We independently assess all our recommendations. Purchases through our links may earn us a commission.
One of Netflix’s most beloved original series has returned with five gripping new episodes. Fans and critics have long praised Black Mirror for its biting satire on modern society and technology, but in season six, the show seems to be shifting gears in a major way. As one of the most engaging and thought-provoking anthology series on television, Black Mirror almost always delivers, but that doesn’t mean all of its episodes are created equal. From smooth-talking demons to CGI Salma Hayek – let’s break down each of season six’s episodes and rank them from worst to best.
5. Mazey Day
Mazey Day takes more than a few big swings but rarely makes the impact it desires. The premise is simple enough: Bo (Zazie Beetz), a morally conflicted paparazzo, goes to extensive lengths to snap the first photo of reclusive starlet Mazey Day (Clara Rugaard) during her latest bout of self-imposed isolation.
Bo and her fellow paparazzi frienemies track Mazey down to an off-the-grid rehab center, finding her chained to a bed. Regretfully, Bo frees Mazey from her imprisonment only to find out moments later that Mazey is a werewolf as she transforms in the moonlight and murders her colleagues.
As a sleeper creature feature with a gory twist, the episode works well enough, but it offers little in the way of probing social commentary. It shines a light on the seedy, gray-hat world of the paparazzi, but it fails to provide the illuminative analysis viewers have come to expect from Black Mirror.
One could liken Mazey’s transformation to a symbolic form of karmic retribution against the real-world media bottom-feeders that pushed Brittney Speares into a nervous breakdown in the aughts, but by the episode’s end, it’s the reluctant paparazzo who gets the last laugh, not the world-weary megastar. Despite all the fun werewolf kills, Mazey Day leaves us with much less to chew on than we’d like.
4. Joan Is Awful
Joan Is Awful might be the season six episode with the most social media buzz, but it may have gotten too convoluted for its own good by the time the credits roll. The episode begins with Joan (Annie Murphy), a middle manager at a faceless tech corporation, going through the motions at her soul-crushing job and her monotonous relationship. After almost cheating with her ex, she returns home to relax with her boyfriend Krish (Avi Nash).
They scroll through Streamberry, a fairly on-the-nose Netflix analog, stopping to watch when they find a new Salma Hayek-fronted series named Joan Is Awful. Joan watches aghast as the series depicts every detail of her day with inexplicable accuracy. She loses her boyfriend, job, and reputation as revelations from the series spread throughout her social circle. Joan discovers that Streamberry is using a quantum computer to create the show using digital likenesses of Hollywood stars and basing the plot around information gathered from her various electronic devices.
Eventually, Joan allies with Salma Hayek to put an end to the series and the high-tech quantum computer that created it. Right before she swings the axe to smash the computer, Streamberry employees inform Joan that her life will end if she destroys the computer, as she is merely a digital likeness of the real Joan (or Source Joan). Joan ignores their warnings and annihilates the computer, destroying herself and Salma in the process. The episode ends with Source Joan and Annie Murphy wearing house arrest anklets, sharing a cup of coffee, and eager to move on with their lives.
Clearly, this is one of the more labyrinthine Black Mirror narratives in recent memory. But despite all of its twists and turns, it will most likely manage to keep eagle-eyed viewers on the train for its duration. Where Joan Is Awful truly falters, however, is the haphazard commingling of its themes of information privacy and AI against its slapstick buddy comedy tone. Don’t get us wrong, it’s an exceptionally entertaining romp of an episode, but one can’t help but wonder if this subject matter deserved to be taken more seriously by the writers.
3. Demon 79
Right from its initial eerie frames, it’s clear Demon 79 will be an outlier in the Black Mirror catalog. Not only does this episode have nothing to do with technology, but it takes place in 1979 instead of the not-so-distant future settings Black Mirror viewers have come to expect. The episode centers on Nida (Anjana Vasan), an introvert who works as a sales assistant in a shoe store. During a lunch break, her xenophobic boss and co-worker force her to eat her “smelly” food in the basement, where she unwittingly finds a demonic talisman.
By the way!
Did you know we’re launching a Kickstarter campaign? In the next few months, our campaign for ‘Gentle Jack: The Party Game for Bad Friends‘ goes live! Visit the official website or follow the Kickstarter page to stay in the loop.
She awakens a surprisingly amicable demon named Gaap, who informs her she must commit three killings in three days to prevent the coming apocalypse. Nida reluctantly proceeds to kill three people, but one of them is deemed forfeit by Gaap’s superiors in Hell. After learning the conservative politician she met at work will eventually rise to become a fascist dictator in her country, Nida becomes hellbent on killing him as her final sacrifice. The police stop Nida from finishing the job, and the apocalypse commences. Gaap returns to ask Nida if she’d like to spend eternity with him, floating amidst an endless sea of nothingness. She obliges as they walk hand-in-hand against a backdrop of nuclear armageddon.
Although the episode possesses all the superficial trappings of the horror genre, it’s a love story at its core. Tragically, Nida fails to prevent the apocalypse, but how can it be all bad if she gets to spend the rest of eternity with the coolest demon in Hell? Not only does Demon 79 succeed as a faithful and stylish period piece, but it also manages to gin up laughs, scares, and heartfelt emotional beats in equal measure.
2. Loch Henry
Loch Henry blends the new spooky aesthetic of season six with classic Black Mirror to stunning effect. The story begins in the sleepy Scotland town of Loch Henry as filmmaker couple Davis (Samuel Blenkin) and Pia (Myha’la Herrold) return to Davis’ childhood home to spend time with his widowed mother, Janet (Monica Dolan). As they learn more about Loch Henry and the vicious killer Iain Adair who once lived and operated there, the couple and Davis’ friend Stuart (Daniel Portman) begin working on a true crime documentary about the killings. However, when Pia learns that Davis’ parents were heavily involved with Adair’s crimes, she dies while running away from Janet. Davis sells the story to Streamberry – winning a BAFTA after losing everyone he held dear.
Loch Henry has some of the most shocking and memorable scenes we’ve seen from Black Mirror thus far. The revelations about Davis’ parents are paced to perfection, and the aftermath of the story’s climax will sober even the most avid horror viewers. If Black Mirror intends to become a full-on horror series in future installments, Loch Henry is irrefutable proof it has the chops to go toe to toe with the best the genre has to offer.
1. Beyond the Sea
Although we loved how much Black Mirror strayed from the beaten path in season six, it’s the episode that adhered closest to its winning formula that takes our top slot today. Set in an alternate-history 1969, Beyond the Sea is about Cliff (Aaron Paul) and David (Josh Hartnett) – two astronauts living in deep space on a six-year mission. To enable them to spend time with their families while off-world, NASA creates for each of them a robotic replica they can upload their consciousnesses into during downtime on the space station.
Tragedy strikes when a cult murders David’s entire family and destroys his replica. In an effort to prevent his partner from going stir-crazy with grief and isolation, Cliff allows David to embody his replica for an hour every week. David begins making advances on Cliff’s wife, Lana (Kate Mara), while using Cliff’s replica. Cliff rages at David, taunting him and assuring him he’ll never see Lana again. David stages a diversion to gain access to Cliff’s replica and kills his family.
Beyond the Sea is Black Mirror at its peak: exceptional performances, subtle writing, and an uncanny awareness of the fearsome underbelly of technological advancement. The narrative is a sorrowful and ruminative exploration of identity, loss, and loneliness. Black Mirror rarely delves into such tragic territory, but in Beyond the Sea, the show proves it’s more than capable of tackling the most difficult themes with the utmost poise and sensitivity.
