you're, like, immersed in this world, oftentimes in Black Mirror. We'd talk about how it diverges a bit in this season, but oftentimes, Black Mirror, almost all the time we're talking about the near-future sci-fi, which is one of my favorite kinds of sci-fi, right, where there's just like a few things are different. And that allows you to sort of slip seamlessly into this world where you're like, I can see 10 years from now Apple developing this tech or whoever developing this tech and us thinking it's a good idea. And then, oh, fuck, what if it's not? Well, whereas some of the things, some science fiction stuff, right away you feel disconnected from it and you have to fall into the world. Like if you watch something and then all of a sudden, you know, you hooked yourself.

up to something and a tube goes into your ear and that's how you eat. Like right away, like when you wake up in the morning and you see your main character do that, you go, okay, well, we're nowhere near that. Right. But if it's an extension of something that you're already doing, like playing a video game or being on your phone or something, you're like, hey, the next update could do that, like you just said. And I think that's part of the brilliance of the show.

You kind of fall into it. Also, Ray Bradbury had a show, too, called Ray Bradbury Theater. And for some reason, that was too scary for me. I remember I watched one of them. I think there was some kind of werewolf or some kid in the playground or something like that and I tapped out of that shit early. I had a question for you specifically,

not that there's anyone else that I'm talking to on this podcast, but for folks who don't know, though they should, you won an Oscar several years ago for a short film that could, if you wanted to easily be a fantastic episode of Black Mirror, like, were you thinking of those at all in a similar vein, like when you put together two distant strangers? No. I think, you know, I think Tootist and Strangers was,

Trayvon and I and Nick and Lawrence and Jesse, we wanted to tell a story of how we were feeling sort of in that loop. But I don't think that we were looking to be as cutting edge as Black Mirror is. we were looking to be a little bit more brutal. We wanted to slosh you, to dirty you up, to batter you, to brutalize you the way we feel like Trayvon Martin or George Florida or Brianna Taylor or Sandra Bland, how they were brutalized.

We wanted to do that to the audience. So we had to kind of take you through that. I think Black Mirror uses probably a paintbrush. I think we used the sledgehammer. I love that. Both are tremendously, obviously, effective. And I think where Black Mirror can sometimes miss up is when it tries to go for the sledgehammer and it just doesn't do it as effectively. Do you know? Yeah, yeah.

All right, we want to talk about one of your favorite episodes of Black Mirror ever is in this season. Is that correct? Yes. It is not going to make my top five. Okay. Because we're going to do that. But I think it's one of the best episodes of Black Mirror. And which one is that? Jonah's awful. Okay. That's the first episode. So in honor, Joan is awful, we're going to do our top five this episode of the podcast.

And then next week when we talk about another episode from season six, in honor of that, we're going to do our bottom five. And that's just the whimsical nature of a black mirror season is you can get an all-time great episode and an all-time terrible episode and the same batch of episodes. So you want to hit me with your top five ever. I know what your number one is. Yeah, because there's only one number one. Okay. Okay. So there's only one number one.

Oh, sure. I don't really want to hear it. Okay. Now, there's a special, and I didn't count the special as an episode. So I'm going to talk about that. So I'm going to talk right outside the top five. White Christmas is amazing. Okay.

White Christmas is amazing. Bander Snatch is amazing. But White Christmas is like, what, like an hour 30 or something? So I didn't even know shit. The ones that we're doing now, we'll talk about them. But I didn't put White Christmas in here. But White Christmas would be in this top five. So it's just standard episodes.

Okay. Number five, hang the DJ. Yeah. Love hanging the DJ. Okay. Love story. The whole nine. Loved it.

I thought it was just insanely creative and beautiful. Number four, USS Callister. Terrifying in parts. Jesse Plymonds just doing work in that. Star Trek's send up where he's got all the power or whatever. Number three, be right back. brutal, brutal morality play on love, existence, and attachment. Number two, the entire history of you.

If I want to get somebody into watching Black Mirror, this is the episode that I play for them. Written by Jesse Armstrong of Succession. Jesse Armstrong of Succession. If I want to get somebody into Black Mirror, that's the one I play. Because that's the one that has the most, What? Huh?

