The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Black Mirror’ Season 6, Episodes 3-5 Recap

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Joanna Robinson and Van Lathan are back to break down the final three episodes of ‘Black Mirror’ Season 6. They open by talking about series creator Charlie Brooker’s desire to expand the confines of what a ‘Black Mirror’ episode can be this season. Next, they discuss why “Mazey Day” fell so flat before sharing their personal bottom five episodes of the Netflix anthology. Later, they discuss the unbelievable twist ending of “Beyond the Sea,” the lengthy run time of “Demon 79,” as well as how these two episodes balance sci-fi, fantasy, character, and concept. 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 host 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? This episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably bright creatures. What if a Pacific octopus held the key to a mystery that could heal your heart? Well, that's Tova's reality.

An elderly widow working at an aquarium. Tova forms an unlikely friendship with their cramudgeonly, Marcellus, whose remarkable intelligence leads her to a life-changing discovery. Watch remarkably bright creatures with your remarkable moms this Mother's Day weekend, only on Netflix May 8th. Hello, welcome back in the Prestiash TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson. Joining me today to wrap up our coverage of Season 6 of Black Mirror

It's Van, Nathan, Jr., hi, Van, how are you? It's me. How, I, everyone. How are you? We are here to talk about the final three episodes of the season, so that's Beyond the Sea, Mazy Day, and Demon 79. So you have to have binge the entire season, or at this point, is it really a binge if it's been out four days, five days,

one episode a day? Is that a binge? I don't know. We'll see. I think a binge, you have to watch them all. You have to binge like I eat Oreo cookies. So if you're done with the season,

that is what we're going to talk about. Today, we're also going to drop our top five worst Black Mirror episodes. And I should just say that the worst Black Mirror episode is still better than a lot of other stuff that's out there, to be

perfectly honest with you. So there's an episode we didn't quite like in this final batch of three, we'll talk about that. And then there's two other really interesting episodes that we're going to talk about as well. I do want to do like a quick sort of corrections on something we talked about last time. If you want to hear our coverage of the first two episodes of the season, we dropped that last week, which is this idea that Black Mirror hasn't been like a predictive show. And we got some tweets and emails from people being like, yes, it has and here are all the ways.

and why. And one thing, one thing that I completely forgot was that the very first episode, the National Anthem, which is about the Prime Minister engaged in a sex act with a pig,

Rory Keneer's character. I thought that was a reaction to the David Cameron pig scandal, but it was actually came out before that happened. So I think that's one of like the most famous, like, what the hell

Black Mirror bring out into the world. Can I be honest with you? I don't know what the David Cameron pig scandal is. I have no clue with that. What you're talking about? Okay, I should just say that David Cameron, once Prime Minister of the UK, has denied this story is true. But there was a-

I believe there was a story about like an initiation thing that he did for one of the, like, you know, secret societies of the rich and faithful. in the, you know, British prep schools or whatever, which involved him, I believe, laying his genitals inside the mouth of a pig, a dead pig. Nick, what? Hold on. Like, what? I believe that is what the David Cameron pig scandal is.

Yeah. Hold on. Do you want to Google it? That'll check my way. No, there's no, there's no fucking way, bro. Like, what the hell, bro? Let's see if this pick thing is like. listed anywhere it is Wikipedia. Let's see if anyone took the time, let's see, in popular

culture, honors and awards. Would it be under honors and awards? If, okay, so let's play a quick game. If, in fact, a prime minister had had a situation with a pig, which part of their Wikipedia would it be under? Would it be under political views and image? No, there's always a controversy tab, which is my favorite tab on all Wikipedia pages. See, he doesn't have one, so it's probably under early life. Let's see, education. Or he's had it scrubbed from maybe he's had it scrubbed. Because they don't have any, because I'm looking at his early education

and it doesn't have anything about the pig on there. If you word search pig, which I just did. Under political image. Pig gate. Oh my God. Pig gate. refers to inserted his penis and or what the fuck are we doing

bro? What are we doing? You know, I don't mean to brag, but I believe I crushed the recap of this pig situation. You have crushed it. Yeah.

He was like, anecdote background response. They got a whole separate Wikipedia just around David Cameron, you naughty, naughty animal lover. What is going on here?

Oh my God. Let's move. going on. Yeah, they definitely, so this is after Browell, when did PigGay drop? This was the September, the 2015. Yeah. Excuse me, September 20th, 2015, so this is after Black Mirror. Hell yeah, they got it right. They must have known about PigGay. Somebody from Black Mirror. I love to, I love to believe it. Yeah. They had to know about PigGate. They were there or something. Again, to cover ourselves legally, David Cameron has denied that this happened. And there's not like there's like photo or video or anything like that. But it has forever, you know, followed him wherever he's gone.

So that's just an update from our last week. And like also apparently, so be right back an episode that both of us named in our top five episodes ever, a Black Mirror. Apparently after that episode came out, people started developing an AI to do sort of exactly what is. Like take all your social media and then make you like a you person? They were like, yeah, of course. Of course, let's watch this episode and then just do that. That sounds like a great idea. So, yeah, Black Mirror, an inspiring show.

