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Wow. I must admit a moment of concern when I heard Hamm was going to be in Black Mirror (I haven't seen Mad Men) that Brooker had become a bit star struck after hearing him praise the show at that Drama Actor Roundtable and decided to just insert him arbitrarily. I also thought he'd pull focus because, well you know, it's Jon Hamm. Turns out I couldn't have been more mistaken - Hamm was perfect. It's hard to imagine another actor having such an immediate shortcut into that role from just their looks. I loved how the whole PUA approach fell apart, how superficially this woman was fitting an archetype that these guys thought they had down pat ("level 4 rock chick" if memory serves) and it goes south in the most horrifying way imaginable. It was a nice way to deconstruct that whole belief system and remind you that you can't bottle people up, without hitting you over the head with it. Regards the third act - I do wish the clock wasn't telegraphed so hard, as I would've liked the "twist" ending to be more dramatic than it was. The other clues were more subtle, like the random sound of the cell hatch being opened, and the incongruous bedroom size. That's a minor gripe though. My big complaint really was that I thought the whole blocking thing was a bit weak. I get it was needed for the basic premise of the story, but in practical terms I couldn't stop myself thinking of how you could get around it. You could write something down on a piece of paper and hold it up in front of someone, being blocked didn't stop you physically interacting with them, you could use someone else like a translator, etc. That's just my overthinking it though really. Absolutely brilliant, and up there with "White Bear" in quality. Durzel fucked around with this message at 11:49 on Dec 17, 2014 |
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Dec 17, 2014 11:45
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More ramblings... The more I think about the PUA stuff, the more it resonates. The "voices in her head" conversation was all about a life change (literally in her mind), but it's also one of those bullshit things you imagine a PUA would be all over - i.e. telling people to listen to the voices that tell you to go for something - a new job, a new challenge, a new relationship - obviously the latter is the play. The brilliance of it is that the PUA guys were all blindsided by this, they thought she was just responding to type, so the more they encourage the victim down this road the more they were unwittingly sealing his fate. I must admit, naively, that when she overheard him talking to the voices in his head that the payoff was ultimately going to be some kind of humiliation for the guy, that she would take it to the point where he had stripped off or something and reveal that she knew she was just a mark, forcing the guy to do something embarassing - probably involving social media, etc and that that would be the anti-PUA message to us from The Rt Hon Mr Brooker. Obviously I had set the bar far too low  The way it ended was perfect really, because you could trace the conversations backwards and realise that everything he said to her - whilst with the intention of picking her up - basically just reinforced her worldview that she had previously had. It really speaks to how you can't just apply these techniques to people expecting them to react like robots, especially as these exact techniques are probably not far removed from what is claimed to work on girls, etc. I think the whole talking about multiple people in your head can be explained away quite easily really. People say that sort of thing quite casually when talking about new opportunities, etc. Often they mean that they've had counsel from several individual people at different times, and all of those opinions are "in their head", so to speak. She obviously meant voices in the literal sense, but I don't think it's fair to say that it was an obvious sign of something being wrong. I wouldn't expect someone to make the leap that I'm insane just because I'd said to them that I'm conflicted on a lifestyle or career choice, or whatever, because of several differing opinions. I also incidentally don't think she was insane, or psychotic, or malevolent - she was just suicidal, and thought she'd found a kindred spirit in this guy. Durzel fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Dec 17, 2014 |
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Dec 17, 2014 12:03
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Bicyclops posted:That's what I thought, yes. We're meant to believe what his mother says at the end of the episode because it explains why he was willing to go to some of the lengths that he did, and also because all of the other characters are guilty of what they are accused of doing. There's no indication that the mysterious Helldumpers are making things up. For me, so far, this is probably the best episode I've seen of the show. There's so many talking points that come out of it. Although it is White Bear inflected, it feels - as someone eruditely put earlier - like "White Bear perfected". Unlike White Bear, and most of Black Mirror, this episode felt like something that could easily be happening right now. I spent most of the episode thinking "what's the big deal, teen jacks off to porn hold the front page", which is a brilliant conceit. I wonder whether or not the episode resonated differently with women vs men, because I imagine most men would be completely sympathetic to the boy's predicament (pre reveal) whilst also thinking he was making a mountain out of a molehill. I don't think it's by accident that almost all of the victims were male either. As for the reveal - wow. It is quite brutal really because the show effectively tricks you into sympathising with the boy because of the perceived harmlessness and ubiquity of his act. His character is played to perfection and there isn't a moment where you don't think he's getting an extremely rough and disproportionate ride. Then the reveal hits and you're like "poo poo, all that empathy I had was for a pedophile?". As above I don't think the scene with the girl was remotely sinister or foreboding in how it was played out, it only takes on a much darker tone in retrospect - which the show demands you do. The only bit where the conceit falls down I guess is that them releasing the video is a a bit of a hollow threat. For starters the video they would have of the guy is him jerking off facing the lens. You wouldn't see on the video what he was watching. You could right now splice a video of someone jacking off on camera to anything you wanted and claim that's what they were watching, but there would be no proof of that, therefore it would be ineffectual as a threat. Likewise he could just completely wipe or destroy his laptop and any evidence they claim they have, even if downloaded from it, would no longer correspond to what was actually on there. The threat only works really if his laptop has already been seized by them and is being held to ransom.
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Oct 24, 2016 10:58
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