Seriously, it was a very cool twist. Not that predictable as in Nosedive and San Junipero... and the rest of the eps really. Damn "15 million merits" gotta be its counterpart, so overrated and basic to my liking. Such a great metaphor for these crude times we're living right now with the refugees and race supremacy and what not.
shareNo one really understood the ending there.
So yes, the metaphor was nice, but they didn't "bring it home".
No one really understood the ending there.
He was told that if he didn't have his memory wiped, he would be incarcerated. The fact that he's not in a prison shows us that he did not choose to rebel. We're shown the reality of the home that he's going to, but also how he sees it. So he accepted the renewed brainwashing, because being shown what he'd really done again and again was intolerable. I just watched this episode.
sharei think most people dont understand the metaphor.
shareBoth because of the metaphor not being so obvious aaand the fact that this has been done to hell. I know the movie was terrible, but The Fifth Wave with Chloe Moretz just did something like this where they were lied to due to some implant thing if I'm remembering right. Ignoring the fact it was aliens turning humans against humans instead of humans turning humans against humans, it's still very familiar. And in every season of a show there's bound to be an episode where people just say "it wasn't the best, so it falls to the last spot on my list." I personally didn't care for it because it's overdone and the episode generally just wasn't that great. Fifteen Million Merits is one of my favorite Black Mirror episodes of all time, though.
shareYeah. I predicted what was happening early on. I'd seen the same twist in The Fifth Wave, Star Trek: TNG, and a few other things. So it was bland to me because of that predictability.
The best part of the episode for me was the fact that he went back to the fake perception. I've never seen a story where someone ate the blue pill after being woken up to reality. Usually they become gung-ho about fighting against the system. The fact that he didn't go that route was a nice twist. It was actually the one I was rooting for once I knew where the story was going, but didn't think I'd get.
Clever things make people feel stupid and unexpected things make them feel scared
there's also 1984. slightly different, though, in that he wanted to fight the system but in the end he was defeated, not caught and locked up or killed, but corrupted and set free again as an advocate of the system.
shareI thought it was the best of the "Netflix" season, for sure! I was so surprised that the San Junipero episode was so much more highly rated. I thought that this episode was thought provoking and meaningful. I liked Stripe, and the "roaches" -and even the so called villains. The San Junipero one was not nearly as good- at least to me.
shareAgree. I liked San Junipero just because it was so emotional and nostalgic but that's it.
shareAgreed. There were things I liked about San Junipero, and it ranks higher for me than Man Against Fire, because it was better handled...but I'm still confused about the praise. I don't think it was that emotionally hard-hitting, and I don't think the "Black Mirror" commentary was tacked on that well. It almost felt like a meaningless episode after I watched, because I don't think the commentary on technology/eternity etc was handled that well in the conclusion. It almost felt like a cop-out to have a happily every after without exploring the dark side to spending an eternity in San Junipero could mean.
A rose is just a rose.
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For me the darkest part about SJ was that this was a great ending as opposed to death. Guess which one we're getting?
shareThe people in charge are worse than Hitler. This was a Eugencis war. People who think are racially pure (no such thing BTW) are trying to destroy the "impure". Their enemy is the human race.
also: boooooooooooooobs
shareIt was a pretty good episode, but I think this show isn't very good at endings. This episode, Playtest, Hate in the Nation, etc all have pretty crappy end scenes. Like others have mentioned, other shows/movies have had similar twists, including The Outer Limits.
I never saved anything for the swim back.share
I thought Playtest had a satisfying ending. So many M. Night Shenanigan-esque twists. I thought I knew how it would end. Then, when the twist happeed, I guessed again. Then, I had to guess again. Then, the ending happened and it was over! What a twist!
Hated In The Nation had a great ending, too. The joke's on the players.
The joke's always on the players. :)
-kat
I don't like "it was all a dream" twists as far as Playtest goes. For Hate in the Nation I was talking about the cop following the guy down the street and it going off without a conclusion. I was okay with the players died twist.
I never saved anything for the swim back.share
I thought the twist in Men Against Fire was very predictable, given that at this point in the series we've already seen the idea of perception altered by technology in White Christmas and Playtest. Same with the twist in Nosedive; the title alone gives away the plot of the episode. San Junipero though.. I didn't see that coming.
Wow... Interesting. It happened to you with SJ and to me with MAF lol
I knew what was going on in San Junipero by the first quarter hour mostly because the suspicious lack of technology. My first thought was... "Oh this gotta be a hideaway, an escape, a playpretend where they go all hedonistic and forget about technology for a while."
I saw both twists for SJ and MAF within their first act, but it was still an enjoyable ride. The writing team still have fun with the endings. The hour length really lends well to those twisted/dark end frames; it makes you want more!
shareYeah, I'm confused by the outright hate for it. I don't think the twist was that unpredictable but I loved the commentary about military. I'm wondering if the large majority of haters are American or something.
I think it's a pretty flawed episode..the reason for making the roaches into monsters wasn't that great of a twist, it felt very heavy-handed and was almost unnecessary. The simple commentary about turning out 'enemies', whoever these enemies may be, into monsters was deep enough. Having an argument about creating the perfect race was a layer they didn't adeptly handle and made the episode a bit too manipulative.
The ending needed work, of course, but I can forgive it because I loved what they were trying to do on a basic level with the anti-military message.
A rose is just a rose.
sadly, in reality throughout history, people don't even need such mods. they knowingly kill each other. sorry if thats depressing.
sharesadly, in reality throughout history, people don't even need such mods. they knowingly kill each other. sorry if thats depressing.
The depressing part is that SOME people indeed do kill each other, although some of those people are also brainwashed, albeit not by technological means. Less depressingly, however, is the fact that the figures mentioned in this episode, the percentages of soldiers intentionally missing or not firing at all, are not made up, but based on facts.
shareI think Men against fire had a deeper twist past the first act. There is a chance he choose to have his memory intact. Some people argue that he is crying because of repressed emotions, but here is a theory circulating on this board:
The main character is a convict who is offered a second chance by joining the military and implementing MASS after killing his wife / girlfriend. We see this when he has a dream of her in bed, but all of sudden, it's marred by blood when his MASS is glitching out (why would it be marred by blood unless she died?).
After military training, we get the present day main character in the beginning of the episode. He goes through a complete character change and has a better sense of morality.
As someone else mentioned in a different post, Stripe is reliving his series of murders over and over again, starting with the murder of his girlfriend / wife. We see when the doctor is hitting the replay button on the device, his eyes goes into the clear white state, which is what is happening in the end.
If this is in-fact the second twist, the story is quite more chilling and well-crafted.
This theory is pretty good, but only weird that he is in his uniform. If he is relieving his experiences, he shouldn't have been in the military before his girlfriend died, so this is the only part that can break the theory.