Are you serious? It's the one, it's the, it's the, it's the, the, the, it's the, the, it's the, the, the, it's, the, the, the, the, it's, it's the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, one. One of the most beautiful stories I have ever seen on television. So, it's a cure from my anxiety. When I had really bad anxiety, uh, like super bad to a point. I wasn't sleeping and stuff. I remember one of my therapists asked me, like, what are some things that make you happy? And I named some songs and stuff.

And it's like, what about something visual? I was like, oh, San Juan Apparel from Black Mirror. I told my therapist all about it. And then she was like, watch that. And I would watch that episode to help soothe me, to coax me. I would put it on before I went to sleep. And heaven is a place on earth. It would make me feel better, and it helped me sleep.

That's how beautiful I think that story is. What do you think about it? It coaxes you. Sometimes what happens in Black Mirror is that the tech that they are talking about is used to separate people or push people apart. It's used to sometimes enslave people. It's used to sometimes oppress people to separate the good from the bad or whatever. This is one where the tech is used to intertwine souls. It's human beings finding some way to make sense or to refine their existence and bring people together.

And that's unique within the universe of Black Mirror. And it's also unique within our universe as some of the stuff that we think is meant to connect us is actually like ripping us apart. It's essentially a story of two people who fell in love while they're in heaven, which is just in it of itself just, a wild thing to think about, you know? It just makes me feel like anything as possible. I love that episode of television. It might be my single favorite episode of television ever. And it's a bizarrely uplifting episode of Black Mirror, right?

Because usually Black Mirror is meant to horrify and dismay you with the turn and the twist. Yeah. My number one is not nearly so comforting. I think I do look to Black Mirror for like discomfort, actually, looking at my list. Because I love a Black Mirror breakdown, like a complete, and this feature is heavily, and Joan is awful. The thing about tech and often these near future sci-fi premises that Charlie Berker and the various writers and directors are setting up is that it's like, it usually starts so calm and serene and like sanitized. and cool, like, blue and gray tones, and then everything just falls the fuck apart.

And it's because tech is meant to be, like, a great civilizer, right? Like, so what separates us from the beasts is, like, a number of things allegedly, but, like, one of them would be, I don't know, the phones in our hands, the computer screens that we stare into, are tech. It's supposed to civilize us. But, like, in fact, oftentimes what these episodes reveal is the way in which it, like, brutalizes us, right? or in the way in which becomes so dependent on that tech,

that should it break down in one form or another, we then break down, all of society breaks down, et cetera. So I left two off my list because I was really certain that you had them. So I left San Juan DiParo off the list, though it would be really high up on my list. God. And I left USS Gallister off the list because I was pretty sure you had that too. Right. I just wanted to talk about some different episodes,

though I have some overlap with you. So number five on my list is actually one I rewashed. watched yesterday just because I was like trying to remember how I felt about it. And I actually really liked it the second time I watched it, which is Striking Vipers, a pretty recent one from the last season. Yeah. With Anthony Mackie and Ya'a Abdulmatine. And I just, I really love that one.

I love what it has to say about our relationship to like gaming and virtual worlds and our true selves. and there isn't like an oddly happy ending question mark to that one too. That's the one I play for my homeboys. Yeah. Like my toxic homeboys. Yeah. It's like if you're on vacation, he's a black mirror, I was like, sometimes I just hit my home boy Ryan and be like, yo, dog, I'm online.

You want to do you? Hey, like, bro, stop playing, bro. I'm like, bro, you don't want to jump into virtual world with me with your boy? Like, I'm online, dog. Drink some bifers with me. Yeah, it's just, that one is really great. Yeah, that's a really great one. Nosedive, which is the Bryce Dallas Howard one,

written by Rashida Jones and Mike Scher, directed by Joe Wright. And I think when we're talking about like total breakdown of a character, and, you know, Joan is awful being a great example of that. I think Joan is awful is much more successful at being funny while it's doing it than nose dive is. But I think Bryce Dallas Howard's breakdown is so spectacular that I just really, I love her in that and I love watching that. And again, that is just like, you and I have discussed before, I don't want to get too personal on a Black Mirror of Prestige TV episode. But we've discussed before our relationship with like social media or like living in a space, like doing our jobs in a space where we get constant feedback, positive or negative from people on how we're doing and how that can play with your mind. And so I think I really related to nose dive on that level.

