Prelude:
So far in the first half of Black Mirror’s third season, the show has explored what we might be forced to do for technology and what technology might do to us. Shut up and Dance combines both of these ideas in an episode about the consequences of living in the smartphone era where our every move is tracked and monitored.
Plot:
The opening sequence follows a woman who’s seemingly running or hiding from someone. She hides something in the tire of a car in an empty parking lot and then receives a text prompting her to walk away. The rest of the episode chronicles the events leading up to that moment as well as what follows after. The protagonist of this chapter is a reclusive and introverted teen named Kenny.
After being caught unawares masturbating on camera, he receives emails and texts threatening to expose him unless he does someone's bidding. Instead of going to the authorities, Kenny follows the instructions given to him by his anonymous blackmailers. The first coordinates he receives lead him to pick up a white box and deliver it to a hotel room where he meets a man waiting for a prostitute.
From then on Hector also starts getting blackmailed and we see that various people are coerced into carrying random tasks, including the woman from the opening sequence. Kenny and Hector find the keys she previously hid, get in the car and drive off to the location the blackmailers tell them to. When they arrive there they open the box and find a gun and a pair of glasses inside the cake, along with a text instructing one of them to rob a bank and the other to drive the car. This when Sh*t starts to get real.
Kenny musters all his courage walks into the bank takes the gun out and tells the employee to give him the money while he literally pees himself from fear. He’s then asked to deliver the money alone somewhere in the forest and he complies, thinking it will be over soon. When finds the man he’s supposed to be delivering the money to, he learns THEY want them to fight to the death while a drone watches over them.
Kenny takes his gun and tries to kill himself only to realise it was empty. As Hector returns to his home, he passes by his daughter sleeping and steps into his bedroom where his wife waits for him in tears because they told her about his affair. A montage of different unsuspecting victims receiving the picture of the troll meme follows, ending with Kenny who’s returning from the forest covered in blood. Radiohead's "Exit music" is heard as the police arrive to arrest him. Everyone he knows, including his mother, have seen the footage of him jerking off to child pornography.
Theme:
This was the titular Black Mirror at its worst: the glass eye watching everything we do and using it against us. The plot of the anonymous blackmailers controlling different players who all interconnected to serve them, was unnerving and awesome. What’s really twisted, however, is the lengths the characters, including Kenny, went to in order to keep their secrets hidden.
Every game increased the stakes, testing their will and self-preservation. Of course, in the end, their efforts amounted to nothing since the blackmailers didn’t want anything from them except to wreak havoc in their lives and prove how horrible people become when it comes to saving their own skin. This is perfectly exemplified in the car scene where Kenny cries as Hector yells at him, telling him he’d hang himself if he was in his situation.
He him offers an apology for what he said later in the episode but what kind of person would terrorise a child like that? It’s a tragic end, but it makes sense. Why would you trust them in the first place? There was no way to guarantee you’d be safe and if anything, didn’t these people deserve the end they met? Hector was bored of his marital life so he sought after escorts and Kenny got off watching child pornography. We don’t exactly see what happened when he was forced to fight with the older man in the woods and since he made it out alive, we can be sure he murdered someone in cold blood.
Grade: 3/5
Game of Throne’s Jerome Flynn and Alex Lawther were fantastic together. Kenny’s anxiety over this nightmare was portrayed exceptionally and had my stomach turning. Every new text brought so much terror to the viewer thanks to Lawther's performance as well as the director.
I do wish we had gotten to see more players in this game, or gotten more information about the source. For such an interesting concept, the episode was noticeably small in scale. The ending was executed very well, providing closure and catharsis with its sombre and nihilistic overtones but halfway through the game, I was not invested in either of the characters anymore and was mostly watching to see where they’ll end up.
Thank you so much for reading everything I’ve written, this marks the end of my Black Mirror reviews. It was by far one of the most interesting shows I have ever written about and I can’t wait for Louis to review the rest of the season. Next up: San Junipero. It’s a good one. Well, I guess it’s time for me to cover up my webcam again having JUST gotten over that fear.
