Jump to content

Type keyword(s) to search

S07.E02: Bete Noire

QQQQ

By QQQQ
in Black Mirror

Recommended Posts

QQQQ

QQQQ

Maria (Siena Kelly) is cheerfully excelling at her confectionary company job when her world is (literally) rattled by the arrival of former schoolmate Verity. There seems to be some tension between the two of them, with Maria trying to sabotage her getting the job and telling colleagues there were rumours about her at school. The problem? Maria herself was involved in spreading said rumours, making Verity's life a misery in the process.

  • Like 1
Paloma

Paloma

7 hours ago, libgirl2 said:

I felt like it was a Freida McFadden book with a SciFi twist. 

I like both FM and SciFi, so this worked for me. I thought it was well done until the end, when Maria wanted to be Empress of the universe. It would have been better to end it either with her being arrested for attacking Verity or with Maria changing things so that the police thought Verity attacked her. It didn't seem in character for Maria to suddenly be drunk with power once she controlled the pendant, but I guess the message is power corrupts.

I had to look up the "Mandela effect" (mentioned in the episode) and was really surprised to see some of the examples. In fact, I had a hard time believing that the examples were true (such as the Monopoly man not really having a monocle and Darth Vader not really saying "Luke, I am your father")--I guess it is easier than I thought to have mass memory delusion.

  • Like 6
libgirl2

libgirl2

12 hours ago, Paloma said:

I like both FM and SciFi, so this worked for me. I thought it was well done until the end, when Maria wanted to be Empress of the universe. It would have been better to end it either with her being arrested for attacking Verity or with Maria changing things so that the police thought Verity attacked her. It didn't seem in character for Maria to suddenly be drunk with power once she controlled the pendant, but I guess the message is power corrupts.

I had to look up the "Mandela effect" (mentioned in the episode) and was really surprised to see some of the examples. In fact, I had a hard time believing that the examples were true (such as the Monopoly man not really having a monocle and Darth Vader not really saying "Luke, I am your father")--I guess it is easier than I thought to have mass memory delusion.

I don't know if it was her being drunk on power or just thinking the ultimate thing that would save her a-s from everything that was going on. But I can see the message of power corrupting. 

  • Like 4
tennisgurl

tennisgurl

Pretty good episode, except I don't really love that maria ended up making herself empress of the universe. What Verity was doing was fucked up and petty, but Maria wasn't exactly a great person either, she's still a bit of a mean girl and she clearly does want everyone to suck her dick, like her boyfriend said. 

Really fun way to explore the Mandela Effect, which is such a weird cool thing.

  • Like 2
shrewd.buddha

shrewd.buddha

On 4/12/2025 at 11:38 PM, Amarsir said:

But "quantum computers did it" feels lazy.

I was enjoying the ride until the last part with the magical super computer mansion. 
Maria was an unapologetic mean girl who kept doubling down on being right instead of taking a moment to question things. ..But Verity was a full blown homicidal maniac.. so there was no definitive sympathetic victim.
 

2 hours ago, cmfran said:

I think it's accurate that Maria went from zero to Empress in a few seconds.

 If you are going to test the limits of alternate realities, that would be the way to go.
Too bad that Verity did not attempt to conjure up an alternative reality in which she found a good therapist to work through her high school trauma. 

  • Like 8
topanga

topanga

On 4/13/2025 at 9:26 AM, libgirl2 said:

I don't know if it was her being drunk on power or just thinking the ultimate thing that would save her a-s from everything that was going on. But I can see the message of power corrupting. 

On 4/14/2025 at 6:12 PM, tennisgurl said:

Pretty good episode, except I don't really love that maria ended up making herself empress of the universe. What Verity was doing was fucked up and petty, but Maria wasn't exactly a great person either, she's still a bit of a mean girl and she clearly does want everyone to suck her dick, like her boyfriend said. 

Really fun way to explore the Mandela Effect, which is such a weird cool thing.

 

Really good episode, but I can't think of a tv show/movie where someone with unlimited power tried to, I don't know, cure cancer or end world hunger. It would even be cool to see some of the potential negative consequences: overpopulation, depletion of natural resources for all of the medication/food/water needed, etc. "The Butterfly Effect" is the only example I can recall where someone tried to change the past for the better and faced unexpected consequences in the future.

