S06.E02: Loch Henry

[TheOtherOne]

A young couple travel to a sleepy Scottish town to start work on a genteel nature documentary - but find themselves drawn to a juicy local story involving shocking events of the past.

[Arynm]

This one I really liked as well, but I did have a few problems with. I could not figure out what the "tech" part was with this one and how it fit with the rest of the series. I guess the end put it all together but the whole episode only seemed tangentially part of the world.

I love  True Crime so I was in no matter what, knew part of the twist(the cop) but did not guess the other part (the wife). That whole scene with the tape and the mask still on the wall in the home was chilling.

My TV was too dark to see the death, so I was confused at the end when she was dead.

 

[Frisson]

It did feel only tangentially connected to the normal “Black Mirror” futuristic tech caveats, but tonally, it felt more BM than the Joan episode. That one was so positive and had a lighthearted/comical soundtrack in parts. 
 

It did make me so sad that the poor guy’s life would have been so different if he had just made his documentary about a guy watching eggs. Now, he’s lost everyone important in his life and even their memories are tainted. 

Edited June 16, 2023 by Frisson

[Brn2bwild]

5 hours ago, Arynm said:

My TV was too dark to see the death, so I was confused at the end when she was dead.

 

From what I could tell, she fell and hit her head while in the stream, and ended up drowning.  I was bummed because I really liked her and kept hoping she would survive the episode.  

[monagatuna]

11 hours ago, Brn2bwild said:

From what I could tell, she fell and hit her head while in the stream, and ended up drowning.  I was bummed because I really liked her and kept hoping she would survive the episode.  

Yeah, when she landed face down in the stream I knew it was the end for Pia. Too bad, I liked her a lot too, and it was nice to see a woman taking charge of a creative and professional project. She was pushy about it, but attempted to be sensitive to her boyfriend's family involvement (to the extent she knew of it), but ultimately she was the more ambitious one.

I feel like this story could've been great. It's the stuff of great thriller summer beach reads. But for some reason this episode couldn't really hold my attention.

[tennisgurl]

Not really a typical Black Mirror episode, no science fiction elements and the connection to technology wasn't that obvious, but tonally it felt very close to classic Black Mirror. Poor Davis, I bet that he's really wishing that he just talked to that egg guy. On the one hand, the truth about two vicious killers has come to light, Davis has his BAFTA, and the town seems to have the tourists back, getting their economy back on track. On the other hand, Pia is dead, his mother is dead, and now he knows that his parents were monsters so even his memories of his family are ruined. I guessed that there would be a twist and that the dad might have been in on it, but I thought that the mom was just covering it up, not that she was a participant. 

I'm bummed that Pia died, I really liked her, although I do like the realism that she didn't die directly via serial killer but because running around in the woods in the dark in a place you don't know well can end poorly. Its sort of like the fake story of how Davis's dad died, Janet didn't technically kill Pia, but she's still one of her victims as she died directly due to her actions. A lot of things that Janet said certainly has a new meaning knowing who she really is. The things she said about not being on camera in years is the most obvious, but even before when she talked about how Ian got her husband killed she just kept calling him a "stupid man" nothing about him being a monster or a killer, because she was mad about the stupid part, not the killer part. If he hadn't gotten drunk and started rambling about his latest victims, the three of them presumably would have just kept killing.

I guess the Black Mirror connection was the Analog horror aspect, where Pia, Davis, and Stuart were trying to make a scary documentary that looked like old home videos, only for Pia to find some real scary old home videos. There is also the whole cultural obsession with true crime, especially with grisly serial killers, and how people might bite off more than they can chew or turn someones real ruined life into content.

[Lady Calypso]

So, I actually liked this one better than Joan is Awful. I think what often gets forgotten about since Black Mirror has primarily done technology-based episodes is that their premise really did start with an overall commentary on society, on the media, on human interactions and how easy people can be predictable for others to exploit. The National Anthem was the first episode and never had the technology aspect as the primary aspect of that episode; White Bear's overall plot was not about technology, either, though it obviously was an element.

Now, I don't know if the episode fully explored the topic of true crime documentary in a Black Mirror-esque way, but I think I can see where they were trying to go with it, and that's how obsessed people can be with true crime and forgetting that real people lived those experiences, and how documentarians and true crime theorists tend to exploit the story. Look at how busy the pub got and how people were even wearing the red masks that Davis' mother wore as she tortured innocent people.

