Did [SPOILER] Die in ‘Black Mirror’s ‘Widespread Individuals’? The Stars Weigh In

[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for Black Mirror Season 7 Episode 1, “Common People.”]

Black Mirror‘s latest season kicks off on a particularly bleak word with “Widespread Individuals.” The episode facilities on a lower-middle-class couple, Amanda (Rashida Jones) and Mike (Chris O’Dowd), who face the unthinkable when Amanda is recognized with a deadly mind tumor. Whereas Amanda is in a coma, Mike is given a selection: Let Amanda die or join an experimental process wherein a part of her mind shall be run by a subscription streaming service known as Rivermind.

The corporate’s consultant, Gaynor (Tracee Ellis Ross), was one among its earliest clients and sells it very effectively. At first, it’s $300 a month, which is doable however powerful for this cash-strapped couple. Then, the restrictions of that preliminary tier turn out to be clear — Amanda can’t journey out of city with out going right into a coma, her sleep isn’t restful as a result of her mind features as a CPU-like server after hours, and he or she begins all of the sudden spouting inappropriate advert reads to the schoolchildren she’s imagined to be educating. To have any semblance of a standard life, she’ll must pay further for an improve. To afford this more and more costly service that retains his spouse alive, Mike has to have interaction in humiliating dwell streams in hopes of incomes donations, and even then, it’s not sufficient.

The episode ends with Mike shopping for a totally worn-out Amanda a half-hour move to the “Luxe” tier, whereby she enjoys the utmost serenity degree to most and asks him to finish her life when she goes again into the decrease tier and disappears into one other advert supply. After smothering her in her mattress mid-commercial, Mike walks into his workplace, the place he’s been pulling his enamel and ingesting urine for money, with a field cutter.

Talking to reporters, together with TV Insider, Jones questioned if her character’s determination to die was actually of her personal volition. “She makes this determination beneath the affect of Rivermind Luxe. So I wager it’ll be debated whether or not or not she really had the company to make that call and the way a lot of it was her.” For Jones, she determined to imagine it was the previous. “I selected that it was the very best model of herself as a result of [as the character,] I push up my serenity button on the finish, and I believe it’s nonetheless me, [just] a clearer mindset the place I wasn’t distraught with ache and fatigue, and I might really see the forest of the timber — actually, I’m searching, and I can see myself as a part of nature and be okay with the concept I’ve taken it so far as I can, and really it’s time to let go of this model of our relationship…. It’s extraordinarily unhappy, however I believe, for me performing that, I needed to type of settle for that it wasn’t unhappy, it was really a reduction and really the proper factor to do.”

As for what turns into of Mike, who’s been struggling by all of this alongside Amanda, Jones interprets that closing door second as him strolling to his dying, too. “My interpretation is that he’s doing the identical factor,” the actress mentioned. “It’s in all probability the toughest factor he’s ever performed, to have to do this at my request, however then to not dwell with out me and to undergo what he’s been by, the humiliation and the frustration and simply the overwhelming [nature] of being left with no selection. I believe he in all probability does the identical.” She additionally agrees that he seemingly livestreamed it for his twisted followers, too: “That’s what he did. He says, ‘I’m doing a specialty factor later,’ which is fairly darkish.”

Netflix

In the meantime, Tracee Ellis Ross has a extra hopeful learn on what’s subsequent for Gaynor, saying, “Gaynor isn’t going wherever. I really feel like there’s gonna be Rivermind subscribers, and I really feel like she’s going to maintain changing into — she’s the function mannequin, she’s the illustration of what’s potential for Rivermind, and he or she’ll in all probability dwell ceaselessly due to it.” (For what it’s price, one information crawl nugget contained in Episode 6’s ending signifies in any other case.)

For Ross, her character wasn’t your peculiar villain kind, regardless of her delivering such horrible information to Amanda and Mike on a regular basis concerning the worth of her firm’s product. “I believe that’s what I discovered actually attention-grabbing about her was her vulnerability. She was additionally preyed on, after which she grew to become a perpetrator in that very same system… She is a illustration of greed and capitalism and all these issues, however she’s additionally any person making an attempt to make sense of it herself,” she mentioned. “I believe it leads the viewers the area to type of plug in what they’ll and see her as a villain or simply see the system because the villain and capitalism and greed or expertise because the unhealthy man.”

As for the warning shot made by this episode, Ross theorized, “That’s form of the trajectory of capitalism. Issues are out of attain, after which they’re made accessible… You possibly can think about a form of way forward for Rivermind the place there may be this huge accessibility, and so they nonetheless have tiers, and there’s all of these items which can be potential, like residing ceaselessly and being younger ceaselessly, on the very finish of 1 factor, after which the type of base issues like simply maintaining folks alive in any type of protection zone. That’s in all probability the place they’re headed.”

Black Mirror, Netflix