Or is the commentary that people would always be corrupted almost immediately by unlimited power? 

 

On 4/17/2025 at 7:40 AM, cmfran said:

I enjoyed this one. Seemed to be a commentary on gaslighting, even though we had no idea what was actually happening until the end. I wish they'd described the magic computer a bit better - the explanation went by pretty fast. But considering all she'd been through, I think it's accurate that Maria went from zero to Empress in a few seconds.

Same. I want the sci-fi of how the computer/clicker works. 

  • Like 1
DoctorAtomic

DoctorAtomic

I like the idea of a miso jam, but I'm not really a candy guy. I would use something like that for a pork chop marinade. Maybe drop in a splash of lime juice. 

Again, like the last episode, there's no way Maria gets fired right off the bat like that. Given her obvious success at the company, and the owner personally complimenting her, she's placed on leave for a while. It's hard to just fire people summarily. 

I so think it's funny on tv that people who live alone close the door when they go into the bathroom though. 

I don't know if this wouldn't have worked better as the horror version. The 'quantum compiler' was a too ghost in the machine for this show. They've always toed actual reality. 

The empress ending is a weak take because there's no context for us. On her own, Maria was making good products. She could have just reset with being head of R&D and having everyone like the products. 

I take the point of power corrupting, but I don't know if that was really earned. The boyfriend said that she always needed people to suck her dick and that she always had to be right, but she was right in all the disputes, and from what I saw, her position in R&D was earned. It wasn't like she was fighting for recognition and kept getting stepped on. 

They tried to do too much and left a lot on the table here. 

  • Like 1
Chicago Redshirt

Chicago Redshirt

22 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Again, like the last episode, there's no way Maria gets fired right off the bat like that. Given her obvious success at the company, and the owner personally complimenting her, she's placed on leave for a while. It's hard to just fire people summarily. 

Even putting aside the notion of that "the magic clicker did it" I think that somebody who did all the things that Maria supposedly did might be summarily fired or close to it:

1. Showed what (from the perspective of the boss and everyone else) an unhealthy obsession with Verity.

2. Fed the Big Boss of the company a food product Maria should have known was against his belief system AND when it came out, claimed that she had explicitly said to use a different food product, a claim that was shown to be expressly false, making it seem like she was shifting the blame on Verity.

3. Falsely accused Verity of drinking a co-worker's almond milk when there's documentary proof that Maria was the one who drank it all brazenly (and was likely behind other office food thefts as well)

4. Claimed to have a non-existent illness called a "nut allergy." 

5. Left a new co-worker who everyone liked super-scared. 

Which Tyler

Which Tyler

12 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Even putting aside the notion of that "the magic clicker did it" I think that somebody who did all the things that Maria supposedly did might be summarily fired or close to it:

1. Showed what (from the perspective of the boss and everyone else) an unhealthy obsession with Verity.

2. Fed the Big Boss of the company a food product Maria should have known was against his belief system AND when it came out, claimed that she had explicitly said to use a different food product, a claim that was shown to be expressly false, making it seem like she was shifting the blame on Verity.

3. Falsely accused Verity of drinking a co-worker's almond milk when there's documentary proof that Maria was the one who drank it all brazenly (and was likely behind other office food thefts as well)

4. Claimed to have a non-existent illness called a "nut allergy." 

5. Left a new co-worker who everyone liked super-scared. 

I think you're forgetting that the UK has this thing called "employment law"

You can't just fire someone because they've annoyed you; there are procedures to follow first

shrewd.buddha

shrewd.buddha

(edited)
9 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

I think you're forgetting that the UK has this thing called "employment law"

The normal rules of logic cannot, unfortunately, be applied to this episode.
The magical quantum computer amulet allowed Verity to tweak all settings in the alternative reality to fit her desired outcome. 
She even had the 'ability' to force Maria to remain as the only person to realize that reality had shifted - - which is very farfetched. 
 

On 4/26/2025 at 10:47 PM, DoctorAtomic said:

I take the point of power corrupting, but I don't know if that was really earned.