And then also, I think I might have said a few times that Black Mirror is sort of a cautionary tale about tech. But I think Charlie Brooker has said he doesn't feel that way about Black Mirror. And especially if you think about something like San Juan Perro, your favorite episode. Like, that's not really cautionary about tech. That's, like, a beautiful exploration of a what-if of, like, what tech can do for us on a, on a connection level, right? So it's not all shock and horror about it. All right. Let's, can I, can this, this is Van Lathen's gentle pushback?

Sure. There's the San Juan Apparel episode, right? There's the episode that is taking tech and using it to, you know, elevate us to a higher plane. But most of the episodes show tech doing really gnarly things. I went back and watched White Christmas. Horrifying, yeah.

Yeah, it's like really, from every step of the way, using the tech to, like, eavesdropping on a date. And then after that, you know, the guy uses, he is enslaves a digital version of that woman. and then he's got to get that guy to admit to a murder. It's like it's ghoulish. And almost they create a hellscape out of tech. So if it's not a cautionary tale to him,

it certainly won to me. That's all I'll say. It is plenty of times of cautionary tale. And I think that like also we recorded the last episode before sort of the bulk of Charlie Brooker's interviews about the season we're out. And so a lot of things that we talked about in terms of like, wow, a few episodes don't really feel like they're very black mirror,

like in terms of absence of tech, a central element or moving away from sci-fi into like straight horror and charlie brookers's like yes exactly that's what i wanted to do i wanted to just sort of destroy the concept of what a black mirror episode is expand it he kind of said exactly one of the things that we said which is like there's only so many times you can write an episode it's like and it was a simulation the whole time you know what i mean so he's like we're expanding and then also we should say and i i didn't notice this the first time i watched but the episode demon 79 the last episode of the season had a Kyron in the beginning, it says a red,

a red mirror episode. So there's this idea that they're like branding the like straight horror or more fantastical episodes as like red mirror versus black mirror, which I think is kind of fun and cool. Okay, so I don't like it. You don't like straying away from the central tech concept? Not really. There's only so many ways that you can do tech.

I understand that. But there are certainly only so many ways that you can tell a werewolf story. Oh, I'm not talking about Macy Day. I know. I know, but even Demon Seventy-9, that's a cool episode. That's kind of,

it hasn't been done the way that they did it. But I've seen that a little bit more than I've seen. Yeah. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah, I agree. I've seen that story. And so the question is like,

if it's a story you've seen before, versus some of these other Black Mirror episodes, our Crem de la Crem of the Black Mirror episodes, take concepts since we've never even contemplated and give the story to us that way. Maisie Day, we should say, the Werewolf episode, is an episode we did not like. No.

Written by Charlie Brooker, directed by Uda Bryce Fitz, and I want to say that Uda, just before we trashed her episode, I want to say, she directed Mites. favorite episode of Westworld, one of the best television episodes of all times. The way that you feel about San Juanapiro is the way that I feel about this episode of Westworld. It's called Kiksuya.

If you've never seen Westworld, I'm not saying you should get invested in the whole thing, but if you're a scholar of television, I really recommend you just, you can watch that episode in isolation. And it is just like a beautiful example of something that you could do in an episode, establish a character. It's like basically a one-off. I really recommend it. So she is capable of extraordinary things. This is not one of those extraordinary things. And I would say that a challenge of anthology shows,

which is something that we didn't talk about last time, is it is extremely hard, and Black Mirror has done it really well several times, to give us characters that we care about in the span of an episode, be it a standard sort of hour-long episode or some of these, like, even some of these supersized, like 70 minute, 80 minute episodes that Black Mirror did this season, which is like essentially a short film. But like, that's an uphill battle Black Mirror is always fighting, right?

Is how do we get people to care about people they literally just met? And a lot of that comes down to performance. You know, you have incredible talent throughout this. And then, but then, you know, if the writing's not there, the writing's not there. And with Maisie Day specifically, I want to single out as a failure to make me care about anyone, involve the only reason I care is because I like Zazzy Beetz and I like other characters she's played. And so I am trying to care about her character because I like the actor so much.

But the script is not giving me any, like, and she's the only one who has like the bearish shred of morality to her, like qualms. So I want to grab onto her. But there's, it's just slippery and there's nothing for me to grab onto. You know what? I've wanted to grab on to her before, too. Look, so let me give me an example of something.

Yeah. All right. Classic way to make you care about a character. I'm going to go back to the Twilight Zone. Normally with Black Mirror, the way they do this, is something terrible happens to the character, like within five minutes or something. But there's another way that they do it.

So there's an episode of Twilight Zone where there is a guy and he's stuck in a town, right? Two people in there, they're stuck in a town. and there's nobody else in the town. Like, no one's in the town. And they're walking around trying to get out of the town, but there's nobody else in there. And they start to see that the stuff in the town is fake.

Like a tree is fake. Like a clock is not real. It doesn't tell time. There's no date. There's like really nothing in the town. So, like, after watching the first, the first segment of it, you're now wondering,

where are these people? Are they in hell? Are they in heaven? Are they, like, where are they? Now, and the entire time, you don't really know. They actually get on a train, and they're leaving the town,

and the train ends up bringing them right back to the town, right? The end of this episode is so crazy that I'm not going to spoil it for anyone. But I want you guys to watch it, and then come to my Twitter and tell me where they were and how you found out where they were. That's normally the trick. The trick is normally the circumstances that these characters are in.

