'Black' History Month: Shut Up and Dance (Black Mirror)

If nothing else, it will validate all of those people who put stickers and/or band-aids on their webcams.  This is...

In a normal (British) City, Kenny is a seemingly-normal guy.  He works at a place that looks McDonalds and Subway had a baby.

So...

How and why does he end up robbing a bank?

Well, to answer that, we need to go back to the previous day...

A series of events leads to him having some personal stuff being possibly exposed to the World.

He doesn't take it well.  I mean, who would?

The situation continues to escalate as he gets deeper and deeper into whatever the mystery men or women behind his blackmail have in mind.

Will he find an escape?  Will he find redemption?  To find out, stream it on Netflix.

A pretty nihilistic look at modern technology and how people can use it.  I suppose that's a good summary for Black Mirror as a whole, no?  This one definitely feels extra mean.  The people have clearly done bad things, some seemingly worse than others.  The people behind making them do what they do are definitely bad.  The only innocent people here are the ones caught in the middle.  It does a good job of making you empathize for people being put in a bad situation, even if it was due to their own actions.  They clearly aren't 100% bad people.  That said, they did things that got them put into this situation in the first place.  Do you root for them?  When you find out everything about them, can you still?  It's an interesting moral quandary and the kind of thing that Black Mirror does quite well.  The technological aspect, as noted, feels real enough to be genuinely-scary.  With all that said, it won't be everyone's favorite.  That said, take a look at this image shared on Reddit (with the text and circles added by me) highlighting all of the Easter Eggs in this quick shot from near the end...

A bleak, but compelling narrative.  It feels close enough to real life to truly be scary...and depressing.