‘Black Mirror’: Every Episode Ranked

A soldier (Malachi Kirby) is tasked with exterminating sub-human creatures called “roaches,” but a glitch in his microchip implant allows him to be the only one in his group to see the world clearly, exposing a government eugenics program. Michael Kelly plays a military psychologist, who is on the front lines of an argument that PTSD can be wiped out with memory, and by using implants to mask the reality and pain. The relevant episode takes on modern warfare, with a Black Mirror-like test of morality, but there’s almost no sense of character and the viewer is given little reason to care.

Playing out like a crime thriller, Alex Lawther kicks off the chase when his character is seen being blackmailed by hackers. He must carry out their cryptic demands, otherwise they will release damaging information into the world. He soon discovers other equally desperate players in the twisted saga, but not until the end is the uniting thread between them all revealed in devastating fashion. Lawther’s performance stands out and the episode will leave viewers questioning both privacy and humanity in a way that rings familiar to a previous episode in the series listed below, “White Bear,” but its such a nihilistic story that leaves you with no one to root for.

Many fans really disliked this episode. We liked it slightly better than most, as its divisive ending is just so bonkers. A paparazzi photographer (Zazie Beets) stalks an actress (Clara Rugaard) with a secret. But did you guess her secret was that Mazey Day is a werewolf?! Yes, it’s all really dumb, but not unentertainingly dumb.

Miley Cyrus plays mega pop star Ashley O, who is struggling with her image and artistry. Her aunt (Susan Parfour) views her as a digital entity that she can monetize and assumes control over Ashley’s life and imagery. But when a fan (Angourie Rice) and her sister (Madison Davenport) crack the “limiter” on their AI smart doll “Ashley Too,” a copy of Ashley’s brain capacity, the sisters, along with their now digitally conscious robotic doll, set out on an adventure to help Ashley. The episode is a departure in tone and takes a risk with its ending. (The news tickers in the episode are filled with Easter eggs.)

Season six isn’t anybody’s favorite run of Black Mirror episodes and the opener kicked off the meh-ness. “Joan Is Awful” is about an average woman (Annie Murphy) stunned to find a global streaming service is adapting her life in real time. The “hey look we’re on Netflix while mocking Netflix” meta-ness gets very thick, very fast, and the episode’s worshipful treatment of Salma Hayek as the TV version of Joan feels jarring. “Joan Is Awful” feels like Black Mirror fan servicing itself.

While far from a great episode, “The Waldo Moment” is considered rather remarkable for its seemingly unbelievable premises predicting the rise of Donald Trump. The story, which aired in 2013, tells of an outsider (Daniel Rigby) who voices a cartoon bear that goes on to win an election by utilizing anti-establishment rhetoric. The human controlled the avatar, named Waldo, with predictive face technology — until the avatar outgrows its handler. Waldo insults voters, who lapp it up because they are sick of the status quo (a tactic was later utilized by Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign.) After Trump’s election, along with Brexit, Brooker said he was going to tackle politics less head on, since the climate was moving too quickly.

Black Mirror takes on the true crime documentary genre when a couple (Samuel Blenkin and Myha’la Herrold) visiting the Scottish countryside get pulled into a muuuuuuurder mystery. “Loch Henry” stands out for its unique tone and giving fans an old fashioned folk horror mystery with a bit of The Blair Witch Project thrown in for good measure.

Led by Andrea Riseborough, “Crocodile” explores how memory, when advanced by technology, can help to solve crimes. The bleak thriller flips gender roles to show what one mother is capable of when her own life is on the line, and displays how the past can come back to haunt the present — a theme Brooker has not shied away from utilizing in some of his most powerfully daunting stories. The role was initially written for a man, until Riseborough asked Brooker and executive producer Annabel Jones if she could read for the part, sparking the creator and his executive producer to buck the trope and tell an even more compelling thriller.

Introduced as a “Red Mirror” film — an unnecessary contrivance to indicate a supernatural rather than-tech-themed episode (Charlie, if you’re going to do it, just do it!). This one was divisive, but we liked the retro episode about a sales assistant (Anjana Vasan) who releases a playful demon (future Severus Snape actor Paapa Essiedu) who tries to convince her to commit three murders to prevent the end of the world. With Art Garfunkel’s “Bright Eyes” doing some helpful nostalgic heavy lifting, the episode’s apocalyptic love story climax strikes a wonderfully complex and weirdly lovely note.

Andrew Scott delivers a powerful performance as a grief-stricken rideshare driver seeking revenge against a social media company called Smithereen. He takes an employee (Damson Idris) hostage as leverage to get the company’s CEO Billy Bauer (a character who was foreshadowed in Bandersnatch and who is played by Topher Grace) on the phone. Their conversation plays out to surprising impact, as Billy acknowledges the flaws of his addictive platform. Scott has attracted the interest of the local police and the piqued the curiosity of the users of Smithereen (the hashtags are a Black Mirror Easter egg library) and the emotive episode ends more ambiguously than would be expected.