Cassandrian Apparel kind of does the same thing. You come out and all of a sudden they're in the 80s. Then the next time you see them, they're in the 2000s. And you're like, yo, what the fuck is going on here? And what's happening between the characters is making you go, well, she met her before and they were in a totally different decade. so something's happening here. Macy Day didn't even try to do that.

All of the stuff in Macy Day, like, we know it. The only thing is you're maybe wondering why it takes place like 20 years in the past. Right. That might be something that piques your interest a little bit. Other than that, there's nothing inventive about it. We've watched the paparazzi kind of scandals play out on television. We know that they take money. We know that, you know, you know.

They looked at as scum. I mean, come on, you know, obviously there's a little, you know. Van, what do you want to say? What do you want to tell people? What I want to tell people is I worked at TMZ for nine years. Yeah. So I've been out there. Do you feel personally attacked by Amazing Day?

I never do because I was very self-aware. Like, I was very self-aware even the whole time that I would do it. Like, so I never did, but I will say this. The interesting thing about that is, and I'll finish off that thought, is that I came on the tail end. So I got to TMZ in 2011, and then the first time I was ever out there with a camera was that same year. That's the tail end of all that craziness. Those guys would wax poetic about the days that they can make $7,000 or $8,000 a week chasing around Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. And they were, it was all, it was still a point to where the paparazzi was still a much bigger deal than they are right now.

But guys were still longing for the old days of like being able to. So I knew those guys, but I knew them as they were reflecting back on what they had done a couple of years before. So to do things really quickly then. Our TV homework assignment for me is the kick so you, the episode of West World. You, it's stopover in a quiet town is the Twilight Zone episode that you were talking about. So that's homework from. Van and Joanna. I think that if Maisie Day had come out, like, maybe even five years ago, it might have had something interesting to say, but we've been doing so much work in the last

few years with things like the podcast you're wrong about or the Britney Sears documentary that came out a couple years ago examining the early odds and the paparazzi culture. And the toll it took on the young women who were often, like, you know, hunted essentially by the paparazzi, that story has been done so much better in various mediums that they really needed to plus it in some way. And the werewolf metaphor, you and I, again, I was going to say, you and I love genre. So we're not opposed to like a werewolf. Oh shit, she's a werewolf.

She's the monster. We're the monster. Whatever you want to do. Like that's potentially interesting. But it was, I think, I think an issue. issue at the center of this, other than this discussion has already happened in higher levels

of conversation, is that it's one of those hide the twist so that we're surprised, but when you hide the ball, like the way that they kind of tried to do with this werewolf reveal, oftentimes you're just left

with nothing but a second of like, wait, what the fuck? And then nothing more. You know what I mean? And I would expect, black mirror to give me something different. I would expect black mirror to give me that all celebrities in Hollywood are werewolves and that there's actually a werewolf

secret society of Hollywood celebrities and that maybe there are people that know that they're werewolves and that like the paparazzi are like documenting werewolves or maybe I would expect them to go, I would expect the story about a paparazzi that saw that got a picture of a celebrity

turning into a werewolf and that they're all in a werewolf party. And then something like that. And then her trying to get the pictures out or being on the run from where, I would expect something like that. I wouldn't expect what we got was like a very fucking wax story. Stop talking.

because I think you and I are now going to go right, Weirwolf Party. Coming to the Oscars in 2024. Do you want to do your top five worst black mirror episodes? I do. And then I do want to talk about the other two episodes, which I liked a lot more than that. But yeah, we have to, because I don't want to just like,

just shit on it. But I do want to talk about my top five words. Okay, top five worse. All right. Number five, worse for me. I was going to do a tie, but I kicked. this one out because you like it. So I'm not going to put one on there that you absolutely like. Crocodile almost made my top five. But it didn't. That's my,

number five is Men Against Fire. Yeah. It's just like a filler episode. If you guys don't remember Min against Fire was the military episode, I think from season three. Terrible. Four, something like that, season three. Did like Minn Against Fire. Number four is Playtest. I know that you like PlayTest, I went back and watched PlayTest again. Yeah. I just, I never really dug Playtest. I never really

dug Playtest. Number three, Archangel. Yeah. That's not on my list, but I agree with you. Yeah, Archangel, if you guys don't remember, that is the mother who is incessantly watching her daughter and stripping her of her, of her, of her independence, and it ends up going bad. It's like helicopter parent cautionary.

tale sort of thing. Directed by Jody Foster. Not good. Number two is Maisie Day. I was just not entertained by Maisie Day in any way. It was a chore. It was a chore to get through it. There were parts of it where I was like,

what the fuck? But at the same time, there was nothing in the resolution of it or in the execution of it that made it interesting to me. The number one worst episode is Rachel and Jack and Ashley, too. That is the Miley Cyrus episode, and it just fucking blows, bro.

It's just not good. I mean, like you said, worst episode of Black Mirror still more watchable than other episodes of television. If you watch all the Black Mirror episodes at the same time, a lot of these episodes won't stick out.

Like if you binge them, they won't stick out. But if you watch them one at a time, you're going to really find ones in here that you didn't enjoy at all. And Rachel Jack and Ashley, too, still the worst Black Mirror episode that I've ever seen. And I think that's,

so my top five has, Men Against Fire, Macy Day, and Rachel and Jack and Ashley, too. And the two others that it has on there that you don't have on yours are Metalhead, which is that Metal Dog episode that you and I disagree on whether or not it's bad. I love Metalhead. Yeah. Like, I really liked Metalhead. I hate that episode.