Next to my list are solid 10 of 10 bangers that you had on your list as well, which is be right back in the entire history of you. I just think there's no questioning how perfect those two episodes of television are. And then my number one is 15 million merits, which is the Daniel Kiliuja, Jessica Brown for a Lian one. Oh, the American Idol one. Yeah, the American Idol one. And again, that's like another spectacular breakdown. episode. He gives like an incredible speech and then an incredibly cynical episode for the way it all

turns out there's no happy ending. There's no escape. There's this like huge, you know, when a character gives like a big, huge moment and tries to stare the system down and the system just like flicks them like dust off their shoulder. Like fucking Luke Skywalker flicking, you know, red dirt off his shoulder. Like it's just really upsetting. Really upsetting. really incredible episode. I love that episode. Give me one best of the rest. Because I gave one best of the rest with White Christmas.

Give me one best of the rest, if you can think. So you already mentioned Hang the DJ, which I was thinking as an honorable mention one. I guess I think about Shut Up and Dance a lot, which is the Jerome Flynn, Alex Lothar one, which has the twist at the end. Alex Lothar who's like, you know, you love him in Andor.

You love them anything that you've ever seen him in. Nemic, blah, blah. Incredible in this episode and a really chilling twist of an episode. Yeah. Shut Up and Dance is one of the all-time fucked up ones, too. Yeah, really fucked up. So let us talk about, do you, okay, so we were discussing a little bit off pod about, like, the overarching, I don't know that I feel like the other seasons have had coherent themes, and I'm not really

ready to declare a coherent theme to this season, but I think looking at these first two episodes. Joan is awful and Locke Henry. It's a very much, like, first of all, massive props to Netflix

for allowing this, like, incredible digs at Netflix in the form of Streamberry, the fake Netflix company that is hanging over these

first two episodes. So the meta Netflix angle slash the cost of content angle. I don't know that I could argue that that pervades the rest of the season,

but in these first two episodes, they almost act as like, you know, twin episodes. Is that interesting to you? Do you think they handled that effectively? What do you think? Having seen the whole season and watching the first couple of episodes, I could tell that there were some changes in the approach to the show coming out of what we had come out of.

Yeah. You remember, they were pretty forthright about the fact that maybe we weren't in the position to consume black mirror. because of the Black Mirror episode that our lives had been because we wanted more Black Mirror. I always want more Black Mirror. I don't know how long they're going to go,

but I just love the show. Jonah's awful doesn't seem like a near future episode. It seems like something that could happen right now. And there are some episodes of Black Mirror where it's like that, but this is the one that I think could be set in the year 2023 using the AI deep fake stuff that we have,

our addiction to celebrity, and our need to exist somewhere other than the plane that we're on right now. And our never-ending, ravenous hunger for another show to watch, for another thing to put on, for something else to distract us. This seemed like not, hey, we're going to take you

a couple of years into the future. This seems like we're going to, ground you in where you are right now. I mean, I can't think of an episode that had done that as well or as overtly as this one had in a while, in a while. And, you know, that's a theme, to be honest with you, Joe, for the entire season is in ways, you know, we'll talk about it, the near future angle of Black Mirror

was kind of abandoned this time, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and they set that tone early on. And this felt a little bit more of not a commentary of where humanity was going, but a commentary of where we are like right now. Black Mirror, I don't think, I could be wrong, but I don't think it's ever been a show that people are like, wow, I can't believe Black Mirror predicted this.

Like, that's not really what is known for the way that other shows, I don't know, like thinking about like VEP or there's like a few shows where people are like, Wow. Yeah. Did you have access to a time machine and come back and write the future or whatever? That's not really been Black Mirror's thing, but I have to say that in writing this episode and making this episode, which they had to have completed a while ago, the fact that AI generated content, and it was already on our minds, but it's so, at least for those of us

who are sort of hooked into Hollywood, like so on our minds because of the current writer's strike and the things that they're negotiating over. So when it became clear that that was what this episode was almost entirely or at least mostly about, I was like, wow, couldn't have picked a better fucking time to slap us in the face with the dangers of AI generated content. I think to your point, there's that like bottomless need for content that the Netflix model is supposed to feed back to us, right? there's also the Netflix one of the I think cleverest, weirdest, trickiest thing that Netflix figured out how to do

was to display different tiles for the show based on who is like zooming around their Netflix home screen. Most people know this, but some people don't. That like not everyone sees the same display photo for a Netflix show. So like I'm going to be served,

I don't know, probably every white female character or whatever show, right? You see different images based on what you've watched in the past in order for them to sell that show to you. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Yeah.