It was a cheap gag to cap off the episode.  There wasn't enough time to explore the progression of power leading to corruption.
I took it as a "Let's see what this thing can do" type of reaction - - like finding a time machine and immediately going to see some dinosaurs.  

Edited by shrewd.buddha
grammar
Which Tyler

Which Tyler

1 hour ago, shrewd.buddha said:

The normal rules of logic cannot, unfortunately, be applied to this episode.
The magical quantum computer amulet allowed Verity to tweak all settings in the alternative reality to fit her desired outcome. 
She even had the 'ability' to force Maria to remain as the only person to realize that reality had shifted - - which is very farfetched. 

Of course.

Though I'd got the impression that Verity was reacting in the moment with her changes, screwing with Maria.

She could, of course, change things so that employment law didn't apply, but from what we saw, she'd want to do that with another change.

If she'd just wanted Maria fired, or not in that job, she'd have just done that without jumping through the hoops to gaslight her.

DoctorAtomic

DoctorAtomic

The gaslighting I think was part of the mental torture, so I can buy in to that. Whatever universe you're in, the firing was too quick. 

When I think about it more, the smaller things like that hat, would have been a better route to drive Maria crazy. The amulet being so all powerful wasn't really that interesting. If it was limited to those small changes, then you have to be really clever. 

4 hours ago, shrewd.buddha said:

It was a cheap gag to cap off the episode.  There wasn't enough time to explore the progression of the power of corruption.

There could have been. There's no limit to the running time. Agreed that just being empress of the universe was cheap. Why not a final flash forward tag where Maria is running R&D or the company and Verity is basically her slave? 

  • Like 1
Chicago Redshirt

Chicago Redshirt

10 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

I think you're forgetting that the UK has this thing called "employment law"

You can't just fire someone because they've annoyed you; there are procedures to follow first

I can't say I know UK employment law, or for that matter details of U.S. employment law at anything more than a general level.

But in this scenario, Maria hadn't just "annoyed" someone.

She essentially poisoned the boss by giving him food that was against his beliefs, been caught in two verifiable falsehoods (that she had told Verity to put the right type of gelatin and that it was Verity who drank the oat milk), stolen property belonging to a co-worker, and harassed an employee.

Is there some level of due process that has to legally happen before someone is terminated? In America, in many cases, people are "at-will" employees, which means that they can be fired whenever the employer wants to (absent discriminatory reasons or the like). As a matter of practice, companies usually have some level of due process to insulate themselves from claims of wrongful termination.

It seems to me that any one of the things in the list above could be grounds for firing in a typical American company. All of them together would guarantee it.

DoctorAtomic

DoctorAtomic

I would agree that Maria more than 'annoyed'. I still think there would be more of an effort at due process. What happens if Maria took a lie detector test? She would have passed all three incidents. She wasn't questioning her sanity and followed Verity to find the magic computer. Maria was a well respected and successful employee that suddenly went off the rails. They don't take a step back first? Give her a week off, or just suspend her?

Did Verity also erase the actual nut allergy? What if Maria just drank more oat milk in front of everyone? They also only search 'nut allergy.' Does that mean there's no allergies? "I don't know what a nut allergy is." Certainly, someone else is allergic to something. 

Verity should have gone more death of a thousand cuts to the point where Maria just lost her mind. She overreached and got shot in the head instead. So maybe not drink the oat milk. I guess the point there is that Verity couldn't get over it even though she's been the empress of the universe. 

They could have stretched the show out a little more and still get to where they needed. 

  • Like 1
jacehan

jacehan

26 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Did Verity also erase the actual nut allergy? What if Maria just drank more oat milk in front of everyone? They also only search 'nut allergy.' Does that mean there's no allergies? "I don't know what a nut allergy is." Certainly, someone else is allergic to something. 

My guess is it switched to a world where allergies are called something else. Seems more feasible than allergies themselves not existing.

Which Tyler

Which Tyler

11 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

It seems to me that any one of the things in the list above could be grounds for firing in a typical American company. All of them together would guarantee it.

Oh, there's absolutely grounds for firing - but there's also a process.

UK doesn't have "at will" employment (hence the comment about employment law).

Being set in the UK, UK law would apply, even to American companies; so due process would have to be followed - or require Verity to have already changed UK law and deprived herself of another gaslight option.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...