And I think that's what ultimately drew me in to this episode, even though I think there was a lot more to explore that they barely touched the surface on. I also feel like they could have approached the episode differently. It was almost there but, like recent Black Mirror episodes, missed the mark by a bit. I feel like they could have altered a bit of the plot to take it farther, to make it more of a point of how dangerous true crime can be when you lose sight of the fact that these are real people, real victims, real killers. Oh, imagine if they had altered the plot to show more people obsessed/infatuated with the killer, or killers, than they briefly touched upon. 

I did find the twist with Davis' parents interesting. I assumed his mother was somehow involved, but I didn't see the involvement of his father coming. 

I felt bad for Pia, who did push Davis into doing the documentary and her own obsession cost her her life. I also imagine, what if they ended the episode differently, and have Pia being missing and not found, sparking an entirely new documentary and twisting the knife into Davis even more?

This is the type of Black Mirror story that I get interested in, the ones that make you think, that are dark and twisted and have a lot to say. It's not perfect and it had some issues for me, such as not being as Black Mirror-esque as I wanted it to be (it was almost there, too, and had a great topic to really cover), but it was still enjoyable.

[HelloooKitty]

I liked the episode but why didn’t Pia have eyebrows? It was incredibly distracting to me. At first I wondered about alopecia but the braids seemed to be the actresses real hair. 

[Paloma]

When Davis and Pia spent the night in his mother's house, and Pia playfully started using the videocamera to film their sexual activity, I kept waiting for that footage to be seen by the mother and play a part in the plot. I know that Pia said there wasn't a tape in the camera, but I thought it would turn out to be filming anyway through some technological glitch. Otherwise I didn't see the point of including that scene.

[SHD]

I also feel that this episode was less technology involved than we've come to expect from Black Mirror episodes, but in the end it was (old) technology that brought everything tumbling down. If not for the old VHS tapes, no one would've ever known (or been able to prove, at least) the truth.

[iMonrey]

This did not feel like an episode of Black Mirror to me. It felt like a Lifetime TV movie based on a Dateline episode. It wasn't a bad story altogether, it just wasn't Black Mirror material IMO. Aside from the techno aspect, the distinguishing feature of Black Mirror is the way it seems to take place in a slightly alternate version of our world. This just felt like our world.

Also, I spent the whole episode thinking the mother was played by Tracy Ullman. I've never heard of that actress before but she bears an uncanny resemblance to her.

Edited June 17, 2023 by iMonrey

[ExMathMajor]

55 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

This did not feel like an episode of Black Mirror to me. It felt like a Lifetime TV movie based on a Dateline episode. It wasn't a bad story altogether, it just wasn't Black Mirror material IMO. Aside from the techno aspect, the distinguishing feature of Black Mirror is the way it seems to take place in a slightly alternate version of our world. This just felt like our world.

Also, I spent the whole episode thinking the mother was played by Tracy Ullman. I've never heard of that actress before but she bears an uncanny resemblance to her.

I don't watch a whole lot of Lifetime. I do occasionally watch some Dateline. I definitely listen to a decent number of true crime podcasts, so there's that.

I agree that it wasn't a typical BM episode but I liked it, possibly because it was so close to "our world."

Also, thank you for helping put a finger on who that actress reminded me of. I was like: "Oh, haven't seen her in a while...oh wait..."

[SourK]

I'm detecting a theme this season about how Netflix produces soulless, exploitative entertainment that ruins people's lives. And I'm trying to decide how I feel about watching that theme play out on Netflix. Like, what does it mean that we're in an age where a prestige show on a streaming giant is just fully about how awful the streaming giant is, and none of us are surprised by that, and it only helps the streaming giant grow stronger?

I guess network shows used to be playfully critical of networks, too.

Anyway, I thought this one was okay. It reminded me of No One Is Talking About This, in that, you know, it's all fun and games to mock human tragedy until you're the one experiencing it.

I will tell the truth and say that I had zero interest until it became about a salacious murder basement and then I sort of put down my iPad and got more into the story. So... life imitating art imitating life, etc.

[SnapHappy]

Wow, guess I'm the only one who actually hated Pia.  Talk about the stereotypical "Ugly American".  Couldn't even eat some damn potatoes to be nice to the boyfriend's mom?  No please, make sure she knows you "limit your carbs" when you're staying under her roof.  That's being a terrific guest.  And the eyebrows freaked me out too.  Very alien. 

I'm all for strong, empowered women, but she just came across as pushy and thoughtless. 

I didn't see the buddy's dad being part of the sex games, that was a twist.  And I'm a big fan of true crime, so little surprises me.  

So much of the tech we saw was old school, I like they used it as a contrast to the current "Streamberry" tech.  

