Current Events > Black Mirror S6 E3: Beyond the Sea *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

Woah, that was dark! I expected the twist to be that the neglectful, religious husband had something to do with the other guy's family being murdered, or that the "nice" guy and the wife would hit it off and the husband would kill him in a jealous rage. Or that maybe there would be a malfunction and both of the astronauts would die, leaving the consciousness of the "nice" guy in the replica of the other dude. Instead, the episode chose to explore the allure of living the life of another person in a more literal way, which was very unexpected.

It felt like this episode ended at the climax and there was no resolution

No_U_L7 posted...

It felt like this episode ended at the climax and there was no resolution

Well, some folks apparently feel that it ended the way it did to provide ambiguity for the viewer. Like, is the guy's family dead or was the blood actually paint? The paint theory seems far-fetched at first, but a fight doesn't break out when he returns to the space station so there might be something to that.

darkmaian23 posted...

Well, some folks apparently feel that it ended the way it did to provide ambiguity for the viewer. Like, is the guy's family dead or was the blood actually paint? The paint theory seems far-fetched at first, but a fight doesn't break out when he returns to the space station so there might be something to that.

Def family is dead lol

They didnt fight because they depend on each other for survival

The tech in Beyond the Sea is stupid.

It's apparently in the sixties, but we can build lifelike robots and zap a consciousness between them and a spaceship out in space God knows where.

At first when they said they couldn't build nice guy a new robot, I figured it was like Avatar where each person is mentally and genetically synced to one body. But then he can just cruise around in the other guy's body, so that makes no sense.

Also, if this kind of tech is possible, why on Earth wouldn't you send the robots into space and leave the people at home?

Stupid episode.

I hated this season of black mirror.

jumi posted...

The tech in Beyond the Sea is stupid.

It's apparently in the sixties, but we can build lifelike robots and zap a consciousness between them and a spaceship out in space God knows where.

At first when they said they couldn't build nice guy a new robot, I figured it was like Avatar where each person is mentally and genetically synced to one body. But then he can just cruise around in the other guy's body, so that makes no sense.

Also, if this kind of tech is possible, why on Earth wouldn't you send the robots into space and leave the people at home?

Fucking seriously

jumi posted...

Also, if this kind of tech is possible, why on Earth wouldn't you send the robots into space and leave the people at home?

Can't believe I never thought of that. Shows needs new writers, this Charlie Booker guy has some interesting ideas but so did George Lucas.

got to be the most fucked up Black Mirror episode, and I agree that it makes no sense why they wouldn't send the robots on the (never explained) space mission ( -_-)

ToastyOne posted...

Can't believe I never thought of that. Shows needs new writers, this Charlie Booker guy has some interesting ideas but so did George Lucas.

Same situation in the episode but in reverse. If something happens to the person on Earth, they run the risk of losing out on a potentially mission critical person and that could doom the entire mission.

BearlyWilling posted...

Same situation in the episode but in reverse. If something happens to the person on Earth, they run the risk of losing out on a potentially mission critical person and that could doom the entire mission.

The tech isn't explained, but it seems easier to provide the robots with whatever they need than the oxygen and food and exercise, etc. that a human needs. And if the robots die and the mission fails, you just lost some robots instead of your astronauts.

Also, did the robots on earth not have dicks or what? Why did he just want to fingerbang the women? The hippy chick and the youngest culkin as them if they have dicks and its never answered, but why pose the question at all?

BearlyWilling posted...

Same situation in the episode but in reverse. If something happens to the person on Earth, they run the risk of losing out on a potentially mission critical person and that could doom the entire mission.

Not if any dumbass can pilot the robot around.

They said early in the episode that part of their mission was seeing the effect space has on the human body.

Just finished it. Major spoiler warning:
Ok, that was a BS ending. I was bracing for the show to do the thing where Not Aaron Paul kills or strands Aaron Paul in space and then pretends to be him for the wife, and you get this morality question of "would the wife rather live a lie where her husband changed into somebody more caring or accept the truth that she's loving the man who murdered her husband in his body" I was sure the show was going that angle, and so I perked up when they did the fake out that it was going that way and instead aaron paul was let back in from space.

I was so ready for that ending that I honestly thought they might have done the switcharoo in the previous time before they cut back to them exercising together.

And when I saw what had happened I was like "WTF, how the hell are they going to explain or justify this?!? This just got super interesting.

And then the episode just abruptly ends. Wtf?

I was ready to roll my eyes a little or at least say "called it" when it went the more obvious route, but that obvious route would have still been a million times better than the bullshit route the did go.

What he killed the family, ok so why? Because bwahaha? He was traumatized by what happened to his family, there was nothing about his character that reflected he would ever wish that kind of harm on anybody, let alone Aaron Paul who has been awesome to him, all things considered.

It totally betrays his character up until that point. I expected and would have much preferred that we have several scenes with aaron paul in aaron paul body back at home, shit talking trauma guy, smashing trauma guy's painting, and being apologetically affectionate towards the wife. Then like we are a few scenes later of them having healed their relationship and like sitting on a porch together and then wife asks aaron paul something and it's clear aaron paul forgot some detail he should know if he were himself. And then wife is like "hey, you haven't needed to go up to the ship in a while." And Aaron paul is like "yeah, things up there have changed. It looked like it would be a problem, but everything worked out in the end."