And then, and then Smithereens, which is from Season 5, and that's the Andrew Scott episode. And, like, I think it's mostly wasted potential because I was. like the Andrew Scott, like Damson Idris, Tofer Grace episode of Black Mirror to be a banger, and it's not. And Smithereens and Rachel, Jack, and Ashley, too were

two of only three episodes in season five, and I think they're both bad. And so, striking Bipers, which we talked about last week, is one that I like is, but that's series five, having two out of three be bad was like a sort of, is Black Mirror

done and out of good ideas? And they took that long break. We talked about some of the reasons why COVID is part of the reason why. But it's been four years since season five, a really mixed bag, season five. This is a mixed bag, but this season is definitely way more positive than it is negative. I agree. And we're going to talk about Beyond the C&D in 79, which are two supersized episodes, almost like movie-length episodes of the show. And I want to talk about them in this, through the lens of this quadrant concept,

that I sent you photos of that I'm going to try to explain, even though podcasts are not a visual medium. So one of our listeners, Mikal, who sent this email to the ringerverse email, which is hobbits and dragons at gmail.com, sent over this really cool way to think about sci-fi versus fantasy in a four-quadrant kind of way. So let me try to explain this graph to folks who are listening. The x-axis of this graph, it's just, an X-axis and a Y-axis. And the X-axis has fantasy on the far left and sci-fi on the far-right,

or that's to say, magic versus science. Magics on the far-left, science is on the far-right. And then the top and bottom on the Y-axis, you have character and you have concept.

And so I think the sweet spot for our favorite episodes, and like none of these quadrants are bad. You can have great things, in any spot on this graph. But you would put Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter in the upper left, like character and magic corner of the graph.

Character magic, yeah. And you would put something like 2001 a Space Odyssey down in the concept and science on the absolute opposite end of the spectrum. That's concept and science because there aren't really characters that you latch onto in 2001. You can have really interesting

and especially in the realm of sci-fi, you can have really interesting shows, books, films that don't have a lot of depth of character, but your concept has to be really interesting and cool. Has to almost drive the story, the concept. Exactly, right. And so I think our sweet spot for a Black Mirror episode is the far right, which is all the way into science,

and smack dab in the middle of concept and character. Right, like right here. Yeah, like give us a real. really strong concept and a really strong character, all, as you said, hinging on tech, on science. And that is a classic episode of Black Mirror. What these two episodes,

Beyond the Sea and Demon 79, where I would put them, so Demon 79's all the way over, we're in magic. We're not in science, right? Or we're all the way in Demon mysticism realm. Yeah, all the way over to the other side of the graph. magic, and I would put it up in the character quadrant, because the concept is not, as you said,

not that revolutionary, but something that we talked about is that, like, Papa Sedu, especially, like, his performance as the demon is, for me at least, was so compelling and watchable. And I also thought that Ingena Vassan, who played Nita was, like, really watchable and interesting. She's great. That it made a really interesting. episode to me, but it's almost like diametrically opposed to usual Black Mirror episode. And then from beyond the sea, I would say we're back on the science side of things. I think the concept is really cool.

So two guys are up on a space station and there are robotic Android versions of them down on earth, getting to live out their lives. So they get to escape back down to Earth into these robotic bodies and spend time with their families is the idea. Josh Harton and Aaron Powell play these two astronauts. We're vaguely in the 1960s, right? Josh Hartnett's family gets murdered

by essentially the Manson Colts, standing for the Manson Colt, Rory Colkin doing his Rory Colkin unhinged thing. And is stranded up in space for years without a body to escape to. Meanwhile, Aaron Paul still has his Android body down on earth and still has his family

and his wife is played by Kate Mara. And as an act of kindness, Aaron Paul's character lets Josh and Hart and his character sort of inhabit his android body for a little bit. What could go wrong? And what could possibly

fucking go wrong. So that's beyond the sea. And that, I think it wants to be balanced between concept and character. I would argue it nails the concept and is a little wobbly on character. I think I would want,

I think I want like a little bit more time with Josh Hartnett's character before the bad thing happens to understand who this guy really is. But there is something interesting going on. He's like, you know, he's Josh Hartner. He's deeply, all-American, deeply handsome astronaut guy. He can afford to be nice to everyone.

He can afford to be warm and generous to everyone because he has everything. He's got the perfect blonde wife and the perfect kids and the cool job and everything that you could possibly want. So when he goes out and meets Randos out in the world, he is way nicer and more generous with his time than his wife is because he has had a frictionless existence.

And then this horrifying thing happens, his wife and his children are murder horrifying. But also for the first time, this is a guy, again, I kind of extrapolating because we don't know this, but it kind of feels like this is a guy who has never been challenged in his life, this is the first time he's been challenged. It is obviously an insanely extreme challenge.

But watching him grapple with almost like entitlement, like he's entitled to Aaron Paul's wife, like he's entitled to all these other things, blended in with this tragedy that would be horrifying for any character to experience. That was almost the most interesting edge of this whole thing. What do you think? The heartened character,

and the Aaron Paul character are diametrically posed in the way that they view family life. Hartnett is out. He's in the movies. He's amongst the people. They're asking them questions. Aaron Paul has moved his family out of the city into the country at the protest of his wife who wants to be in the city. they actually talk about that for a little while. I think because he has trust issues,

trust issues with how this version of himself will be received by people and how they'll be looked at. I don't think he wants to be on display as the android man that is living. He's mistrustful of people in a way and he wants to keep his family away from some of that stuff and just enjoy them while he's doing his job.