I know that I see different shows than you. But are you telling me that they, Netflix would see, would, Netflix would say, okay, maybe Van wants to watch trading places, and it would be a picture of Eddie Murphy. And then you would get a picture of Dan Aykroyd? No, I get a picture of Jamie Lee Curtis.

That's what I think. But you get like a different... Yeah, yeah. So wait, They say, we know that Van watched motherfucking paid and full. So we're going to, Van's going to see, it's going to be Captain America's Civil War with a picture of Anthony Mackey. And then they're going to give you a picture of goddamn Scarlet Witch Elizabeth Olson.

Yeah. Fucking unacceptable. Is it? Or is it just extremely? That's what the thing. So this is what I mean, this is what it's directly interacting with, right? It's like uniquely tailored content. Like that's supposed to be the benefit of massive binge culture, you know,

peak TV influx of content is that there's something for everyone. And no matter how niche your interest, there's going to be some show that's like Taylor made for you. And that's sort of the point of having so much content. But I guess I. And then this is just sort of like, okay, well, what if we take that one step further? And it's just like literally about you. and how self-obsessed we all are. And also that really interesting part

at the end of the episode where the Netflix, it was either Michael Sarah or the Netflix CEO who was essentially like, oh, we tried a positive angle and no one gave a shit. Yeah, no one gave a shit.

So we decided to reflect back the worst. And like, isn't that true, Van? Like, wouldn't you, like, given how you and I are like quite anxious people, like, don't you think we'd be more likely to tune into a show? that reflects back the worst qualities of us versus the best quality of us.

But that's not even about us. It's true that we're lunatics, but it's not necessarily even about us. That's a pro-evolutionary trait. Like human beings prioritize negative things, negative outcomes, negative memories because you're trying in the future to cut down on them.

It's like, hey, we're roaming around through the forest, we remember the grape that made us feel good and we want to eat more grapes, but what we really remember is that one shrub that killed our friend.

Because that keeps us alive. What's happened now is that our bodies don't remember or our bodies don't know that we get our grapes at the goddamn supermarket that has changed. So sometimes these negative

experiences or what you need to watch out for, we're just diving into them all the time. And so that's right. We try to do a show, Joan is awesome. Nobody wanted to see it. Joan is awful. What's wrong with Joan? Is there a Joan in my life? Is there someone, is this somebody that I know? Is this somebody I need to watch out for? Do I want to have a career in middle management because look what it's done to Joan? All of those things are things that. things that people internalize, and that's the driving force to watch stuff like this. It's like Max Kellerman has this great little thing. He goes, if you ask somebody what their favorite sport is, it doesn't matter.

Their favorite sport is boxing. And I'd be like, what do you mean? He goes, your favorite sport is boxing. He's like, right now, if I put you on the street corner, and on all four sides of that street corner, there was one guy playing football, two people playing football, two people playing football, one person playing basketball, some people playing soccer, and then on the other side of the street corner, there were two guys fighting. You are going to watch the two guys fighting. And that's another thing is because, like, as us, you know, looking at a car crash or a car

crash or something like that, part of who we are at our basis level. Two guys fighting, there's just like, or two people fighting or whatever, it's just like there's so much more story there. That's the thing. Why are you fighting? Who's going to get the upper hand? Yeah. What kind of jab does Joe have? Boom, boom, a one, two. You never know. So that made a lot of sense. And you know that, but you don't ever want to be that.