 

[Paloma]

3 hours ago, SnapHappy said:

Wow, guess I'm the only one who actually hated Pia.  Talk about the stereotypical "Ugly American".  Couldn't even eat some damn potatoes to be nice to the boyfriend's mom?  No please, make sure she knows you "limit your carbs" when you're staying under her roof.  That's being a terrific guest. 

I didn't hate her and thought she was trying to be polite to the mom, but I didn't like that she initiated sex in his mom's house when they were only going to be there one night and the house was old and/or small enough that it was likely to carry sound. I guess it's prudish, but I wouldn't want to make a parent feel uncomfortable by having sex in their house. Obviously it would be different if it was going to be a longer stay, but when they arrived I thought the plan was to stay just one night and then move on (to the egg man?).

I did notice a couple of subtly racist remarks made by the mom, so I couldn't really blame Pia for not being overly warm toward her.

[Joimiaroxeu]

I'm sorry she died but Pia just seemed too eager to gain money and fame from other people's tragedy. That didn't make her a lot different from many in the media world (especially in the true crime genre) but the mercenary aspect of her personality put me off.

There's a fan theory afloat that Pia already knew about the mysterious disappearances and intended all along to manipulate Davis into switching their documentary to be about them instead of the egg man. Davis was mostly a means to an end for her, and the end unfortunately became a literal one.

 I think instead that Davis suspected but he didn't realize the full horrific extent of what had happened. He follwed Pia and Stuart's lead to put together the film because he knew they both would charge ahead for everyone's benefit despite his emotional hesitation. Ultimately I don't think he was prepared for what he learned about his parents, or for Pia's fatal accident.

However, I guess there's another audience theory that the entire thing was a cover story Davis created so he could market the overall tragedy, including Pia's unexpected death, without looking craven and heartless. The experience took a lot out of him though, as evidenced by the final scene.

Re comments upthread regarding Pia's appearance, she read as some kind of space alien to me, specifically Star Trek's Borg Queen. I think her severe look was deliberate, to make her seem more detached from the awfulness of her film subject.

Edited June 18, 2023 by Joimiaroxeu

[foxfreakinmulder]

On 6/16/2023 at 11:37 AM, monagatuna said:

I feel like this story could've been great. It's the stuff of great thriller summer beach reads. But for some reason this episode couldn't really hold my attention.

I agree and I figured out the twist pretty early.

[markx]

I'd say that a common theme of technology in Black Mirror has been showing the implications of possible or recent technology. So I'd say The National Anthem for example was very much about technology - it showed how the usual tropes of a kidnapping story could be completely overturned (e.g., they ask to keep the ransom video private, but it turns out it was uploaded to YouTube).

 

So this did seem different to me - true it was a case of how they were found out by then new technology, but the idea that video recordings could provide evidence is no longer anything original or unexpected.

 

More generally Black Mirror shows us things that are scary but plausible (either now or in the future) - but crucially things that most people wouldn't have previously considered. (I mean, the fact that some people might secretly have been serial killers isn't in itself an original idea.)

 

That doesn't mean I didn't like it though. It still had other things in common, and it's good to see different ideas - I'm glad this didn't end up with them being in a simulated universe yet again!

 

Liked the San Junipero reference.

[Racj82]

On 6/17/2023 at 8:57 AM, Paloma said:

When Davis and Pia spent the night in his mother's house, and Pia playfully started using the videocamera to film their sexual activity, I kept waiting for that footage to be seen by the mother and play a part in the plot. I know that Pia said there wasn't a tape in the camera, but I thought it would turn out to be filming anyway through some technological glitch. Otherwise I didn't see the point of including that scene.

They were a couple using the camera to have fun...just like the parents. It was fun for both couple. That fun happened to be disturbing in one case.

Just a tip that worry about the tech influence in every episode isn't necessary. There was a purposeful movement to not be so beholden to tech based horror. Which I am fine with.

[Racj82]

On 6/17/2023 at 3:41 PM, SnapHappy said:

Wow, guess I'm the only one who actually hated Pia.  Talk about the stereotypical "Ugly American".  Couldn't even eat some damn potatoes to be nice to the boyfriend's mom?  No please, make sure she knows you "limit your carbs" when you're staying under her roof.  That's being a terrific guest.  And the eyebrows freaked me out too.  Very alien. 

I'm all for strong, empowered women, but she just came across as pushy and thoughtless. 

I didn't see the buddy's dad being part of the sex games, that was a twist.  And I'm a big fan of true crime, so little surprises me.  

So much of the tech we saw was old school, I like they used it as a contrast to the current "Streamberry" tech.  

