The Reel Rejects - BLACK MIRROR Season 6: "Joan is Awful" BREAKDOWN & REVIEW!! | 6x1 | Netflix

Episode Date: June 16, 2023

NETFLIX HOLDS A BLACK MIRROR TO ITSELF! Black Mirror 6x1 Breakdown, Recap, & Review starring Salma Hayek, Annie Murphy, Michael Cera, Cate Blanchett, Rob Delaney, Himesh Patel, Ayo Edibiri & Ben Barnes where Netflix takes a dark parody look at the future of streaming, deepfake technology,, A.I. with Streamberry. Never did a Trailer Reaction for Season 6 so it's all surprises for us on here! #BlackMirror #BlackMirrorSeason6 #Netflix #firsttimewatching #reaction #youtubersreact #youtube - Full Episode Reaction: https://youtu.be/Bc7p-AdyMx0 - Get Yourself A Batverse Shirt: https://rebrand.ly/rbd2wr7 - POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-reel-rejects/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listeners of the Reject Nation, we are here to watch Black Mirror episode one of season six. But if you want to watch our reaction, that is up on YouTube. But this is going to be our review of Joan is awful. So, John, this is John's voice. John, identify yourself. I am John. This is my voice. Sweet. John's voice has been identified.

All righty. Well, we're going to watch this, and then you're going to get our instant thoughts. We're going to talk about it in a way as if you have just watched it, too. So I'm not going to be doing a recap for you all. so we don't do that we just hop into it all righty let's see what's going on all right well that was fun that was a lot of fun what you think john take it away that was a lot of fun uh yeah certainly i mean god i almost need a minute to put my head back together i appreciated, you know, obviously, just like the fun, wild, meta-wackiness of it. And certainly, I guess,

this commentary that, like, you really should read the terms and conditions. Because, I don't know, I mean, yeah, not that anything like this has happened, but certainly it is one of those things that comes up frequently in our lives. I mean, this is, yeah, I mean, the amount of times I hear people commenting on, oh, I just mentioned a thing. And now it's all over my algorithms and stuff like that. Like, yeah, as silly and far-fetched of a concept as this is in some ways, I'm like, well, actually, when you think about it, it's not that crazy with the advent of AI and all these other things. And yeah, I liked the kind of madcapness they managed to ring out of it. Like, it doesn't necessarily feel like the most heavy thinker of an episode necessarily,

but for the kickoff to the new season, I thought it was kind of a nice place to start and a nice way to get that foreboding Black Mirror sense without making me feel like my soul has just been, you know, run through some kind of filth machine or something like that. But what did you think? Yeah, I liked it overall.

I do kind of miss those days of Black Mirror. I mean, not even the last season really had that. I liked the Striking Vipers episode with Anthony Mackie. But even that didn't have the full sense of the old days of Black Mirror, you know, when you're left like just miserable it has escalated a little bit more like its self-awareness has reached this whole new level of like comedic effect yeah it's kind of been that way for a while

yeah and so yeah like and i enjoyed it though i think i think the commentary is fun and i like the play on it is it really does feel like a Netflix flex like the the metaness of this is very fast to me because it's a commentary on the service itself that we are all watching this from and it's warning us of the dangers of the service but Netflix is so confident and it's IP and the fact that we will still consume it and nothing's going to change that it's saying that we can even present you with this alternate reality possible the future that you might actually one day sort of have something similar to and we're just going to do it while collecting money from you you yeah it's it's such a it's such a multi-layer of exploitation in a way that's like this should be a

cautionary tale but the cautionary tale is coming from the people who stand to benefit from it in the most sadistic way so it's a really like weird viewership experience you know Like, it feels like I almost feel like I'm a masochistic viewer in a way because I'm indulging in this with them and I'm enjoying it and liking what they're saying, but also going, is there anything I should be listening? Are they like warning me their plan of war attack that they're about to put on the masses? It was all here. He told us exactly what their plans were. It does have that bit of an effect, though, you know? Yeah, totally.