I thought the interesting thing about Joan is awful is that I didn't necessarily think she was awful until I watched her life dramatized on TV. Well, and what's so wild about that is that, I mean, I don't think she is supposed to be that awful. Like, you know, in the scene where she has to fire someone, like, she does feel bad. When she flicks the e-cigarette, it is an accident, like, all this shit, you know what I mean? And then it just gets exacerbated into awfulness and what is, you know, the fun twist at the end, finding out that that level, the level with Annie Murphy in it isn't even like the base level of everything, right? And so how unawful must that Joan be? Do you know anything? She's even, like, one step further removed from that levels of awfulness.

So I love that. I loved the, there's a fun, like, you watch too much content angle to Jonah's awful where, like, when she first walks in and you see her fiancé, and I was like, oh, that's interesting. Like, they couldn't get Hamesh Patel, so they got this guy. And then Hamesh Patel was, like, playing him on the higher level. And that happened again with another character. And I was like, I was like, oh, okay.

All right. I see what they're doing. Biggest upgrade, I mean, like, Annie Murphy to Humber. Salma Hayek is a big upgrade, but I think the biggest upgrade has to be Rob Delaney to Ben fucking Barnes. I don't know how you give from Rob Delaney much love and respect to that wonderful man

to fucking Ben Barnes. But I hope Rob Delaney is very flattered by that. As soon as I saw Ben Barnes, I was like, this is the Netflix show. And that's how they were able to get me because they were able to put people that I knew in the first one. I'm like, oh, it's Annie Murphy.

Oh, it's Rob the Lady. Okay, cool, cool. But then they were able to even prestige those people and go even prestigiouser. And then they went even prestigious to the other one because they went to Kay Blanchette. It was the execution of this show, of this particular episode was amazing.

We kept descending with Joan. I literally went on a journey with Joan. This was my journey with Joan. So I saw Joan doing shady stuff, but she was doing shady things that were not really even shady, just like brutally and aggressively human. Yeah. You know, she's still caught up about her ex.

She's getting texts. She's not being transparent. She doesn't want to rock the boat. She has a moment with her ex, right? She's with her therapist sharing the secret that she wouldn't tell anyone. in the place that she's supposed to do it, but it's still a fucked up thing to say, but she's still doing it in the right way

in a place that she's supposed to say fucked up things. Right? The therapist is the place where you go, I don't really want to be around my family if I'm being honest, not really, I don't like it. You know what I mean? That's what you, mom, that's, I'm not saying that. Okay, what I'm saying is that

that's what somebody would say to the therapist. But you did just say that. No, I didn't. Like, just don't, I'll make you bleep it. Damn it. I'm not about to get in trouble. Kyle, leave it in. Thanks.

But yeah, and then once you look at it, you're like, oh, man, she does kind of suck. I mean, it's like, she kissed the guy, but then she said, I can't do this since she ran away. But then you're like, she did kiss the guy. And then you also have to watch the ramifications of her being who she is on people around her. And that puts a wall up between you and her right away. Then they spend the rest of the episode, brick by brick, Franklin Saint, taking that wall down until you can look at her as nothing other than a hero. Right. And then I think we're forced to sit at home watching this and contemplate what it would mean for a Joanna is awful or Van is Awful show to exist.

Would you watch it? Yes, obsessively. Yes, I would obsessively watch Joanna as awful. Like, it would be my most watched show, number one. Would I enjoy watching a blank as awful, you know, show about someone else that I harbor any sort of negative feelings, tours, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So, like, we're all watching all the shows about all the people we know. Let's just be honest. Well, I mean, is that kind of what, I mean, I got off Facebook in 2016, but, like, isn't that kind of what social media is?

aren't we sometimes, like, digging into the corners of, like, your, because obviously, like, you know, many smarter people have discussed the way in which, like, your Instagram or your Facebook or your Twitter or whatever is curated to show the best foot forward. But aren't we sometimes, like, poking around the corners of that post or that tweet or whatever to, like, sort of look like, what's really going on? What's the real story here? Are you fucking kidding? Of course. Yeah.