 

I fail to see how not wanting to eat something makes her rude. We really don't need to go along with everything just to be polite.

On 6/17/2023 at 3:00 PM, SourK said:

I'm detecting a theme this season about how Netflix produces soulless, exploitative entertainment that ruins people's lives. And I'm trying to decide how I feel about watching that theme play out on Netflix. Like, what does it mean that we're in an age where a prestige show on a streaming giant is just fully about how awful the streaming giant is, and none of us are surprised by that, and it only helps the streaming giant grow stronger?

I guess network shows used to be playfully critical of networks, too.

Anyway, I thought this one was okay. It reminded me of No One Is Talking About This, in that, you know, it's all fun and games to mock human tragedy until you're the one experiencing it.

I will tell the truth and say that I had zero interest until it became about a salacious murder basement and then I sort of put down my iPad and got more into the story. So... life imitating art imitating life, etc.

Streamberry/Netflix can be looked at as bad just like most things. The first episode isn't any different than when south park riffed on apple's terms and conditions and the dangers of not reading the fine print. True Crime is not a Netflix thing. It's a worldwide phenomenon that's always been dark and fucked up in practice. It's a whole genre that lives off the real life death and suffering of others.

Black mirror has always been partly an examination of the dangers within the world as we progress but also our part in that.

[cmfran]

12 hours ago, markx said:

I'd say that a common theme of technology in Black Mirror has been showing the implications of possible or recent technology. So I'd say The National Anthem for example was very much about technology - it showed how the usual tropes of a kidnapping story could be completely overturned (e.g., they ask to keep the ransom video private, but it turns out it was uploaded to YouTube).

 

So this did seem different to me - true it was a case of how they were found out by then new technology, but the idea that video recordings could provide evidence is no longer anything original or unexpected.

 

More generally Black Mirror shows us things that are scary but plausible (either now or in the future) - but crucially things that most people wouldn't have previously considered. (I mean, the fact that some people might secretly have been serial killers isn't in itself an original idea.)

 

That doesn't mean I didn't like it though. It still had other things in common, and it's good to see different ideas - I'm glad this didn't end up with them being in a simulated universe yet again!

 

Liked the San Junipero reference.

I've only watched the first 2 of the new season, but I'm also glad they haven't brought back the simulated universe/digital "cookie" idea. They were leaning on that way too heavily over the last couple seasons, and it was starting to feel like lazy writing. 

[SoMuchTV]

Can someone help me with the timeline on this?  There may have been comments I missed, but was the murder-y stuff happening while Davis was a child?  Before he was born?  After he left home? (He doesn't seem quite old enough for that, but I'm not a good judge.)

[sadie]

10 minutes ago, SoMuchTV said:

Can someone help me with the timeline on this?  There may have been comments I missed, but was the murder-y stuff happening while Davis was a child?  Before he was born?  After he left home? (He doesn't seem quite old enough for that, but I'm not a good judge.)

I believe it was when he was still young. He remembers his dad being shot. This episode really creeped me out. That all those tapes were out hiding in plain site was masterful and while I knew the mom was kind of “off” the reveal was terrifying. There were a LOT of tapes, imagine having to live with that knowledge for the rest of your life. I love a good horror story and the fact that “old” technology held the answers was nicely weaved into the Black Mirror universe. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

I wonder why no one thought it was farfetched that Previous Murder Suspect accomplished these serial-killings solo, when he apparently lived with his folks at that address.

I wonder if Previous Murder Suspect's parents were also in on the swinging/torture fun? 

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 6/17/2023 at 2:41 PM, SnapHappy said:

Wow, guess I'm the only one who actually hated Pia.  Talk about the stereotypical "Ugly American".  Couldn't even eat some damn potatoes to be nice to the boyfriend's mom?  No please, make sure she knows you "limit your carbs" when you're staying under her roof.  That's being a terrific guest.  And the eyebrows freaked me out too.  Very alien. 

If you cross run-of-the-mill nervousness at meeting boyfriend's mom with sensing (perhaps) on some level that boyfriend's mom's got some serial killer to her with racial/cultural tension with generation gap, I fully understand and don't mind Pia not getting along with Mom.

I didn't notice the lack of eyebrows.

[Lebanna]

The perfect disguise for horrible murder tapes being recordings of Bergerac… is just amazing. You’d never look at them and it’s so typical for parents to have old tapes lying around.

