But you know what, I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's give Black Mirror Series Six a fair shake and go through an episode-by-episode review before I sum up my general thoughts, eh?
Warning - many spoilers ahead...
You know the drill by now. Black Mirror is chock-full of shocking scenes and even more shocking language. And I'm going to spoil the ever-loving heck out of this one, so strap in, son!We'll start with the first episode, Joan is Awful.
The Premise
Joan notices that a new series has premiered on her streaming service, Streamberry. To her horror, it's a series about her everyday life and mirrors everything up to and including the point where she's watching the series. Soon, everyone around her has a view into her private business now that it's available as public TV...The Characters
Anne Murphy takes on the roles of Joan Tait and herself. Murphy really dials it up to eleven with the panic attack mid-way through the show.Salma Hayek, similarly, takes on the roles of Joan Tait and herself. I believe that Salma Hayek needs no introduction, having graced the feverish dreams of teenage boys like myself in her 1996 hit From Dusk Till Dawn. Even having last seen her in a comedic role in The Hitman's Bodyguard, I was blown away by how willing Hayek was to ham it up. She looked like she was really having fun here.
Michael Cera as Beppe, the nerdy tech who explains everything to Joan, and by extension, the audience. He did well, I was so engaged.
Avi Nash as Krish. I've only seen this guy in The Walking Dead and I didn't know he could be this dramatic! Hats off!
Himesh Patek as Krish. Looking way more serious than Nash in that role!
Rob Dalney as Mac. Gave off instant douchebag fuckboy vibes. Dalney was effortlessly smarmy in the role.
Ben Barnes as Mac. I remember him as Jigsaw from Punisher. He makes a very limited appearance here and only really needs to look pretty.
Ayo Edebiri as Sandy. What we mostly see of her is at the scene where she gets canned. I thought she did a pretty good job representing the stages of grief with what little time she had. Denial ("I thought we were friends"), anger("You're a coward, Joan!"), bargaining("Please don't do this. Please. Not now!")...
Lolly Adefope as Joan's lawyer. I really liked the dialog here. Adefope delivers the entire "you're screwed" explanation with such creative flair.
Wunmi Mosaku as lawyer. Didn't I see her in Playtest? Well, the role here is basically regurgitating everything that Adefope already said as the lawyer, so it's not all that interesting.
Jared Goldtein as Eric. Dude delivers is lines. I love that he's gay but not over-the-top with it. Didn't even realize the character was gay until that scene with his boyfriend!
Jaboukie Young-White as Eric. I whooped when I saw this. I watch a lot of The Daily Show, that's why.
Kayla Lorette makes a brief appearance as the actual Joan Tait. Would have been hilarious and deeply ironic if they'd used a really big name for this role, but I guess that would have been a really expensive gag.
Leila Farzad plays Streamberry CEO Mona Javadi. She comes across as a massive asshole, which is great. Because this episode really needs something other than a faceless quantum computer to be the villain.
Danielle Vitalis as Fatima Klaas, the journalist who's interviewing Mona Javadi. She plays this role straight, looking both concerned and alarmed at the implications of what Javadi is showing her. In a sense, she's a conduit for the audience.
Luke Beattie is Brutus the security guard. This dude sure didn't look like a "Brutus". Sure, it was a bit part, but musclebound meatheads are everywhere, the show producers really could have done better.
Rich Fulcher as Gainsborough, Salma Hawek's lawyer. He's meek and befuddled, but he can't do shit, so I kind of felt for the character there as he got chewed out by Salma Hayek.
The Mood
The atmosphere is bright and the vibes are light even as disaster after disaster occurs. This episode is more of a comedy adventure than a tragedy, and it shows.What I liked
The concept of Streamberry (looking uncannily close to Black Mirror's current platform Netflix) is deliciously on the nose. And also, the title design for this episode is so apt!
When Joan and Krish are going through Streamberry's shows for the first time, we're seeing references to other Black Mirror episodes. So cheeky!
The twist at the end gave rise to so many questions. Like, if everything that happens in the series is a mirror of what went on in "real life", did the real Joan Tait actually defecate in a Church?! Holy shit. Literally!
Now, I normally don't like a huge cast, but in this case it was absolutely justified. The big names such as Salma Hayek and Cate Blanchett (in the role and non-speaking cameo respectively) just added layers of context. Plus, it just tickled me.
What I didn't
After Joan's lawyer explains how Streamberry knows everything in real-time due to her phone eavesdropping on her, Joan still goes ahead and has sex with Mac (or attempts to) without taking the proper precautions?! Um...While I loved having Salma Hayek in the cast, it just didn't make sense that this basically meant that the role of Joan Tait was race-swopped. Which in itself wasn't that big a deal, until I noticed that this was the only role where it happened. Consistency, people!
I was not really buying that quamputer design as this mega-processor. I'm supposed to believe that this is the machine behind those huge virtual worlds, the A.I generation and stuff?!
No comments:
Post a Comment