Like, everybody is looking for the kill shot all the time. Yeah. You know what I mean? I post, I look at something. I post it. But they're not just looking for the kill. kill shot in terms of the motherfucking content,

they're looking for the typos in your shit. Hey, it's your with an apostrophe. I'm like, bitch! Like, you know what I mean? It's like they're looking for anything. It's like there's a we've become, as humans, this council of assholes

that are just sitting around trying to, like with these little acetylating torches waiting to set somebody on fire at the first opportunity. to the weekend. You know what I'm saying? And this show, Jonah's awful, where you have to see somebody's life has to be played out in front of all of these people. And then everyone lines up to come to the decision, the conclusion, should I say that this person is awful without

really knowing their life, the beats of their life, the in and outs of their life. It's just perfect commentary on that. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptitide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity, or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zepound contains terseptide and should not be used with other terseptide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines.

It is not known if Zepound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia if you're

nursing pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonelioria or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99 or visit Zepbounds Let's hop over to Locke Henry before we finish up here. You had requested an Easter egg section, so I just want to say it. So like in the Streamberry menu of Jonah's awful, we get see you tranquility. That's going to come up in a later episode. Lock Henry, obviously they comment on it.

Like her fiance is like, I can't watch another true crime thing. And that is, of course, what we're about to talk about next. Hot shots, which is the show from 15 million merits. The Callow Years, which is both the poster on the wall. Yes. The Callow Years is both the poster on the wall and a show on the Streamberry menu is from the National Anthem episode. Rowdy and Peanut is a reference to Charlie Brooker's interactive film Cat Burglar that he put on Netflix last year. And there's something called Junipero Dreaming, which is, of course, a reference to San Junipero.

I'm sure there's many others, but that's just like what I pulled out of the menu and on the walls of Historic, the production company that they pitched their. documentary to in La Canary. And then you asked about the BAFTA nominees, right? One is euthanasia inside Project Junipero. So, of course, that's another, like, San Junipero question. And then I couldn't figure out what this is a reference to. Suffer the children, the typically pedophile ring. Was that white rabbit?

The pedophile ring? White bear. White bear? Excuse me. Yeah. White bear. Sorry, I got a little neo, little matrix in there. It might have been white bear where they were talking about in that joint right there,

like fucking over everybody and stuff. I guess the point is by making these two episodes very stream, very interconnected or whatever, and then pulling in all these other Black Mirror and other Charlie Brooker projects, you know, they're making the world of Black Mirror its own Joan is awful levels of real. Do you know what I mean? Yes. Which is interesting. Locke Henry is pretty straightforward.

We were talking about, and we'll talk about this more in the second episode, how, like, on tech-dependent some of these episodes of this season of, Black Mirror, like, surprisingly. And I would say Locke Henry, which has no, like, future tech at all in it. And in fact, like, the only tech we're talking about is, like, retro tech VHS tapes. Yeah. Old camcorders, et cetera, et cetera. And that's how we, on, like, dig up the answer to an old mystery.

And it is connected to our true crime, obsessive Netflix, watch the truly nastiest shit on Netflix and treat it like, you know, a joke or a meme or whatever when there are real people involved. It's all, it's interacting with all of that, but it is just a very straightforward episode. And I have to say, having watched, like, way too many, I guess, either true crime or like British crime shows, I'm like, of course it was the old people doing weird shit. Like, it always is the old people doing weird shit in the, like, idyllic, you know, lockside town.

What did you think of this episode? I don't know why, but it scared the shit out of me. Yeah. Tell me why. I'm not sure. Okay. So, number one, I was off balance the whole time. I didn't know where we were.

They never really gave me an idea of what I was supposed to be looking for. Like, sometimes in Black Mirror, you kind of understand if you've watched a lot of the shows, like, what tone we're in for, you know. If you see Zed-Eyes or if you see something, you know you're going into a place where, you know, there's going to be like a digital recreation of someone. You're going into another world. Someone's going to, so it's like whatever.

But this one, I wasn't sure what was coming. I didn't know what was going on. And because I'm thinking tech, I'm like, yo, is there a robot killing people in this town? I really didn't know what was happening. And by the time it let up, it let up, it let up, it let up. The reveal with it being the mother, I don't know why that scene was so scary to me. I was like afraid. She comes in and what's the song that was playing?

That 90's song, Come, baby, come, baby, baby, baby, come, come. Like, that's the song that, you know, you gotta give me loving, you gotta give me something. And she was coming in there to torture those people. And I was just, I don't know why. I was arrested. I was like really afraid. And then the episode kind of gets a shot of adrenaline. And then he loses his girl who was the most innocent in all of these situations, of all of these people.

