S03.E03: Shut Up And Dance

[Which Tyler]

For me the give-away was then they specifically told us; then his over-reactions suddenly made sense.

[benteen]

As soon as I read the synopsis, I figured that he was looking at child porn.  I thought it was the only way to explain why he was reacting the way he was and why he did not want the information to be out.  Jerome Flynn's character does make a great case how embarrassing a video of him masturbating would be but still....doing everything he did in this episode just to have a video of him jerking off not released isn't worth the effort.

[DrSpaceman73]

My main reaction to this episode was :

Hey its Bronn from Game of Thrones!!!!

[markx]

I found this terrifying. The twist at the end gives a feeling "Well, they were only after bad people then" - but the reality is that this could be done to anyone, even if the secrets aren't "bad" things. And unlike most Black Mirrors, this is possible today.

My laptop webcam is already covered, but there's still plenty of information someone could get from hacked email, cloud storage, or your laptop. Even if sensitive material is encrypted, with malware a keylogger could swipe up the password (either directly, or from your password manager). Even for people with no secrets or sensitive info on their devices, information could be sold for identity theft.

"Ah, but I'm not stupid enough to download a random program claiming to get rid of malware!" The worrying thing is a recent trend where hackers go after established applications - such as the recent CCleaner hack - the hackers even managed to sign the executable with the legitimate key.

It's at least unlikely hackers would go to the extreme lengths in this episode, especially when there's no financial gain (it seems it would be quite convoluted to hack several people who had all some kind of secret, all living in the same area, and within a small period of time to set this chain of events up). But more mundane ransoms (made all the more easier with Bitcoin) are happening - sextortion blackmail like we saw with Hector; or there have been some cases of malware that threatens to send images, messages, browsing history on your phone/computer to all your contacts. The story in http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/webcam-hackers-catch-man-wanking-demand-ransom/7668434 sounds very similar to the start of this episode!

A blackmail for money is not quite the ordeal that Kenny was put through, but imagine having to pay out thousands, and still live with the fear that they may not keep their word (either releasing the information anyway as happened in the episode, or coming back with more demands).
 

Edited December 1, 2017 by mdwh

[Lady Calypso]

I kind of read the first few comments here before starting to watch the episode (sometimes I like the surprise; other times, I'm too curious to find out the episode's contents), so with the knowledge of him looking at child porn, it helped put the episode in perspective. I think they did hint at it extremely well, and even outright stated it by the end. Kenny was so secretive and so protective of his computer, even going to lengths of locking his door, that I think it couldn't have been him just masturbating to any porn video. It seemed like the blackmailers were going after people who committed crimes or were sinning in some way. A teenager masturbating is embarrassing, but not life-destroying. It would have to be what he was masturbating to that would be worth the blackmailer's time to use on him. 

Even though Kenny was watching child porn and was guilty of a pretty heinous crime, he's still a young kid. It was interesting to see how badly he felt about the whole thing, and it showed that he was just as scared of himself as he was to get caught. I mean, look at Hector, who basically said "good luck, kid" and making him be the robber. 

I do think there was still sympathy for Kenny, but he did need to turn himself in. Plus, he's young enough where it's quite possible he can get the help he needs to stop before it gets worse later in life. His beginning scene with the little girl showed that he really could become a child predator, especially knowing now what his interests were. I think having the scene before the child porn scene of Kenny watching half naked women on TV and that not arousing him just further added to how sick his mind really was. 

Of course, this episode reminds me a lot of White Bear, where Victoria had been revealed to be a murderer, yet they had some sympathy for her throughout the episode leading up to that reveal. So even though what she did was very wrong, you couldn't help but feel a little bit of sympathy for someone who was being mindwiped and watched by people for fun, as a form of psychological torture.

Here, this was so similar, in that Kenny, and all the other blackmailed people, were doing wrong things and were essentially criminals or adulterers, but were being blackmailed and used to do heinous things before the blackmailers posted the information anyway for justice. I do think I felt more sympathy for Kenny than I ever did for White Bear's Victoria, but both were committing crimes, nonetheless. I think aging down Kenny and making him a teenager instead of someone in his twenties or thirties helped add to the sympathy. I think there's also the hope that it's not too late to stop a child predator in the making from walking the streets, but it certainly destroyed the rest of Kenny's life. 

As for the video of Kenny masturbating to kid photos (he did explicitly state photos), since the blackmailers have control of his entire computer, they'd know what he was looking at while he was masturbating. I wonder how it was presented in that actual video to the police.

[Hanahope]

I was thinking it had to be something more than simple masturbation, and I guess that is about the only thing so bad one would commit such crimes to keep hidden.  I initially thought it could have been homosexuality, it could have produced a similar response from some people in certain situations, and that would have been all kinds of wrong. 

 

Made for another reminder to tell my kids to never download ‘free stuff ‘ on their computers and cover their notebook cameras.  Even though all the people were bad in this show, doesn’t mean good people don’t get hurt by hackers. 