Josh Hardin doesn't have that problem, which also makes it a little bit interesting that he doesn't have a real way to protect his family because, you know, the guys come in and he grabs a baseball bat. Like, in that situation, the first thing that I thought was if you know that if you're harmed, your body thing is done,

then you might have to have some more drastic ways to protect everybody in case somebody wants to come in your house and do you harm. But he really wasn't even thinking about that. He seems to fancy himself a hero. He actually swings the bat a couple of times and tries to talk the guys out of it. You know what I mean?

And that's what I mean about like sort of this kind of a character type of a guy who has had his own way, his whole life. And so he doesn't see this coming because he doesn't think this could possibly happen to him. Right. He doesn't think that it's a thing. And then that sends him off the deep end, which you could totally see. But you said something interesting, shall I say, in some of our discussions about this, which is this story, which is really good and has the most chilling ending, one of the most chilling ending. Incredible ending.

Incredible ending. of any Black Mirror episode ever might have worked better as a full feature-length film so that we could have delved a little deeper into the character of Josh Hardin and seeing some of the glitches in his brain

that might lead a person to do what he ends up doing which is killing the entire family to innocent people of his fellow astronaut in order to subject him to the same type of loneliness and despair that he's subjected to,

which, you know, works in the framework of this story, but it's such an extraordinary thing to do that you might have wanted to see that dissent a little more and you are under the constraints of time. It works, but just barely. It works just enough of this story to continue on its merry way. I completely agree.

I think it's either too long or too short. You know what I mean? And I think I'm edging on the side of too short. I love space madness as like a concept is one of my favorite types of horror. I love, you know, vertical horizon. Like I love these like edge of space totally breaking down. Space beard, great stuff. Love it.

Love all of that. But I think I would just, I don't know if it's a limit, like, I've seen Hartnett do some actually really good things. Like I really like to been petty dreadful. So I'm not, I don't want to lay this on. Heartnet, I want to lay it on, like, time constrate. I also think that I would have liked to have seen a bigger difference in Aaron Paul's performance, depending on which man is inhabiting the body. Do you know what I mean?

It's there. There's, like, a smoothness and sort of, like, a predatory nature when he's got the, like, heartnick character inside of his body. But I think I would have liked to seem, like, even more of that distinction. That's, like, a real playground for an actor to sort of, like, completely switch. from one to the other. In one of his interviews, Charlie Berker said something really interesting

about setting this in the 60s because we talked about this idea of how many episodes at Maisie Day Beyond the C and Demon 79 are all set in the past, which is a new step for Black Mirror. And he said, you could have set that story in 2037

and have a super futuristic hologram tech, but it gives it a different flavor setting in the past because the characters are of their time. And that's what made me start thinking about Josh Hartnett's character, the All-American Astronaut, and what the episode is trying to examine in terms of, like, that particular flavor of masculinity or that particular flavor of masculinity versus Aaron Paul's character and his insecurities. You know what I mean? Because, like, Aaron Paul is a very handsome man, but, like, when you stand Aaron Paul next to Josh Hartner, it's like, we're talking about two very different things.

So, like, his insecurities about Hartnett spending time with his wife, all sorts of stuff like that. I would like to understand Kate Mara's character even a little bit better than I got, though I thought she was really good. And also this idea of these men seeing her as possession, because, like, even Aaron Paul's character at the end when he's, like, yelling at Josh Hartn's character, he's like, my wife. My wife. She's mine forever. You know what I mean? Like, it's not a healthy relationship for anyone. at any point in this particular triangle.

Also, there's, there are subtle things about Hartnett's character that demonstrate a difference, right? He is the classic fuckable white dude in terms of movie. Let's look back at one of the earliest fuckable white guys that took over everyone in the 90s. Jack Dawson from Titanic. And what was Jack Dawson? Jack Dawson was a smooth-talking, straight-dealing, super-handsome artist dude.

And this guy right here is an open book, straight-talking, really handsome guy who can also do something with the pencil. He's artsy. He's cultured. He was a- He listens to French music. He reads. Paint me like, what are your French girls? You know what I mean?

He reads. It's the entire thing. Yeah. Aaron Paul's character knows that. He knows that this guy has this bag of tricks. And he knows that the guy knows that he has the bag of tricks. So he knows in the back of his mind he might feel it's going to be a matter of time before my wife is listening to Lemaire. with this guy, and something ends up happening.

And it very nearly does. And I do like that his moves with her are, like, beat for beat, the same moves that he used on his wife. Because he's been working for him since college. Exactly. So high school, I'm sure. Yeah. So that sort of back and forth between those two guys, that dichotomy, if you will, is at play

here. and their masculinity and also the frailty, like what's going on? And then the obsession with being the alpha. Because before, when they're both in their corners, and there's a little thing earlier on when he's asking about his family, ask him if your wife likes this.

I know. He's like, I wouldn't think she would like to be out in the country. So she's like a social butterfly, right? Like, he's like, I've been watching your wife or I know your wife better than you. than you do. And he's like, get off my block.