I mean, John Nettles is actually a very solid actor (I have no opinion on his bum), but when it’s announced while Pia’s playing it back at the end that the tapes weren’t even from the time Bergerac was on in the 80s and that Davis’s Mum was recording them from Gold, it meant that they were way newer than they should have been. So if you were alive and in the UK in 1997, you realise in that moment that it’s all fake. Gold wasn’t a channel back then, she’d taped new reruns over the murders. Sick.

Why does your Mum have a creepy mask hanging on the wall? Oh, she must have gone to Venice once. Did you ever ask? Nope.

Love the little cameos from Clive Myrie and Kirstie Wark, the real life presenters on the news and the BAFTAs that made this episode feel so real. 

Poor Pia. Those streams are always so slippery from smooth rocks covered in algae, so many former kids remembering their almost stumbles while paddling in dark brown brooks on country holidays at that moment.

The fact that Davis was immediately trying to deflect his mother from saying something needlessly cruel to Pia, right from moment one. The Mum’s weird, creepy, old-fashioned, buttoned-up affect. She was so off-putting. Not at all normal. Making Pia eat fish pie on the first night. That stuff makes the whole house stink of old fish. Ew. And who puts grated carrots in shepherd’s pie? (If you do, you shouldn’t).

I didn’t spot Pia’s eyebrow situation, but I thought the actor who plays Davis looks a lot like like a younger, smaller ex-Tory politician Rory Stewart.

Actually, since Bergerac was set in Jersey and wasn’t like this at all, this thing was actually much more like an homage to iconic 1990s Scottish murder mystery show Taggart. That show was sometimes really disturbing. There was this one episode where a murderer was leaving little dolls sitting in tiny chairs in the middle of narrow, winding lanes, like a child might forget their toy while playing, so people would get out of their cars in the dark on those country lanes to pick it up and put it to the side, instead of running it down… Damn. The idea of one act of simple kindness being the cause of your death. That episode gave me nightmares about 25 years ago and I had forgotten it until now. 

And, of course, they even call out Fred and Rosemary West in the show. Every child of the ‘90s nightmare parents. Back then as a little kid, you didn’t even know parents could do that stuff outside of fairytales, until you saw them on the news. They would have been Davis’s greatest fear, growing up then. So many tortured bodies buried in pretty country fields outside nice, peaceful little villages. And his parents were so similar.

So many long forgotten childhood horrors this thing dragged back up. Thanks so much for that, Charlie. 

 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Lebanna

[peridot]

This episode really got to me.  I didn't really like Pia, she steamrolled over her partner and threatened that she would just do the documentary herself.  What a shitty thing to say to someone, especially since at the time his father was thought to be an indirect victim of the serial killer.

It was pretty odd that two people in Davis' hometown made those racially insensitive remarks.  I would have thought at least Stuart would have known better.

When the trio broke into the house, I just got more and more tense.  When they showed the blacklight in the room, I had to pause the show and come to the board to be spoiled.  I'm glad I did, but I still ended up almost biting a pillow anyway when Pia was alone in the house with Davis' mom.

This episode will probably stay with me awhile, since it's realistic. 

Edited June 21, 2023 by peridot

[Chicago Redshirt]

One thng I didn't quite get: why did Mom commit suicide? As far as she knew, no one knew her secret still, and Pia's death could be played off as an accident. Was she just worried that her son had put the pieces together as well and didn't want to face him?

[marny]

8 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

One thng I didn't quite get: why did Mom commit suicide? As far as she knew, no one knew her secret still, and Pia's death could be played off as an accident. Was she just worried that her son had put the pieces together as well and didn't want to face him?

She didn’t know Pia had died. She thought Pia had gotten away and would tell someone what she’d discovered. So she killed herself rather than have to live with getting caught. 

[Kel Varnsen]

I liked this one. It was a good take on the whole true crime docu-series/podcast industry. The only issue I had was I had to turn the captions on which was surprising since I am usually good with various British accents. 

I didn't mind that it wasn't based on some kind of crazy technology since I find a lot of times those big technological story bits aren't really well thought out. Like technology will be super advanced in one area but everything else will look exactly like our world. Which doesn't really make sense. 

[millennium]

On 6/17/2023 at 11:20 AM, iMonrey said:

This did not feel like an episode of Black Mirror to me. It felt like a Lifetime TV movie based on a Dateline episode. It wasn't a bad story altogether, it just wasn't Black Mirror material IMO.

IMO, it was altogether awful.   First, I didn't like the Pia character at all.   She seemed like an obnoxious intrusion (ugly American) into the Scottish landscape.   Meanwhile, her boyfriend was so generic and listless that I can't even remember his name.  Something awful should have befallen Stuart for the way he mistreated his father.