[CheezyXpressed]

On 8/17/2017 at 2:05 PM, romantic idiot said:

Respectfully disagree. In White Bear the point was that it was punishment. If they did it again, that makes me think a lot less of the writers. 

I kind of feel like White Bear was just the future version of what happened here. The people who run that prisoner theme park could have used this as a means to show how serious they are about justice, but since stealing and whatnot would be viewed as a bad thing, they probably started to focus in on actual criminals and thus White Bear came to be.

 

Edit, if you look at the news article about the racist ceo, there are mentions of past episodes on the sidebar.

Edited December 27, 2017 by CheezyXpressed

[nara]

On 10/26/2016 at 0:22 AM, Miles said:

Yay for wishing death on people, who haven't hurt anybody, for their sexual orientation. Feels like the 1950s all over again. I see making america great again is working out amazingly. :)

How was he a monster? He even would have rather killed himself than another person.

On 10/26/2016 at 2:29 AM, Miles said:

Do you really believe the bullshit politicians concoct to have a pretense to censor the internet? There is no commercial child porn business. There is only men and women raping children, making videos of it, and trading them. They would still rape children if nobody ever watched a single video they made.

I don’t think it’s right that the 2 pedophile characters were made to fight to the death. However, I am concerned that you think that pedophilia and homosexuality should be treated the same way in terms of public opinion. At least, that’s how your comments read to me.

 

Also, I think you’re completely mistaken in the notion that watching child pornography is not hurting anyone. One, it creates an audience for the posters. I am sure that they, like everyone else, keep track of views and likes for what they post. Seeing interest in what they post motivates them to post more. Two, any person who has been the victim of revenge porn would likely say that knowing pics of them are out on the internet forever continues the trauma for them. 

 

That being said, we don’t actually know if Kenny was looking at porn or pics of fully clothed kids, since they did not show us or specifically tell us. However, his reaction and his mother’s seems to suggest the former.

 

I do think his willingness to kill himself rather than killing the other man does speak well about him. It’s unfortunate that he is getting a potentially worse punishment than the other pedo, who showed no remorse.

On 9/13/2017 at 3:37 PM, spiderpig said:

I thought that too, initially.  But then we only had Hector's word that after a long marriage he wanted some fun with a 20-something.  Methinks he actually wanted fun with an underage-something (Mindy of the cake?).

Still have to watch again.  This damn series!

I don’t think Hector was meeting an underage girl. The “punishment” seemed to be based on the crime and he was not punished like the 2 pedos.  I do think he was lying about the prostitute and Mindy is someone known to him and his wife. He had bought lingerie and that suggests it not being someone he would pay and not the first time. The way his wife said Mindy suggested it was someone she knew.  

 

However, he may get pegged as a pedo if that annoying woman remembers Kenny when she sees him on the news and tells people he was associating with a robber/murderer/pedo.

 

With regard to the comments that Kenny could claim the malware planted the photos, I don’t think that would work. Although that is a plausible story, the leaked video and other data would alert the police to investigate him, and their tools would be sophisticated.They would get a warrant that would enable them to search his computer and find photos that predate the malware. 

[sainte-chapelle]

That was horrifying. I felt so bad for Kenny, then the phone call from his mom.....that just got me. Similar the White Bear but superior in my opinion. Kenny came off as such a weak innocent child deserving of protection, then the ending left me with a sense of betrayal.  The scene with the little girl, him going to extreme lengths to lock away his laptop from his sister, it all made sense.

[Alilou]

I have just discovered Black Mirror and I am loving it!

 I did not see it coming that he was looking at kids but thinking back to everything you all pointed out about the child, the drawing I think he was. It also explains his reaction to his sister borrowing his computer, he sort of freaked out.

 I kind of liked they were hardest on the two worst offenders here.

 I went from feeling sorry for the awkward boy to being disgusted by him which is why I am loving this show.

[wrlord]

For the second episode in a row, I'm profoundly disappointed. Always good to see Bennett Drake, but he couldn't help this mess. The episode was bloated and overlong, and aside from the webcam and phone wrinkle, the idea of being blackmailed into committing crimes is ancient.  Die Hard With a Vengeance did it in much more amusing fashion. TV shows have had plots like this for decades. This was completely derivative, and not well done.

[Neurochick]

I had a problem with this episode and that is that many innocent people could have been and were hurt.  When Hector and Kenny were driving the friend of Hector's wife home, they were driving recklessly, someone could have been hurt or killed.

When Kenny robbed the bank, one of the people in the bank could have had a heart attack from fright.

Telling Hector's wife that Hector was having an affair hurt who?  Not just Hector but his wife and child.  

I didn't get what the black man did but if his "sin" was homosexuality WTF?  

Oh, and the CEO getting in trouble for sending a racist email.  

Makes me think, what if one of those people told "them" to "Go ahead, release it," what would have happened.