Totally. You know what I mean? And so at the end, there's probably a thought that he could satisfy her or he knows what she really wants. And that's that play between those guys as well. I want to hear your thoughts on the last scene,

man. Oh, my God. Because I audibly said, Kalika's in the kitchen. I audibly said, fuck. Like I thought

Like okay So there we've seen similar enough I think stories before That you and I could like jump ahead And be like oh he's gonna go into his body Oh what could possibly oh of course like love triangle With the same body or like all this other stuff like that There are ways in which I felt like I could understand the avenues of where this was going

But Pushing out a seat for him And like welcome to hell it's you and me now And a clever conceit of the episode is that they literally need each other to survive because you cannot ban the space station by yourself. So they can't kill each other. Right. So they're locked for years together in a hell of their own making.

I thought it was an incredible ending. And I apologize to our producer Kai, who has not seen the episode yet. We just spoiled it for it. What do you do, man? That ending elevated the episode for me in a significant way because then we just get to sit and daydream about what the next few years Do those guys make it to the end of their mission? No way, bro.

Or just one kill the other and who's the one who does it? He killed his family, Joanna. I know. It's like there's I was surprised. So I was left wondering if he sat down. like he I thought about it for so long after like if he sat down

it's self-preservation even a thing now because like when they get back that guy's fucking going to jail so I just thought about I literally thought about it for 30 minutes after like who's going to jail though

is it like Aaron Paul's going to jail because like he's framed then for the murder like can he can he He claimed that he didn't do it, you know? Well, no, well, this is the thing. I guess, I see, this is why the episode is good.

If Josh Hartnett is laying in the thing, is there any biometric evidence of who actually was... No, because he has to use his key. Like, he has to stand over him and use his key for him every single time. Oh, no, he's fucked. He's fucked. You know? Well, then, well, then Aaron Paul's going to jail. Yeah.

I mean, what do they have to be? turn to as a question. But then, like, I think that isn't, I don't know that that's a decision you make right away. So I imagine that there's just time spent with that where Aaron Paul has to sit and think about what is a future for me and is it worth surviving this hell with this guy just to survive or do I take us all down? And I like that we don't see that.

And we get to sit here and debate whether, like, do you even sit down? Do you even keep working together? And I'll be honest with you, it's probably a harder decision to make in space. It's desolate. It's, you're out there in the middle of it. There are constantly things that are unforgiving and trying to end you. You know what I mean? You're so far away from Earth that if something happens,

there'll be no comfort of seeing another face other than this face. It's really, it's, this, that episode is the anti- Sanjinaparro ending. It's the other side of that kind of tech joy and feeling of limitless possibilities. It's nuts, man.

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I would just like to quickly correct myself. I called the movie A Better Horizon Vertical Horizon, which is the name of a middling aughts band, and I do apologize. But also, Solaris, Sunshine, the Mad Damon section of the Martians' section of the Martians. Like, there's so many space madness stories that I find so compelling. And I think it's particularly because that because the enormity of space forces you to confront your inherent smallness. And adding that dimension to this whole story is so interesting. Were you a passengers fan?

No. A lot of passengers' DNA in this. I hadn't thought about that. There's a lot of passengers DNA. Oh, passengers. Oh, they thought they had one. And shout out to passengers. They thought they had one.

They really thought they did it. They thought there was, let me tell you something. They thought there was going to be passenger con. Yeah. They thought they had one. They thought it. And we were like, no. Like, we're not going to see that shit.

They're like, we've, we've, we've plucked the most famous woman and the most famous man. and they're really hot in space together. Don't you want to see this? And we said, no, thank you. We're good. All right. We're now going to talk about Demon 79. And I just want to, like, for my fellow Americans listening to this podcast,

I just want to give a little context for this episode that I don't think is immediately obvious to people who don't follow British politics. But the general election of 1979 was this massive status quo shaking. events in British politics. This is when Margaret Thatcher gets elected. It is when I was, because I am not a

British political scholar, I was watching a professor talk about this earlier today. 18 years of conservative rule happened after the 19th, 79 election, which is the longest single party rule in the UK since the Napoleonic Wars. This is just a massive cultural shift moment for the

UK. I was watching some political ads from the time, from this election, which is the backdrop of this demonic episode. And I pulled a clip that actually just like really cracked me up. Kai, will you play this clip from a 1979 political ad? Did you or did you not want better schooling your children? Guilty. Now, did you or did you not want to buy your own home? Guilty.

Did you or did you not make a profit last year? Guilty. We'll try not to do it again. Right. Your sentence to nationalization. That you put in it to any. It seems like parody. But it is...

This is like, God damn Count Dracula. Like, what the hell is going on? Like, what? The specter of, like, socialism and nationalization and all this sort of stuff looms over. The conservative party takes advantage of a cultural moment. and swoops in and promises to basically make Britain great again. And I think though Charlie Brooker and his co-writer in this episode, Bisha Ali, have not said in any interviews that this is why they're focusing on this election, I think it has to do with, like, trying to examine Brexit was currently going on the UK through something that is said in the past to give us some distance. The way in which the U.S. became obsessed with Watergate when Trump got elected is just sort of like away from.

us to understand all this has happened before and will happen again, or just a way to just take a step back from things that are stressing us out today and try to break down or better understand how we got here by looking at what happened to us in the 70s. So the general election of 1979, and there is a, you know, deeply racist, nationalistic candidate is a main character in this episode or a supporting character in this episode, that's the background. And that, I think that's the calamity, right?

