Black Mirror is back on Netflix and we are officially gagged by the twisted drama of the latest season. The dystopian tech-drama has us, well, kinda scared for the future.
One of the most talked about episodes of the season? 'Common People', which stars Rashida Jones as Amanda and Chris O'Dowd as Mike: a working class couple rocked by Amanda's sudden health troubles which see her fall into a coma.
Mike then meets Gaynor, played by Tracee Ellis Ross, a medical representative who pitches Rivermind: technology which should restore Amanda's cognitive function. While Amanda will have to sleep more hours during the day and remain within coverage range, the surgery is free and the subscription to the service costs $300 a month.
However, the limits of the basic subscription becomes clear: when Amanda sleeps, she isn't resting, instead her brain is used like a server. Given that she's exhausted, she winds up sleeping for longer and longer periods of time. Then there's the fact that she can't travel and she begins spouting ads to the children at her teaching job.
In order to attain a better quality of life, the couple opt for the more expensive subscription tiers but this puts them under financial strain. Mike ends up undergoing humiliating acts on livestream in order to finance the package.
The episode ends with the couple buying a temporary, half-hour pass to Rivermind Luxe and Amanda asking Mike to end her life when the pass ends. After he smothers her with a pillow, Mike walks into his office with a boxcutter.
Yep, it's seriously dark! But now Rashida Jones who plays Amanda has introduced a new layer to that ending: suggesting that her character may only have opted to end her life due to the effect of Rivermind Luxe.
"She makes this decision under the influence of Rivermind Luxe. So I bet it’ll be debated whether or not she actually had the agency to make that decision and how much of it was her,” Jones explained in an interview with TV Insider, unveiling a hidden clue about the episode's interpretation and the impact of Rivermind on the brain.
Jones, however, is choosing to interpret the decision as one made of her character's own volition. “I chose that it was the best version of herself because [as the character,] I push up my serenity button at the end, and I think it’s still me, [just] a clearer mindset where I wasn’t distraught with pain and fatigue, and I could actually see the forest of the trees."
She then added: "It’s extremely sad, but I think, for me performing that, I had to kind of accept that it wasn’t sad, it was actually a relief and actually the right thing to do.”
Jones also added that she thought it was likely Mike also ended his life following the harrowing scene. “It’s probably the hardest thing he’s ever done, to have to do that at my request, but then to not live without me and to go through what he’s been through, the humiliation and the frustration and just the overwhelming [nature] of being left with no choice. I think he probably does the same.”
And to top it all off? The actress thinks that Mike will have livestreamed his death to his fans, the same ones who have been watching him pull teeth and drink urine. “That is what he did," she concurred. "He says, ‘I’m doing a specialty thing later,’ which is pretty dark.”
We're officially terrified...