I like the fun, unnerving side of it because it's easy to look at something like this and go, well, that's never going to happen. I don't know. I wouldn't say never, though. Maybe not on this, like, grand level of a scale. But maybe, you know, because there is that thing where, you know, deep fakes and AI technology and they're constantly trying to use, like, AI generation, you know, like we're at a point in our lives where you see GI, a person in frame, it's still looking. cgied uh you know so we haven't gone that far yet uh but but in terms of the story itself like if we were like there's there's two sides to talk about this you have the commentary about we could talk about what the episode is talking about if we could talk about the actual execution

of the episode the actual execution of the episode was cool to me where when they do introduce it it's it's kind of a slow setup but that's to get you acquainted with her normal ordinary lifestyle and i did have a thought when i was watching um how how things were progressing and the way uh jones life annie murphy's life not annie murphy right yeah yeah yeah she's joan level one yeah okay joan level one sorry to get confused on this the way joan level one's life was progressing that it still feels like it's shot like a cinematic television show though yeah and then they're doing the show on streamberry that is just a little more dramatized and performative yeah totally it's more acting e and all that stuff but it still looks so similar yeah right so

when the twist came in of that oh this is level one that we are still watching a simulation I appreciated that because then I was like, oh, okay, well, then that criticism, not even a criticism, but just a minor nitpick that I thought would help differentiate it a little bit more, make it seem a little more believable. I'm like, okay, this makes sense. It made more sense to me now. Yeah, yeah. Because the visual aesthetic is very different when you hop into the real world. I'm like, okay, so that was all purposeful. Yeah.

So that was a nice choice. Which think of the comedy, though. There were times the comedy was like real, because it became so. comedic. Yeah, it's so, like, kind of sharply satirical rather than that, like, that, I, yeah, like, black mirror up until, like, this point has had a sort of pitch black sense of humor. And I do think it's maybe telling that Charlie Brooker back in the day was like, I got to stop this for a while because, like, it's getting too close to real life. And I wonder if in coming back and, you know, reigniting the show again, maybe there was sort of an idea that we'll make this a little bit lighter. and a little more broad or something like that.

And it didn't bother me. Like, I guess it does make the show overall feel a bit lighter. So I guess, you know, you want that oomph, that impact, you know, that thing that makes your soul feel a little dirty after a black mirror. But at the same time, I don't begrudge at that. It didn't break the illusion. It didn't break the story for me.

And there was a lot that I did find quite outrageous and funny along the way. and certainly as the layers of meta start to crash together and as uh uh you know level one jones starts to take control and and you know really go for it i like the that reveal of of like oh okay if i'm doing any of this this has already happened and uh and yeah like you know life is absurd enough already and i wonder too if any of this was based on like actual notes they'd received about stuff over time or have been able to like have access to um but yeah it is like markedly more not even more comedic to me just like less grim i guess is what i would go with in in terms of an

assessment um and too i mean i thought that like anytime you make a game out of celebrities too there's like a lightness that comes with that and certainly this has like a huge cast once you get right down to like every different level and every different version so like there was a lot of fun i had with those games but it does feel markedly like it's not trying to like warp your soul so much with what it's doing which uh which you know i'm curious to see if that flavor comes back up throughout the rest of the season maybe this is just a more palatable one to get us started or something like that and i don't really care if it's doing that it was really the the comedy to me started losing some of its sense of believability like when it

became when salma hyac it was when salmahyak entered the picture of selma hyac it started feeling like okay this is not feeling it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's broached a new level of i'm very much aware now that i'm watching a television show and this this constant joke it's starting to turn to like this is the end all the sudden and this joke of like constantly pulling it pull the joke of constantly saying you're selma like salma hiac selma hiac like keep pointing out it's selma hyac and saying her name and also with her acting it was just so it became it just became a very different kind of comedic sensibility sure at that point where i was now like now i'm watching a comedy versus i'm watching something that has humor in it

okay yeah i see what you mean and i maybe that maybe that's the point to have got it in it there. I guess it didn't fully jive with me when it got to that point. It started losing some of its intrigue, I would say. Yeah, I'm actually, I'd be very curious to hear what people think in general of that because part of my brain says, okay, well, it has to be this sort of AI amalgamated representation of what we all think of and perceive Selma Hayek as. So in some sense, I don't begrudge at that because it makes sense when the reveal comes around, but in the real time of the moment of trying to believe

that, oh, it's the real Selma Hayek coming to the real Jones house before we know she's not the real Joan. Yeah, I can absolutely see how that part doesn't read quite as real and reads like, oh, we're having fun with the fact that it's really Selma Hayek rather than just trying

to portray it naturalistically in that passage of the story. Yeah. It was always still enjoyable to me and i did like the arc that joan level one had because so much of her anxiety comes from a place of not feeling like she has control over her life in situations and then the key to finding her resolve is to relinquish control and surrender to it which allows her to get her freedom by the end so i i did a i did think the the arc of that was cool the michael sarah cameo was fun yeah um but i also i did like the i did like the concept though of an out of streaming service that can