Like, there's an apocalypse at the end of this episode. I think the apocalypse is Margaret Thatcher. I think that's the story that we're watching here. But this was, as I said, co-written by B. Shelley, who wrote On Loki,

she was a show for Miss Marvel, a show that we felt was like a mixed bag, but there's some, like, started out really strong. Yeah. And she did some really great work on that show with friendships. And I think the friendship, the relationship that forms at the center of this story is what makes it special and worth watching. This is also directed by Toby Haynes, who directed some Doctor Who and also a bunch of and or episodes. He directed The Narcina Five. Nobody's Listening One Way Out trilogy of episodes, like an incredible director.

So there's a lot of style here. There's a lot sort of politically on their mind. There is, as I mentioned, a great performance at the center. In contrast to Beyond the Sea, which I would like a little bit more time with, I think this one is like undeniably too long. Yeah, for sure. And I think that for the character of Nita, a young woman who is isolated from her own community because of racism,

because of her otherness. But above all else, I think in addition or plusing that, I think what we're meant to feel is her extreme loneliness because the solution at the end of the episode is friendship and companionship. She wins because she gets companionship, right? So her loneliness is so key. It's similar to what we feel about McKenzie Davis and San Juan Juna Perel, that otherness and how it translates to loneliness.

I just don't need to think I don't think I needed to see. quite so much establishing of her isolation. I feel like we could have gotten that. We can infer that. Like we can, we don't need to, given the time and given the treatment of people, we can kind of infer that she was other than that situation. I thought the scene where he asked her not to eat such pungent food

was like really indicative of that. So a couple of things with this one. I did, if it was past, fail, it's a pass. You know what I mean? So if it's past, fail, it's definitely a pass. I place movies and shows where the world actually ends at the end in a really specific bag. Okay. So I think about a knock at the cap, not a knock at the cabin.

That's the fucking Mnichamelon one, even though it did happen there. No, it didn't happen there. Cabin in the woods? Cabin in the woods is what I'm thinking about. A knock at the cabin. I can't think if it ended or it did. It didn't. They saved it. I can't remember. It wasn't my favorite. Cabin in the woods, it ends at the end. Always freaks me out. Big fist comes at the end. Your God. Don't look up. So Cabin in the woods, don't look up in Demon Seventy-9 when it actually happens at the end to people. And stuff where that's the deal, because that's such a terrifying situation for characters to go through. And like my mind starts thinking about, well, man, there's some person in Tuskegee, Alabama,

that has nothing to do with what our main character is going through that just got fucking nuked. And when you start thinking about the weight of that, it kind of fucks with you a little bit. But shows and movies that do that always have such a specific burden. They have to get you okay with letting go with everything that you're looking at for the sake of one narrative,

either one thing that one person did wrong or one thing that one person did right or some grander lesson, right? And don't look up, it's, these people were trying to tell people for a long time, this is what can happen, but at least they accessed their humanity. At least they accessed their humanity

by trying to do the right thing, and they all died together. And Cabin in the Woods, they made a specific choice in a very real way and then it was all over. And this one, they just kind of,

they fall away from the killing and the stuff that's going on and she gets something different out of it. I say all of that stuff to basically say that I don't fucking like watching things where the world ends at the end, bro. I'm glad

that she was able to be a fucking friend to a eternal demon. But I had to watch a nuclear Holocaust, okay? And look, if you're going to make me watch nuclear, I went to see Terminator 2, 1991, and I never fucking forgot that one scene. The playground. I don't like watching a nuclear Holocaust. I don't want to watch a nuclear Holocaust. cost, I want them to figure it out.

So at the end, I'm thinking, they're together in eternity and nothingness, which doesn't sound all of that appealing in oblivion, which doesn't sound great. I don't know where they're going to be. And, you know what I mean? And now it's fucking

the day after tomorrow. Yeah, if you want to think about the whole world, you want to think about humanity. Sure. But since we're focusing on this one person, I would say being in a void forever with, you know, a demon who looks like a member of Boni M. Like, and is like

deeply charming is a better existence for Nita than the one that she was living at the beginning of the setup. Do you really think that that's true? Yes. Like, she can't they ain't got no Jamaica. Like, what are they going to go? There ain't no beach. Like, what is this? Okay, Joe, let's play this out.

I don't know what the void looks like, you know. In order to say that, though, you got to know. Right? So that's my thing. In order to say that, you got to know. I have to have some idea. And I would have kind of asked that question. I'd be like, all, well, what's the void?

Because I know that the earth is about to be fucked up. But shit, what is the void? Are we like, is the void, where do we go? We go to other planets. Her option at that, it's not like she's choosing the void with him versus saving the world. The world's already fucked. So it's the void with him. We're dying in a nuclear holocaust.

And she's like, okay, void it is for me. I want to talk to you quickly about the police element of this. Basically, I was trying to figure out what this episode was trying to say. And with the police element, basically, so we've got two cops, right? We've got like the white middle-aged detective and his young female, like, lieutenant or whatever. And they are generally nice and competent and whatever, you know what I mean? and seemingly not racist and all this sort of stuff like that.