And it became like this weird horror thing that I don't know that the show has ever quite done this before. I have a question about about, so Myelah Harold plays Pia, his girlfriend. And like, first of all, I love her industry, body. body's bodies, like, great, great, tremendous action. And that's, like, that's another thing that Black Mirror has always done is, like, if you look back at earlier episodes, just, like, murderers row of actors who are, like, on the rise. And I think you were only going to see more and more from her as years in years to come.

But, like, is she the most interesting? Because she's the one who, like, has this sort of purient, like, this is the story. And he's the one who's resistant and is, like, out of my dad kind of died. from this. I don't know that I want to do it. And she's the one who's like egging, egg on. And I think between her and the shock of my life,

Daniel Portman, who played the great Pod, Patrick Payne on Game of Thrones is here and he's burly and he's Scottish and he's kind of rude. Like, they're the ones who are really treating this as if it's like kind of a weird joke. They're the like jokes that they're making right before the car crash happens, all that sort of stuff like that. And he's the one who's, like, so resistant to it. And then he's the one ultimately that is left to grapple with all of it.

Like, you know, crying, crying looking at your BAFTA, relatable content, honestly. But, you know, it's like her dying in the, you know, in the lock, in the river, etc., like, I don't think she deserved it, obviously. but Black Mirror is always trying to be moralistic. So who pays the price in this episode? And like she does and I don't know if it's because she couldn't let that. What if they had just gone to document the egg guy in Rome instead? You know what I mean?

That's an amazing point. The way I looked at it was the direct corollary between a correlation, she said, see, between her and the mom. The fact that it ends up being the mother who's responsible for her death, when she was, she showed such weakness and such frailty around the mother because she so desperately wanted to impress her and be cool in her house and the whole nine. It seemed as if that feeling made them sort of, the way that that that, the mother herself was able to

kind of be a little genteel, make people be a little bit off-kilter. You would have never thought that it was her. And so the fact that it was her, it ends up being like this double whammy for the girl who has been attempting to get on her good side for the entire time. And then you learn that she doesn't have a good side

that the only side she has is this incredibly dark, murderous, sinister side that I guess she has put to the side for X amount of years since his father's been gone. So I just thought that really sucked for her. Now, as far as wanting to do the project, a lot of the Black Mirror stuff now, I look at it differently being a little bit deeper into my career.

Yeah. Because I'm thinking, well, yeah, you got to do this. I was thinking the same thing. I was like, bro, like, this is where you're from. And you guys once had a thriving tourist community. And there was this, I was totally on her side. I was like, yeah, this is the story. And I didn't really see anything.

I didn't see anything untoward about doing that story. It's something that happened, except for the fact that maybe it ripped the band-aid off some old wounds for him. Well, and I think, you know, she's not fully taking his. Like when he's like, oh, but my mom and she's like, oh, but we'll tell her story, which is sort of like what every journalist tells a source, like a reluctant source or whatever, or when they're in the production company office and they're trying to pitch it, and the woman's like, I don't know. And she's like, his dad died because of this.

You know what I mean? Like she's sort of, which again is good pitching on the one hand, but on the other hand, I'm not saying, listen, I loved her and I don't think she deserved to die. But like, you know, she's bitching this thing. It's Juneteenth next week. The other thing, well, on that, on that point, I wanted to ask you, I wanted to ask you, there's a few, like, you know, it's not a coincidence that this is, like, a young American black woman in this, like, very white, cloistered, Scottish, in middle of nowhere town. And I feel like in those stories, oftentimes that is a character who can shine a light on or something that, like, a community has decided to. ignore or pay the price for something, you know, that they don't deserve to pay the price for.

Black, I'm, I don't know if you are interested in talking about this at all, but like Black Mirror has occasionally tried to engage with this in episodes like Letitia writes Black Museum episode, etc, etc. Like, is that something you think the show does well or is it interesting to you or what do you think? It does it well in that it does most things well. But I do think that there is a different view. of racism across the pond and there is here. The issues are different. The consequences are different. There's been a diverse, I'm not going to speak to what goes on over there because I didn't grow up over there.