duplicate your life in real time like a i generation is very is very fast uh you know it's faster than it's ever been uh with a lot of a lot of ways of our technology and the response time on things is incredibly impeccable and so quick and it's only going to get quicker yeah it's only it's only it's only going to get quicker and whether it be text form when you're talking about the there's more than like chat gbt there's like other things out there that are similar like a chat gbt but then you know you got the AI image generators that people really love toying around with and and we are on the path like people can already do like those deep fakes impersonation like those tom cruise ones. that you see all the time look amazing so i i like the commentary on that um and i i think that the the concept itself is really cool and because there's ways because there's many past they could have gone down with it of uh of of like living in this world of what this a i is and the commentary on how what we like i like the CEO line essentially talking about that would they people were not responding to the pleasantries of their life they're responding to the

neurotic sides of our lives and because i'm fascinated with reality i am fascinated with reality shows and why we love a reality show so much like it's really hard to find like a common like a a real solid thing on like why reality shows work so well for people and what the what the escape is um is for it there's like something there that people really do love because it's an escape from your own life, but you're just watching someone else's life, but how real is this when there's cameras pointed at you and all these things, you know?

So the concept of this dramatized thing is in some ways maybe even closer to reality because you're not aware at all that there's cameras at, like you're not aware of there's surveillance happening. And so you're capturing something real, but then it's also being enhanced with the writing and the performances to add an little bit extra umph to the dramatization of their lives. so in a way you're watching a blend of a reality show meets a scripted adaptation of a real life situation that someone's going through so i think there's something really cool about it and i feel like there's i feel like they could have done a little bit more with like i don't know i mean i like i like the route they went i did because the i think there's just so many different concepts you could have done with this one concept that there's other variations would have liked to have seen but maybe i mean Maybe the other variations I would have liked to have seen.

Maybe not have would have worked for this episode of, you know, like there's ways you could have used it to, to your control, you know, to like bolster your own fame, become an influencer. The way how reality show stars do that all the time, you know, where they're on a reality show, they're nobody's. And then like, like, one of those. And then they decide like, all right, I'm going to become an influencer and I'm going to, you know, get brand deals and use this as a way to promote myself, you know, or like, oh, how can I control the narrative? here yeah and like what she does do uh so i did like that but i but i also love the idea of like the celebrity getting upset about the way their likeness is used because that is also a real problem that has occurred as well yeah yeah you know yeah like giving it multiple like yeah it's it feels like there are a bunch of levels you could go through but at least using this

scope of yeah like some kind of piece of media yeah i mean that's those are two huge things we're constantly kind of hearing and talking about is regular people being preyed upon by fine print and by you know various kinds of latent surveillance and then yeah likeness rights and the ghoulish ways and like it all kind

of again it is kind of surprising that Netflix I don't know it's never really surprising because obviously they're just going to make money off of this and nothing's really going to change in real life but it does kind of point to like the only people really safe from this if anybody is safe from this is like you know the owner

of the big corporation who owns this computer that nobody understands. And I like that they even addressed it. Like, yeah, nobody really understands how this machine works or anything. It just kind of does its thing. And we all watch. But, yeah, like at first, I thought it would just be that one level of like, oh, what is the normal person going to do? But no, yeah, Selma Hayek is also, in theory, stuck in this situation too,

and is also being exploited. And everyone is being handed a contract that is way too long to understand and entrusting that to somebody else who might not have their best interests at heart. And so, yeah, there were a lot of aspects that felt very relevant, wrapped up inside this, you know, outlandish packaging. Yeah, that again, you know,

I wonder if there were harsher versions of this script and, you know, things that went in even harder on, you know, what it's trying to comment on that were maybe pulled back. Yeah, because I like the world that they presented at the end of where they wanted their ends. goal to be where everyone would have that yeah because if everyone has that then joe then joan have nothing to worry about yeah because then she everyone would be aware that oh this is what they do

to all of us and then it could just become fun watching how it works but then i was like but everyone get a lot more relaxed about like yeah and then i was also like but what would that world entail like i want to see that world come to full realization of what would that world entail like this is one of those black mirror episodes where it would be cool to see like a sequel to this but they shut down the servers of what would that world entail if everyone has their own show so when the shows is it all like crossovers like yeah they're all watching their own version at the time with all their shows become where they're all just watching versions of their friends and family yeah totally and but if but like yeah what it would be cool it's like the version where people inhabit it and embrace it instead of just only being uh rebelling against it and and fighting against it you know like there's it's a really it's a really cool scenario and so yeah I would have liked to have seen it because it did make me ponder like a bunch of questions and I do think in our reality like the world we live in I feel like yeah I feel like that

I feel like a lot of us would like that I think a lot of us would embrace it because it would be exploitative of our assure our very our narcissistic sides I think it would be be real telling of that and i feel like a lot of us would hate it but i think there'd be a lot of us who would really like it too at the same time just to watch how it unfolds and to watch it play out and stuff and there would be people who would absolutely totally be down for it so yeah so i wanted to see that version as well like i'm not saying like this the show goes down the episode goes down for me because we didn't get that i was like i'm saying this is why i like the concept so much yeah Because the possibilities of where this world building could have gone with this one thing.