But I feel like the episode is trying to say that niceness that he, you know, he's like, let's, let's, we don't do this. This is not what we do when she's trying to like assassinate this, you know, candidate, essentially. He's like, this isn't what we do.

Yeah, he's, he's a complete maniac, but this isn't what we do. That that niceness is not going to save the world. Right. Well, obviously it doesn't. Yeah. Like that guy who we know turns out to be fucking Hitler. Yeah, exactly.

We can't kill him so that we could fucking have a World Cup. It's just, it's a lot for me. Black Mirror really put a lot on my plate between, like, being in space with the guy who kills your family and not killing goddamn mile. so that we could have spring break on MTV in 1993. Think about the things that never happened, man. Think about the things that never happened. Prince never came out with 19... Because it's over in 79.

Prince never came out with 1999, right? The Nintendo never came out. Fucking Return of the Jedi never came out. All right? I don't know, 79. Wait, I don't think we got Empire Strikes back. Joanna and Van don't exist. Don't. Didn't even happen.

Like, didn't even happen. Think about all of the stuff that didn't happen. No goddamn in sync. You don't get to have that. Joanna. No, I want it that way. All right. I'm sorry. Park.

Like, think about the things that we missed. We missed a lot of stuff. I'm sorry. Are you balancing the equation of Joanna and Van between you get Biggie and Tupac on your side and I get in sync on my side? Those are the decisions that I made for you. I don't like this for me. So I'm just saying all of that,

not to off the guy, who was about the poison the water or something? I don't know what the fuck is going on, man. I do want to shout out one, the world is ending movie that I really love that I was thinking about a lot, which is, I don't know if you ever saw Lorene Scafaris 2012 movie

seeking a friend for the end of the world, which is Kira Knightley and Steve Karell. And that is a movie that I really love because it is about like, the world is ending. And there's nothing you can do about it. So what do you do with that information? What relationships can you forge? And it's like a really interesting unlikely friendship movie that I always found very sweet and tender. And I just think that this is a sort of similar thing where, like, their friendship, him responding to her the way that he does,

like, there's something very sweet about this, like, horrific, horrific episode of television. Yeah, I don't like stuff like that. Let me tell you something. My anxiety is too bad, man. I understand. I understand. Remember what was the movie where the planet, where Kirsten Duss was in it, and the planet was about to...

Oh, melancholia? I walked out the arc light, man. I tried it for 15 minutes. And we got to go see it. We got to go see it. I'm like, nah, man, they're too weird. I got to go. I got to go.

And you know where I went? I went to the arcade, Vermont, and Melrose. And I lived life. That's what I do. Life. So if at the end of this movie... What's what I'm saying?

Okay, okay. There. It's Tuesday, January 20, this, we're going to recording this. Let's say the world is ending on Friday. No, hell no. I don't want to, no. I don't want to do it.

What are you doing? By the way, it's June. You took four months from, I don't want to talk about it. You made me contemplate what I would do in the vastness of space, trapped with the person who murdered my family. I'm asking you, the world ends on Friday. What do you do with the time that you have left? You seek out the people you love.

of, right? That's what you do. They're not going to want to be around me because I'm going to be a basket case. Like, they're not going to want to be around me, man. Like, what am I going to do? I don't know, man. Probably drugs. At this point, you might as well get on DMZ.

What is it called? DMT? Like, I'm going to try. I'm just going to come up there to San Francisco and just sit out in the bay and just do it. I don't know. Oh, great. Well, I'll meet you at the airport.

I'll pick you up from the airport. And we will hang out until the world ends on Friday. Anything else I want to say about Black Mirror, Red Mirror, any of that? Red Mirror or Black Mirror. This is what I'll say. So, look, there are very few shows that I feel like are necessary. I feel like a lot of shows exist, but only a couple of shows are necessary. And the shows that are necessary are the ones that explore human connection,

explore our connection to the things that we've created and explore how that relationship between what we are, which has been created, either you believe divinely or in the most extraordinary set of circumstances that we could imagine with what we've decided to make

and what that says about us, what we create how that reflects on who we are and who we've chosen to be. And Black Mirror is one of those shows. It's one of those shows that continuously ask the question

if we have our own best interests at heart. And if we can do that individually or collectively. So I think it's a show that's very important because of that reason. It wasn't a complete

banger of a season. But it was a good one. I think it's a comeback from season five. Yeah, it wasn't a complete banger of a season, but it was a good one. And I hope that the creators of the show and the fans of the show feel that

the show is as necessary as I feel like it is because I've watched Jones' awful no less than three times, and I get a different lesson every single time. So, to Black Mirror, I enjoy myself. All right, well, that's it for us.

Homework again. Van wants you to watch. Stop over in a quiet town. I want you to watch Kiksuya, Westworld. Van wants you to listen to Tupac and Biggie. I want to let you know that I want it that way. It was a Backto-Boy song, not an in-sync song. I said it both. I know that. That's one of my favorite joints. Someone covered it at Juneteenth Party.

Look, we had a Juneteenth Party yesterday, and I won it that way. covered by the people that were singing. So that's a story to tell on higher learning. You guys got to come over. It was a really interesting party. We had a fucking fantastic time. Anyway. Listen to higher learning.

Listen to the ringerverse. Thanks, of course, to Kai Grady. Sorry for all the spoilers, Kai. And we'll see you somewhere. Sometimes soon. Bye.