Second, the "twist" was pretty lame, you could see it coming from a mile away.   And it wasn't at all believable that the otherwise meek and homely mother moonlighted during her youth as a serial killer.

Even the music was terrible in this one.

Seeing John Hannah again was the only upside to this mess.

Edited June 22, 2023 by millennium

[millennium]

8 hours ago, marny said:

She didn’t know Pia had died.

I didn't know Pia had died until the award show scene where they referenced her demise.

[Paloma]

22 hours ago, Lebanna said:

Why does your Mum have a creepy mask hanging on the wall? Oh, she must have gone to Venice once. Did you ever ask?

We knew it was creepy because we saw her wearing the mask on the tape, but without that knowledge anyone (including her son) might have just thought it was an interesting decoration picked up in some shop. I've had a mask from our trip to Venice on the wall of our foyer for 3 decades, and I assure you I am not a murderer!

[Lebanna]

 

2 hours ago, Paloma said:

We knew it was creepy because we saw her wearing the mask on the tape, but without that knowledge anyone (including her son) might have just thought it was an interesting decoration picked up in some shop. I've had a mask from our trip to Venice on the wall of our foyer for 3 decades, and I assure you I am not a murderer!

But that’s the thing, we all have these weird souvenirs lying around the house and hardly anyone ever asks us why. And our parents and grandparents usually did as well.

The idea that, in this case, everyone just looked at this odd thing displayed in pride of place on the living room wall and assumed it was a holiday memento and never asked any questions, when it was a huge part of the mother’s secret identity, is so perfect and horrific and beautiful. It’s a lovely example of Chekhov’s gun, right there.

[DoctorAtomic]

The black mirror in this case was the black mirror of the video camera lens. I liked this one better than Joan is Awful, largely because of the suspense. I've been leaning more to that lately. When Pia saw the basement floor in the shot after the credits, I was like, 'uh oh, here we go'. 

One thing I may have missed. They said Iain killed his parents after he shot Kenneth? Is that right? Or did he shoot someone else? Were they also in on it then? 

Stuart was Podrick!

I'm not an easter egg spotter because I only watch episodes once (there's so much else to watch), but one of the nominees was about Junipero! I remembered that because I like Mackenzie Davis. And in Joan is Awful, Loch Henry was shown on the Streamberry menu. 

[raeb23]

51 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

One thing I may have missed. They said Iain killed his parents after he shot Kenneth? Is that right? Or did he shoot someone else? Were they also in on it then? 

That was what everyone was initially told. It's revealed later in the episode that Kenneth killed Iain & his parents before shooting himself as a coverup. I'm guessing Iain had started confessing to his parents so Kenneth was trying to tie up loose ends. Of course he ended up being indirectly responsible for his own death, despite what Janet believed.

I didn't quite see Pia as being the "Ugly American" - she was no less polite to Janet than Janet was to her. And she brushed off Stuart's off-colour remark about diversity when he met her. She was pushy about switching the topic of the doc and seemed inconsiderate about Davis' feelings, which made sense for her character - a filmmaker obsessed with a particular story. It also worked as commentary on the benefits/drawbacks of the true crime genre.

Edited June 22, 2023 by raeb23

[DoctorAtomic]

I missed that then. The ending 'documentary' had a lot of jump cuts so it's easy to miss. 

That makes more sense when Janet called Iain 'stupid' then. In the video footage before the first reveal of Janet, Iain didn't look so into the whole scene. 

[PurpleTentacle]

Yeah saw this coming from a mile away. This is black mirror after all and the only technology was the tapes, so the tapes had to have the murders on them. Wasn't quite sure if the mother was in on it, but that was the only question.

Still, a very suspensfull episode.

During the awars shows, one was "Euthanasia: Inside Project Junipero". It was actually hard to heara and the subtitles didn't have the "Euthanasia"-part. So is San Junipero already a thing in this timeline? Does that make sense? Or is this just a cheeky refernce without any real connection?

[PurpleTentacle]

On 6/17/2023 at 4:24 AM, Lady Calypso said:

So, I actually liked this one better than Joan is Awful. I think what often gets forgotten about since Black Mirror has primarily done technology-based episodes is that their premise really did start with an overall commentary on society, on the media, on human interactions and how easy people can be predictable for others to exploit. The National Anthem was the first episode and never had the technology aspect as the primary aspect of that episode; White Bear's overall plot was not about technology, either, though it obviously was an element.

I don't know. National Anthem was very much about the media. White Bear was absolutely about memory erasing technology and what could be done with it.