The like we pan up from earth and fly to space and go all the way to the ship looking in a window and we slowly navigate to not aaron paul in aaron paul's machine and aaron paul right beside it with his throat slit.

You could even tease that pay off by having not aaron paul nick his neck while shaving.

Yeah it's a bit of an obvious ending, but it would have been like a 7/10 ending, instead of what they gave which is like a 2.5/10 BS ending.

What are other people's thoughts on this episode?

So far for me it's 2>1>>3

I had more fun with 1 than 2 and enjoyed it more but there was more in it that didn't hold up, and also it's commentary wasn't as biting as 2. 2 was on point with being pretty harsh on the messed up incentives of true crime type shows

Provided my thoughts in a diff thread

Basically I turned it off at 20 min mark. Not a fan of anything related to Charles Manson. Already went through hippy cult media phase. Sick of it

Also I was expecting the episode to have to do with aliens tbh

I honestly thought he was gonna Josh was gonna kill Aaron's family immediately the first time he went there so the ending when it finally happened didn't surprise me. I didn't really mind the abrupt nature of it either. I mean at that point what else was there to really do? I like the ambiguity more than just "oh one of them kills the other and then he's fucked" ending

Darkninja42 posted...

I honestly thought he was gonna Josh was gonna kill Aaron's family immediately the first time he went there so the ending when it finally happened didn't surprise me. I didn't really mind the abrupt nature of it either. I mean at that point what else was there to really do? I like the ambiguity more than just "oh one of them kills the other and then he's fucked" ending

But it was so stupid and didn't make sense and didn't fit with his character.

What good is a surprise ending if it is narratively pointless and inexplicable?

joe40001 posted...

But it was so stupid and didn't make sense and didn't fit with his character.

What good is a surprise ending if it is narratively pointless and inexplicable?

He was grieving, isolated, depressed, not in a good state of mind, and rebuffed by someone he felt a new connection for. It made perfect sense and wasn't a stretch

I thought it was excellent. Aaron Paul deserves an Emmy.

Darkninja42 posted...

He was grieving, isolated, depressed, not in a good state of mind, and rebuffed by someone he felt a new connection for. It made perfect sense and wasn't a stretch

He didn't show any evidence of violent behavior at all before, or outbursts, furthermore he clearly acted out a plan. He did the murders and gave Aaron Paul the chair afterwards calmly, this was not an act of outrage, it was a deliberate plan/action that was totally inconsistent with his character.

Him killing Aaron Paul and trying to take over his life makes sense with his character, but killing the family doesn't. He didn't think what happened to him was fair in any way, nor did he think it could be fair, so he wouldn't recreate what happened to him to aaron paul because he thought such an act is horribly unjustified.

Saying "he's crazy" is lazy handwaving, and not how mental illness works. It clearly wasn't an outburst but a planned action, and so if the action was a planned action what was his goal? What was his point?

This episode could have been fixed, in theory, with 30 seconds at the end where he says why he did it, but it would have been hard to write a convincing reason. But I'm guessing the writer didn't even have a reason and just went there for shock value.

His character would have never acted like that, what's worse is that aaron paul shows up on the ship not full of rage. Unlike that guy, aaron paul has shown the ability to engage in violent outbursts so aaron paul might realistically just charge in there and attack. But he didn't, the end of the episode played out as if both characters understood what happened and why it happened and that it made sense, but it didn't make any sense: Nice guy who had been traumatized enacted a horribly violent plan for no reason. It was stupid.

Honestly I am less concerned with various plot issues than I am with 20 minutes of plot being stretched out into 80 minutes. I will definitely never rewatch that, whereas I rewatched stuff like White Christmas and San Junipero multiple times.

Cuuuucks in spaaaaace...

And Aaron Paul is a great actor.

joe40001 posted...

He didn't show any evidence of violent behavior at all before, or outbursts, furthermore he clearly acted out a plan. He did the murders and gave Aaron Paul the chair afterwards calmly, this was not an act of outrage, it was a deliberate plan/action that was totally inconsistent with his character.

Him killing Aaron Paul and trying to take over his life makes sense with his character, but killing the family doesn't. He didn't think what happened to him was fair in any way, nor did he think it could be fair, so he wouldn't recreate what happened to him to aaron paul because he thought such an act is horribly unjustified.

Saying "he's crazy" is lazy handwaving, and not how mental illness works. It clearly wasn't an outburst but a planned action, and so if the action was a planned action what was his goal? What was his point?

This episode could have been fixed, in theory, with 30 seconds at the end where he says why he did it, but it would have been hard to write a convincing reason. But I'm guessing the writer didn't even have a reason and just went there for shock value.

His character would have never acted like that, what's worse is that aaron paul shows up on the ship not full of rage. Unlike that guy, aaron paul has shown the ability to engage in violent outbursts so aaron paul might realistically just charge in there and attack. But he didn't, the end of the episode played out as if both characters understood what happened and why it happened and that it made sense, but it didn't make any sense: Nice guy who had been traumatized enacted a horribly violent plan for no reason. It was stupid.

I agree with everything you said