But I think the way I look at discrimination or racism or marginalization or oppression or any of those things is in a distinctly American way. And so there's like a taste test that that type of content has to pass. And Black Mirror probably wouldn't pass that taste test. with me because there's a different cultural lens that it would use. Yeah. And so the fact that it kind of eats around the edges is fine with me.

And I think also sometimes that probably frees them up creatively, as crazy as that would sound like. For example, striking vipers, which is maybe the blackest episode of Black Mirror that there is, you're talking about three black leads and it deals with a topic that is much debated in black culture, which is human sexuality, but not one

time is the race of the characters ever brought up or broches never, it doesn't get talked about. The question coming away from it is are these two guys gay? I mean, that's the, at its base level, the question is, it's about desire,

It's about what it's It's about what you fantasize It's about how that relates to your sexuality It's about connections About all those all those kinds of things But at its base level The question that comes out of it When a bunch of dudes get around

It's like, okay, are these guys gay or not? Yeah And you know To discuss that amongst Like my homies And for that to be about Like Like some brothers

that were in, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that's even chopping my words up now talking about it, because it's such a touchy thing sometimes. But I'm saying, I'm saying, like, that was, it was freeing that the fact that they, that these are two black men that were in this situation wasn't the point of the episode. It was liberating. You know what I mean? Yeah. You're just talking about it now. And we might have not been talking about it if they weren't black, but the fact that they were kind of didn't really even. figure into things.

And I think, I mean, this isn't an episode necessarily about striking vipers, but I just think it's so interesting that their avatars are not black, they're Asian, and that they're not two men. So there's like gender identity also in the mix with all that. It's a fascinating episode. The question of sort of the very British lens of racism and the very Brexit concept, which Charlie Brooker has been very vocal about, will come into play when we discussed the last episode of the season.

So we'll be back to that subject on the next episode. Is there anything else you want to talk about in terms of Jonas Offler, Locke Henry, before we wrap it up, Van? I do want to say one last thing about Lock Henry. There are episodes of both Black Mirror and the Twilight Zone where you just have to accept the nut kick.

There's not going to be a post-credit scene that's going to bail you out. It's just nothing. There's like, I got hit in my balls with a tennis ball like circa 1992. Right. I was playing tennis out front

because Wimbledon had us in shackles at this point. It was a summer tradition. We would watch Wimbledon. It was on HBO still. The Wimbledon had us in shackles. So me and my friend Patrick, Patrick Chang, we would go out there and we'd play tennis in the front. Patrick was a good tennis player.

I learned how to play tennis. Patrick hit the ball and hit me in my nuts. Hit me square. And there's nothing I could do. I just had to accept that this pain wasn't going anywhere. I couldn't breathe through it. I remember this was one of the first times in life. I felt this way.

I couldn't breathe through it. I couldn't meditate through it. There was nothing. It just hurt. And you just got to let it hurt. Like the end of Locke Henry, that's just how that was. It was just fucked up.

And sometimes you wonder why you watch episodes like that. Just learn to get used to the pain. And like maybe think about how you watch true crime because like I think for me one of the, I think for me, one of the most chilling visuals is like, Like when Daniel Portman is like standing, that character standing in the bar that's full of tourists now. And you see those two chicks at the bar and they're wearing like the replica red masks that his mom are.

Yeah. That's fucked up. I find personally, I find true crime murder podcasts so fucked up. I find many true crime docu-series so fucked up. So this one really hit with me. All right. We'll be back next week. to talk about the last three episodes of this season,

including one that Van has declared one of the worst episodes of Black Mirror of all time. Maybe the worst. We will discover how we feel about that. Elsewhere in the feed, if you haven't gone back and listened to the tail end of Sean's coverage of Barry, he's got Bill Haderon to discuss the end of that series. I really recommend those episodes. Coming up in the future on the feed, we've got coverage of, I believe, the bear coming up. also later in the summer justified city primeval.

Like there's a lot of stuff going on. So you're, of course, going to want to stay tuned. We'll be back next week. This episode was produced by the great Kai Grady. Thanks so much. We'll see you soon. Bye.