I was like, oh, it didn't have to end here. It could have gone more. Yeah, they talk about multiverses and you really do feel like, yeah, you could. Yeah, you can see how, I don't know, you want to see, yeah, how the, like, the furthest extent of this goes, instead of breaking the machine while it's still kind of just beginning to start this phenomenon. Like, yeah, what would it? Like, and maybe that's part of what's kind of different. now about the show is like this does have like a nice resolve and a happy ending i guess i would

call that which is not you know what i usually typically associate black mirror with and so yeah in some ways i feel like you could go even further even more dystopic and yeah there are like multiple extrapolations on this idea and so i kind of do hope that maybe as like this situation in real life expands they might come back and touch back on it at some point like i don't know Joan is the revenge of Joan is awful or something like that later down the line because yeah like there are just so many implications and we we mostly just watch as people are dismayed by it but what about the people who love this and what about the people who are only going to become worse and and get higher and higher off this experience of having this spotlight thrust upon yeah

and whatnot like in reality shows I think sometimes one of the fun parts of a reality show is watching the reunion because what happens in a reunion is those people have have had months away from the events that happened and then they come back and watch the reality show and see how it's all edited and put together and see what all their friends or family said when they weren't around you know and then in the reunion it's a big confrontation of those things and I think that would have been cool to see how watching everyone else's shows would intersect is that how you see me yeah how you appear in somebody else's life show and it's like if we both have a stream bear like if i have a streamberry account and john has a streamberry account we're in

the same room with the events of john's show play out different yeah in my show even though perspective yeah yeah i think i think there was a lot of really cool things they could it's you don't have time for all that that's like a complete you would have to make a whole season you'd have to start the episode out where it's already established yeah it's a very different episode not the introduction of the first one it is it would have to be like this is already happening yeah and you're living they're plopping you into the world where this is already happening um so yeah it would be cool to see like a follow-up for it because i do think there's real complicated things that could happen that would make for an even more interesting conversation what they presented here well yeah and with the idea just the final

just like seeing a version of this too where how do people behave now that everyone accepts that their life is on display versus finding out your life has been put on display and like I think we can all kind of relate to how you would react to that whereas if this is just the norm I feel like everyone would be a little bit different yeah you know in their behavior and the way they approach to all of this yeah I know it's at least I at least appreciate that it is rich in ideas and we can sit here and be like man there are just so many ways you could take this in so many like it's a rich idea and that's cool yeah I appreciate that episode's quirky acting was still really good I enjoyed everyone's presence quite a lot

So yeah Had a fun time with that one Had a fun time Black Mirror still gets It's still thought-provoking And the end of the day That's what I really wanted It was just another thought-provoking

Black Mirror All righty guys Well what did you think about this episode Leave your thoughts down below Be sure to subscribe Leave a like And let's end this with a Patreon John, real quick, off the top of your head.

Who would you want to see a Streamberry show about? Make it fast. Come on, John. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Do that thing, John. I want to see a streamberry show about. And do it.

Maria Hammond. I want to see Maria Hammond's TV show. What's her show? What's her show? Maria Hammond is one of the best people at the Patreon. But I know behind closed doors that there are dark things lurking within your soul. She appreciates this. And I want to see what that is all about.

And then eventually I want a guest star on your show. You know, I mean, Maria, she comes across so kind and so selfless and so giving. But I bet at the end of the day she comes home, looks in the mirror, is like, yeah, look at you. You're such a good person. Look at how much you do for the people around you. Sounds like a positive show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just her talking herself up the whole time.

And none of it's authentic or real. She's just trying to feed her ego and be loved by everyone. This is how you're really a viewer? My God, this is awful. I definitely do. This is all true. It's not an algorithm. It's not fiction.

It's not a lot of patron over here. Terrible. That's terrible what you're doing. But I will be her biggest viewer and I will tune in every episode and I'll be out there to be like, no, man, Maria, she's a real one. Don't trust the algorithm. She's the best out here. I love you, Maria. Don't listen to a word I said.

It's all fake. It's all fiction. Destroy the supercomputer. And stay pledged. We love you. Love you, Maria. You know, John didn't mean it. I didn't mean it.

You're an awful human. John is awful. I am awful.