This one feels the most removed from technology so far. Even though technology of course did play an important part.

On 6/17/2023 at 4:24 AM, Lady Calypso said:

And I think that's what ultimately drew me in to this episode, even though I think there was a lot more to explore that they barely touched the surface on. I also feel like they could have approached the episode differently. It was almost there but, like recent Black Mirror episodes, missed the mark by a bit. I feel like they could have altered a bit of the plot to take it farther, to make it more of a point of how dangerous true crime can be when you lose sight of the fact that these are real people, real victims, real killers. Oh, imagine if they had altered the plot to show more people obsessed/infatuated with the killer, or killers, than they briefly touched upon. 

Agreed.

On 6/17/2023 at 6:30 AM, HelloooKitty said:

I liked the episode but why didn’t Pia have eyebrows? It was incredibly distracting to me. At first I wondered about alopecia but the braids seemed to be the actresses real hair. 

They were there, just bleached. Why? I have no idea.

On 6/19/2023 at 2:16 PM, cmfran said:

I've only watched the first 2 of the new season, but I'm also glad they haven't brought back the simulated universe/digital "cookie" idea. They were leaning on that way too heavily over the last couple seasons, and it was starting to feel like lazy writing. 

I mean they kinda did. The first episode mostly played in a simulated universe.

On 6/21/2023 at 9:14 PM, millennium said:

Second, the "twist" was pretty lame, you could see it coming from a mile away.   And it wasn't at all believable that the otherwise meek and homely mother moonlighted during her youth as a serial killer.

Because, when they talk about serial killers you never hear "they were always so quiet, well behaved and kept to themselves a lot." Never!

On 6/22/2023 at 5:30 AM, raeb23 said:

That was what everyone was initially told. It's revealed later in the episode that Kenneth killed Iain & his parents before shooting himself as a coverup. I'm guessing Iain had started confessing to his parents so Kenneth was trying to tie up loose ends. Of course he ended up being indirectly responsible for his own death, despite what Janet believed.

They talked in the beginning of the episode how Iain had too much to drink and was running his mouth off at the pub. I guess the dad had concluded that Iain was becoming too much of a liability and decided to make him the scapegoat.

On the videos it didn't even look like Iain was all that much into the whole thing. More like he was dominated by the murder-couple.

[DoctorAtomic]

7 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

On the videos it didn't even look like Iain was all that much into the whole thing. More like he was dominated by the murder-couple.

That's the first thing I noticed about him on the film. 

[Madding crowd]

I liked this one and thought it referenced another popular Netflix genre which was true crime. I thought the point was that we enjoy true crime at a distance but don’t think about the real people who experienced it. As far as the mother being too plain and homely to be a killer, she looked like an average person which a lot of killers look like too. The reason some of these people get victims is their ability to be normal. I’m enjoying this new season so far.

[catsitter]

On 6/20/2023 at 11:19 PM, Lebanna said:

The perfect disguise for horrible murder tapes being recordings of Bergerac… is just amazing. You’d never look at them and it’s so typical for parents to have old tapes lying around.

I mean, John Nettles is actually a very solid actor (I have no opinion on his bum), but when it’s announced while Pia’s playing it back at the end that the tapes weren’t even from the time Bergerac was on in the 80s and that Davis’s Mum was recording them from Gold, it meant that they were way newer than they should have been. So if you were alive and in the UK in 1997, you realise in that moment that it’s all fake. Gold wasn’t a channel back then, she’d taped new reruns over the murders. Sick.

Why does your Mum have a creepy mask hanging on the wall? Oh, she must have gone to Venice once. Did you ever ask? Nope.

Love the little cameos from Clive Myrie and Kirstie Wark, the real life presenters on the news and the BAFTAs that made this episode feel so real. 

Poor Pia. Those streams are always so slippery from smooth rocks covered in algae, so many former kids remembering their almost stumbles while paddling in dark brown brooks on country holidays at that moment.

The fact that Davis was immediately trying to deflect his mother from saying something needlessly cruel to Pia, right from moment one. The Mum’s weird, creepy, old-fashioned, buttoned-up affect. She was so off-putting. Not at all normal. Making Pia eat fish pie on the first night. That stuff makes the whole house stink of old fish. Ew. And who puts grated carrots in shepherd’s pie? (If you do, you shouldn’t).

I didn’t spot Pia’s eyebrow situation, but I thought the actor who plays Davis looks a lot like like a younger, smaller ex-Tory politician Rory Stewart.

