The second episode of Black Mirror’s seventh season is another solid episode that makes you think the mistakes of season six are being repeated before ensuring they aren’t. “Bête Noire” definitely emphasizes the fiction side of science fiction, but it is still an entertaining episode of television.
SPOILERS for Black Mirror season seven episode two “Bête Noire” below.
The setting for this episode is something that seems like it will play into the story much more than it actually does, something that ended up being a bit disappointing but doesn’t truly take away from the quality of the episode. Our main character who ends up being a bit of a protagonist and an antagonist named Maria and played by Siena Kelly works at a candy company on the research and development team. Essentially, she designs and creates the recipe for new candy.
Her newest creation, which opens the episode, is a miso jam filled chocolate bar which, at least to me, sounds absolutely repulsive. However, the seeming disgustingness of this candy plays into the story.
We meet some of Maria’s coworkers before the story starts to take off and they’re all very well acted. There’s the woman whose almond milk is always being stolen, the man who's always accused of stealing it, the chef that cooks up all of R&D's creations, and the manager of the team. It's a pretty standard office dynamic.
When we get to a focus group tasting of Maria's gross sounding new product, things start to get interesting. All the members of the focus group arrive, get settled, and are about to begin when a new member of the group arrives late: Verity Green. She's told she's not supposed to be in the group, but when Verity says her name should be on the list, the focus group runner checks again and finds that it is. She's allowed to participate and everyone tries the miso jam chocolate bar. Only two people comment on it, but they find it disgusting. However, when Verity says it's good and invites them all to try it again, they change their minds.
During this focus group, Maria recognizes Verity from school. She hasn't seen her in years and notes that she looks different. After the focus group, there's an awkward confrontation in the bathroom where Verity recognizes Maria and says she's applying for a job at the company. Maria says there are none available, but Verity insists there is and that she's already applied for it. She also reveals that Maria was considered a popular kid in school while Verity was considered strange. Clearly, there's more to their relationship than meets the eye. Later, Maria checks the company website and finds there is indeed a job available.
Later, during a conversation with her boyfriend Maria calls Verity the “school freak”, says she's so smart that it made her “off”, she had “zero social skills”, had “mad hair”, and continuously makes fun of her. Maria becomes completely and entirely unlikeable within just a few seconds. From this point on, it feels impossible to root for her because, frankly, she sucks.
Kids were so mean to Verity that they spread a rumor that she “wanked off” a teacher in the computer room heard the kids began to call her Milkmaid. The show tries to make it seem like Maria's hand in this wasn't influential, but it’s very clear that it will be revealed later that Maria actually started it all.
Verity ends up getting the job at the company Maria works for quite easily and everyone is very charmed by her. Clearly, Maria is threatened and jealous, but she won't admit that to anyone.
As the episode progresses, Maria notices more and more Mandela Effect type of situations developing around her. A restaurant that her boyfriend worked at that she swears was called Barnie’s is actually called Bernie’s, and an email she writes containing the word carrageenan somehow didn’t contain that word.
Maria, with literally no evidence, is convinced that Verity is causing all of this or is involved in it somehow. Obviously, she is, but Maria has very little evidence to actually think that. At about this time, it’s evident that Verity is somehow altering reality with a pendant that she wears. She’s touching it constantly throughout the episode, so much so that it was too much to not mean anything.
This is when it seemed like Black Mirror may have been going back into the supernatural genre of storytelling which was a huge mistake in season six. I was ready to be disappointed by this, but, luckily, it’s all explained.
When Verity chugs the almond milk one of their coworkers is always complaining has been drunk right in front of Maria we know for sure that something sinister is going on. When Maria tells the entire office it was Verity, they check the cameras to see Maria drinking it. When Maria claims she couldn’t have done this because of a lifelong nut allergy, Verity, while grasping the pendant, says there is no such thing as a nut allergy and, suddenly, there isn’t. It’s been wiped from reality.
After being fired, Maria follows Verity home, breaks into her house, which is enormous, and enters via a server room. The room isn’t massive but whatever computer is in there clearly has a lot of processing power. Maria passes strange paintings of Verity as a queen, photographs of her as an astronaut, on the cover of Vogue, and on the arm of Harry Styles. Eventually, all is revealed. Verity, who is a computer genius, has developed a quantum computer that exists in multiple realities at once and is able to, at Verity’s command through the pendant, alter reality. Verity admits to doing literally everything, being literally everything, and, no matter how much she did or became, the terrible feeling of being made fun of and cast out in high school has never faded.
Maria reveals that, of course, she actually was the one to start the rumor. After a fight between those two which left me wondering how Verity doesn’t know how to fight if she has been and done everything, Verity alters reality and causes the police to show up and try to arrest Maria. Maria, however, is able to get one of the officer’s guns, shoot Verity in the head, and take control of the pendant. She declares herself empress of the universe and the episode ends.
Overall, this is a solid episode of Black Mirror, but it does require the audience to suspend belief more than other episodes do. There are definitely some questions left in my head. How was Verity able to create a quantum computer by herself, in her own house, that looks like a server room pulled out of 2010? Why didn’t Verity simply alter the past to make it so her high school experience was good? Is the past unalterable? If it is, why not just alter her own memories?
The episode has some compelling themes. The idea that, even if you were a literal god, your trauma would still haunt you if gone unreconciled is an interesting concept, but it definitely wouldn’t. If you were a literal god, you could just alter reality so it didn’t affect you.
This episode is also very much hurt by a protagonist that is just a terrible person. A girl she made fun of in high school has come up in life. She’s not happy for her, she’s jealous and threatened. She is never sorry for what she did. Even when her life depends on it, she clearly does not care that she was and still is a bad person. Her ego just expands and expands until she is literally empress of the universe.
Black Mirror works best as commentary on societal and technological issues. This episode lightly touched on those, bullying and quantum computing, but not much. It doesn’t really have a message. The characters don’t learn anything or change at all.
Overall, it’s still fun and intriguing entertainment. It’s science fiction with an emphasis on the fiction that’s a good time to watch, and I enjoyed my time with it.
6.5/10