Actually, since Bergerac was set in Jersey and wasn’t like this at all, this thing was actually much more like an homage to iconic 1990s Scottish murder mystery show Taggart. That show was sometimes really disturbing. There was this one episode where a murderer was leaving little dolls sitting in tiny chairs in the middle of narrow, winding lanes, like a child might forget their toy while playing, so people would get out of their cars in the dark on those country lanes to pick it up and put it to the side, instead of running it down… Damn. The idea of one act of simple kindness being the cause of your death. That episode gave me nightmares about 25 years ago and I had forgotten it until now. 

And, of course, they even call out Fred and Rosemary West in the show. Every child of the ‘90s nightmare parents. Back then as a little kid, you didn’t even know parents could do that stuff outside of fairytales, until you saw them on the news. They would have been Davis’s greatest fear, growing up then. So many tortured bodies buried in pretty country fields outside nice, peaceful little villages. And his parents were so similar.

So many long forgotten childhood horrors this thing dragged back up. Thanks so much for that, Charlie. 

 

Monica Dolan, who played Janet (the Mum) in this, actually played Rosemary West in a mini-series called "Appropriate Adult" in 2011. She was also in an episode of "Midsomer Murders" in 2010, which of course starred John Nettles!

[sugarbaker design]

On 6/26/2023 at 5:57 PM, catsitter said:

Monica Dolan, who played Janet (the Mum) in this, actually played Rosemary West in a mini-series called "Appropriate Adult" in 2011. She was also in an episode of "Midsomer Murders" in 2010, which of course starred John Nettles!

Colncidentally, I just watched an episode of David Suchet's Poirot where Dolan played the unhinged murderer.  I loved Dolan in W1A.

[MagnusHex]

Yeah, I was a little iffy about the episode at first - still kinda am tbh - but I guess the ending message criticizing the exploitative nature of true crime dramas did kinda win me over somewhat. I'm not a fan of true crime drama since reality bores me over fantasy, so I was largely bored for parts of the episode as well to be frank.

I was expecting a more supernatural or sci-fi kind of twist, I guess, like the killer was some kind of mutated Loch Ness monster or something. Ah well. It's not a bad episode for what it is, and I like how the depressing ending called out on the sacrifice that had to be made for the so-called "truth" to come out, however much said truth is really worth.

Pia was alright. I was a little disappointed that her pitch for the documentary felt exploitative at first, but she seemed nice enough of a person as the episode went on. Ironic though that the documentary did become exploitative, and Pia just became another statistic to be played by some posh Hollywood actress.

Lastly, I'm glad to see John Hannah in this. I only know him from one franchise - his role as Jonathan Carnahan in The Mummy movies, and I also saw his Last of Us clip even though I never bothered with the series - but there's just something about him and his charisma that makes me glad to see him on-screen. Glad to see him take on more dramatic roles nowadays.

7/10

Edited July 14, 2023 by MagnusHex

[Dobian]

Another not really Black Mirror episode for me.  I guess there are only two classic Black Mirror episodes this season.  I liked the story, but I thought the sequence with Pia at the end was bad.  She could have kept her cool and not given herself away, but the mother gets suspicious anyway and kills her.  Instead, she freaks out and runs, then still manages to get away, but stupidly drowns herself.  It felt contrived.  The mother killing her has a far more horrific effect than Pia accidentally dying, and would have given the mother more motivation to hang herself.  The ending dragged on too long, I felt.  The documentary clips were good, but the awards show scene and him alone afterward were unnecessary and added nothing to the story.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Dobian

[CigarDoug]

On 6/17/2023 at 11:20 AM, iMonrey said:

This did not feel like an episode of Black Mirror to me. It felt like a Lifetime TV movie based on a Dateline episode. It wasn't a bad story altogether, it just wasn't Black Mirror material IMO. Aside from the techno aspect, the distinguishing feature of Black Mirror is the way it seems to take place in a slightly alternate version of our world. This just felt like our world.

Also, I spent the whole episode thinking the mother was played by Tracy Ullman. I've never heard of that actress before but she bears an uncanny resemblance to her.

Agreed. There was nothing futuristic, or tech-related, or Twilight Zone about this episode at all. It could have been a Law & Order episode. 

Oh, sorry. I mean it could have been a Bergerac episode.

[DrSpaceman73]

I thought this ending was just obvious and telegraphed. Early on I figured his dad did it and shot himself killed the others like they said and the evidence was on the tapes. 

 

The mom being involved I didn't see coming but the rest I did

Also davis knew the truth all along before the documentary.  That's why he didn't want to do television project and didn't bring up the story at first.  And all those tapes around ....you know at some point he watched them.